Never happy

Paul McGeough, the Sydney Morning Herald journalist whose unending pessimism about Iraq has received a fair bit of attention over at Tim Blair's, continues his dire predictions today.

It seems to me that his analysis is very unlikely to be original. To quote:

" This is a Clayton's constitution - a conflicted, contradictory unity bill for a country tearing itself apart, accepted in a vote dictated by the fault lines of Iraqi history.

Here are some of the elements of the constitution that mock notions of national unity and invite civil war."

And he goes on to talk about various aspects of the constitution that he thinks are likely to cause problems.

Now, I know that copies of the constitution are available, but I really doubt that McGough is making these judgments just on his own reading and analysis. His pronouncements are too dogmatic, too neat. For example:

"Laid out in its separate parts, this is a document that denies the very notion of Iraqi citizenship."

But if he is following some other commentator's or academic's line, he doesn' t acknowledge it.

I think he must be a fan of this site (Al Jazeera.com, which is not the same as the Al Jazeera TV network, nor Al Jazeera.net, which may or may not have something to do with the TV network. I wish these guys could come up with better product differentiation.) I had mentioned the .com website some time ago. It is rabidly anti-Bush, anti-Iraq constitution, and gives every conspiracy theory the light of day (although with comments allowed after articles, which usually does attract a lot of rebuttal.) Their take on the new constitution is here. The key paragraph:

"It seems that Bush'’s admin has finally found the solution: "Divide Iraq" and then pit the three mini states created against one another. It's not the first time something like this happened."

Al Jazeera.com is based in Dubai, apparently.

Anyway, time for some optimism please.

Lots of Goodies

Lots of good stuff on the Centre for Independent Studies website at the moment. Firstly, the transcript of a lecture given by Johan Norberg (his pro-globalisation views were mentioned by me last week)

The full paper by Helen Hughes on aboriginal problems being linked to their isolation from the economy generally is also to be found there. Frank Devine gave a bit of a backgrounder to how the paper came about recently in the Australian.

There's also a link to a decent article (look at the right hand column; I can't copy the link here for some reason) by Owen Harries on how wrong the predictions of "intellectuals" have historically been, and the possible reasons why. Hopefully, Mr Harries is himself wrong about the Iraq war, which he opposed.

Crime and punishment in Japan

The Japan Times Online

The Japan Times link is to a story about the Japanese criminal investigation system.

"Japan's criminal justice system lacks a fundamental notion that is manifest in other parts of the democratized world: the presumption of innocence, according to human rights advocates.

Suspects are still forced to make false confessions during interrogations in which legal representation is banned, and custody can last up to 23 days before charges are filed, lawyers and people who claim to have or were determined to have been falsely accused told a recent public meeting in Tokyo held by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

Arrested suspects are often detained in a police "daiyo kangoku" substitute prison for up to 23 days before indictment, and release on bail is unlikely as long as they plead innocent or remain silent."

It's no wonder US military authorities are reluctant to hand over their members to this system.

If you go to jail, it's not much fun either. A brief ABC radio report last year noted:

"Life on the inside is incredibly strict, conditions are Spartan, and intricate rules dictate every aspect of prison life – how to sit at a table, how to fold your clothes, never sit on the futon. Some prisons even dictate how to lie in bed. Prisoners who roll onto their stomachs during the night can be punished.

(Sound of bell ringing)

In the jail workshops, inmates work diligently, not allowed to speak, look at the clock, look at each other, or look out the window. There are regular reports of physical abuse by guards. In 2001 and 2002, several prisoners were killed by their keepers at Nagoya jail.

One of them died when guards pushed a high-pressure fire hose into his rectum. The force of the water caused massive internal trauma. The prison tried to claim the injuries were self-inflicted."

It pays to behave yourself when in Japan.

A bit of scenery

The Holocaust revisited

I have been meaning to recommend "Auschwitz", the BBC documentary that concentrates on the death camp of the title, but deals with the Holocaust in general too. It is currently showing on the ABC in Australia on Thursday nights.

It's a well made series, with a good balance between "talking head" interviews (both with survivors and some of the perpetrators) and dramatisations of various events.

Looking at the BBC website, it is clear that a lot of care went into the dramatisations. Some of them are precise re-enactments, filmed in the same location where the events took place. No wonder these scenes have such an authentic feel. (Actual locations featured a lot in Schindler's List too, if I recall.)

Still, in such documentaries, for emotional impact it is hard to beat first hand accounts delivered by the witnesses. This series does take more interest than most in the story from the other side. These interviews tend to be fairly short, however, and while most of the old men seem to regret their involvement now, they don't usually come across as being too haunted by it.

This week's episode was most upsetting when covering the (foreign national) Jewish children taken from occupied France. About 4,000 were separated from their families and deported; none of them survived. If you have children yourself, hearing such stories is particularly affecting.

When one aging Nazi soldier was asked about this, about how he could believe at the time that children deserved this fate (even if you believed that adult Jews were the source of all evil), he said (as best as I can recall) that they knew the children themselves were not responsible, but it was the Jewish blood in them that they feared and believed they had to eradicate.

This has been said by several of old soldiers; they genuinely believed at the time that Jews were so bad they deserved their fate.

I don't know a lot about this topic in particular - about how so many Germans could be so strongly convinced that the Jews deserved death. (OK, it is debatable how many German citizens without direct involvement in camps knew that the Jews were being exterminated. But in the BBC show it is often the men who were personally doing or witnessing the killing who are saying this.) I know the generalities about Nazi propaganda against the Jews. What I have trouble comprehending is how successful it was. And it wasn't as if Jews were more capable of being considered "non humans" because they were out of sight and not observable.

This is why it is worth revisiting this topic every few years. It is almost incomprehensible, yet it occurred.

There was a book out in the last few years that did deal with the issue of how responsible the German people has a whole should be seen. Guess I should just track it down and read it.

Finally, while looking around the Web at a few Holocaust sites before I posted, I found that there are actual photos of Amon Goeth, the commandant of the camp in Schindler's List, with his rifle on his balcony. (If you recall from the movie, shooting inmates from his balcony was one of his hobbies.) I didn't think the movie was a likely exaggeration, but I was still surprised to find photos of him which appear to confirm this habit.

Noteworthy opinion in The Age

Today's Age has 3 (count them, 3) opinion columns worth commenting on.

First, a pleasing one from their resident right winger Tony Parkinson. (Must be lonely for him if has to come to the Fairfax to write his columns.)

It's all about French hypocriscy on the Iraq situation. Funny how the oil-for-food scandal doesn't seem to get sustained attention in the MSM. (To its credit, Lateline did give it a fair outing one night a couple of months ago.)

Second, a more typical Lefty rant about how awful it is for the Bracks government to take even the slightest step towards discouraging late term abortions. Let's start with the title: "Late term decision won't ease the pain of abortion". Of course late term abortion is only about the pain of the mother. Not the fact that in many cases it is the killing of a viable fetus that, if any mother had given birth to prematurely, all medical help would have been given to keep it alive.

The assumption is this:

"Any woman wanting a termination after 20 weeks (the definition of a late-term) would almost certainly have considered the decision carefully, if not agonised over it."

But barely five lines later it's said that "teenagers account for the highest proportion of late terminations for psychosocial reasons". I wonder how many teenagers seek late term abortion because they could no longer hide the pregnancy from family, and are being pushed into it for that reason. Wouldn't giving them more time (only 48 hours cooling off period after all, which is what the Brack's government has introduced) possibly help sort out this sort of pressure that might be placed on teenagers?

Next:

"It is worth noting that almost half the women who have the procedure in Victoria are from other states. They come here because late-term abortions for psychosocial reasons are provided in a clinic in Melbourne. It is believed to be the only such clinic in the country. Clearly there is demand for this procedure."

Well clearly if there is demand, it must be warranted. But I find the fact that there is a demand for, say, heroin fairly irrelevant to the decision as to how it should be considered legally and morally.

The writer claims that:

"A psychosocial reason for an abortion is given by a doctor when there are fears that the mother's mental health could be damaged if she continues with the pregnancy. This is a genuine concern in the case of some women. It's not an excuse to have a late-term abortion because a woman just couldn't be bothered to do it in the first trimester."

Excuse my skepticism, but it seems to me that if there is one clinic in Melbourne that is attracting interstate clients for this procedure, there is a fair chance that they might be popular because of the low risk that they are going to turn you away. How hard is it to say that you feel suicidal at the prospect of having to have the baby? How much time do the doctors spend clarifying this?

It is obvious that many in the medical profession find late term abortion (at the very least) distasteful, and are happy to run a million miles from it, especially if the reason does not involve any abnormality of the child. And when even Eva Cox and other feminists indicate a willingness to look at the issue, you know there is something serious going on. Sushi Das (odd name) just sees it as a matter of demand and supply, and women must get what they want because they "agonised" over it.

Third, Paul Keating gets to have a bleat about proposed IR reform, and how everything about the economy for the last ten years is actually all his doing, and why didn't the Australian public love me, etc etc.

He's acting like a scorned lover who just never knows when to let it go. Doesn't he realise that such stuff just re-confirms people's views as to why they ousted him? If there is one thing he should learn from Howard it is modesty.

I got rhythm...

Gosh, I didn't realise that "natural" family planning methods of birth control still attracted much research. I suspect Catholic hospitals may have something to do with this.

Anyway, a slightly amusing paper says that couples who use such "fertility awareness" methods do have the same amount of sex, it's just that they have it more often on "safe" days. This makes for a "selling point". The claim as to the effectiveness of the methods seems pretty big:

"In earlier field trials Institute researchers determined the efficacy of the Standard Days Method and of the TwoDay Method to be to be greater than 95 percent and 96 percent respectively when used correctly, making them more effective than the condom or diaphragm. The Standard Days Method is for women with cycles between 26 and 32 days long. To use the method effectively, women can use a visual tool called CycleBeads® to monitor their cycle days and identify the days when pregnancy is most likely (days 8 through 19)." (Emphasis mine.)


Cyclebeads? Cute name. You can see what they are here. Just a way of counting days.

I am pretty skeptical about this, just because it sounds too good to be true. However, the claim is as follows:

"According to the 1998 edition of Contraceptive Technology, 85% of women who use no method of family planning will get pregnant in one year. The percent of women who will become pregnant during the first year of perfect use of a "user-controlled" method is as follows:

• Cervical cap, 9 - 26%
• Spermicides, 6%
• Diaphragm, 6%
• Female condom, 5%
• Male condom, 3%
• Birth control pills, 0.1 - 0.5%
• Standard Days Method, 5% (2002 Georgetown study)"

Is it fair of me to ask what the "non perfect use" rate of success of each method is? Or does that just make meaningful comparisons too difficult?

Comments doctors?

Too much time on their hands...

I just discovered (via a Google search to find something on Daily Kos) that the youngsters who swarm to that site have started to fill Wikipedia with articles pushing their anti-Bush agenda. See the entry here (on the "Downing Street Memos") and here (on the "movement" to impeach Bush).

Admittedly, these articles have been the subject of much Wiki community debate over their contents. However, it does seem pretty clear to me that the articles do need some right wing balancing, and that young Lefties seem to have a lot of time to spend on this sort of stuff. (Maybe they are more likely to be unemployed than fine upstanding right-wingers? Ha ha.)

I don't have enough time to do edits on these and similar articles. But I encourage you, dear reader, to have a go!

While I am talking of Bush, I note that Powerline today points out that Bush's low approval rating, which is giving much encouragement to the anti-Bush crowd at the moment, is far from exceptional in comparison with any of the last seven presidents. (In fact it is above the low points of all of the 7 previous presidents.) It's a good point to know.

Reasons to be optimistic overall

The Australian: Johan Norberg: Don't worry, be happy [October 12, 2005]

In case you missed it, yesterday's column in the Australian (above) is well worth reading, and memorising, for the next time you're at a dinner party with some "global" pessimist (which is perhaps most people.)

Update: Miranda Devine talks about this too in today's Sydney Morning Herald. (And takes a well deserved swing at John Doyle's recent speech.)

Pessimism in Iraq?

Institute for War and Peace Reporting

See link above for a story indicating Iraqis are not well informed on the constitution that they are to vote on this weekend.

I think this website is relatively neutral. Certainly, its sponsors cover a wide range of organisations.

Cautious optimism in Iraq?

Aljazeera.Net - Sunni party backs Iraq charter in deal

The above link is from Aljazeera.net, which I would not normally quote as authoritative, but it is interesting that it reports the last minute deal with one of the main Sunni parties (for it to support the constitution) in rather more optimistic terms than the western press. (See CNN's report, for example.)

Media alignments in IR reform

It's interesting to watch News Ltd -v- Fairfax press over the new IR reform.

The Australian has had 2 IPA pro reform columns in a row (yesterday and today). They give unionist Bill Shorten a run yesterday against it, but the editorial is strongly in favour.

At Fairfax, as I mentioned earlier today, Gerard Henderson indirectly addresses the issue in a "pro -ish" fashion, but a couple of uni academics get strong (I am tempted to say hysterical) anti reform columns in the SMH and The Age.

Haven't had a chance to see much of the ABC's reporting on it yet. Should I also look at the new Margot Kingston site on this topic? Maybe later...

Sex in America

Is there a new editor, as well as a new look, at Salon.com? Today's lead article is "Just like a woman", a 5 pager about men who prefer sex with plastic over flesh. The dolls are relatively realistic, but at $6,500 per doll that's a lot of money the guys could have spent on dates. (Although after dinner fun is no safer bet than with a silicone companion who can't run out of the room.)

I note that I posted briefly entry on Japanese sex dolls for hire last week. I felt I should post on the American sex doll scene so as to show a racial even-handedness when it comes to cringing and/or laughing at such matters.

There is way too much information on the topic in this article, and as I try to maintain a certain decorum in this blog, I won't post the more sordid details.

Just go read it yourself. You know you want to.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, Slate.com did an article about the latest survey of other sexual practices in America. While the article noted that the press mainly commented on the significantly higher rate of oral sex amongst teens, the other big point of the study was a much higher rate of anal sex, and the press just ignored that.

I blame "Sex and the City". (Seriously.) If ever there was a show that was going to make casual or adventurous sex look inviting, safe, and cool, that was it. Funny how the women seemed to have a lot in common with gay men. (Because it was produced and written by gay men, maybe?) And no, I didn't watch it that much. Maybe 8 episodes tops over its whole run.

At least (one hopes) it got explicit sex out of the sitcom format for a long, long time.

The Churches and workplace reform

If the push is for jobs, the evidence is clear - Opinion - smh.com.au

Gerard Henderson in the SMH today (see above) makes a lot of sense. I always have time for his calm, reasoned (and conservative!) take on such matters.

The basic problem is that the Churches (or elements within them) can prefer theories of social justice over practice, just as the Left is want to do.

I must blog more on the general issue of the Churches and politics sometime...

Motherhood in Japan

Maid in Japan - World - smh.com.au

The link above is to a bit of a rambling, but still interesting, article in the Sydney Morning Herald today about the social reasons for a declining birth rate in Japan.

It is a complex issue. I have no issue with governments trying to take positive steps towards encouraging child bearing. But I think it unlikely that the Japanese government would see it as culturally appropriate for it to do much in this line.

Younger japanese people are much more westernised in attitude, and young men's attitude to sharing household responsibilities is much better than it was (or so I believe). Still, it is hard to imagine a sudden change in workplace culture that would allow and encourage fathers not to spend so many evenings away from the home. Husbands taking transfers to other towns for work is also common and this hardly helps child-rearing.

The funny thing is, the cultural attitudes that are at the heart of the issue are not ones that can be seen to encourage personal happiness. Why it is so hard to change them, then?

Extreme anti-global warming

With Brisbane having a terribly warm spring this past week, and its main water dam being down to 30 something percent, it might seem a little unwise to be expressing any skepticism about global warming. Truth is, I'm a bit of a fence sitter on the issue anyway.

But on the skeptic's side, some scientists noted recently that the sun may account for up to 30% of recent temperature increases. That's a big figure. I didn't notice this reported much in the main stream Australian press, but maybe I missed it.

If the sun is going to play that big a role, then mega engineering may be the answer. Popular Science ran an article about this a couple of months ago, and it is still on line. As I am keen on space travel generally, I like the idea of building giant space umbrellas, although I guess so many launches to put them into orbit might not do the atmosphere much good in the process. Maybe a better idea would be to make it from moon dirt and use a "mass driver" (an electro magnetic sled) to launch the bits into orbit. Or how about an asteroid being nudged into earth orbit and making it from that? I like the idea of putting an asteroid in earth orbit anyway, and then just working out what to do with it later. As I recall, some may be a good source of ore. Could it be done with a solar sail to "de-orbit" one? Just imagine the greenies reacting to a proposal to do that!

Another article with a similar space-based solution is here. The idea is not for one big umbrella, but a swarm of really little ones. Or even just a ring of particles in orbit to dissipate a couple of percent of sunlight from hitting the tropics. (How you successfully launch other desirable things through such a ring is not explained. Unless it can cope with that problem, it is a very silly idea.)

The other idea this article mentions is to make the atmosphere dirtier:

"Volcanic eruptions, such as that of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, pumped aerosols into the atmosphere and cooled the global climate by about a degree. Other researchers have suggested such schemes as adding metallic dust to smoke stacks, to flood the atmosphere and reflect more sunlight back into space."

So pollution may save the planet after all.

How about using nukes to cause a few volcanic eruptions? Must be some volcanic islands somewhere that no one really needs. Just move the lizards to somewhere else. Eruptions make for pretty sunsets too.

And you can get too much of a good thing with a volcano:

"Global cooling often has been linked with major volcanic eruptions. The year 1816 often has been referred to as "the year without a summer". It was a time of significant weather-related disruptions in New England and in Western Europe with killing summer frosts in the United States and Canada. These strange phenomena were attributed to a major eruption of the Tambora volcano in 1815 in Indonesia. The volcano threw sulfur dioxide gas into the stratosphere, and the aerosol layer that formed led to brilliant sunsets seen around the world for several years."


See link here. Wikipedia has a bit more about 1816's climate too.

This fiddling with climate is going to be tricky!

The Left and War

Calling for peace is the easy option - Pamela Bone

See the above link for a nicely argued column by Pamela Bone in The Age.

Microsoft - racing to be last

ZDNet India : Microsoft to support PDF in Office 12

The title of the above link tells the story in a nutshell. Woop de do. I use Wordperfect 9 which came out in 2000 and it has built in conversion to .pdf.

It is particularly useful when emailing forms to people overseas, so you can be sure it will print out with formatting intact.

Speaking of Microsoft, the very unsuccessful movie "Timeline" has been showing on cable here recently. I read the Michael Crichton book (it was nice and pacey, but the basic reason for the time travel was a big let down). The bad guy is a computer genius nerd, and I had to laugh when I saw how the character (played by David Thewlis) was made to look. (See pic above.) Distinctly Gates-ian, don't you think?

Ramadan in practice

The New Culture of Ramadan

As the fasting month of Ramadan begins soon for Muslims, I had a look around the Net for some info on how exactly it is practiced. (I had heard somewhere before that many Muslims gain weight during the month, because of the large amount of food they eat at night to compensate for not eating during the day.)

The above link is to a year-old article from Saudi Arabia that is interesting. I didn't realise that shopping hours changed to extended night hours as well, and that the lack of sleep caused by eating and shopping at night makes many people grumpy at work, especially public servants!

And the weight gain bit is true:

"Most people actually gain weight in Ramadan. They fast from dawn to dusk, only to eat three meals in the seven hours of night: Iftar at sunset, dinner about 10 or 11 p.m. and then sahoor at 2 or 3 a.m.....

Sadly Ramadan is now the month of satellite TV programs — sit-coms, soap operas, and too much food."

Does sound awful.

A study in contrasts

In the Australian today, there are 2 very contrasting opinion pieces on the Islamist problem. One by Phillip "let's not talk too harshly about premeditated murder least we offend" Adams, and the other by Mark "why doesn't the West believe them when they say they want to rule the world" Steyn.

The Phillip Adams column deserves strong attack. He hears only what he wants to hear, in that he ignores John Howard's oft-repeated line that the majority of Muslims are fine, upstanding, peace loving members of the community. Explicitly, when Howard talks of how Muslims "hate" the West, he is talking of the murdering extremists. Phillip claims:

" The chill of fear that passed through mainstream Australia at the PM's words would have been nothing to the dread felt within Muslim suburbs such as Sydney's Lakemba. Another nail in the coffin of co-operation. It's more encouragement for the sort of angry, alienated kids who turned themselves into bombs in London."

Only if, like you Phillip, they DO NOT LISTEN TO WHAT JOHN HOWARD AND KIM BEASLEY SAY.

Read this (from the other side of the world, where they have better hearing than in Phillip's office in Sydney) in the Gulf Times in Qatar:

"SYDNEY: Prime Minister John Howard assured Australian Muslims yesterday that they should not be frightened in the wake of the latest Bali bombings as they were seen as friends, not enemies.
Howard, whose government has been accused of targeting Muslims in tough new counter-terrorism laws, said that he wanted to reassure the nation'’s 300,000-strong Muslim minority that they should not feel alienated.
'“We see them as friends, we don'’t see them as enemies,'” Howard said.
'“We see them as here in the struggle, not as a group of people who should feel frightened and isolated and alienated.
'“This is as much of an attack on the way of life that a majority of them hold dear as it is the way of life that I hold dear and you hold dear,'” he told reporters."

Phillip Adams, like much of the Left, has a compulsion to encourage victimhood, and if there is a chance that someone will be slighted (however mistakenly) by anyone to the right of Adams, he will rush to hold their hand and sympathise with how misunderstood they are.

Mark Steyn's column, by comparison, makes the realistic point that semi-apologists (who try to find a way of turning the blame for attacks on the West) simply refuse to listen to what radical Islamists say. (Christopher Hitchens makes this point repeatedly too.) As usual, Steyn displays the type of bracing common sense that the Left has trouble coming to grips with.