Melbourne and violence

Melbourne seems to be having a particularly bad run with immigrant related violence over the past few years.   It would seem that yesterday's inner city attack by a radicalised Muslim could have been much worse if explosions from gas bottles had occurred.   But then again, why was the vehicle burning like that in the first place?   Were some gas bottles opened?   In any case, when I saw the video of people filming the scene, I though to myself that there is no way I would have hung around that close to the vehicle in case there was an explosion.   Must have been worrying the police trying to catch the guy, too. 

I half-watched the Four Corners show this week on the issue of African youth gang violence, and the degree to which it is or isn't being blown out of proportion.   I feel a bit of a fence sitter on the issue:  the show was good in that it didn't shy away from personalising the story both from the perspective of victims, and of young black guys unfairly caught up in the backlash.   It's one of those cases where  you can say both that it's silly to pretend it isn't a problem but still dislike the way the Murdoch media treats it as a problem.

Anyway, I've long been curious as to why this seems to centre on Melbourne.  Some Brisbane suburbs are known for the African immigrants but as far as I know there is no significant issue with youth gangs here.   And now that I check, Sydney had nearly as many Sudanese migrants as Melbourne, at least in 2011. 

Melbourne is a great place for eating and for people with ridiculous obsession with sports;  it's now just so-so for cultural pursuits, I reckon.   But all of those things are indoors (I'm counting sitting in a stadium as indoors) and I assume of marginal interest to current African youth.   If you aren't involved in those three things during the long, grey winters of that city, I think it probably is a pretty boring place.   Sydney and Brisbane don't have the same winter grey doldrums that Melbourne has.

So yeah, I'm going out on a limb and blaming gang violence on crappy weather.  But as time goes on and younger family members get absorbed in that Melbourne Borg of the footy and cricket (God help them), it will reduce. 

Hey, it's a theory.

As I suspected...

The view that it really was a Blue wave midterm election has become more popular, as late counts increase the number of House seats going to Democrats, and likely recounts in the Senate might even reduce GOP wins.

I was also interested in the question of what the popular vote would indicate if repeated in the 2020 Presidential election, and I see that Nate Silver has done that guesstimate, with the result being a solid Democrat win.

I'm also surprised that it was the Wall Street Journal which ran with the story overnight about Trump being highly involved in arranging the payments to silence two women he had affairs with.  It's not usually the paper to do investigative stuff to harm a Republican.   Is Murdoch turning on Trump? 

The Trump personality

While the fake reason for banning the somewhat annoying Jim Acosta from the White House was nauseating (seriously, all women who defend Trump to the death make me queasy, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders deserves ignominy til the end of time), I was bit more interested in the earlier clips of a raccoon faced* Trump gloating over Republicans who didn't support him and lost.  Jimmy Kimmel ran it last night and made the correct call - "he is an absolute child, he really is".




* Isn't it telling that no one has the guts to say to him, "Seriously, Donald, the white eyed look is really noticeable today.  A more natural face looks better on TV."

Friday science

Have you noticed the lengthy New York Times magazine article on the always fascinating topic of the placebo effect?   It's really good, and I particularly liked the explanation of how it was more or less discovered as a thing when Benjamin Franklin was involved in French ordered investigations as to how Mesmerism seemed to be effective, for some.

I will extract some of that:

In a way, the placebo effect owes its poor reputation to the same man who cast aspersions on going to bed late and sleeping in. Benjamin Franklin was, in 1784, the ambassador of the fledgling United States to King Louis XVI’s court. Also in Paris at the time was a Viennese physician named Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer fled Vienna a few years earlier when the local medical establishment determined that his claim to have cured a young woman’s blindness by putting her into a trance was false, and that, even worse, there was something unseemly about his relationship with her. By the time he arrived in Paris and hung out his shingle, Mesmer had acquired what he lacked in Vienna: a theory to account for his ability to use trance states to heal people. There was, he claimed, a force pervading the universe called animal magnetism that could cause illness when perturbed. Conveniently enough for Mesmer, the magnetism could be perceived and de-perturbed only by him and people he had trained.

Mesmer’s method was strange, even in a day when doctors routinely prescribed bloodletting and poison to cure the common cold. A group of people complaining of maladies like fatigue, numbness, paralysis and chronic pain would gather in his office, take seats around an oak cask filled with water and grab on to metal rods immersed in the water. Mesmer would alternately chant, play a glass harmonium and wave his hands at the afflicted patients, who would twitch and cry out and sometimes even lose consciousness, whereupon they would be carried to a recovery room. Enough people reported good results that patients were continually lined up at Mesmer’s door waiting for the next session.

It was the kind of success likely to arouse envy among doctors, but more was at stake than professional turf. Mesmer’s claim that a force existed that could only be perceived and manipulated by the elect few was a direct challenge to an idea central to the Enlightenment: that the truth could be determined by anyone with senses informed by skepticism, that Scripture could be supplanted by facts and priests by a democracy of people who possessed them. So, when the complaints about Mesmer came to Louis, it was to the scientists that the king — at pains to show himself an enlightened man — turned. He appointed, among others, Lavoisier the chemist, Bailly the astronomer and Guillotin the physician to investigate Mesmer’s claims, and he installed Franklin at the head of their commission.

To the Franklin commission, the question wasn’t whether Mesmer was a fraud and his patients were dupes. Everyone could be acting in good faith, but belief alone did not prove that the magnetism was at work. To settle this question, they designed a series of trials that ruled out possible causes of the observed effects other than animal magnetism. The most likely confounding variable, they thought, was some faculty of mind that made people behave as they did under Mesmer’s ministrations. To rule this out, the panel settled upon a simple method: a blindfold. Over a period of a few months, they ran a series of experiments that tested whether people experienced the effects of animal magnetism even when they couldn’t see.

Go read it all, as it goes onto to talk about recent research indicating a molecular reason why placebos seem to work so well on some people, at least.   

Malcolm Turnbull continues to disappoint, even as an ex PM

I had something of a hope that Malcolm Turnbull would use his exit from politics to try to blow up the Liberals by stating the obvious:   there is no working with those in the party who deny climate change.   The party needs to split, as there is within it too large a rump of Right wing, American style "conservatives" who are more obsessed with trying to win back an already lost culture war, and it poisons their judgement against good and necessary policy on climate, economics, and even humanitarian issues.  (The first two because evidence is ignored in favour of conspiracy and ideology; the latter because fighting a culture war means being obsessed with strength and never admitting you have gone too far - hence punishing wannabe refugees can continue forever as far as they are concerned.)

But Malcolm on his Q&A session last night gave no hint of understanding his party that way.  Sure, he makes a good point that the electoral evidence from 3 former safe Liberal seats (now with independents) is that people are wanting Liberals to be centrist, small "l" liberals; but he just does not still seem to appreciate that the conservative wing who dumped him will continue to make it impossible to market the party as the one that he wants it to be.

"Broad church" fails when it tries to accommodate those who won't even acknowledge that a key and urgent issue such as climate change, with its broad impact on energy and economics policy, really exists.

Even Andrew Bolt seems to understand this better than Malcolm, since he has muttered about a split recently. 

So, bring on an election, and let the Liberals have their crisis in Opposition where they can do less harm.

Election talk

Gee, it's hard to find a list of historic popular vote results for US midterm elections.   But I finally turned up this graph, which shows the popular vote swing back to the Democrats is very significant:

The other vote analysis coming out all seems to be showing the old story of the Republican's demographic problems - the party is wildly unpopular with young voters, blacks, Latino/Hispanic and Asians:

When you pile these patterns in the white vote on top of the now-familiar racial divides — CNN’s exit poll shows Democrats winning 90 percent of black voters, 69 percent of Latino voters, and 77 percent of Asian voters — you get a clear sense of what lead to last night’s results: Democrats winning big with minorities and educated whites.   

The party remains strongest with under-educated older white guys.  Way to go, Republicans...

Triumph's return

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is reliability funny, especially on politics:



I see that the US midterms have gone pretty much in accordance with polling - Democrats have taken the House by what looks like a pretty substantial number (even though there seems to have been considerable reservation in US media early in the count to call it a "blue wave"), but the Republicans keep the Senate.

Ted Cruz seems to have been returned by the skin of his teeth, but as someone at Nate Silver's place says, it means Beto O'Rourke might have a better run this way to go for the Presidential nomination. 

I have not seen his media performance at all, but I assume he must have some pretty strong charisma.

Watching other people fish

Somehow, on the weekend, I stumbled across a Youtube channel of Jon B, a young American guy who seems big in the world of spectator fishing.   He also recently had a trip to Australia to meet up with some local, somewhat bogan-ish, guys who do the same thing.   Amusingly (I thought) Jon flew into Sydney, then up to the Gold Coast, only to find his Australian hosts had decided to take him fishing on islands off Airlie Beach (!) a 13 hour drive away.   I have no idea why they didn't suggest he fly up there instead of having to endure the long drive on not very great Queensland highways.

I have to admit, I do find Jon B's videos enjoyable.  He's very positive, doesn't swear to any significant extent, and has an amusing line in American youth slang.   And, of course, video cameras have become so cheap, and editing so easy, that amateur Youtube travel/fishing content now looks more like David Lean or Spielberg than the Leyland Brothers.    I find his videos sort of relaxing, too.

I see that he is all of 22 years old.  He seems to have travelled widely.  I am not sure whether he manages to live off Youtube income, or just comes from a rich family.   I haven't found much biographical detail about him yet.

Anyway, good luck to him, I reckon. 

Brisbane weather

I've been meaning to talk about the local weather for, oh, 6 months or so.

The 2018 winter in Brisbane was, I think, colder than recent ones, certainly at night anyway.  It was also very dry, even though winters here usually are.   One odd result:   a distinct lack of winter weeds.  In previous years when we have had a serious bindi problem in the backyard in (if I recall correctly) early spring, we have nothing this year.   There was no mowing needed for a long, long time too.

Then, with a recent burst of rain, grass everywhere grew suddenly.

This week, as I think often occurs in November, felt like a flip of the switch into summer.   It's been hot (about 34 or 35 degrees) in Western Brisbane for about 4 days now, and humid.   No big storm activity, yet, though.

Toads have suddenly come out of hiding and into the yard at night.   Our dog's hunt for them during the day has resumed.  She has a good memory of where she saw one the night before, and as soon as she is let outside of a morning, she goes and has a good sniff around the area, acting for all the world like a bloodhound.  If she finds one, she bites or mouths it, drops it, and continues harassing it.   This can lead to frothing mouth and the risk of poisoning, but I think the theory that some dogs like the "high" that toad poison gives them has a lot going for it.

You may now resume your regular reading.

Run properly or else

Another horse has died at the Melbourne Cup meeting? 

Look, I think it clear that they're just not trying hard enough to be careful where they put their feet.

You can't expect a horse to understand the consequences of carelessness without a demonstration.

Therefore, I suggest that before the start of each race, when they are all at the barrier, a bit of theatre needs to be performed:  a two person pantomime horse races onto the track, feet all over the place, and stumbles and falls.   A guy in an overcoat rushes out and pulls out a fake rifle and shoots the stupid panto horse, shouting loudly all the time, like Basil Faulty attacking his car with a stick.   If that's not enough, someone can fake chainsaw the "horse" in two, and other assistants drag away the two halves by the feet.

Race track cleared, the event can begin.

You know it makes sense.

[Now that I think of it, I fear that Roy and HG may have already proposed this, many years ago.  My apologies if that's the case.]

Lee Kuan Yew's immodest proposal

Well, the South China Morning Post knows how to write an attention getting headline.   This is mentioned right at the top, but you have to get to the bottom of the article (interesting if you are into Singaporean modern political history, I guess) to find it mentioned in scant detail:

As an aside, Lee Kuan Yew was more liberal than we think. Or more practical. When the tourism sector was down, he floated the idea of allowing a nudist colony on Sentosa or an offshore island to bring them in! The younger ministers vetoed him.

I'm not sure who would want to be naked in the sweltering sun of the equator, but I guess he was open to new ventures.

Floating solar is suddenly "hot"

Hey, I started saying the stuff in this article months ago:

Floating solar is more than panels on a platform—it’s hydroelectric’s symbiont

For example:

Solar panels prevent algae growth in dammed areas, and they inhibit evaporation from occurring in hotter climates. (According to Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, major lakes in the southwestern US like Lake Mead and Lake Powell can lose more than 800,000 acre-feet of water to evaporation per year, and the adorably-described "floatovoltaics" could prevent up to 90 percent of that evaporation.") Additionally, floating solar avoids taking up space on land that is priced at a premium.

I still say it should be incorporated into the Snowy Mountains 2 project to actually power the pumps that make the scheme work like a giant battery.

Get me the Prime Minister's phone number?    Oh, he's touring the country in Trump like caps.  He's a dill.

Sordid, rubbery history

I think I knew that the vulcanization of rubber had led to cheap condoms.  I didn't realise it had another sex related product boom:

When I was teaching nineteenth-century literature and social history, I told my students to remember at least one significant date: 1844, the vulcanization of rubber. Charles Goodyear’s invention of that process went on to bring effective contraception to Britain and the United States. But I didn’t know that it was also the origin of the rubber dildo. One of the many fascinating asides in Amy Werbel’s study of Anthony Comstock, the tireless crusader against pornography in late nineteenth-century New York, is an account of the modernization of this ancient sex toy. The first rubber condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps came on the market in 1869, quickly followed by dildos in many colours and shapes; one company sold twelve versions.

Comstock – who was, on paper, a Postal Inspector like any other, charged with catching “crimes that may adversely affect or fraudulently use the US mail” – was astounded to find these “articles for self-pollution” widely advertised, as he described in his indignant and baffled report to Congress in 1872: “One concern was engaged almost wholly in this manufacture. Who were its customers?” Certainly not prostitutes or the married or the poor, he concluded; indeed the “white rubber Dildoe [sic]” was being sold for $6, a steep price in 1870, roughly equivalent to $116 today. The Grand Fancy Bijou Catalogue of the Sporting Man’s Emporium, which carried dozens of advertisements, called it a “happy and harmless” penis substitute for “reserved females”. By 1874, through his allies in the New York Police Department and the Post Office, Comstock had confiscated and destroyed thousands of dildos in a round-up of 60,300 “articles made of rubber for immoral purposes”. But, predictably, an ingenious sex industry made and marketed the products faster than he could condemn them, and writers and photographers quickly exploited their erotic, instructive and commercial possibilities.

Well, count me as surprised at the apparent number being sold.  

I've always been a bit surprised that anyone would buy one, too.  How has C20th understanding of sex changed this, I wonder?   Did they used to be around from ancient times because it was assumed the male appendage in some form was essential for female pleasure?   Has the sexual revolution meant that they are bought less now, even if more widely available?

Someone else can Google that for me, and let me know.

Lulz Cameron

It's very hard not to be amused by the sacking of Ross Cameron at Sky for using "slant eyes" in the course of a rambling defence of the Chinese.   And sacked by Paul Whittaker, who has come over from running the appallingly tabloid Daily Telegraph.   What fun.

"But the context! He was being ironic"  say some of his defenders at Catallaxy, some of whom are  are busy cancelling subscriptions to Fox.       

The trouble is, of course, that a history of buffoonery is its own worst enemy against that defence.  If you are making a show that frequently attacks political correctness, how are viewers supposed to know when they are being ironically racist. 

Someone at Catallaxy says they know that Cameron gets up early to run a business in the day, then does (or did) his Sky News garbage dump at 11pm.   They do their pathetic attempt at political entertainment live at 11 pm?   The guy's been getting by on 4 or 5 hours sleep, perhaps?   Getting sacked was probably a blessing in disguise.

Hilariously, the guy at Catallaxy who knows Cameron is trying to cast it as some sort of scary "they're coming for us" bit of thought policing:

Just remember, first they came for the SkyNews after dark commentators.

Um, yeah, sure.  Might be a tad more credible if it weren't a long time Murdoch flunky doing the sacking. 

Andrew Bolt is talking about some change or other too - dropping his show, perhaps?

I'm pretty pleased that the Fox News-ification of Sky News at night has such a terrible reputation and low ratings.   The Australian political landscape is much saner than the American due to this.

A personal ban on Netflix original movies

Google the topic "why are Netflix original movies so bad/mediocre" and you'll find much discussion along those lines.

On Saturday, despite getting a bit overdosed on Netflix haunting material lately, we watched the lengthily titled "I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House": a very minimalist and peculiar ghost story that doesn't just flag where it's going, but draws a diagram within the first 5 minutes and doesn't divert from it.  As a result, there is nothing of surprise (save for one bit of sudden violence), even though I expected it must have a twist ending which never came.

The movie, surprisingly, was considered very good by some reviewers:  it seemed to me (and my son) more like a complete waste of 90 minutes.  I thought it had the feel of a student project, really.   Certainly, it should have been cheap to make.   Could the lead character have any less charisma, I wonder?

Given this poor experience, I'm very inclined to not try any more Netflix original material.

Update:   speaking of hauntings, we have started to watch The Haunting of Hill House series on Netflix.  

I have not seen the original movie that it is based on,  and I gather that this series is a very divergent  modern updating of the themes in the original, rather than re-playing the story.   (Now that I think of it, rather like how the re-invented Lost in Space goes all into family drama as a major them.)

I think I will continue watching it, but I have to say, I am getting tired of certain haunted house tropes:

a.  if you wake up very scared by a sound at night, the first thing normal people do is turn on a light.    People in haunted houses would rather stare out into the dark, it seems.

b.  On the occasions they do turn on the light, it becomes clear that they have no idea about wattage strength for their light bulbs.   (Always buying ones that are about a third as bright as they would be in a normal house.) 

c.  People who are renovating haunted houses are much more interested in money than the psychological health of their children.

Taleb being ridiculed

For entertainment, you could do worse than read the perpetually angry and arrogant Nassim Taleb attracting many attacks on twitter for an initial mistake which he then doubled down on, convincing no one in the process.

As I have said before, there is something seriously wrong at a personality level with him.

Great minds going astray

I very much enjoyed this article in The Atlantic:  My Grandfather Thought He Solved a Cosmic Mystery.

The problem was, no one could understand what he was trying to explain. 

Very satisfying

Um, it might just be that I know the young woman playing this lead last night pretty well.   She practised this a lot, and (especially when mic-ed up as she was at her school music gala last night), it sounds (I think) pretty damn impressive:

[And, as I have written before, getting drawn into the world of young musicianship - even for a musical dunce like me - makes it hard to feel pessimistic about the future not being left in good hands.   People should seek out their communities' local youth orchestras and see how optimistic their individual and joint effort can make them feel.]

Update:  In the interests of even handedness, I might also know the young man who does a sax solo during this Big Band opening last night:

Evangelicals and tech nerds will be the death of us

Given that there is much concern being expressed that Brazilian President Bolsonaro will be giving companies the go-ahead to bulldoze and mine the Amazon rainforest, and his support base amongst Evangelicals is probably the only religious group n the world that refuses to take climate change seriously, it's disturbing that (once again) the misuse of social media for political lies featured so heavily in the election.  As in India, where it has been blamed for riots and deaths by spreading false rumour, WhatsApp is getting a lot of the blame:

...Aos Fatos, the fact-checking organization that I lead, crowdsourced from over 6,000 WhatsApp users more than 700 false or misleading posts being shared on the app. These rumors distorted at least four key categories of information: statements by political candidates, news of electronic voting and legislation, the nature of protests and the outcomes of opinion polls. These messages were largely aimed at right-leaning political groups, Catholic and evangelical churches, trade and business associations, and military groups.

There were widespread false reports, for example, of how the Venezuelan government hacked Brazil’s electronic voting system and of how Bolsonaro’s rival, Haddad, handed out baby bottles with penis-shaped tops at schools to combat homophobia. One of Bolsonaro’s own sons, Flávio, helped spread such rumors. On Oct. 7, the day of the first round of presidential voting, he tweeted a video that had already been zinging around WhatsApp falsely claiming that the Brazilian voting system was rigged to automatically give all votes to Haddad. When the video was later debunked, Flávio subsequently deleted his tweet, but the damage was done. At least 800,000 people shared the video on Facebook and Twitter. Because of encryption, however, we don’t know how many of WhatsApp’s 120 million active users in Brazil saw it.

That's awful.

The barely human looking (or acting) Zuckerberg is helping bring down the planet while making
squillions.   Who would have guessed 20 years ago that a combination of Evangelicals, tech nerds (and libertarians) would be responsible for global environmental catastrophe?

Things not understood

In life, you only have so much time to learn about the rest of the world. 

I've confessed before about the large chunk of Western Europe that I consider too complicated to get a good grip on its history, but I'm starting to feel my ignorance zone should probably extend down into the Southern Hemisphere too.

Because I've realised lately I don't really understand why good government seems such a difficult thing to achieve in virtually every country in Central and South America.   Sure, there will be lingering issues with exploitation from the West and all, but it seems to be taking a remarkably long time for it to be overcome.

I should probably also admit that it would seem I didn't even have the right impression of Brazil, culturally.   I thought the gaudy display of  Carnival, the small bikinis on the beaches of Rio, as well as the mixed skin colours showing a relaxed attitude to intermarriage between races,  all indicated an openness to sensuality that would mean they are not all that culturally conservative, even if religious.  Which would mean the election of an obnoxious Trump-like President is a bit hard to understand.

I guess I was sort of right, as this WAPO article starts with:

Brazil for years reveled in its image as a post-racial, left-leaning society. Now Jair Bolsonaro — a far-right outsider who says he “loves” President Trump — has surged to the front of the pack in Sunday’s presidential election, sharply dividing Latin America’s largest nation.   

But - I had also missed how big the swing to evangelical Christianity had been in the last decade or so:

 In recent years, as crisis has consumed Brazil, there has been a notable shift in political, social, and religious attitudes. According to a 2016 survey, 54 percent of the Brazilian population held a high number of traditionally-conservative opinions, up from 49 percent in 2010. The shift is particularly evident on matters of law and order: Today, more Brazilians are in favor of legalizing capital punishment, lowering the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults, and life without parole for individuals who commit heinous crimes. Observers have ascribed this phenomenon to Brazilians’ increasing fear of violence over the last few years. This rightward shift has been accompanied by a massive growth in the country’s Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal churches, which constitute the greater part of Brazilian Protestantism. The percentage of those who identified as evangelicals in Brazil has grown from 6.6 percent in 1980, to 22.2 percent in 2010.

Another article I read recently, but which I am having trouble finding now, indicated that the society is more conservative than first impressions give.   A third article from earlier this year explains how Carnival is a bit misleading:

Irreverence is a fundamental element of carnival, as are costumes mocking politicians or political scandals. In his 1979 book Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes, anthropologist Roberto DaMatta detailed how carnival’s temporary libertarianism and role-playing actually expose the rigid social structures and codes of Brazil’s deeply conservative society. The classic carnival costume of a poor man dressed as a king shows how hierarchical Brazilian society is. “It has a sociological role. It is an escape valve,” he told the Observer. “What happens in carnival dies in carnival.”

Anyway, it's incredible how closely Bolsonaro's policies, behaviour and life are closely aligned with Trump's - he too has been married several times, and has risen to the Presidency on the back of social media and the creepy, cultish worship of his followers that indicate they are voting for him more for emotional reasons than rational.   Maybe he is more sincerely Right wing than the mere opportunism of Trump - and certainly he actually has done military service.   But the similarities as political figures are still pretty amazing.

Bugs at home

From a review in Nature of a new book Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live:

The book is structured around sub-habitats in our homes — our bodies, rooms, water supply, pets and food. It considers an awesome range of organisms, from the rich fungal flora on bakers’ hands to the diversity of fly larvae in our drains.

We discover that warm, moist shower heads are ideal for the growth of biofilms containing trillions of bacteria, including Mycobacterium species that are harmful to human health. Dunn and his colleagues invited thousands of volunteers globally to send in samples from their bathrooms. The researchers are finding, for instance, that the more a water supply is treated with chemicals designed to kill microbes, the greater the abundance of pathogenic strains of mycobacteria. We also learn that the numbers of plant and butterfly species in our gardens are correlated with the robustness of the community of microbes on our skin; that some German cockroaches have evolved to perceive glucose as bitter, thus avoiding poisoned bait; and that dogs can give us both heartworm and a top-up of beneficial bacteria from their microbiomes.

Don't recall knowing that dog heartworm can spread to humans - but it's not quite as bad as it could be:

 Human infections seem to be quite uncommon and, interestingly, while this is a serious problem in dogs, it tends to be rather innocuous in people. In fact, the biggest problem with heartworm infection in people is the fact that it can be confused with other, more serious problems, leading to invasive testing.

After infecting someone, D. immitis works its way to the blood vessels in the lungs. This can result in  a small area of inflamed tissue in the area. If a chest x-ray is taken, a "coin lesion" (a small, usually 1-3 cm spot) is often present. The parasite infection usually doesn’t cause any problems in people, but lung cancer and tuberculosis can look the same on x-rays. Usually, open-chest surgery ends up being performed to get a biopsy of the area because of the concerns about cancer. In heartworm cases,the biopsy identifies the problem as D. immitis, which is much better than cancer, but the risks associated with having undergone such an invasive procedure are much greater than that of the parasitic infection itself.

Typically, treatment is not recommended in people because the infection rarely causes problems and people are "dead end" hosts, meaning they cannot pass on the infection. (Unlike in dogs, infected people don’t have the parasite microfilaria in their blood, which is how the infection is passed on to  mosquitoes and other animals).

 In any event, prevention in dogs is now easier than ever, with a once a year vaccination.   Here's our pup, giving me the side eye:

 She couldn't harm me, could she?

Birth right history

Interesting bit of history here, in the story of a Chinese American who went to the Supreme Court over the 14th Amendment.

Just keeping track of what's inside the Trump "reality distortion field"

As the NYT summarises:

He has asserted that construction has begun on his border wall (it has not), that he is one of the most popular American presidents in history (he is not), that he “always” opposed the Iraq war (he did not), that the stock market reopened the day after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 (it did not), that his tax cut was the largest in history (it was not) and that the United States is the only country that guarantees citizenship to those born here (it is not).

As he embarks on a final eight-state, 11-rally blitz before Tuesday’s midterm elections, Mr. Trump has hammered Democrats — not just for their actual policy positions but for some they have not taken. He accused them, without proof, of helping to orchestrate a caravan of Central American migrants; complained that Democrats had opposed opioid legislation when in fact they universally voted for it; and asserted that they would not protect patients with pre-existing conditions — even though that was the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care program.

Today's other news which won't happen:

The US president floated his latest hardline proposal just two days after announcing the deployment of 5,200 troops to the border and with the midterm elections imminent.

“We’ll do up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of border patrol, Ice and everybody else at the border,” the president told reporters at the White House before departing for a campaign rally in Florida. “Nobody’s coming in. We’re not allowing people to come in.”

Even if, as I suspect likely, the total sent there tops out at the original 5,000, I actually expect that using his army for such political theatre is going to decrease his popularity within the disturbingly conservative military.   The fact that they will have little to do when they get there, and the effort planners will have to go to for a useless exercise, is surely not going to impress many.
  

In which I tell a scary camping story

Hey it's Halloween, and I just read an account given by a couple of young American guys of the fright they received while camping:

23-year-old Wil Neill of Utica and 20-year- old Tyler Kroetsch of Livonia were camping at Waterloo State Recreation Area last month, near the Waterloo-Pinckney Trail. In a message posted on the discussion website Reddit, one of the two Marine reserves wrote that they may have had an encounter with Bigfoot. According to MLive, around 2am one morning, they wrote they were awoken by footsteps that sounded as though they were 20 to 25 feet away. The duo heard what they could only describe as the most “loud, freakiest, inhuman yell, scream” or “roar” shouted at them twice. The creature then took off running in what sounded like a two-footed run.

When it was suggested that it may have a been a cougar, the Marine reserve wrote that the sounds of the impact made by the feet of the creature crashing through the woods weren’t made by something running on four feet. The screams from the animal, he said, weren’t at ground level, either, but instead coming from 5 to 7 feet above ground. The growling filled the entire forest. The Department of Natural Resources has confirmed 35 cougar sightings in the Upper Peninsula since 2008, but not one has been confirmed in that time in the Lower Peninsula.

This gives me an excuse to tell the story of the night I got frightened by a particularly loud insect while camping in South East Queensland.   (Have I told this before?  - don't think so.)

Although I was not alone at the bush campsite (in the middle of State Forest where, even then, you were not really supposed to be camping) I was in my own little tent, and woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded to me, after some speculation, very much like a shovel being scrapped along a dirt surface.   It was quite loud, and a tad disturbing to think about why a person would be outside my tent making sounds with a shovel.  

I called out "who is it", and (if memory serves right) the sound stopped for a short time, then started up again.

No one else around the camp site said anything from their tents - which, of course, might have meant that I was the last to be bludgeoned by a shovel wielding outback maniac.  I'm sure I called out a second time, possibly to the same pause and re-start reaction. 

When calling out, I had stayed pretty still inside my tent.  I finally decided that the continuing noise was a sign that, whatever was making it, there was not intention to attack me.

I flipped around in my sleeping bag and looked outside, puzzled.  I undid the zip on my tent, and with my head now released from the sleeping bag hood, I realised that the sound was actually coming from very close to my head.

I released that it was coming from my little aluminium camping cooking kit, like one of these, only round:

which I had left virtually at the entry to my little tent.  Inside it was a large insect, the variety of which I did not know, but it was pretty big and very busy scrapping its legs over the surface, possibly eating some small amount of leftover dinner stuck to the pan.   The sound was amplified by the concave shape, towards my head, and yes, it was quite loud.   My ears had interpreted as coming from some distance away.   As it turned out, everyone else in the campsite was still alive.

In the morning, I was asked some embarrassing questions about why I had been calling out, sounding nervous, in the middle of the night.  

So there - the dark night (and bugs) can play tricks on the ear.  

[Underwhelmed?  OK, well you come up with a better "camping noises at night" story.]

Libertarian no more

So, if I understand this post correctly, the Niskanen Centre - the nice libertarians who don't disbelieve in climate change and who were seemingly pretty centrist on lots of issues - has recanted and decided it can't really call itself libertarian anymore.

Seems a reasonable conclusion.

Instead,  founder Jerry Taylor talks about moderation as an alternative to ideology.  I can agree with the sentiment:

What is the alternative to ideology? There is no easy answer. Without some means of sorting through the reams of information coming at us every day, we would be overwhelmed and incapable of considered thought or action. Without any underlying principles or beliefs whatsoever, we are dangerously susceptible to believing anything, no matter how ludicrous, and to act cruelly without moral constraint. Yet any set of beliefs, if they are coherent, are the wet clay of ideology. Hence, the best we can do is to police our inner ideologue with a studied, skeptical outlook, a mindful appreciation of our own fallibility, and an open, inquisitive mind.

Politics and policymaking without an ideological bible is incredibly demanding. It requires far more technocratic expertise and engagement than is required by ideologues, who already (they think) know the answers. It also requires difficult judgments, on a case-by-case basis, about which ethical considerations are of paramount concern for any given issue at hand, and what trade-offs regarding those considerations are most warranted. 

To embrace nonideological politics, then, is to embrace moderation, which requires humility, prudence, pragmatism, and a conservative temperament. No matter what principles we bring to the political table, remaking society in some ideologically-driven image is off the table given the need to respect pluralism. A sober appreciation of the limitations of knowledge (and the irresolvable problem of unintended consequences) further cautions against over-ambitious policy agendas.

I had previously posted about, with approval, their endorsement of moderation given by Will Wilkinson.   I think abandoning the title "libertarian" is probably a good idea.

Dissent in the ranks

This is, given the weird state of wingnut politics, big news.    Someone (presumably, a producer of the suckiest suck-up-to-Trump show on Fox News) has decided to send the message to him to drop the "enemy of the people":

On Tuesday morning, Fox & Friends aired the relevant excerpts from the Ingraham interview and then cut back to the three hosts, who were all sitting outside for some reason. They all looked incredibly uncomfortable, though I could not tell whether Trump’s phrasing bothered them personally, whether they were simply nervous that they were about to criticize the president, or whether they were just cold. 

“So there he is, talking about his term, ‘enemy of the people,’ which … bothers a lot of people,” said Steve Doocy, tapping his hand on a table. 

“I really wish he would lose that term,” said Brian Kilmeade. “It doesn’t help anybody.” (This may well be the most reasonable thing that Brian Kilmeade has ever said.) “It doesn’t push back on the media that he wants to push back on. And I think that it gets too many other people [inaudible] shrapnel with that statement. Because the press isn’t the enemy of the people,” Kilmeade continued. “ … That broad statement does a lot of damage.” 

“Well, I think he probably feels like they are not doing him any favors and so he doesn’t like them, ultimately,” said Doocy. “But are they the enemy of the people? I don’t think so, either.”

As artistically uninspiring as a big statue can be

I've admitted before that I have a fondness for really big statues, and so it's with interest that I see India is about to open a truly gigantic one:

But, but....the figure itself makes for (what I would like to bet) is the most mundane, artistically uninspiring image for a big statue in the universe.   Here's who it is:

India’s new Statue of Unity, which will be formally unveiled Wednesday, depicts Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an independence-era leader credited with uniting the fledgling nation in the 1940s when he served as India’s first home minister.

But the homage to Patel has far deeper symbolism. 

Patel, known as India’s “Iron Man,” has become a right-wing icon for Hindu nationalists. And the statue is located in the western state of Gujarat, which has been the site of some of the fiercest clashes between Hindus and Muslims in past decades.

I mean, the guy may have had his good points, but gigantic statues should, in my view, either be of religious figures looking awesome, or (as in Russia) some sort of idealised or stylised image of humanity looking dramatic or muscly or about to get something done.

Instead, it looks like the guy who runs a discount variety store who is so bored he's having a standing nap.

And despite this, I'm betting it would be still be awesome to be up close to.   Big statues are just inherently awesome.

Another long term environmental issue

As if climate change isn't enough of a long term worry, Real Climate has a lengthy post explaining the rise of mercury in the environment, and how it is not really possible to clean it up in the same way, in theory, you can remove CO2 from the atmosphere.  Kinda depressing.

Discouraging space travel news

I knew prolonged periods of weightlessness were not good for bones, eyes and muscle:  not sure that I had heard before that it shrinks parts of brains too.   (Actually, this short explanation is kinda confusing):

Flying in space shrinks some regions of cosmonauts’ brains — an effect that persists long after crews come home.

Researchers know that spaceflight causes parts of the brain to swell and tilt, but Angelique Van Ombergen at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and her colleagues wondered precisely how time in orbit affects brain volume, especially well after the return to Earth. To investigate, the team studied brain scans from ten Russian cosmonauts before and after orbital stints of around six months.

About one week after the cosmonauts returned to Earth, some portions of their brains showed a larger volume of cerebrospinal fluid — which cushions and cleanses the brain — than before the flight. By contrast, certain regions of the brain’s grey matter, containing neurons that produce signals, shrank over the same time period. Most of the grey matter recovered in the following seven months, whereas the brain’s white matter, which transmits neural signals, withered in the months after landing.

The authors say that brain-volume changes might help to explain medical problems related to long-term space travel.

Another report about the study says this:

What these changes mean for the cosmonauts is still an open question. "However, whether or not the extensive alterations shown in the gray and the white matter lead to any changes in cognition remains unclear at present," study co-author Dr. Peter zu Eulenburg, a neurologist and professor of neuroimaging at Ludwig-Maximilians-Univeristat München in Germany, said in a statement.

Sort of ironic if Earth's best and brightest take off for Mars, but are too dumb to remember how to assemble their habitats by the time they arrive. 

Against the Word

Well, I'm always happy to read of people who think Word is pretty horrible as a word processing program, but Jason Wilson's explanation of why he doesn't like it is a bit odd.   Seems to be something about the purity of a program that does the bare minimum in terms of getting words on a screen that appeals to him.  As some people say in comments, he makes it sound like he should just use Notepad.

My beloved Wordperfect (windows versions) gets mentioned in comments a few times:  there is even a purist who has found a way to use WP5.1 on Windows 10!   That is taking things a bit far.

But the simple truth remains:  in terms of fixing formatting issues, Wordperfect with its "reveal codes" function is still much, much easier to use than the secret format coding of a Word document.

I still marvel at the way a university student who has only ever known Word will not know how to stop some formatting issue that I could fix in a flash if it was Wordperfect. 

I have been using Wordperfect X4 nearly daily for many years, and I don't see any great need to upgrade.   I see the latest version (X9) is pretty expensive though.  I don't know that Corel is really trying to sell it any more.

Oh look - you still get people posting stuff as recently as this year saying "They're still selling Wordperfect??!!"   And a couple of people in comments do note the wonder of the "reveal codes" feature.

I am not alone...

About the migrant caravan

I did mean to link to Vox's detailed explainer about the Central American "caravan" last week, but better late than never.   It's one of the best "fact checking" style articles about it that I have read.

And I have also been meaning to say - why would anyone think it made sense for a liberal like Soros to fund something that is so obviously able to be used by Trump and Republicans just before the mid terms to motivate the Republican vote?   It never made a scintilla of sense - but of course, since when have the Trump base been motivated by logic?

Stand proud, Fox News

There was also an interesting article at Vanity Fair as to how Fox News is being run under Lachlan Murdoch.   It claims he is actually pretty "hands off" and each producer runs their show however they like.   Also - and who know if this is true or not - says that the late Roger Ailes would have hated how Trump basically runs the network, because of the way he plays on the producers's desire to ingratiate themselves to their key fan.   

Yes, it's a mystery

Makes me feel lazy, but also sane (Part 2)

I have often linked to Bee Hossenfelder's Backreaction blog on physics.  She's a good writer, if presenting as somewhat eccentric in her music video hobby, and I should read her book and the current serious problems within theoretical physics.

She has made reference in the past to some mental health issues, but in this post, I'm surprise to read about her how bad her dissociative fugue problem when she was younger.   Quite remarkable, and actually something that sounds very suitable as a basis for a movie plot:

Horgan’s book “The End of Science” was originally published 1996. I never read it because after attempting to read Stuart Kauffman’s 1995 book “At Home In the Universe” I didn’t touch a popular science book for a decade. This had very little to do with Kauffman (who I’d meet many years later) and very much to do with a basic malfunction of my central processing unit. Asked to cope with large amounts of complex, new information, part of my brain will wave bye-bye and go fishing. The result is a memory blackout.

I started having this in my early 20s, as I was working on my bachelor’s degree. At the time I was living in Frankfurt where I shared an apartment with another student. As most students, I spent my days reading. Then one day I found myself in a street somewhere in the city center without any clue how I had gotten there. This happened again a few weeks later. Interestingly enough, in both cases I was looking at my own reflection in a window when my memory came back.

It’s known as dissociative fugue, and not entirely uncommon. According to estimates, it affects about one or two in a thousand people at least once in their life. The actual number may be higher because it can be hard to tell if you even had a fugue. If you stay in one place, the only thing you may notice is that the day seems rather short.

These incidents piled up for a while. Aside from sudden wake-ups in places I had no recollection of visiting, I was generally confused about what I had or had not done. Sometimes I’d go to take a shower only to find my towel wet and conclude I probably had already taken one earlier. Sometimes I’d stand in the stair case with my running shoes, not knowing whether I was just about to go running or had just come back. I made sure to eat at fixed times to not entirely screw up my calorie intake.

Every once in a while I would meet someone I know or answer the phone while my stupid brain wasn’t taking records. For what I’ve been told, I’m not any weirder off-the-record than on-the-record. So not like I have multiple personalities. I just sometimes don’t recall what I do.

The biggest problem with dissociative fugue isn’t the amnesia. The biggest problem is that you begin to doubt your own ability to reconstruct reality. I suspect the major reason I’m not a realist and have the occasional lapse into solipsism is that I know reality is fragile. A few wacky neurons are all it takes to screw it up.

Makes me feel lazy, but also sane (Part 1)

From the BBC:

Shirley Thompson is hoping to become the oldest woman to row solo across an ocean.
Remarkably, the 60-year-old, who is originally from Belfast, had never rowed before this year.

She plans to leave from the Canary Islands in November and aims to arrive 3,000 miles away in the Caribbean three months later.

Not a lot of owning this going on

As Adam Server writes in The Atlantic,  Trump's caravan hysteria (promoted, even with the Soros conspiracy theory connection, on Fox News) clearly motivated the Pittsburgh Synagogue killer.    

Of course, those on the Right in media commentary have rushed to the fact that he was not a Trump supporter, thinking that he had also sold out to the Jewish globalists.   It's a pretty lame excuse to say "hey, you can't blame us:  he started with a completely made up conspiracy supported by Trump and his virtual State television network - but then he went too far!"

As Slate writes in one article:

He was a staunch anti-Semite. A few hours before he set out to kill as many Jews as he could, he echoed a vile conspiracy theory that blames George Soros for most of America’s evils—the same conspiracy that the president himself validated as recently as Friday. And yet, unlike the man suspected of manufacturing the mail bombs, one of which was sent to Soros, the Pittsburgh suspect does not appear to have been a fan of the president’s.
Rather, he regarded Trump as a “globalist” who had sold out to the Jewish world conspiracy.

In another Slate take:  Why Did Synagogue Suspect Believe Migrant Caravan Is Jewish Conspiracy? Maybe He Watched Fox News. 

I note also that there is not a lot of "owning" of this going on in Right wing commentators:   Bolt, Blair, Hot Air - all saying nothing about how a Fox News promoted meme fitted right in with right wing terrorism.

I mean, two of those are unlikely to attack Uncle Rupert, but I was hoping someone at Hot Air might have the courage to address it.   Probably Allahpundit - as he is hated by many of its readers for being too critical of Trump.

I see that at least Jonah Goldberg has written about how dismaying he finds Right wing belief in conspiracy theories.  But this was written before the Saturday killings.  He should update it.

Update:   Also interesting to note the slackness of Twitter in dealing with false memes, debunked years ago, of a kind that are dangerous in the hands of nutters, so to speak:

Did God send Trump to Earth to flush out fools?

With all the false flag BS about the US mail bomber now evaporating away, we are left with Donald Trump whining like a 7 year old that of course he's entitled to use the appalling rhetoric about the media* being "the enemy of the people" and his political opponents deserving jail, because the media is "so mean" and "unfair" to him and Republicans.

The media, and his political opponents are, presumably, meant to ignore that his White House has leaked like a sieve about his child like attention span, the odd near fist fight between staff, his self-disclosed lack of understanding about economics and trade, and the stream of lies and BS that comprises his constant, narcissism fuelled mini Nuremberg rallies.  Oh, and his refusal to disclose his tax returns.  Or that his tax cuts are fuelling an unsustainable growth in the deficit, exactly how everyone except Laffer-ite fantacists predicted.

I am constantly aghast that he has any supporters at all - and in all honesty, when I read someone who I used to think was at least a well intentioned, if wrong, conservative defending him, or using their  "whatabout-ism" tactics to downplay how unprecedented, nasty and so patently narcissistic his behaviour is, it makes me feel not just that the culture wars can make people believe ridiculous things, but that they must have been secret idiots all this time. 

It's like he was sent here to flush out the secretly stupid.

Maybe I should call this my Trump Theodicy.



* except Fox News

Top TV

I have to say, Episode 6 of Fargo Season 2 was just fantastic.  The acting, direction, writing:  just all brilliant.  Maybe not entirely credible - I mean, how many black underworld killers can recite Jabberwocky?   But no matter - maybe it was just my mood, but I find it hard recalling another hour of TV that was so pleasingly well executed.

Have to get in some more Leyonhjelm ridicule before he departs the scene

I should have known that David Leyonhjelm would have voted for the stupid, Pauline Hanson "it's OK to be white" motion dog whistle last week.    Well, he said (stupidly), he felt if he didn't vote for it, it might be interpreted as meaning he doesn't think it's OK to be white.   He says that even while acknowledging that he knows that it's a favourite saying amongst white supremacist groups.

I suppose it's nice that he parses all motions just at their face value -  he won't miss the meaning when I say he's a woeful, grating, arrogant, moral moron who demonstrates all the reasons libertarianism is rightly regarded by 99% of the public as a stupidly over-simplistic, self indulgent wank of a political philosophy that appeals primarily to the selfish who fall somewhere on the Aspie spectrum. 

He will be missed by no one, save for the (in a political sense) handful of people in his party.*

There, I feel better after that...

Anyway, this post was inspired by an amusing bit of ridicule I can see by Ben Pobjie at the start of piece I can see at Crikey, (which I wish would sack Helen Razor so I can subscribe to it in good conscience that I'm not helping pay for her absurdly self indulgent word-spews):

Every now and then, in the course of history, it falls to one brave individual to draw a line in the sand. It should come as no surprise that in our age, that individual is David Leyonhjelm: he is after all the man who reintroduced guns as a valid sexual preference in this country. And it is Leyonhjelm who has today stared down the forces of Stalinist mind control and said “No More”, by stating clearly the simple truth that “if it is OK to be white, we should be able to say so”.

As the Senator says, by allowing ourselves to be cowed into not saying that it’s OK to be white, we are letting the white supremacists win. For just as if we make guns illegal, only criminals will have guns, if we make saying “it’s OK to be white” illegal, only criminals will say it’s OK to be white. Is that a future we want, or even understand?

*  Which reminds me - how well did it fare in the Wentworth by-election?   I'm glad you (by which I mean, "I") asked:  Came in behind the Animal Justice Party, Sustainable Australia, the Science Party, and even (in harbourside Sydney, about as psychologically far from outback Northern Queensland as you can get) - Katter's Australia Party (!).

Um, if anyone thinks there's a future for the LDP from people actually intentionally voting for it: well, you don't need legalised drugs - you're already living in a fantasy land.   

Damaged goods

Yeah, I heard Barnaby get very upset with Fran Kelly for even mentioning there had been a sexual harassment allegation against him (the one to which the internal investigation had found a solid "We dunno.")

He is very damaged political goods, I reckon.   Should give it away and become a house-husband, or something.  It would lower his Child Support Assessment, that's for sure.

A potentially dangerous pill

I didn't know that some people taking a green tea supplement in capsule form have had severe liver damage from it:

While millions of people take green tea supplements safely, at least 80 cases of liver injury linked to green tea supplements have been reported around the world, ranging from lassitude and jaundice to cases requiring liver transplants. Those harmed after taking green tea pills have included teenagers, like 17-year-old Madeline Papineau from Ontario, Canada who developed liver and kidney injury, and an 81-year-old woman diagnosed with toxic acute hepatitis.

The article says the dangers are highest if they are taken as a dieting aid. 

When the WSJ has to keep correcting Trump...

...you would think that at some point, Murdoch would tell his editors to start softening their support for him.  Latest example:

“We don’t have tariffs anywhere,” President Trump said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. In fact, his administration this year has placed levies on more than $300 billion in imports.

Mr. Trump said he views tariffs as a trade negotiating tactic. “We don’t even have tariffs,” he said in the interview. “I’m using tariffs to negotiate. I mean, other than some tariffs on steel—which is actually small, what do we have? ... Where do we have tariffs? We don’t have tariffs anywhere.”

He was right when he asserted in the interview that not all tariffs threatened in trade negotiations have been imposed, such as tariffs on car imports.

And yet, so far this year, the U.S. has acted on threats to impose tariffs -- ranging from 10% to 50% -- on several classes of products. Here’s a list of the tariffs that have been put into place.

I strongly suspect that there are few businessmen who genuinely think Trump knows what he is doing, or understands anything properly.   It's just that they find him a useful idiot to get some of what they want by working on the people around him.

Thank you, internet repair men/persons

(I'm sorry, but they have all been men, in my experience.)

I'm here to praise the internet, and give myself a pat on the back, for having solved a dishwasher problem last night.  (I had no idea that solid material as small as a few lemon seeds, in the right spot, could result in a dishwasher leaving a substantial pool of grotty water inside.)

I think this is the third time in a couple of years where I've found the answer to an appliance problem on the internet (last night, courtesy of Youtube) and fixed it in light of the helpful information other people put up there.

One other thing - I was cynical about the use of bicarb soda and vinegar as a cleaning agent, but it did help my dishwasher problem last night in a very indirect way.   I didn't have the right tool to get a screw out (it needed a hexagonal head, like an allen key, OK?) to remove a plastic cover over a part of the machine I wanted to get to.   But I put in bicarb and a cup of vinegar in a general hope it would help de-grease things.   The fizzing up of the mix was what actually floated upwards, out from beneath the cover I couldn't remove, the lemon seeds that I suspect were at the heart of the problem.

Fascinating, I'm sure you'll agree.

Everyone needs a hobby, I suppose..

Human urine bricks invented by South African students

Actually, it's (literally) a cool technology idea for developing countries:

The engineering students at the University of Cape Town (UCT) have been harvesting urine from men's toilets.

After first making a solid fertiliser, the leftover liquid is then used in a biological process "to grow" what the university calls "bio-bricks".

The process is called microbial carbonate precipitation.

The bacteria produces an enzyme that breaks down urea in the urine, forming calcium carbonate, which then binds the sand into rock hard, grey bricks.

The advantage:

Normal bricks need to be baked in high-temperature kilns that produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.

And the final round goes to: China!

Gee, in what has sadly become an unusual event, an interesting, detailed post has turned up at Club Troppo again.

Paul Frijters argues that China has got a lot of long term strength behind it, which means it will beat the US in the long run in any "one on one" power fight.  His concluding paragraphs:

So if you look carefully, America has no chance of really ‘winning’ a cold war against China. If the US teams up with Europe, which is still the likely longer-run scenario, it can hold its own against China. If it furthermore teams up with large parts of Latin America and India, it will for another 20 years or so be the largest player in the block facing China.

So, the US is no longer the biggest single economic or political player on the planet. That mantle already belongs to the Chinese whose only competitor this century will be India. The Americans just have to get over it, and the current phase of denial was probably inevitable in their grieving process. We should help the Americans get over it. Part of our task as allies.

In many ways, the relative weakness of the Americans is probably a good thing. It bodes for a relatively ‘warm’ cold war that makes it easier for the Europeans to push the US from its dominant Internet and financial positions, paving the way for a more multi-polar world where large blocks keep each other in check. If the Europeans can limit the damage that the Americans will inflict in their grieving process, there are good reasons to be optimistic about peace in the 21^st century!

And Republicans carried on about Hillary's emails being a security risk...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chinese spies often eavesdrop on President Donald Trump when he uses his unsecure cellphone to gossip with old friends, and Beijing uses what it learns to try to sway U.S. policy, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing current and former U.S. officials.

Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure and that Russian spies routinely eavesdrop on the conversations, but they say the president still refuses to give up his cellular phones, the Times reported.

The officials said U.S. spy agencies had learned from people in foreign governments and by intercepting communications from foreign officials that China and Russia were listening to the president’s calls.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the Times report.

China has a sophisticated approach toward the intercepted calls and is seeking to use them to determine what Trump thinks, whom he listens to and how best to sway him, the Times reported, cited the officials.

Of course, I can imagine his conversations with "old friends" probably contains a ridiculously high noise to useful information ratio.   I can imagine some intelligence analyst in Beijing grimacing about having to listen again to the time he got some model or other into his bed.

Update:  Allahpundit at Hot Air is pretty much spot on, I expect:

 The view on both left and right for the most part will be a fatalistic “this is just how things are now” even though there absolutely would have been impeachment chatter among the House GOP if the Times had dropped a story like this on Obama. (If you thought Emailgate was a strong attack line against Hillary, imagine if she’d been caught using a phone which she knew had been tapped by foreign spooks.) In fact, if I know MAGA Nation, I bet we’ll see a few hot takes online tomorrow that this is all eight-dimensional chess and that Trump wants the Russians and Chinese listening in because it’s easier for him to feed them disinformation that way.

 He also finds amusement (and/or dismay) with this:

Administration officials said Mr. Trump’s longtime paranoia about surveillance — well before coming to the White House he believed his phone conversations were often being recorded — gave them some comfort that he was not disclosing classified information on the calls. They said they had further confidence he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.

He just doesn’t pay close enough attention to the details of his job to pose a real security risk. Whew?

Just the title is likely to cause Steve Kates to have a nervous breakdown

And Jason Soon will probably enjoy it too:

She should be pleased

That looks like a very flattering, and somewhat unconventional, official portrait of Julia Gillard:

It does look like a selfie blown up large, though; which I think will make it look out of place with the others.  Still, she should be happy with it.

And by the way - she continues to be one of the most dignified and likeable public figures around.   History will remember her as a basically good Prime Minster who had the job under very difficult circumstances.

Localised drug problems

I find it interesting how localised certain illicit drug problems can be.   I've posted about this before.  I think it's odd how, say, meth can be the problem drug in outback Australia, but hardly used at all in rural Britain.  Not entirely sure how that happens - some combination of cost and marketing decisions by the suppliers I suppose.  But there seems to be a bit of social contagion about it too. 

Anyway, the illicit problem drug of choice, so to speak, in New Zealand is apparently synthetic cannabis, and it does sound quite dangerous:

Daniel says synthetics have become the drug of choice because they are cheap and easy to buy. He believes the death rate is far higher than official figures.

Despite the risks to users, New Zealand is struggling to contain a synthetic cannabis epidemic, with children as young as 11 using the drug and entire neighbourhoods collapsing under the strain of addiction.

The government has been urged to confront the crisis after 45 people died from using the drug in the past year, making it the nation’s most deadly narcotic. In September dozens were hospitalised after a bad batch circulated in Christchurch, claiming two lives.

The grip of the drug re-emerged after a Radio NZ investigation found the entire suburb of Maraenui in Napier had been “swallowed” up by synthetics, with not a single person unaffected. 

I am told by a New Zealand born friend that cannabis itself was readily available when he was a young man there, which surprised me a bit, as I would have guessed that the climate there wasn't really ideal for its outdoor cultivation.

I wonder if there is any push there for legalisation of the natural product as being a better alternative than the black market of the synthetic.

But honestly, I still find it hard to believe that there is much benefit to adding more drugs into the mix of existing legal ones, particularly in poorer areas where drug use seems tied up with boredom and lack of economic opportunity.

A completely normal White House

It's kinda incredible that a story like this is not really attracting all that much attention.  But that's what happens when you put in a narcissistic lying idiot in the Oval Office:

The New York Times, citing half a dozen sources, reported that an altercation in February between White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Corey Lewandowski turned physical, requiring the Secret Service to intervene in the episode outside the Oval Office.

According to Maggie Haberman and Katie Rogers, the near-brawl happened after a joint meeting between the men and President Trump. After a shouting match, Kelly grabbed Lewandowski by his collar and tried to push him against a wall. Lewandowski did not get physical, and the two men agreed to move on after Secret Service agents appeared on the scene.

Another teeth grinding piece at The Conversation

At the risk of upsetting one of my rare regular readers - this article at The Conversation "Why 
rapid on-set gender dysphoria is bad science"  shows what a ridiculously partisan and untrustworthy field this is.

As I said in my earlier post, it is patently clear that those with intense "pro transgender" take on the matter feel they must immediately attack and try to shut down anyone who dares suggest that there might be more to look at than just what a transgender child/person says about themselves. 

It is a ridiculous attack on the paper surveying parents which made it plain it was aware of its limitations, and acted more as a call for further research.

But no no no, we can't have that, can we?

If you enjoy grinding your teeth over cultural appropriation handwringing...

...you should try reading this article at The Conversation.

But make sure you read comments too.  There really is quite a pushback against this confected  grievance industry.

Or..they could try wearing a shirt?

An article at Medicalxpress notes that some Indian researchers have come up with a topical gel which "can be used by farmers to prevent nerve damage due to chemical crop spraying."

The article is accompanied by a video starting with this image:

Maybe I am too easily amused, but apart from the silly Bollywood macho vibe, my other thought is  "Hey, put a shirt on for your own protection, and stop waving about that poisonous chemical!"