Judging inequality

Tim Worstall has an interesting article on judging the morality of income inequality, especially when it comes to globalisation. His conclusion:

Leaving all other matters aside, we expect globalization to produce a rise in income inequality in the United States (and the other industrialized societies). We also expect it to raise incomes in the poor countries and thus reduce global income inequality. That does indeed seem to be what is actually happening.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing to be happening is another matter entirely, that depends upon our own moral senses....

....in this particular instance I find that my own answer is quite simple. Those poor who are getting richer in other countries are not moving from one level of luxury to a slightly higher one. They are moving from destitution, from not knowing where the next meal is coming from, to something close to a middle class income. They are doing this in their hundreds of millions, across the globe, and that has to be a good thing.

Note that he hasn't mentioned the issue of income mobility in the United States too, which is relevant to the morality argument too.

For all your camel milking needs...

go to Israel! Yes, even when it comes to camel milking systems (who knew there was a market for it?) Israel seems to lead the way in the Middle East. (The article notes that a company in Dubai bought a 48 camel milking system "largely manufactured" in Israel from an Israeli company. Israel and Dubai do not have diplomatic relations.)

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the ban on Israeli goods continues:

RIYADH, 4 January 2007 — Director General of Saudi Customs Saleh Al-Barak reiterated that the Saudi regulations do not permit the import of goods manufactured in Israel.

“The official regulation followed by every customs house at the Kingdom’s border crosspoints is a total ban on any goods of Israeli origin,” Al-Watan Arabic newspaper quoted Saleh Al-Barak as saying yesterday.

Anyone found breaking the regulation would be treated as a smuggler of contraband goods to the Kingdom and fined accordingly and the seized goods destroyed, the director general said.

Says something about the Middle East, doesn't it?

What happens when it rains?

Also in the Guardian, Katherine Hamnett gets very, very excited about concentrated solar power as a source of clean energy. (Just like the trial power station the Australian Federal government is helping to fund.)

Problem is, as far as I can see, the article says nothing about what happens if a protracted cloudy period covers the power stations. Still, if environmentalists don't go nuts about tens of square kilometres of desert being covered by mirrors, I guess it could help, provided you don't lose much of the benefit in the process of getting the electricity the hundreds of miles to where it is needed.

At least if you use solar power to do the direct electrolysis of water into hydrogen, you have something you can store to generate power later. Someone's looked at that, I assume?

Monbiot right

George Monbiot does have his weird obsessions (aircraft and CO2 for one), but he is sensible enough to get upset about loopy 9/11 conspiracies. Of course, for full enjoyment you should then read the comments of people who think George will "regret the day" he rubbished the idea.

On military commissions

There's a really good article at Frontpage providing background and history on the reasons for using military commissions for terrorist trials in the USA.

Sperm for the taking

Slate summaries a recent bizarre case of making babies from a dead man:

With court approval, Israeli parents are using their dead son's sperm to inseminate a woman he never knew. It appears to be the first explicit legal authorization to make a baby using a corpse and a stranger. Argument from the dead man's mother: "He would always talk about how he wanted to get married and have children." After he died, "His eyes he told me that it wasn't too late, and that there was still something to take from him. … Then I realized it was his sperm."

That last line is both funny and creepy.

Actually, the Chicago Tribune version of the story (linked to by Slate) gives some even weirder detail. After her son's death:

A year went by, and the bereaved mother saw her son in a dream. "He said, `What about my children? Why aren't you doing anything about it?'" Cohen said. "I woke up shaking and told my husband that we have to do something."

This has a quasi-biblical feel about it. A new form of virgin birth for a child heralded in a dream.

Completely indefensible action by the parents and court, in my opinion.

Bad astronaut?

A female astronaut seems to have gone nuts over a relationship issue:

A NASA astronaut is charged with attacking her rival for another astronaut's attention early Monday at Orlando International Airport, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

Lisa Marie Nowak drove from Texas to meet the 1 a.m. flight of a younger woman who had also been seeing the male astronaut Nowak pined for, according to Orlando police.

It's all trenchcoats, stalking and other fun stuff. Lucky this is sorted out on the ground and not the shuttle!

Walking bags of microbes

If you have any latent phobic about what is on your skin, perhaps it is better you don't know this:

In research published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Blaser and his colleagues took swabs from the forearms of six healthy people to study the bacterial populations in human skin -- our largest organ.

"We identify about 182 species," Blaser said in an interview. "And based on those numbers, we estimate there are probably at least 250 species in the skin."...

The researchers noted that microbes in the body actually outnumber human cells 10-to-1.

"Our microbes are actually, in essence, a part of our body," Blaser said.

Super-intelligent emotionless artificial intelligences of the future should not know this information: they may consider killing humans as nothing more than microbe pest control.

A late weekend video

Last weekend I missed posting a Youtube. Turns out there's plenty of David Byrne stuff there. This song comes from his early solo period, with its heavy South American influence. I had never seen a clip for it before. (Actually, it's not visually all that interesting, but the music makes me very feel very happy.)

Busy

This promises to be a busy month for me at work. I'm seriously thinking about a blogging hiatus, unless of course an insanely generous reader relieves the financial reasons I really need to concentrate on work. (Ha!)

Anyway, we'll see how we go. Blogging at night might still be OK, but even so it is far too easy for me to be distracted by looking at the web all day for interesting articles to post about.

For example, here's a few things of interest that I see right now:

* Newsweek says China might want to go to the Moon to mine it for Helium 3. Seems to me it would be a good idea if you knew fusion reactors using it would actually work. (Maybe there is a bit of chicken or egg problem here, though.) Also, this line in the article caught my eye:

If significant deposits are found, China's engineers still need to design the world's first lunar mining machines and send them up—while the rest of us shrink in horror at the thought of strip mines on the moon.

Hey don't mark me up as one of the horrified. What exactly is the problem here? It's a sterile, pre-cratered landscape with no obvious inhabitants to upset by having the view from their condo ruined. Does lunar dirt have an inherent right to lie unmoved except by the next meteor?

* Legal battles over movie deals get a lot of coverage in the LA Times, being the industry town that it is. The latest is about "Sahara", which did look expensive on the screen, and was (I thought) very well directed for an action film. Unfortunately, it also starred Matthew McConaughey, a male lead who for some reason I have always found irritating.

Anyway, a reclusive multi-billionaire lost $110 million on the film and isn't happy. The story is of moderate interest.

* Paul Sheehan must be running the risk of getting death threats himself (or maybe he already has?) with articles about Islam in Europe like this one.

Half a story

Popular press reporting of global warming issues continues to irritate. The big news this morning: recent sea level rises are higher than the 2001 prediction. From the SMH:

SEA levels are rising faster than the International Panel on Climate Change predicted, showing computer models have tended to underestimate the problem.

Since 1993 sea levels have climbed at a rate of 3.3 millimetres a year, compared with the panel's best estimate for this period of less than 2 millimetres a year.

The only hint of uncertainty in the report is on the pessimistic side. (A CSIRO scientist is quoted as saying that the contribution of melting ice sheets is still not properly quantified.)

However, in their report on the same story in Nature is this:

Rahmstorf and his colleagues calculate that sea-level rise over the past 20 years has been 25% faster than for any other 20-year period for more than a century. But they accept that this could be due simply to natural variations over decadal timescales. "Sea-level rise has been tracking along the uppermost limit for 16 years now, but it could still be decadal variability, so we don't predict that this will continue," Rahmstorf says.

Another study published last month² suggests that sea-level rises during the twentieth century were indeed very variable. According to calculations by Simon Holgate of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, UK, sea levels rose by an average of more than 2 millimetres per year in the first half of the century, but by less than 1.5 millimetres per year on average in the latter half.

The uncertainty could cut both ways, then.

In any event, those who worry about Tuvalu have to remember that the ocean was still rising at 2mm per year in the first half of the 20th century. (In fact, note how the rate dropped in the second half.) Now it is rising at 3 mm per annum. Tuvalu was never a long term proposition even without global warming.

One other point: the SMH article says this:

In a separate study in the same journal, Helen McGregor, of the University of Wollongong, has found global warming has already changed ocean currents in a way that could have a serious impact on fisheries.

Her team's research off the north-west coast of Africa shows it has led to an increase in a phenomenon called ocean upwelling, in which deep, cold water, usually rich in nutrients, moves upwards to replace warmer surface water.

"Our research suggests that upwelling will continue to intensify with future greenhouse warming, potentially impacting the sensitive ecosystems and fisheries in these regions," Dr McGregor said.

Again, note the emphasis on pessimism. Yet only a few days before, we had this story:

The world's oceans are already in a warming trend that could alter fish stocks, perhaps damaging coral reefs that are vital nurseries for tropical species while boosting northern stocks of cod or herring...

In a sign of how higher temperatures might help some fish stocks, a period of warmer waters in the 1920s allowed cod to spawn off Greenland and let a new stock break away from Icelandic waters. In the cooler 1960s, cod were unable to reproduce off Greenland and the stock collapsed.

[I would also have thought that cold water upwellings rich in nutrients would be good for plankton growth, which is a major CO2 sink. It has long been suggested that Ocean Thermal Power Generation would have this as a side benefit.]

So lets get it right people: oceans have been warming and cooling even before current global warming. It had already had major effects on fish populations a century ago. It will continue to affect fish, with some winners and some losers. (Everyone used to bemoan the loss of cod fisheries. Now that global warming may help them, the tragedy will be fewer tropical fish. )

What bugs me most about this is that it is teaching pessimism to our children. Apart from what children read for themselves in the press, there will be lot of school teachers who pass this on, as they often don't show much inclination towards independent thought. (Sorry, they do a hard job, but you know that is true.)

Wait for the wave of pessimism when the entire IPCC report comes out.

UPDATE: just to be clear, I do take CO2 levels seriously, as explained in a few posts last year. It is just that I don't see any benefit in promoting pessimism as the response to the issue. The attitude I want is optimism that effective action can be taken, and an acknowledgement that things were never static and perfect in the global environment anyway. (Just ask the dinosaurs and the Australian megafauna, the latter increasingly looking like an example of very early technology causing havoc. As for aborigines "living in harmony with the land for 50,000 years": well yeah, after they changed the landscape entirely by fire and hunting.)

When natural is not good

Quite a surprising story in New Scientist should have parents who are into essential oils looking carefully at the products they use on their kids:

Three young boys grew breast tissue after exposure to lotions and shampoos containing lavender or tea tree oil, researchers say.

It is not uncommon for boys to develop breast tissue during puberty or just after, but the boys affected by the plant oils were aged four, seven and 10.

The natural oils may be “gender-bending” chemicals mimicking effects of the female hormone, oestrogen, the findings suggest. The boys were otherwise normal, and lost the breast tissue within months of discontinuing use of the products.

Bone digs Cohen

Pamela Bone gives her support to the views of Nick Cohen, which I have previously recommended reading.

One point I may have missed making in my previous post is this one taken up by Bone in her final paragraphs:

The Left used to be about the future and improving the lot of mankind. The problem for it today, as Cohen points out, is that it has got most of what it wanted. Although there is still a way to go, the Left of a century ago would see the prosperity of today's workers, the equal opportunity laws, the intellectual freedoms, as a paradise. It is harder today to see yourself as a victim of a pernicious system.

So the Left now is about resistance to material progress, to globalisation, and most of all to American power. There is plenty to criticise about Western lifestyles. Still, it should be obvious to all but the most blinkered that the system the US wants to impose on the Middle East is far better than the system the Islamists want to impose on us. Democracy is at least self-correcting. I hope the wearers of the "George Bush, World's No.1 terrorist" T-shirts, never have to find that out.

Affluenza attacked

Tim Blair and many others have looked at Oliver James and his book on "affluenza", but here's another good criticism of it by David Finkelstein at The Times. An extract:

The central contention of Affluenza is, oddly, contained in an appendix. Here it is posited that there is “a strong and statistically significant linear Pearson correlation between the prevalence of any emotional distress and income inequality”. In other words, in countries where there is high inequality, there appear to be high levels of emotional distress. James uses this statistical relationship to go further than other “happiness” theorists. Where they argue that greater prosperity has not produced greater levels of happiness, he argues that what he calls “selfish capitalism” has produced inequality and, through it, mental illness.

The whole book rests on this.

Finkelstein mentions two possible alternative explanations:

Let me provide an alternative, much less comfortable, explanation of increased rates of mental illness in developed countries — social mobility. In his compelling book The Scent of Dried Roses, Tim Lott tries to make sense of his own encounters with mental illness, including his suicidal depression. He concludes that the disappearance of the English lower middle class from which he came and his own rise (he is now a justly successful novelist, then already well on his way) made him feel disorientated. He lost a sense of who he was, a sense of his story.

I find this very convincing. But its implications are disturbing. It suggests that the best way for James to reduce Affluenza would be for everyone to know their place. With fewer aspirations and ambitions people might be more content. I don’t think he, or the other happiness theorists for that matter, are far away from this view. James is already pretty scathing about the consequences of the drive towards female equality. And if he is right that China and Nigeria are happier (or at least have less emotional distress), presumably they would be better off staying as they are.

And here’s another explanation — not selfish capitalism but secular liberalism. Aren’t the decline of the nuclear family, the questioning of bourgeois values and doubts about the existence of God more likely causes of emotional discomfort than James’s ridiculous choice of policies on the regulation of the electricity industry?

Some recommended posts

From around the blogosphere, here's some recent posts which are well worth checking, if you haven't seen them already"

* Zoe Brain has a lengthy post post about the amazing (and dangerous) Muslim/arab rumour mill of the Middle East. Is the Holocaust the only thing they won't believe?

* Andrew Norton points out the holes in Clive Hamilton's "dissent is being silenced in Australia" schtick in a great post here.

* Tigerhawk wonders whether dove-ish US Senators might inadvertently help convince Iran that they Bush must be getting ready to strike.

* Last weekend, a Daily Kos post got very worked up over the question of whether any Vietnam vet was ever actually spat upon in America. Called baby killers, yes, no one doubts that, but those who have claimed to be spat upon? Well, apparently a sociologist wrote an entire book about it claiming it was actually an urban myth. What a vital debate to have now. Funny thing is, I bet 90% of Kos readers who label it an urban myth still believe in the plastic turkey, despite actual media retractions.

Update: to be fair, it is not just Daily Kos, but also Slate (which seems to be down a lot today) which has now had a go at Newsweek for bringing up allegedly discredited the 'gobbing' on vets story. I see Jack Shafer wrote the Slate article, although I have not been able to read it yet. I note that he spends a lot of time at Slate arguing that crystal meth use is not the crisis (in the States) that the media likes to make out it is. I am sceptical of much of his analysis.

Woops

Europe gets busy thinking they are being green, while actually causing lots of CO2 emissions on the other side of the planet:

Just a few years ago, politicians and green groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the country's early and rapid adoption of "sustainable energy," achieved in part by coaxing electricity plants to use some biofuel — in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia....

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the razing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rain forest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there. Worse still, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peat land, which sent huge amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Factoring in these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world's third-leading producer of greenhouse gases that scientists believe are responsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China, concluded a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands.

Maybe the fine print clears it up...

I don't often do more than smile at Japundit's examples of odd Japanese use of English on signs and clothes, but this is one which did make me laugh in surprise.

Against the wind (farm)

Quite a lot of anti-wind farm stuff in this New Scientist article. They tend not to be great for bogs if they are built on them (as many apparently are in Europe), which is a pity since bogs store a lot of CO2. (Australia needs more of them, obviously.)

But if you build them in deserts instead:

The ecological impact in these environments is largely unstudied. Somnath Baidya Roy from Princeton University and his team have done research suggesting that rotating turbine blades lead to desiccation of the surrounding area, which may be particularly damaging in deserts (Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2004JD004763). In addition, a recent study of Californian ground squirrels reveals that those living close to wind farms are more edgy and cautious than those that inhabit areas of desert where there are no turbines.

Well, maybe I wouldn't lose too much sleep about squirrels getting nervous. But the birds, well that is a different matter. The article goes on:

After re-analysing previous studies last year, researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, concluded: "Available evidence suggests that wind farms reduce the abundance of many bird species at the wind farm site." But the most striking aspect of their report was how little evidence is available. The researchers found just 15 articles drawing on 19 datasets, of which only nine were complete. Lead author Gavin Stewart says that many studies are kept secret, sometimes for commercial reasons, with statistics on bird kills being kept from bird conservationists.

And there is more detail in the article about how many birds are killed in some locations.

It's always fun when later studies bolster a hunch.

Update: I see this was actually an article from July 2006 which the New Scientist website has only just made available for free. No matter. Still good reading.

So the French really are good at this?

The IHT reports on France's rise in its birth rate. According the article, it seems not to be due to immigrants having babies, although it is hard to tell from the way they keep records. The article notes:

Another possible birth incentive in France, which may not be copied elsewhere, is its 35-hour workweek. It has been suggested that the French have so much leisure now that they have found nothing more interesting to do with it than have babies, combining fun with demographic patriotism.

Nuns aren't what they used to be

A bit of a weird story about the apparent attitude of a modern nun:

A young disabled man who receives care for his life-limiting illness at a hospice run by a nun spoke yesterday of his decision to use a prostitute to experience sex before he dies.

Sister Frances Dominica gave her support to 22-year-old Nick Wallis, who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sufferers usually die by their thirties.

Mr Wallis told staff at the Douglas House hospice in Oxford that he wanted to experience sexual intercourse. ...

The hospice staff, after taking advice from a solicitor, the clergy and health care professionals, decided to help him.

Hmmm. I wonder what the clergy person's advice was.

It seems unclear as to whether Mr Wallis is Christian himself, but if it was the job of Christians to help non-Christians have a morally dubious time, the work of charitable nuns is going to involve a lot more fun than it has for, oh, the last 2,000 years or so.

As for the nun herself:

Sister Frances described Mr Wallis as "delightful, intelligent and aware young man".

"I know that some people will say 'You are a Christian foundation. What are you thinking about?'. But we are here for all faiths and none," she said.

"It is not our job to make moral decisions for our guests. We came to the conclusion that it was our duty of care to support Nick emotionally and to help ensure his physical safety."

OK, so many people are going to have a lot of sympathy for the guy. (The actual experience didn't seem to be so great for him anyway, and if he was a sensitive soul the nun perhaps could have told him to expect that out of a one-off commercial relationship.)

Seems to me that liberal nuns aren't exactly helping the cause of the Church by being flexible to this extent.