Jones reviewed

Alan Jones on Q

Here's quite a funny review of Alan Jones' appearance on Q&A last night.  I liked these bits in particular (about the Liberal guest's difficult position):

The Liberal MP Jamie Briggs didn't fare as well, exhibiting the familiar terror seen in conservative politicians when Jones is in headmaster mode and thinks they should pull their socks up. When Tony Jones pushed Briggs to sign on to some of Alan's economic prescriptions, the MP had the look of a man who wished he was somewhere more relaxing, like a burning house.

"Say yes, Jamie," Alan exhorted him. Later he advised Briggs: "This is really hard-nosed stuff, Jamie!"

All one could think was: Poor Jamie. All avenues of escape blocked by a scary Jones to the left of him and a scary Jones to the right, Briggs settled on a one-liner. "We're always told we have to agree with Alan," said the Assistant Minister for Letting the Cat Out Of
The Bag. Poor Jamie. He'll be hearing that one on a loop for the rest of his days.

And Jones' incredible gall in his big statement is noted:

This advice followed an admonition to the nation to get behind Tony Abbott. "I think it's incumbent on us all to support the Prime Minister", no matter who they were, he declared.

I started watching it last night, but a reclining position and two glasses of wine meant that I slept through most of it...

Shark alert

I see that a man has apparently been killed by a shark at Ballina.   Wasn't it just yesterday that a man was bitten by one at Byron Bay?   I'm not sure how many have been attacked in Western Australian this summer, but it seems a few.

Is it just me, or do Australian sharks seem to have become hungrier lately? 

Fantastic result...

....for Bill Shorten, the Labor Party, and those of us who couldn't decide what would be more fun - being able to say that Abbott survived as PM for a shorter period than Rudd or Gillard, or watching him struggle in the job for another few months knowing that (in reality, if you reassign votes from cabinet members who didn't vote honestly) about half of his party think he's a dill who needs to go...

Update:  one of the most wryly amusing tweets I've seen on this, just a short time ago:



Update2:  I see that the climate change denying commentators all lined up against Turnbull - Bolt, Blair, Jones, Devine.  Oddly enough, Piers Ackermann says it was probably a mistake not to make Turnbull Treasurer from the start. 

Even funnier is the commentary coming from some at Catallaxy that this win means Abbott must head stronger right and immediately make savage cuts to the ABC.   What a fantasyland they live in, blaming the ABC for the person who will almost certainly go down as the country's dumbest Prime Minister.

Update 3:  Apparently, Tony Abbott's statement direct to camera from his office (already labelled the "broadcast from the bunker")  ends with an very weird looking bit of eye movement from our beloved leader.

Can't wait to see...

Tony's Sunday

Annabel Crabb has some more details.

In ancient temple news

A Zite story led me to look a bit more at the ancient Turkish temple site Göbekli Tepe, which has impressive stone structures, apparently used for some form of worship, dating back 11,000 years.

I think I had briefly heard about it before, but the site certainly contains more stunning work that I had realised.  Have a look at these photos from Smithsonian magazine:





And a couple of photos from elsewhere:

Not entirely sure what he's meant to be doing here, but it could be that male past times haven't changed much in 11,000 years.  Perhaps he's just taking a break from playing his three note pan flute?






And here is the site overall:

Impressive work all done with stone tools, apparently, and way, way before the pyramids. Wikipedia has more.

In futuristic weaponry news

Have a look at this video with lots of cool shots of the US Navy's rail gun weapon, which is well on its way to ship board testing.  (Apart from awesome slow motion projectile shots, watch for the wide-eyed, somewhat "mad scientist" look of excitement from a Navy officer.)

Wachowski fail

'Jupiter Ascending' Falls Flat - The Atlantic

Christopher Orr can be pretty acerbic in his reviews, and he doesn't care for this latest attempt at science fiction by the Wachowski siblings. 

20 year late review

Amongst the DVDs I kept out of my late mother's vast collection was Rob Roy, the Liam Neeson movie from 1995 (I'm getting old).  Being vaguely aware that some critics thought it quite good, and a friend actually mentioning last year that he liked it, I gave it a go last night.

It is, in my opinion, a terrible movie.

Right from the start, it makes it clear that it is of the "earthy historical film" genre:  the type where dirtiness and bodily functions feature prominently (and men go around bluntly talking about their sexual predilections in all sorts of odd ways that apparently men used to do 3 centuries ago).   But it feels overdone and fake in this movie - as indeed is the acting.

Apart from Neeson, whose character is meant to be noble and honourable and is therefore somewhat restrained, most of the rest of the cast seem at various points to be chewing up the scenery as if they are from the Bette Davis School of Exaggerated Acting.   Tim Roth got awards for his role?  Must have been a slow year.  And as for Neeson himself - because the script has him delivering many lines in which he is telling others how they should be fine and noble and do what's right, they tend to be delivered in a style that immediately put me in mind of his Aslan voicework in the Narnia movies.  Not his fault, that, but overall I still thought his acting was a bit stilted and unconvincing.  

I just found it an unpleasant story too, with the stabbings and deaths  done in over the top fashion, with the immediate gush of blood in the mouth, blades erupting from chests, and things like that.

In terms of historical accuracy - it seems to score no higher than Braveheart on the "conning modern audiences that they are seeing something more or less accurate" scale.   (The main problem being that the main villain is completely invented.)     I also see that one of the key plot points in the movie - the rape of his wife - is based on a story circulating at the time the accuracy of which there is very good reason to doubt.

Even the climax, which quite a few critics seem to describe as one of the best swordfights ever shown on screen - I was completely underwhelmed.  Is it just that I had also decided I didn't the film after about the first half hour, and was resenting that I was hanging in there to see if it got any better?   I don't think so - I just can't see why the fight was meant to be impressive.

I see that Ebert thought it was a terrific movie, which confirms my earlier opinion of him that his reaction to movies was nothing I could consistently rely on.

So count that as a big disappointment.   And Neeson was better as a lion. 

Photoshop fun

For monty, really....

A spill motion, hurrah!

I understand a Newspoll - the first since the disastrous (and hilarious) Prince Phil knighthood decision of our glorious PM - is due out Tuesday.

Rarely will a Newspoll have had such powerful influence on the future of a leadership.

If Turnbull is installed (and I'm not counting on it, given half of the Coalition's bizarre nonsense fixation on his not toeing the line of the science team of Bolt/Jones/Monckton/IPA on climate change) it's amazing to contemplate the number of dud cabinet performers who should face the axe too.

I really don't recall a government so full of annoying, low talent, ministers.

Isn't it pathetic...

Andrew Bolt is in panic mode, drumming up the anti-Turnbull forces all because Turnbull believes in climate change and thinks "Direct Action" is an economic crock.    Alan Jones apparently came out in support of Abbott this morning, and I can guess this would be part of the reason for him too.   And the dynamic Warren Truss is warbling on about how Turnbull would have to promise the Nationals that he won't introduce an ETS.

As I wrote recently at John Quiggin's:  this is exactly what's wrong with the Coalition since the year Abbott got the leadership - they are basing all decisions on a matter of non-scientific nonsense - that climate change isn't real and/or deserves no response, and anyone who believes otherwise must be out to destroy the country economically.  

Until the Coalition is purged of the large faction of climate change deniers, this split in the party renders them incapable of presenting a sensible unified approach to not just climate change, but economics generally.

I sense a disturbance in the force

First, I've noticed Judith Sloan making one or two not unreasonable sounding complaints about Coalition policies in the last few weeks; now Adam Creighton has a column which I would say is only about 30% wrong, instead of his normal 90% batting average. 

These are disturbing days.

If only Sloan didn't insist on being as bitchy as possible in her blog writings, maybe she would have more hope of influencing someone. 

Friday history

Here are a few fun history links via Beachcomber's blog:

*  a summary of Edwardian "sexual codes" - amongst the aristocracy, at least.

*  some photos of Victorian era child prisoners.   Photos make history seem not so foreign, don't they; especially colour photos.  Not that these are colour, but I thought I would make that point again after seeing this photo that has been doing the rounds of the blogosphere. Back to the underage criminals: I like this explanation of why good kids went bad:

Ms Rees said: 'The slightly more middle class of the group were 13-year-old Michael Clement Fisher and Henry Leonard Stephenson, who was 12. They were choir boys from St Mary's Church and said to be of respectable parents.

'But they still broke into three houses, stole a violin case, a ring, coins and other articles. All stolen property was returned.'
In a newspaper article at the time of the crime in 1873, it was suggested the boys had thought they were doing 'heroic, manly acts' after reading the 'wrong books' on people like Jack Sheppard, a notorious 18th century highway man.

* An odd story about Nazi "spies" preparing for a air landing in Norfolk before World War 2.  It is from The Mirror, so I hope it's true.  Actually, it sounds vaguely familiar to me, although the article says this is a completely new discovery. 

Just don't burn it

US government abandons carbon-capture demonstration : Nature News

All the money used on it would be better spent on clean energy research, including cheaper battery storage.

It never realistically had a chance of making a big difference, but it was a way for the coal industry to try to improve its prospects.

The lesson: be careful with your choice of feces

Rapid and unexpected weight gain after fecal transplant: A woman successfully treated for a recurrent Clostridium difficile infection with stool from an overweight donor rapidly gained weight herself afterwards, becoming obese, according to a case report published in the new journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

Got to make sure you stick to "skinny" gut bacteria...

Australian Astro????

In the most surprising movie news since, well, just about ever, I read:

The Australian animation studio behind The Lego Movie is to make a live-action superhero movie based on the popular cartoon character Astro Boy

As it prepares to start production on two Lego spin-offs, Animal Logic has signed a deal with Japan's Tezuka Productions for a big-budget movie it hopes to shoot in Australia next year.

Chief executive Zareh Nalbandian said the plan was to create a "Marvel-style" franchise based on the robot superhero.

It is very hard imagining a live action version of the title character.   And I certainly hope they won't use the awful motion capture technique.  

Dedicated readers may recall that in 2009 I gave two thumbs up to the American made Astro Boy movie, which seemed to suffer from marketing failure and was shamefully under-seen.     Re-reading my review, I commend it again to my vast international readership.   

What a joker ...um, I mean joke

Andrew Bolt can't decide if he wants to see Abbott gone or not, so now he's attacking the ABC for an "abuse of power" in its reporting:

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: ... The ABC can identify 10 Liberal MPs who want a ballot on the leadership and another 18 who say they might support one…
SABRA LANE, REPORTER: ... (T)he Prime Minister is resisting a backbench revolt and the perception that he’s increasingly on his own.

Ten - at most 28 - of 102 Liberals MPs want a leadership spill against Abbott, yet the ABC says there’s a “perception that’s he’s increasingly on his own”? And runs carefully selected footage of Abbott sitting as if alone?
The ABC spin and glee throughout this challenge - the active pushing for the Liberals to be less conservative - is unmistakable and an abuse of the ABC’s huge power.
Reform of the ABC is not just critical to tame state power, protect media diversity and promote debate. For the Liberals it is also a fight for survival.

What utter crap.

The nutty Right has become obsessed with blame shifting for their general incompetence onto the ABC, which apparently has brainwashed the public into being soft headed Leftists who will never vote Liberal.  Clearly, it must have acquired this power sometime after the 11 year run of the Howard government.   

With respect to the forthcoming "Bali Nine" executions

As it appears almost certain that two Australians drug smugglers will be executed soon after exhausting all possible appeal challenges, I have been meaning to observe that:

*  that new Indonesian President looked like a bit of a softy (maybe it was his lack of a military background) during the election campaign, but doesn't give that impression now. 

*  honestly, given the way the Abbott government has ruthlessly been dealing with "illegal" asylum claiming boat people on the high seas and in off shore detention,  how could the Indonesian government and people fail to detect hypocrisy when Australians are suddenly asking them to not enforce its national laws?   We're extending the reach of our laws to imprison people on the high seas for weeks at a time - even before they get to our territory.   Our government's behaviour on that issue has made it one of the least credible sources of a plea for mercy.

Mystery missiles

For once a news.com.au tabloid headline about UFOs is worth reading.

Seems a couple of missile looking things have been seen worryingly near aircraft in Perth in the last year or two, and no one has any idea where they could be coming from.

Here's the Crikey blog post on the same topic.

Mystery missiles have been around for a long time, and do represent one of the more realistic sounding classes of "odd things in the sky" sightings.

Greece considered

The Flag-Waving Greek Left | The Weekly Standard

Gee, it's not often now that you can read a Weekly Standard article and get the feeling that it is quite balanced both on politics and economics, but this one all about Greece seems that way to me.

Found via Mr Soon.   

A dangerous libertarian. (Well, they all are, really...)

Rand Paul on vaccination: Resorting to freedom | The Economist

Here's a good, lengthy Economist blogpost about how libertarian ideas work against public health (regarding vaccination).   I might add - throw in their views on gun ownership, and their public health credentials get even worse.  And don't get me started on climate change and libertarian shoulder shrugging...

Nice review of general relativity

General Relativity’s Big Year? - NYTimes.com

Greeks and austerity

A Greek Morality Tale by Joseph E. Stiglitz - Project Syndicate

Sounds pretty convincing to me...

The downside and the upside

The downside for those who would quite like to see Abbott turfed out (at least if it would mean a completely new direction in policy) is that I think the malcontents have given the pro-Abbott faction too much time to consolidate their position.

The upside is that, even if he survives this challenge to his authority, the nation now knows that the party is divided, and a good portion share the public's view that they are being led by a weirdly out of touch dimwit with no good policy sense who doesn't know who to listen to.   That can't augur well for the future life of the government under Abbott.

The stupid English

MPs vote in favour of 'three-person embryo' law | Science | The Guardian

As I have written before - this is crazy.

The reason it is crazy is not (as some pro-life conservatives in this report claim) because it involves destroying embryos to create a third - I mean, just everyday IVF results in scores of discarded embryos every week and they aren't rioting in the streets about that - but because it is a highly artificial process with very likely subtle and unforeseeable long term health consequences for the babies created.   Just as there already is a higher birth defect rate for "normal" IVF babies - the reasons for which remain unclear - it is reasonable to expect more problems if you are fiddling around with the actual contents of eggs.  

All this for a small number of families who simply want to have their own babies instead of adopting or using donor egg techniques.

The Americans are unwilling to proceed with it - at least until more animal studies are done.   Why are the English so gung-ho about this?

Planetary heating continues

A Fresh Look at the Watery Side of Earth's Climate Shows 'Unabated Planetary Warming' - NYTimes.com

There is a new study at Nature Climate Change that appears to offer strong confirmation that the "missing heat" from CO2 is going into the deep ocean, based on the latest Argo measurements.

There is an article about it at The Conversation, but a more detailed discussion appears at the above link at  Andrew Revkin's blog (which, I must admit, I forget to check often lately.)

The issue of deep ocean heat absorption might make surface temperature increase slower than current models indicate, but when you look at the graphs for surface increases since the middle of last century, surely anyone sensible would have to say that it looks fanciful to suggest that suddenly, all further heat is going to start disappearing down that sinkhole, never to bother us again for centuries.  

A slip of the finger

Just noticed this in the online AFR story by Phil Coorey:

The influence of Peter Slipper seems to linger on...

The slippery Creighton

Adam Creighton bemoans in the Oz today that Campbell Newman's desire to privatise electricity distribution is a good thing that Queensland is missing out on:

The Liberal National Party never adequately explained how that would improve the lives of ordinary Queenslanders — by cutting power prices. The Victorian and South Australian governments privatised their electricity distributors between 1995 and 1998. Since then, the cost of Queensland’s electricity network (the biggest component of household bills) has risen more than 120 per cent while falling in the two southern states, according to a recent Ernst & Young study.

Fascinating.  Yet what are the actual electricity costs in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia?  

According to this 2014 report, SA is significantly more expensive, as is most electricity in Victoria.



Adam's highly selective way of looking at matters is not to be trusted without looking into more detail.

Cater in denial

The most hilarious thing in the papers this morning is the irritating wannabe political culture warrior Nick Cater telling the country that we don't know how lucky we are to have Abbott as our PM.  Maybe he didn't come up with the headline, but here it is:  Tony-haters can't cope with reality.

The spin is of cyclonic intensity as he claims Australians don't like Abbott because Labor under Rudd and Gillard has ruined politics in this country.  (Yes, seriously.)

And Cater has his own problem with reality when he claims electricity prices have dropped 10% since the carbon "tax" went.  In fact, his own paper was reporting only a few days ago that the average price reduction was 7.31%, after Abbott promised a 9% drop.   That's some rounding error for Cater.   (Particularly as it appears clear in the report that some electricity drops were only around 5%.)

Cater also talks up jobs growth, when the unemployment rate since the change of government actually looks like this:


source: tradingeconomics.com

Apparently, we should also be grateful to Abbott for causing the Arabs to dramatically drop the price of petrol.    Yes, that makes sense [not].

Cater even has a go at his brothers in arms at the likes of the IPA and Catallaxy for attacking Abbott from the Right.  Yes, it's a real tragedy, Nick.

Meanwhile, I just saw Abbott give a lacklustre morning interview on Sunrise, flanked by Australian flags.  (The background to Abbott's media appearances always appear to be some attempt at subliminal messaging - remember all the Christmas trees behind in December?)

I think everyone - even Cater - knows the truth:  Abbott is just one stupid comment or decision away from losing leadership.   At his current rate of making those, he probably has less than a month...

Update:   Judith Sloan notes that it's not wise for the government to brag about jobs creation, and thinks the "small business" tax cut is a bad idea.  (Yes, it's a worry:  she has been increasingly capable of being cited with approval!  But when someone like her criticises a tax cut, there is almost certainly something to it.)

Update 2:  I can't get to it behind the paywall, but it appears from a tweet that Dennis Shanahan at the Oz has suggested that someone is thinking that Christopher Pyne could be a "compromise" candidate for the Prime Ministership!!   Please, let it be true.   Hahahahaa

He's not for turning

Note:  no suggestion of actual Thatcher-like qualities, such as consistency, intended.   Just looks funny in drag...

Update:  how prescient of me to post this yesterday, when today it is reported:

MPs today continued to leak against the Prime Minister despite a staunch defence of his leadership to the National Press Club in Canberra on Monday.
“Cabinet ministers have been ringing me and telling me things are just untenable,” one MP said.
“Julie Bishop and Tony Abbott now have a Gillard-Rudd like relationship. It can’t go on like this,” another said.
 

Tony's big speech observed

I just dropped in on the Abbott Press Club speech.

Really sounds like an election campaign launch.  I suppose it is - to his Party for his own job.

He's still with the blue tie thing.  Boring.

Now he's talking tough on cracking down on organisations promoting Islamic terrorism.  I didn't realise that the public thought that was a big issue at the moment. 

Gone on a big ramble touching lots of things now, but nothing in depth.

Ooh - now he's reading the bit of the speech leaked to Michelle Grattan this morning.  Deja vu.

Oh - was Maggie Abbott looking a bit dewy eyed then, while he talked about her returning to work? 

A small business tax cut coming.  Yes - that will help the government's revenue problem.

Wants to be remembered for cutting tax.  GST - to change it would need a political consensus.  He's probably right there.  Broken clock, as they say.

Back into repeating last election's slogans.   Boring.

Now talking directly to the public - sounds exactly like a campaign launch.

Onto questions now. 

I missed the first one.

Second one - promising to be more, much more, consultative in Cabinet etc.

Lordy - now into "we're all on  journey" guff.   Well, it's one to the backbench for you, Tone.

Supports fair umpire deciding minimum wages.

Hey a tough question from a journo I haven't heard of before - essentially, telling him he's failed to make transition from opposition to government.  He doesn't answer.

Mark Riley's question rather tough too.

I gotta sign off, though...

My verdict:   he's combative and obviously not planning on resigning any time soon.   Good!  More bad decisions and entertainment on the way then.

When is the next Newspoll out for federal voting intention?  We seem to waiting a long time...

Not sure that this is the best headline...

Global warming won't mean more stormy weather

The article says that the study indicates not more storms, but:

Instead, strong storms will become stronger while weak storms become weaker, and the cumulative result of the number of storms will remain unchanged.

Blogger who noted beard length released in Saudi Arabia

Saudi woman blogger released from jail | GulfNews.com

I'm pretty sure I have posted about this poor woman before.  But good news - her tweet about Mohammad's beard length only resulted in 3 months in jail.

 Here's the tweet:

Suad waded into controversy in 2013 when she said on the microblog that
the Islamic saying that men should have beards to distinguish them from
non-believers did not make sense.“Several atheists, Jews and Communists in the past had, and in the present have, beards, and even Abu Jahl [a polytheist pagan leader] had a
beard that was longer than that of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH),” she
reportedly said. Several senior religious figures in the Saudi kingdom condemned her
tweet, accusing her of denigrating Islam and targeting the Prophet, and
calling for severe action against her, including putting her on trial.

What a mad country.

Douthat considers the new PC

Our Loud, Proud Left - NYTimes.com

Douthat been's considering the argument over the resurgence of political correctness in the Left, particularly the academic Left.

I'm a touch on the skeptic side of this.  While it does appear that there is a resurgence of silliness, particularly in American universities, I'm not sure that it is having much of a practical effect on society overall.  In any case, Douthat's thoughts on it are not a bad read.

Fear of sustainability

Over at Catallaxy, there's a post up showing a bunch of IPA "we hate tax - all tax" types having a recent love in about why the Victorian Liberals lost their recent State election.

It goes on for a tedious 2 hours, but I skimmed through it, and apart from noting that Christian Kerr is now physically unrecognizable (he really needs to look into the 5-2 diet, but if it's due to some illness or other, my apologies in advance) I was particularly interested to hear what John Roskam had a whine about.

One thing that caught my attention was his complaint that the State governments all signed up to the National school curriculum with its emphasis on "sustainability".  I think he might have even called this "frightening" - but I stand to be corrected.

I don't know.   If he actually read more than Monckton, Andrew Bolt and Ridley on climate change and the environment, he might have noticed that there is presently much concern that deforestation in Brazil is making a large contribution to a severe drought that is about to leave no water, and little electricity, to an city of 11 million people (and 20 million in the region.)   Now that is frightening...

Perhaps he should go to Sao Paulo and talk to them about the ridiculousness of sustainability...