How to annoy the Left

The New Abstinence-Education Study Is Good News. So Why Are Liberals Freaking Out?

A good post here about the Left's seeming annoyance that any type of abstinence based sex education could possibly work.

The type of programme the subject of this study is described as follows:

...the study authors looked at African-American middle-school students in the Northeast who enrolled in an abstinence-only program (no instruction on contraceptives) and were taught, sans moral or religious arguments, that they should delay sex until they were ready. Marriage was notably left out of it.

The students in this program were more likely to delay sex in the two years after the program, as opposed to those who enrolled in no program or those who were instructed in safe sex.

As the post further notes:

The generally negative reaction from the left really gets at how incredibly polarized the sex-education debate has become, to the point where supporters of comprehensive sex education can barely mumble a word of praise for a successful program.

Honour killing reaches a new low

Turkish teenager buried alive because friendship with boys shamed family - Times Online

The father and grandfather of a Turkish teenager are to face trial for burying her alive because they were concerned that her friendship with boys had brought dishonour on their family.

Although honour killings are not infrequent in Turkey, the especially gruesome manner of Medine Memi’s death has shocked the nation.

A coroner said that Medine had been discovered bound and lifeless in sitting position in a 2m hole dug beneath a chicken coop outside the family’s house in the town of Kahta in Southeastern Turkey, 40 days after she had disappeared. The hole had been cemented over.

According to a post-mortem examination the large amount of soil in her lungs and stomach showed that she had been buried while conscious and suffered a slow and agonising death.

The circumstances get worse:

It also emerged that Medine had repeatedly tried to report to police that she had been beaten by her father and grandfather days before she was killed. “She tried to take refuge at the police station three times, and she was sent home three times,” her mother, Immihan, said after the body was discovered in December.

Medine’s father is reported as saying at the time: “She has male friends. We are uneasy about that.”

Who is responsible for this headline?

Learning from climate's sedimental journey

I'm warning you, I'm ringing the Bad Pun Police now.

How will this play out in Australia?

What Will Obama's Energy Bill Look Like Without Cap-and-Trade? - The Atlantic Business Channel

Interesting post here suggesting that Obama is going to abandon cap and trade for now (due to the impossibility of getting it through his Senate) and basically come up with a plan of incentives, just like Tony Abbott's plan.

How will this play out politically here? Abbott can claim that his plan is now like the US one. But, as the above article notes, every credible commentator believes that is a formula for achieving next to nothing.

It seems to me more and more likely that Rudd here should do a deal with the Greens that sets a low carbon price and leaves open future changes if ETS's do start taking off in enough other countries.

I suspect that if it was done quickly, it would deflect the "new tax" scare campaign of the Liberals by the time an election came around at the end of the year.

Being an average intellect is not so bad

You don't have to be bipolar to be a genius – but it helps - Science, News - The Independent

I find it pretty laughable that in the last bit of this article they list creative people who have claimed to be bipolar, and include Stephen Fry and Sting. Great Britain much be running out of creative geniuses.

Good idea

OECD queries cost of new broadband network | The Australian

...the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Australia desk, Claude Giorno, called on the Rudd government to apply more rigorous cost-benefit analysis to its infrastructure spending, including its $43 billion broadband network. Mr Giorno said "questions need to be answered" about Labor's broadband network because of the amount of spending involved and the apparent lack of any cost-benefit analysis.

The Coalition's plan was substantially better for a country like ours.

Another late TV recommendation

Monster Moves

SBS has moved Mythbusters from Saturday night to Monday, but new episodes are showing (yay.)

In the old Saturday night 7.30 slot they are showing (for a short time, anyway) Monster Moves, about how they manage to relocate buildings. It was very interesting and impressive show last week, I thought.

It looks like its been on Discovery channel for some time (see link above) but I had never seen it before.

A pretty remarkable advance

Cold Comfort: Young Women with Cancer Can Freeze an Ovary to Keep Kids in the Picture

Young women who have to undergo cancer treatment which might destroy their fertility will soon have this option:

Before starting cancer treatment, one walnut-size ovary is removed in a 30-minute, minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure. The tissue is then cut into pieces the size of rice grains and flash frozen in liquid nitrogen at temperatures nearing –200 degrees Celsius by a process called vitrification.

After the treatment regime is completed, should the survivor choose to become pregnant, the tissue is thawed and re-implanted onto the surface of the remaining ovary or the ligament next to the fallopian tube. Four months later—the time it takes for thawed primordial follicles (the functional units of the ovary) to mature and start ovulating—the survivor can conceive without hormones and in vitro fertilization, making the procedure a "natural" and effective way to preserve fertility in young women and girls with cancer, says Sherman Silber, director of Saint Luke's Hospital's Infertility Center of Saint Louis.

Small mystery explained

Which e-reader will conquer Japan? | Japan Pulse

When I was last in Japan, I asked some people if they knew of the Sony e-reader, which I was hoping I might be able to buy and use in Australia. However, they didn't know about it.

This article explains why. (Short version, an early version of it was a market failure, and Sony stopped selling them in 2007. They are now considering a come back in the market, because it has sold pretty well in the US and England.)

As for buying them here: I thought I read the other day that they were finally going to start selling them, but now I can't find the story. Maybe I was dreaming...

On the US abandoning space

Obama Budget Plan Grounds NASA Despite Increased Funding - TIME

Not a bad column here (with interesting comments following) on the bleak looking future for people in space.

An odd urban legend from Japan

‘Ririkan’ fast-food mystery meat ::: Pink Tentacle

Interesting post here about an urban myth from Japan that involves imaginary Australian giant rats.

Modern marriage in Saudi Arabia

gulfnews : 12-year-old Saudi girl drops divorce requests: reports

Riyadh: A 12-year-old Saudi girl has dropped her petition to divorce an 80-year-old man her father forced to marry in exchange for a dowry, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The girl and her mother reportedly withdrew the case on Monday in a court in Buraidah in Al Qasim province.

The girl told the court that her marriage to the man was done with her agreement, according to Okaz newspaper.

According to reports, the girl's father, who is separated from her mother, arranged her marriage to the 80-year-old in exchange for a dowry payment of $22,667 (Dh83,414).

An interesting point

Abbott's great big axe | Alan Kohler | News | Business Spectator

Alan Kohler is one of the few commentators to give more-or-less support to the coalition policy (well, he calls it "clever" anyway), and he makes this interesting point:

....the coalition is proposing to pay the Latrobe Valley companies to convert from brown coal to gas. There are a few other ideas tacked on to make it look like a policy, not a deal, but that’s the guts of it.

It’s a good idea – first proposed in Business Spectator last November. I’m not sure the amount of money nominated – a total of $3.2 billion, with up to $2.55 billion available for power station conversion – will be enough, but it’s an opening gambit.

Hunt spelled it out towards the end of yesterday’s press conference when the journalists were nodding off listening to Tony Abbott, so what he said has been largely ignored.

He said: “One of the large power companies has provided us with their advice. Because it’s commercial-in-confidence, they didn’t want it released – but they provided us with their advice that they could convert from coal to gas for $13 per tonne under this system.

“Now we want to check that, but … the oldest and least efficient of the power providers has said to us that under the government’s ETS we’re just not going to be able to afford the capital to transition because we will be struggling just to survive… Under this they’ve said that if our balance sheets are clear and there’s an incentive to change from coal to gas, this is very attractive and we are more likely rather than less likely to change under this system.”

But the fly in the ointment is this:

Presumably Tony Abbott didn’t just announce a deal with the owners of Yallourn and Hazelwood because firstly Greg Hunt didn’t have to enough time to negotiate one, and secondly because saying you’re going to hand over large dollops of cash to Hong Kong and British companies is not as good politically as saying “No Great Big New Tax” over and over (and over).

This leaves a big opening to Labor to exploit.

The other problem for Abbott is that no one believes that big enough changes can be done without raising some extra money to pay for it. If he really wants an alternative that is simpler to understand, he should go for an actual low carbon tax with revenue devoted to cleaner energy research and deployment.

Sickly drinks may may make you sick

Energy drinks 'increase heart attack risk' - ABC News

I've never understood the success of the energy drink market. They are uniformly sickly sweet (even those with artificial sweetener) and while I know younger people have a greater tolerance for sweetness until their palate gets a bit more mature, the taste of these products has always seemed over the top.

So it's interesting to note that they may be positively dangerous as well:

Gulping down a single energy drink can significantly boost the blood pressure in healthy adults, according to new Australian research.

The work by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital shows that the popular drinks, used by young clubbers, exercise enthusiasts and sleep-deprived mothers, can also increase the stickiness of the blood and damages blood vessel function.

That'll help your credibility Tony

Abbott pencils in date with Monckton

Well much fun was to be had watching Kerry O'Brien put the precise questions to Abbott that the media had until now failed to ask:

KERRY O’BRIEN: Mr Abbott, you are using terminology like there's evidence evidence that carbon dioxide might be a problem. When you put that alongside what you told that audience in regional Victoria in October last year, "The climate change argument is absolute crap, however the politics are tough for us because 80 per cent of people believe climate change is a real and present danger". In other words, the only conclusion you draw from that is that you are saying, "We have to have a climate change policy because the people believe it's a danger, but I believe it's crap".

TONY ABBOTT: Well no, and as I said before, there was a little bit of rhetorical hyperbole in there which does not represent my considered position, I am not as evangelical about this as Prime Minister Rudd is. I am not theological about this the way Prime Minister Rudd is, but I do think it's important. And that is why I'm prepared to invest $10 billion over the coming decade to bring about things which will be good regardless, good for the environment, regardless of your views on the role of carbon dioxide in climate.

KERRY O’BRIEN: So when you say a bit of rhetorical hyperbole in that conversation with that audience you say you adjust the message to whatever audience you are playing to, if that's the case, how do we know you haven't adjusted your message for this audience?

TONY ABBOTT: Casually all of us are loose with our language, that was an occasion when I said what I shouldn't have said. It didn't represent my correct position.

KERRY O’BRIEN: There's nothing loose about the meaning of a term, nothing loose about the meaning of a term that says "absolute crap".

Now Abbott will help distance himself from the obvious charge that he is a climate change fake by meeting with Monckton? Ha.