Heart and home must be part of the debate - Opinion - smh.com.au
Catharine Lumby expresses scepticism about how much weight you can put on scientific studies that find very early childhood childcare is stressful. Take this:
One of the problems with using narrowly scientific models to study children in social settings - whether we're talking child care, reading books or watching television - is that these studies assume a mathematical level of predictability about complex human experiences. It's not that research is irrelevant, it's that we need to be very clear about the value of different approaches. And we need to put them in context.
I can see her point. But then she uses these examples:
The problem with relying on neurobiological data to measure the wellbeing of children in child care is that a whole lot of other factors are being left out of the equation. And the scientific questions tend to be framed by prejudices about what is a "normal" state of affairs.
Are any neurobiologists, for instance, keen on studying the stress levels of women who can't get back into the workforce after their children go back to school so they can use the degree they slaved to get? Are any of them looking inside the brains of (mainly male) chief executives and trying to find the lobe that programs them to spend $25,000 sponsoring a golf day and zero on promoting paternity leave?
Yes, poor stressed mothers with degrees must be able to get back into the work force as soon as they possibly can, otherwise their life feels like such a waste. That what childcare should be all about.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Monday, March 20, 2006
The "Oil in Euros" argument
Kenneth Davidson in The Age gives us an uncritical review of the "pre-emptive strike to prevent trading oil in Euro's" interpretation of US policy in the Middle East. This got a good run on many Left leaning sites in the run up to the Iraq invasion. Now it is being cited as a reason why the US will attack Iran.
This argument has always smelt wrong to me. However, when I search the Internet to see who thinks it is wrong, I haven't found all that many sites dealing with it in detail. (Perhaps it is so silly there is no need to.) A case of a good conspiracy theory getting all around the world while the truth is still stuggling with its pants?
Any reader who has some really good links about it is welcome to provide them. In the meantime, I take heart from a Salon.com column which argues that the idea is not very credible. If the rabidly Bush hating Salon does not think much of the theory, I think I can safely assume it is largely rubbish.
This argument has always smelt wrong to me. However, when I search the Internet to see who thinks it is wrong, I haven't found all that many sites dealing with it in detail. (Perhaps it is so silly there is no need to.) A case of a good conspiracy theory getting all around the world while the truth is still stuggling with its pants?
Any reader who has some really good links about it is welcome to provide them. In the meantime, I take heart from a Salon.com column which argues that the idea is not very credible. If the rabidly Bush hating Salon does not think much of the theory, I think I can safely assume it is largely rubbish.
How not to sound balanced
Contesting what is sacred - Opinion - theage.com.au
Karen Armstrong, whose work I have not read, but who I understand has been criticised for being too soft on Islam, doesn't do much to dispel that image today in The Age:
How do we move forward? Washington's threatening posture towards Iran can only lead to an increase in hostility between Islam and the West, and we must expect more conflicts like the cartoon crisis.
Oh come on. How about a teensie mention of a certain "threatening posture" repeated several times from Iran to Israel?
She writes:
Instead of allowing extremists on both sides to set the agenda, we should learn to see these disputes in historical perspective, recalling that in the past, aggressive cultural chauvinism proved to be dangerously counterproductive. The emotions engendered by these crises are a gift to those, in both the Western and the Islamic worlds, who, for their own nefarious reasons, want the tension to escalate; we should not allow ourselves to play into their hands.
All very high-minded, but rather useless when you get to the specifics of how to deal with a nation bent on developing a capacity for nuclear weapons while simultaneously hoping out loud for the destruction of a neighbour state. And it's not as if diplomacy and face saving ways around it have not been tried or offered.
I am not suggesting that the way forward is necessarily through military action. But "let's just be nice and respect one another" is patently not the answer in some situations.
Karen Armstrong, whose work I have not read, but who I understand has been criticised for being too soft on Islam, doesn't do much to dispel that image today in The Age:
How do we move forward? Washington's threatening posture towards Iran can only lead to an increase in hostility between Islam and the West, and we must expect more conflicts like the cartoon crisis.
Oh come on. How about a teensie mention of a certain "threatening posture" repeated several times from Iran to Israel?
She writes:
Instead of allowing extremists on both sides to set the agenda, we should learn to see these disputes in historical perspective, recalling that in the past, aggressive cultural chauvinism proved to be dangerously counterproductive. The emotions engendered by these crises are a gift to those, in both the Western and the Islamic worlds, who, for their own nefarious reasons, want the tension to escalate; we should not allow ourselves to play into their hands.
All very high-minded, but rather useless when you get to the specifics of how to deal with a nation bent on developing a capacity for nuclear weapons while simultaneously hoping out loud for the destruction of a neighbour state. And it's not as if diplomacy and face saving ways around it have not been tried or offered.
I am not suggesting that the way forward is necessarily through military action. But "let's just be nice and respect one another" is patently not the answer in some situations.
Cannabis in England (and here)
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Where there's smoke ...
I didn't mean to start a drug theme today, but while looking for something else, I found the above lengthy story from December 2005 which seems pretty balanced and interesting.
Update: and by further co-incidence, The Age mentions cannabis and political response to it today too. The head of the Victorian Drug Prevention Council writes:
So what approaches should we take to reduce harm? Last year in the Victorian Premier's Drug Prevention Council, we undertook research among 13 to 29-year-olds, both users and non-users. It showed that we should use graphic imagery and realistic situations to illustrate the physical side effects of long-term and heavy marijuana use. These include depression and anxiety, as well as the social downsides such as loss of friends and the effects on family.
What "graphic imagery" can be used to show the physical side effects of marijuana use if you are talking of mental problems being the growing concern? He says research shows that moralist sounding warnings to young folk don't work. But how do you avoid sounding moralist when criticising a drug that may give temporary pleasure but can have long term dangers?
In fact, I seem to recall (sorry no time to google for it now) that there was some evidence to suggest that "drug education" programs at school, somewhat counterintuitively, actually encouraged experimentation. It's all a difficult area.
I didn't mean to start a drug theme today, but while looking for something else, I found the above lengthy story from December 2005 which seems pretty balanced and interesting.
Update: and by further co-incidence, The Age mentions cannabis and political response to it today too. The head of the Victorian Drug Prevention Council writes:
So what approaches should we take to reduce harm? Last year in the Victorian Premier's Drug Prevention Council, we undertook research among 13 to 29-year-olds, both users and non-users. It showed that we should use graphic imagery and realistic situations to illustrate the physical side effects of long-term and heavy marijuana use. These include depression and anxiety, as well as the social downsides such as loss of friends and the effects on family.
What "graphic imagery" can be used to show the physical side effects of marijuana use if you are talking of mental problems being the growing concern? He says research shows that moralist sounding warnings to young folk don't work. But how do you avoid sounding moralist when criticising a drug that may give temporary pleasure but can have long term dangers?
In fact, I seem to recall (sorry no time to google for it now) that there was some evidence to suggest that "drug education" programs at school, somewhat counterintuitively, actually encouraged experimentation. It's all a difficult area.
"Ice" havoc
Four Corners - 20/03/2006: The Ice Age
Tonight's Four Corners story on "ice" use in (I think) Sydney looks like a must watch program for those who like to be appalled by self destructive human behaviour. A few questions already:
* why would these awful looking users agree to be part of such a program? Maybe they explain in the show.
* the show site says this:
Remarkably, authorities appear to be ill-prepared to stop the ice wave that is sweeping the country. Australia has no dedicated treatment programs. Jails are the main rehab facilities. There are no legal substitute drugs. Research funds are scarce.
One suspects that lack of preparedness may have something to do with an assumption that a drug which causes a high rate of psychosis should not become overly popular. How silly to apply common sense.
However, if there is a need to tell people the bleeding obvious, I suppose it should be done via ads on whatever medium soon-to-be-psychotic addicts watch. (Of course, few would watch the ABC, I am betting.)
It certainly seems that the famous US ad, showing eggs being smashed as being "your brain on drugs" is an entirely appropriate one for this drug. Except it should be "Mick" or someone from tonight's show, so you can see the glamourous physical effect it has too.
Tonight's Four Corners story on "ice" use in (I think) Sydney looks like a must watch program for those who like to be appalled by self destructive human behaviour. A few questions already:
* why would these awful looking users agree to be part of such a program? Maybe they explain in the show.
* the show site says this:
Remarkably, authorities appear to be ill-prepared to stop the ice wave that is sweeping the country. Australia has no dedicated treatment programs. Jails are the main rehab facilities. There are no legal substitute drugs. Research funds are scarce.
One suspects that lack of preparedness may have something to do with an assumption that a drug which causes a high rate of psychosis should not become overly popular. How silly to apply common sense.
However, if there is a need to tell people the bleeding obvious, I suppose it should be done via ads on whatever medium soon-to-be-psychotic addicts watch. (Of course, few would watch the ABC, I am betting.)
It certainly seems that the famous US ad, showing eggs being smashed as being "your brain on drugs" is an entirely appropriate one for this drug. Except it should be "Mick" or someone from tonight's show, so you can see the glamourous physical effect it has too.
Drumming up business
It Came From the Planet Garage - Los Angeles Times
From the above story, about home made "flying saucers" causing UFO reports around Los Angeles:
The saucers are made in the garages of Gaylon Murphy and Steve Zingali, who get their kicks shocking people and hope to earn a few bucks hawking their remote-controlled saucers. After all, a few UFO sightings can only be good for business.
"We fly them in formation. It's pretty funny," said Murphy, a cardiovascular surgeon and Aliso Viejo resident. "People stop, people scream; one cabdriver ran his car up off the road."
Sounds like he does it to help drum up business.
From the above story, about home made "flying saucers" causing UFO reports around Los Angeles:
The saucers are made in the garages of Gaylon Murphy and Steve Zingali, who get their kicks shocking people and hope to earn a few bucks hawking their remote-controlled saucers. After all, a few UFO sightings can only be good for business.
"We fly them in formation. It's pretty funny," said Murphy, a cardiovascular surgeon and Aliso Viejo resident. "People stop, people scream; one cabdriver ran his car up off the road."
Sounds like he does it to help drum up business.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
What the universe seems made of
news @ nature.com - Physicists get their hands on the second round of WMAP data.
So, further analysis of satellite data indicates that the universe did start with a bang and the "inflation" kicked in immediately. It would be somewhat helpful if we knew what was behind inflation, but as far as I know that is still a big mystery. This data also helps confirm that the part of the universe we can see - atoms and such like - make up only 4 % of the total. As is said in the above story:
"This idea that the universe is 74% dark energy and 22% dark matter is really crazy; it relates to nothing we can measure on Earth," says Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, Illinois, who is not part of the WMAP team. "Every time we get observations that say 'Yes, the model is still working', we are surprised."
All very strange.
So, further analysis of satellite data indicates that the universe did start with a bang and the "inflation" kicked in immediately. It would be somewhat helpful if we knew what was behind inflation, but as far as I know that is still a big mystery. This data also helps confirm that the part of the universe we can see - atoms and such like - make up only 4 % of the total. As is said in the above story:
"This idea that the universe is 74% dark energy and 22% dark matter is really crazy; it relates to nothing we can measure on Earth," says Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, Illinois, who is not part of the WMAP team. "Every time we get observations that say 'Yes, the model is still working', we are surprised."
All very strange.
Stupid
HIV's grim comeback - National - theage.com.au
The Age reports an increase in HIV rates in Victoria. The story opens with this:
IT CAME as a rude shock to those gathered in a Prahran theatre in February last year. The men, some with HIV and some without, were having a frank discussion about safe sex, led by popular drag queen Vanessa Wagner. They were talking about a well-known Melbourne gay venue. The HIV-positive men nominated a particular area where you went to have unprotected sex if you were infected with the virus. No, said the HIV-negative men, that was where you went if you were negative.
"We had the lights up in the theatre and we could just see all these jaws dropping," says one of the organisers, Greg Iverson, president of People Living With HIV-AIDS Victoria. "It was a real wake-up call. We realised that the two communities weren't talking to each other about HIV."
Hmmm. I suppose that there may be some point in having a choice between the "postive" and "negative" sex areas, in that any sane negative man would presumably prefer to stick to a partner who at least claims to not be positive. But it sounds from the story that the reason the negatives were so shocked was because they had unsafe sex with the positive men, based on a false assumption.
If that is the case, then the point of the story should not so much be that the two sides were not talking to each other; it should be that the safe sex message of not trusting your partner to be HIV negative (especially on a casual encounter) has been lost on these dills.
The Age reports an increase in HIV rates in Victoria. The story opens with this:
IT CAME as a rude shock to those gathered in a Prahran theatre in February last year. The men, some with HIV and some without, were having a frank discussion about safe sex, led by popular drag queen Vanessa Wagner. They were talking about a well-known Melbourne gay venue. The HIV-positive men nominated a particular area where you went to have unprotected sex if you were infected with the virus. No, said the HIV-negative men, that was where you went if you were negative.
"We had the lights up in the theatre and we could just see all these jaws dropping," says one of the organisers, Greg Iverson, president of People Living With HIV-AIDS Victoria. "It was a real wake-up call. We realised that the two communities weren't talking to each other about HIV."
Hmmm. I suppose that there may be some point in having a choice between the "postive" and "negative" sex areas, in that any sane negative man would presumably prefer to stick to a partner who at least claims to not be positive. But it sounds from the story that the reason the negatives were so shocked was because they had unsafe sex with the positive men, based on a false assumption.
If that is the case, then the point of the story should not so much be that the two sides were not talking to each other; it should be that the safe sex message of not trusting your partner to be HIV negative (especially on a casual encounter) has been lost on these dills.
Drug trial disaster
The Australian: Survivor guilt for beating drug bullet [March 18, 2006]
For a few days now, the media has been reporting a drug trial that went wrong in England. Initially I assumed that the people who have nearly died (it seems at least one will die eventually) had some delayed reaction. However, in the Australian today (see above) the full details of how it went wrong are set out, and it was a case of immediate illness and disaster as soon as the drug was given. Has a drug trial ever gone as badly wrong as this?
Perhaps the amount given was a human error and that explains it. As the above story notes:
John Henry, a clinical toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital, London, told reporters: "The dose they were using is the whole key here. What was their target dose and what did they start with?
"They should have started with a minuscule dose and given it to the first two volunteers to see if there was any reaction. Then they should have moved on to the next two volunteers and multiplied the dose. You can't, in all conscience, give six people the same dose and hope they will all react perfectly.
"It is just common sense."
For a few days now, the media has been reporting a drug trial that went wrong in England. Initially I assumed that the people who have nearly died (it seems at least one will die eventually) had some delayed reaction. However, in the Australian today (see above) the full details of how it went wrong are set out, and it was a case of immediate illness and disaster as soon as the drug was given. Has a drug trial ever gone as badly wrong as this?
Perhaps the amount given was a human error and that explains it. As the above story notes:
John Henry, a clinical toxicologist at St Mary's Hospital, London, told reporters: "The dose they were using is the whole key here. What was their target dose and what did they start with?
"They should have started with a minuscule dose and given it to the first two volunteers to see if there was any reaction. Then they should have moved on to the next two volunteers and multiplied the dose. You can't, in all conscience, give six people the same dose and hope they will all react perfectly.
"It is just common sense."
Friday, March 17, 2006
Death on the South Pacific
Police 'danced with witness' - The Nation - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au
This inquest into the shipboard death of a mother on a South Pacific fun cruise is an intriguing story. The death occurred in 2002 on the Pacific Sky, which does the sort of cruises David Williamson had so much fun on recently.
Anyway, it appears that the mother died of an overdose of the "date drug" GBH, after some (allegedly) consensual sex with some bloke she just met (an activity apparently out of character for the mother). Some details are here, here and here. It seems that the police have not come up with a clear suspect to charge, but note there are 8 "persons of interest". Their photo was published recently, which is somewhat unfair if only one of them was the one who administered the drug. (Don't follow the link if you share my reservation.) Their names keep getting splashed around too, which again strikes me as perhaps a little unfair.
Today's story notes how the police investigating on the ship danced with witnesses before the interview. I am not sure that this technique is recommended in police operations manuals.
The case would all make for a good movie, but maybe it would need to be fictionalised a bit to make it not quite so sordid.
Update: would photoshopping David Williamson into the photo of the 8 persons of interest be funny? Maybe, but probably not worth the defamation action...
(I also had some bad spelling in the post originally, but could not edit it for hours due to a Blogger fault. I must learn to spell check before posting, not after...)
This inquest into the shipboard death of a mother on a South Pacific fun cruise is an intriguing story. The death occurred in 2002 on the Pacific Sky, which does the sort of cruises David Williamson had so much fun on recently.
Anyway, it appears that the mother died of an overdose of the "date drug" GBH, after some (allegedly) consensual sex with some bloke she just met (an activity apparently out of character for the mother). Some details are here, here and here. It seems that the police have not come up with a clear suspect to charge, but note there are 8 "persons of interest". Their photo was published recently, which is somewhat unfair if only one of them was the one who administered the drug. (Don't follow the link if you share my reservation.) Their names keep getting splashed around too, which again strikes me as perhaps a little unfair.
Today's story notes how the police investigating on the ship danced with witnesses before the interview. I am not sure that this technique is recommended in police operations manuals.
The case would all make for a good movie, but maybe it would need to be fictionalised a bit to make it not quite so sordid.
Update: would photoshopping David Williamson into the photo of the 8 persons of interest be funny? Maybe, but probably not worth the defamation action...
(I also had some bad spelling in the post originally, but could not edit it for hours due to a Blogger fault. I must learn to spell check before posting, not after...)
The Washington Post in Iraq
Found, of all places, on a very Catholic blog, is a post about how someone who was in Iraq has lost all faith in the Washington Post. It's not a long story, but one that is (I expect) quite typical. Go read it.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
All related
Why We're All Jesus' Children - Go back a few millenniums, and we've all got the same ancestors. By Steve Olson
Don't worry about the title, the above article is an interesting explanation about how you don't have to go back too far to get to a point where everyone on earth was your ancestor.
This is a little hard to follow, but as the authors have published in Nature, I assume they know their maths :
Say you go back 120 generations, to about the year 1000 B.C. According to the results presented in our Nature paper, your ancestors then included everyone in the world who has descendants living today. And if you compared a list of your ancestors with a list of anyone else's ancestors, the names on the two lists would be identical.
This is a very bizarre result (the math behind it is solid, though—here's a brief, semitechnical explanation of our findings). It means that you and I are descended from all of the Africans, Australians, Native Americans, and Europeans who were alive three millenniums ago and still have descendants living today. That's also why so many people living today could be descended from Jesus. If Jesus had children (a big if, of course) and if those children had children so that Jesus' lineage survived, then Jesus is today the ancestor of almost everyone living on Earth. True, Jesus lived two rather than three millenniums ago, but a person's descendants spread quickly from well-connected parts of the world like the Middle East.
This concluding paragraph is of interest:
People may like to think that they're descended from some ancient group while other people are not. But human ancestry doesn't work that way, since we all share the same ancestors just a few millenniums ago. As that idea becomes more widely accepted, arguments over who's descended from Jesus won't result in lawsuits. And maybe, just maybe, people will have one less reason to feel animosity toward other branches of the human family.
Well, yes, but can it also be used in a quasi-political way to argue against the special "racial" rights that the West now gives to the present descendants of the original indigenous populations?
(I originally had "ownership" instead of "racial".)
Don't worry about the title, the above article is an interesting explanation about how you don't have to go back too far to get to a point where everyone on earth was your ancestor.
This is a little hard to follow, but as the authors have published in Nature, I assume they know their maths :
Say you go back 120 generations, to about the year 1000 B.C. According to the results presented in our Nature paper, your ancestors then included everyone in the world who has descendants living today. And if you compared a list of your ancestors with a list of anyone else's ancestors, the names on the two lists would be identical.
This is a very bizarre result (the math behind it is solid, though—here's a brief, semitechnical explanation of our findings). It means that you and I are descended from all of the Africans, Australians, Native Americans, and Europeans who were alive three millenniums ago and still have descendants living today. That's also why so many people living today could be descended from Jesus. If Jesus had children (a big if, of course) and if those children had children so that Jesus' lineage survived, then Jesus is today the ancestor of almost everyone living on Earth. True, Jesus lived two rather than three millenniums ago, but a person's descendants spread quickly from well-connected parts of the world like the Middle East.
This concluding paragraph is of interest:
People may like to think that they're descended from some ancient group while other people are not. But human ancestry doesn't work that way, since we all share the same ancestors just a few millenniums ago. As that idea becomes more widely accepted, arguments over who's descended from Jesus won't result in lawsuits. And maybe, just maybe, people will have one less reason to feel animosity toward other branches of the human family.
Well, yes, but can it also be used in a quasi-political way to argue against the special "racial" rights that the West now gives to the present descendants of the original indigenous populations?
(I originally had "ownership" instead of "racial".)
Burn that cancer out
Reuters AlertNet - Hot pepper kills prostate cancer cells in study
Interesting story on work indicating that eating hot chilli may help stop prostate cancer from progressing.
The obvious question to ask from this is: do men from countries where a lot of chilli is eaten show a lower rate of prostate cancer than countries with a blander diet? (Countries to pick, if they have reliable figures, might be Thailand - or even Singapore - and Ireland on the other side.)
Interesting story on work indicating that eating hot chilli may help stop prostate cancer from progressing.
The obvious question to ask from this is: do men from countries where a lot of chilli is eaten show a lower rate of prostate cancer than countries with a blander diet? (Countries to pick, if they have reliable figures, might be Thailand - or even Singapore - and Ireland on the other side.)
On the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games
* Am I the only person to think that overall it seemed to have a much "gay-er" sensibility than the Sydney Olympics opening or closing? Which is odd given Sydney's reputation.
* Flying boy, duck and koalas. Did that bit intentionally run on so long without any clear ending, and no apparent point? (Also no humour; just kitch.)
* Fireworks looked nice. I wonder what it felt like for the roller bladers/skaters to have such an amount of stuff going off on their backpacks...
* Flying boy, duck and koalas. Did that bit intentionally run on so long without any clear ending, and no apparent point? (Also no humour; just kitch.)
* Fireworks looked nice. I wonder what it felt like for the roller bladers/skaters to have such an amount of stuff going off on their backpacks...
The ultimate in ghost writing
The Australian: Clooney in a Huff over blog [March 16, 2006]
When a celebrity uses a ghost writer to pass off a book as if it were their own, at least the celebrity knows that it is happening. In the case of George Clooney's recent short post at Huffington Post, he didn't know until after it was published:
OSCAR-winner George Clooney took a prominent US political commentator to task today for posting on her website a blog made to look like it was written by the superstar.
Clooney denied writing the blog on Arianna Huffington's www.HuffingtonPost.com, which includes commentaries from celebrities, politicians and experts.
The blog turned out to be a compilation of remarks Clooney made in media interviews. The actor, a liberal, said he had given Huffington permission to use the quotes, but complained that they were made to look like his own blog.
Arianna has an explanation of sorts (Clooney's publicist is supposed to have OK'ed the post) but it seems doubtful George's head shot will be appearing there again any time soon.
When a celebrity uses a ghost writer to pass off a book as if it were their own, at least the celebrity knows that it is happening. In the case of George Clooney's recent short post at Huffington Post, he didn't know until after it was published:
OSCAR-winner George Clooney took a prominent US political commentator to task today for posting on her website a blog made to look like it was written by the superstar.
Clooney denied writing the blog on Arianna Huffington's www.HuffingtonPost.com, which includes commentaries from celebrities, politicians and experts.
The blog turned out to be a compilation of remarks Clooney made in media interviews. The actor, a liberal, said he had given Huffington permission to use the quotes, but complained that they were made to look like his own blog.
Arianna has an explanation of sorts (Clooney's publicist is supposed to have OK'ed the post) but it seems doubtful George's head shot will be appearing there again any time soon.
Put a krill on the barbie
Antarctic researchers get a surprise and a thrill after moving in for the krill
From the above article: it seems there are more krill out there than they thought:
Scientists aboard the research ship Aurora Australis have found aggregations of the shrimp-like krill up to hundreds of kilometres in extent in little-explored seas of eastern Antarctica...
The slowly expanding Antarctic krill fishery last year took 118,000 tonnes from the far South Atlantic, the only area where it is fished. This is a fraction of the 4 million-tonne catch limit for the area set by the 24-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.
And something I would not have thought of:
Antarctic krill is the most abundant and successful animal species on the planet.
Try to slip that snippet of information into a conversation today.
From the above article: it seems there are more krill out there than they thought:
Scientists aboard the research ship Aurora Australis have found aggregations of the shrimp-like krill up to hundreds of kilometres in extent in little-explored seas of eastern Antarctica...
The slowly expanding Antarctic krill fishery last year took 118,000 tonnes from the far South Atlantic, the only area where it is fished. This is a fraction of the 4 million-tonne catch limit for the area set by the 24-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.
And something I would not have thought of:
Antarctic krill is the most abundant and successful animal species on the planet.
Try to slip that snippet of information into a conversation today.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Artic warming and ozone
Science News Article | Reuters.com
It seems every day you can find some new idea as to what is going on with global warming. The link above notes this from a NASA researcher:
Globally, ozone accounts for perhaps one-seventh of the global warming and climate change that carbon dioxide does, Shindell said. However, a new study of climate change over the past 100 years indicates that ozone may be responsible for as much as 50 percent of the warming in the Arctic zone.
This is because many of the world's most highly industrialized nations are in the Northern Hemisphere, and at relatively high latitudes. For most of the year, that means the ozone produced in these countries is blown by prevailing winds north and east, toward the Arctic Circle.
"Instead of being this tiny player, (ozone) can be more like 30 or 40 or even 50 percent of the cause of warming that we're seeing in the Arctic now," Shindell said. "It's very dramatic."
One of the major points that some Kyoto skeptics make is that atmospheric science is not well enough understood for there to be meaningful commitments as to how to cure the apparent global warming. (If it is capable of cure at all.)
Stories like this help confirm this attitude.
It seems every day you can find some new idea as to what is going on with global warming. The link above notes this from a NASA researcher:
Globally, ozone accounts for perhaps one-seventh of the global warming and climate change that carbon dioxide does, Shindell said. However, a new study of climate change over the past 100 years indicates that ozone may be responsible for as much as 50 percent of the warming in the Arctic zone.
This is because many of the world's most highly industrialized nations are in the Northern Hemisphere, and at relatively high latitudes. For most of the year, that means the ozone produced in these countries is blown by prevailing winds north and east, toward the Arctic Circle.
"Instead of being this tiny player, (ozone) can be more like 30 or 40 or even 50 percent of the cause of warming that we're seeing in the Arctic now," Shindell said. "It's very dramatic."
One of the major points that some Kyoto skeptics make is that atmospheric science is not well enough understood for there to be meaningful commitments as to how to cure the apparent global warming. (If it is capable of cure at all.)
Stories like this help confirm this attitude.
Why I stick to Wordperfect
Reuters Business Channel | Reuters.com
"Microsoft warns of "critical" Office security flaw" is the headline.
"Microsoft warns of "critical" Office security flaw" is the headline.
Interesting stuff on WMD in Iraq
TigerHawk
Pajamas Media links to the post by Tigerhawk (above) about confusion over WMD within the Iraqi military itself. (Details coming in soon to be published book by New York Times reporters.) All very interesting.
UPDATE: Slate's article on this is well worth a read. It deals specifically with the interception of conversations about "nerve gas" that Powell played during the famous UN briefing. The conversation is now thought to have had an innocent explanation, but it is easy to see why this would not have been thought of, when until 2002 Saddam himself encouraged his military leaders to believe he did have WMD. Slate then ends with this summary:
And so not only is the mystery of the intercepts solved, we're left with a ragged tale of crossed signals and multiple misunderstandings that may help explain why this war happened. Saddam Hussein had accumulated a vast record of deceptions; George W. Bush, by this time, was firmly intent on regime change through invasion. Almost everyone in the U.S. national-security establishment was predisposed to view all intelligence materials through both prisms—Saddam's deception and Bush's intentions—and the rays converged on toppling Baghdad.
Pajamas Media links to the post by Tigerhawk (above) about confusion over WMD within the Iraqi military itself. (Details coming in soon to be published book by New York Times reporters.) All very interesting.
UPDATE: Slate's article on this is well worth a read. It deals specifically with the interception of conversations about "nerve gas" that Powell played during the famous UN briefing. The conversation is now thought to have had an innocent explanation, but it is easy to see why this would not have been thought of, when until 2002 Saddam himself encouraged his military leaders to believe he did have WMD. Slate then ends with this summary:
And so not only is the mystery of the intercepts solved, we're left with a ragged tale of crossed signals and multiple misunderstandings that may help explain why this war happened. Saddam Hussein had accumulated a vast record of deceptions; George W. Bush, by this time, was firmly intent on regime change through invasion. Almost everyone in the U.S. national-security establishment was predisposed to view all intelligence materials through both prisms—Saddam's deception and Bush's intentions—and the rays converged on toppling Baghdad.
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