Google's balloons

Project Loon: How Google’s Internet balloons are actually working.

You have to love the way Google carries on research that may or may not work out, and this article contains some fascinating details about their wacky sounding balloon internet project.

Blob 3

Keeping prices high

High risk: drug war fought with dollars

Ross Gittins considers the "counterfactual" of drugs prohibition, something that the "war on drugs is a MASSIVE FAILURE" decriers routinely fail to do. 

I didn't want to know this...

Eating less meat essential to curb climate change, says report | Environment | The Guardian: Curbing the world’s huge and increasing appetite for meat is essential to avoid devastating climate change, according to a new report. But governments and green campaigners are doing nothing to tackle the issue due to fears of a consumer backlash, warns the analysis from the thinktank Chatham House.

The global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined, but a worldwide survey by Ipsos MORI in the report finds twice as many people think transport is the bigger contributor to global warming.

The report goes on to note that some are calling for a meat tax to curb eating it.

Gee, and the "nanny state" whiners freak out over the suggestion of a sugar tax.   They'll see a meat tax as a direct threat to their (probably unwise anyway) intensely meaty diet.

No doubt I could do with eating less meat myself.  But it is very - satisfying.

Oh dear, another bit of huffing and puffing fails to blow the Senate into line

Asylum bill to reintroduce temporary protection visas faces Senate defeat | Australia news | The Guardian

The government faces another major Senate defeat with Labor, the Greens, the Palmer United party (PUP) and other crossbench senators insisting that 30,000 asylum seekers living in limbo in Australia receive the possibility of a permanent visa.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving Minister.

The Antarctic ice that matters

West Antarctic melt rate has tripled

A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade.

Much more important an issue than what sea ice is doing around the continent. 

They're messing with their own minds

I heard on the radio that Tony Abbott gave an end of year pep talk to the party room yesterday emphasising how great a year of achievement it had been - you know, end carbon tax, mining tax, stop the boats, etc.

I then heard Christopher Pyne run the same line - it's been a tremendous year of achievement for the government, apparently. 

This is pretty hilarious - a government trying to spin its way out of depression, in the public eye.  It is, of course, likely to have the completely opposite effect on the public, who will see a bunch of self satisfied, arrogant, dissembling twits out of touch with reality.

Blob 2

New Abbott government strategy

Update: Ha! I posted this and then saw Abbott on Sunrise this morning, again talking in front of a Christmas tree. (He was also full of hesitation, again. He needs a long holiday - like for 30 years or so, that should do it.)

Update 2:  See:

Blob

An explanation: Christmas is a busy time, and I'm feeling a bit blog exhausted lately. Seems to me I have been completely and utterly vindicated in predictions that Tone would be a bad, bad PM; I suspect that a mild El Nino is on the way that will remove all temperature hiatus talk; David Leyonhjelm keeps on giving speeches that prove he is an intellectual lightweight wannabe populist whose party will not achieve anything electorally major again; the IPA has the sulks because it can't bend the Coalition completely to its will; Catallaxy has devolved into a place only frequented by the aging, angry white male contingent (and their oddball female admirers with anti feminist obsessions); fundamental physics seems to have hit a bit an impasse now that the Higgs has been found - probably; the Catholic Church is in the final, but still decades long, throes of revising its understanding of sexuality and theology more broadly; Fairfax will make a stunning comeback in corporate fortunes. (OK, I may be exaggerating on that last point.)

So I'm feeling a bit out of fresh material. I thought maybe I should spend a month just posting unexplained and pointless blobs and doodles. But then I felt like ridiculing Tony again, and I couldn't resist. But I'm still tempted to go into blob mode...

Changing shape

[1411.7402] Global monopoles change Universe's topology

I've always had a hard time getting my head around the matter of the topography of the universe; it's not something easily visualised.   But to make matters worse, a couple of scientists here suggest that the topography of the universe might be able to change.  A big crunch may yet happen, seems to be one of the implications.

What a funny old part of the world...

Iraqi army revealed to have 50,000 ‘ghost soldiers’ on its roll - Middle East - World - The Independent

His spokesman Rafid Jaboori said: "The prime minister revealed the existence of 50,000 fictitious names.

“Over the past few weeks, the PM has been cracking down to expose the ghost soldiers and get to the root of the problem.”

The announcement is an indication that he intends further action against state corruption in the military and beyond. Earlier this month he sacked 36 army commanders in a move intended to improve the efficiency of the military and to reduce graft.

Mr Jaboori added: “Haidaral-Abadi is setting integrity, efficiency and courage as the criteria to
appoint a new military leadership. This weeding out process will extend beyond the military to all state institutions.”

Fictitious soldiers, known as 'fadhaiyin', are created to provide extra income for officers and the more senior the rank the more ‘ghost’ incomes there are.

We need more ghosts in ISIS, I know that for sure...

LDP soars to 2.72%

I see that, even with David Leyonhjelm getting his distinctive head on the TV and in the papers a lot since he became a Senator, the LDP in the Victorian election managed to get 2.72% of the vote (so far), marginally ahead of the Sex Party and the Democratic Labor Party.

It's a party for an eccentric minority, like the other micro parties.

What was I saying about Scott Morrison?

Scott Morrison wants to snatch courts’ powers over immigration and citizenship | The Saturday Paper

"Quasi fascist" wasn't it?   From an article in this weekend's Saturday Paper:

Morrison is pursuing what immigration lawyers describe as a
“legislative blitzkrieg” via three bills that would dramatically extend
the minister’s powers and curtail review of his decisions.

Each piece of legislation on its own is a significant extension of
ministerial power. Taken together, they represent a tough new regime, as
the minister who credits himself with stopping the boats now applies
his unyielding approach to other facets of his portfolio.

Morrison spells out why his decisions should be beyond reproach and
exempt from the standard review processes in the explanatory memorandum
of the Australian Citizenship and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2014.

“As an elected Member of Parliament, the Minister represents the
Australian community and has a particular insight into Australian
community standards and values and what is in Australia’s public
interest,” it says. “As such, it is not appropriate for an unelected
administrative tribunal to review such a personal decision of a Minister
on the basis of merit, when that decision is made in the public
interest.”

In other words: trust him, he’s the minister.

Tales from the past

A Nineteenth Century Japanese Folk Tale Still Inspires UFO-Believers

I hadn't heard this one before.  It is a bit odd.