Put this low on your tourist sites list for Japan

The Japan Times Online

From the above story:

Part of a jumbo jet's broken tail fin, crushed seats and a flight data recorder that detailed how JAL Flight 123 crashed into a mountain on Aug. 12, 1985, are among the items on display at the Safety Promotion Center of Japan Airlines Corp., which opened Wednesday for a media preview.

Located in Ota Ward, Tokyo, near Haneda airport, the center exhibits components from the crippled Boeing 747 that crashed into Mount Osutaka in Gunma Prefecture, leaving 520 passengers and crew members dead in the worst single-plane accident in history.

The facility will open to the public next Monday with the aim of promoting aviation safety awareness among the public. It will also be used for employee education and training at a time when JAL has been hit by a spate of safety problems.

Would seeing this really convince the public that JAL is taking safety seriously now?

I am?

The rise of the blogger - theage.com.au

Bloggers and internet pundits are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society, a report by technology researchers says.

Back on dreaming..

A few posts back I explained my recurring "proof of flying" dream. One thing I forgot to mention in the post is that often in this dream, the reason I think people won't believe that I can fly is because they will think it is just my dream. I am therefore dreaming about how to disprove that I am currently in a dream. I think in some versions, it is simply that I want to prove it to myself.

I think this raises the "oddness"factor of the dream quite a bit, and I should have mentioned it before.

Also, how's this for a slightly odd co-incidence (although hardly one of high Jungian significance.) While on the aircraft flying into Brisbane on Monday morning, after a night of virtually no sleep, for no obvious reason the chorus of "My old man's a dustman" came to mind. That's odd, I thought, why would looking out on Moreton Bay bring that far from frequently heard chorus to mind.

On the taxi ride from the airport, the driver had some obscure radio show on that opened with the "Run rabbit" song (used for years now in that slightly creepy Victorian tourist ad) and I thought "wouldn't it be odd if 'My old man...' comes on during this show." It didn't.

Then last night, while watching "Dusty", the doco series on the ABC about staging the musical in Melbourne, they showed a scene from the show that I think was meant to be Dusty Springfield's parents (the scene may have been cut from the final version) and it ended with the chorus of "My old man's a dustman." Just for a very short time before they cut to something else.

This Dusty TV show has been on for some weeks, and I had seen a very small amount of the first couple of episodes before I went on holidays. I suppose that if it had earlier featured a snippet of that song, that may well explain it. But as I think this is a far from crucial bit of music in the stage show, that explanation seems unlikely.

However, if a sleep deprived brain can tune into an uncommon song from 36 hours in the future, why can't it tune into next weeks lotto numbers instead?

The other explanation is that I am having a very silly dream cycle. If so, I hope it will become more significant soon.

By the way, my old man was not a dustman.

Global warming causes great falling chunks of ice?

Falling ice perplexes scientists / Theories abound after 2 chunks land in state in a week

Here's an interesting story from California about two recent unexplained ice falls there.

People who read Fortean stuff know that this phenomena has been around for a long time. Even so, someone in the article still manages to speculate that global warming has something to do with it.

Apparently, some climatologists have coined a good name for these:

Lead author Jesus Martinez-Frias of the Planetary Geology Laboratory in Madrid and his colleagues have collected reports of 40 cases around the world since 1999 of puzzling falling ice, or "megacryometeors," as they call the strange objects.

Try slipping that casually into a conversation today.

In Kyoto

Time for some photos from Kyoto from about 8 days ago.

These are all around the very beautiful Kiyomizu temple. Our friend who now lives in Osaka places this temple amongst his "top 3" things to see in Japan. Good call I think.

It was a rainy day, so there is no happy blue sky in these photos. There were still lots of cherry blossoms out, though, and they look good in any light.

First pic is at the entrance:



Next is looking at the balcony of the main temple building. It costs a few dollars to get in, but it is the most spectacular location (that's Kyoto in the background):



The outlook from that balcony (looking to the left in the above picture) is like this:


A pathway winds through those trees, but given the weather (and the company of several small children) we did not walk it.

Here's another building in the temple complex:



Wikipedia has a short but interesting little entry about this temple, for those who would like more information.

We only had one day in Kyoto, which was a pity, but it is always good to know which places you would like to re-visit and see properly.

[For some mildly geeky stuff now: all the photos are from a fairly basic 4 megapixel Sony Cybershot camera, which seems to perform quite well, even though I have never finished reading the manual and mainly leave it in "auto" mode. This trip, however, being in cold weather, did result in a high turnover in alkaline batteries - and this is in a camera that is promoted as having long battery life. Living in Brisbane, I had never realised how much the cold weather affects them.

While it seemed to me this trip that the price difference between Australia and Japan for computer stuff was somewhat less than in past visits, one thing that still seems very substantially cheaper there is camera flash memory. A 1GB Memory Stick Pro could be had for about $105, which seems awfully cheap.]

Some detail on Francis Fukuyama's position on Iraq

Why shouldn't I change my mind? - Los Angeles Times

See the above article where Fukuyama responds to some of the criticism of him for having allegedly jumped ship on Iraq. But as Philip Adams now cites Fukuyama with approval (see today's over-the-top column in the Australian), it is well worth reading Fukuyama's recent article to see that his position is not as anti-Bush as Adams might like to portray:

In my view, no one should be required to apologize for having supported intervention in Iraq before the war. There were important competing moral goods on both sides of the argument, something that many on the left still refuse to recognize. The U.N. in 1999 declared that all nations have a positive "duty to protect, promote and implement" human rights, arguing in effect that the world's powerful countries are complicit in human rights abuses if they don't use their power to correct injustices. The debate over the war shouldn't have been whether it was morally right to topple Hussein (which it clearly was), but whether it was prudent to do so given the possible costs and potential consequences of intervention and whether it was legitimate for the U.S. to invade in the unilateral way that it did.

It was perfectly honorable to agonize over the wisdom of the war, and in many ways admirable that people on the left, such as Christopher Hitchens, George Packer, Michael Ignatieff and Jacob Weisberg, supported intervention. That position was much easier to defend in early 2003, however, before we found absolutely no stocks of chemical or biological weapons and no evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program. (I know that many on the left believe that the prewar estimates about Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were all a deliberate fraud by the Bush administration, but if so, it was one in which the U.N. weapons inspectors and French intelligence were also complicit.) It was also easier to support the war before we knew the full dimensions of the vicious insurgency that would emerge and the ease with which the insurgents could disrupt the building of a democratic state.

Overall, the article is not badly argued.

I agree strongly that it was always clear that the decision to invade was a difficult one that had to be made by balancing quite a few pros and cons. (Of course, many of the possible "cons" cited by the antiwar movement, such as fierce resistance by the Iraqi army, never materialised.) Given the nature of the decision, one had to respect those who felt that, on balance, it was better not to invade.

However, the anti-war movement does not give the same respect to those on the other side, and by and large still refuses to grant that there was any legitimate moral or practical motive for the decision. (This despite increasing documentary and other evidence that Saddam was co-operative with Islamic terrorism, the sanctions regime was not working except for his benefit, and of course the many, many citizens killed by Saddam's regime.) This is where those like Hitchens loses patience with the anti-war movement, and deservedly so.

If the invasion has taken longer than expected to result in anything like good government, this should not be grounds for gloating by the Left. That the problems of how democracy can be made to work is attracting new attention is understandable, but it was never going to be easy. Criticism of how the post invasion was handled is legitimate, but some caution needs to be exercised even there least it it fuels the very problems the critics raise.

I remain, like Tim Blair (see his Continuing Crisis column from a couple of weeks ago) a cautious optimist on the long term outcome in Iraq. But there is no doubt that the current stalemate there tests that optimism much more than I would like.

An example for Kim Beazley to follow?

Reuters Business Channel | Reuters.com

The above story was reported in Japan while I was there, and is rather odd:

A French lawmaker, rushed to hospital on Friday the 39th day of a hunger strike, gave up his protest after a Japanese firm abandoned plans to close a factory in his area following a deal with the government.

Centrist deputy Jean Lassalle lost more than 20 kilograms in his battle to save 147 jobs in a factory owned by Japan's Toyal Aluminium in Accous, a town in his constituency in southwestern France.

"I feel at peace now ... For a long time now I haven't felt like I've done anything as useful," an exhausted Lassalle said during a rambling news conference at a hospital outside Paris. ...

Another triumph for French rationality!

Maybe this was the way they could have prevented the Iraq war. Chirac and all other politicians could have starved their way into convincing Bush.

Anyway, Beazley won't be endorsing this as a political method - [you can see it coming, but what the hey] - he'd have to starve at least twice as long to get results.

On cherry blossoms - and other things - in Japan

A couple of weekends ago, cherry blossoms were in peak bloom in Tokyo's Ueno Park, which is pretty much sakura central for Tokyo residents. Just a few locals joined my family and me for a stroll:





The cherry blossom viewing for many people involves claiming a patch of ground with the ubiquitous blue tarp and having food, :



and a drink, or ten:



(I am not sure if he is in his underwear or his speedos. In any event, I reckon it was about 10 to 12 degrees at the time of the photo.)

Cherry blossoms are very pretty, and the weather forecast on TV each night shows where the cherry blossom "front" is over the whole country. (Naturally, the trees in the more northern and colder parts of Japan start flowering later than those to the warmer south.) More information on sakura trees is, as usual, at Wikipedia. (One thing they don't mention is that a spring time treat is a mochi rice sweet that comes wrapped in a sort of pickled sakura tree leaf. I can only imagine that someone centuries ago must have been really hungry to think about how to make these tree leaves edible.)

Ueno Park also has a smallish zoo, but the throng of people there on this visit made it impossible to get good photos. People are herded particularly quickly past the panda bear enclosure, and I had but a glimpse of a reclining black and white body.

By the way, as global warming would have it, Japan's winter this year was (I am told) particularly cold and snowy. Unexpectedly, I ran into snow into the northern part of Honshu only about 10 days ago. This was the scene outside the onsen hotel after a night of gentle snow:



Damn pretty, hey. (This is a good time to note that my problem with Melbourne winters is not that the minimum temperature is so low - the suburbs in Brisbane often have lower overnight temperatures - it's just that Melbourne suffers from a seemingly interminable number of grey, wet, cool to cold days without ever having the off-setting prettiness of snow.)

Onsen are the Japanese hot spring baths, and most are attached to hotels or inns (ryokan) with Japanese style rooms. Wikipedia has a good summary about them here.

Maybe most people have seen these over the years on the travel shows, but I am in a sharing mood:



This is the washing area next to the bath itself. You sit on the stools and use the shower or basin to wash yourself before getting in the bath, which in my case looked like this:



This is actually the outside bath, as you can see from the snow in the background. The temperature of the water is usually so high that sitting in it with your head and shoulders in the snowy air is pleasant. (Well, if you splash a bit of water on your shoulders every minute or so.)

There was no one around when I took these photos. They are nearly all gender segregated anyway, although that may not stop a cleaning woman being around if you are having a morning bath!

I can tell you that an absolutely essential part of all Japanese TV shows about travel within the country is the scene in which the host is sitting in the local onsen bath, quickly followed by a discussion of the local area's specialty food. (With host tasting it and saying in an exaggerated way "oishi" or "umai", meaning "delicious".)

The Japanese style room will look something like this (insert your own close relative, you can't have mine):



No beds, just futons laid out on the tatami floor in the evening for sleep. Most onsen hotels will include a very nice dinner served in the room with lots of little dishes. This one we stayed at was a "public" onsen, which is cheaper and did not have this option. However, the food served in the dining room smorgasbord style (Japanese call it "viking style", which I find kinda funny) was still very good.

Oh well, I need to catch up on some sleep. More travelogues to come.

(And, just in case you don't realise it yet, clicking on the photos above bring up enlarged versions.)

Back!

The Dominion has returned. Some posts about Japan are in order, over the next few days.

I wonder what the false positive rate is..

This sounds sort of hard to believe, but we are talking Malaysia:

Malaysia will soon begin using eye-scan machines in schools to detect drug usage among teenage pupils after reports that a large number of adult drug users begin their addictions while in school, media reports said yesterday.
Deputy Education Minister Noh Omar said the 200,000-ringgit ($53,333) machines should be able to detect signs of drug use within 24 hours by using light displays to measure eye movement.
A preliminary test of the eye scans is to be conducted next month at a school in
Kuala Lumpur, he said.

Moreover, things have already been just a tad regimented for Malaysian students:

Previously, the government had been conducting random urine tests on teenage students in schools.

Why hasn't at least a private school in Australia tried flying that one?

They also apparently start young in that country:

The government revealed Thursday that a total of 17.7 per cent of drug addicts polled in Kuala Lumpur had started their addictions before the age of 13 with morphine and heroine topping the list of favoured substances.
Authorities said Malaysia has more than 500,000 addicts, but health workers fear the numbers could be much higher.
Despite Malaysia’s tough drug laws, which prescribe a mandatory death sentence by hanging for drug trafficking, drug addiction continues to be on the rise.

I wonder how reliable these figures are. They have a strong smell of 'moral panic' abut them.

On re-thinking Iraq

The departing editor of The Economist (he's been there 13 years) gets to talk about how the world has changed in the period. On the magazine's decision to support the invasion of Iraq, he writes this:

All of which is the background to the most controversial decision of this editorship: the decision to support the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Our reasoning began with the fact that the status quo was terrible: doing nothing, whether about Iraq or about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was itself a deadly decision. It went on to the risk that Saddam still had a stock of weapons of mass destruction that if left in power he might wish to use or to sell. In the light of September 11th and the dismal results from 13 years of sanctions, we argued that wishful thinking about Saddam would be reckless. The West should invade, remove him from power, and throw its considerable resources behind the rebuilding of a free Iraq.

The ensuing three years, I hardly need to say, have seen a debacle. His WMDs turned out to be a bluff, fooling even his own generals. Elections have been held, a constitution has been written, but no government is in place. Institutions remain in tatters. Whether or not a civil war is under way is largely a semantic issue. Dozens of Iraqis are dying every day, killed by other Iraqis. So does this prove our decision wrong, just as the good outcome in ex-Yugoslavia put our “stumbling” warning in the shade?

This will outrage some readers, but I still think the decision was correct—based on the situation at that time, which is all it could have been based on. The risk of leaving Saddam in power was too high. Outside intervention in other countries' affairs is difficult, practically, legally and morally. It should be done only in exceptional circumstances, and backed by exceptional efforts. Iraq qualified on the former. George Bush let us—and America—down on the latter. So, however, did other rich countries: whatever they thought of the invasion, they had a powerful interest in sorting out the aftermath. Most shirked it.

Sounds reasonable to me.

When prayer seems to fail

Slate writer William Saletan has often been mentioned on this blog, and his latest article on the recent study about prayer and its effect on post surgery recovery is another good, half amusing, half serious, read.

Continuing an anti cat crusade...

If the birds don't give you the flu, maybe your cat will:

It is vital to restrict the spread of bird flu in cats in order to protect human health, scientists warn.

Writing in Nature, scientists from Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, say the risk is being overlooked.

Ｍｕｓｔ ｃａｎｃｅｌ ｍｙ Ｍａｒｓ ｔｉｃｋｅｔ

Ｔｈｉｓ　ｄｏｅｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｓｏｕｎｄ　ｇｏｏｄ：

Former NASA Payload Specialist James Pawelczyk told an Experimental Biology 2006 meeting Tuesday in San Francisco every cell in one's body could experience a high energy event with heavy metal ions during the 13- to 30-month Mars round trip.

Ｍｕｓｔ ｔｒｙ ｈａｒｄｅｒ ｔｈａｎ ｔｈｉｓ

Ｓｅｅ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｓｔｏｒｙ　ｆｏｒ　ａ　ｒｅａｌｌｙ　ｐａｔｈｅｔｉｃ　ａｔｔｅｍｐｔ　ｔｏ　ｉｎｃｒｅａｓｅ　ｆａｔｈｅｒｓ　ｒｏｌｅ　ｉｎ　ｃｈｉｌｄ　ｒｅａｒｉｎｇ　ｉｎ　Ｊａｐａｎ．　：

Under the revisions -- the latest policy measure aimed at dealing with the anemic birthrate -- expecting fathers, as well as mothers, will receive a notebook to keep records on the health of mother and child from pregnancy through early childhood, LDP members said.

The name of the notebook will be changed from the "maternal and child health handbook" to the "parent and child health handbook."

I have a dream...

A couple of nights ago, I had another one of my `proof of flying` dreams. While many people may have dreams in which they can fly, I am not sure how common my (recurring) variation would be.

In the dream I have the ability to fly. Just need to get myself in the right frame of mind, and I can levitate off the ground and swan around in the air. I never fly too high, just a few metres.

During the dream, I am flying alone and unobserved, and am very aware that people will not believe that I am able to do this. I try to think of ways that I can prove it, and this usually involves a video camera taping myself in action, so to speak.

The details of the most recent dream are already sketchy, but I think I got a good tape of myself flying inside a big building, and was very happy and vindicated that people could now see clearly that I can do this. It was a very good feeling. Then I woke up and felt rather disappointed. I have been having this dream for some years now.

I have always had flying dreams and they have always been nice．　However，I find this variation sort of funny/strange, hence this post. Nevertheless, I promise not to make dream reports a regular feature here. 　　

Tracee gets black

The Age's most easily ridiculed writer would currently have to be Tracee Hutchison. Her article about visiting some blackfellas who set up in Melbourne for the Commonwealth games is a good example:

Have you got any blackfella in you? The man asking the question is in the process of smoking me. It seems a strange question to ask a fair-skinned, pale-eyed, blonde woman. I don't think so.

Just sounds like sale assistant talk to me. Never hurts to butter up the customer.

And for some reason, the Fire Man thinks I've got some kind of blackfella spirit inside me. I feel humbled that this healing man might think so.

Not sure why this should be humbling. Is it because there is something nicer about having that touch of primative purity in your blood?

Part of me wishes there were more whitefellas here feeling what I am feeling and the other part is savouring what I know is an extraordinary moment. It is a moment about trust. A moment that says we mean no harm to each other. A moment that tells me about our black history in the most profound way. And it is so understated it is almost overwhelming.

Yes, I always like it when something becomes so understated it circles back on itself and becomes overwhelming.

I find an older man at the sit-down fire and he wants to know my business. I tell him I've come to sit down. We talk for a while and it emerges that I do a radio show and a bit of writing. I thought so, he says. How can we get our message across?

How did he know she was a broadcaster? More of that ancient aboriginal mystical foreknowledge, or does he just own a radio?　（ＯＫ，　ｓｈｅ　ｍａｙ　ｎｏｔ　ｈａｖｅ　ｍｅａｎｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｔｏ　ｓｏｕｎｄ　ｍｙｓｔｉｃａｌ，　ｂｕｔ　ｓｈｅ　ｌｅａｖｅｓ　ｔｈａｔ　ｉｎｔｅｒｐｒｅｔａｔｉｏｎ　ｏｐｅｎ．）

The smell of gum leaves is still in my clothes as I leave 3CR and I'm wondering if that black spirit the Fire Man talked of is something we all might have more of if we took a little time to sit down for a while.

Ｈｏｗ　ｖｅｒｙ，　ｖｅｒｙ　ｔｗｅｅ，　Ｔｒａｃｅｅ．

Ｔｈｅ Ｄｏｍｉｎｉｏｎ ｏｎ Ｈｏｌｉｄａｙ

Ｗａｒｎｉｎｇ　ｗａｓ　ｉｎｔｅｎｄｅｄ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ｇｉｖｅｎ　ｌａｓｔ　ｗｅｅｋ，　ｂｕｔ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｗａｓ　ｓｈｏｒｔ．

Ｏｐｉｎｉｏｎ　Ｄｏｍｉｎｉｏｎ　ｉｓ　ｃｕｒｒｅｎｔｌｙ　ｃｏｍｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｙｏｕ 　ｖｉａ　Ｊａｐａｎ．　Ｈｏｗ　ｏｆｔｅｎ　ｐｏｓｔｓ　ｗｉｌｌ　ａｐｐｅａｒ　ｉｓ　ｎｏｔ　ｃｌｅａｒ．　　Ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｉｓ　ｔｈｅ　ａｄｄｅｄ　ｃｏｍｐｌｉｃａｔｉｏｎ　ｏｆ　ｕｓｉｎｇ　ａ　Ｊａｐａｎ　Windows computer．　　It　ｋｅｅｐｓ　ｔｒｙｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｃｈａｎｇｅ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｉｎｔｏ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ，ａｎｄ　ｄｏｉｎｇ　ｆｕｎｎｙ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｔｏ　ｆｏｎｔｓ　ｅｔｃ．　　Ｓｏ　ｉｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｏｒｍａｔｔｉｎｇ　ｉｓ　ｗｏｎｋｙ，　Ｉ　ａｐｏｌｏｇｉｓｅ　ｉｎ　ａｄｖａｎｃｅ．

Ｏｎｅ　ｔｈｉｎｇ　Ｉ　ａｍ　ｕｓｉｎｇ　ｔｈａｔ　ｓｅｅｍｓ　ｔｏ　ｗｏｒｋ　ｗｅｌｌ　ｉｓ　Ｐｏｒｔａｂｌｅ　Ｆiｒｅｆｏｘ，　ａ　ｖｅｒｓｉｏｎ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｆｉｔｓ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｍａｌｌｅｓｔ　ＵＳＢ　ｋｅｙ　ａｎｄ　ｒｕｎｓ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｔｈａｔ　ｄｅｖｉｃｅ　（ｒａｔｈｅｒ　ｔｈａｎ　ｄｏｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｒａｔｈｅｒ　ｉｍｐｏｌｉｔｅ　ａｃｔ　ｏｆ　ｄｏｗｎｌｏａｄｉｎｇ　Ｆiｒｅｆｏｘ　ｏｎ　ｓｏｍｅｏｎｅ　eｌｓｅ’ｓ　ｈａｒｄ　ｄｒｉｖｅ．）　　Ｉ　ｒｅａｌｌｙ　ｈａｔｅ　ｈａｖｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｕｓｅ　ＩＥ　ａｆｔｅｒ　Ｆｉｒｅｆｏｘ，　and　Ｉ　ａｌｓｏ　ｇｅｔ　ｔｏ　ｒｕｎ　Ｆｉｒｅｆｏｘ　ｉｎ　ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ，ｗｈｉｃｈ　ａｌｗａｙｓ　ｈｅｌｐｓ　ｔｈｅ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ　ｃｈａｌｌｅｎｇｅｄ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｍｅ．

Ｉ　ｓｅｅ　ｔｈａｔ　Ｔｉｍ　Ｂｌａｉｒ　ｈａｓ　ａｌｓｏ　ｈａｄ　ａ　ｌｏｗ　Ｉｎｔｅｒｎｅｔ　ｐｒｅｓｅｎｃｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｌａｓｔ　ｆｅｗ　ｄａｙｓ．　　Ｉ　ａｍ　ｓｕｒｅ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｍｕｓｔ　ｂｅ　ａ　ｃｏｎｓｐｉｒａｃｙ　ｔｈｅｏｒｙ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｓｏｍｅｗｈｅｒｅ．　　

Films from graphic novels/comics

The Australian: Return of people power [March 29, 2006]

You know a film has touched a sensitive nerve when a writer for the Guardian wonders whether sedition laws are appropriately used against it. The story in the Australian (above) gives some background to the film.

The Guardian's film reviewer didn't like it either:

Yet another graphic novel has been bulldozed on to the screen, strutting its stuff for an assumed army of uncritical geeks - a fanbase product from which the fanbase has been amputated. This film manages to be, at all times, weird and bizarre and baffling, but in a completely boring way. Watching it is like having the oxygen supply to your brain slowly starved over more than two hours.

Yet it has made some money in America and at Rotten Tomatoes scored a relatively high approval rating. Seems Americans are not so sensitive about movies involving bombs in the Underground. Just as long as it is not their subway.

Again, I will annoy people by criticising something I haven't seen. I predict, based on the simple fact that it is a movie that is based on a graphic novel, that it will be crap.

Hollywood really, really, has to use better material for its movies than this. Graphic novel material means a high probability that the movie will have good production design, and unrealistic or unconvincing characters.

Comic based movies were OK for a while, I suppose. But it was never a genre that had much depth. They can have a silly charm. But there have been so many dud movies based on Marvel comic heros who no adult has heard of, don't the creative types in Hollywood want to finally leave them alone? How do the writers "pitch" their material convincingly?

By the way, I like animation quite a lot, and this rant does not indicate a simple prejudice against material designed for a younger audience. I understand the appeal of a graphic novel, even though I don't read them. But please stop with the movies based on this kind of stuff.

Gerard Henderson on sedition

Knowing the enemy makes leaders friends - Opinion - smh.com.au

Yesterday's column by GH (above) notes that the Law Reform Commission is looking at the commonwealth sedition laws. Henderson notes:

On March 20 the commission published an issues paper titled Review of Sedition Laws. The issues paper seeks community consultation and the final chapter of the document contains a list of questions to which the authors of the report would like responses. Weisbrot and his colleagues make it clear they have not reached any "definitive conclusions" about their ultimate findings and recommendations.

Even so, the paper indicates that - at this stage, at least - the authors do not share the hyperbolic concern ignited by some of the critics of the federal and state governments when this legislation was canvassed late last year. For example, the paper refers to a "misunderstanding" of the construction of criminal responsibility evident in submissions to the Senate committee and comments that legal distinctions can be difficult "for non-experts and sometimes even for experts".

On a number of key issues the Law Reform Commission gives support to the case presented by the Attorney-General's Department to the Senate committee.

Seems consistent with what I had been saying earlier about the nature of the criticism about the laws.