When "I'm really, really sorry" doesn't cut it

Majority want Murdoch to be forced out of BSkyB altogether - The Independent

Two out of three people believe Rupert Murdoch's News Corp should have to dispose of its entire stake in BSkyB. According to a new survey for The Independent by ComRes, 65 per cent agree that the phone-hacking scandal shows News Corp is not a "fit and proper" organisation to own any part of BSkyB, while 26 per cent disagree.

For those who think Murdoch is a victim of left wing hysteria led by the likes of The Guardian, I'll use his "Daily Telegraph" defence, which comes in handy when running front page campaigns against incumbent governments: The Guardian is not running a campaign, it is merely reflecting public opinion.

Good for us, at least

More Aussie beef in pipeline amid cesium fears | The Japan Times Online

Domestic demand for Australian beef may increase after radiation was found in meat here and amid concern that cesium leaks from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant may spread farther, according to Australian Agricultural Co. Ltd.

"We're expecting to see better demand out of Japan as they move away from their own herds," Chief Executive Officer David Farley said on a conference call Monday. That follows a boost in demand for beef after radiation was detected in domestic seafood in March, he said.

Sorry, I still find you obnoxious

Death prompts bike groups to push for tougher laws

Look, I guess I'm OK with people who use cycling as a normal commuting choice. I'm even happy for them to do that sedately on a footpath, as they do in Japan and (no doubt) other asian countries.

But put them in lycra and trying to do 40 kph on a normal city road, or even on a shared bike/pedestrian path - no, just go away and do your speed stuff on a track.

Tour de France wins do not make anyone feel different about that.

Right wing in Europe

Norwegian massacre is wrong, not far right

Peter Hartcher's take on right wing politics in Europe made for interesting reading, I thought. It's not a topic that is easy to keep a track of from afar.

(He also makes the point that terrorist acts do not usually work the way their instigators think they will - a lesson that terrorists seem very slow to learn.)

Oakeshott talks

Yes, of course Rob Oakeshott make a hugely self-indulgent and embarrassing spectacle of himself when he and Tony Windsor announced they would support a Gillard led government.

But listen to him this morning on Radio National, talking about his support for the government's carbon tax, and his view that MP's are elected to spend the time looking at the detail of an issue and then make a decision that is in the long term interests of the country, and he comes across as principled and reasonable.

On the up-side

Why America's power grid is weathering the heat wave - CSMonitor.com

There is an usual aspect of the current American heat wave discussed here at the CSM: how come their power grid is coping with it so well? One factor shows that even economic downturns can have a sort of up-side:

A lot of it has to do with a weak economy that has left plenty of backup power available. The rapid growth of energy-efficiency measures is also responsible, as well as something called demand response – when commercial and industrial electricity users are throttled back by the use of computer-controlled switches and the Internet.

Just a touch of hypocrisy

Isn't it odd that Pajamas Media should link to an article "Can the Left Resist the Temptation to Exploit the Norway Attacks", and the same day run one which is all about (alleged) anti-Semitism in that country? (It is attracting a significant number of hostile comments.) Mind you, as I noted yesterday, the first American right quasi-political comment I read anywhere about it was at Powerline, with its "but if only there had been more people with guns there" twaddle.

Meanwhile, in Australia, Andrew Bolt does his shark jumping routine again, re-posting some singing Nazi youth (from which movie, I don't know) when discussing the Greens.

(I would never vote for the Greens, but this is just childish. They have every chance of losing some of their current level of popularity when Bob Brown goes, anyway.)

Triple down Andrew

OK, well, who didn't think that Islamic terrorism was probably behind the terrible events in Norway earlier today? I mean, even Geraldine Doogue on Radio National this morning opined that it appeared to be an attack that would have had to involve several people and much care in planning, and (I think) there was mention of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.

So, I can't really say Andrew Bolt can be blamed for suspecting the same.

But when it turns out that it wasn't Muslim terrorism, why do this? It appears to be one of the strangest cases of doubling down on an error that I have ever seen:

UPDATE

In fact:

“Explosives were found on the island,” deputy Oslo police chief Sveining Sponheim told reporters. He said a man detained by police was aged 32 and ”ethnic Norwegian.”

Even so, the history of Islamic violence in Scandinavia suggests Muslim immigration there has been a bad deal for the locals:

It was not immediately known who was behind the bombing, but Norway’s intelligence police agency (PST) said in February that Islamic extremism was a major threat to the country…

... police last year arrested three Muslim men based in Norway suspected of planning an attack using explosives in the Scandinavian country.

And then, Andrew does a triple down on a kinda offensive attempts at point scoring by noting with apparent approval John Hinderaker's very American argument that drives me crazy: to paraphrase, "well, that just goes to show what happens when you don't have enough normal people carrying guns". (Particularly when they are in swimmers on an island enjoying the sunshine, or at an Australian historical site, I suppose.) Hinderaker writes:

Many facts are still unknown, but at this point it appears that a key ingredient in the tragedy was the fact that the killer had the only gun on the island.

I honestly think that this type of argument is anathema for about 95% of Australians, yet Andrew gives it a run.

He's getting worse by the day.

Farewell to the shuttle

To be honest, despite my fondness for manned space exploration, I wasn't all that sad to see the end of the space shuttle program this week. Ever since the Columbia broke up over Texas in 2003, I found it difficult to avoid the feeling that the ageing program was not another disaster just waiting to happen. I mean, we're talking machines built in the 1970's and early 1980's. I'm not even particularly keen on flying in aircraft more than 25 years old, let alone a hybrid rocket plane which gets vibrated to hell on every launch and might have had its plans drawn by hand on that blue blueprint paper while I was still at high school.

On the other hand, I do share the disappointment that the manned space program has felt rudderless for, oh, about the entire 30 years we've watched the shuttle. American Presidents of both political persuasions never seem to have got it quite right ever since Kennedy: you know, set a goal that is achievable, expands humanity's reach in the universe, and achieve it. How hard can it be? Well, OK, pretty damn hard.

At the risk of repeating myself (but what's a blog for if you can't do that?): I don't see much point in aiming for Mars when you have such big gaps in knowledge as to how it will be achieved. I mean, I don't think anyone yet has a good plan for a spaceship that can ensure the survivability of astronauts from cosmic radiation on the trip, not to mention a foolproof space toilet. In reality, what you probably need is engines that get you there and back as soon as possible, yet you get the distinct impression that this has been on the economic backburner while all the engineering thought went into how to keep the remaining shuttles from disaster. (Interestingly, one of the hopes for better engines for a Mars trip - the next generation plasma engine VASIMR - was just recently attacked by prominent let's-go-to-Mars advocate Robert Zubrin as being "a hoax." Mind you, I've always half suspected Zubrin to be a slightly nutty techno-optimistic himself.)

George W Bush's 2004 plan for a return to the moon as a sort of stepping stone to Mars did seem basically sound, though; except for the stepping stone bit. I assume that setting up a long term post on the Moon probably does help a lot in developing reliable life supports systems that you would need to get to and from Mars; but it likely doesn't do anything much for the development of the new propulsion systems you need to get there and back ASAP.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned - the Moon has been barely scratched in terms of exploration, and the surface of Mars is not all that more hospitable place to be setting up camp. There are almost certainly caves, gases and water on the Moon that are well worth exploring, and if enough buried water is found, you really do have a basis for a permanent base and, just maybe, genuine lunar industry. You're never going to be able to cover the shipping costs from Mars to Earth, regardless of what you make there.

Forget daydreaming about walking around the Red Planet; not for now anyway. We've seen the photos; it may look like an Earth side desert, but it's not going to feel that way when you're there.

The Moon is handily close and has the potential to actually help the Earth, as well as being a good base for science, at least of the astronomical variety. No one ever suggests this, but as I like to cover all bases, I actually think one of the key roles of the Moon should be as an emergency back up for Earth from planet-wide disasters of any variety. I'd be making it the equivalent of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway; except I'd also be sending DNA from all animals as well, together with encyclopaedic amounts of data on every technological or scientific topic that could be of use or interest in the future.

Anyway, enough of the Opinion Dominion Outline for a Reasonable, Useful and Human Space Program.

Back to the last Shuttle flight: James Lilek wrote well about it, and as he appears to be about my age, I understand the sentiment:

NASA is keen to tell you there’s a still a future for sending Americans into space, but there’s a general cultural anomie that seems content to watch movies about people in space, but indifferent to any plans to put them there. This makes me grind my teeth down to the roots, but I suppose that’s a standard reaction when the rest of your fellow citizenry doesn’t share the precise and exact parameters of your interests and concerns. That’s the problem when you grow up with magazines telling you where we’re going after the moon, with grade-school notebooks that had pictures of the space stations to come, when the push to Mars was regarded as an inevitable next step.

Just got hung up on the “why?” part, it seems. Also the “how” and the “how much” and other details. I can see the reason for taking our time – develop new engines, perfect technology, gather the money and the will. It’s not like anything’s going anywhere. But it’s not like we’re going anywhere if we’re not going anywhere, either – when nations, cultures stop exploring, it’s a bad sign. You’re ceding the future.......

So what’s the attachment, really? Childhood attachment to Star Trek fantasies, geeky fascination with spaceships, adolescent marination in sci-fi visions of rockets and moon bases and PanAm shuttles engaged in a sun-bathed ballet with a space station revolving to the strains of Strauss, phasers and warp six and technobabble and the love of great serene machinery knifing through clouds of glowing dust? Probably. It’s not over, I know – but it’s like watching the last of Columbus’ ships return, and learning they’re cutting up the mast for firewood, and no one’s planning to go back any time soon.

But finally, for a bit of inspirational nostalgia, this video from Nature turned up at Boing Boing, and it is very good:

Paging Dr Brady

Of course, climate change sceptics will be all over the article in The Australian today noting a recent study, based on just four tidal gauges, that argues that sea level increase has started to decelerate, at least around Australia/New Zealand. [Note: see the update below for the correction to this.]

The author of the paper, which I had actually heard about before, seems open minded as to the question of long term implications.

The report in The Australian, however, gives earlier prominence to some very climate change sceptic sounding comments by one Dr Howard Brady, of Macquarie University.

Googling Dr Brady reveal little about him, except for the following:

* he is aged 70

* he is a retired scientist who did a lot of work in Antarctica

* he is a former Catholic priest

* he used to be chief of Mosaic Oil

* he gave at least one talk to a Engineer’s Club to deliver a climate change update.

Now, not all of these things are necessarily indicative of climate change scepticism; but most of them are!

Yet one of the links says he is interested in the "non-linearity of climate change", which sounds more like a climate change believer interest.

So, it’s a bit of a mystery. Come out and reveal your position on everything to do with climate, Dr Brady, and tell us how you managed to get quoted in The Australian on this study.

UPDATE: I should have known. Deltoid looks at the actual science at issue here and shows how that article misrepresents it. He also notes that The Australia has not published a correcting letter from Watson's department, and also wonders why Dr Brady is quoted as some sort of authority on this.

In short: another case of pathetic journalism on climate change.

Worthy of a trip to the cinema?

Captain America: The First Avenger - Rotten Tomatoes

I'm not the world's greatest fan of Marvel movies by any means, but I note that Captain America is getting more positive reviews than bad, and the fact that it's directed by Joe Johnston, who did The Rocketeer 20 years ago, makes me more inclined to see it.

The Rocketeer certainly failed commercially to live up to its publicity, but I thought it looked great and found it quite likeable. CA might therefore be worth a shot.

More about feeling your religion

Further to my somewhat rambling recent post about my wariness of how people sense divine guidance or presence, I see that Mark Vernon at The Guardian has his final piece on Carl Jung, and I thought this section was of interest:

It is perhaps this craving for immediate experience that drives the highly emotional forms of religion growing so fast in the contemporary world, though Jung would have discerned a sentimentality in them that again simplifies humankind's moral ambiguities and spiritual paradoxes. He did not believe that authentic religiosity was expressed in these peak experiences. Rather he advised people to turn towards their fears, much as the mystics welcomed the dark night of the soul. This shadow is experienced as a foe, but it is really a friend because it contains clues as to what the individual lacks, rejects and distrusts.

"What our age thinks of as the 'shadow' and inferior part of the psyche contains more than something merely negative," he writes in The Undiscovered Self, an essay published in 1957. "They are potentialities of the greatest dynamism." That dynamism works by way of compensation. It aims to rebalance what has become lopsided. Hence, if at a conscious level the scientific has eclipsed the theological, the material the valuable, the emotive the spiritual, then the forces that hide in the unconscious will ineluctably make themselves felt once more. It will seem chaotic and quite possibly be destructive. But the passion also contains a prophetic voice calling humanity back to life in all its fullness.

As usual with Jung, I find it both interesting yet somewhat unsatisfactory, and not entirely clear what it means. Vernon finishes on this note:

Symbols do die. "Why have the antique gods lost their prestige and their effect upon human souls? It was because the Olympic gods had served their time and a new mystery began: God became man." Which raises the question of whether the Christian dispensation has now served its time too and we await a new mystery. Perhaps we do live on the verge of a new age, of another transformation of humanity.

All a bit "Age of Aquarius", I feel. As I think technological transhumanism is a long, long way off, I don't see that as holding out much hope for "transformation of humanity". In a world where people are living more and more in front of a screen (I'm as guilty as anyone,) it's hard to see anything other than life enhancing mystery being slowly bled away.

Still, you never know what might come along.

Japan and renewables

BBC News - Fukushima crisis: Nuclear only part of Japan's problems

The article describes the problems Japan is going to face with electricity supply if they are going to do it with less nuclear power.

Let's face it: a country as prone to earthquakes as Japan should indeed be one of the more cautious ones about where and how they build nuclear power. Again, I suspect that building smaller, self contained reactors, such as those Toshiba and Hyperion have been said to be developing for a few years now, might be the only way to feel more confident about nuclear in that country.

On the other hand, a very geologically quiet country like Australia seems the ideal place for nuclear. But new designs, please.

Meanwhile, in Japan, we'll soon be seeing how well a concerted effort to build up solar power can work:

Japan has a relatively small share of renewables, which account for approximately 5% of its total primary energy supply. The current National Energy Plan has set a target of 10% by 2020. At the G8 summit in France this May, Mr Kan announced a plan to increase renewables to more than 20% of total electricity supply by the early 2020s. The government also plans to install 10 million rooftop photo-voltaic units (solar cells) by 2030.

Ice watch

RealClimate: Arctic sea ice discussions

Arctic ice extent is currently tracking below the 2007 summer minimum, although cautious people in the above thread note that July level is not that good at predicting the later minimum.

Still, someone else notes that ice volume is way down, which is arguably more important than extent for the long term.

Of course, a new record low in Arctic ice extent this year could only help the disturbingly gullible public of Australia believe that climate change is real, so here's hoping for it.

Quiet companionship, indeed

Silicone love: Guys and dolls - ABC News

Gosh. What inspired the ABC to have a long article about Australian men who are having happy, contented, but rather weird, lives with their silicone life-like girlfriends.

I wonder if some of them have thought to do wills providing for their "quiet" companions. I would like to see a funeral with the silicone girlfriend seated in the front row, dressed in black. Maybe she could be thrown onto the coffin in an uncontrollable outbreak of grief, and someone else has to slap her hard in the face to get her to pull herself together.

Yes, I can imagine a lot of entertainment value in this.