Sinclair Davidson thinks that it's "a tad hypocritical" of Bill Clinton to defend DACA when it was under his administration that Elian Gonzalez was forcibly removed from his uncle (who thought he should stay in Florida) so that he could be given to his father (who thought he should return with him to Cuba?)
What was, essentially, a custody dispute is not by any stretch of the imagination in the same category as what DACA is about.
To correct my post title: the comparison is not just "a tad stupid", it's completely stupid.
Friday, September 08, 2017
Positive things I have heard recently
* was told by someone who saw it himself that, yesterday morning, a dugong was happily feeding just off the rock wall at Manly (Brisbane) yacht harbour. Some other guy there, apparently an old timer who has lived and fished in the area for many years, said he has never seen one, or at least, one so close to shore. [I knew that there were dugong in the southern part of Moreton Bay - in fact, this website from 2009 says there are about 1,000. But they are are not a common sight so close to shore, obviously. It augurs well for a healthy local sea environment, I presume, so it pleases me.]
* was speaking recently to a surgeon in the Queensland public health system. Asked how our public system here was going - pretty well, he said. In fact, he said if people need a major operation, he thinks the equipment and staffing of Queensland public hospitals is such that he considers it is a better choice than going private.
These were both nice things to hear.
* was speaking recently to a surgeon in the Queensland public health system. Asked how our public system here was going - pretty well, he said. In fact, he said if people need a major operation, he thinks the equipment and staffing of Queensland public hospitals is such that he considers it is a better choice than going private.
These were both nice things to hear.
I like airports...
Slate has several articles up about American airports and how bad most of them have become. One article is entitled: How the airport came to embody our national psychosis.
While I appreciate that airports servicing New York, for example, may have their problems due simply to the huge numbers they need to provide for in sometimes hemmed in locations, I think Australian airports are doing pretty well, actually.
I like airports. I like hospitals (well, new ones) too. I guess I like all places where people are busy achieving remarkable things in buildings that look clean and modern.
I was in Sydney domestic for the first time in many years recently. It was a lot better than I remembered. Pretty great food selection now. A very large number of recharging facilities on the long tables in the food court. Security did not take long, even on a Sunday evening, with lots of people travelling home.
As with health care, where we manage to get better results with less money, maybe we just do some things better than the Americans...
While I appreciate that airports servicing New York, for example, may have their problems due simply to the huge numbers they need to provide for in sometimes hemmed in locations, I think Australian airports are doing pretty well, actually.
I like airports. I like hospitals (well, new ones) too. I guess I like all places where people are busy achieving remarkable things in buildings that look clean and modern.
I was in Sydney domestic for the first time in many years recently. It was a lot better than I remembered. Pretty great food selection now. A very large number of recharging facilities on the long tables in the food court. Security did not take long, even on a Sunday evening, with lots of people travelling home.
As with health care, where we manage to get better results with less money, maybe we just do some things better than the Americans...
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Ethics question of the day
Is it wrong to wish that Hurricane Irma destroy Trump's cheesy looking Mar-a-Lago resort?
(I hope Disneyworld is OK; and Cape Canaveral too. The rest of Florida - well, 49.02% of it - deserves at least a mild smiting because of their last electoral college vote.)
(I hope Disneyworld is OK; and Cape Canaveral too. The rest of Florida - well, 49.02% of it - deserves at least a mild smiting because of their last electoral college vote.)
The Right in schism
Want to read a Republican hardliner's view on DACA? Try Michelle Makin, who used to be bigger in the world of wingnutty online commentary than she is now. Her stone hearted nonsense entitled There is no such thing as a 'deserving DREAMer' encourages her base to blame immigration for everything from undereducated white guys not being to find a job to crime and murder. The odd thing is that Trump himself used the same demeaning arguments during his rallies against illegal immigrants generally, yet it seems that even he and 66% of his supporters think the kids of illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay - in other words, that DREAMers do deserve something.
It's an incredible, messed up Party, that's for sure.
It's an incredible, messed up Party, that's for sure.
Just a reminder
The heading for an article in 2010:
Atlantic Hurricanes to Become Less Frequent But More Intense
NOAA-Led Study Looks at the Impact of a Warming Ocean
Postal probably gone?
My feeling is that the High Court should find that the government can't spend the money on the same sex marriage postal survey/plebiscite/Turnbull escape strategy. George Williams thinks so, and that's good enough for me.
Which would lead me to go back to my previous suggestion: let the government get a quote from Newspoll for doing a really large sample poll on the matter, and say that if there is a clear majority far enough outside of the margin of error, the Government will let it go to a vote in Parliament.
Update: Well, HC goes its own way, again. They're getting hard to pick...
Which would lead me to go back to my previous suggestion: let the government get a quote from Newspoll for doing a really large sample poll on the matter, and say that if there is a clear majority far enough outside of the margin of error, the Government will let it go to a vote in Parliament.
Update: Well, HC goes its own way, again. They're getting hard to pick...
Chaos in government
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes how government "works" under Trump:
On Tuesday, even as the administration announced that it was ending protection from deportation for the 800,000 “dreamers” — mostly young people who know no country but America — there were signs that Trump had no idea what he was doing. “As late as one hour before the decision was to be announced, administration officials privately expressed concern that Mr. Trump might not fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take, and when he discovered their full impact, would change his mind,” Michael Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the New York Times reported, citing an anonymous source.
Sure enough, Trump fired off a tweet Tuesday night that revised his position. He called on Congress to “legalize” the dreamers program and vowed to “revisit the issue” if Congress can’t.
Even Trump’s close advisers seem to have little knowledge of, much less control over, what he says and does.The biggest boost to the economy of a Trump presidency is probably going to be to the publishing industry, as there is going to be a never ending supply of "My first hand experience of chaos in the White House" memoirs.
Trump has signaled that he wants to end a free-trade deal with South Korea, even though his national security adviser, his defense secretary and the director of the National Economic Council all object. He and Defense Secretary James Mattis have contradicted each other about whether to talk with North Korea. Chief of Staff John Kelly’s attempts to tone down Trump’s antics have reportedly led Trump to escalate his attacks — on Kelly. Trump has publicly criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions and repeatedly contradicted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner have let it leak that Trump ignored their advice on Charlottesville and other matters.
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
Lucifer as the misunderstood naughty boy with Daddy issues
Jason suggested I watch the first episode of Lucifer, a combined supernatural/police procedural show with a humorous touch that is on Netflix now.
I did last night, and my thoughts are as follows:
It was enjoyable enough for me to watch again, but I have some reservations.
The actor playing Lucifer does it with a tad too much of what might be called "straight camp" if you ask me, but perhaps that's bit unavoidable given the lines he is given. The emphasis on his enjoyment of sex I found a little bit off putting. It reminded me of the movie Michael, in which John Travolta played the Archangel Michael as a supernatural character who enjoyed pleasuring women sexually. I remember reading at the time that the writer defended this as being closer to the Old Testament version of angels, who walked and interacted with humans and weren't the ghost-like pure spirit creatures as Christianity came to think of them. That may be right, but I think that supernatural beings enjoying sex with humans is still a very odd concept to the modern mind, where ever it appears: I think its a large part of what makes Greek mythology strange to us now.
As for the bigger picture, of Lucifer's depiction as more or less "just doing a job" when he was Lord of Hell: yes, it is sort of interesting. I found a detailed version of this explained in an article from 2006 at Phys.org, of all places - reviewing a book "Satan: A Biography".
I did last night, and my thoughts are as follows:
It was enjoyable enough for me to watch again, but I have some reservations.
The actor playing Lucifer does it with a tad too much of what might be called "straight camp" if you ask me, but perhaps that's bit unavoidable given the lines he is given. The emphasis on his enjoyment of sex I found a little bit off putting. It reminded me of the movie Michael, in which John Travolta played the Archangel Michael as a supernatural character who enjoyed pleasuring women sexually. I remember reading at the time that the writer defended this as being closer to the Old Testament version of angels, who walked and interacted with humans and weren't the ghost-like pure spirit creatures as Christianity came to think of them. That may be right, but I think that supernatural beings enjoying sex with humans is still a very odd concept to the modern mind, where ever it appears: I think its a large part of what makes Greek mythology strange to us now.
As for the bigger picture, of Lucifer's depiction as more or less "just doing a job" when he was Lord of Hell: yes, it is sort of interesting. I found a detailed version of this explained in an article from 2006 at Phys.org, of all places - reviewing a book "Satan: A Biography".
Henry Ansgar Kelly puts forth the most comprehensive case ever made for sympathy for the devil, arguing that the Bible actually provides a kinder, gentler version of the infamous antagonist than typically thought.That fits in extremely well with his depiction in the show, don't you think?
"A strict reading of the Bible shows Satan to be less like Darth Vader and more and more like an overzealous prosecutor," said Kelly, a UCLA professor emeritus of English and the former director of the university's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. "He's not so much the proud and angry figure who turns away from God as [he is] a Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. Satan's basic intention is to uncover wrongdoing and treachery, however overzealous and unscrupulous the means. But he's still part of God's administration."
Frum on DACA - and Trump and the evangelicals
David Frum talking about immigration and the Trump move to pass the buck is, I think, a very good (and pretty balanced) explanation of what's going on.
In other Trump readings, I thought this article in the Guardian by a former evangelical explaining why he thinks they love Trump despite him being an obvious sinner was pretty good too. He reckons it's because they recognize a similar aggressive outsider psychology. Here's part of it:
In other Trump readings, I thought this article in the Guardian by a former evangelical explaining why he thinks they love Trump despite him being an obvious sinner was pretty good too. He reckons it's because they recognize a similar aggressive outsider psychology. Here's part of it:
When I was a young evangelical Christian, I was eager to be oppressed for my faith. The Bible and my pastors had warned me to avoid “worldly” people – celebrities, intellectuals, scientists, the media and liberals. Those were the ones who forbid us from praying in school while indoctrinating us with communism and evolution.
Jesus once said: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” So I went out of my way to piss people off – telling the goth kids they were prisoners of Satan’s lies, handing anti-abortion literature to the “loose” girls, and forcing science class to run late while I debated evolution with the teacher.
My entire identity became wrapped up in being disliked by a specific group of people, and they were happy to accommodate me. Trump has had no problem arousing hatred from those same “worldly people”, creating what appears to some like an imploding presidency, while others see a heroic martyr against liberalism.
After nearly eight months in office, it’s becoming clear that many of Trump’s actions are not ideologically based, but designed to inspire maximum outrage from climate-scientists, academics, feminists, LGBTQ rights activists – pretty much every demographic that evangelicals hate. Whether he’s banning transgender soldiers from serving in the military, pardoning a vigilante sheriff, or refusing to properly distance himself from white supremacists, it’s not about the act itself, it’s about the negative reaction he gets from liberals.
You’ll never get anything done in government with this approach, but that’s not the point. Just as the point of my witnessing to the lost souls of my public high school wasn’t to convert them to Christianity, it was to see how persecuted I could be.
Sounds reasonably plausible to me, and not really an explanation I have heard before.
Which is a remarkably addictive sensation, one that became a competitive game for me and my fellow young believers. My youth-group friends and I would share stories of being punched, spit on, or called “the biggest loser in school” the way other kids would brag about sports or sexual conquests. Just as Morrissey fans discovered loneliness to be a fashionable accessory, we wanted to emulate the sociopathy of our messiah, who said in the book of John: “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Wild man sightings
Nothing here that's as mysterious as bigfoot/yowie glimpses, but this post about unexpected sightings of what appear to be "wild" men living nude and dirty (or greasy - the story from New Jersey in 1935 is especially odd) is interesting nonetheless:
The group watched this naked individual for several minutes before he reportedly dropped down on all fours and fled, in a way resembling that of an animal. The group watched, stunned, as this wild-looking man “galloped off through the high grass along the edge of the road, along the tracks,” leaving nothing behind but bare footprints that marked his path.The writer notes, however, that this story is reminiscent of folk myth from the other side of the world:
Heading in the same direction the strange phantom fled on their way home, they once again encountered this individual, who was purportedly in a sunken barrel of oil by the railroad tracks, “up to his neck, his hands grasping the outer edge, and moving around in the oil.”
The unsettling incident was perhaps the first of what became known as encounters with “Oily Oliver,” as the degenerate had been so-named by the conductor and motorman on the trolley, who seemed well aware of the fiend when Quackenbush* and his company reported it to them. Similar stories would persist on up into the 1960s, including one encounter two women had while visiting a cemetery, during which they observed a naked, oily man creeping through the weeds toward them.
“Oily Oliver” bears some similarity to peculiar folk beliefs in Malay cultures that involve “grease devils,” phantom attackers that cover themselves in grease which makes them slippery, and thus able to evade capture more easily.* Seriously, the number of American surnames which sound funny to the rest of us is pretty remarkable.
Meerkat life
The organisation of meerkat life is pretty complicated and tough:
Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) live in complex, hierarchical social groups or "mobs" consisting of two to 50 individuals. These groups are ruled by a dominant male and female, called the alpha pair, that have exclusive breeding rights. The group also contains subordinate females who are typically closely related to the dominant female; subordinate males who are usually the offspring of the alpha pair; and one or more unrelated immigrant males.
Meerkats reach sexual maturity at 1 year old, and males willingly leave their group permanently at around 2 years old to attempt to join or take over another group. Adult subordinate females, on the other hand, are often forcefully (and sometimes violently) evicted by the dominant female — they'll sometimes remain on the group's territory, sleeping and foraging alone or with other evicted females until the dominant female's aggression towards them subsides...
Subordinate females may occasionally mate with the immigrant males from within the group or outside of the group. But this sneaky behavior comes at a price — dominant females routinely kill subordinate females' pups and evict the wrongdoers (sometimes while the subordinate female is pregnant, forcing her to abort).
As payment for their misdeeds, subordinate females that lose their litters or return to the group after being evicted act as wet nurses for the dominant female's pups.
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