Who's a pretty bird?

As promised, here's a photo from my holiday of something other than flowers. I don't know exactly what it is, but assume it is a kingfisher of some description. (Kookaburra shape and size, but colouring is different.)

Steyn on leaving Iraq

Mark's column last week in The Australian was his usual entertaining and good read. This paragraph (on the current kerfuffle in America about whether to just leave Iraq) stands out:

"Taking your ball and going home is a seductive argument in a paradoxical superpower whose inclinations on the Right have a strong isolationist streak and on the Left a strong transnational streak, which is isolationism with a sappy face and biennial black-tie banquets in European Union capitals. Transnationalism means poseur solutions, the Kyotification of foreign policy."

Science notes

Here's a few science news items of interest:

* Is string theory all that it's cracked up to be? A Slate review of a new book by Lawrence Krauss notes that the author, a real live physicist himself, criticises all of the hope vested in string theory because no one has yet come up with any way to test it. It's a pretty good point, really. As the reviewer notes:

'When I asked physicists like Nobel Prize-winner Frank Wilczek and string theory superstar Edward Witten for ideas about how to prove string theory, they typically began with scenarios like, "Let's say we had a particle accelerator the size of the Milky Way …" '


* So you thought a new Blu Ray DVD burner would be pretty cool. Well, just around the corner may be the faster and bigger holographic disc burner. New Scientist says it can hold up to 300
GB, and burn faster too.

I am really beginning to wonder, just how much storage on a single disk does the world really need?

* But then if you want to get into the mind boggling prospect of quantum computing, (which I only barely understand), New Scientist reports (in an article that needs to be paid for on its website, but available for free via this page in Eureka News) on a new idea for how to build a super quantum computer before they have even worked out how to build a "normal" one. The summary:

"As futuristic as quantum computers seem, what with all those qubits and entangled atoms, here is an idea that promises to make atom-based quantum computers look passé even before anyone has built a full-sized version.

It seems that bubbles of electrons lined up in ultracold liquid helium could be used to build a quantum computer capable of carrying out a staggering 1030 simultaneous calculations."

Actually, as the article ends with this:

Because each qubit carries two values, a quantum computer with two qubits could carry out four parallel calculations, one with three qubits eight calculations, and so on. "I see no major technical obstacles to the system I envisage working with 100 qubits," says Yao. "That means it could do 1000 billion billion billion operations all at once."

the reference to "1030" presumably is meant to be "10 to the power of 30" (10 followed by 30 zeros).

Has anyone worked out how you would use that computing power in practice?

While I was away...

Staying in a new place with a couple of little kids (with their tendency to wake up a bit more often in a strange place) and fairly noisy airconditioning doesn't help much with sleep patterns. Drinking more wine than usual, falling asleep at 9 pm while putting the kids to bed and waking up again at 11 or 12 pm doesn't either. Anyway, it meant a lot of stupid dreams were interrupted. The dreaming mind really carries on with some crap, doesn't it? The silliest dream I remember involved my starting a new career as a used car salesman, and my having arguments with my new boss about how I would do things differently. I have no idea why I would be dreaming about this. Becoming a car salesman is only marginally above my becoming a test cricketer in the probability stakes.

The other shorter dream I remember was one no doubt influenced by seeing a War of the Worlds DVD on sale. I was somewhere in public (like a bus or train station) and on a TV screen a newsreader was saying that there were reports of a UFO attacking the White House with lightning bolts. The scary part of the dream was the silence in the public space while people were listening. It was a very realistic "I can't believe this could be really happening like in science fiction movies" feeling. Creepy. Then I woke up.

Back at work today and catching up with the blogosphere today/tomorrow.

Tim Blair's still wandering the highways of the USA I see. He seems to keep it a secret how long he will be away.

Currency Lad has returned and seems to be posting at a rapid rate. Hope it's permanent.

There are some things I want to post about, but they will probably have to wait until this evening.

Holiday time

Off for a week. Probably no posting in that time. I'll try to post pics of something other than flowers when I get back!

A New Yorker review on CS Lewis

The New Yorker: The Critics: A Critic At Large

It's been a few weeks since I have recommended a New Yorker book review, but the link above is to a good one on CS Lewis. As usual, the "review" is really just an essay on the subject of a recent book, but it is interesting and detailed.

CS Lewis is already getting lot of renewed attention due to the forthcoming release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in the cinema, and from what I can gather there is a generally good "vibe" about it. I just don't get Tolkien at all, but am quite fond of some of the Narnia books.

I think I have read every major book by Lewis, except for his couple of purely academic ones. When I occasionally dip into his work again, I am usually pleasantly surprised by his clear and engaging prose, and how some of the points he made on the state of Christian faith are still very relevant today despite it being 60 years since his earliest books.

I don't agree with every point made in the review, but it is a good read anyway.

Getting cold and catching a cold

Feeling cold linked to developing a cold. 14/11/2005. ABC News Online

I made a comment in an earlier recent post how common sense sometimes points towards the truth faster than science does.

Many years ago, a friend used to ridicule me for insisting on my belief that there was a likely relationship between marijuana use and schizophrenia, because all of the studies at that time (as mentioned on that highly authoritative source Radio Station JJJ) insisted there wasn't. My hunch was based on family experience, the reported experience of other families, and a skepticism towards the "self medication" explanation that was sometimes invoked to explain higher rates of schizophrenia amongst marijuana users.

Of course, medical opinion did swing around eventually to support my hunch, and a causative relationship seems now well established. (Maybe mainly with those who were susceptible to develop mental illness anyway, but if you would not have developed it without the use of marijuana, that is sufficient causation for most legal and common sense purposes.)

The other topic of argument with my friend was a connection between getting "chilled" and developing a cold. Based on a couple of camping experiences, where I had cold feet all night quickly followed by a heavy cold within the next 30 hours or so, I was always inclined to believe there was a connection, despite some studies which indicated otherwise.

Anyway, once again there is finally a study (see link at the top) that seems to vindicate my common sense assessment. In fact, the mechanism suggested in this article was exactly what I suggested years ago (namely, a chill could sufficiently weaken resistence to a virus already lurking on you.)

More people should just listen to me and learn that I am usually right. (Just kidding folks!)

Just for some colour

Not sure what they are ...

Someone please arrest Tony Kevin - it's the only way he'll be satisfied

Over at Margo Kingston's site, Tony Kevin remains a frequent contributor, and he's been going on for some time now about the "new" sedition laws and how he will act in defiance of them, even at risk of arrest.

As I have never noticed Tony calling for an armed or violent resistence against this government, despite his frequent claim that John Howard has just about created a fascist state, I fail to see how it is possible that he could be at risk of a sedition charge. I don't think he has read the legislation, but that seems pretty common in the anti sedition laws media commentary lately. He likes to get carried away, though:

"For fascism is almost with us now. The experience of 20th century fascism in Europe reminds us of the apparent normality of life, for most people most of the time, under the fascist regimes before they went to war. Outside the minority communities being scapegoated, life under the German and Italian fascists was pretty much like life under John Howard here now."

Uhuh.

It's like walking down a street minding your own business and having a stranger come up to you saying over and over "I have my rights, don't hit me!" Although you may never have had any such intention of doing so at first, you really do want to hit him after a while 'cos he is so annoying.

(There is a similar bit in Monty Python somewhere, I am sure, but it won't come clearly to mind.)

More on Iraq and WMD

FrontPage magazine.com :: Where the WMDs Went by Jamie Glazov

See the link for an interesting interview with someone with direct experience in Iraq on the the WMD issue both before and after the war.

Silly science

Seasonal depression may affect hamsters

My questions: 1. how do you tell that hamster is depressed?

2. Why does it matter? (Yeah, yeah, may provide some insight into human seasonal affective disorder. Not much, I bet.)

Lefty Francophile upset by Aussie media coverage

Bronwyn Winter argues the Australian press has used the French crisis to push a little local propaganda. - On Line Opinion - 11/11/2005

See link above for a long article that definitely deserves a fisking - but no time for me to do it now.

Her basic idea: the media here thinks the Australian economy and assimilation of migrants would be something of a lesson for France. But not so - things are pretty appalling for everyone here too. Just that we don't know it.

But her ending is a bit of a worry - and a good way to lose any possible sympathy:

"Perhaps the editors of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian would do well to consider what a fragile glass house Australia has become. And right now, there are plenty of us clutching sharp stones in our hands. "

The author is "Dr Bronywn Winter is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, School of Languages and Cultures, Deptartment of French Studies." Perhaps her boss deserves a letter.

On WMD in Iraq

Although it seems to have attracted little media attention in Australia, The Guardian has been extracting bits of a book by former British Ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer. The book looks at the run up to the Iraq war, and while Meyer thought the war was justified, his book is apparently highly critical of Tony Blair for being too compliant with American wishes.

However, he still defends the government on the issue of WMD and the danger of Saddam Hussein, and indeed the character of George W Bush:

"With hindsight, of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction, one of the prime justifications for the war, at least in Britain. "This is one of history's loose ends, which may yet be tied," he suggests defensively. But he denies that the government suspected all along that Saddam was less of a threat than was being claimed in public. "I do not know anyone of any stature in 2002 who was going around saying they don't have this stuff."

The US Iraq survey team, sent in after the war, failed to find any WMD after one of the most intensive hunts in history. Sir Christopher suggests they could have been "spirited out of the country into Syria or maybe even Iran. That is a possibility". To the Americans, though, Sir Christopher says, the war was always about regime change, not WMD. "One of the things that came to me when writing was how political the war was. This wasn't just a war, it was a political war." The US, he says, wanted to "replace a bad government with a good government". It was, he says, the "neo-con vision".

US officials who planned the war, such as deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, "thought it was possible to bring not perfect democracy but start with a fairly rough and ready version that would be the basis from which you could move on to higher things".

"Put it like that and it doesn't sound so loony," he says.

And despite the current situation in Iraq, Sir Christopher remains an admirer of Mr Bush. "I have got to declare an interest: I like George W Bush. In public, on the whole, he doesn't do himself justice, at least for a European audience. In private, from the very first time I met him, I found him articulate and interesting. He did do detail. You can argue, millions will, that what he did with those details and the policies he created out of them are not to our liking. But the portrait of an ideological, religious simpleton is wildly off-beam."

Unusual - but very interesting - link of the day

The Old Bailey, of course, the criminal court in London that has been around for centuries.

You can now visit their site to search the complete record of proceedings there from 1674 to 1834!

This is of particular interest to Australians, since many of the original Aussies ended up here via that court.

For example, if you look at the link to "On this day in 1786" for today, and then click on the "see original" link at the side, you will see that the fate of one Christopher Hornsby, charged with stealing a silk hankerchief, was transportation for 7 years!

I must search my family name and see what pops up. Fascinating.

Two perspectives on France

Gerard Henderson's column today on the French and their riots is interesting. The key argument:

"France practises integration with respect to its ethnic minorities, from North Africa and Arab nations, in the sense that the French do not formally recognise their existence....

Anyone who has residence in France is expected to act like the French. There is no public recognition that immigrants to France - or their children or grandchildren - might like to preserve part of their ethnic culture or native language or that this might benefit France. There is no French equivalent of SBS and there are few government sponsored organisations for inter-ethnic dialogue. It's a case of when in France do as the French do."

Australia, on the other hand, is successfully multicultural, because it acknowledges that migrants might want to preserve part of their heritage:

"The fact is that multiculturalism has worked well in Australia and has contributed to an accepting society. The tests? Well, inter-marriage rates between ethnic groups are relatively high. And the level of ethnic motivated crime is relatively low. France's contemporary social problems have nothing to do with multiculturalism but, rather, much to do with its absence."

Mark Steyn's latest on Europe advances a not too dissimilar line, in that he points out that most European countries are bi-cultural (with one culture being Muslim.) Using the situation in Fiji as an example, he points out that this is inherently more unstable (at least when the minority starts to become the not so minority due to population growth) than multicultural countries, like the US and Australia. As he wittily puts it:

"One way to avoid it would be to go genuinely multicultural, to broaden the Continent's sources of immigration beyond the Muslim world. But a talented ambitious Chinese or Indian or Chilean has zero reason to emigrate to France, unless he is consumed by a perverse fantasy of living in a segregated society that artificially constrains his economic opportunities yet imposes confiscatory taxation on him in order to support an ancien regime of indolent geriatrics."

God, he can write!

Whitlam and Saddam

Shame, Whitlam, shame - Tony Parkinson - Opinion - theage.com.au

See the link for a Tony Parkinson story on how Whitlam sought substantial money from Saddam Hussein to support the Labor Party election campaign in 1975. I don't recall this story at all, but it's a great one.

Doco recommendation

The first part of a 2 part documentary "The Cult of the Suicide Bomber" was on the ABC tonight at 8.30. A British Channel 4 production, it was very good. If you missed it, you can at least see the next part next Monday.

It gave much insight into how Islamist suicide bombers started in Iran in the Iran/Iraq war. Most worrying was how it showed that such martyrdom is still admired today, even by those parents whose 13 or 15 yr old sons strapped explosives to themselves 20 years ago.

It really makes you wonder how such a mindset can be changed. Depressing, in a way.

Panic! Global warming to affect wine!

This PhD research noted on the ABC website would have to be one of the most trivial bits of global warming related research I have seen.

"Connoisseurs of Australian wine may have to learn to love a less tasty drop as climate change takes its toll on grape growing regions, a greenhouse conference will hear.

Leanne Webb, a PhD student with CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research says based on her modelling Australia's wine growing regions will become warmer and in almost all cases drier.

The bad news is that the flavour and aroma of grapes may suffer, resulting in poorer quality, less complex wines."

Gosh.

'"In most regions bud burst will be earlier ... and harvest day in all cases will be earlier," she says.

For example, in South Australia's Riverland, Australia's warmest and largest wine producing region, bud burst will occur four days earlier and harvesting will take place eleven days earlier by 2030.'

Panic! Maybe this will convince Howard to ratify Kyoto. He likes wine doesn't he? But wait a minute, there is something good to come from it:

"According to her model, by 2030 Riverina grape growers in New South Wales will need an extra 1500 to 8500 megalitres of water a year to irrigate their crops.

But what growers lose through irrigation they may gain in increased yield, she says.

"When it's warmer you tend to be able to produce more grapes per hectare," she says.'

So it's more wine but of less quality. Since most of the bottles I currently drink are under $10, I can live with this.

Gerard Henderson fighting the good fight

The World Today - Anti-terrorism laws: safety measure or political gameplay?

On Friday I heard The World Today on Radio National, in which there was a good stoush between the always cool, rational (and conservative) Gerard Henderson and Robert Toner (a New South Wales barrister on the side of the over-cautious civil libertarians) on the Federal government's anti terror legislation.

Things did get a bit heated as these extracts show:

"GERARD HENDERSON: Yeah, but the error you're making is, and many barristers make, you don't have to take…

ROBERT TONER: We're the ones that deal with it day in, day out.

GERARD HENDERSON: Yeah, but just a minute… is that you're talking about criminality, and I think… can I just finish? I think you underplay the significance of the threat. Let's just talk about Britain.

ROBERT TONER: What, of mass murder? Why should we?

GERARD HENDERSON: Could I just finish? If we just talk about Britain, not talk about Australia. What we're dealing here with is not criminals, so much as revolutionaries. Revolutionaries who come up with ideological doctrines deserve to be taken seriously.

If someone says to me they want to destroy our society, I have the good sense to take them seriously until proven otherwise. This is a revolutionary force at a new time of war. We are not dealing with normal acts of criminality for which barristers have dealt for many years."

And then:

"GERARD HENDERSON: All I'm saying is that if every State Premier, if every Territory leader, if the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader, the Federal Police, and all the State Police say something needs to be done, I don't think it's… I mean, it's very easy for someone for the Bar to say they're all wrong.

ROBERT TONER: Because they're spooked by the polls, they're spooked by the editorial writers of the Daily Telegraph.

GERARD HENDERSON: Oh are they? So they don't believe what they're doing? They're just spooked by people, they're just scared. I mean…

ROBERT TONER: Well, hang on a minute, this is out of balance.

GERARD HENDERSON: That is a ridiculous proposition. As a barrister you should be able to do better than that.

ELEANOR HALL: Now, I just need to intervene here."

Of course, I rate Henderson as the winner.

Foil hat warning

I strongly suggest Tony Kevin should read this.

(Everyone else should read it too; my posts have been too serious lately.)