Seriously?

The story itself is behind a paywall, and so far, I only see Latika referring to it:


Update:   Latika later notes that this was reported at the time - I had forgotten....

Freeman Dyson on spies he has known

Scientist, Spy, Genius: Who Was Bruno Pontecorvo? by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books

What a fascinating insider take here by Freeman Dyson about spies in physics....

Record cold in perspective

This is why some record cold days in one part of the world does not prove the world is not warming:

One would think you could get the concept of the Eastern part of the North American continent not being "the world" into the head of an economist like Steve Kates, but it appears one can't.

Mr Kates and his RMIT pal Sinclair might also like to read this explanation of the matter of the warming Arctic being suspected of being behind the jet stream wobbles that help bring cold air temporarily down to parts of the US and Canada.  Jennifer Francis writes clearly on the matter, being one of its main proponents, if I recall correctly.

Lincoln and the Mediums - a great read

The Spiritualist Who Warned Lincoln Was Also Booth's Drinking Buddy | History | Smithsonian

A fascinating article here about the Lincolns and mediums they (well, mainly Mary) consulted.

You know, I often get the feeling that the influence of spiritualism in Western society over the century of 1850 to 1950 has been given short shrift in popular histories or movies.   As this article indicates, it was a very big movement that attracted a following from all parts of society, but people seem to know little about its early "success".

Uplifting

BBC - Culture - The bra: An uplifting tale

Here's a moderately interesting account of the history of the bra, and I extract this paragraph partly because I am immaturely amused by the name of the authority, but also because I have not read the term "breastbag" before:

 “Evolution sometimes takes a break,” argued Beatrix Nutz, an
archaeologist and researcher at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, in smithsonianmag.com.
“The Greek mathematician and geographer Eratosthenes (276 BC–195 BC)
knew our planet was a globe and even calculated its circumference, but
throughout the Middle Ages people believed it to be a flat disc. Bras
are certainly not even remotely as important as the actual shape of the
earth, but they were obviously invented, went out of fashion, were
forgotten, and supposed to be invented (again) in the late 19th
Century.” Nutz also cited two earlier written sources referencing what
could be perceived as early versions of the bra. “The French surgeon
Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320) reported what women whose breasts were
too large did. They ‘insert two bags in their dresses, adjusted to the
breasts, fitting tight, and put them into them every morning and fasten
them when possible with a matching band,’” she said, adding: “An unknown
German poet of the 15th Century wrote in his satirical poem, ‘Many make
two breastbags, with them she roams the streets, so that all the young
men that look at her, can see her beautiful breasts.”

 

Roof walking

As I have mentioned over the years, our house has regular visits by possums and (unfortunately) rats:  the latter always start turning up in the ceiling in autumn when the summer oven like temperatures in the roof space start cooling.   We hear them, I go up into the ceiling and lay baits and look for dead bodies.  (Fortunately, they mostly seem to die elsewhere.) 

As for possums - they are not infrequently seen on the balcony rail, or heard scurrying along the lower part of the roof (which, conveniently for them, comes close to a very large tree in which you can also hear them rustling at night.)

In the morning, sometimes we have had birds hopping on the roof, too.

So I've heard animals on or in the roof, a lot.

But lately, including early this morning, there is something on the roof which makes a sound which is oddly like footsteps.  It does not have a scurrying quality at all, it sounds like the slowish thump, thump, thump of a person walking carefully on a roof.

I mentioned it at lunch, and my daughter says she has heard it in the evening.  I've only heard it later at night, or very early in the morning.

I'm a bit puzzled about what Australian  animal can make a roof noise like that.  Googling the topic I see from this handy American guide to things in the attic that raccoons can make a walking sound.
The things is, based on past experience, I am a bit skeptical that possums, even large ones, move in such a way that they can sound like footsteps.   Can't see what else it could be, though.  A very large  cat is not out of the question, I suppose, but we will have to see.

The incident has put me a bit in mind of the "devil's footprints" story from 19th century Devon, minus the snow, of course.     I can imagine people in, say, the midst of a witch panic, being wound up over the sounds of (what they think is) footsteps on a roof.

The Australian ramping up the attack

Every person interested in politics will be reading The Australian's lengthy, detailed, leak filled report on the totally dysfunctional Prime Minister's office under Abbott/Credlin, served with a side of "how nuts is Abbott anyway, for wanting to unilaterally deploy thousands of Australia troops to Iraq again?"

Interestingly, it says Abbott can't sack Hockey because Hockey will retaliate with damaging payback (in that he won't wear all the blame for a crook budget.)

And in comments following the article, the usual bunch of ideologues who say "replace Abbott with Turnbull and I'll never vote Liberal again."

As I said before - this is a crisis for the Coalition because it is split about 50/50 on the matter of belief in the reality of AGW and climate change; not a matter of mere personalities as it was with Labor.

Astronaut stuff

Neil Armstrong’s closet: What I found when I went through the belongings of the astronaut in my family.

Just a bit of interesting stuff here about what it's like to know an ex-astronaut.

Incidentally, I will probably always remember the names of the Apollo 12 astronauts (Conrad, Gordon, Bean) because my sister  at the time was living in the US and sent me a mission patch which she got from somewhere or other.  (Actually, she was probably living in Alabama at the time.)  I had it sewn onto a shirt or jacket, I forget which.

I think I have mentioned before that I spotted Apollo 11's Michael Collins in the bookshop of the Air and Space Museum in Washington when he used to run it.  I also saw Andy Thomas give a talk once.

Thus ends my list of proximity to astronauts. 

Daytime cyclones?

With the news this morning of quite an intense cyclone soon to hit the Queensland coast, it has occurred to me that it seems much more common that cyclones in Australia come ashore at night, rather than during daytime.   I wonder if I am right, or if it is just the lingering impression of Cyclone Tracey and Darwin?

Tim fails

Human Rights Commissioner offers no defence of Gillian Triggs over Forgotten Children report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I had a read of Tim "Freedom Boy" Wilson's speech to the Press Club yesterday (which he personally tweeted was "a cracker" - the number of selfies is not the only reason to believe he has high self regard), and thought it was full of his usual light weight, platitudinous waffle.

Funny how a gay right wing mouthpiece for "property rights" and free speech can try to turn a Human Rights job into one that's about gays, property rights and free speech.   Oh, and the kids in indefinite detention: "yeah, well it shouldn't happen; but let me talk about s 18C again and how inhibiting it is for Andrew Bolt".

I have noticed some people on the net saying the talk was not well attended (and I had figured that there must have been low interest from the number of times I saw him reminding people that it was on in the last week or two).   Sorry, Timbo, it's like, they're just not that into you.

The amount of bravery he showed by not wanting to comment on the fact that the politician who appointed him was now wanting to remove his boss for blatantly political reasons was on the low to non-existent end of the scale of possible responses.  I think he made the point that she can't be sacked unless Parliament changes the law - true, but not exactly the point.  Still, I suppose it is hard for a blatant political appointment to make comments about other blatant political interference, isn't it Tim?

Funnily enough, I also see that this photo of Tim in action is on the innerwebs:

Gee, how did the photographer get that shot?  "Tim, Tim:  now if you could pose like a self-satisfied, smug git... Great, ta."  (OK, maybe its just a screenshot.)

There, my Wilson hate is sated for another day...

Update:  is that right?  Sinclair Davidson says that if Triggs resigned, Freedom Boy would be the acting President of the HRC.

So sounds like Brandis really did want his direct appointee to be head of the Commission?   Maybe it would only be temporary, but still, this is a bad look for cronyism.   If anything, that is all the more reason for journalists to ask Wilson for his views on this tawdry affair.

Update 2:  oh for crying out loud - Timbo presumably approves this HRC post today (just extracting part of his underwhelming speech) which is  plastered at the top with his beaming mug. 





I'm guessing he has to clean his shaving mirror regularly - all of those smugly lip prints that he leaves on it every morning make it hard to see clearly.

Fish wars

Climate change redistributes fish species at high latitudes

I hadn't heard of this before (the bit about the Suez Canal causing big changes to Mediterranean fish species):

Redistribution of species and interchange will cause a tremendous increase in fish
biodiversity in coastal areas around e.g. Greenland and Svalbard, and
thus dramatic changes to interactions between species.

History has shown that such biotic interchange can result in severe ecological consequences. For example, the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869 resulted in the invasion of the Mediterranean Sea by Red Sea marine fauna. The Mediterranean fish community is now dominated by Red Sea fishes, and this has had harmful ecological and economic consequences for Mediterranean biodiversity and its fishing industry.

Not exactly on the feminist wavelength

In Bid to Allow Guns on Campus, Weapons Are Linked to Fighting Sexual Assault - NYTimes.com

Somehow, I don't think this female gun nut politician is quite on the same wavelength as feminists:

The sponsor of a bill in Nevada, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore,
said in a telephone interview: “If these young, hot little girls on
campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them.
The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual
predators get a bullet in their head.”

Given that I would bet my last dollar that "hot little girl" sized cans of mace are already available in every state these gun fetishists are pushing for these laws, I wonder why these idiots think that it wouldn't work during a college rape, whereas a gun would?

Monkeys banned from actorly activity

Anger at bid to fly monkeys to Australia for Pirates of the Caribbean film | World news | The Guardian

Animal rights activists object to a couple of pampered monkey actors being flown over to Australia for a movie.  Funny that millions of cats and dogs aren't rendered insane by aircraft flights, and one would also assume that these monkeys have travelled that way before.   I think animal rights activists are starting to have trouble finding things to object to...

But what is this about?:

The Department of Environment has proposed conditions on the import
permit, stipulating that the monkeys be used only for filming, that they
should not be allowed to have sex with each other or have contact with
monkeys of any species.

Now that's cruel.  

Uneven temperatures

This seems to be happening each year now:  while parts of the US are having some record cold temperatures this winter, other parts (this time, the West coast - I should check how Alaska is faring too) are having record warmth:

SEATTLE — Flowers are blossoming. Bees are buzzing. The sky is blue. Sunsets have been stunning. Temperatures have crept north of 60 degrees, and joggers are going shirtless.
This isn’t a typical February in the Pacific Northwest.
While the Northeast is buried under snow, the opposite corner of the country has been hosting the opposite of the winter weather spectrum. The Northwest has had a record-breaking winter, but for warm temperatures.
On Monday, record highs hit parts of Washington and Oregon as one of the mildest winters continues in the Northwest.
The National Weather Service reported record highs of 59 at Sea-Tac Airport, 60 at Olympia, 62 at Hoquiam, 62 at Vancouver, 61 in Portland, 62 at Hillsboro, Ore., and 66 at Salem, Ore.

Oh, and as for Alaska - yes, this article from the end of January suggests it was a relatively mild winter, at least up to then.

This all perhaps suggests why the average global temperature for January was not low at all:

George Will writes a sensible column

Curb your pessimism - The Washington Post

Quite a shock, this is...

News media is such a sucker for PR

I am rather puzzled by the fact that the news media keeps treating Mars One stories seriously.  Last night, it was about a first selection of 100 potential astronauts willing to go live in a can on a cold, airless red planet until they die within a few months.   (Well,that's the estimate I have seen somewhere.)

I have never taken this project seriously:  without even bothering to read up on it in any great detail, anyone could tell that the proposed timing of the mission and funding sounded fanciful in the extreme.   It always sounded like a PR hack's fantasy that had everything going for it  except the following:  the money, the rockets, the capsules, the spacesuits, the habitat, the long term life support system, the credibility.

It is simply a marketing exercise which, if anything, is about attracting smart people who are into playing pretends.   They apparently have done pretty well in that regard;  but that is where the story will end.

See here for a lengthy, critical article about the project.

The other reason I wanted to post about it is because at my daughter's school, where I had to go the other night, there were at least a couple of Mars One posters in classrooms.  It may be that one of the teachers applied - I think that seemed to be the story circulating.   Bit of a pity the school is pretending it's real too - I would rather they spent time using it an example of media manipulation or the scientific difficulties in long distance space flight.   Maybe there is hope for that yet...

IPA twerp joins in Triggs attack

Triggs criticism well-deserved | FreedomWatch

I am amused by Simon Breheny's final paragraph:

The content and timing of The Forgotten Children report is
merely a symptom of a much more serious disease – the agenda of the
Australian Human Rights Commission has been distorted by an unrelenting
bias against individual liberty.

The Australian Human Rights Commission is beyond salvation. The
Abbott government was right to criticise the commission and it should
now move to abolish the commission in favour of civil society
organisations that actually defend our human rights.

I wonder what "civil society organisations" he refers to.  The IPA?   lol

Update on droughts

The New York Times has an update on the Brazilian drought:

As southeast Brazil grapples with its worst drought in nearly a century, a problem worsened by polluted rivers, deforestation and population growth, the largest reservoir system serving São Paulo is near depletion. Many residents are already enduring sporadic water cutoffs, some going days without it. Officials say that drastic rationing may be needed, with water service provided only two days a week.

Behind closed doors, the views are grimmer. In a meeting recorded secretly and leaked to the local news media, Paulo Massato, a senior official at São Paulo’s water utility, said that residents might have to be warned to flee because “there’s not enough water, there won’t be water to bathe, to clean” homes.

“We’re witnessing an unprecedented water crisis in one of the world’s great industrial cities,” said Marússia Whately, a water specialist at Instituto Socioambiental, a Brazilian environmental group. “Because of environmental degradation and political cowardice, millions of people in São Paulo are now wondering when the water will run out.”

For some in this traffic-choked megacity of futuristic skyscrapers, gated communities and sprawling slums, the slow-burning crisis has already meant no running water for days on end.

“Imagine going three days without any water and trying to run a business in a basic sanitary way,” said Maria da Fátima Ribeiro, 51, who owns a bar in Parque Alexandra, a gritty neighborhood on the edge of São Paulo’s metropolitan area. “This is Brazil, where human beings are treated worse than dogs by our own politicians.”

 In other drought news, there has been much publicity given to a study that says climate change is very likely to lead to multi-decadal megadroughts across a huge slab of America.   (The country has actually suffered severe droughts in the mid West in the middle ages, but with higher temperatures the equivalent drought would only be worse.)

I wonder how the economists can factor in 30 - 40 years of agriculture destroying drought in America in the second half of the century to their estimates of GDP harm under climate change?

Changing Asia

I was catching up on the (always good) Interpreter blog and noticed that the biggest gay dating app is now apparently one based in China.  If Chinese society develops high tolerance for gay relationships, it will be quite a global change.   (I always suspected that the government and parent induced gender imbalance in China would likely contribute to changing attitudes to other-than-traditional relationships.  May be happening faster than previously envisaged.) 

Update:   just out of interest, here is a section from a 2006 paper talking about the possible effects of gender imbalances of the type in China and India:

There is also evidence that, when single young men congregate, the potential for more organized aggression is likely to increase substantially (45, 53). Hudson and Den Boer, in their provocative writings on this subject (45, 46), go further, predicting that these men are likely to be attracted to military or military-type organizations, with the potential to be a trigger for large-scale domestic and international violence. With 40% of the world's population living in China and India, the authors argue that the sex imbalance could impact regional and global security, especially because the surrounding countries of Pakistan, Taiwan, Nepal, and Bangladesh also have high sex ratios. 

A number of other consequences of an excess of men have been described, but there is very little evidence for causation. It is intuitive that if sexual needs are to be met this will lead to a large expansion of the sex industry, including its more unacceptable practices such as coercion and trafficking. The sex industry has expanded in both India and China in the last decade (55, 56); however, there are a number of reasons for this expansion, and the part played by a high sex ratio is impossible to isolate without specific research addressing this question. Indeed, in China the highest numbers of sex workers are in areas where the sex ratio is least distorted, for example in the border areas of Yunnan Province (57). The recent rise in numbers of sex workers in China has been attributed more to greater mobility, increased socioeconomic inequality, and a relaxation in sexual attitudes, than to an increase in the sex ratio (57, 58). 

There is much anecdotal evidence regarding increases in trafficking of women, both for the sex industry and marriage, in both India and China (59, 60), although it is impossible to say whether gender imbalance is a contributory factor in this rise. Reports would suggest that trafficking is more common in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe where the sex ratio is normal (61). It has also been suggested that a shortage of women may lead to a rise in homosexual behavior (31), not implying that the shortage of women will produce homosexuals, but rather that an increasing tolerance toward homosexuality, together with the surplus of males, may lead to large numbers of covert homosexuals openly expressing their sexuality.

Another backyard scene

Just taken now, I believe they are corellas:

They've been visiting a lot lately.

He's just showing off now...

Overwintering, again

How to Survive Winter in Antarctica - The Atlantic

There's not too much new in this article about the staff at the US South Pole station who stay 9 months over winter - all 50 of them.  Some corrections appear in comments, too.   I did like a couple of other points in comments:

During my winter-over at Pole 6 out of 47 Polies were women. Women in
Antarctica have a saying: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." :)

I have to laugh when people talk about living on Mars. We can barely
live on Antarctica with water, oxygen and a plane flight away!

Thanks for coming in, Malcolm..

I agree with Michelle Grattan (as does every other sensible person in the country):  Malcolm Turnbull's job application interview last night went pretty well.

Andrew Bolt is spitting chips, of course. Tim Blair hates him too, and sees something that I can't say is all that obvious except to Tim. 

This is all about da climate change:  that is all it is about.

Shifty maids of "Hey?!"

Well, you try to come up with a worthy pun for a movie that I really wish people would stop writing about.

As far as I can tell, about 90% of people reckon the book was a poorly written heap of bollocks that nonetheless showed us something about women and eroticism and sex and money and power and gender relationships and feminism, or something.   About 80% of people reckon the movie is a mild improvement (by cutting out some of the more ludicrously written lines in the book) but nonetheless is still a filmed heap of bollocks that shows us something about women and eroticism and sex and ...etc.

However, given that few women in their 20's are ever going to be seduced by handsome young billionaires with fetishes and an even bigger obsession with contract law, I find it very difficult to conclude that the film really reliably tells us much at all.

And one of the more over-wrought bits of writing about it seems to have come from Ross Douthat, who takes the opportunity to propose that the sexual revolution:

...looks more like a permission slip for the strong and privileged to prey upon the weak and easily exploited. This is the sexual revolution of Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt and Joe Francis and roughly 98 percent of the online pornography consumed by young men. It’s the revolution that’s been better for fraternity brothers than their female guests, better for the rich than the poor, better for the beautiful than the plain, better for liberated adults than fatherless children ... and so on down a long, depressing list.   At times, as the French writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry recently suggested, this side of sexual revolution looks more like “sexual reaction,” a step way back toward a libertinism more like that of pre-Christian Rome — anti-egalitarian and hierarchical, privileging men over women, adults over children, the upper class over the lower orders.

I'm distinctly unconvinced.

Look, the "sexual revolution" (a thing of unclear definition in itself) is tied up with changes in technology, economies, and feminism, and making it easier for men to have sex with a quite low risk of pregnancy is of obvious "benefit" to them - just that that benefit is surely spread around all classes, not just the rich, who I don't think have ever had that much of a problem finding lovers.

Sure, I'm sympathetic to the view that prostitution is inherently exploitative, and undesirable, and I dislike quasi-feminist justification of it as empowering; but I would have thought the sexual revolution has lowered its prevalence in most countries, rather than increased it.

And as for the young being exploited:  while there is no doubt more parent tolerated, open sex amongst teenagers today than 50 years ago, I can't say that I have noticed any big cultural move towards approving of guys in their 20's (or older) having sex with girls under 16. (Some changes which have been mooted to age of consent laws - making the age difference a key issue, rather than mere age of one partner - is actually  sensible in terms of what is deservedly criminalised.)

There are, no doubt, winners and losers in the recent changes in Western attitudes to sex.   I think culturally, there are clearly matters to regret, particularly on the issue of commitment in a relationship and the downgrading of marriage.

But to suggest it's turned back into pre-Christian Rome, where men could sleep with a slave (be it male or female) as part of his ownership rights:  I don't think so.....  

Bad neighbourhood

Drug abuse in Iran rising despite executions | GulfNews.com

This article says that drug addiction is a major, and increasing, problem in Iran:

Anti-narcotics and medical officials say more than 2.2 million of Iran’s
80 million citizens already are addicted to illegal drugs, including
1.3 million on registered treatment programmes. They say the numbers
keep rising annually, even though use of the death penalty against
convicted smugglers has increased, too, and now accounts for more than
nine of every 10 executions.

Living in a bad neighbourhood doesn't help:

Officials say Iran’s taste for illegal narcotics is certain to expand into greater abuse of heroin, simply because next door is Afghanistan, maker of three-fourths of the world
supply.

Abbas Deilamzadeh, whose Rebirth Society organisation runs dozens of rehabilitation centres, predicts that more people currently experimenting with meth soon will be
using heroin, simply because Iran is the main route for Afghan heroin dealers to export the drug worldwide.

The United Nations drug agency said the total area under opium poppy cultivation in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2014 was estimated at 224,000 hectares, a 17 per cent
increase from 2013, producing about 6,400 tonnes of opium. Most is grown
in the often-lawless Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south.

Regardless of what people think about "the war on drugs", surely everyone can agree that the world  would be better off if Afghanistan, well, didn't exist.   (Nothing personal, all nice Afghanis out there.  It's just that your country has been exporting trouble for a very, very long time.)

Much mirth ensued

I trust no one missed Chris Kenny's column in The Australian on the weekend which caused much mirth around the nation by opening thus:

FOR all the Coalition’s failings and missteps it is surely incontestable that Tony Abbott has provided the best 16 months of government Australia has seen in more than seven years.

So how is it that he seems to be on borrowed time?

Triggs sounding reasonable

Oh look - Gillian Triggs is in Fairfax sounding reasonable and making the point about numbers of children in detention that I always said would be relevant:

The year 2013 saw a peak in the number of asylum seekers globally – largely as a result of the unrest of the Arab Spring. This impacted on Australia, with asylum seeker numbers rising to a record high in July 2013. There were 1992 children in detention in that month. By October 2013, efforts to move children into the community had reduced this number to 1045.

In stark contrast, over the six months after the new government took office, it became clear that children were being held for significant periods and were not being released. While the boats were stopping, the children were being detained for lengthening periods of time. When the inquiry was announced in February, 2014 children had been held on average for seven months and 1006 remained in closed indefinite detention.

Of course, amongst her fiercest critics are pea-brained climate change "skpetics" who have never been able to get their head around understanding how changes in intensity in the water cycle can mean both bigger precipitation events and worse droughts. 

Richest company ever has trouble with work hours

Apple factories slip in enforcing work hour limits during iPhone blitz

Apple sold more iPhones last year than anyone could have imagined.
But the company found that a lower percentage of factories assembling
its products complied with a policy preventing excessive work hours.

The company's policy limits factory workers to a 60-hour workweek. Apple
said it had found that 92 per cent of the more than 1.1 million workers
in its supply chain worked no more than 60 hours a week last year,
compared with 95 per cent in 2013.

I assume that most of this work would also be of the highly repetitive, assembly line type; and as such, limited work hours of even 60 hours a week seems to be pushing the limits of reasonable.

I do not care for the Apple company...

Unstoppable Stoppard

Nature has a review up of a new play by the cleverest playwright of the last, gosh, 50 odd years - Tom Stoppard - about the "hard problem" of consciousness. 

Hey wait a minute - I see from his Wikipedia entry that Stoppard did uncredited work on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  (!)   I hope he was uncredited because he thought the final product was not much chop.  I hold the film in very low regard indeed.  Yes - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was better!

Quantum time puzzle

The Future Affects The Past? Welcome To The Quantum Universe

This sounds quite a significant experiment, but it hasn't shown up on the internet much (yet).

It also reminds me of the experiments of John Cramer which I posted about years ago, but I don't recall reading how they turned out.  I have been meaning to check up on this for some time..  

It seems I missed a paper by Cramer last year (see the first link on this page, which also has links to other media coverage of his work) indicating that his experiments did not show a "nonlocal" signal, and he has now concluded that quantum nonlocal (and retrocausal) signalling is not possible after all.

How disappointing.  

Perhaps I haven't read it carefully enough, but I am not sure whether Cramer thinks this is reason to give up on his "transactional interpretation" of quantum physics, or not.

Hair removal discussed

Depilation: Hair-erasing | The Economist

Gee, it's a short review of a book about the history of hair removal, but there is a fair bit in there that I didn't realise before.  For example:

There is no finer example of this than the reaction of the
bearded Europeans to the smooth skin of the male and female native
Americans they saw when they arrived on their shores. George Catlin’s
portrait of the eldest son of Black Hawk in 1832 (right) reveals the
preoccupation that many colonists had with hairlessness. Hair was
political, too, and formed part of a debate about Indian racial
characteristics and whether natives were capable of being civilised.
William Robertson, a Scottish historian, said hairlessness provided
evidence of a “feebleness of constitution”.

Attitudes shifted after Charles Darwin published “The
Descent of Man” in 1871 and perspectives on the relationship between
humans and other animals changed. Although American theologians ignored
or rejected Darwin’s ideas, the notion of a connection between man and
ape had a great cultural impact on how hairiness was viewed. Freak shows
and circuses displayed “dog-faced men” and “bearded ladies”, and
unusual hair growth was even tied to various pathologies. By the start
of the 20th century, plentiful hair had been linked to signs of sexual,
mental and criminal deviance.

Hadn't heard this before, either:

Aversion to body hair spread rapidly, fuelled by the racially tinged
hygiene movement and less restrictive dress codes. Advertisements for
hair-removal products sprouted everywhere, and by the start of the
second world war body hair had become disgusting to middle-class
American women. The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1938 was partly
provoked by a rash of injuries from depilatory creams. One of the most
popular creams contained thallium. Women were maimed by muscular
atrophy, blindness or limb damage after using it; some even died.

Get your act together, media

I reckon the Australian media has run oddly cold on some of the more outrageous behaviour of the Abbott government.

Sure, Fairfax, The Guardian and then The Australian ran the story of Brandis sending over a big wig to invite the President of the Human Rights Commission to resign - because they didn't like a report she has written.   No one in the government has denied it - it is clearly true.

But by today - it gets barely a mention on Insiders, and I haven't seen any TV doorstops with a journalist calling out to Abbott - "Do you really think this is appropriate?  How is it different to workplace bullying?  Why do it in secrecy - was the message that if she didn't go quietly you would rubbish her in Parliament?"

The behaviour towards her is, in my reckoning, a major scandal that the media seems not all that interested in pursuing.

Which puts in mind of the continuing scandal of the secrecy with which the whole "Operation Sovereign Borders" was untaken, including the imprisonment at sea of people for weeks at a time, and the lack of challenge to the weak justification given for it.

By the way, going back to the HRC - Tim Wilson played a "straight bat" on the matter in his Sky News brief interview on Friday.  Yet the hosts deliberately did not invite him to comment on the politics of the government asking his boss to resign.  

Weird.

A billion years to re-locate

The sun won't die for 5 billion years, so why do humans have only 1 billion years left on Earth?

Apparently, the sun will be hot enough in a billion years to boil off the Earth's oceans.  (And a few billion after that, it becomes a red giant that will expand out to the orbit of Mars.)

This reminds me, I was reading somewhere recently about how you could start moving the Earth's orbit outwards.  (You swing a lot of things past it, if I recall correctly.)   Can't remember where that article was, now.

I don't think it was this article from New Scientist in 2008, but it covers similar territory.

Excuse me while I have a fantasy

So, Abbott has dumped Philip Ruddock, and some Liberals are not impressed.

Is anyone running a book on how long Abbott has got left?   I mean, I would have guessed a few months; but after this week, I'm looking more at weeks I can count on one hand.  Days I can count on hands and feet.  You get the idea...

But I'm a bit impatient for this.   Can't we try a bit of Thai or Fijian style change of government for the good of the country?   I mean, Angus Houston is getting a knighthood, and seems a very restrained and well liked fellow on all sides of politics.   Who would really complain if he convinced the Governor General, who I am sure he knows well, to let him lead a delegation of soldiers to imprison Abbott until we can have an election.  It would be doing Abbott a favour, really; earning him more public sympathy for the way he lost the job than what he is going to get by waiting for the MPs to attack again.

Pity Canberra doesn't have something like a Tower of London for such purposes.

Wait - I know - lock him up inside the National Carillon.  It's on a island, although escape from it would hardly be the same as from Alcatraz.  Look - there is plenty of room inside - there is even a function room on the top with a kitchen.  (! - I had no idea.)   No sign of a toilet that I can see, however.  He can tip a bucket over the side.

Here is an illustration:

See - you get to enter into a Steve-grade fantasy, but still learn something in the process!

Seriously bizarre

The Guardian appears to have confirmed the "the government invited Gillian Triggs to resign" story, yet it appears no one from the government has commented on it yet.

The whole puffed up government and News Limited campaign of outrage on Triggs for not starting her enquiry while Labor was in power is truly baffling.   Isn't it obvious that the mere number of children in detention is but one factor - the other crucial one being how quickly they are coming out of detention. With the Labor/Liberal change of policy just before the election, it looked clear that getting children out of detention was going to start taking longer. 

Abbott's belligerent demand yesterday that Triggs should be thanking Scott Morrison for stopping the boats just sounded like the churlish attack of a man who can't handle any criticism, and who is crushed when he doesn't get the acclaim that he thinks he deserves.   He honestly looks psychologically more fragile (and more like Rudd) every day.  

The Abbott government (and Murdoch press) behaviour over this is plainly, completely, out of proportion to the offence of which they are complaining.

Why not simply respond to any alleged bias in the report (if they can point out to factual errors in particular) with a calm rebuttal?

Why not  express regret at the fact that children are still in detention?   Say that you know it is not good for them and you are doing your best to help alleviate their situation?

Instead, why present yourself as an needy psychological cripple who wants the sacking of a person in a statutory appointment because you don't like being criticised?  

The other curious thing about this is the question of Tim Wilson.   Could it be that the Abbott/Brandis plan really was to hope to get Triggs to resign so they could elevate the Commissioner for Selfies (and Gays) to the top job?   I mean, I think that would be a patently ridiculous plan, given Wilson's complete lack of qualification to be on the Commission at all, but this government looks so incompetent and stupid, who knows?

The other thing I wonder about is whether there is any Wilson connection in terms of the government reaction to Triggs - I mean, would he leak back to Brandis if she said something careless and stupid about (say) plans to hurt the government?   Could that explain their intemperate attacks on her?   I like to think that Wilson - although I make my disdain for him obvious here - is not so low as to do that; but it strikes me as odd the way this has all blown up since his arrival on the scene.

Wilson apparently spoke on the radio about the report yesterday, but I have found no comment on line about what he said.  He is also going to be on Sky this afternoon.  Given that his appointment was so blatantly political, he ought to be asked for comment on the obvious politics going on in relation to this report.

Twitter is really running red hot with outrage about the government conduct towards Triggs.  It is very clear that their attack is blowing up in their face, and making Abbott's destiny in the dustbin of history all the closer.

The ugly Coalition

The attack on Gillian Triggs by the Right, and the Murdoch press, is spectacularly ugly example of bullying and attempt at deflection, and is being carried out by:

I'll spare readers the ugly angry mug of Tony Abbott from yesterday, for now.

It's one of those odd cases where the people involved physically look like the ugly bullies they are. (Something about having a double chin also seems to make a Coalition man prone to Trigg hate.)

Update:   well, if true, this is absolutely a case of bullying - there's no mere rhetoric use of the word involved here.

The Abbott government sought the resignation of the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission Gillian Triggs two weeks before it launched an extraordinary attack on the commission over its report on children in immigration detention.
The request was conveyed orally by an official on behalf of the Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis. It was rejected outright by Professor Triggs, who saw it as an attack on the independence and integrity of the commission and herself.

Speaking of morons

Andrew Bolt's post today seeking to blame Labor for "letting in" a couple of Muslim guys who have been arrested for (what is alleged) to be their plan to commit a terrorist act is the most stupid attempt at opportunist attack he has ever made.  Or is Bolt's policy now just "don't let any more Muslims into Australia, ever"? 

The sickening PM

I find the behaviour of this Prime Minister and his government to have moved on from appalling to sickening.

Today's attack on Triggs and her Commission's report on children in detention is really disgusting.  It is exactly the same moral worth as those Catholics who, faced with evidence of decades of abuse and failure to take action, bleat on about "But what about the other churches?  What about teachers in the State schools?"

And I see that he is continuing to seek to get credit as tough on security by commenting in Question Time on apparent evidence to be used against the two guys who are alleged to have been about to go out and behead someone as a PR stunt for Islamic State.    Surely a politician shouldn't be carrying on like this when the matter is months away from trial??

I used to think he was just an incompetent out of his depth.

I am moving towards just considering him a disgusting moral pygmy who is likely to go down as the worst PM we've ever had.

Update:   at the end of Question Time, Abbott congratulated himself with a smirk on a "magnificent" answer.  (Before having to clearly re-visit his use of "holocaust" in his previous answer.)    What an absolute moron.

Only matched by the stupidity of anyone who thinks the government performed well today.

Update 2:   the Holocaust comment was crass and stupid, but probably counts as a slip - one that a normal competent politician would never make, but a slip nonetheless.   The deliberate reference to evidence that  may well be contested in a criminal trial was, however, calculated, cynically used for political benefit, and a much more serious issue:

Prominent barrister Robert Richter QC has accused the Prime Minister of using parliamentary privilege in an attempt to influence the judicial process for two men accused of a terror plot.

 Tony Abbott told Parliament one of the men arrested in Tuesday's terrorism raid in Sydney made a video threatening violence under an Islamic State (IS) flag.

In Question Time, Mr Abbott quoted detailed threats made by the man in the video that have not been aired in court.

Mr Richter said if the statements had been made outside of Parliament, Mr Abbott would have been in contempt of court.

"To make those sorts of inflammatory utterances is calculated to influence the judicial process and it's being done for a political purpose," he said.

Cuteness meltdown

Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica photos: Meet the world's cutest animals:

This will cause someone in my house, who is already somewhat fond of sloths, to have a cuteness meltdown.

Doing it safely

Lowering the Age for HIV Prevention - The Atlantic

I don't think I've ever posted about the issue of the use of Truvada, a drug that is quite successful as a "pre-exposure prophylaxis" for HIV.

This article gives a good background to it, while noting in particular the very depressing figures about how much HIV is still spreading amongst Americans, especially young black Americans:

 The number of new HIV infections in the United States has stabilized at around 50,000 per year, according to the CDC, but new infections continue to increase among gay and bisexual men. The trend is particularly acute among black men, and even more so among those between the ages of 13 and 19. New infections among young gay and bisexual black men increased by almost 50 percent between 2006 and 2009, a rate the CDC has called “alarming.”  An estimated 6 percent of black gay and bisexual men in the United States under the age of 30 are HIV-positive, according to data from a longitudinal study conducted by the HIV Prevention Trials Network.

It then goes on to talk about the question of whether it is a good idea to actually start letting under 18 year olds use it.   (Even though the issue of its use amongst adults is still controversial, including within the gay community, where some complain about being stigmatised by other gays if they let it be known they are on it. There was a very lengthy article about this in Slate a couple of months ago.  I think I have read that the Australian authorities are trialling it with a view to its possible use here too.)

I find this issue very confusing.

On the one hand, I think:   what the hell?  You really want to take a powerful (not to mention expensive - $1500 a month, apparently)  medicine continually so as to be able to sleep around instead of doing the following:   do not have casual unprotected sex.  If you want to have regular sex with someone, do it with someone who will have a HIV test, commit to you, or if you have any doubt at all about your or their commitment to monogamy, continue using condoms until you split.  That's pretty much how most straight people live vis a vis sex without condoms. Is serial monogamy such a difficult concept for the gay community?  

On the other hand, as I have posted many times over the years, I just can't understand how straight men over the centuries continually risked having sex with prostitutes and getting the incurable, horrible, deadly disease of syphilis.   If their example is any guide, it seems to indicate you just can't really trust men to be sensible about safe sex at all.  But then again, reliable and cheap condoms were not around for most of that time, so I suppose I should factor the difficulty of having safe sex into the equation.  

And if syphilis was still incurable, would I oppose men who insist on using prostitutes using a drug to prevent them getting the disease, or feel that they were also kinda pathetic for not being able to let reason put some control on their libido?

Or is there an argument that straight people have become more cautious about sex?  Given that (I think) a well regulated sex industry has pretty much stopped prostitution spreading disease, there's at least partial grounds for such an argument.  (I mean, I assume men just accept that a visit to a brothel means they have to use a condom, don't they?)   On the other hand, the rates of chlamydia amongst the young in Australia is truly startling, and a sign that straight young people really are careless about safe sex.  But is their carelessness more excusable if it's a disease that is pretty readily cured if it is caught?  And should I feel differently about a 16 year old girl who wants to be sexually active getting a hormonal injection so as to be able to do it with low risk of pregnancy, compared to a horny 17 gay dude (potentially) taking an antiviral to be able to have unsafe sex without condoms?  I don't think either of them are of an age that they should be regularly having sex, but the question of drawing lines here as to how "practical" we are to be is arguably pretty fine...

I do not know the answers.  It's hard to not get the feeling, though, that in the space of 60 odd years, Western society has swung from being too hypocritical and judgemental about sex to (in some respects) not being judgemental enough.    Certainly, any science fiction of the 20th century that assumed that sex would be completely safe, plentiful and without consequences in some sort of utopian, libertine future have proved very naive. 

Mini Rudd

Down periscope: Abbott torpedoes himself | The Australian

I'm sure Niki Savva's column this morning is being re-tweeted all over the place.   The amazing thing about it is how it really confirms the picture of Abbott as a mini-Rudd:  believing his own publicity; a lack of insight into his own problems; and an office run so as to insulate him from the internal party criticisms.

Perhaps the Parliamentary PM's office needs an exorcism before the next PM takes control... 

And another thing about this Abbott government

Since Parliament resumed, it is spectacularly clear that Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker is damaging the  Abbott government - there simply has been no more biased and witless Speaker who cannot control Parliament than her.  Sycophantic with the unpopular Pyne, their double act is routinely cringeworthy; she deserves no respect and gets little. 

She is a major contribution to the dire public image of an incompetent government.

Raymond is against it

NRC geoengineering report: Climate hacking is dangerous and barking mad.

Wow.  One of the most prominent climate scientists around,  Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, has come out swinging hard against even trying geoengineering. 

I think he is probably right - at least on the dubious prospects for ever deploying it in a permanent and useful way.  As to whether all forms should never be the subject of trial work - not so sure about that.  

If you ask me...

*  The Abbott and Hockey interviews over the last 2 nights of 7.30 have both shown nothing has changed, and they are both incompetent sloganeers with no substance and need to be replaced.

*  The submarine issue is a running sore and a matter of potential great embarrassment to this government.   Even the Japan Times is reporting that some officials there  seemed to think they had a deal (sealed by a handshake?) which Abbott is now backing away from.   Would be amazing to think if Abbott was making deals on the quiet like this - would put the Rudd NBN plan on a napkin to shame (given that the NBN at least involved work for lots of Australians.)

*  Oh look.  The LDP had its conference on the weekend, and it looks like every voter who actually intentionally voted for David Leyonhjelm was in attendance:

Listen up, stupid: you're being conned by idiots

What an exercise in the disingenuous nature of the climate change "skeptics" and lukewarmists.  

For the umpteenth time, Graham Lloyd at The Australian runs a story promoting the "science" of lone, home based bloggers as parsed by wildly discredited and unreliable denier columnists like Booker and Delingpole.

Within the body of the story will be the response by actual scientists, denying there is anything to it, so that Lloyd can (presumably) hide behind a cloak of "balance".   (Entirely false balance, of course.)

I see that  Judith Curry has a guest post  (on the entire question of homogenisation) by those who worked on the BEST re-working of the temperature record, which, using different methods, entirely confirmed that the homogenisation and adjustments make very, very little difference to the big picture as worked out by the pre-existing groups.

And - Judith Curry makes no comment in support of the post.  She will make a vaguely "I wonder if this is right, it might be important" for any speculative papers about cycles and what not, but for a straightforward one in support of the science, she won't.   How pathetic.

Richard Tol then makes an appearance in the comments to the effect "oh, that's right, homogenisation is needed, but maybe the question is whether it is done right.   In any event, the more important thing is why people believe Brooker instead of scientists.  And it's because of alarmists, you ought to attack them!!"

Yes - as with Curry, he will not call out those who are actively and gleefully distorting (some of) the public's view of the science of climate change, because they actually help with his own pet view that nothing major need be done and everyone who disagrees with him is an idiot.   Pathetic.

The best response to this whole spate of climate denialist rubbish about temperature adjustments is from Stephen Mosher (from BEST) at the ATTP blog.  (It is much better in a general sense than the Curry post he contributed to.)    He makes it clear the frustration that he is  finding with "skeptics" who spent years demanding adjustments, and are now spending years criticising adjustments and refusing to believe them.  (And also ignoring that on a global scale, using the raw figures makes not much difference anyway.)

Sometimes, people just to be told:   if you believe Booker, Delingpole and Monckton, you are simply too stupid to know you are being conned by idiots.

All your national security problems solved!

I've had a brilliant idea:  instead of mandatory data retention, the government could just offer a free,  Samsung TV to all Muslim families who migrate here as a special "welcome to Australia" gift.  (And any single Muslim male gets one as a coming of age gift at 18.)

Why I'm not a consultant to some politician or other I'll never know....

Foreign view

Asia Unbound  - Tony Abbott Has To Go

Found this harsh but fair assessment on Abbott via the Lowy Institute  Interpreter blog. 

Can you imagine it?

Kevin '17 and the race to be the next UN Secretary-General

Some think Rudd is positioning himself to be a candidate for UN Secretary-General.  

Come on - the institution has enough trouble maintaining credibility without inflicting that upon it.

Joe Hockey takedown

Why the government is a brake on the economy

Peter Martin provides a detailed list of the obviously wrong claims Joe Hockey has made, and in some cases, repeated (despite their error being widely reported.)

It's clear that Hockey is a complete dud of a Treasurer, and really the job just seems beyond him.   He, with Abbott, is another living, breathing example of the Peter Principle.  (I suppose if there is one thing the government can be credited with, it's for reminding us that that rule of management theory is valid.)

 His hopes to be PM one day have completely evaporated.  That's life...

Snugglebunnies served raw fish

My annual guilty pleasure of reality TV - My Kitchen Rules - has started again, but my daughter has started to resent my running deconstruction of how its made.

One aspect which I am really starting to tire of is the "oh my God, how should we serve/cook our first home cooked meal - the one we've had about 8 weeks to rehearse?" line.

Last night, featuring the high school snugglebunny couple (well, they are "high school sweethearts", living in sin as us oldies like to say, from Adelaide) was a particularly annoying example.  They debated for about 10 minutes about their bream - whether to leave the tail on or not, what to do about the head, and at what point exactly to cut off the tail.  The final decision rendered it into something looking disturbingly like a Thalidomide fish - but seriously, such debates over the first meal served cannot possibly be serious, can they?  Surely all of them have rehearsed their dishes several times before this night.   How could they possibly be genuinely debating how to serve the sauce?

Last night's fish ended up being served half raw - they were fretting about not over cooking it, when it was basically being steamed in paper - a technique which I thought made serious overcooking actually quite difficult.

Their score was therefore very low, and I presume they will be leaving tonight.  I trust their relationship will survive...

I was trying to put my finger on why young Lloyd was annoying me, and then I realised - he both sounds and looks like a young version of Richard E Grant in the short cooking comedy series Posh Nosh:

Posh Nosh is worth catching up on Youtube, if you've missed it...

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.