Offset scams

Carbon offset cash-in questioned - New Scientist Environment

From the article:

The market in carbon offsets, which allows companies to invest in renewable energy as a way of mitigating their own greenhouse gas emissions - almost doubled in 2006 to $5 billion, the World Bank said on 2 May. According to a recent report in the London-based Financial Times, some of that money is going to oil companies that are simply pumping CO2 into oilfields to extract more oil. They would have done this anyway, so profits from selling the credits go straight into company coffers, with no benefit to new carbon-saving schemes.

A busy life, and a movie review of sorts

Less frequent posting lately is largely due to very busy work and home life. I am not sure why, but there also just seem to be fewer stories around at the moment which I feel inspired to comment on. I don't think I have had a significant break in blogging since I was on holiday a year ago; maybe that is part of the problem.

Anyway, when I feel like this for a few days, usually it's suddenly followed by a day with a half dozen stories that I want to comment on. Life is like that.

A free ticket that had to be used led me to see Spiderman 3 over the weekend. I am no fan of superhero films generally, but like David Stratton, I think the Spiderman franchise is the best of the genre. Toby Maguire is a large part of this: he does have a degree of charisma which is not evident in most of today's young Hollywood actors. (As I have said before, in the 1980's there seemed to be a pool of reliable, likeable actors who generally chose material that was worth seeing. When that group aged out of their prime by the mid 1990's, the group of younger stars following them just didn't seem to have any similar charm.) Kirsten Dunst does alright in her role too, but I must admit there is something about her face that makes it entirely forgettable for me from movie to movie.

Spiderman 3 is enjoyable. The story bounces around a bit (there is plenty of criticism that it tries to fit in too many characters and plot lines,) but it is never dull, and the way it all comes together by the end was pretty satisfying. It's not afraid to be a little silly, and the theme about not getting consumed by revenge was dealt with in a way which felt more convincing than it did in, say, any Star Wars movie after The Empire Strikes Back. That George Lucas didn't like it is sour grapes. His last three movies show how bad he is at making characters feel real. (He didn't even write or direct the pinnacle of the Star Wars series - Empire Strikes Back.) There is no such problem with the protagonist of the Spiderman series.

The movie is effectively the end of a trilogy, and it is a little hard to see where Spiderman 4 is going to go, especially in terms of the Mary-Jane relationship. I think the next movie is going to have to leave that right out, as to continue dwelling on its difficulties would be mean. I assume that superhero-dom will not allow for married domesticity, even though it could interest me.

Holidays in New Guinea off the agenda

Human sacrifice cult battles with police - Telegraph

From the article:

Commander Augustine Wampe, of Morobe police, said a helicopter carrying a mobile squad of anti-riot officers had been dispatched to the area following reports of murders in which victims were beheaded and their heads impaled on stakes.

Some of the heads were then allegedly paraded around a village. “The reported activities of the people point to cult activity,” Cdr Wampe told The National newspaper.

Watch out

Oral sex can cause throat cancer - 09 May 2007 - New Scientist

From the article:

The new findings should encourage people to consistently use condoms during oral sex as this could protect against HPV, the team says.

That's going to go over well with groups such as American teens, for whom this activity presumably carries the benefit of requiring no contraception. Gay men won't like it either, and I think it is safe to assume that this is one warning that will have little effect on behaviour.

How to annoy Andrew Bolt

News Corp carbon neutral by 2010 | NEWS.com.au Business

Andrew has already noted this.

Scary justice in Japan

Coerced confessions: Justice derailed in Japan - International Herald Tribune

Do try and avoid being a suspect in Japan.

Everything you never wanted in kid's TV

Palestinian TV uses Mickey Mouse to promote resistance | Guardian Unlimited

Short budget comment

Costello provides vision beyond the pork-barrelling - Editorial - Opinion

If even The Age has an editorial with a heading like that approving of the Budget, it can't be a bad one.

One for every backyard

Clean Energy / Infinia Corporation

With funding for solar power expected to be increased in tonight's budget, I wonder whether home based solar thermal will ever become much of an option. I quite like the look of the system at the link above, which is still (unfortunately) not yet on the market.

I am a little dubious about solar cells on the roof because of their limited life, and the danger from hail storms. I am guessing that a solar thermal system may be more easily repaired if it suffers storm damage.

Proof of cold fusion?

DailyTech - Navy Heats Up Cold Fusion Hopes

There's no indication that the type of could fusion allegedly shown here will end up being useful, but it would still be good to see an idea that has been so attacked by other scientists proved true.

On other blogs...

1. Probably everyone who reads me also reads Tim Blair. Still, I think that in his most recent post he comes up with up his funniest line for a long time (after quoting from the NYT):

The children are all too familiar with the apocalyptic warnings of climate change. “A lot of people are going to die” from global warming, a 9-year-old girl from Harlem announced at one point. And a 7-year-old boy from Park Slope said with a quiet lisp, “When you use too much electricity, it kills animals.”

Well, it does if you hook up the electrodes right.

2. Andrew Bolt has a good post on the pessimism of science fiction, brought on by recently re-watching Blade Runner. His conclusion:

Yes, it’s only a film, but it also fits a pattern of imagining of our future.

We actually wind up not much different in our wants, and not less vigilant on the whole against threats, than is often feared. We remain in the West extremely inventive, and driven more by the wishes of the public than the demands of the leaders.

That probably explains why artists and “seers” so often get us wrong, and imagine us becoming in time so much gloomier, oppressed, bullied, atrophied and poor than we inevitably and eventually turn out. In reminding us of this, Blade Runner is a comfort.

True. I also have heard Orwell's 1984 being read on Radio National recently, while I have been driving around town. It reminded me how much I disliked that book, both from a stylistic point of view (I think it is plain awful writing,) and for its ridiculous over-reach in the dystopia it paints. By taking aspects of totalitarianism, which were bad enough in their current form when Orwell wrote, and then exaggerating them wildly with an imagined technology which is still off the mark, combined with a way of writing characters which robbed them of any realistic humanity, the effect became that I just could not take it seriously. (Even with a one child policy, did China develop an "Anti-sex League"? )

3. Zoe Brain has brought to my attention the very enjoyable site Paleo-Future, which seems devoted entirely to looking at how the future has been imagined in the past. (I think it has been mentioned at Boing Boing before, but maybe I didn't follow the link.) I love this sort of stuff, growing up as I did in the (generally) optimistic 1960's, and expect to visit there regularly.

More icky moments in medical history...

Found via Arts & Letters Daily, there's book out called "Impotence - a Cultural History". In the Daily Telegraph review, there's an amusing list of odd impotence cures through history. One that I found odd because it is so specific is this:

...according to Ovid the "right molar of a small crocodile worn as an amulet guarantees erection in men".

Not just any crocodile molar, evidently, but the one on the right. How did the ancients come up with some of this stuff?

The other link from Arts & Letters is to an extract from the book itself, from which one can read a little about early experiments in testicular transplant:

The first experiment in grafting an entire testicle was performed by Dr. G. Frank Lydston on himself, on January 16, 1914. Expressing his disappointment that vulgar prejudices heretofore had prevented the exploitation of the sex glands of the dead, Lydston coolly reported how he transplanted into his own scrotum a suicide victim’s testicle. [p. 186]

L. L. Stanley, resident physician of the California state prison in San Quentin, reported in 1922 that he had first implanted testicles from executed convicts and then moved on to inject into his subjects via a dental syringe solutions of goat, ram, boar, and deer testicles. Altogether he made 1000 injections into 656 men. Stanley had been inspired by work of Serge Voronoff, an eminent Russian-born medical scientist working at the Collége de France. Voronoff in 1919 scandalized many by transplanting the testes of chimpanzees into men. He asserted that “marked psychical and sexual excitation” typically resulted, followed by a resurgence of memory, energy and “genital functions.” [pp. 186-7]

I am sure I have heard of experiments with ground up animal testes before, but I don't recall reading about whole chimp testes bit.

I guess there was little resembling ethics committees in those days.

A good reason to avoid diabetes...

Turns out that diabetic's foot ulcers, even those with antibiotic resistant staph infections, do well with maggot treatment. There's an unpleasant photo of the maggots in action on someone's foot at the linked article.

Adams confirms his philosopher of choice

Scott Adams has a funny post in which he explains that he has discovered he is a follower of Spinoza. His reaction on reading about him on Wikipedia:

Holy cow! My opinions match Spinoza’s perfectly. It turns out that being ignorant is almost exactly like being a well-read student of philosophy who can quote from the work of the masters. How lucky is that?

The rest of the post is fun too. He's quite a wit, although I have noticed that the topic of bestiality seems to appear with unwelcome frequency on his blog.

A small triumph for a woman in Saudi Arabia

BBC NEWS From Our Own Correspondent | The first woman to swim in Saudi

Interesting.