Low islands and climate change, revisited

Early in the life of this blog, I used to criticise the reporting of politicians and environmentalists claims about sea level rise being about to cause the more-or-less immediate demise of low lying Pacific islands.   The situation, when you looked at the details, was more complex, and this was hardly ever reported.

Move forward, and there was a recent report which climate ignoramus Andrew Bolt seized upon with glee - 

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu—long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels—is actually growing in size, new research shows.

A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu's nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery.
It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu's total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average.

I meant to comment on it at the time, because, I thought, a mere small growth in the area of a low lying island (caused by currents pushing around sand and ground up coral, I believe) tells us nothing about the habitability of the island.   The immediate problem with sea levels that I had seen on some documentary shows was the ground water becoming replaced with salt water.  

An article at Carbon Brief explains this well, and supports my hunch from earlier this year.  A new paper suggests that many low lying atolls will be uninhabitable due to the groundwater issue earlier than expected - perhaps by mid 21st century.

Not everyone agrees - it would seem that New Zealand (which was the source of the "Tuvalu is growing" study) has some scientists who are busy downplaying the issue.   (Given New Zealand's reputation as a lifeboat island for South Pacific islanders, one wonders if there is a bit of a motivation for such studies.)

So, I still think my early criticisms of media gullibility on the issue were valid;  just as my criticism of climate change denialist's complete dismissal of the very same issue is valid now. 

Not just aged in oak, but made from oak

Not at all sure why anyone would bother even trying this, but the Japanese can be pretty innovative:

Discerning drinkers may soon be able to branch out after Japanese researchers said Tuesday they have invented a way of producing an alcoholic drink made from wood. The researchers at Japan's Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute say the bark-based beverages have woody qualities similar to which is aged in wood barrels. They hope to have their "wood alcohol" on shelves within three years.

The method involves pulverising wood into a creamy paste and then adding yeast and an enzyme to start the fermentation process.

By avoiding using heat, researchers say they are able to preserve the specific flavour of each tree's wood.

So far, they have produced tipples from cedar, birch and cherry.

I like this understatement further down:

The institute has a broad mandate for scientific study related to Japan's extensive woods and forests, but Magara acknowledged "wood alcohol" might not be the most obvious application for their research resources.

The blog for the over 50's incel crowd

My internal reaction to 99% of cartoon critic Tom's comments at Catallaxy:  "What a miserable sad sack." 

Made me laugh

What with the bizarre news from Trump's former "Dr Nick" looking doctor (not that people didn't suspect that Trump wrote his own medical endorsement), I was amused by this tweet:

More Avengers

I was reading the comments after a good review at The Guardian for Avengers:  Infinity War.    The great majority were very positive, and when Guardian readers endorse something so American, you know it probably is pretty good.

I also agree with David Roberts' tweet:

And there is amusement to be had in the sarcastic responses to the criticism made by Richard Brody at the New Yorker that you had to have seen the last 10 years of Marvel films to understand this one.  (Actually, as I explained in my previous post, I've missed plenty of Marvel movies, but seen enough that I knew nearly all of the main characters - and a couple of minor Avengers don't get to do much in this one anyway.)  It does seem silly to criticise a movie in a long line of sequels for being a sequel.   

Quite ridiculous

This case of the white Utah student wearing a Chinese dress to her prom, and getting attacked for "cultural appropriation" is quite ludicrous.   It's worrying that so many tweeted in support of the complainant Jeremy Lam.  His take on the matter makes no sense at all - why the heck isn't a white woman wearing the same dress that (allegedly) was a symbol of Chinese female empowerment not seen an endorsement of the (alleged) same positive meaning behind its creation?   And what of expensive European fashion labels having stores in Beijing and Shanghai?  Why isn't cashed up Chinese women buying, I don't know, a beret "culturally appropriating" from the French?  Actually, now that I Google it:

It’s a classic Shanghai sight: older Chinese men sporting rakish berets. The iconic headwear of the French never seems to have gone out of style among gentlemen of a certain age in Shanghai, a legacy formed during the period of the French Concession (1849-1945). Some hypothesize that since famous revolutionaries like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara also favored these practical chapeaux, Chinese men may have felt comfortable wearing them post-1949. Patrick Cranley’s been on the streets of Frenchtown and beyond, documenting the laokele (distinguished Shanghai gentlemen) and their berets.

So both the French and the Cubans should be complaining about cultural appropriation?   They don't?  Because complaining about cross border fashion is a nonsense!

He supports Trump

Evidence of the, um, surprising views held by some high profile Trump supporters.  A full quote from Kayne West:

In a montage of clips released on the site, West dropped in to chat with host Harvey Levin about being so appalled that people are still upset about slavery. An actual quote:

When you hear about slavery for 400 years—for 400 years? That sound like a choice! Like, you was there for 400 years, and it’s all of y’all? It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word prison, because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. It’s like slavery, Holocaust, Holocaust, Jews. Slavery is blacks. So prison is something that unites us as one race … the human race.

Update:  God knows why I should bother, but in an attempt to be "fair" to West, here's what Allahpundit  thinks he was trying to say, in a spectacularly so-unclear-it's-offensive fashion:

I think his slavery point is metaphorical, sort of. Quote: ““When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice. You was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because ‘slavery’ goes too direct to the idea of blacks. Slavery is to blacks as the Holocaust is to Jews. Prison is something that unites as one race, blacks and whites, that we’re the human race.” Allowing yourself to be mentally enslaved is a choice. Unless you’re also physically enslaved, in which case, ah, you’re probably going to feel mentally enslaved whether you “choose” to or not.

Kanye West, interesting guy!

Historical pants

From Discover, earlier this year, a brief article all about pants in history:

From far above, the area around Yanghai cemetery looks like a collection of ground-dwelling wasp dens, drilled into a gravelly desert. It gets hot in this region of remote western China — up to nearly 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and dry. That’s a hard-knock climate, but it’s perfect for preserving ancient artifacts. And if you zoom in on the region, and dig in, as archaeologists have, you’ll find tombs with well-kept secrets. Inside two of them, scientists found not just human remains but the remains of what covered those humans.

I’m talking about clothes, and not just any clothes: pants. These are the oldest pants (discovered) on Earth — more distressed than any jeans Gap can offer — dating back some 3,000 years. They’re tailored wool, and constructed from sewn-together pieces of uncut fabric. If Project Runway had magically predated television by about 2,930 years, the designer of these leg covers would have had a shot at the win.

Yeah, they are pretty fancy duds for 3,000 years ago:

As to how the fashion caught on, the article goes to explain that horse riding has a lot to do with it:

 “The design of the trousers from Yanghai seems to be a predecessor of modern riding trousers, which, together with other grave goods in the tombs, allows the assumption that the invention of bifurcated lower body garments is related to the new epoch of horseback riding and greater mobility,” says Ulrike Beck, researcher studying the design and construction of early clothing....

While these pants, and their equine-riding wearers, date back to between the 13^th and 10^th century BCE, leg-separating fabric didn’t catch on in Euro-“civilized” (Greek or Roman) culture for a while after that. Only barbarians, those cultured people believed, wore trousers. Take the Scythians, a group of Iranian nomads, or the Hunnu of Central Asia. The Greeks called Middle Easterners’ and Persians’ lower-wear “sacks,” and not in a nice way.

The Greco-Roman fun-making stopped, though, around the time those civilized statue-builders realized that mounted soldiers—cavalry—had a huge advantage over average-heighted people running around on their own two feet. To maintain military dominance, they needed to get atop the equines, to avoid tangling their tunics, and to protect their nether regions. And so, enter pants, which were also warmer as these people expanded northward.

When the Romans wore loose pants, they gave them a nice name: braccae, a word that later became the English “breeches.” And after the Romanics lost their military dominance despite their attire, the people in charge of Europe were full-on horse-riding pants-lovers.

I feel much better educated now...

Update:   This makes a good companion piece to my lengthy 2011 post about the history of cotton (even though the old Chinese pants above are wool.)     I like these self education posts - and have no idea whether anyone else ever does. 

So easily led

Wow.  Steve Kates and the Trumpkin Right wing media show zero interest in the detail of Netanyahu's claims re Iran:  they literally only need to see him flash up "Iran Lied" and they think they know all they need to know.

Surely we have never seen a time of such wilful ignorance on the part of people who think they are smart.

Anyway, this article at The Atlantic fills in the details they are not interested in.  Update:  this Vox article is even better.

Odd addiction news

The BBC has a detailed story about how Nigeria has a serious issue with recreational codeine addiction - taken in the form of cough syrup.

A peculiar Chinese issue

To the extent that traditional Chinese medicine ideas encourage the rapacious use of animal parts for no good reason at all, I wish it would go away.   But I didn't realise the Chinese government has a protective attitude towards it:

A Chinese doctor who was arrested after he criticized a best-selling traditional Chinese remedy has been released, after more than three months in detention. Tan Qindong had been held at the Liangcheng county detention centre since January, when police said a post Tan had made on social media damaged the reputation of the traditional medicine and the company that makes it.

On 17 April, a provincial court found the police evidence for the case insufficient. Tan, a former anaesthesiologist who has founded several biomedical companies, was released on bail on that day. Tan, who lives in Guangzhou in southern China, is now awaiting trial. Lawyers familiar with Chinese criminal law told Nature that police have a year to collect more evidence or the case will be dismissed. They say the trial is unlikely to go ahead.

The episode highlights the sensitivities over traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) in China. Although most of these therapies have not been tested for efficacy in randomized clinical trials — and serious side effects have been reported in some¹ — TCM has support from the highest levels of government. Criticism of remedies is often blocked on the Internet in China. Some lawyers and physicians worry that Tan’s arrest will make people even more hesitant to criticize traditional therapies. 

 He was arrested under something like a defamation law (spreading false information) when he criticised a company's popular health liquor.  You can read about it at Nature.

Another pop culture post..

I find Beyonce very easy to ignore.  Maybe that's an age thing, although I suspect that her appeal is much more American based than with other pop stars.

For what it's worth, with my very tiny exposure to her music and videos*, one thing I've never liked is her fashion sense which has always seemed to emphasise legs with thighs that I personally find too thick to be too attractive.  Is she responsible for the several years we have had of teenage girls/young women wearing very short shorts when going out for fun, regardless of bodily attributes?  Did other  groups popular (I presume) with teenage girls, like Little Mix, get their inspiration for their somewhat trashy fashion from her?

How young women dress and its implications is a vexing issue.   In theory, we all know that being more-or-less undressed does not necessarily have to correlate with messaging of sexual availability:  tribes of topless women and near naked men tell us that.  We can also all agree that extreme conservatism in modesty - such as in Saudi Arabia - shows the ridiculousness of taking the connection between dress and sexual availability too seriously.  

But there's this fine line where the logic hits the biology, particularly when you're the father of a teenage daughter; and you really do wonder, as I was a few weeks ago when seeing a stream of high school teenagers going to an alcohol free concert/dance party thing, that it's kind of odd how the teen guys are all dressed with much more baggy-short-T-shirt modesty than the tight tops and maximum thigh baring shorts fashion that is so "in" with teen girls now.**   Or has a disparity between young male and young female fashion (in terms of apparent sexual signalling) always been a thing?   I guess you could say that a shirtless guy at an outdoor concert or sporting event might be signalling something (maybe, more often, just that they are drunk), but in any event my impression is that straight young men are now much less likely to do that in public than they were in the (say) the 70's or 80's.   And how much of that is that just because of greater sunburn awareness?  

Anyway, this is all prelude to linking to an article at the Catholic Herald, of all places, that takes a somewhat cynical view of the much lauded performance of Beyonce at the recent Coachella festival.   The article notes that, despite the female empowerment theme  coming off the stage from her performance, the festival was noteworthy for the number of groping and sexual harassment complaints from the female attendees.  The article doesn't reference the libertine fashion of many of the young women attending (just Google "Coachella 2018 fashion" for an idea), but it does reference  the conformist liberation vibe from B:

Still, it is illuminating to compare her performance to the music festivals of yore. Woodstock opened with Richie Havens’s improvised performance of Freedom and closed with Jimi Hendrix’s noodling national anthem. Both expressed a sense that liberation was found in individual challenges to authority. Now that the counterculture has gone mainstream, liberation is achieved by conforming to the commands of the new authorities. Cops march in the gay pride parade and suits issue HR directives on diversity.

Beyonce’s brand of lockstep sexiness is the artistic expression of conformist liberation. Rather than an individual improvising on stage, she is the leader of phalanxes in freakum dress uniform, backed by a marching band. It is amazing how many of her lyrics take the form of commands – “Bow down bitches, bow bow down bitches” or “OK ladies, now let’s get in formation.” Freedom is now enforced.

I think he has a point:  although the attendees at 60's and 70's music festivals were no doubt also being accused by conservative oldies of conformist fashion, the music performances were (I suppose) more loose and individualistic.   God knows some of the 5 minute electric guitar solos were self indulgent...

So how do I end this ramble?   I don't know - you never want to blame the young women (however dressed, or whichever female performer they like), for being groped, or to excuse the utter jerks who do it to them - and while it seems impossible to not mention concern about sexual signalling in fashion if you're a normal parent, it is next to impossible to do so without it being interpreted as placing an unfair onus on a daughter for their safety. 

I suppose parents have fretted about this forever - or at least over the last 70 years - and it seems no  closer to a really satisfactory resolution.


*  I've just watched bits of several of her songs - I remain completely underwhelmed by her style of music.

**  (My daughter wasn't going there; it just happened that I was having a beer in a bar next door to entry to the teen event that was starting mid afternoon.)

There's something odd about me and tomatoes...

Like all normal people, I like a nice tomato, be it in a sandwich, salad, on a cracker with cheese, or in the form of pizza sauce, paste or canned for cooking stews.  I'm a little bit lukewarm on them heated whole on the plate, as the English like to do with their protein heavy hot breakfasts, although if they are slow baked down further in an oven they are great again.  

But for some reason, I cannot enjoy tomato juice, or any juice combination that is too heavy with the tomato element.   I just bought a combination juice and yes, it has way too much tomato.  I can drink it, but find it unpleasant, like taking medicine. 

I do have another, related issue about them:  some people can eat a ripe one like an apple.   Something about the idea of doing that myself I find off putting.   Even in a salad, I don't like the pieces to be too large, and will often cut a wedge in half.  Maybe it's just that I feel tomato is a flavour that always needs to be with something else?

I think this is a bit odd, as I can't think of any other food that I cannot enjoy in its juiced form, or to have too much of in one bite.   I've never tried a Bloody Mary for this reason.   Maybe I should give that a go as a way of finishing this unfortunately large bottle that I just bought....

PS:  I did, a few decades ago now, once make an observation to someone eating with me how I preferred sliced tomato more than wedges, and he agreed.  Maybe it is more common than I know, although I am basing that on precisely one instance in my life of someone who shared this feeling.   

Were the prison authorities in Batman right?

At NPR there's a report about prison reform (at least for young offenders) in one US state:

In Massachusetts, over half of young adult men released from jails and prisons go back within three years. The state's largest county wants to disrupt that cycle by teaching responsibility.

In Billerica, a suburb northwest of Boston, a select group of inmates at the Middlesex House of Correction and Jail are at this effort's forefront. They're part of the People Achieving Change Together, or P.A.C.T. unit — a program designed specifically for 18- to 24-year-olds who want to make sure that this period of incarceration is their last, like 22-year-old Eric Darden.

"I just kinda want to break the cycle and try to be better instead of coming back," said Darden, who is finishing up a two-year sentence for armed robbery and assault and battery.

Inmates in the P.A.C.T. program reside in the prison's top floor, where the unspoken rules of jail politics fall by the wayside. Inmates and corrections officers have more relaxed, friendly relationships. The floor has a barber shop, a library and a meditation room, and its cell doors stay open all day until 9 p.m. or later.

Besides having a cell all to himself, Darden says the atmosphere in the P.A.C.T unit is distinctly different from the rest of the jail. In his last cell block, he'd always been on guard. Here, he says, "you don't have to worry about looking over your back. If you have a situation, you can talk about it instead of someone trying to hype it up."

You know what I thought of when I read that?   The ridiculing of rehabilitation in jail that used to turn up on the (Adam West) Batman TV series.   I didn't understand it as such when I first saw it as a 7 or 8 year old, but then I watched a bit again as a adult many years ago and recognised the satire of "bleeding heart liberals" in the way they portrayed some villain or other having a great time in jail.  A couple of decades later and it had all turned around with (mainly Republican inspired) tough on crime, three strikes you're out, attitudes, and now it seems the circle might be turning again?

I also find it a bit wryly amusing to see it's Germany that's apparently an example of soft touch rehabilitation as the best model for young prisoners. 

Reviewing Infinity

So you all want to know what I thought of Avengers: Infinity War?  No?  I don't care, I'm telling you anyway.

Just so you know:  I haven't even seen the previous Avengers movies, or Captain America: Civil War.  I tried watching some of Age of Ultron, which I think was the worst reviewed Avengers outing, on Friday night, but couldn't be bothered sticking with it.  (Even my more superhero tolerant son didn't care for it much.)

However, given that I am fine with Marvel as long as it is being funny, and I knew enough to know that the Guardians of the Galaxy crew were involved, as well as the recently humoured up Thor, I was curious enough to go see it and its "shocking" ending.

And yeah, I'm pretty glad that I did.

What I liked:  yes, it does make room for some pretty good humour - the Guardians of the Galaxy were funnier than they were in their second movie, which disappointed me.

Secondly, there's a key role for Dr Strange, who I find an oddly pleasing Marvel character.  I still love the slightly retro sparkly special effects they give him.   He badly needs to be given a second movie of his own.

Third:  there is a sort of gravitas about the ending which is something of an achievement for a silly superhero scenario.

What I didn't like so much:

Did we really have to spend so much time back on the fields of Wakanda?  Look, I'll say it:  I'm finding the overly serious African-English accents and delivery of anyone from that part of the Marvel universe pretentious and annoying.  And the Black Panther costume (or more specifically, the headpiece) still strikes me as silly.   If Thanos had to be offered some place to destroy to placate him, that would be the first I would offer.

Next:  did anyone else get the feeling that the motivation given to Thanos sounded like it could have been pandering to modern, dimwitted conservatives?   I could just imagine some Trump voting idiot thinking "yeah, he's like a pathetic Green Lefty, talking about 'limited resources' and being prepared to kill humans to 'protect the environment' - he's evil, just like all Lefties".   Now, I know that some Bond villains were given a similar "we have to kill to save the planet" motivation back in at least the Roger Moore era, but the difference is that at that time, the Right had not yet gone off the deep end like they have now and taken conspiracy belief so much to heart that they really do think all environmental concern is evil and anti-human.  (In fact, they virtually don't ever believe that the environment is any danger from anything anymore, such is the stupifying power of the culture wars.)   So I am a bit dubious that this motivation was a good idea in the current political climate.

Third:   honestly, the abilities of the Iron Man suits are getting so ridiculous that I find the mystical powers of Dr Strange more credible.

Fourth:  Thanos is a bit of flip flopper between invulnerable one minute and easily vulnerable the next.  He's kind of too, I don't know, flesh and blood in a way.  His sidekick had the psychokinetic powers that I thought he ought to, and overall, I don't find him that impressive as a villain.

But, despite those whinges, I did enjoy most of it and am somewhat curious as to how easy the resolution will be in Avengers 4.  This article at Slate - which you should definitely not read until after seeing the movie - points to the same resolution that is kinda obvious (one of the crystals controls time, so how hard can "resurrection" be?)  It also points towards something I think the movie is hinting at - a comic book storyline had Thanos changing sides.  Seems likely to me, too.

Update:   the movie has made an absurd amount of money - $630 million - in about 5 days of international release.  And it hasn't even opened in China yet.    Truly, Marvel is like a licence to print money for Disney. 

Update 2:   why haven't Marvel settled on doing a Dr Strange sequel?  It was a much better movie than the relatively modest international box office suggests.