More scenes from Singapore

There's a large monastery and temple complex in the middle of Singapore, the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, which is not exactly on the usual tourist path, but it has some impressive features:

Okay, so this impressively large concrete building (it's the roof that makes it look so eyecatching) is not in fact a temple, but a "memorial hall", and the ground floor seemed to serve food, but I don't know if they do to just anyone.  We got there just after lunch, and the floor was being cleaned, and we were not allowed in.  

In fact, as I said at the start, the whole place is not exactly set up as tourist friendly:  there is nothing really at the entry to explain where to go or what to do, for example.  I don't think it has its own website, either, but here is the Wikipedia entry.   There is an office which seems to cater to people who are going there to do courses, and a gift shop with some (rather expensive) items for sale.   They obviously don't mind tourists being there - as you will see, there are explanatory signs in front of most of the individual temples, but that's about it.   (Oh, there is a large crematorium on the grounds too, and one of the buildings is a columbarium for storing the ashes, so I can understand why you don't want to make too touristy.) 

So one of the larger "halls", with no one else in it on the week day when we were there:

 

So, you can read for yourself what this other particular hall, with its very colourful decoration, is about.

The building to the left is in fact a large library, no doubt used by the students who stay at the monastery, but I think open to the public as well.   I did not go on, but I will next time!

 

In any event, over near the office part, they were giving out free books on Buddhism, and I took one which talks about Chinese Buddhism, but I have yet to read it.  Still - free books, who can complain?

 

Next, a tree with some history behind it.   I am not familiar with how many trees there are around the world supposedly descended from the "original" Bodhi tree, but as with the matter of the number of Buddha's teeth around the place, I would not be surprised if there was reason for skepticism.

The whole grounds, and all of the buildings, are extremely well kept and maintained, giving the impression (as does the Buddha's Tooth temple in town) that Singaporean Buddhism is extremely well funded.  In fact, here is an extract from the Wikipedia page exactly on that point:

In the same year in October 2007, the temple was one of seven religious groups ordered by the Commissioner of Charities (COC) to open their books to auditors.^[9] With an annual income of S$14.95 million, it had one of the largest incomes among the charities under the COC's direct purview. Its main income sources were crematorium and columbarium services, prayer services and donations. Between November 2007 and June 2008, the monastery also reportedly gave free meals to about 200 people daily,^[10] clarifying their prayer and meditation practices instead of relying on probable means of incomes such as exorcism.^[11]

Well, actually, that doesn't seem all that big an income for such a physically large complex.  (My photos don't show it all.)   Also, I didn't know that Buddhists made income from exorcism.   Maybe just Chinese Buddhism?   Although here is an article about it in Vietnam:

With nearly 80% of Vietnamese people holding Buddhist beliefs in some form, Buddhism-based healing is popular in Vietnam. Coupled with cultural stigma against seeking formal mental health services, Vietnamese people with psychological needs frequently seek different forms of healing at Buddhist temples, including exorcism and spirit-calling. In this article, I present case vignettes of exorcism and spirit-calling that I documented during my ethnographic study in Vietnam. Based on these cases, I will discuss the healing impact of spiritual activities like Buddhism-based exorcism and spirit-calling for Vietnamese people and implications for social work in Vietnam and elsewhere.

And buddhaweekly.com has a longer article about it.   I must admit, I have wondered whether anyone has studied the utility of conducting an exorcism rite (not a "real" one, with a real priest - as they will only do it if they think it is a real possession) but a "placebo" style rite on a person with mental illness who thinks they might be possessed.

Perhaps hard to get that past the ethics committee!

When I Google the topic, I see there is a rather interesting article from 2009 called "Placebo Controls, Exorcisms and the Devil" which is worth a look, too.  In fact, it might deserve its own post.

All interesting...

 

Pick my ending! Pick my ending!

Some slightly concerning news:

Rumors are swirling about Disney’s recent test-screenings of James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones 5.” Supposedly, a handful of different endings have been tested and audiences haven’t liked any of them. Furthermore, the rumors indicate that Disney is in a panic over the screenings and that they’re worried the movie will bomb.

One of the endings, which was said to be the least popular one, had Phoebe-Waller Bridge replacing Harrison Ford at the end of the movie. Presumably, this would set up the franchise for further sequels with Ford not returning. Another unpopular conclusion had Ford’s Indiana Jones dying.

The last thing Disney needs is another Indiana Jones movie bombing with audiences, especially after the major shrug that greeted “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. I’m still holding out hope that this fifth installment will be a return to form, but, I won’t lie, I’m concerned.

There's time to shoot and insert my ending, which I've stated here before, several times [gosh - starting in 2007!]:   Indiana Jones needs to be shown as a late addition to the line of people entering the mothership at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  

You know it makes sense.

I do not want to be paid (well not much) for this brilliant idea - I reckon $100,000 would do it.

The "Mary Kay Mussolini" still doing video with a soft glow

It amuses me no end when you see Lake on a split screen, with one side (never hers) looking like normal, crisply clear video, and the other with the "smear of vaseline on the lens" look, similar to what used to happen sometimes to face shots of Cybil Shepherd in Moonlighting, if I recall correctly.   (I did like Cybil, though.)

Excellent new definition spotted

Also - OMG, I just saw a Kari Lake ad, in which she literally swings a sledgehammer into some TVs while she decries how "corrupt" the leftist MSM is.   Honestly, if a politician in Australia used such advertising, they would be laughed out of contention.  I don't think we appreciate how crazy American political advertising can be.
 

Some relevant tweets about the Trump problem

Update:   Erik Wemple at Washington Post provides the usual caution that some seem to be forgetting:  Murdoch press has attacked Trump before, but Fox News continues the tongue bath:

All these examples yield an important lesson about the federalism that prevails in the Murdoch media empire. It’s apparently just fine that the mogul’s print publications adopt one stance toward Trump while opinion hosts at his most influential outlet, Fox News, promote an entirely different one. For while the newspapers have attacked Trump, Hannity has given the former president airtime in softball interview after softball interview. He also played a central role in boosting Trump’s midterm agenda, presiding over puffy events and interviews with multiple Republican candidates.

Now, in the midst of all the Murdoch murmuring, Semafor reporters Shelby Talcott and David Weigel report that the Hannity-Trump alliance might be foundering. Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz lost his Pennsylvania campaign against Democrat John Fetterman despite Hannity’s strong and persistent advocacy for Oz. Trump emerged from election night “upset” with Hannity, according to Talcott and Weigel.

Let’s put that in context: Prime-time anchors at Fox News have extraordinary autonomy to say and do what they want. Hannity has used that latitude to boost Trump rhetorically as well as crossing over into political activism on his behalf. This behavior has persisted ever since Trump has been at the center of national politics.

On Wednesday night, in his first show since the Republicans’ disappointing midterm showing, Hannity steered away from discussing the former president, focusing instead on the Republican candidates who won and the pitfalls of those who “overpromise” and “under-deliver.” After seven years of praising Trump, Hannity is unlikely to shift gears just because others in the Murdoch empire have written some critical editorials. If Trump’s fortunes keep sliding, the host might one day embrace alternatives.

One day.

And make no mistake: A Hannity breakup with Trump — which might just entail a revolt among Hannity’s core viewers — would be the greatest spectacle in cable-news history.

Yes:  unless Hannity and (more importantly, I think) Tucker Carlson stop supporting Trump, there is no hope of a "civil" transfer of leadership power to DeSantis, or anyone.   

 

For posterity

Dover beach, the conspiracy addled conservative Catholic who runs the Australian home for ageing angry conservatives reactionaries,  opined:

Here is my prediction. In the Senate, like Gingrich, I think we are looking at a 53-55 R majority. In the House, I think we can expect something in the low 240s. Surprises in the Senate, I think, may include pick-ups in the NH and NV. I think Walker will win the GA Senate convincingly less so Masters but he is a very good candidate and future of the party so I hope to see him get through and pick-up the Senate seat. Lake’s strong run for AZ Gov and the generic support for R should lift him over the line.

On the election night:

He's also stopped with the "of course the Russians know what they're doing" line of (what's the opposite of passive aggression? Passive cheerleading?) regarding Ukraine.

He's foolish - doesn't recognise Right wing commentary con men for what they are - and obnoxiously arrogant, but doesn't know it. 

 

Digging into 20,000 years of crap

A short item at the Nature website features this photo:

 and explains that it's no ordinary rock she's leaning on:

This might look like an ordinary rock formation, but the black material is actually preserved faeces and urine from a small mammal called a rock hyrax (Procavia capensis).

Hyraxes, which are common in Africa and the Middle East, look like groundhogs but are more closely related to manatees and elephants. They live in crevasses and pick one spot to use as a latrine. The use of the same spot over tens of thousands of years creates a layered refuse heap known as a midden that scientists can mine for palaeoclimatic data. I specialize in examining the pollen in these dungheaps for information about the vegetation and climate of the past.

Our team found this site in May, in the Cape Fold Belt mountains of South Africa, using a drone to help investigate crevasses. We were excited when we saw the extent of this midden; we think it covers at least 20,000 years.

 The article fails to include a photo f a rock hyrax, so I had to Google it:

 Cute!  And very considerate, not pooping all over the place.  :)

Considering DeSantis

I really don't follow State level American politics all that closely - who has the time, honestly - so it's not like I have watched DeSantis much at all.   But we are being hit with a wave of Right wing admiration for him for being a Right wing culture warrior who wins (latest example - the recently divorcing Rod Dreher) - and I have to say it's strong enough that I am starting to think Trump is not going to survive it. 

So, there are going to be many, many more words spilt on analysis as to why DeSantis did so well.  I have some guesses of my own, but stand to be corrected on any of them:

*  the retirees there are not likely to be concerned about abortion as an issue.  Doesn't affect them.  And Florida is full of older folk, as this map shows:

 

* Some have been saying that DeSantis looked credible during the recent hurricane recovery - and it is true, even I noticed that he did openly thank Biden for the help and co-operation from the Federal level in a way one would find it hard imagining Trump (if in his place) ever doing. (Trump throwing paper towels to victims was one of the worst images to come out of his presidency.)   So yeah, it's easy to understand DeSantis getting a boost from that, and he is capable of playing "normal politician, with normal manners" at times, when appropriate.

* Similarly, lots of folk are saying that his "keep open under Covid" approach went down well in a State full of tourism businesses.   I think age may be a factor in that too - seems to me that the older a Right winger is, the more likely they are to value convenience over risk.   They're probably the first to have rushed back to the cruise lines, for example.   

* Some say that the Democrats are very poorly organised in Florida, but I have no idea why that is the case.

* The Big Question:  how much does the culture warrior, anti-woke, status of the "Don't say Gay" governor factor into his electoral success?   I wonder if concerns about school kids exposure to "gay" material in school is higher amongst the older population than actual school parents?  I would have to look for some survey results on that.   But, here I will be honest and say that, at least on this aspect of the culture wars, I thought that DeSantis was kind of clever, as he could easily claim the law was doing something most parents would accept - that you don't need to go out of your way to "teach" kids about gay or alternative relationships during early school:

The new law, championed by Florida’s GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, bans lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade as well as material that is not deemed age-appropriate. Most educators do not expect a major change in lesson plans — one of the key reasons critics cited in saying the law was unnecessary was that teachers do not cover such subjects in early grades anyway.

But some worry it sets a tone that will leave LGBTQ teachers and kids feeling ostracized.  

Some gay and lesbian teachers (or Disney executives) who would turn up on Tik Tok claiming that took every opportunity to insert "gay" narratives pretty much were asking for pushback, and DeSantis took it up enthusiastically.   And it seems to me arguable that the response was -  shall we say - more moderate than it could have been.  More like right wing virtue signalling, perhaps.

Still, as I said recently, I don't see much in the way of broad charisma - and I see that apparently Ross Douthat would agree:

Now, there are various ways that this analysis might overstate the DeSantis case. There are reasons apart from his political skills that Florida has trended sharply to the right, and his message and persona might not yield the same results elsewhere. You can’t base a 2024 campaign just on being the guy who kept a sunny vacation destination open for business in 2021 (and drew many right-of-center migrants in the process). You can’t assume that the Hispanic vote nationwide will follow the same patterns as in South Florida. You can’t count on DeSantis’s peculiar kind of anti-charisma playing nationally the way it has played in his home state.

And, who knows:  his success may well go to his head and lead to overreach.

But overall, we do have to remember:  Florida is a weird kind of place.  

Update: I forgot about the ridiculous "con illegal immigrants into going to Martha's Vineyard" exercise, which I reckon shows a dangerous inclination to overreach which is going to get him into trouble.  

And a couple of tweets expressing skepticism of his appeal on a national stage:

Advice I didn't need

There must be enough alternative medicine sites around promoting "urine therapies" that The Conversation has run an article warning against things like drinking urine.  

It does note that urine normally doesn't contain a lot of bugs:

In most cases only very low levels of bacteria are excreted in urine. But the idea urine might be sterile is simply a myth. The word sterile means “completely clean and free from dirt and bacteria”.

Our body is full of resident bacterial colonies that maintain our health and assist with general daily functions. This means most of our body is not sterile, and the bladder is no exception.

A high level of bacteria is usually associated with urinary tract infections. Nonetheless, there’s an ever-growing body of research identifying all kinds of healthy bacteria living in our bladder, which can be excreted in the urine of healthy people. 

But still warns against, ahem, peeing in the shower:

Peeing in the shower is also a no-no, as urine can cause infections if it comes in contact with cuts or wounds on your legs. This practice can even make disorders such as overactive bladder or incontinence worse, by causing our brains to associate running water with the “need to pee”. 

However, this last line seems a little over the top:

If you accidentally drink urine, call your local poisons information centre for advice.

The embarrassment factor of explaining how a person came to accidentally drink it must be high, though...

 

Election analysis noted

 

Although parts of Fox News have apparently been flying the "DeSantis is the new Republican leader" line, I would think that Carlson's and Hannity's take on whether Trump or DeSantis should be the next candidate is going to be more important.     

Update:  Oh, the (quite influential, I think) professional wingnut blog Powerline has John Hinderaker strongly attacking Trump:

At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States. He has teased a “big announcement” in the next few days. I hope he announces that he is moving to Bulgaria.

Oh look, 53 minutes of Biden sounding reasonable and presidential

This happened to be streaming live this morning on Youtube, so I got to watch Biden deliver prepared comments, but then go on to take an extensive number of questions from the Press.   He played it very straight, Presidential, and reasonable; promising to try to work with Republicans to get things done, but also saying there are key initiatives he is not to going to go back on.  Pointed out that even with a majority in the House, if it not overwhelming, there is always hope to move some Republicans towards consensus support on certain things.  Repeated his optimism for America going forward.   And, of course, not sounding the least bit like someone suffering dementia:

 

On that last point - if I haven't made it clear before, this is why I say "journalists" or opinion makers who persist in building a narrative of "dementia Joe" (based on things like 5 second clips of his not knowing which way he is meant to leave a stage) deserve zero respect and are appalling people. And the right wingers who repeat this line are dumb and gullible and need to be sat down and made to watch material like this video and then be challenged "seriously, you think this is a man who is so feeble he doesn't know what he's doing?"

Lots of "Trump in trouble" talk

Many people already speculating that a Trump/DeSantis showdown over the Presidential nomination must now happen, given Trump's high profile mid term picks did pretty poorly, and DeSantis did so well.  Some say DeSantis should sit it out and run in 2028 - he's only 44 (gawd - he could pass for older.)   But surely, there are enough in the GOP to know that Trump won't win in 2024??   Biden may not be super popular, but Trump is extremely damaged goods outside of his cult following, and stuck in stale repetition.    Even the ageing Australian dimwits at the post Catallaxy blogs are mostly against Trump running again.

Finally, are we going to have an actual confrontation between the Trump MAGA idiot wing of the Party, and the rest of it??   I hope so.

And incidentally, I don't think DeSantis has any noticeable charisma at all.  I don't expect him to do well at the national level.

He's taking it well

Jim Hoft, of prime wingnut disinformation site Gateway Pundit, is taking the mid term election results in his stride [sarc]:

BLOOD MOON BLOODBATH… Democrats Steal Midterms, Communism Comes Home to America… Crime, Inflation, Record Gas Prices, War, Open Borders and Corruption WIN BIG  

Why there won't be a civil war

There are lots of seats still up for grabs, but I took a screenshot of this from the NYT to show how red and blue is pretty mixed up within most states:

At the time of writing - nothing is 100% clear, except that it was not a "red wave".   Seems most likely that the Senate may be the same as it was (Dem control with the VP vote), but lose the Reps by a small number.  (Although some are saying it is still conceivable that the Dems keep the Reps by one.  That would be impressive...)

She is truly awful

Her losing today would be one of the greatest highlights:

Update:  this amused me -

Droughts and floods under climate change - a good explanation

I strongly recommend this video, which explains clearly the issue which millions of climate change denialists have clung to for a decade or two:  climate change can mean both worse floods and worse droughts.  It's not that hard to understand, but it does have its complications (in terms of the different effects in different parts of the globe):

 

The video also brings to my attention a massive American historical flood of which I was unaware - the Californian one of 1861-2. 

Pre-emptive conspiracy to comfort themselves

It's remarkable - the way they pre-arm themselves with conspiracy claims as the being the only reason they could possibly lose.   Read about it at the Washington Post (gift link.)

Prominent Republicans who do not call out this divisive fantasy BS on their own side are at the core of the problem.

Consider the chickens of Singapore

One of the most surprising things about Singapore is that it's not only so lushly green and fecund with plant life, but it's increasingly attractive to wild animal life.   I haven't managed to see the otters yet, but this last recent trip, it became quickly obvious that wild chickens are now a "thing" there.   

The photo above was near my hotel, pretty close to Chinatown, and as you can see, the busy road was no deterrent.  (It was, perhaps, thinking about crossing it...ha ha.)  This was not the only one I saw.  While having dinner at a footpath place there were a few on the nearby bit of lawn one evening.

And this recent article explains what's been going on:

Since 2020, the National Parks Board (NParks) has received more than 1,000 reports annually about free-ranging chickens, said Ms Jessica Kwok, group director of NParks’ Animal and Veterinary Service (AVS).

Animal Concerns Research and Education Society's (ACRES) co-chief executive Anbarasi Boopal told CNA that the animal welfare group has seen an increase in feedback related to the chickens. There were nine reports in 2019 as compared to 18 reports last year and 14 reports in 2022 so far, she said. 

Feedback came from locations “more or less” all over Singapore, such as Marine Parade, Pasir Ris, and Ang Mo Kio, said Ms Anbarasi.

Add to that list - Tanjong Pagar, where I saw "my" chickens.  I think they are more widespread than even that recent article notes.  More from it:

The issue of wild chickens came to the fore in 2017, when the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) revealed that it put down 24 chickens that were wandering around Thomson View and Blocks 452 to 454 Sin Ming Avenue. There were about 20 complaints from residents there, mainly about noise.

The incident sparked an outcry. AVA later clarified that it was not because of complaints of noise, but the risk of exposure to bird flu that prompted them to cull the chickens in areas where there are “relatively high numbers” of them.

Since then, a task force has been set up to deal with the chicken population at Sin Ming.

But just a moment - was my chicken actually a "junglefowl":

At the same time, not all wild birds are alike.

Often confused for wild chickens, native red junglefowl can also be spotted throughout Singapore even though they were rare a decade or so ago.

While they may look similar to chickens, they have a number of characteristics that set them apart, said Dr Yong Ding Li, the regional coordinator for migratory bird conservation and an ornithologist at BirdLife International.

These junglefowl have grey legs, unlike domestic chickens which generally have yellow legs. They also have a shorter and more abrupt call and a white tuft of feathers on their rump. However, many hybrids exist and it can be hard to tell them apart.

"It's very common that junglefowl come into contact with these farm chickens and they hybridise on and off, on and off, so the genes of these junglefowl and chicken have been mixing," he said.

Junglefowl have become increasingly common over the last few decades as they have "colonised" more habitats across the island, added Dr Yong.

In the early 2000s, red junglefowl were mostly found in the Western Catchment Area and Pulau Ubin, but they can now be spotted in many urban areas and most nature reserves, he added.

OK, so maybe my picture is a fine specimen of a junglefowl, but it's still surprising that such a densely packed city like Singapore has more of them around than ever before.  (Or, I guess, maybe it's just a case of reduced bushland in which to hide.)

Anyway, I like seeing them.

 

 

Thanks for the help, fellas: now get out

Watching a bit of CNA today brought this example of pretty shameful British behaviour to my attention for the first time.   I see now that there was a long article in The Guardian about it last year, from which these extracts come.

First, I didn't know this about Liverpool before:

By most reckonings, Liverpool has the oldest Chinese community in Europe. At the root of this relationship was the shipping group Alfred Holt & Company, founded in Liverpool in 1866, and their major subsidiary the Blue Funnel Line, whose cargo steamships connected Shanghai, Hong Kong and Liverpool. Alfred Holt & Co quickly became one of Britain’s biggest merchant shipping companies, importing silk, cotton and tea. Over time, some of the Chinese seamen settled in Liverpool, starting businesses to serve those on shore leave. Records from the turn of the century show Chinese-run boarding houses, grocers, laundries, tailors, a chandler and, in Mr Kwok Fong, even a private detective. The 1911 census shows 400 Chinese-born residents, with many more coming and going. By the end of the first world war, the community numbered in the thousands.  

So, in World War 2:

The second world war would bring many more Chinese seamen to Liverpool. China was, in historian Rana Mitter’s formulation, “the forgotten ally”. Not only did China play a vital role in the fight against Japan in Asia, Chinese seamen also kept the British merchant navy going. Beginning in 1939, Alfred Holt & Company, along with Anglo-Saxon Petroleum (part of Shell), recruited men in Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong. They were to crew the ships on missions across the Atlantic, bringing essential supplies of oil, munitions and food to the UK, and escorting convoys to the front. This was exceptionally dangerous work. About 3,500 merchant vessels were sunk by Nazi U-boats, and more than 72,000 lives were lost on the Allied side.

One Chinese merchant seaman, Poon Lim, became famous for surviving 133 days adrift on a tiny raft, after his British vessel was torpedoed by a U-boat in the south Atlantic. Lim and his countrymen were hailed as firm comrades in a 1944 Ministry of Information propaganda film, The Chinese in Wartime Britain. “East met west, and liked it,” explains the film’s narrator in his finest Pathe News accent, as we are shown these new friends working as doctors, engineers and scientists, and then recovering on land in between missions, drinking tea, practising calligraphy and playing table tennis. The Chinese merchant seamen fought “shoulder to shoulder in the greatest battle of naval history, alongside their British seamen comrades. They, too, brave the torpedoes and the bombs and the mines, making history under fire … life at sea fuels a unique spirit of comradeship between the men of all nations.”

For the Chinese seamen, official British gratitude and friendship did not extend far beyond the silver screen.

In reality, they were (at least initially) paid half of what the British seamen got and did the worst and most dangerous jobs.  A strike improved their pay.   But their numbers were large:

During the war, as many as 20,000 Chinese seamen worked in the shipping industry out of Liverpool. They kept the British merchant navy afloat, and thus kept the people of Britain fuelled and fed while the Nazis attempted to choke off the country’s supply lines. The seamen were a vital part of the allied war effort, some of the “heroes of the fourth service” in the words of one book title about the merchant navy. Working below deck in the engine rooms, they died in their thousands on the perilous Atlantic run under heavy attack from German U-boats.

But the kicker at the end of the war was that the government decided that they couldn't stay in England, and were secretly and forcefully deported back to various Chinese ports, leaving behind wives and children in many cases.   (Apparently, the families often initially assumed they had been abandoned by their partner or father.)  

The plan was deceptive in many respects - dates were amended on papers allowing for the police to treat them as "overstaying", and men with families were deliberately not told of their right to stay:

Although marrying a local woman did not give the Chinese men the right to British citizenship, the Home Office was aware that it did give them the right to stay in the UK. This information was deliberately withheld. On 14 November, Liverpool Immigration Officer JR Garstang had written to London that “it would be unwise … to give any indication to the Chinese that because a man is married to a British-born woman he will have a claim to domicile in the UK”. In a follow-up letter, sent on 15 December, Garstang reiterated that it was best not to give the married men “a lever in their claim for domicile”. The authorities were determined to finish the job they had started.

The secret repatriation campaign was not a placid or cooperative affair. Written records suggest that it was conducted as a manhunt. The phrase “roundup” is used repeatedly in official correspondence. An immigration officers’ report to the Home Office filed on 15 July 1946 announced that: “Two whole days were spent in an intensive search of approximately 150 Pool boarding-houses, private boarding houses and private houses.” They had “spread the net as widely as possible”, they promised, alerting police chiefs across the country to look out for Chinese seamen. The report concluded: “When the operation is completed within the next few days I shall be satisfied that every possible step has been taken to secure a maximum repatriation of Chinese.”

I also didn't know before that the Chinese had even been of substantial assistance to Britain in World War 1:

Now that the war had come to an end and Japanese troops in China had surrendered, the Chinese coast opened up again – allowing the British government to commence, in its own words, “the usual steps for getting rid of foreign seamen whose presence here is unwelcome”. (Those “usual steps” probably refer to an earlier mass deportation: 95,000 Chinese men were recruited by Britain as non-combatant labourers and merchant seamen in the first world war. They were not allowed to settle in the UK after the war, either, and their sacrifice has likewise long been overlooked.)

Actually, a lengthy article at the South China Morning Post explains the story of the Chinese sent to help Europe in the earlier war:

Chinese workers helped rebuild war-torn Europe, says Hong Kong University historian Xu Guoqi. About 140,000 worked for American, British and French troops in France, his research shows. Up to half a million Chinese workers laboured on the eastern front for Tsarist Russia, before the empire crumbled in the 1917 Communist revolution, according to the unpublished research of historian Li Zhixue of Jinan University.

Xu, who traced the journey of Chinese labourers from Shandong to France in his 2011 book Strangers on the Western Front published by Harvard University Press, says the mostly illiterate farmers played a crucial role not only in the war, but in shaping China’s role in the new world order that emerged as empires fractured into nation-states worldwide.

 Many died, too, in tragedies of war:

By trains and ships, the Chinese made their way to Europe. Hundreds, if not thousands, died along the way. Xu estimated at least 700 perished. Between 400 and 600 workers died on February 17, 1917, alone when a German submarine sank the French passenger ship Athos near Malta. Many more died crossing Russia, according to Li’s research.

About 3,000 Chinese workers died in France, on their way to the Western front in Northern France, or on their return to China between 1916 and 1920, Xu estimates. Up to 30,000 Chinese died on the Russian front, estimates Jinan University scholar Li.

To avoid further German submarine attacks, Britain shipped more than 84,000 Chinese labourers through Canada in a campaign kept secret for years in the then British dominion.

“In view of the suspicion that certain Chinese are being used as a medium of communication by enemy agents”, Canada banned news outlets from reporting on the train convoys that crossed the country on their way to France.

I had no idea.

Both of these stories would be a good source for fresh stories for novels or cinema too, I reckon.   Barely know history is always good for that... 

 

Since when has just annoying people ever worked?

Look, I could kind of respect climate change activists more if they were actually prepared to do dangerous direct things against the fossil fuel companies they (with some justification) despise - I mean, get armed up like a 1960's Leftist radical, hijack an oil tanker and sail it to a remote island with no refinery.   Hold the crew hostage, even, while trying to get some concession from the company.   Or blow up a railway track that is only used by a coal mining company to get the black stuff to port (lots of opportunity in Queensland for that.)   I mean, I wouldn't exactly endorse those tactics, but I could at least see the perpetrators as people willing to put their lives and liberty on the line with radical action for their basically legitimate cause.  

But they are just uselessly naive and annoying to think that protesting by inconveniencing ordinary people in traffic (and putting their lives in danger - if they are in an ambulance waiting to get to a hospital), or doing theatrical things to great art, is useful:  it is just patently not going to work.    

We need politicians and climate scientists to be saying this, and not letting useless forms of activism lead to any increase in the Right wing vote in any country, with their dedication to not doing much.

Short story: it's a long way off

Noah Smith had a friend who works in the lab grown meat field do a guest post about where it's at.

Despite Noah's optimistic intro:

I actually read it as endorsing my skepticism that it's not really viable, and may be a waste of research and investment. 

Wild uncertainty

That's a surprise coming from Kristol.

Twitter (when not spending time in glorious schadenfreude about Musk losing advertisers and trying to blame everyone except himself) is talking a lot about the Republican favouring polls "flooding the zone" in the last couple of weeks.  Early voting, however, has been high, and traditionally favours Democrats - although I have also noticed that some people are claiming that Republican early voting is high in a couple of places (I think Florida is one of them.)   But I don't know how they know they know how the early voters voted.   

This weekend, there are some (such as Kristol above) suggesting that the Democrats are going to do OK after all (although his tweet above doesn't actually say they will retain control of congress), and it is no doubt based on stuff like this:

 And this is one theory about Republican polling:

As is this:

Yes - that is one safe bet.  If Democrats do surprisingly well (compared to the way the MSM is currently skewing their reporting on the assumption that the Republicans will do well), there are going to be millions of stupid American wingnuts (and their Australian counterparts) claiming it is due to electoral fraud, but (again) with no actual evidence.

The reality is, however, that polling is extremely difficult in the US and surprises have happened before.  

Countryside viewed

Went out to Mulgowie farmers market again on Saturday, which might seem a long way to go to get really fresh corn, potatoes, beans (and locally grown garlic) but it's a nice drive.  

The dams are full everywhere around Laidley, and for some reason, there seems to be an enormous amount of corn planted at the moment (see above - well I think it's corn.  This is right besides the market, but we drove around to Forest Hill, and up to Lowood, and corn was everywhere.  If the market is soon flooded with cheap corn, you heard it here first.  Actually, it's already around $1 a cob, I think, so it's not even that expensive at the moment.  Why is so much being grown?)

It was also surprisingly cool for November.  The weather is still very wonky at the moment.  I kind of don't recall wanting to wear a jacket in November anywhere near Brisbane before.

Some Friday science trivia - I just bought an ancient condiment

I like using Himalayan rock salt in cooking and on my food - it's pink, and makes me think about how incredible it is that I'm using something mined out of a hill in Pakistan that is incredibly ancient.   

You think oil drilled from far underground is old?  Well it is, but here's the specifics:

The formation of oil takes a significant amount of time with oil beginning to form millions of years ago. 70% of oil deposits existing today were formed in the Mesozoic age (252 to 66 million years ago), 20% were formed in the Cenozoic age (65 million years ago), and only 10% were formed in the Paleozoic age (541 to 252 million years ago). This is likely because the Mesozoic age was marked by a tropical climate, with large amounts of plankton in the ocean.

Himilayan rock salt, on the other hand:

Himalayan salt is mined from the Salt Range mountains,^[1] the southern edge of a fold-and-thrust belt that underlies the Pothohar Plateau south of the Himalayas in Pakistan. Himalayan salt comes from a thick layer of Ediacaran to early Cambrian evaporites of the Salt Range Formation. This geological formation consists of crystalline halite intercalated with potash salts, overlain by gypsiferous marl and interlayered with beds of gypsum and dolomite with infrequent seams of oil shale that accumulated between 600 and 540 million years ago. 

I had to check, of course, but Ediacaran period starts at 635 million years ago and ends at the (oddly specific) time of 538.8 million years ago (according to Wiki).   For more context, at that time, there weren't even land plants in existence:

We have land plants to thank for the oxygen we breathe. And now we have a better idea of when they took to land in the first place. While the oldest known fossils of land plants are 420 million years old, researchers have now determined that pond scum first made landfall almost 100 million years earlier.

"[This] study has important global implications, because we know early plants cooled the climate and increased the oxygen level in the Earth's atmosphere," conditions that supported the expansion of terrestrial animal life, says Tim Lenton, an earth system scientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom who was not involved with the work.

There were squishy things in the ocean, and that was about it.  (Backbones didn't turn up until about 500 million years ago.)

So yeah, the salt I'll be cooking with is older than most oil, and probably pre-dates even plants!

(Although, for some reason, some salt company sites refer to Himilayan salt as being "more than 250 million years old" and one says only 200 million years.  But I trust Wikipedia, and NPR, more than them and think the 600 million year figure is more correct.)

I intend to impress my family with this news over dinner this weekend.   (It's the sort of thing I loved telling kids when they were school age, but I  like to inflict science stuff on anyone of any age.)

Exactly

 

The party of "we just make stuff up"

 

Thanks for your contribution, Joe

Too late for the millions of Trumpy culture warriors who will go on believing this was real:

Joe Rogan has admitted he lied about a school letting “furry” children use litter boxes, walking back his claims from a month ago that have since been amplified by Republican Senate Don Bolduc. In an October podcast, Rogan told guest Tulsi Gabbard that his friend’s wife taught at a school that “had to install a litter box in the girl’s room because there’s a student that’s a furry.” Now, he’s saying “I don't think they actually did it,” attributing the whole situation to “one wacky mother” who the school ignored. Claims that furry students are using litter boxes have been debunked over and over, but the lie has persisted as a right-wing talking point. Bolduc accused a school of using litter boxes in a campaign town hall, saying “I wish I was making it up.” Lucky for the New Hampshire Republican, he was. “I fed into that,” Rogan said in his podcast, admitting he had no facts to back up his claim.

More lights seen by pilots that aren't quickly explained

I mentioned this guy recently, and really don't know how much credibility I should give him.  But in these videos, he appears reasonable, and he is just putting up pilot and ATC recordings that seem genuine, and somewhat puzzling: 

 

What puzzles me in particular is that if it is a military test of something, why do it in that location, and with a brightness that is going to be seen from far away and attract attention.

Paranoid idiot watch (Australian edition)

Monty used to think he could be debated back to some sort of Right wing moderate position.  I told monty he was wrong, and daily I feel vindicated.

Lost credibility

Yes, I have felt this way about this guy.  The pressure to keep high numbers (and good income from it) is very likely what has brought down his credibility:

 

Some skeptic wins on UFOs

I missed this recent report in NYT that starts:

Government officials believe that surveillance operations by foreign powers and weather balloons or other airborne clutter explain most recent incidents of unidentified aerial phenomena — government-speak for U.F.O.s — as well as many episodes in past years.

The sightings have puzzled the Pentagon and intelligence agencies for years, fueling theories about visiting space aliens and spying by a hostile nation using advanced technology. But government officials say many of the incidents have far more ordinary explanations.

It goes on to note that the Mick West explanation of the "Go fast" and "gimbal" video seems to be accepted by the Pentagon, and that there is nothing to the "green pyramids" video too.  (I always said that the latter was rubbish - any UFO video that shows lights of any kind flashing in a typical aircraft or drone type sequence is likely to be an aircraft or drone.)

Anyway, still no explanation for the verbal report of the Nimitiz Tic Tak case - confirmed by three pilots.  What a shame there is no good video of what they saw...

Yes, release video

Even though there can be problems with prosecutors rushing out evidentiary material because of political pressure, I reckon it would be a ridiculous look if video showing that the wingnut narrative about the Paul Pelosi attack is a 100% conspiracy fantasy only comes out after the mid term elections.   (The Axios version of this story does not say that the video is recorded, but I think the Wapo story said it was.)

Philip Bump writes about this at the Washington Post, noting how the current calls to release the video are mainly coming from those who want to further conspiracy belief, because any delay is "suspicious".   (Mind you, Bump also seems to think that we can sure than any ambiguity in the video will be used to spin further conspiracy, which is probably true, but it would likely have to be a completely different conspiracy to the one that millions of dumb, conspiracy addled American brains currently believe.)  

A very "apropos of nothing" post

The Youtube algorithm recently led to me listening to Don McLean's "American Pie" for the first time in years.  (It was one of the videos where they use one of the AI art apps to illustrate lyric lines.)

Anyway, it occurred to me while listening that it is incredibly well produced.   (The amount of attention given to George Martin's role with the Beatles, as well as some other Youtube "making of" content I've watched, is no doubt why such a thought now occurs to me.  It would not have when I was younger.)

So I decided to look up who produced it, and it was a guy who isn't famous enough to have a Wiki entry - Ed Freeman.

Nevertheless, my hunch that this song likely had a huge amount of input from the producer seems to be correct.  Look here:

Producer Ed Freeman stated that the “American Pie” single is a combination of 24 different takes of McLean’s voice. This happened because the singer wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and as such, multiple takes were taken during the same session on May 26, 1971, with a live and unedited backing band track.

The producer also stated that even though McLean was a very talented singer, he was sometimes criticized for singing with the same vocal inflections, so he decided to be more improvisational. “In my head, I knew what it was supposed to sound like—I don’t now remember how I arrived at that, but when I kept asking him to sing it in a certain way, he wouldn’t do it. He wanted to play with it every time, inserting slides, melismas and other things that, to my mind, didn’t fit. So we ended up recording him 24 times on 16-track tape and took different parts from different takes until I got every word the way I wanted it, without all the play, and I don’t think Don appreciated that very much…In Don’s case, I think he was happy with the finished vocal, but he was not happy with somebody else having that much influence,” said Freeman.  ...

As for the challenges the length of the song brought to the producing team, Ed Freeman remembers that “it was a complete nightmare to fit an eight-and-a-half-minute track onto one seven-inch single.” The track had to be cut in half very carefully and added to both sides of the record. The final running times were 4:11 minutes for Part One and 4:31minutes for Part Two.

Don McLean is now 77, and looking haggard.  Not sure that he is very likeable in person.  But good song that still sounds great when you haven't heard it for years...

 

Quick takes on Twitter

*  Noah Smith on Twitter seems to be unusually cranky and coming out with some very dubious takes at the moment.   Holidaying doesn't seem to do him any good.

*  Elon Musk is being nearly universally derided by "blue tick" people at Twitter over his plan to charge them for the privilege.  Once again, we have the puzzle - just how smart is this guy?  It's pretty clear he has a modest amount of emotional intelligence and a fragile ego (the "pedo" insult for someone rejecting his impractical idea sealed that forever), but in terms of engineering and other problems, is he really just a hyped up latter day monorail salesman who got lucky?   That's pretty much the vibe he gives me.

*  Everyone on Twitter is also puzzling still about the lack of a convenient and appropriate replacement.  Surely it will arise soon, though.

Is she real?

I don't usually like to say anything that suggests I'm dehumanising a politician or celebrity, but that Kari Lake is so intensely smooth-skinned and over-groomed (and video filtered to look like she's beaming in from the soft glow world of 1980's cinematography) that I would not be at all surprised if turns out to be a robot from some Peter Thiel funded lab:

To me she absolutely reeks of manipulative insincerity and artifice to a skin crawling degree.   I rank her worse than the appallingly unself-aware dumbness of Marjorie Taylor Greene because she seems to have a degree of intellect that's capable of worse manipulation.

Rarely do I have such a strong feeling from a politician's manner and appearance, but she does it for me (in the worst possible way).  

Ghosts in the media

I'm posting this just a little late for Halloween, but the New York Times ran in their lifestyle section last week an article How to Live with a Ghost - about what happens when people think their residence is haunted.  It talks about people who have learnt to live with it, whether Americans have to legally disclose that a house is believed to be haunted when selling, and how many people do believe in ghosts.

I recently wrote how dismissive I am of the paranormal investigation cable TV shows, and I have to say that I find a well written, plausible sounding, first hand strange incident is much more convincing than anything I have seen on a TV show with investigators with their "ghostbusting" style equipment.  ("Spirit boxes" are just the most ridiculous idea for claiming communication evidence - it's like the perfect way to encourage imagined messages.)  

But take this story, which starts the NYT article, as it is easy to imagine as quite disturbing if it happened to me:

On a routine afternoon, Shane Booth, a photography professor living in Benson, N.C., was folding laundry in his bedroom, when he was startled by a loud, crashing noise. He stepped out to find a shattered front window and his dog sitting outside it. He was confused, how could his dog have jumped through the window with enough force to break it?

After cleaning up the glass, Mr. Booth came back to his room, where all of the clothes he had just folded were scattered and strewn about, he said. “That’s when I thought, this is actually really scary now,” said Mr. Booth, 45.

A few things it would be good to know, though:   has Mr Booth always enjoyed good mental health, and does he also have a mad cat as well as a dog?   Was he folding clothes into a basket, and did he tip it over as he ran out of the room?   Rarely do reports of odd incidents cover off such obvious matters, which is somewhat disappointing.  

Stories of footsteps in unoccupied upstairs rooms are a very common haunting trope, and one that is certainly sometimes capable of mundane explanation.  But I also have little doubt that it can be pretty convincingly concerning, in the right circumstances.   

Things moved to wildly improbable locations are perhaps harder to explain, unless you sleepwalk.  I like this story, though (from comments in the NYT) to a follow up article:

Never believed, just thought here are some things we may not know about our world/universe. Then stayed at a hotel (not that old) and woke one night to a the absolute conviction that someone in the darkness was standing behind me. I whirled around and clicked the light as fast as I dared....no one. The large, closet doors were suddenly wide open though. I closed them, thinking I had perhaps left them like that (knowing full well I never leave closets open, since childhood). My room door had it's latch on, no one could have entered. The next morning, my small camera, charging in it spot, was gone. The chord was still there. I looked everywhere, called housekeeping asked about stollen goods, etc...nothing. Finally, upon packing to leave a couple days later, I pulled out my pair of floppy-top boots I never wore on that trip-- and out fell my camera from inside. There was no way it could have fallen into them. I left bewildered--- and when I mentioned it to the receptionist, he shrugged in a bored manner--- "Oh room number 225? Yeah, he likes to move stuff around sometimes." I chose another room the next time.

OK, nothing particularly convincing about waking up and feeling a presence, as tha's a common feature of sleep paralysis (from which my daughter suffered, so I'm pretty familiar with first hand descriptions.).  But if this was the first time you ever had the experience, and it was combined with the camera moving to a weird hiding spot, it would creep you out.   (Frustratingly, sleep walking would be a possibility impossible to disprove unless you had the foresight to set up cameras, and who is going to do that before the object is lost?)

Similarly with stories of ghost voices - highly suggestive of something supernatural, but also explicable as convenient auditory hallucinations.   This story, for example:

As an engineering major with a strong education in science, I didn’t believe in the supernatural. But then I lived ten years in a house my wife insisted was haunted. One day, I was watching my three year old son while my wife and daughter went shopping. I was surfing the net while he toddled around the room. Then I zoned out reading an online article. Then I heard a voice: “where is your son?” I looked around and wondered where the voice came from. “You need to find him,” the voice said. I thought that was probably a good idea so I went looking for him and found the front door open. I went outside and found him toddling down the driveway toward the street. I raced over and snatched him up. When I got back inside, I said to the air: “thank you, whoever you are!” Years later I told that to my wife and after scolding me for my negligence, told me I’d heard the ghost. And for the epilogue, that son just called me from college to check in and see how his old dad is doing. I’m still grateful to that ghost who may very well have saved my son’s life.

The ghost voice that is challenging rather than useful is perhaps less readily explained as the brain  talking to itself.   I think I wrote here before that the woman in charge of the nursing home my mother lived in until she died told us that she would not work in her (somewhat isolated) office in the old convent building at night, as soon after she started there she had heard a clear voice ask aggressively "who are you?" and felt her hair being flicked, when no one was around.   

Some people in the article are like me - quite fascinated with the topic, and very open to the possibility of experiencing something personally, but it never happens.  About the most puzzling thing that has happened to me overnight is waking up one morning (in my 20's) perfectly reversed in my (single) bed in the dorm style room in which I lived alone: my feet on my pillow, my head at the foot of my bed, and somewhat tangled up in the sheet.  Has happened exactly once in my life! 

Anyway:  in another, somewhat charming story from Singapore, I like the way the government respects, but tries to handle co-operatively, the Chinese tradition of burning joss paper to provide goods to the family deceased.  There are incinerators around apartment blocks to allow for this, although it does cause complaints when the smoke and waste interferes with residents.   This is such a significant issue that the government news service likes to point out there has been a reduced number of complaints about this year:

 

I funny it a little amusing that there are public servants there whose job it is to keep track of complaints about burnt offerings to ghosts.  Well, more charming, really.  

We're dealing with idiots (part 10,000)

The conspiracy addled brain, once having decided it has spotted a conspiracy, will cling to "there must be a conspiracy of some kind here" regardless of evidence.

Hence, despite the publication of interview admissions by the assailant himself, Right wing conspiracy stupified people are insisting there must be more to the Paul Pelosi attack.  Here's the dumb as a rock Gateway Pundit:

Update: The Department of Justice on Monday announced two federal criminal charges against David DePape.

“DePape was charged with attempted kidnapping, and with retaliating against a federal official by threatening or injuring a family member.” CNBC reported.

The US government will now control and hide the evidence – and shape the national media narrative.

As to any inconsistencies or changes to the initial reports about the incident - what moron could have missed that this is exactly what happened in the recent Uvalde shooting case, to a spectacular degree.  Initial stories often aren't 100% clear, with both journalists and police not always being accurate.    Hence, someone made up (then retracted) that the assailant was in his underwear - and millions of conspiracy addled Trumpists will never believe otherwise, as well as the ludicrous elaboration that all stem from that piece of misinformation.