Unusual criminal case

I saw this on the news last night:

An elderly Queensland man has been charged in relation to an alleged string of assaults on women in parks over a two-month period this year.

The 83-year-old man allegedly approached multiple women in public parks, in separate incidents, before assaulting them.

The alleged attacks occurred in the Acacia Ridge and Springfield areas between September and October this year.

I have heard before that elderly men in nursing homes can be sex pests - it's pretty rare to hear of one who has put it into practice in public parks.  And I don't mean to imply that this guy was a mere "pest" - he's actually charged with one count of rape:

The Springfield Lakes man has been charged with three counts of sexual assault and one count of rape.

Gawd.

Things noticed

Look, if Noah Smith, David Roberts and David Frum quit Twitter/X I will too, but while ever they are posting there I'll keep reading it. I mean, I don't really want to move into Zuckerworld, which still seems to be the main competitor.

Anyway, a few things from  disgraceful Musk's playhouse:

Back and, um, mildly depressed?

Before I get to regular life again, a few other points to remind myself in future:

*  when buying a data SIM in another country, for me, 3 GB per week seems to be plenty.  And that's with quite a  bit of use for Google Maps.

*  don't forget to take the pin like tool for opening the phone's sim card tray.

*  Japan doesn't give you a mobile number with its traveller's SIMs.  Singapore does.  In fact, Singapore is the most ridiculously generous place for tourist SIM deals, it seems - $12 for 15 days with 100GB of data.  

* curry ramen (a particularly Kyoto thing) is pretty "meh".

* Kobe seems particularly into Indian and Tibetan curry.  Not that I ate any, but it definitely has a lot of restaurants of that kind.

* wearing loafers on a day you are visiting a lot of temples makes the whole "shoes off/shoes on" thing a lot easier than wearing sneakers.

* peak Kyoto autumn is the second half of November, but the first half is very nice too.

*  despite an increasingly tough line being taken in Japan about where smokers can do their smoking, you can still find yourself beside someone doing it in an eating place in Japan - especially a cheaper izakaya.

*  basic "business hotels" are cheap but not exactly tourist orientated.  But a hotel that caters for both the business and tourist market can feature neat things, such as microwaves being available in a central room with which you can reheat food bought from one of the incredible department store basement food halls.

 

Random Japanese notes

* I mentioned before the news stories about the unusually large number of bear attacks this year, and yeah, the country was still talking about it during the visit. Well, by that I mean, I saw a lengthy NHK studio discussion about it on TV, in the rather boring style Japanese TV specialises in.  

*  I also never noticed on earlier visits how much they were interested in eating them.  Maybe some sort of revenge logic going on? :).  There was this bowl of noodles for sale in a rural area:

which translates as "bear soba". But then, even in Kyoto there was a ramen shop (popular with locals) near my hotel which I am reliably told used broth made with bear bones.  

* I also got the impression that hunting has generally become more of a thing in the country.  And look at this story:

Bear bounty introduced by Akita governor pays ¥5,000 per bear to hunters

* OK, apart from bear madness, what else is new?  Well, as every story about tourism in Japan says, there are a lot of tourists around, especially in Kyoto, but people seem to forget how much the Japanese love to visit the city too.  And justifiably.  If temples, history, gardens and food are your thing (or just any one of the above) it's fantastic.  I mean, seriously:

* Why are taxi drivers in this country seemingly all over 60?  It's always been like this, I think, but you just never seem to see a driver younger than 50, I reckon.

* Oh it looks like my flight is soon. Later.

Another minor post about Japan

I'm still in Japan for another couple of days, and can't be bothered doing a lengthier post yet, but just wanted to mention that one TV station here seems to show mainly retro shows from the 70s and later.  

That's how I found myself watching an episode of Galaxy Express 999, 

a Japanese anime series from the late 70s.

I have the feeling I had seen a snippet of this before, but I have to say, the imagery from it is very, very "trippy", for want of a better word.

I was interested to read that the guy who wrote it acknowledged the inspiration for a spacefaring train came from a well known kids book by Kenji Miyazawa (who died in 1933).  

I see from Wikipedia that the series plot is rather complicated, and I can tell from the one episode that it's "sci fi melodramatic" in that peculiar way often found in Japanese anime.  

But yeah, the imagery alone is impressive as a feat of imagination.

May be a Westerner cliche to still be impressed by them, but seriously...

...if Japan doesn't have the first permanent toilet on the Moon, there ain't no justice.  Look at this beauty, in a shop window on a street in Kyoto, looking about as futuristic as a toilet possibly can:

Still looking at leaves

And shrines/temples:

And eating (sometimes) like this:

More soon...

Holiday snaps, continued

As you can see on the right hand side of this photo, even Buddhism can't escape kawaii in Japan:

More detail here:

Anyway, this temple has a family connection, and I think I have visited each time  I have been in Japan.

The gardens around it are very well maintained, and the different colours to be seen today were very pleasing.

Down the road, another temple uphosts a pretty spectacular set of ginkgo trees:

And to the side:

Also, an unusual but of signage:

And tonight, a nicely dressed local:

I have high hopes for some more autumn photos tomorrow, as a result of venturing into the countryside.

Starts with T

Guess the city...

No bears have yet been sighted.

More....

The central station has quite a fan base...and in fact I reckon more so amongst the locals than the foreigners.

Here's a more distant shot..

Behind here, you run into the grounds of the Imperial palace, which you can't see.  But there is a park near here too, which was busy today because it was a public holiday, and about 22 degrees.  

But if course, a nice day outside can't keep me from a good bookstore, and Maruzen, right beside the station, probably has the biggest English section I have ever seen in Japan.  I mean, look at this - this is just the philosophy row!

This is where I found books that ask the big questions:

Indeed.

And:

Tonight I have ventured North, and the wifi in the otherwise modest hotel is about 10 times faster than what I get at home on the NBN.  

At those speeds, I'll be posting more. Seems a waste not to.

Pretty accurate satire

Odd details of madness

CNA talks about the guy with schizophrenia who killed 18 in Maine:

The Reserve unit told the sheriff's office that Card, a 40-year-old sergeant, had reported "hearing voices" that tormented him with accusations of paedophilia and of having a small penis, and that he had threatened to "shoot up" the Saco drill centre and other places, according to an incident report released by the sheriff's office.

At least one soldier who was friendly with Card told his unit leaders that Card's behaviour was so alarming that he feared "Card was going to snap and commit a mass shooting", according to the Army Reserve unit's September email released by the sheriff's office....

In the Sagadahoc County sheriff's account, his office agreed not to make direct contact with Card after his teenage son and ex-wife reported their concerns on May 3, in which they told a deputy that Card's anger and paranoia worsened after he got a hearing aid in February.

They said Card had recently picked up 10 to 15 handguns and rifles he had stored at his brother's house and that they feared his anger if Card learned they had contacted the police, an incident report said.

You can read the rest of the report to hear how half-arsed was the attempt to find him and remove access to a mini arsenal of guns. 

But it is interesting how his "hearing voices" worsened after he got a hearing aid.   It's a common feature of modern schizophrenia that sufferers rationalise a technological reason why they can now hear what they couldn't before.  I'm pretty sure that's what happened to Evelyn Waugh when he had a bout of hearing voices and put it into mildly fictionalised form in a book.   I did a brief post about this once before - back in 2011 - and it links to an article about this.

This always makes me wonder about how it's odd that this rationalisation is not recognised by the sufferer as a clear sign they are starting on a mental illness.   (Along the lines of "hey, I never used to believe telepathy was possible, and I have heard that people with madness often think it's a new technology, just like I am wondering.  Am I going mad?)   Although I guess it's also quite likely that most people who come down with schizophrenia have not read accounts of it.   

I know, that's not how mental illness works, but I still like to hope I would recognise it...

Hurricane damage

It stills seems that war in Gaza has sucked most of the attention away from the remarkable amount of destruction in Acapulco.   These photos at NPR give a pretty good indication.

I wasn't sure how big a city it was - Google tells me about 850,000.   A great many of them no doubt without any livelihood now due to what appears to be the complete destruction of tourist infrastructure.

Can we just ban reality TV?

Is it just me getting cranky as I age, but this is my second complaint about a reality TV format - this time, Alone.

I've barely seen it - but my main objection is similar to that I have with respect to SAS Australia:  I find the idea of people completely unnecessarily punishing themselves for money or "fame" to be a semi-offensive waste of time.   In the case of Alone, I can throw in some general animal cruelty misgivings too.  Yeah, that rabbit, possum, or (apparently, in the case of overseas version of the show) beaver, moose or wolverine (!) is being hunted and killed for entertainment purposes, basically.  (Well, it seems the wolverine was killed when it came to eat some of the moose the dude had killed.)   

Now look - some hunting of animals I'm not going to lose sleep over, provided it's done humanely and it is put to good use.   But deliberately going out in a competition where you have to kill something to live, which might turn into a "clean kill" or might not, when you could stick to your day job and eat a farmed animal killed in pretty humane conditions ... yeah, I have a problem with that.  Why don't more people?  (This topic did get a run on Reddit, I see. A lot of people defend it by saying that the contestants eat a lot less meat than they would at home - so it's a net benefit to the animal kingdom.  I remain very dubious.)

As for people punishing themselves - well, it probably helps explain why I don't have time for any extreme sport.   Running through deserts, even marathons strike me as a waste of time and effort.  The biggest punishment in Alone is apparently contestants starving - or being cold and wet.  How entertaining.  (Not.)

I'm going to sort this all out when I am crowned benefit dictator by our new alien overlords.  (According to Twitter, they are about to arrive any day now.  I wonder how I get them to pick me?)  

This seems under reported

On NHK, the Japanese government news service:

Bear attacks in Japan are on the rise, with the number of incidents reaching a record high for the period from April to July this year. Amid the escalating cases, the environmental ministry is calling on people to be on alert and take extra precautions.

Bear encounters led to 53 reported cases of injury across the country, including 15 in Iwate Prefecture, nine in Akita Prefecture and seven in Fukushima Prefecture. The overall number represents an all-time high since record keeping began in fiscal 2007.

Some attacks have been fatal. In May, a fisherman went missing while out on a lake in Hokkaido. A search party found a bear with waders in its mouth and partial human remains nearby. A hunter in the search party shot dead the 1.5-meter-long bear. Later, DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to the missing person.

Ministry officials warn that more bears are likely to appear in residential areas in the northern part of the country this autumn as they forage for food. The acorns that make up their diet have become scarce in their natural habitat.

 I'm going to be in one of those prefectures soon!  

There's also an 8 minute video on the problem, which towards the end features one of those very unintentionally funny to the rest of us Japanese idea where a man in a bear suit is used for educational purposes. 

On a side note

I've only see ads for it on Channel 7 while watching the news or a bit of breakfast TV, but surely I can't be the only person in Australia who finds it truly bizarre that there is a reality TV show that is inspired by the exploits of the SAS despite the ongoing revelations from the Ben Roberts-Smith trial and elsewhere that the organisation has been a dysfunctional mess for many, many years, and has hosted members who will eventually (if a puzzlingly slow investigation will ever finish) result in war crime trials?  

Words means whatever they want it to mean, apparently

I've been interested to note that the indigenous victimhood professionals are very, very onside with Palestine:

 

Of course, the situation is very, very messy, and I have no doubt innocent Palestinian lives are being lost. 

But I still have trouble taking seriously any commentary that does not start with a call for Hammas to release civilian hostages.

Speaking of windbaggery, I see that Stan Grant has gone pompous to the max in his complaint about the outcome of the Voice referendum:

"Reconciliation is not a word. Not any more. Healing is not a word. Not any more. Unity is not a word. What once were words are now antiseptic," he said.

From another source:

“The Voice was never about resentment, it was never about identity – it was a release, it was a moment to lay our burdens down,” Grant said.

“But Australia would not shoulder that load.

“Instead, we got a lecture about unity.

“Those who own history claimed for themselves history’s final word: ‘no’.”

And:

“We have laid the sod over [my ancestors], sealed them in,” he said.

“I thought in me they may be able to speak, that those two sides of me might find a common voice.

He's a walking word salad generator.

 

I do wonder if it's the only thing that has stopped it being nuked, though

 

I know prominence given to deaths is subject to all sorts of odd influences, but still...

...I am a bit bothered when media seems to be giving bigger prominence to Matthew Perry's unexpected death than to the equally unexpected HURRICANE THAT INTENSIFIED RAPIDLY TO BECOME INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS AS IT SMASHED INTO A MAJOR MEXICAN CITY AND HAS KILLED AT LEAST 39 PEOPLE.

From Science:

Early Wednesday morning, Hurricane Otis became the strongest storm in recorded history to strike the Pacific coast of Mexico. The Category 5 hurricane made landfall near Acapulco, where its heavy rain and 265-kilometer-per-hour (kph) winds unleashed massive landslides and knocked out power lines, killing at least 2 dozen people and causing widespread devastation.

But just 2 days earlier, meteorologists doubted whether Otis—then a tropical storm—would even achieve hurricane status. Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center expected the storm to undergo “gradual strengthening,” with most computer models predicting maximum wind speeds of about 100 kph. Instead, as Otis careened toward Mexico’s coastline, its winds increased by 180 kph in 24 hours, a record amount of “rapid intensification.”

So many books...

It was only via a Tweet today that I learnt about Anna's Archive.

It's this:

About

Anna’s Archive is a non-profit project with two goals:

1. Preservation: Backing up all knowledge and culture of humanity.
2. Access: Making this knowledge and culture available to anyone in the world.

Preservation

We preserve books, papers, comics, magazines, and more, by bringing these materials from various shadow libraries together in one place. All this data is preserved forever by making it easy to duplicate it in bulk, resulting in many copies around the world. This wide distribution, combined with open-source code, also makes our website resilient to takedowns. Learn more about our datasets.

We estimate that we have preserved about 5% of the world’s books.

Access

We work with partners to make our collections easily and freely accessible to anyone. We believe that everyone has a right to the collective wisdom of humanity. And not at the expense of authors.

I have tried it to find something I thought pretty esoteric (1960's juvenile science fiction partly set in Australia which I read as a child, but which is little known now) and all of the books were there.

I also tried looking for a recent book on Pure Land Buddhism, and it was there!

I may (or may not) have downloaded the latter, and I may (or may not) have found that it was easy and quick.

I am impressed.

 

 

Final thoughts on Graham Greene

Looking back at this open-to-the-world diary, I see that I have read more Graham Greene than I had remembered.  I also started one of his key novels - The Power and The Glory - more than a year ago, and after losing interest, picked it up again a month or so ago, and have been slowly finishing it.

It's odd, though, that I started reading him with a couple of his later, less well know, novels, and liked them.  Yet the more I have read his best known works, especially the very overtly Catholic ones, the less I have come to enjoy him.

My basic problem is that, in his most famous early books, while often clearly "Catholic" in influence or theme,  his views about the religion don't often ring particularly true, or profound, to me.   His interest in the religion (since I don't know that he actively practised it for long), at least in his middle aged years, seems so very idiosyncratic and muddled (as I suppose befits someone who suffered poor mental health much of his life), that I don't feel he is providing anything much in the way of useful Catholic insight.   Yet I felt in his somewhat later novel A Burnt Out Case he had a more normal and sympathetic religious take, from a jaded Catholic point of view.  

In other words, it seems to me that when he was trying his hardest to "write Catholic", the less convincing I find him.  

I think this is particularly clear when he is compared to Evelyn Waugh.  In reading his books, I always felt that the Catholic influence was clear in an orthodox and comprehensible way, despite the author also being a bit of a jerk in real life.  (No where near as big a jerk as Greene, though.)

I also got a feeling in some parts of The Power and The Glory that Greene was showing a deep lack of empathy to suffering, be it human or animal.   I seem to recall reading his brief account of a pet dog of his dying after being taken on an exhausting hike, and thought it sounded like he had a distinct lack of empathy.  And this novel has a particularly pathetic scene of dog suffering, too.  Given the widespread view now that dangerous men usually have no sense of empathy with animals, it does make me wonder whether if people meeting Greene in real life ever felt like they were perhaps dealing with a borderline psychopath.

Maybe that's harsh, given the incredible number of women who were happy to sleep with him.  (Although, as noted in my previous posts, a lot of them were prostitutes!)   

Anyway, many years ago I bought (second hand) two volumes of the very famous Greene biography (the author of which I forget now), but I feel less inclined to ever get stuck into those.   Or maybe there is a sort of perverse enjoyment in reading in great detail about what a peculiar man he was?

Anyway, I don't think I will try any more of his novels.            

Movie problem noted

Hey, I wasn't wrong:  the Guardian notes that box office for the latest Mission Impossible movie was underwhelming, despite heaps of critical praise.  (A bit too much praise, in my opinion.)   

As the article notes, one obvious thing they can do for the next (final) movie would be this:

...as much as that video of Tom Cruise jumping off a motorbike on a mountain cheered us all up in the depths of Covid, there might also be a lesson to learn here. Why on earth would any film choose to lead with repeated shots of the film’s biggest stunt being executed? By the time the actual film came out, everyone assumed that they’d already seen the best bit for free on YouTube. Next time, Mission: Impossible should try saving some excitement for the actual film.

Yes, we were all so familiar with the stunt by the time we were watching it in the cinema, it felt anti-climatic.  (We also knew, from the "making of" nature of the publicity, that there was CGI involved in the version on the screen - to hide the fact that he was riding up a ramp.)   

The final one should be shorter, punchier, and (ideally, but I know it won't happen) not be directed by McQuarrie.

 

Points noted

Also, hasn't Anwar Ibrahim been a major disappointment, even allowing for the fact that Malaysian politics is a complete mess:

Thousands rallied in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday in support of Palestine, following smaller-scale protests across the country in recent days. It was organised by local groups Viva Palestina Malaysia (VPM) and MyCare, who have been behind humanitarian assistance from Malaysia, Al Jazeera reports. Huge turnout, but a bit of scandal involved — attendees say they were banned from using placards attacking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden (maybe reasonable, I’ve seen some stuff that is yeesh) as well as chanting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ or ‘God Is Great,’ which is a stretch in my opinion. You can’t tell people to abandon a well-known, frequently used phrase because it’s misunderstood elsewhere.    

No such reports, as of yet at least, from a government-arranged demonstration last night in Kuala Lumpur. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told about 19,000 people that Malaysia won’t be backing down: “It's a level of insanity to allow people to be butchered, babies to be killed, hospitals to be bombed, and schools to be destroyed... it's the height of barbarism in this world … We are with the Palestinian people yesterday, today and tomorrow” he told the crowd, as per Reuters.

In Catholic news...

WARSAW: A Polish bishop, whose diocese was reportedly the scene of a sex party organised by priests at which Polish media say a male prostitute collapsed after taking erectile dysfunction pills, has resigned, the Vatican said on Tuesday (Oct 24).

The statement did not give a reason for the resignation of Bishop Grzegorz Kaszak, saying only that the pope had accepted it.

Was he (the bishop) invited? 

Incidentally, this is something I would expect more from Western Europe, not stick-in-the-mud Poland.

Some psychology studies sound fun

This article at PhysOrg got my attention:

Inducing auditory hallucinations in a lab environment without using drugs

It all involves a poke in the back, which makes people start to sense a person is behind them, which leads to hearing a voice too (!).

The human imagination is indeed very powerful, it seems.

Yep, "decolonising" is (relatively suddenly?) all over the place

I know that this (more or less underground?) revival of Leftist postmodernism within parts of academia has been going on for a number of years, but what with the surge of "decolonisation" talk as a result of the Voice referendum, and the Middle East conflict, it really seems to be out in the open now: 

Glass data storage still seems to be a thing

I see that I posted about storing data on quartz, effectively forever, on quartz back in 2014.

It seems that Microsoft is looking into optical storage on glass in a major way:

 

As people in the comments following the video are noting, it makes Kubrick look very prescient, what with HAL's main data bank looking like this:

Random observations

*   I think Biden is doing a reasonable job in terms of response to the Middle East crisis.  I have been wondering for many months, though, about why he looks so stiff when walking.  I mean, he still rides a bike, I think, and looks younger than his age when he does so.  But watching him walk, he looks older.   In any event, whatever you think of him, and whatever (perhaps very strong) doubts you have about his running again because of age optics, surely if you have half a brain you would have to agree that we can at least give thanks that Trump and his weirdo crew are not the ones making difficult decisions at this time.

*  The whole Middle East situation is, though, (and obviously), depressing.  

*  Elon Musk seems to have gone relatively quiet, which is good.

*  I have a holiday coming up.   Doing enough work before I go to cover the cost of it is worrying!

*  I maintain my personal theory that a lot of the "food insecurity" crisis (at least in Australia) is caused by people who refuse to adjust their diet and purchases to take into account the continual variation in  market prices.   I mean, I shop for protein, fruit and vegetables for a few meals usually once a week, and simply don't buy certain vegetables when they are ridiculously expensive.   But different things are cheap at different times of the year.  This spring, strawberries and blueberries, in particular, have been really cheap for a good month.  Capsicum were really cheap for a few weeks too - as were eggplant, and (as usual in spring) asparagus.  Cans of tomatoes or chick peas can be on special for $1.   And rice - really, do Australians eat enough rice?  It goes such a long way in making a filling meal.  

I don't know:  maybe the national broadcaster needs to do a TV show devoted to showing dumb people what's cheap this week, and how to make it into a good and filling meal?

   

Stimulating

Surgery-free brain stimulation could provide new treatment for dementia

New Mexico seems an oddball place

I can't get my head around why prosecutors are so keen to see Alec Baldwin suffer:

Special prosecutors say they plan to present the New Mexico Grand Jury with a criminal case against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the movie set of Rust.

Even if he pulled the trigger (which seems to be what the "new evidence" relating to the gun must be about), why would a jury blame a guy who was obviously relying on the person he employed to provide a safe gun to use?  I mean, if the armourer was some unqualified relative, or something, I could understand it, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Some distraction needed

Man, the news is pretty depressing at the moment, so a few videos in distraction...

First, this one by Arvin Ash is not about anything new, but it's just a good and clear explanation of how new particles are "discovered", but not actually seen, by particle accelerators:

 

Second, I knew that Mt Fuji had accommodation huts way up on the side of the mountain, at which the typical thing is to eat some dinner, get a bit of a sleep, and then continue to the top in time for sunrise. But until I watched the Chris Broad video about his recent ascent, I had no idea that the accommodation was so large, or for that matter, that there was so much built right on the top of the mountain, overlooking the crater. It's pretty amazing, really, and I am unclear as to how all the building material has made its way up there: 

 

And finally: I am surprised to learn that Saudi Arabia has actually started some significant looking excavation work for the absolutely nutty "NEOM" city - "the Line" or whatever it's called.

I also learnt from this video that the country is building a ski resort on top of mountains where it barely snows! 

I can imagine how ecstatic that the architects and engineers must be - money flowing like water to them to draw up the most grandiose of futuristic schemes, but likely confident that they don't have to worry too much about the necessary construction details, given the very high prospects of the most complicated parts never being built.  

Oh dear

Noticed on Twitter, the non-binary aboriginal Professor (University of Sunshine Coast) who is currently in the USA doing stuff:

But "listening" means also making sure Sandy's feelings are OK, apparently:

 

Oh, and if you are wondering how the Department of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University (with which O'Sullivan has a lot of connection) are taking the loss, the answer is "not well".

The head of  the Department, Bronwyn Carlson, was recently funded by the Winston Churchill Trust to do this project:

To investigate community approaches to rethinking colonial commemorations and their wider impacts

The description:

Every year protests against colonial commemorations are led by Indigenous peoples. There are numerous cases where communities have worked together to rectify commemorations which often represent violent histories, in the hope to reconcile the past and imagine a shared future. Little is known about the journeys undertaken for such efforts, and what the wider impacts might be. This project will investigate case studies in New Zealand, USA, Canada and Norway, noting that local-level efforts have the potential for significant global benefit. The focus will be on the approaches taken by these communities, the challenges and lessons learnt, and resulting changes for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous futures.

Sounds like there might be travel for Carlson for her to write a report that will achieve nothing of significance, to be perfectly honest.

Update:   More Sandy:

Sandy's work at the moment:

Laptop's back

It's back, but with an undiagnosed understanding of what happened.

And the loss of an Outlook .pst file which means a loss of about a year's worth of emails, although they will be mixed up in the inbox of another computer in the office.  Inconvenient.

Anyway, I will finally be migrating to Exchange, which I understand means email history will never be at risk again.

 

Computer issue

For the first ever, in about 27 years of running my own business, I have had a computer crash in such a way that it seems to be preventing important data recovery off the drive.  Some data has been recovered, but a really useful part of what's on there is proving difficult to retrieve.

This problem also seems related to a windows update.  

This is...disappointing.  I have had a great run of not having unexpected crashes.  I did have a virus problem once, but it wasn't the worst kind.  

Oh well.

Get a grip (and let's try to make the "practical and reasonable No" case)

Gee, how long will it take before we stop having to watch heads explode in columns and columns of over-wrought commentary on the (presumed) failure of the referendum before we can find any (even semi-prominent) commentator from the press gallery or the entertainment world (or academia - haha, just kidding) to make the following points:

*   It was inherent in the proposal that a new level of bureaucratic organisation with an unknown price tag would be inserted into the already crowded field of who governments could listen in terms of policy advice on indigenous matters.   What guarantee could anyone give that this would alter in any significant way the current outcomes?   

*  The argument that it "could do no harm" was spurious as it meant supporting an open ticket for the diversion of many millions of dollars every year in expenditure on advisory commissioners and support staff, a cost especially hard to justify when the proposal was that governments were not bound to act on its advice anyway, and could prefer the recommendation of already existing groups.     To argue that it was groundbreaking, and vital, and at the same time say that it was "safe" for everyone to endorse because it couldn't bind government anyway was inherently contradictory.

*  This was not the only way a constitutional right to involvement in government could have been proposed -  see New Zealand, for example - and while the Yes campaign was based on the idea that it was the minimalist version most likely to succeed, if that turns out to be wrong, it should be taken more as a  lesson of not putting all your eggs in one basket, rather than arguing Australians are racist and unreasonable and reject all ideas regarding recognition of aboriginal input in government policy.    (Incidentally, at least a guaranteed number of indigenous seats within government - perhaps within the Senate? - would be something with a clear and limited cost.)

*   Polling, and reporting, showed that the proposal was likely supported by a majority, but not an overwhelming one, of the "grass roots" indigenous people.   Surely that should cause hesitation in the overblown condemnation of all of those on the "No" side?

*   Indigenous disadvantage and issues are inherently hard to solve - governments simply can't and won't spend unlimited amounts of money, especially for services in the remotest areas.   Nor can they force health or other staff to work in remote areas, especially if they face danger to their personal safety and are not respected if mistakes are made.   The "Yes" campaign made a pretence of two issues - that governments had never been "listening" or trying to engage at community level to solve problems (demonstrably false for anyone with Google - and something illustrated by a recent string of reports about programs where community engagement, and government support, has shown good outcomes); and that inserting an advisory body in Canberra would "turn it around".    

*   None of this is to say that the "No" campaign by the Coalition was in any way admirable - it was in reality pretty cynical and disreputable.   But in fact, the way polling is indicating that the Coalition is not significantly benefitting from the "success" of their campaign likely means that some significant number of the "No" voters were not particularly swayed by the Coalition's efforts.   In other words - maybe reasonable people had reasonable reasons for not supporting this referendum regardless of wrong or stupid or racist statements made by some on the "No" side.

Claim and counterclaim

I think McGorry as a psychiatrist should actually be ashamed of putting out that messaging.

Gaza - limited options

A short piece at the Jerusalem Post by a former editor argues that Israel has no choice but to send ground forces into Gaza, despite the undoubted losses the army will suffer.

What I don't really know in all the commentary swirling around is this:   how feasible is it to remove Hamas from Gaza?   I don't know anything about how they are organised, the actual level of popular support within Gaza, and even the answer to the question - where did all those missiles come from, anyway? 

Disaster from the sun

From the Washington Post (and the story includes a comment from a University of Queensland researcher - yay):

In a study released Monday, researchers identified what appears to be the largest solar storm to hit Earth, estimated to be larger than the Carrington Event by an order of magnitude. The storm occurred 14,300 years ago, but is evidence of a yet unknown dimension of the sun’s extreme behavior and hazards to Earth.

“It’s clear that if one of these events [occurred] today … this would be quite destructive on our energy network and also internet network,” said Edouard Bard, lead author of the study. “This would really freeze, in fact, all communications and [travel] would be totally disrupted.”

Unlike the Carrington storm, the 14,300-year-old event does not have ground reports of bright, dancing lights or changes in animal behavior. Instead, scientists found traces of the solar storm in ancient tree rings in the French Alps and ice cores in Greenland.

More:

This 14,300-year-old event appears to be bigger than any on record, but is one of nine extreme solar storms to occur in the last 15,000 years, discovered in tree rings over the past decade. These extreme events are known as Miyake events, named after Japanese physicist Fusa Miyake, who first discovered the radiocarbon spikes in tree rings in 2012. No Miyake event has been directly observed, like the Carrington Event.

Pope said these Miyake events seem to occur at random, about once every thousand years. He estimated that could mean about a 1 percent risk of such an event occurring each decade, which is a threat to power grids, satellites and the internet.

“Even if these Miyake Events occur once a thousand years … I think [it] is pretty serious and definitely merits investment in understanding these events and how to predict and mitigate their effects, if any,” said Pope, who called it a really interesting study.

Yes, I wish some of the big tech companies could give us some reassurance that they have enough servers shielded that it's not like the entire digital record of the planet is going to be lost in such an event.  

Listen to who?

At the risk of sounding a bit obsessive on the matter of showing that it's ridiculous to think that the Voice would solve disunity and conflict within the indigenous community about government policy measures, I had to Google to remind myself who did, and didn't, support the Howard government initiated Northern Territory intervention that started in 2007.   Wikipedia says:

Some Aboriginal commentators and activists, such as Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton and Bess Price, offered support, criticising aspects of the response while believing it to be necessary and worthwhile.^{[33][34][35][36][37]} The Aboriginal leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu initially supported the response, but by 2010 had lost faith in it.^{[38][39][40][41][42][43]} Following the announcement of the Intervention plan by the Howard government, Cape York Indigenous leader Noel Pearson offered support, telling ABC Radio National on 22 June 2007:

I'm in agreement with the emphasis on grog and policing. I'm in agreement with attaching conditions to welfare payments. But the difference between the proposals that we've put forward to the Government and the proposals announced by Minister Brough, there is a difference in that we would be concerned that those people who are acting responsibly in relation to the payments they receive, should continue to exercise their freedoms and their decisions, we should only target cases of responsibility failure.

Writing in February 2008, Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton rejected arguments that the Intervention had been a "political ploy" and argued that the policy in fact marked the death of a "wrong-headed male Aboriginal ideology":^{[44][excessive quote]}

There is a cynical view afoot that the Intervention was a political ploy – to grab land, support mining companies and kick black heads, dressed up as concern for children. Conspiracy theories abounded; most were ridiculous.

Those who did not see the Intervention coming were deluding themselves.

It was the inevitable outcome of the many failures of policy and the flawed federal-state division of responsibilities for Aboriginal Australians. It was a product of the failure of Northern Territory governments for a quarter of a century to adequately invest the funds they received to eliminate the disadvantages of their citizens in education, health and basic services. It was made worse by general incompetence in Darwin: the public service, non-government sector (including some Aboriginal organisations) and the dead hand of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) all presided over increasingly horrible conditions in Aboriginal communities.

The combined effect of the righteous media campaign for action and the Emergency Intervention has been a metaphorical dagger, sunk deep into the heart of the powerful, wrong-headed Aboriginal male ideology that has prevailed in Indigenous affairs policies and practices for decades.

My hope is that, as the evidence mounts of the need for a radical new approach, the shibboleths of the old Left – who need perpetual victims for their analysis to work – will also be dismantled.

Yet, in 2022, the ABC runs an article headed:

Residents who lived through the NT intervention plead for governments to 'listen', 15 years on 

It is, as you might gather, an article about aboriginal figures who thought the intervention was wrong and damaging, and suggesting that it all went wrong because the government wasn't listening.

No mention about how the prominent leaders of "but we need a Voice because government isn't listening!"  thought the government had done the right thing at the time....   

Update:  news this morning of polling (with a bigger sample size than earlier ones) indicating that support for the Voice even within the aboriginal community is hardly overwhelming:

The exclusive Resolve Strategic poll, published today by the Nine newspaper, put a variety of questions to First Nations voters.

“Our latest poll now puts Indigenous support at 59 per cent using a more robust sample of 420 people and a consistent methodology with those polls,” pollster Jim Reed told The Age.

“This tells us that the Yes vote has declined at much the same rate as [in] the general population over the last year. It’s still in the majority, but certainly not universal.”

Indigenous people make up about three per cent of the population, so the sample size of the poll is an “over-sample” that delivers a margin of error of 4.8 per cent, Mr Reed explained.

“We can be pretty confident that the result reflects the reality that Indigenous support is between 54 and 64 per cent,” he said.

 

Psychiatrist makes unhelpful suggestion

Noted from The Guardian:

Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry says his fear of “tremendous damage” to mental health if the Indigenous voice to parliament is rejected by voters drove him to spearhead an open letter from two dozen former Australian of the Year winners backing the change.

Gee, I'm no psychiatrist, but maybe it would be more useful to mental health to tell the people you are concerned about that they should take a No vote as being more about rejecting a proposed bureaucracy for dealing with their problems, and not a denial that they have issues that need to be addressed?  

The politics of the (presumed) failure of the Voice referendum

I feel a little sorry for Anthony Albanese, actually.   I mean, there must have at least been a chance that the Coalition would support a Yes vote, and as such, you would expect low blowback on the PM if it failed.   

Also, it is very unlucky to have timed it accidentally with apocalyptic events in the Middle East that  really make having to vote on a matter that could end in mere symbolism (it is, after all, to set up a body that the government can ignore - or if annoyed enough, reduce to a one person office in Birdsville) look like small change that is hard to get excited about, in the scheme of things.  

And, as I have been complaining, the hyperbole about the importance of a Yes outcome has only had the opposite effect from that intended - making many more cynical of the whole exercise, especially when there has been a significant number of indigenous voices on the No side.   (Not just Mundine and Price, either.)   

So, what do I think will happen if the vote is indeed No, as seems inevitable from the polling?

I don't think Albanese will lose that much political skin over it, to be honest.   I think he might be seen as doing something he sincerely thought was the right thing to do, with the "it's our way or the highway" approach by the high profile activists such as Langton and Pearson bearing a high proportion of the blame for its failure.  

His political judgement will be questioned as it does indicate a deaf ear as to how indigenous issues play out in the mind of the wider community, which is arguably more sharply attuned than academia, the non-Murdoch media, and corporate elites, to a lot of the Emperors New Clothes aspects of the last couple of decades of indigenous advocacy .  (My posts here and here on the Dark Emu attempt to re-write history, and here, about things anthropologists used to write about, show what I mean.  Also, as a few of my recent posts have argued, the whole premise of the Yes campaign has been that "listening" hasn't been happening, which is really a nonsense shown up by reading the ABC, or doing your own Googling.)   

But even so, it's not like there is going to be any institutional attacks against him, because they all rushed to say they were completely onside!  See this amazing list of professional bodies that said "Yes" is the way forward.    

And furthermore, with a sort of delicious irony, I don't see Dutton getting any significant boost from Albanese's woes - he is just too naturally dislikeable for that, and it's also such a transparently cynical game to tell the nation they should vote No, and then blame Albanese for "dividing the nation".   It's very close to a bully's "see what you've made me do" line that never works.

But, who knows, I could be wrong. 

 I also wouldn't be surprised if he (Albanese) lets it rest a while, and then reverses and does legislate a Voice organisation without the constitutional change first.   I don't think he'll be punished for that, at least if the amount of money involved is shown to be relatively modest.   It's the same as asking a leader in an election if they will stay in the job all of the next term - everyone knows they will say "yes", and everyone knows it's the type of promise routinely broken.     

We will see...

Update:   Oh my...Lidia Thorpe is now saying that the Voice ought to be legislated even if there is a no vote.  Some strange twists in all of this...

One has one's doubts

Miranda Tapsell votes yes: 'Knowledge passed down over 60,000 years will benefit everyone' – video 

It's this kind of romanticising of the value of indigenous knowledge that feels to me so patently like a game of "let's pretend".