Sunrise really, really wants a change of government in Queensland

I've been lamenting for years about the swing to Right wing populism very evident on Channel 7's morning Sunrise show.   It seems to me that there must be producers with connections to the Liberal Party now, even though you could say a similar thing from the other direction back when they spent a lot of time priming people to accept political nerd Kevin Rudd as a potential Prime Minister.    (Yes, and what a dubious call that was, too.)

Anyway, the appalling murder of a grandmother in the far Western suburbs of Brisbane (technically, a suburb of Ipswich) on the weekend by an African migrant youth got the full political treatment on Sunrise this morning, with Liberal Opposition Leader David Crisafulli given free rein to score points on it in an election year.   Sunrise itself, in the form of its (relatively new) host Matt Shirvington was completely into helping Crisafulli, with plenty of "this is so outrageous" comments in support.  

Crisafulla went on about a youth "law and order crisis" in the State and gave populist responses about howit was because the courts are being too soft, etc.   But anyone with a brain who has been following the issue knows its not as simple as that - dealing with youth crime is particularly complicated, given that there is obviously the question of family support is involved too, and that criminology research indicates that mere incarceration as a widespread response can lead to more re-offending as youth age, not less.  In fact, Labor in Queensland has been widely criticised from the Left for already taking steps such as allowing kids to be kept in watchhouses meant for adults, and has faced enormous difficulty in getting youth detention facilities adequately staffed so that kids don't have to be locked up in their cells all day when they cause trouble.

Don't get me wrong - I am somewhat sceptical of much of what passes for justice reform commentary from the Left.  (I am particularly struck by the continual lack of detail in how diversionary programs are supposed to work, even if fully funded, when it seems increasingly the case that it is hard to get adults who want to work in the field.  Especially amongst the indigenous, the idea that only fellow indigenous can deal culturally appropriately with troubled youth must surely limit the practicality of such schemes.)

It's also not as if it is always clear what drives crime rate rises and falls - in America, they have arguing about it for a decade or two now.   Criminology just seems an inherently complicated and tricky topic.

So yeah, it bothers me when either side of politics seeks to capitalise on crime and justice issues when we all know that, in reality, they are really difficult problems for any side of politics, and there is virtually never a simple or obvious solution.     

But I do think that, as an issue, it is one on which Queensland Labor is likely (but unfairly) going to lose votes.

One has one's doubts

In an article on the BBC news website entitled:

Neuralink: Can Musk's brain technology change the world?

we get this amusing comment:

The real trick will be developing a system which can interpret or translate the signals coming from the brain with a far greater level of accuracy. If and when that happens humans may be able to communicate with computers and other electronic devices in a way that is difficult to comprehend today.

Imagine being able to order a takeaway with your thoughts, or search the internet, or translate one language to another immediately in your head, just by thinking about it.

Musk himself has already talked about a future where his device could allow people to communicate with a phone or computer "faster than a speed typist or auctioneer". ...

Others are more sceptical: "At the moment, I'm struggling to see an application that a consumer would benefit from, where they would take the risk of invasive surgery," says Prof Vanhoestenberghe.

"You've got to ask yourself, would you risk brain surgery just to be able to order a pizza on your phone?"

Given the plentiful evidence on Twitter of Musk not thinking things through very carefully, the idea of a future version of him making super rapid decisions without careful analysis first sounds more dystopian than anything else... 

So about that Apple headset thingy

Some Tweets:

 

Some nuance:

On that last point, though, I posted years ago about WhatsApp or similar helping promote lynchings  and other panics in some poor countries.  Let me find it.  Ok, here it is.

I watched some reviews of the Apple headset on the weekend.  It's nearly universally greeted with "Well, this is amazing, but you could only use it for an hour or so due to the weight and eye strain, but it shows us the future.  Don't sweat it, it'll be really good when they improve it in the upcoming versions - maybe in 2 or 3 versions time."

As such, I still don't expect it to get a large following.

Right wing insane conspiracy watch. Brought to you by Elon Musk (sometimes personally)

Here's a choice selection from Musk's home for the deranged:

The other war in Russia

From The Guardian:

Russia hands out first convictions in connection with anti-LGBT law

On Thursday, a court in the southern region of Volgograd found a man guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organisation” after he posted a photograph of an LGBT flag online, according to the court’s press service.

The man, known only as Artyom P, who was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 roubles (£8.69), admitted guilt and repented, saying he had posted the image “out of stupidity”, the court said.

On Monday, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced a woman to five days in administrative detention for wearing frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow, according to Aegis, an LGBT rights group.

The woman was called to the police station after a man filmed himself approaching her in a cafe and demanding she remove the earrings, and posted it online.

A trial will resume next week in Saratov, south-west Russia, of a photographer who posted images of rainbow flags on Instagram, the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.

 

Wall sitting my way to lower blood pressure

Here's the Washington Post story about how wall sitting seems to be remarkably good at lowering blood pressure:

A recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that isometric exercises, like wall sits (also known as wall squats), can help reduce blood pressure even more effectively than other forms of exercise, including aerobic activity, weight training or high-intensity interval workouts.

The research is good news for people who struggle to meet physical activity guidelines that recommend at least 150 minutes of weekly moderate-intensity exercise, like brisk walking or bicycling. The new analysis found that about eight minutes of isometric exercise, three times a week, can lead to a meaningful reduction in blood pressure.

This means holding a wall sit for two minutes and resting for two minutes. Repeat for a total of four wall sits with breaks in between. A single session, including rest, will take only 14 minutes.

Given that I'm always up for the quickest and laziest way to keep my health, I might give this a go.   

Movies on a plane

On my recent trip I got to watch two movies and offer my brief review:

Barbie:   Yeah: cute, amusing, "heart-in-right-place" kind of movie, and Margot is drop dead gorgeous and very likeable.  It still felt a little underwhelming to me, but there are many worse movies that have been mega successful, so I'm not going to sweat it.

The Holdovers:   as virtually all the reviews say, it's a character driven period piece (set in 1970) that really feels like the character driven movies that came out in that era (or at least, before the summer blockbuster changed the movie business, seemingly forever.)   As such, it's a refreshing, welcome revival of the type of movie adults used to enjoy seeing.   Nonetheless, I did feel that the ending needed something a bit more cathartic than what we got.  Realism is fine, but sometimes we feel it needs more.  (I'm sounding a bit like Spielberg, perhaps, who obviously felt exactly the same way regarding how he handled Oskar Schindler's departure scene, which is nearly universally seen as a fault in an otherwise devastating film.) 

The future of floods?

I'm not sure how many people in the rest of Australia realise this, but it seems to me to be a pretty remarkable thing that the weather in Queensland this summer has not only been wetter than forecasts suggested (based on the general rule that El Nino summers are more likely to be - but are not necessarily - dryer), but the flooding that has been happening on a frequent basis has been so localised.

In other words, we seem to keep getting examples of intense, but quite localised, rainfall rates, causing flash flooding that only extends over a relatively small area - a couple of suburbs, but no further.

I meant to comment about this a few weeks ago when I woke up to see houses inundated in suburbs to the West of mine, but we hadn't even had any rainfall at all overnight.   

Something similar seems to have happened again a few days ago, where some northern suburbs were overcome with flash floods, but the rest of Brisbane had a pretty "normal" wet day. 

I would not be at all surprised if this is a pattern that continues in future, and it is recognised as a (more or less) unforeseen and problematic consequence of climate change in many parts of the world.

 

Krugman on Europe and the US

Here's Paul Krugman, in his witty style, looking at comparisons between Europe and America:

In my most recent column I had a bit of fun with Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, who has ominously warned that President Biden will turn us into Europe. I joked that this would mean adding five or six years to our life expectancy. When I shared Noem’s remarks on social media, some of my correspondents asked whether this meant that we’re about to get good train service and better food.

A note to younger Americans: We already have better food. It’s true that Bolognese remains infinitely better in Bologna than anything you can get here, even in New York, but you have no idea how bad American cuisine was in the 1970s.

And this:

I fairly often encounter people who believe that Europe suffers from mass unemployment and has lagged far behind the United States technologically. But this view is decades out of date. At this point adults in their prime working years are actually somewhat more likely to be employed in major European nations than in America. Europeans also know all about information technology, and productivity — gross domestic product per hour worked — is virtually the same in Europe as it is here.

It’s true that real G.D.P. per capita is generally lower in Europe, but that’s mainly because Europeans take much more vacation time than Americans — which is a choice, not a problem. Oh, and it should count for something that there’s a growing gap between European and U.S. life expectancy, since the quality of life is generally higher if you aren’t dead.

 A key point:

In real terms, the U.S. economy grew a lot more over those two decades — 53 percent versus 31 percent. But almost all of that difference is explained by the fact that the U.S. working-age population (conventionally, if somewhat unfortunately, defined as adults 15 to 64) grew a lot, while Europe’s hardly grew at all (and has been declining in recent years). Real G.D.P. per working-age adult rose 31 percent in the United States and 29 percent — basically inside the margin of error — in the euro area.

 

There be dragons

I'm back from a quick trip to Singapore, where Chinatown is all lit up for Chinese New Year, and the upcoming Year of the Dragon. 

 

 

 

 

As I have had to explain to many people, despite having been there probably half a dozen times before, I blame the sweaty weather for meaning that my sightseeing has always progressed slowly, given that you really don't want to be outside and walking around between about 10 am and 6 pm.   So visits tend to involve a lot of middle-of-the-day time spent in single airconditioned locations, be they shops, back at the hotel, museums, etc.

I've also been slow to try some popular food and drinks.  (I don't think I have ever had chilli crab there - it is pretty expensive, and I think you can get a decent version in Australian chinese restaurants at similar cost.)

Anyway, here's a list of "long delayed, first time" things from this trip:

*    kaya toast set for breakfast (twice, and nice - it's the soy sauce on the eggs that makes the difference);

*    sugar cane juice with lemon (I always thought it would be too sweet, but it isn't);

*    the Night Safari (the personal highlight of which was touching the rhino's nose while it was being hand fed);

*   seeing wild monkeys (on the boardwalk at Rifle Range Nature Park - not a particularly well know park for tourists, but worth visiting)

*   visiting Yishun in the north, the suburban area which Singaporeans joke about as being the place where weird and dangerous things happen, and of course, it was completely fine.  (I was there to visit a particular shop - more about that later.)

*  visiting the highly eccentric Haw Par Villa park and its Hell's Museum.  That will definitely get its own post.

Things I did that I (nearly) always do when visiting Singapore:

* shopped at Uniqlo (even with the currency conversion, it still works out cheaper than buying in Australia for most of their products);

* shopped at Chinatown for belts and other bits and pieces;

* ate stingray with chilli;

*  got completely bewildered when trying to navigate my way between different terminals at Changi.  Look, I think it is just impossible to hold in your head the layout of this massive airport, with its 4 terminals and the Jewel shopping centre and connecting Skytrains, and this time I found that even Google maps seemed to get continually confused about where to direct my walking to catch a bus towards the city.    I mean, I both love it and find it completely exhausting.  [And by the way, I am convinced that they have deliberately put the office at which to get the $10 refund on the Singapore Tourist Pass in an odd position in the Changi MRT station in the hope that most people won't bother tracking it down as they arrive to depart.  Why they can't automat the refund, when everything else about using public transport in Singapore is so easy, I don't know.  I suspect it's to discourage it being claimed, though.]

 UPDATE:  For my future reference, this chain of stores, often in shopping centres - Nam Kee Pau - makes very delicious (and modestly priced) steamed buns.

       

I mean, I may be ageing myself, but still...eew

From the Washington Post, in an article noting that STDs have increased amongst over 65 year olds, the second sentence here sounds a tad creepy:

It’s healthy to be sexually active as an older adult, and it correlates with greater enjoyment of life. My patients tell me that nursing homes can present really exciting opportunities to make new friends in this regard.

The following paragraph made me laugh, given that I don't know much can be extrapolated from Sweden:

In fact, 40 percent of adults aged 65-80 are sexually active and about 10 percent of people older than 90 are sexually active, though it bears noting that the latter figure is based on a survey limited to one municipality in Sweden.

Placebos considered

Everyone loves hearing about placebo studies, don't they?   Here's a cool article at The Conversation about them, with some new aspects I hadn't heard of before:

When a doctor prescribes ibuprofen for back pain, the effects are due to the ibuprofen and the patient’s beliefs and expectations, which can be influenced by the doctor’s communication. Doctors who offer positive messages in a warm, empathic manner will increase the effect of the drugs.

The size and colour of the pill can also influence the effect. A large, orange pill can reduce pain more than a small, red one.

By contrast, blue pills generally have a sedative effect – except for Italian men, for whom blue pills have an excitative effect), probably because their revered football team wears blue.

Doctors’ ethical duty to benefit patients suggests it is an ethical duty to maximise the placebo effects of all treatments they provide.

 

More cringe

I still drop in sometimes to see what chronic grievance whirlpool Sandy O'Sullivan is up to.  Here's today's entry:

"We insist on their futures"??

Odd that the art seems to reflect a Harry Potter sensibility, given the condemnation of Rowling by the trans mob.

Anyway, I also learn from her twitter feed that "anti-coloniser" academia also really, really hates it when any body dares tries to make "acknowledgement of country" a bit less, well, exclusive:

 For what it's worth, here's where I am at on such matters:

a.    I have felt for some time that moving Australia Day is a good idea, given that Australia wasn't created in any sense on 26 January.   And yeah, I can see the indigenous objection to the use of that day.

b.   I've never been a fan of "welcome to country" and acknowledgements of traditional land, considering they have become overused and are deployed in some pretty obviously insincere ways.  (Such as pretending that "emerging elders" have much to tell certain organisations about certain things.  I always think this when listening to the acknowledgement given at QPAC performances.)  It has become a "political flex", too - and far from sending any message of reconciliation and unity, sends a message of disunity and power seeking.  

As such, it may be something Right wingers started, but if a Council seeks to "balance things up" somewhat, as in that Council statement, I think that's not a bad thing.

c.   Aboriginal politics is moving in the wrong direction, being based purely on grievance.  It is counter-productive - encouraging youth crime and lawlessness due to teaching them that the "colonisers" deserve only distrust and hatred and that all current social problems are their fault.  That's no way to get your people fully integrated into modern society with all the benefits that can come from that.

One of history's greatest cringe moments

I'm pleased to see that people still talk about this, because it proves that I'm not just remembering a dream!  I saw it on TV back when it happened (well, in 1978 - it was probably shown in Australia weeks or months after it was on American TV):

Meet the Spartans

Oh look, that increasingly rare thing - an interesting and fully free article at Slate about something other than an odd sex kink/relationship.

It's about ancient Sparta, by the author of a new book about them.  It starts:

Many self-professed champions of freedom throughout the centuries have looked to ancient Sparta as an inspiration. The doomed stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E.—the subject of Zack Snyder’s 2006 film 300—has been particularly influential for figures ranging from Lord Byron rallying support for Greek independence from the Ottomans to Cold Warriors mythologizing the virtues of the “West” against the Soviet Union. It’s easy to ridicule such a simplistic view of history, and to point out that the Spartans might not have deserved their reputation as invincible warriors. But the blunders and brutalities of today’s champions of “Western civilization” follow Sparta’s example remarkably closely. This should give us pause.

Sparta’s famous militarism was inseparable from the all-consuming fear the Spartans had of their oppressed neighbors. Unlike other Greeks, who only took up the spear when their city went to war, the Spartans trained as soldiers full time. The skill acquired over years of drill and exercise made the Spartans unbeatable for centuries in any straightforward clash of infantry. This professional army, however, was possible only because the Spartans enslaved their neighbors, called the Helots, and forced them to take care of the farming and other necessary tasks to keep the community functioning while the Spartans honed their soldiering talents.

 

Today's news

I presume Haley will soon be out, and then we get to watch the pathetic line up of "yes, his attacks on me were humiliating and on the same level as a high school bully, but sure, I can work with him."

Update:  here's another bit of amusing Trump commentary -

 

Expansive thoughts for a Friday...

Over at Aeon, an essay on the likelihood of the universe (or at least, a large chunk of it) being taken over by self replicating spacecraft.

It starts with this provocative paragraph:

Some time late this century, someone will push a button, unleashing a life force on the cosmos. Within 1,000 years, every star you can see at night will host intelligent life. In less than a million years, that life will saturate the entire Milky Way; in 20 million years – the local group of galaxies. In the fullness of cosmic time, thousands of superclusters of galaxies will be saturated in a forever-expanding sphere of influence, centred on Earth.

I think that start date is definitely way too early, given the bumbling around it is taking to even get back to the Moon.   But still...

I'm old enough to remember when they went on about how a blurry shot of Hilary's mouth showed she had syphilis...

What goes around comes around, I guess:

 As to the Hilary has it story, here's a link.

Update:  By the way, of all the theories that have been swirling around what the hand injury is, I reckon a likely one is that he grabbed a frozen hand rail (while getting off his plane?) in Iowa and bits of his skin stuck to it.    Because that is a dumb mistake to make, he hasn't rushed to admitting it.   

Just a theory...

All so obviously true

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post talks about how it is absolutely clear that Trump acts the way he does in court not to win the cases, but to play to his "base":

We know he views courtrooms as campaign appearances where appeals are made for their political value, not legal strength. Trump would rather be in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, he was in a Manhattan courtroom for closing arguments in the New York civil case. He was not required to be there. But he makes more headway with Republican voters by appearing as an aggrieved defendant than by staging and attending campaign events....

Though Trump does not necessarily want to lose, he does not maximize his chances of winning. Legal experts Norman Eisen, Joshua Kolb and Andrew Warren, for example, pointed out at the Daily Beast that he did not make cogent arguments, let alone the best ones, in the New York fraudulent evaluation case. “Looming over the arguments made by both parties was what could have actually been Trump’s best argument against the intent to defraud: that any mistakes were accidental,” the authors noted.

Why spend time arguing irrelevant points or rearguing rulings the judge already made (e.g., the disclaimer on the evaluations doesn’t absolve him of fraud)? “The undisciplined and unhinged defenses Trump propounded today reflect the approach he has taken in the criminal cases,” they suggested. “Given the weakness of his legal position, it looks like Trump is aiming his arguments not at the court but at a different audience: the public. But that won’t be successful, in either the civil case or the criminal prosecutions.”  ...

Trump eagerly creates chaos, looks for opportunities to disrupt and continues to threaten judges, court personnel and witnesses. Indeed, in advance of the current trial, Carroll’s lawyer implored the judge to consider his outburst in the New York civil case and take steps to prevent another attempt to “sow chaos.” Trump is prohibited from rearguing the facts of the sexual assault — although he might try anyway. Expect outbursts in his criminal trials, ludicrous arguments (even those the judge already ruled on) and other stunts that a normal defendant might fear would be off-putting to a jury. That has always been his style: delegitimize entities and defy the rules because he seems to consider himself above the law.

Chait on the current political situation in the US

Jonathon Chait can be a bit hit or miss in his analysis, and I see on Twitter some have immediately accused him of writing this to assist Trump.   But I don't think that is at all fair, and even a progressive like David Roberts (who was recently fighting with more centrist Noah Smith on Twitter) thinks it a good column.

It's a long read, but here it is.

A quite nice column on ageing

It's in the Washington Post, and starts with a quote I don't recall reading before.  (I hope it's not a myth quote!):

Every so often, even in heartbreaking times, the soul hears something so true out of the corner of its ear that it perks up, looking around like a meerkat for the source. Mine did this when, decades ago, I read a quote of Albert Einstein’s: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

By the way, not to go all Buddhist on you, but the importance of gratitude is an aspect of (at least Pure Land?) Buddhism which aligns nicely with the above attitude:

I visit a lot of Buddhist temples and groups in North America, and it’s pretty common for people to ask, “So, what’s your prac­tice?” It’s a sort of icebreaker in the Bud­dhist world. I think my answer tends to surprise some folks, though. As a Shin Buddhist, my primary practice isn’t meditation, sutra study, ritual, or precepts. All of these can be valuable, of course, but in Shin Buddhism our main focus is the practice of gratitude. This sets us apart from many other Buddhists. We don’t practice to achieve anything—not enlightenment, good karma, a favorable rebirth, or material rewards. We practice simply to give thanks for what we have received. It’s a small shift in one’s perspec­tive, but when pursued, it can be transformative.

From the point of view of the dharma, we can see that each being exists within an inconceivable network of support from all things. Whether it’s the attainment of buddhahood or the simple act of drawing a breath, our every action is assisted by forces beyond the ego-self. As we become aware of our interconnectedness, we gain some perspective of our karmic limitations. Accom­plishments we counted as our own successes turn out to be due to the myriad benefits received from others. Pulling on our bootstraps, we discover that someone else made the boots and the straps, and fed and nurtured us until we were ready to pull. Our own efforts are imperfect and cannot succeed unless countless others are involved. This awareness gives rise to a sense of humility about our limitations and patience in the face of others’ imperfections. It also cultivates a sense of humor about our shortcomings and those of others.

For Shin Buddhists, being aware of our interconnectedness involves being aware of how power-beyond-self is always nurturing and sup­porting us. Part of the Pure Land tradition, Shin Buddhists believe this power that comes from beyond the ego-self is provided by Amida Bud­dha, the limitless compassion and wisdom that benefits us all. Naturally, thankfulness wells up inside of us as we awaken to this ever-present gift.

With this awareness, Shin Buddhists say the nembutsu in gratitude. The nembutsu is a phrase, Namu Amida Butsu, that expresses our happiness and thankfulness. It isn’t a mantra or a prayer—it doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting out that bottled-up gratitude in a joyful utterance. When we say Namu Amida Butsu, we aren’t begging to get into the Pure Land or trying to win favors with the Buddha. We are saying, “How wonderful to receive so bountifully! Thank you very much!” I find that Buddhists in lineages other than the Pure Land schools often misunderstand this point.

 

I foresee a failed Apple product

I think I've only watched him on Youtube once or twice, but this guy's is big in the world of tech reviews, I believe:

 

Why does this seem to happen in Sydney, in particular?

Say this just now:

Almost 1,000 recently completed apartments in Sydney’s north are at risk of collapsing due to “serious damage” to concrete in the basements caused by defective workmanship, according to the New South Wales building watchdog.

The developer Greenland has been issued with urgent rectification orders over the four apartment buildings at the Lachlan’s Line development at 23 Halifax Street in Macquarie Park.

The Building Commission NSW found there was “serious damage and spalling of the concrete slab at the joint locations in basements and the ground floor caused by defective workmanship” after inspections last year.

“This is a defect in a building product or building element that causes or is likely to cause the basement slab to fail, namely, to fracture and collapse, leading to the destruction of the building or any part, or the threat of collapse of the building or any part,” the rectification order said.

This is another example over the last few years of relatively new high rise apartment blocks in Sydney being found to have structural issues making them dangerous.  It would seem, from the list noted in this article in 2019, to be the fourth block that it has happened to.

What puzzles me is why these disasters seem particularly centred on Sydney constructions.

There was an ABC (perhaps Four Corners) show about the high rise residential building industry a year or two ago, in which they seemed to indicate that Queensland and other states had a more rigorous independent inspection regime during construction than NSW.  But surely these faults are related to engineers and certifiers who are engaged by the builder to check the work, too?   

I mean, I don't really understand how they can risk their professional reputation over certifying shoddy work that will come to light in the near future...

Some details on the Trump Iowa win

From the Washington Post:

Republican front-runner Donald Trump added Iowa’s most religious regions to his strongholds in Monday’s caucuses. He combined religious areas with the state’s lower-income and less educated counties to pull a majority of all caucus voters, more than double what he earned eight years ago.

Trump dominated the caucuses in the style of other Republican winners of the past 20 years, a pattern that works in Iowa but did not propel them to win the nomination. Meanwhile, Trump’s weakest performance was in the parts of Iowa that more closely resemble the rest of the country, with fewer White evangelical Christians, fewer farmers and more people living in cities with higher education and more income.

It's the details like this (as well as his continuing court cases, and his dubious health) which convince me there is no need to sweat about Trump winning another term.

The perfect "Labor isn't Left enough" faux crisis

I reckon this story:

 

...is pretty much the perfect example of an issue that only excites political commentators who have no perspective at all of what really does, and should, interest the broader public.   

I find it very hard to get excited about it.  

Why no one should be panicking about US poll numbers at the moment

Here's a useful article at The Conversation on the above topic.

 

Homing dogs

A propos of nothing, as they say:  an article in the Guardian about the remarkable homing abilities (some) dogs have been able to display.

Mealy mouthed Trump analysis, continued

Once again, we seem to be witnessing editorial decisions at the major mainstream print media to not go out of their way to offend people who would vote for Trump. 

This has driven some online commentators nuts ever since Trump was campaigning in 2016.  As it should. But it's pretty appalling that it is still going on. 

I offer these examples.

From the Washington Post, an article headed ‘Ordained by God’: Trump’s legal problems galvanize Iowa evangelicals (gift linked), we get these lines:

In several ways, Trump is an unlikely hero for those who identify as deeply religious Christians given his history of committing adultery, promoting falsehoods, and uttering vulgar comments and insults about women and people who cross him. But many have overlooked these indiscretions and questionable morals.

Now, it's true, the next paragraph speaks more strongly - but it is using the words of a commentator, not the newspaper itself, which, I think it fair to say, takes a "two sides-ing approach":

“The support has gone from begrudging to enthusiastic. Many evangelicals now see Trump as their champion and defender — perhaps even savior,” said Barry Hankins, a history professor at Baylor University who is an expert in evangelicalism. “Unwittingly, in my view, many evangelicals are welcoming authoritarianism and courting blasphemy.”

More from the article:

Standing outside a commit-to-caucus rally in Clinton, Iowa, recently, Paul Figie, a pastor and a Trump caucus captain, said Trump is “ordained by God.” He pointed to how he has seen Trump as being mistreated by the justice system and Democrats, equating the former president to a martyr. He dismissed the viability of other candidates, saying he was convinced that a higher power would put Trump back in office.

“Trump is the guy to be in there, and amen,” he said.

Trump has accused the Biden administration of discriminating against people of faith, suggesting at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, that “Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before.” Fact-checkers, however, have debunked that claim. Experts on religious liberty, such as John Inazu from Washington University in St. Louis, cite multiple major religion-related Supreme Court cases and say religious freedom is perhaps more protected than ever.

Trump has leaned into biblical comparisons. He recently shared on Truth Social a nearly three-minute-long video depicting him as a messiah — and played it at a rally. A narrator intones that “on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump” as a baby picture of Trump fills the screen.

See what I mean about "two sides-ing"?   "Trump often claims X.  Factcheckers say it isn't true.  Evangelicals would prefer to believe Trump."   It ends:

On a recent Sunday outside Walnut Creek Church in downtown Des Moines, Mark McColley, 71, explained why he is backing Trump.

“I am very disappointed that this country has been so brutal on Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s really brutalized him for the last six to eight years. And I don’t think that that’s warranted. I think he cares about this country. And I think that’s an important thing that we need to have.”

Over at the New York Times, meanwhile, we are getting headlines like this:

Election 2024 On Eve of Caucuses, Trump Casts Iowa as a Battleground for Victory Over ‘Cheaters’

The former president assailed his rivals before a rally crowd that braved subzero temperatures to see him. Nikki Haley got a boost from Maryland’s former governor.

And beneath that:

Democrats Fret That Biden’s Power Players Are Not at His Campaign Base

And also on the on-line front page, more "let's try to understand Trump supporters" guff:

How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again

Blue-collar white voters make up Donald Trump’s base. But his political resurgence has been fueled largely by Republicans from the other end of the socioeconomic scale.

In which we read  more mealy mouthed stuff:

Their surge toward the former president appears to stem largely from a reaction to the current political climate rather than a sudden clamoring to join the red-capped citizenry of MAGA nation, according to interviews with nearly two dozen college-educated Republican voters.

Many were incredulous over what they described as excessive and unfair legal investigations targeting the former president. Others said they were underwhelmed by Mr. DeSantis and viewed Mr. Trump as more likely to win than former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Several saw Mr. Trump as a more palatable option because they wanted to prioritize domestic problems over foreign relations and were frustrated with high interest rates.

And look at some of the voters they quote!:

Ruth Ann Cherny, 65, a retired nurse from Urbandale, Iowa, said she was turning back to Mr. Trump after considering whether the party had “a younger, dynamic guy.”

She considered Mr. DeSantis, but decided she couldn’t support him because “dang, his campaign is such a mess.” She wanted to support Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and political newcomer, but concluded he was too inexperienced and could not win.

“Trump has been in the White House once, and maybe he has a better lay of the land this time and will know who’s who and what’s what,” Ms. Cherny said.

Yolanda Gutierrez, 94, a retired real estate agent from Lakewood, Calif., whose state votes in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5, expressed similar views.

“I know Trump’s got a lot of baggage,” she said. “But so much of it is make-believe.”

Ms. Gutierrez, who studied education in college, said she had voted twice for Mr. Trump but had been leaning toward Mr. DeSantis because she liked his record as governor of Florida and thought the party needed a younger leader.

“But now I prefer Trump because Democrats are trying to find any way they can to jail him,” she said.

Are the editors at these papers a bit thick??   As I said above, online commentators have been talking for years about how important "framing" an article is, and how treating supporters of authoritarianism as just "reasonable people who need to be understood" is completely useless when they are under the sway of a character who, to them, is effectively a cult leader for whom reality doesn't matter, and for whom a large sway of self serving media barons (both mainstream and smaller) have pledged allegiance.  

The New York Times has also graced us recently with a column by Brett Stephens along the lines of "hey, you know I don't support Trump, but today I'm going to try to paint the best possible picture of him to explain why he still appeals to people."    

And Ross Douthat offered his opinion to try to held the Supreme Court rule that no court can find that Jan 6 was an insurrection attempt - he wrote a piece for subscribers entitled Why Jan. 6 Wasn’t an Insurrection.

He's quite the fool at times. 

Douthat has had plenty of pushback, including from columns at Reason and The Atlantic.  And on Twitter:

 

But it's still terrible that his trademark "excusing the authoritarian I personally don't like" comes under the New York Times banner.

Finally, while I should say that I actually do not think it likely that Trump will win an election against Biden, and think it much, much more likely that Biden might lose against an alternative runner, I nonetheless find it frustrating that the key US media outlets are still just "trying to understand" Trump supporters when they should be attacking them and not giving default endorsement to them as worthy of serious consideration that "they might have a point". 

UPDATE:

Cult members, remember to die for your leader:

Can you imagine the Right wing media machine going off its collective brain if Biden said something like that?   And for Trump, to the MSM, it's just "Just Trump being Trump".

UPDATE 2

Here's a couple of tweets making the point I did in comments (pretty much).

UPDATE 3:

Heh.

Co-sleeping, considered

I'm not sure I've learnt much that I hadn't read before here, but it's still a somewhat amusing article on how, until modern times, "co-sleeping" was quite the norm.  Some extracts:

Sharing a bed did not have the same sexual connotations that it does today. In the medieval era, the Three Wise Men from the Christian bible were often depicted sleeping together – sometimes nude, or even spooning – and experts contend that any suggestion they were engaging in carnal acts would have been absurd.

Sociable sleeping was so desirable, it even transcended the usual barriers of social class. There are numerous historical accounts of people bunking down each night with their inferiors or superiors – such masters and their apprentices, domestic helpers and their employers, or royalty and their subjects. In 1784, a parson wrote in his diary that a visitor had specifically requested to sleep next to his servant. Night-time tussles over blankets and hours of strange bodily noises tended to afford a certain equality that didn't exist outside of the bedroom.

Well, I think it certainly a good idea that an employee no longer has "sleeping right beside your unpleasant boss" as a work condition!

The article goes on to mention Samuel Pepys's diaries:

In addition to the minutiae of daily life and frequent lewd descriptions of womanising, the diary records just how often he slept in the same bed as friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers. And they reveal the many nuances of successful – and unsuccessful – bedsharing.

On one occasion in Portsmouth, Pepys went to bed with a doctor who he worked with at the Royal Society in London. In addition to laying "very well and merrily" together, presumably talking late into the night, the doctor had the added advantage of being peculiarly delicious to fleas, who consequently left Pepys alone. (It's also been speculated that the pests didn't like his blood – and perhaps this helped him to avoid catching the plague.)

Tucked up under several layers of blankets, with their nightcaps resting on their heads, Ekirch explains that well-suited bedfellows might exchange stories well into the early morning – perhaps even waking to analyse their dreams between their first and second sleeps. (Learn more about the forgotten medieval habit of biphasic sleep.)

These hours spent chatting in the blackness of night helped to strengthen social bonds and provided a private space to exchange secrets. Handley cites the example of Sarah Hirst, a young gentlewoman and tailor's daughter, who had several favourite sleeping partners for whom she developed great affection. When one of her regular bed mates died, she wrote a poem expressing her grief.

Oh, I don't think I knew this:

Though she had many beds at her disposal, it's thought that Queen Elizabeth I never slept alone once during her 44-year reign. Each night, she retreated to her bedchamber with one of her trusted attendants, with whom she would unburden herself and dissect the day's activity at court. These women also provided her with protection.

 

I'm sure Boeing really appreciates this guide in the Washington Post...

 Update:

And this amused me: 

This is a very odd story

Here's the New York Times version:

Secret Synagogue Tunnel Sets Off Altercation That Leads to 9 Arrests

Videos showed a tumultuous scene as young Hasidic men clashed with the police in the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Brooklyn.

Makes it seem like peoples from a certain part of the world share part ant genes, or something.  (I've been watching quite a few ant keeping videos on Youtube lately!)

Hiding in plain sight

Yeah, this a very appealing idea because it's both cool and kind of funny. (Not that the post mentions AI in particular, but I mean the idea that an AI could be hiding within a computer network used for other purposes.)

Made me laugh

Maybe this has been around for a while?  (Hope I haven't actually posted it before!)  But I think I only notice today:

 

Everyone likes a tidying mouse

House-proud Welsh mouse may be ‘tidying’ for fun, say scientists

The rodent was filmed repeatedly gathering objects and placing them in a tray in a shed in Builth Wells

And in more pro-rodent discussion, this is on the ABC:

Why author James Mackinnon says our perception of rats and their role in the Black Death is wrong

No one thinks this was a good idea

This is not exactly the world's most important story, but it is interesting how the New York Times running a 5,000 word opinion piece by a "queer" staffer explaining why they are sure - positive! - that Taylor Swift has always been queer and has been sending cryptic messages along those lines in her lyrics since forever has been hit with near uniform criticism from both the Right and Left.   I mean, even in the comments following the article, the great majority were saying "Really?  Why is the NYT running this fangirl speculation at such length and with no thought to how annoying it could be to the person whose privacy has always been invaded?"

 

El Nino and dry weather

I'm getting a bit sick of the media coverage about "why is this summer so wet across Australia when the weather bureau said it should be dry because of El Nino?"

I mean, I was sure that I had read often in the past that El Nino does not necessarily guarantee a dry summer, and it took all of one Google search to find a BOM page from 2016 that confirms this:

El Niño is often, but not always, associated with drought in Australia. But the drying influence of the 2015–16 El Niño was initially tempered somewhat by very warm temperatures in the Indian Ocean. From April to August, above-average rainfall fell over parts of inland Western Australia, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.

But by spring, the Indian Ocean was helping El Niño, resulting in Australia's third-driest spring on record, limiting growth at the end of the cropping season. A record early heatwave in October further reduced crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Yes, I get that the BOM late last year did give a seasonal forecast of dry conditions because of El Nino, but I have always assumed seasonal forecasts are "rubbery" because they fall into the "bumps along the way" gap between short term weather forecast (pretty accurate, but only up to about 7 - 8 days) and long term predictions of certain climate changes, like increasing global average temperature (also pretty accurate because it's based on physics and the bumps along the way are averaged out).  

I thought this was pretty obvious, but media with its "BOM got it wrong - why?" style headlines are not helping much.

 

I think this article came out the day before the "hole in the plane"

 Boeing is asking federal regulators to exempt a new model of its 737 Max airliner from a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight.

The story ends:

The 737 Max went into service in May 2017. Two of the planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max jets were grounded worldwide for nearly two years while the company made changes to an automated flight-control system that pushed the nose down based on faulty sensor readings.

More recently, Max deliveries have been interrupted to fix manufacturing flaws, and last month the company told airlines to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.