Really stretching the argument

Abortion: why it’s the ultimate motherly act-Comment-Columnists-Caitlin Moran-TimesOnline

This column from last week in The Times really stretches one part of the pro-choice argument 'til it's micron thin:

....what I do believe to be sacred — and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole — is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. Or a child that, through no fault of its own, would be the destructor of a marriage, a family, a parent. It’s fairly inarguable to say that unhappy children, who then grew into very angry adults, have caused the great majority of mankind’s miseries. If psychoanalysis has, somewhat brutally, laid the responsibility for mental disorders at parents’ doors, the least we can do is to tip our hats to women aware enough not to create those troubled people in the first place.

This paragraph leaves open so many obvious lines of attack, I can't even be bothered starting.

The author is (somewhat like Aussie blogger Audrey ) also taking the line that women should admit that having an abortion is often an easy decision. Moran writes:

Last year I had an abortion, and I can honestly say it was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I’m not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what work-tops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being. I knew I would see my existing two daughters less, my husband less, my career would be hamstrung and, most importantly of all, I was just too tired to do it all again.

I don't mind this admission, because I think most pro-life-ish people like me have always guessed or known from experience that it was true for a significant number of women. The "women never take the decision lightly" line is, I think, deployed as a tactic designed to stop detailed debate, particularly if it is a man with whom the argument is being conducted.

[Of course, the pro-life movement also uses the "women always suffer" line to its own ends, by (I think) inflating the problem of depression or other medical conditions following abortion.]

The point is that the mere question of how difficult a moral decision was (or wasn't) for some people is never really the answer to the question of whether it was the right decision.

American toilet humour

A couple of comments about this ad. First, wouldn't it be better to have the guy single and desperate, rather than having his (presumed) girlfriend or wife turn up at the end? (If it was in an apartment building, wouldn't it have been funnier to have the plumber herself seeing him doing this?)

Secondly, is there some issue about Americans needing stronger flushing power than the rest of the world? It just seems a bit of an odd feature to be promoting in a toilet.

The "incivility" problem

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | You're rude, crude and in my face - and I've had enough

This is a pretty good essay on the problem of "incivility" in society in Britain, with obvious relevance to Australia and other Western nations too. (Indeed, I have read articles from Japan in which the the impoliteness of youngsters in public is discussed.)

This always seems to be one of those problems that everyone can identify, but no one really comes with convincing ways to address.

Send in the battle dolphins

LiveScience.com - Navy Shows Off Its Terror-Fighting Dolphins

This US Navy work with dolphins doesn't get much publicity, but is going to be around for a few years yet, it seems. From the article:

...the Navy announced plans to send up to 30 dolphins and sea lions to patrol the waters of Washington state's Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, which is home to nuclear submarines, ships and laboratories.

Both species can find mines and spot swimmers in murky waters. Working in unison, the dolphins can drop a flashing light near a mine or a swimmer. The sea lions carry in their mouths a cable and a handcuff-like device that clamps onto a terrorist's leg. Sailors can then use the cable to reel in the terrorist.

So that's what a croc eating an arm looks like

A vet’s helping hand is saved by surgeons-News-World-Asia-TimesOnline

I'm sure I won't be the only person linking to this story, but it is an arresting photo.

Out of depth

catallaxy - Those were the days - when Robert Manne had views on economics

This post over at Catallaxy is well worth reading. It's handy to be reminded of who used to say what about economics in the 1980's, and how wrong they turned out to be.

Another entry into the TV wars...

Sony aims to take lead in organic flat-screen TVs:

"We are going to mass produce and start selling eleven-inch organic electroluminescence (television) models by the end of the year, which will be a world first," said Sony spokesman Chisato Kitsukawa.

That's not a big screen, but this type of display is apparently bright and great to look at. They also use less power than an LCD screen, and are very thin. Look at these prototype ones:

Very cool, hey? (OK, just send me the cheque now, Sony.)

One for Tim Blair

Total destruction of forests predicted to cool Earth - Modelling study no excuse for deforestation, researchers warn.

I think I have read something like this before, but news@nature is running this story:

Large-scale deforestation — long fingered as a contributing factor in climate change — could cool Earth, say the researchers behind one of the first attempts to model the phenomenon at a global scale.

Logging is often attacked because living trees help to mop up carbon dioxide, thereby buffering rises in greenhouse gases. But deforestation has different effects in different parts of the world.

In high latitudes, for example, removing the forests could help to cool these regions. This is because the trees, which absorb sunlight, would be replaced by snow-covered fields in winter that reflect the light. But in tropical regions, cutting back on forests would mean that less water is transferred from soils into the atmosphere, meaning fewer clouds and a warmer planet.

Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California, and his colleagues have now compared these two effects and declared that the effect of boreal deforestation dominates. Removing all the forests would put a slight brake on global warming, they predict — enough to leave the world 0.3 °C cooler in 2100, they report..

Woodchipping for global warming - that should be Labor's new forestry policy.

Black hole science - interpretation needed

Regular readers know that I scan papers appearing on arxiv about black holes. They are often not easy to understand, to say the least. In fact, I half suspect that even other scientists outside of very narrow fields may find it an effort to follow most papers too. Here's a couple of recent examples:

The existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs) presents a clear violation of causality. In some cases these CTCs can be disregarded because to have them one ought to have an external force acting along the whole CTC, process that will consume a great amount of energy. The energy needed to travel a CTC in Godel universe is computed in [1]. For geodesics this is not the case since the external force is null, therefore the considerations of energy does not apply in this case and we have a bigger problem of breakdown of causality.

Following so far? Well, no, nor am I, but it sort of sounds significant, doesn't it? This was just the introduction to the paper, which actually found this:

In the present work we study the existence and stability under linear perturbation of CTCs in the spacetime associated to slowly rotating black hole (BH) pierced by a spinning string. We find that presence of the black hole makes possible to transform the CTCs present in the spinning string metric alone that are stable into CTGs. We also find sufficient conditions to have stable CTGs. This conditions are not very restrictive and can be easily fulfilled.

So, I gather that they think they have found a way that something which violates causality can be made around a black hole. If you are looking for some actual interpretation of what this means in real life, in language anyone can understand, it ain't in the paper.

Here's another obscure paper that may, or may not, be significant.

A new theorem for black holes is established. The mass of a black hole depends on where the observer is. The horizon mass theorem states that for all black holes: neutral, charged or rotating, the horizon mass is always twice the irreducible mass observed at infinity. The
horizon mass theorem is crucial for understanding the occurrence of Hawking radiation. Without black hole radiation, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is lost.

I have no idea what they are talking about, but in the paper, the authors use an exclamation mark, which means it must be significant (I think):

In each case, we found that the horizon mass is always twice the irreducible mass observed at infinity. The conclusion is surprising. The electrostatic energy and the rotational energy of a general black hole are all external quantities. They are absent inside the black hole!

This is also said to be relevant to Hawking Radiation, a matter of continuing interest due to the heavy reliance on it by the CERN people in figuring out what micro black holes will do.

By the way, the engineers and scientists at CERN made a mistake that recently caused a bit of a bang:

A £2 billion project to answer some of the biggest mysteries of the universe has been delayed by months after scientists building it made basic errors in their mathematical calculations.

The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing an evacuation.

Let's hope they do their work on what happens to micro black holes a bit more carefully.

More on Japan's odd creation myths

New look for Japan's oldest book | The Japan Times Online

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to read that old Japanese Shinto myths had a god molded from feces. Well, Shinto creation myths didn't end there. From the article above:

"The birth of Japan. The gods give us a story of love and violence." Thus is introduced this Japanese-language manga-illustrated edition of the "Kojiki" (Record of Ancient Matters) dating from 712 and Japan's oldest book. The publication is intended for primary-school children...

For some foreign readers, perhaps unable to read Japanese, the major interest will lie in observing the considerable violence with which the conventions of eighth-century Japanese narrative collide with those of our 21st century.

The text has been edited by a Yokohama National University professor and made more suitable than it actually is. The original has the very first woman, Izanami, burning her genitals when she gives birth to the fire god. Later, various gods are born from her vomit, feces and urine. Her own child, Susano'o, defecates in the sacred hall of his sister Amaterasu and then strews the feces about.

None of this is illustratable, even by the standards of modern manga, and so the celebrated result of such misbehavior -- the retreat of Amaterasu into her cave -- remains largely unmotivated.

And you thought Eve being made from Adam's rib was odd.

Libby takes on the bishops

Religion: it makes bishops go bonkers-Libby Purves-TimesOnline

I don't read much by Libby Purveson, so I can't recall where her politics generally lie. However this article, criticising the couple of English bishops who thought it was nice of Pres Ahmadinejad to mention religion when he released his captives, seems pretty accurate:

The cynicism of the Iranian leader’s lip-service to Easter and forgiveness should not need underlining. When Bishop Burns says they “put their faith into action to resolve the situation”, he ignores the fact that Iran caused the damn situation.

Cyclists limp home (yuk yuk yuk)

The cyclist's tight spot - Los Angeles Times

For all you ever wanted to know about cycling and sexual problems, read this article.

Actually, it indicates that it doesn't exactly affect a huge number of cyclists, but at perhaps 5%, it does seem a bit of a risk.

Here's some odd extracts from the story:

Because road cyclists lean forward on their bikes for better aerodynamic efficiency, Minkow later added a cutout in the nose of the saddle to relieve pressure on the perineum in this position. He is currently working on a design to help male triathletes, who pedal in an extreme forward aerodynamic lean. In that position, "you're riding on your penis," Minkow says...

In a study of 17 riders published in 2005 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine found that straddling a bike seat with a nose significantly reduced blood velocity in the arteries to the penis by more than 95%, but that sitting on a "two cheek" noseless saddle had virtually no adverse effect....

To this day, Goldstein says bicycles should come with a warning label, similar to those on cigarette packs, that cycling may cause impotence.

Well, just as long as they don't start adding photos to the warning like they do for cigarettes.

Money for time travelling

Physicist needs $20,000 for time-travel experiment

As far as I can tell, the explanation in the article of the science behind this proposed experiment is sound enough, but I am surprised that it hasn't been done before.

And what did you learn in school today, dear?

BBC NEWS Madrassa parents voice concerns

A photo from the story above:



The story itself:

Parents of some of the girls studying at a controversial religious school in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, have voiced concern for their safety.

Their fears rose after an ultimatum from madrassa leaders that Sharia law be enforced in the country. The school and adjoining mosque are accused of promoting intolerance and taking the law into their own hands.

On Sunday, the chief cleric issued a fatwa against a female minister who had been pictured hugging a man..... In February, armed students prevented the authorities from demolishing an illegally constructed mosque, and occupied a nearby children's library.

Last month they abducted a woman they accused of running a brothel, holding her captive for two days.

I wonder what their examinations and assignments are like: "For tomorrow's class presentation: explain which of your neighbours deserve a beating and organise the lynching. Must be back at classroom in time for prayers."

Cue that music from 2001 A Space Odyssey

LiveScience.com - New Hard Drives Hold a Terabyte of Data

From the article:

Yes, you can now get a terabyte hard drive on a desktop PC. Breaking the ice with a Hitachi drive was Dell, with “Area 51” game-oriented machines from its Alienware subsidiary. The 1T option initially costs $500.

In case you’re wondering, as printed text a terabyte would occupy 100 million reams of paper, consuming some 50,000 trees. It is enough to hold 16 days (not hours) of DVD-quality video, or a million pictures, or almost two years worth of continuous music.

Unless you are going to pack it with video, it's hard to imagine ever needing anything bigger than this.

Only for those with an interest in New Testament stuff

What He said - TLS Highlights - Times Online

This is a pretty interesting and sympathetic review of a new book suggesting that the most popular scholarly theories of the last century about how the synoptic gospels came to be written may be wrong. I won't bother quoting the review here, as few readers may be interested, but the basic argument is that it may, after all, be correct to "assume a faithful and unbroken link between the original witnesses of Jesus' life and death and the record of these things in the Gospels."

I think it is fair to say that, broadly speaking, the Catholic Church has always maintained that position. It's been the Protestant scholars who assumed less authenticity in the Gospels due to a convoluted process by which they were imagined to have been created.

At the risk of losing audience further, this all reminds me of a CS Lewis essay in which he pointed out that literary critics very often made incorrect assumptions about the origins or motives behind a present day work of fiction, such as Lord of the Rings for example. (Lewis knew intimately the process of the creation of that work, and how some of the guesses of the critics about what parts of it meant were clearly wrong.)

Lewis' point was to encourage scepticism of similar scholarly work on the Gospels, and I have always felt that the point was a good one.

A liberal fantasy reconstruction can be so extreme as to truly become self delusional. I would put Barbara Thiering in that category. (It didn't stop her getting lots of coverage on the ABC at the time, even though I reckon anyone with common sense could see that her claim that her method was "testable" was ridiculous.)

But even the more "conservative" scholars seem to me to often to have an unwarranted over-confidence about their conclusions.

The CS Lewis essay is "Fern seed and elephants", and I see it is available in full here.

When physicists try to be funny

0703783v1.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The short paper above is dated 1 April, and is a little amusing.

Easter comments

Every Christian religious season now seems a reason for the media to run articles of revisionism or criticism of traditional beliefs, coupled with editorials trying to find some universal message in the season that you don't have to be religious to accept. It gets a bit tiring after a decade or so.

This year, the idea of penal substitution has come in for more than its fair share of negative attention. Two clerics (one was nearly a bishop) from the Anglicans criticised what sounded to me like a very unsophisticated version of it. Giles Fraser then gets to write another Guardian comment piece which goes on about how the central message of Easter should be to "embrace freedom". The exact meaning of this is stated in a somewhat confusing way:

For freedom is the lost virtue of the Christian church. Sure, it's easy for Christians to join in the celebrations of Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade. It's easy enough to be a radical 200 years after the event. But on many of the issues of the day, the church stands against human freedom. For evangelicals particularly, freedom means licence. From the freedom of the market to the freedom of gay people to marry and adopt children: for too many Christians, freedom is sin. That's why the church has always been obsessed with control.

Is he saying Evangelicals criticise the "freedom of the market"? I thought they were usually accused of being too pro-capitalism. I assume he is sympathetic to gay marriage, though; an idea that has, contrary to penal substitution, about 20 years of tradition behind it.

The irritating thing about these attacks on penal substitution is that they seem rather uncharitable in the sense there is a clear biblical basis for at least something resembling the idea. The Wikipedia entry on it is pretty good, lining up the proponents and critics.

But in the end, the attitude of CS Lewis is, I think, probably right. He wrote in Mere Christianity:

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ's death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself. All the same, some of these theories are worth looking at.

About Disney

A long way from reality in Orlando-Life & Style-Travel-Destinations-USA-TimesOnline

The writer above shares my upbeat view of Disney World, which I visited in the 1980's. I now have children that are approaching ideal ages for a visit, but I can't imagine when I am going to be able to afford to get there again. (Tokyo Disneyland is more likely a proposition, but as the article says, Disney World is like an entire city. People who haven't been there just don't have any idea of the scale of the place.)

Of course, if I do go again, it is possible that I may well unintentionally stumble upon a gay wedding or commitment ceremony in progress.

I have never quite understood why Disney has been at the forefront of the culture wars, on the side of all things gay, for many years now. Is it some sort of payback for Elton John re-invigorating their animation division?

In my 1980's visit to Disney World, I remember some short feature in one of the Epcot pavillions that had a boy character getting cartoonishly excited about a girl. The details are vague in my memory, but I remember thinking at the time that boys under 10 or so are probably going to think this is ridiculous, and anyway, is Disney World really the place where the topic of sexual attraction should make an appearance at all?

It's not that Disney has been just been non-discrimatory: with its "Gay Days" it goes out of its way to encourage as many gays to pack in the place as possible. I hadn't realised how big this had become. It would seem the associated entertainment (I guess not all put on by Disney itself) is not exactly in the Disney innocence theme. Have a look at this website and its galleries for details.

Even if you don't share a christian/conservative objection to the whole idea, it seems there are even some gay men who now object to it. Have a read of this:

I’ve watched over the years as Gay Days has grown in scope and size. What once was a small group of well meaning gay men and lesbians has grown – and in my opinion, deformed – into what is now nothing more than a vile spectacle of self indulgence and indecency...

I can’t help but think of, and feel sorry for – the unsuspecting family who saved for years for a once in a lifetime trip – only to arrive and find that Disney had in fact, been invaded by he-women and shaved down muscle boys. By itself that would not be a problem, but the sheer number of people who seem to go out of their way to rub their sexuality in everyones face during this ‘event’ is nothing short of disgraceful. Is the Magic Kingdom REALLY the place for a 5 year old to ask his father why those two men are kissing? Is it really up to any person to decide for that parent when, or if, they will have that conversation with their child? I’ve always believed the best way we, as gay men and lesbians, could further our cause was to simply live our lives openly, and with dignity. Not hide in shame, and not force our beliefs or lifestyle down anyone elses throat. I don’t like it when I hear pompous windbags telling me I’m going to burn in hell for being gay, and I’m sure most of the free world would appreciate a visit to Disney World that did not include the vision of grown men in go-go shorts, and ads for lubricant prominently displayed throughout the host hotel. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of ‘image’ at the host hotel (the Sheraton World on International Drive)– the line of beer trucks outside the resort was a nice touch, and the liquor kiosks and condom ads every 5 feet will certainly not further the image of us as a bunch of drunken sex fiends.

Good points.

HTML help

When recently adding Snap preview to my blogroll (you can always turn it off if you don't like it), I seem to have accidentally added an unwanted line to the end of all my posts. The result is the post details at the bottom are too close to the top of the previous post.

I know next to nothing about HTML editing, so if anyone can give me a pointer as to where in my template the offending additional line has likely been added, I would appreciate it.

(Actually, I want to move the "posted by.." line up, but also add an additional line between it and the next post.)

UPDATE: worked it out for myself, eventually. HTML is not exactly intuitive, is it?