The trial starts to look like a trial

Iraq the Model reports on a good day for the trial of Saddam.

Of course, getting this trial over and done with is important for the current instability in Iraq. While he remains alive and appearing on TV screens, he must be giving some Sunni insurgents hope.

The other thing they have to get on with is forming a government of national unity.

UPDATE: since this was posted last night, Saddam admits what happened, but tries to put a different light on it. The Christian Science Monitor story ends with Saddam's complaint:

Hussein also used his court time to complain that a toilet he used during a break in the session didn't have a door to prevent prying eyes, and he was disturbed when a court attendant came to get him.

"Is this humanity?'' he asked.

Oh, diddums..

Climate change and risk

I don't know what's gone wrong in the last couple of months, but the Guardian has started seeming more balanced to me than ever before, at least if you ignore its columnists. The Australian, on the other hand, seems to have decided to play up the Wheat Board Scandal in its headlines as much as possible, and even had an editorial go at John Howard for comments on the old "children overboard" affair. (Incidentally, I share Slattsnews take on this.) Odd times indeed.

Anyway, the main point of this post is to note a Guardian article on global warning which notes the recent dispute over some scientists warning that global warming could be worse than previously expected:

The three previous reports assumed that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase average global temperature by between 1.5 and 4.5C. Since then, computer models have foreseen increases as high as 11C, and some scientists wanted the naturally conservative IPCC to raise the upper end of the range. Others said such a move would be increase would be misleading and alarmist.

According to sources who have seen it, the draft now assumes a doubling of carbon dioxide would cause a likely temperature rise of between 2 and 4.5C, but says higher increases are possible.

Look on the bright side: with an 11 degree increase, Australians are particularly well placed to take advantage of the new beach side estates to be sold in Antartica.

But, how likely such massive increases may occur is more to the point, and there is some scepticism about this:

James Annan, a British climate scientist who works on the Japanese Earth simulator supercomputer in Yokohama, says the risks of extreme climate sensitivity and catastrophic consequences have been overstated. He is about to publish a study showing that the chance of climate sensitivity exceeding 4.5C is less than 5%. He said: "It seems to me that some people seem to be talking up the possibility of disaster in order to scare people into doing something."

But, for large possible disasters, there is this to consider:

Dave Stainforth, a climate modeller at Oxford University, said: "This is something of a hot topic but it comes down to what you think is a small chance - even if there's just a half per cent chance of destruction of society, I would class that as a very big risk."

Well, this is exactly the point that James Bodgett makes in his criticisms of the risk assessment CERN has done about how they may soon be creating mini black holes that could, if Hawking Radiation does not work, sink into the core of the earth. No one (meaning no physicist) seems to have done any detailed work on this a risk assessment issue. Yet, why can't Blodgett convince anyone to take this issue seriously? For those who may be new to this site due to Tim Blair's mention of it - please have a look at my long post on the CERN issue here.

Will the salad bar return?

So, two Sizzler restaurants in Brisbane have had rat poison found in the salad bar food. This may be an evil plan to rid the city of uni students and pensioners. The story raises some questions:

* from the article in yesterday's Courier Mail:

Police would like help from the woman who alerted CBD staff to the presence of green pellets in the soup about 5pm on Saturday.

She left before police arrived and staff did not have her name. She is not a suspect.

There's even a photo of her on the website. While it is all very well to say she is not a suspect, isn't use of the phrase "police are looking for a man/woman who may be able to help with their enquires" always the coded way of saying the person is indeed a suspect? Like saying "there were no suspicious circumstances" about a death of a youngish person found alone usually means "suicide". What's the betting that she really is the suspect?

* From the article in the Courier Mail today:

SIZZLER claims it took 37 days to become aware that the green pellets found in a tub of pasta sauce at its Toowong store were rat poison.

The company's chief, Bo Ryan, who has been at the helm for 17 years, said he did not know of the poisoning finding until yesterday – a day after two of his staff fell ill after tasting contaminated soup at the smorgasbord chain's CBD restaurant.

"Obviously there are some lessons learnt in terms of the evaluation of the product from Toowong," he said.

Mr Ryan said it was normal protocol to send foreign objects found in food to a New Zealand laboratory for testing. But he admitted the company, which has been operating in Australia for 20 years, had no contingency plan in place to deal with food poisoning.

Five weeks to find out what that strange thing in the food is? That sure indicates Sizzlers puts high priority on checking the quality of its food, doesn't it?. If only terrorists had known this. They could have poisoned thousands this way and still had time to take a Gold Coast holiday before leaving the country.

I wonder if there may be some class action law firm advertising for anyone wanting to bring a action over this?

UPDATE: a 57 year old woman has been arrested over this. I don't know if it is supposed to be the same woman in the photos published yesterday, but it seems a fair bet. From the article in the Courier Mail:

[Queensland Health Minister] Mr Robertson said Sizzler's handling of the situation had not been ideal....

Understatement of the year, considering this:

One of the affected consumers, Sarah Kenny, knew something wasn't right when she tasted the "foul" spaghetti bolognaise at Sizzler in January.

But it was not until she heard news reports yesterday that she discovered she and her friends may have eaten rat poison.

I wonder what shares in the company are worth today...

Hard to believe..

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Europe's chill linked to disease

The above story is about how it has been suggested that the Little Ice Age of a few hundred years ago may have been caused by too many new trees springing up on unused farms after a third of Europe died of bubonic plague. Those trees cause more trouble than they are worth.

Anyway, the theory sounds too much of a stretch.

But I would say that a climate model that cannot account for the Little Ice Age does not inspire confidence about its predictions for the future.

Easy on the eyes for news junkies

No, I am not referring to any particularly good looking newsreader. (But while I am on that topic, I have always been especially fond of the current Brisbane ABC TV weekend newsreader, but I can never remember her name, and I can't find her on the ABC website.)

Anyway, what I am talking about is this quite cool looking site. I am not sure how often the news stories are updated, but it at least brings to attention some stories from obscure parts of the world.

I found it via Red Ferrett Journal, which has the wittiest comments on new gadgets.

UPDATE: OK, my apologies. As the author of the application explains here, this is not yet a real time news feed page. He hopes to make it so, and to soon make it available for people to use the script with (I think) their news feed of choice. Lovely design work, all the same.

Who blew up the mosque?

See a good post on the competing theories about who blew up the Golden Mosque at Mudville Gazette

(Found via Pajamas Media, which has become pretty damn good. Did TB bail too early?)

On the other problems of Palestine

What aid cutoff to Hamas would mean | csmonitor.com

The above article summaries neatly the economic problems of Palestine/Gaza. These parts are of particular interest:

Unemployment is at 23 percent.

Another issue is that the Palestinian population grows more than 3 percent a year. Each Palestinian woman in Gaza has close to six children on average; in the West Bank, 4.4 children is the average.

Some Israelis see this as a demographic threat. Abunimah holds that large families arise from the parents' need to ensure help in their old age in a society without Social Security or a system of government medical care.

For economists, rapid population growth makes a rise in economic prosperity difficult, especially in an area with limited land and resources. What's needed, the World Bank report suggests, is peace, the lifting of restrictions on Palestinian travel and commerce, Palestinian governance reform, and more foreign aid.

That's some birth rate for an area that is not exactly just emerging into the modern world.

While I understand that in old style agricultural communities, there is an incentive for the parents to have children to maintain their farm as a source of food and income, I find it more puzzling that modern Gaza families, when they have no economy to speak of in the first place, think that having extra children is going to help that problem.

Are there other reasons for the high birth rate? Why do Muslims in most places have a higher birth rate? I am not aware of what the Islamic teachings in regard to birth control are, but I must go looking...

Hamas - its terms for a truce

Incoming Hamas Chief Wants Political Truce - Yahoo! News

From the article above (emphasis mine):

Ismail Haniyeh — the incoming Palestinian prime minister — on Sunday denied saying Hamas would consider peace with Israel under certain conditions.

Haniyeh was quoted by The Washington Post in its Sunday edition as saying Hamas would establish "peace in stages" if Israel would withdraw to its 1967 boundaries — before it captured the
West Bank,
Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

But Haniyeh told reporters that his comments had been misunderstood. He said he was not referring to a peace agreement, only a "political truce." Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told The Associated Press that Haniyeh's comments must have been mistranslated.

Haniyeh has demanded that Israel make a full withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war, release Palestinian prisoners and the return of several million Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel.

"Then Hamas can grant a long-term truce," Haniyeh said.

Those are his terms just for a truce??

What the hell, why stop there? How about a million US dollars for each returning refugee to compensate for hurt feelings?

And: just how many people can you fit within tiny Israel before running out of water, anyway? There's about 6.5 million there already.

How not to improve Australian films

Where are our brave filmmakers? - Opinion - theage.com.au

Tracee Hutchison, writing in The Age above, likes the current crop of "liberal" cinema from the USA, and suggests that maybe Australian cinema needs to follow this lead.

Idiotically, she says:

...this is precisely the time we need our filmmakers to be telling rigorous and fearless stories about the Australian condition. It can't all be the fault of the newly enshrined sedition laws that we're not seeing them.

Um, yes Tracey, that is correct, but not in the way you are thinking. It is because if you actually read the legislation yourself instead of relying on the legislative ignorance of a bunch of comedians, it is inconcieveable that the revised sedition laws could be used this way. (Well, assuming the movie does not have the lead character suddenly addressing the audience directly and telling them it is their duty to take up arms and engage in violent attack on the evil Federal government.)

What's more, Tracey, it is not as if the subtext of most Australian films of the last decade could be construed as having pro-conservative values. It is precisely the dour political underpinning of most Aussie movies lately that prevents them reaching a decent sized audience.

Maybe he can make a movie about it

Director sentenced over drag arrest - World - theage.com.au

So, Kiwi director Lee Tamahori pleads guilty, in effect admitting to having perhaps the most unusual sexual interests (at least for a well known Hollywood figure) ever.

I bet the Bond producers are glad they did not give him the job of directing the current 007 film.

Cranky

Does complaining about lack of attention help ensure I don't get it?

This week, I thought I made a few decent posts. Just scroll down the page to find them; they are all still here. The one about last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald I thought important in particular. (I even shot off an email to Media Watch about it, and Tim Blair. So far, not an answer from either.) David Williamson's rejoinder to all the rubbishing he got over his "ship Australia" article was noted here, and (to my great surprise) no one else I regularly read has even mentioned his article. Do I have any decent judgment about what other people are interested in?

No one who visits here has commented on anything for quite a while. A brief surge of visitors from Evil Pundit's recent kind reference has dwindled away. Maybe I get 20 hits from visitors on a good day, but many of those are clearly "accidents". I have some regular visitors, but I think maybe barely a half dozen link here. I am only a couple of months off a year of pretty regular posting.

It is much harder to get well established in the blogosphere than I thought.

Now, back to normal programming.

UPDATE: Well, a couple of days after this post, and a first mention ever of this blog at Tim Blair's. (Yay!) Maybe I should stop bitching now.

On Iraq

The Australian: Mike Steketee: Richer, harsher decade [February 25, 2006]

From the above article, a reference to Iraq (as usual, bold is my emphasis):

The war has spawned more terrorism, including an increased risk to Australia. It has produced a fundamentalist Islamic government in Iraq and helped ensure another one in Iran. And full-scale civil war in Iraq seems likely, according to a report by the independent International Crisis Group.

Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, Mike.

Of course, things are not looking great in Iraq, but then again one thing I have not noticed addressed is the simple question of whether there are enough arms available on the Sunni side for them to form an army as such. If they don't have them now, how are they going to get them? Are there enough Sunni's in the re-established Iraqi security forces to split off and take weaponry with them? Isn't the presence of the US and other forces going to help prevent that?

In all the talk (especially on the Left) of how bad it is that Iraq may now face a civil war, didn't the anti-war crowd think that the West should just allow Saddam's regime to collapse one way or another, quite possibly with what would amount to an all out civil war at that time? In that scenario, it would have been the case that the Sunnis would have been fully armed; Shites may needed to be supplied from outside.

Is there no one out there saying that, even if it is now a sort of civil war, the US presence may work to moderate its development? Isn't a slow burning type of conflict easier to put out than a full blown one?

I don't necessarily agree with Vodkapundit's take on a possible civil war, but it is interesting. (In short, an all out war may have its benefits in the long run anyway.)

Also from vodkapundits site, he has some photos from a pro-Danish protest in America. This one is particularly good:



Update: It would appear from this Slate summary that the New Republic argues along the lines I suggested (that US forces are now likely to moderate any civil war, and need to stay.)

Huffington Post jumps the shark too

While always over the top in its derision of anything Republican, it seems that the bloggers at Huffington Post have gone completely off the planet recently.

Witness this post by Huffington herself. She had appeared on Fox News with Ann Coulter and did not appreciate the way she was treated. (You can link throught to video of the appearance at Arianna's post.) In response, she does a very mature post comparing Ann Coulter to crack addiction for the likes of (conservative journalist) Hannity, including a stupid photoshopped image of what he would look like as a crack addict after a few years. Well, that makes me appreciate your arguments much more, Arianna.

(Incidentally, while she seems to have some notoriety in America, I did not know of her until she started her blog. I also did not know until now that she sounds vaguely like Zsa Zsa Gabor, which means nothing but just made it a little harder for me to take her seriously.)

As for Ann Coulter, (who has recently been disowned by more right-ish bloggers for her referring to Arabs as "ragheads,") she is obviously a deliberate provocateur, and as such she shouldn't be taken too seriously. I tend to find her use of humour pretty sharp, and not unlike PJ O'Rourke in his earlier days. There is a sense of playfulness behind this type of goading of Liberals. Left wing commentators and humourists, on the other hand, seem rooted in sour over- earnestness, and a fundamental assumption of the absolute worst motives behind everything the Republicans do.

However, I have not actually read much of Ann Coulter, and it is quite possible that I would not like her if I did.

Back to Huffington Post. Last week, Peter Daou ran the startling line that in fact the media was running a right leaning bias in its reporting of the Cheney hunting accident. He listed so-called examples and challenged right wing bloggers to counter this with their own examples to show that it was left leaning bias. Apparently the initial response was slow (Daily Kos somewhere noted this too and seemed to take it as a sign of right wing defeat on the issue.)

Of course, the truth was that any even slightly middle-of-the-road person could see that it was a such a ridiculous proposition (and Daou's own examples were so tenuous) that to bother answering it would be like arguing with the insane. Is he unaware of sites like Newsbusters (and many others) which daily list the examples he is seeking?

If you have lots of time to waste..

Boing Boing: Lovingly scanned and OCR'd copy of The Scientific American Boy

The above link is about a 1907 boys' own adventure type book available from Project Gutenburg (it would seem said project may be running out of more useful things to do!) I like this comment by Boing Boing:

It's also the good fortune of the gang that one of the boys nearly drowns in a swimming accident, because it gives their chaperone, the kindly "Uncle Ed" ("one of those rare men who take a great interest in boys and their affairs") a chance to demonstrate the art of artificial respiration on the unconscious boy.

South Park jumps the shark?

SBS drops South Park episode on the Pope - TV & Radio - Entertainment

I happen to have seen the controversial bits of the South Park episode discussed above (featuring a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding what is apparently meant to be menstrual blood) on the internet. (I forget where; I am sure it is not hard to find.)

The fundamental problem with it is that it is just not funny or clever. It is something you would expect if a 14 year old boy was in charge of the show. (From what I recall, some teenage boys find jokes about menstruation screamingly funny. Don't ask me why.) There is obviously a "that is so bad we can't put it in - aw let's do it and see the reaction" reasoning behind this part of the episode.

There are many categories of apparent humour on South Park. Stupid-funny, gross out humour, satire of what kids find funny (such as the kid's shows featuring never ending fart jokes,) satire of adult behaviour towards kids, etc etc.

While I have never been a big a fan of the show, it is sometimes clever, and even a semi-serious intent can be seen beneath it sometimes. (In fact, you can say that about part of the story in the Virgin Mary episode.) But adding the sequence with the statue and the Pope was purely gratuitous and made no sense as satire at all. I fail to see how any adult, of religious persuasion or not, could think it was amusing.

On divorce in Japan

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan retired divorce rate soars

The article above notes the increasing rate of divorce in Japan amongst those married for 20 years or more. The reason is "retired husband syndrome":

Marriage guidance counsellors are warning newly retired couples not to spend extended amounts of time together - recommending day trips over cruises.

The author of self-help book "Why Are Retired Husbands Such a Nuisance?" said it is dangerous for a couple to go on overseas trips after the husband retires....

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Tokyo says many wives increasingly resent how little their husbands contribute to home life and are seeking divorce when, after retirement, the men show no sign of changing their habits....

Japanese people also tend to live longer, so when a man retires at 65 the wife may be thinking "I still have 20 or 30 more years with this person", our correspondent says.

I am sure that this is not unheard of in Western countries too. Has it been the subject of detailed treatment in a good movie in the last 20 years?

More off topic: While you are at the BBC website, have a look at this photo series about some homeless folk in Osaka. Seems the homeless in Japan are much more into self help than the homeless here.

This just made me think. Many of the homeless you see in Australia would appear to be that way due to drug or alcohol addiction and/or mental illness. In Tokyo, there are now a few homeless to be seen, mainly (in my limited experience) in train stations. (They make shelters to sleep in from cardboard boxes, but often are still "polite" enough to remove the shoes and leave them at the entrance to their cubby holes.) However, the homeless you see look more like economic refugees, as they do in that BBC report. Given that Japan does not exactly have a reputation for sympathy to mental illness, and given the huge population of Tokyo, where do those who are homeless due to mental illness end up? They don't seem to be on the street, and nor do chronic alcoholics (at least not in the daytime!)

Hamas

lgf: Hamas to Israel: We'll Nuke You

If you missed this from a couple of days ago, follow through the LGF link above to see a Hamas website (cached version) showing how sensitive and tactful that organisation can be to the religious symbols of other faiths. (A graphic showing a Star of David consumed in mushroom cloud.)

I notice that the English version of the website seems to have a lot less on it than the arabic version (especially in terms of video available.) Must look into what's on the Arabic video some day.

David Williamson rejoins the culture wars

The Australian: David Williamson: Culture, yes, but please, not in their backyards [February 23, 2006]

I guess this will be blogged about in many places, but let this be an early entry on the piece.

I love it when the Left complain about the "shrillness" of conservative commentators. It's an excuse for not engaging in the actual detailed criticisms of their writing, I think. Furthermore, Williamson says some of the commentary against his controversial Bulletin piece reflected a "fascist attitude." (Well, he calls that "perhaps an overstatement", while immediately saying that ridding themselves of artists is exactly what fascists usually do.) Oh, that's not shrill at all, I suppose David?

He claims that his Bulletin piece was "mildly satiric". It doesn't read that way to me, at least if you expect satire to have an element of humour to it. While he is entitled to use a cheap fun cruise in the South Pacific as a metaphor for Australia generally not caring enough about its sustainability in the future, the main part of the article that most people found offensive (and rather bizarre) was his sneering at the passengers for not being there for cultural enlightenment. (Unlike those on a British cruise he had been on from Hong Kong to Vietnam, which sounded for all the world like a specialised educational cruise.)

David, you're a dill if you don't recognise why that comparison was stupid and offensive.

Fight cancer - drink up your Pepsi Max (or Diet Coke if you must)

TCS Daily - Those Dirty Rats

A fascinating article above about a fairly recent study on aspartame safety, which apparently got a mention in the New York Times earlier this month.

I take it that the NYT indicated that the study meant there was still some lingering doubt about aspartame and cancer. But the article above points out the defects of the study, and concludes on this surprising note:

Here's what's even stranger: the rats with the highest survival rates at 104 and 120 weeks, at 55% and about 29% respectively, were the rats that ate the most aspartame – the equivalent of 1,750 cans of diet soda a day. And the longest living rat of all consumed the equivalent of 175 cans a day. In short, the control rats died first; the heavy aspartame consumers lived longest.

Looks like if you want to increase your odds of living a long life, be prepared to burp.

Update: this post at Captain's Quarters gives more background on what the Times article claimed.

Life for women in Saudi Arabia

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Veil power

The above link is to a very interesting article in The Guardian about the glacial pace of change for women in Saudi Arabia. Everything in it is interesting. Some highlights:

More than half the kingdom's university graduates are female and yet women account for only about 5% of the workforce.

The social complexities of women working and doing business arise from one basic idea: that men are uncontrollably attracted to women and that women are natural temptresses, even if they try not to be. The Saudi solution, therefore, is to keep them apart as much as possible unless they are related by blood or marriage. Whatever the official line, though, a younger generation are increasingly finding ways around this...

Somehow, our conversation turns to the subject of parties. "Saudis love to celebrate," Mrs B says. "We party big-time."

Men and women, of course, do their partying separately. Men's parties tend to be dull affairs. In Riyadh, male partygoers just sit around, Mr A says. In Jeddah they play cards. In Ha'il (in the north), they may do a bit of sword-dancing. Then they go home, usually by midnight. "The point is that you should always be sad," Mr A grumbles.

Women's parties are a different matter, and often carry on until 4am with dancing, female DJs and sometimes all-woman bands.

Well, no wonder only 5% of the women work; they must all be sleeping in after their late night all girl dancing parties.

And the actual changes that have been made recently:

Although women still cannot vote or drive, the last few years have brought important changes, even if they stop well short of equality. Women can now officially exist in their own right with their own identity cards, rather than being included on the card of their husband or father. Travel restrictions have been eased, allowing them to get blanket permission from a male relative for travel abroad, rather than needing separate permission for each trip. They can also own businesses instead of having to register them in the name of a wakil, an authorised male representative or proxy.

Their very own identity cards! Only needing permission one time from a male relative to travel abroad! (I wonder if said male relative can revoke it.) Woo hoo.