Secular vs religious government in Iraq

More Iraqis look to vote secular Dec. 15 | csmonitor.com

Link above is to a story in the Christian Science Monitor of interest about the upcoming Iraqi election.

Miscellaneous thoughts

On Australian politics: how much will the Gerard appointment scandal be hurting Peter Costello in 6 month's time? Not a bit. Gerard's gone, and it is one of those issues that intensely interests political journalists, but not the general public, especially at this time of year. (And those who do take an interest also remember the Labor government's appointment of mates to the Reserve Bank).

On movies:

"King Kong": I find it extremely difficult to see why a silly 1930's semi-fantasy should have any resonances with today's adult audience, and this version is also so long as to put it out of reach of a very young audience. I predict only moderate success.

"Narnia": despite my fondness for CS Lewis, I only read these books as an adult, and so do not hold them in the same affection as do many who read them as children. Still, the shorts of the movie look impressive, and early reviews of the movie are positive. I will see this one.

"Brokeback Mountain": it might be a good movie with good performances, but you have to wonder how big the potential audience is for a serious gay cowboy movie.

"Munich": Currency Lad is sweating this one a bit too much, I think. Spielberg is a liberal, of course, but I don't think you can find any evidence of moral relativism in his films. Given his jewish heritage and support by way of things such as the establishment of Shoah Foundation, it seems hard to believe he is going to leave much room for criticism of the Israeli take on the events. My biggest concern is the screen writer is Tony Kushner, the gay writer of "Angels In America", which just tried too hard to be deep and meaningful, in my opinion.

On alcohol: (the only drug endorsed by Opinion Dominion,) more good news, sort of.

All you want to know about the coming Iran problem

Excellent post here (The Officers Club) on what would be involved if Israel tried to take out Iran's nuclear capacity.

All a bit of a worry, to put it mildly.

Scott Ritter plays to small house

Margo Kingston's Webdiary: On democracy and war with Scott Ritter

The link is to a Webdiary post on Scott Ritter's Victoria visit. Seems he may not be attracting much in the way of an audience:

"A small group of us huddled together in the middle of the Basement Lecture Theatre, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, at Melbourne University. I thought our international guest would have been playing to a packed house. To my amazement, hardly anyone turned up. Embarrassed audience members speculated during question time as to the reasons for the poor attendance."

Must have been small if the number is not even mentioned.

Scott claims to have paid a personal price for speaking out:

"During questions Ritter admitted to having paid huge personal costs for his speaking out. Not only himself, but also his family. He worried about his two children.....

Ritter admitted to having passed through a period of terrible depression, but that he had now come out of that and his personal future, his well being and happiness, looked good."

Did anyone ask him whether being caught chatting up underage girls on the internet might have had something to do with his depression? Nice to know he had kids while doing that too.

Koko's special interest

Lawsuit Over Koko the Gorilla's Nipple Fetish Resolved

From the above link:

"Two former caretakers who refused to bare their breasts to a 300-pound (136-kilogram), sign-language-speaking gorilla named Koko have settled a lawsuit against the Gorilla Foundation.

Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller claimed they were fired after they refused to expose their bosoms to the primate, and after reporting sanitary problems at Koko's home in Woodside, an upscale town south of San Francisco.

The pair claimed they were threatened that if they “did not indulge Koko's nipple fetish, their employment with the Gorilla Foundation would suffer,” the lawsuit alleged.

Alperin and Keller claimed that Francine “Penny” Patterson, the gorilla's longtime caretaker and president of the Gorilla Foundation, pressured them to expose their breasts as a way to bond with the 33-year-old female simian.

“On one such occasion,” the lawsuit said, “Patterson said, 'Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples.” "

Make up your own comments!

More news on the marxism front

China plans to update Marxism - World - theage.com.au

According to the story above, China plans on just re-defining away any conflict between its marxist theory and the government's actual practice. This will presumably mean that no one will take marxism seriously any more, just as liberalising churches find that their congregations don't bother taking them seriously. (They don't bother attending church.)

Who will take over from Kim Jong il?

End of the line for a North Korean dynasty - Opinion - smh.com.au

Reprinted for the LA Times, the Sydney Morning Herald (link above) runs an interesting piece today on what will happen succession wise when Kim Jong-il kicks the bucket. I like this bit:

"In Seoul, a South Korean national security official likened Kim Jong Il's predicament to that of an emperor in the waning years of a dynasty. "He wants to create a three-generation dynasty, but he knows the people would not like it," said the official. "Besides, he spoiled all of his sons. They like Michael Jordan and computer games. They went to Swiss schools. … They are too Westernised to be dictators."

Let's hope that is true.

Gerard Henderson on "fascism"

The rise of fascism as an easy insult - Opinion - smh.com.au

Gerard Henderson writes well today on the ridiculous misuse of "fascist" as a lefty insult to the Howard government. (Link above.)

Speaking for all his profession...

Law Council of Australia - Media Release - 4/Dec/2005 - Law Council Launches Final Assault on Counter-Terror Laws

I have noticed the current Law Council of Australia President (one John North) hyperventilating a lot on the news lately against the new anti-terror laws. I think it might be where Beazley got the idea to compare us to North Korea and Cuba.

The Law Council's latest release it at the link above. He makes much of the fact that the Council "speaks for the legal profession." Well, only in the sense that those in the legal profession generally belong to State law societies, which are constituent bodies to the Council. While lawyers can vote for their State law society president, they have (as far as I know) no vote for president of the national body. I would guess that the great majority of lawyers take no particular interest in what the Law Council of Australia is doing.

I can assure all readers that neither the Council (nor the State societies) invite voting on, or poll their members about, what their position should be on various political issues. Those lawyers who have a particular act to grind on some area (especially where law reform may remove a field of work, or publicity will help their practice) take an active interest; the rest just get on with work.

So don't think that John North actually knows in any quantitative sense whether the majority of Australian lawyers agree with the Council's position on this. He has made no attempt to establish this, and as opinon polling is indicating wide public support for the laws, it would be surprising if there was not at least a substantial minority of lawyers who were comfortable with the laws.

I don't mind if a "representative" body doesn't bother its members all the time for their opinions; but at the same time they should not speak as if they have detailed knowledge of the extent to which their members agree with a policy position.

The Guardian Vs Aslan

The Guardian seems to be spending a lot of time on attacking the CS Lewis Narnia stories before the movie is even released. Polly Toynbee's article ("Narnia Represents everything that is most hateful about Christianity") is not quite as "anti" as the headline suggests, but it's bad enough.

The last paragraph:

"Children are supposed to fall in love with the hypnotic Aslan, though he is not a character: he is pure, raw, awesome power. He is an emblem for everything an atheist objects to in religion. His divine presence is a way to avoid humans taking responsibility for everything here and now on earth, where no one is watching, no one is guiding, no one is judging and there is no other place yet to come. Without an Aslan, there is no one here but ourselves to suffer for our sins, no one to redeem us but ourselves: we are obliged to settle our own disputes and do what we can. We need no holy guide books, only a very human moral compass. Everyone needs ghosts, spirits, marvels and poetic imaginings, but we can do well without an Aslan."

Funny, but I thought that the basic point of Christianity was that people do have to take responsibility for how they "treat their neighbour" because that is the basis on which you will be judged.

As for the suggestion that the world would be better off working out our earthly problems with no sense of divine guidence, a pretty good argument can be made that it was precisely this attitude that was behind the murderous plague of communisim and facsism that blighted the 20th century.

(OK, maybe the Crusaders and the Inquisition might have killed more if they had modern technology too, but then again modern communications might also have ended these trends faster too. Islamofacsism is a danger, but luckily it would seem the aggressive interpretation of their holy book is a small, though dangerous, minority.)

Of course, having a religious faith is not a guarantee of living a moral life, and the major faiths also have not been an impediment to wars being raged. On the other hand, I think the degree to which atheists have been inclined to blame faith for human suffering has been greatly exaggerated. And this particular line of attack on Christianity (that it removes an idea of personal responsibility) is well off the mark.

Vodkapundit on terror

I've been forgetting to drop in on Vodkapundit lately, but here's a post of his that is well worth a read. (It's about taking the jihadist terror threat seriously, even if Bin Laden never has the same number of devotees that communism had.)

Update: I see that Pajamas Media has referred to this already. Maybe I should add PM to my blogroll, but will it survive?

Now there's an idea..

The ABC reports tonight that Saddam and his lawyers threw another tantrum today:

When the defence threatened to walk out the judge replied that the court would then appoint substitutes.

This brought a moment of high drama with Saddam on his feet shouting: "This is Iraq, we will not accept state officials defending us. They're American stooges."

As the lawyers walked out, Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti - who is also among the accused - shouted: "Why don't you just execute us?"

Please explain..

New Views of the Universe: The Kavli Inaugural Symposium in honor of David Schramm (2005), Preliminary Program

Cosmology interests me, even though it is a difficult field to understand. But then, with an abstract like this for a talk to be given at conference in Chicago later this month, who can blame me?:

"The large number of vacua in the stringy landscape may lead to interesting new cosmology. First, tunneling between from one vacuum to another (e.g. tunneling through a series of minima in a tilted cosine potential) provides a new mechanism for inflation: Chain Inflation. Second, a dynamical solution to the cosmological constant problem may be provided by a field with the same potential but without tunneling. After inflation, the universe reheats, and different regions of the universe fall into different minima of the potential. Domain walls shove aside higher energy vacua in favor of lower energy ones, but it is shown that this process stops before the universe can fall into very negative energy vacua. Gravitation itself provides a cutoff at a minimum vacuum energy, thereby leaving the universe with a small cosmological constant comparable in magnitude to the current vacuum energy."

Hard to find news on child poverty rates

Child poverty rates

The link above is a relatively optimistic story on research into child poverty in the USA. It is relevant to Australia because the Federal government's welfare law reform which will encourage mothers to work.

It's also interesting to note how hard it was to find this story.

I found the article via the EurekaAlert news site, and even its link to the article did not work. Searching Google and Google News did not locate anything. By visiting the Cornell News site and doing a search, it was finally found.

Good news does not travel well.

Could they be modified to take needle-sharp poison tips too?

USB Powered Air Darts - Marks & Spencer

See link above for a very cool Xmas gift, found via Boing Boing (link at side).

Some thoughts on Asian drug laws

If you want to see the detail of just how tough the Singaporean drugs laws are, have a look at the website for its Central Narcotics Bureau. More than 500g of cannabis - death. Same with more than 15 g of heroin. Talk about tough.

The Nguyen and "Bali Nine" cases have made me think about arriving in Asian airports and seeing the warning posters about the death penalty for drugs. As far as I can recall, these posters are not done with the intention of giving a drug carrier any last minute chance of "declaring" the drugs before they enter the country. (In fact, I am not sure whether they are put up before or after customs.) There is no equivalent of the 'fruit bin', and even if you wanted to thrown out the drugs strapped to your body, removing them discretely may be somewhat of a challenge. There may be a possibility of going to the toilets before going through customs to remove and flush the drugs, but I am not sure that all airports have toilets accessable in that part. Or if they do, perhaps the airport authorities take a special interest in what goes on in there.

My point is, if as a country such as Singapore is going to insist on a death penalty for "trafficking" in drugs, why not give the potential trafficker a last minute opportunity to avoid death by declaring the possession? This would be particularly fair for any drugs smuggler who claims (as have some of the Bali Nine) that they have been forced into it under threat of harm to them or their family.

Such declarations should, as an absolute minimum, guarantee that the person will not be executed, but I would propose that the consequence be a relatively short period of jail - say a month or two- with assistance provided to ensure a safe return to the country of residence. (You would have to have some jail to dissuade people from getting free flights home by carrying drugs into the airport. However, it is much cheaper for the country to pay a $2000 plane ticket than to keep them in jail for any length of time.) Of course, the Australian could then have a life ban on entry into Singapore (I will use these countries as the example.) Perhaps the 'free flight' home could also be conditional on an interview with the Federal Police, and their being satisfied that the person has provided as much information as they can on anyone connected with the deal in Australia.

I presume that there could be no prosecution in Australia for the possession in the foreign country. Perhaps some other administrative punishment could be imposed.

The result would be that the drugs never get through customs to harm Singaporeans; the person gets enough jail so that there is no attraction to "take advantage" of the system; they can never return to Singapore in future; no drugs are returned to Australia; and perhaps some information is obtained to track any drugs bosses in Australia. Sounds like win/win for all concerned to me.

Now, for all I know, maybe the Singaporean courts might be a little softer on those who "declare" drugs at the airport, at least if the quantity is not such that it carries a compulsory death sentence. (I presume that must happen occasionally, although the death penalty posters may make it less likely.) However, if the sign before customs said "declare illegal drugs now and you will not hang in this country" maybe it would happen more often.

It would be an additional argument for Singapore for the "fairness" of the death penalty for those who fail to take advantage of this last minute reprieve. (Although I want to be clear that I do not support the death penalty for drugs, ever.)

Someone in Singapore agrees with this idea (which I had been thinking about before I found their post.)

As for the Nguyen case itself, I still find it terribly sad for all concerned. There has been over-reaction by some on both sides of the debate here, and the executioner himself should be retired immediately as a result of his appallingly insensitive comments to the media.

The concentration should be on getting Singapore and other Asian countries to look seriously at whether the death penalty is working as a deterrent; the inherent injustice of having compulsory death sentences in particular; and why they think that an offence that may involve no harm to any other person should carry such a sentence. (With the small quantities involved for it to be deemed trafficking, it is entirely possible that some people have hung for being caught with their own drug supply.)

Frogmouths, I believe

Picture taken on recent holiday. Actually there were 4 of these frogmouths sitting low in the same tree. A family, I wonder?

Stupid Beazley (sedition again)

Kim Beazley seems to think that making silly statements will endear him to all those comedians, cartoonists and Margo Kingston readers who fret that they will be locked up soon because the government is updating sedition laws that have been around for, oh, nearly a century.

Says Kim:

"I do not know why the government insists that we should lower ourselves to the standard of North Korea, Syria and Cuba."

Kim, there's a reason we don't let comedians and cartoonists run the country, so there's no need to encourage their (in the main) stupidly ill-founded worries. (As Piers Ackerman says today, it appears that most of the cartoony critics have not read the Bill, as they ignore the fact that the offence is being updated to make it clear that it has to involve urging violence, and there is a good faith defence.)

I have posted previously that the new laws are not perfect and probably do need some changes (but that related mainly to the issue of prohibited organisations, for which there is a definition of "seditious intent" that is actually unrelated to the offence of "sedition" itself.) But that said, most of the criticism (see this 7.30 Report story for example,) has been completely misguided.

As Phil Ruddock has made pretty obvious, although he agrees to a review next year, he wants the laws in now to give mad jihadists who want to encourage violence something to think about. Big Kim doesn't care though, he's just trying to score points for ridiculous overstatement, it would seem.

If you are a real glutton for punishment, and already know how long each Robert Bosler post to Margo Kingston's site can be, you can look at his co-authored entry on this. Here's his opening paragraphs:

"There is an extremely powerful but subtle effect hidden in these sedition laws. This subtle effect operates on the same silent convention that has, for instance, abused women returning again and again to the man who does it, or a person returning again and again to self-destructive behaviour. It works because, even whilst a person knows something is bad for them, there is a chimerical comfort, a strange sense of security in the situation.

It works like a private running commentary behind a person's thoughts, urging that person to return to that chimerical comfort, that strange restraining sense of safety, while their front-of-mind thoughts attempt to move out, move forward and to grow."

And on it goes for another gazillon words of deep and meaningful psycho-babble about how the laws will subconcsious bring fear to the heart of the nation (or some such guff.)

Get a grip! Or change hands, one or the other.

Stupid headline

Cannabis could reverse psychosis - National - theage.com.au

Headlines are often misleading, but when it comes to questions of the public understanding of the risks of a drug, you would think they would take more care.

The Age obviously doesn't worry about that. The headline of the article (linked above) - "Cannabis could reverse psychosis" is completely misleading. The article itself points out that cannabis is now widely believed to cause psychosis, but the interesting thing that has been discovered is that it appears that one chemical - when given alone to mice - appears to help "drug induced behavourial disturbances." In other words, while there is one psychosis inducing chemical in cannabis, there also might be once which is an "antipsychotic." The researchers are not saying that the "good" part wins out in this brain tussle when you use cannabis.

But you have to read the article to understand that. Kids who don't read past headlines may well be comforted to continue their habit. (Although my prejudices also make me think not too many pot smoking youths read The Age anyway!)

Reasons to be skeptical of $100 laptops for the poor

Waiting for That $100 Laptop? - Don't hold your breath. By Cyrus Farivar

The Slate article above expresses some common sense about the proposed $100 crank-powered laptop idea for poor countries. Other attempts to introduce cheap computers to the rural poor in developing countries haven't got far:

"In 2001, a group of computer scientists in Bangalore, India, developed the Simputer. It was supposed to be a cheap (around $200), robust computer for India's rural poor. But according to the Associated Press, the brains behind the Simputer have sold only 4,000 of an expected 50,000 units in 2004 and 2005. In addition, only about 10 percent of Simputer buyers live in rural areas. Why? Probably because they have more important things to do than write e-mail.

There's no reason to think that Negroponte's computer will win wider acceptance in the Third World. The fact that each laptop comes with a built-in WiFi card won't be of much use if there isn't a WiFi access point nearby. How many access points do you think there are in rural Egypt?"