Divorce Hollywood style

Sheen's gross e-mails to Rich

This blog doesn't make a habit of noting Hollywood celebrity gossip masquerading as news, but this report of what Charlie Sheen apparently said in emails to his former wife is too much fun:

"You are a pig. A sad, jobless pig who is sad and talentless and sad and jobless and evil and a bad mom, so go [bleep] yourself sad jobless pig," reads another.

"You are an evil piece of [bleep]. I can't wait to tell the world what a piece of [bleep] you are. You don't get a [bleeping] dime till this is resolved," says a third e-mail.

Fun? you might say: just standard Hollywood ugly break up conversation really.

Ah, wait for it. The part I like best is this:

....Sheen tried to apologize. "I have been responsible for some of the worst dialogue and venom-spewing behavior in the past few weeks that I can possibly recall, ever," he wrote. "The anger and frustration that our situation has generated is beginning to manifest itself in physical forms and cellular regression."

This is just too deliciously Hollywood silly, isn't it? (It also sounds like he is quite the fan of that very wacky Altered States movie.)

To the islands

Foreign Correspondent

The ABC's Foreign Correspondent this week had a long story on the Faroe Islands - a place I had never heard of before.

As this intro says:

The Faroe Islands, midway between Scotland and Iceland, were settled by Vikings a thousand years ago. Remote and intriguing, they look like something out of a Norse fairy tale.

People live in log houses with turf rooves, speak an ancient Viking language and delight in dressing up in traditional costume and singing Norse ballads.

They also eat pilot whales, even though the amount of heavy metals in them means that the government advises against it. (Shades of eating dolphin in Japan.)

Still, the story was fascinating, the scenery spectacular.

I think it is repeated sometime again over the weekend, and then it turns up on broadband on their website.

A David Byrne road trip

I have previously recommended the journal/blog of the multi-talented David Byrne (ex Talking Head, just in case someone needs reminding).

Apart from his occasional political comments, which could come direct from the pages of Huffington Post and are easily ignored, he writes terribly well; and although he's a New York liberal with somewhat esoteric artistic interests, he seems to take a very non-judgemental attitude to how the rest of his country lives.

Go read, for example, this long entry detailing a recent 7 day road trip he took with his daughter across the southern part of the States. He certainly does not appear to live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, staying at chain motels for example, visiting Dollywood with a completely snob-free attitude, and eating steak across the bar-b-q belt with the best of them. He comments how "sweet" it was when he was recognised at a particular town and signed several autographs.

For those who have been following him for a long time, you might recall that this non-judgemental attitude to ordinary life in the suburbs and malls was clear in his gentle- natured 1986 movie "True Stories". It's not a earth shattering movie by any means, but it is eccentric in a sweet natured way, and the sound track is good. It's well worth watching if it is still to be found at the video library. (I doubt that it is, but I imagine you could still buy it easily enough.)

He just comes across as a smart and likeable man who is interested in everything. Provided you could keep the conversation off current politics, I get the impression he would be one of the great dinner party guests of the world.

Update: possible alternative title to this post: "Oh no! I think I've got a man crush on a New York liberal!"

Keep it to yourself, Deveny

We need a scientific, statistical approach to drugs - Opinion - theage.com.au

Catherine Deveny starts her column on drugs with this:

I haven't taken a lot of drugs in my time, but, like most people my age (I'm 39), I tried almost all of them when I was in my 20s.

Most people verging on middle age have tried "most drugs"? Big call, Catherine, and you perhaps should start speaking to more people outside your own circle.

Of those she does talk to, she reports benignly:

My mates in their early 20s tell me that "only bogans drink" and they prefer to take recreational drugs on a Saturday night. They mention drink-driving laws, the violence associated with drunks and calorie intake. They are not concerned about the long-term effects of drug use....

My kids will take drugs. What am I going to tell them? I don't know yet. But truth will be a large part of it. There'll be a policy that we will pick them up or pay for a cab from wherever, whenever if they are not fit to drive or if things get out of hand. No questions asked.

Seems a good bet that the things she won't tell her kids will include:

* they shouldn't take pills offered at a night club or rave because they have no proper idea what is in them.
* that being caught with virtually any drug on you may interfere badly with future travel plans to the States or other countries.
* that she would really rather they didn't try the experiment of seeing whether or not they have a pre-existing disposition towards schizophrenia, a crippling (often life-long) disease, that marijuana use is now widely believed to encourage to the surface;
* that part of being a young adult is taking your own responsibility for getting home safely from a night out. (Here, dear, just use that credit card linked to my account.)

Deveny is, presumably, the type of person who thinks letting teenagers bring alcohol to a party is responsible, because they will only do it anyway and they should be encouraged to be responsible, blah blah. Funny how many disastrous parties have started that way.

It's one thing to say that you don't want to be a hypocrite and tell your children not to try drugs when you tried them yourself. (Even though that may mean that you simply developed more sense as you got older.) It's another thing to tell your children via the newspaper that you have tried just about everything, and give them tacit encouragement to do the same. As long as they are careful, you know?

The Australian Kevin Party

It's becoming clear that the biggest danger to Kevin Rudd, as soon as he gets IR legislation through the Senate, will be assassination by someone on the Left of his own party. Well OK, maybe not assassination, but a convenient accidental fall from some high point around Parliament House.

Over the past couple of weeks, Kevin has:

* warned all of his shadow cabinet that no one's position is secure;

* had to clarify that by saying he meant no one except for his closest 3 pals;

* then had to reassert his power by saying he alone (and not the factions) will pick the Cabinet membership;

* annoyed environmentalists by going along with the Howard decision on the Tasmanian pulp mill;

* criticised his shadow foreign minister for giving a speech approved by one of his (Kevin's) own staffers;

* on the 7.30 Report tonight, has seemingly added said shadow foreign minister as the fourth person at least "guaranteed" a job in cabinet (though maybe not foreign minister):

But as for the rest of the time team, I will select those on the basis of merit come the outcome of the next election. If we are elected to form the next government of Australia. But Mr McClelland will be part of that team.

(One can only assume that this is to placate McClelland for being publicly ticked off even when he had done everything right to see that Kevin approved the speech); and

* Upset teacher unions by promising to keep the Coalition's school funding system for the next few years.

Oh sure, every Labor politician is currently willing to bite their tongue for now while they think of the polls, but what Rudd is doing seems well designed to guarantee that he will not have loyalty in the long run. Certainly, he is positioning himself as the Prime Minister most likely to be punched in the nose by someone from his own party towards the end of the parliamentary Christmas shindig.

I also note that on the 7.30 Report tonight, Kevin said that even if the Commonwealth takes over hospital funding in the future after a referendum, this doesn't mean that actual control of the hospitals would be in the hands of the Commonwealth:

KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, very quickly, who would run those 750 hospitals?

KEVIN RUDD: In the document we released, we said the Commonwealth, if we went down the option of getting a mandate from the Australian people for the Commonwealth to take over funding responsibility, in taking over funding responsibility the Commonwealth, we said in that document, and we adhere to it right today, will not be running any one of those individual hospitals. The options available are for the States to continue to physically manage hospitals or for them to be managed privately or on a committee basis as the Prime Minister appears to have set up in relation to his Mersey model.

Seems to me that this is not what the public expects from the idea of the Commonwealth taking responsibility for the hospitals.

UPDATE: I see that Andrew Landeryou claims that McClelland was hung out to dry because Simon Crean has been promised Foreign Affairs. He doesn't seem the type, to me.

(Landeryou's blog is a lot of fun at the moment. If you missed the old Youtube video he posted last Friday, go have a look.)

Melbourne place to stay

OK, Melbourne and other Aussie readers. You learnt yesterday that I will be bringing the family there for a short holiday in a couple of month's time, courtesy of Tiger Airlines. Given that there are 2 kids, a serviced apartment would seem to be the go. Seems to me an inner city suburb would be just as good as the CBD, as long as we are near a tram line.

Using on line services for this stuff is a bit of a pain now. There are too many different websites that overlap and cover the same joints.

Anyone have a suggestion for good family accommodation at moderate price?

Mind, meet brain

Mind Hacks: Biting the mind

Mind Hacks is a terribly good blog on all things to do with neuroscience and associated issues. It really is worth checking out every couple of days.

The post above is a particularly clear and concise summary of the brain/mind problem, and I think it is an excellent little bit of writing.

For what it's worth, here's my little comment on it. I understand the position the writer seems to support (property dualism), which he says means:

....that both mind-level and brain-level explanations may explain how we think and behave but at different levels that may not always be reducible.

For what it is worth, I find it a little puzzling to get around the issue of how the mind level of meaning has feedback to the brain level. It is (especially with the computer analogy of hardware and software) easy these days to imagine brain creating mind, but somewhat harder to imagine how the world of meaning that the mind lives in affects the brain.

Words spoken to you can cause a flood of tears. That's sort of odd, isn't it? It's the meaning the words convey, nothing to do with the physical nature of the sounds, that affects your mind which affects your brain and leads to the tears.

Well, I think it's odd anyway.

The importance of washing vegetables

ScienceDaily: Human Urine As A Safe, Inexpensive Fertilizer For Food Crops

"Our results show that human urine could be used as a fertilizer for cabbage and does not pose any significant hygienic threats or leave any distinctive flavor in food products," the report concludes.

Dying to finish

Runner dies, 300 treated as heat ravages Chicago Marathon - CNN.com

People direct their competitive impulse towards all sort of weird and essentially useless pastimes, but those who choose to get a sense of satisfaction out of completing marathons add the additional perversity of doing something clearly bad for the human body.

People get upset about boxers doing self harm, so why does no one talk about maniac runners and their knee reconstructions, other leg and foot injuries, and deaths?

Cheap tickets: a public service announcement

Tiger Airways since this morning is having a 24 hour sale of very, very cheap flights. I have scored a trip from the Gold Coast to Melbourne with the family at a cost of $40 return per person! Huzzah, as they say.

Awful news

Most readers may have already seen this over at Tim Blair's, but it is very unhappy news about Matt Price. Of course, all best wishes, positive vibes or prayers should be directed towards him. He is the most likeable of all the regular political journalists.

Mirrors will save us

BBC NEWS | Mirrors 'could deflect' asteroids

The idea:

Flying mirrors could save earth from a catastrophic asteroid collision, researchers have claimed.

Up to 5,000 mirrors would be used to focus a beam of sunlight on to the asteroid, melting the rock and altering its orbital path away from earth....

"With only 10 spacecraft flying in formation, each with a 20m mirror, we could deflect a similar size asteroid into a safe orbit in about six months.

"Our studies show that this technology is genuinely feasible.

Um, for a big asteroid, controlling 5,000 mirrors on spacecraft is considered feasible? Just blow it up.

It's official

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Official Saudi website for fatwas

I only post about this because I like this term:

The situation at present, he said, was fatwa chaos, with Muslim scholars issuing rulings that clash with the official line of the religious establishment, spreading confusion.

Has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

If you can't say something nice, then... ah, forget it

I really wish a certain prominent blogger would stop posting pictures of himself.

Also, I have always thought his attempts at photo essays are terribly dull and indicate he has never read even a magazine article with suggestions on how to take an interesting photo.

(Look, if you can't be bitchy on your own barely read blog every now and again, where can you?)

Bjorn again, again

Bryan Appleyard meets Bjorn Lomborg - Times Online

This is an interview (well, more of profile really) with Bjorn Lomborg. He sounds an interesting character. (Turns out he is gay, which makes the way he upsets Greenies even more satisfying.)

A tale of the young and stupid

The ex files: Andrew Cottam, 27, and Hannah Claydon, 21

I don't know why people volunteer such disclosure about their unhappy past relationships, especially when it is a story like this one.

Andrew tells the story of how, as a 21 year old, he dated a 15 year old. He met her down at the local (underage drinking?) and describes her as:

...an opinionated, self-assured teenager with lots to say. I offered to walk her home and we shared our first kiss on the doorstep. I didn't have any reservations about the age gap because she seemed so mature.

It would seem that a sexual relationship started quickly, with the mature, self-assured 15 year old climbing up to his bedroom and leaving early the next morning. (His parents, having common sense, did not approve of the age difference, or perhaps it was also the fact that what he was doing was probably illegal.)

Of course, it all turned into a nightmare pretty soon when said self-assured girl, after 6 months, couldn't see her boyfriend every night because of work. She became "sulky and argumentative" and insanely jealous. Andrew finally had enough after this incident:

One night, I sneaked out when Hannah was asleep. I chatted to a group of lads in the bar, with no intention of meeting girls. Hannah woke up, realised I'd escaped and went mad. She stormed into the bar, pouring a drink over my head and slapping me in the face.

Relationship ends. How sad.

Of course, I am posting about it because it the blackly funny "told you so" aspect of it all. However, appearing as it does in the women's section of the Observer, I don't know that it will reach the audience to which it might serve as some sort of warning.

Strange science time

I mentioned recently that it seems that the creation of "naked singularities" (without the cloak of a black hole event horizon) at the Large Hadron Collider is considered a possibility. It seems that their creation via the same astrophysical process of gravitational collapse that leads to black holes is still being considered too.

This recent paper looks at the possibility that may account for some of the most powerfully energetic events in the universe. Here's some extracts:

Impulsive cosmic events combine two main puzzling features, namely an extremely short time of emission (order of a second) and a very high energy fluence. The main challenge therefore is to find a unique mechanism which allows at once for both properties.

The most impressive examples of the above type of events are the Gamma Ray Bursts. The total energy emitted can be as high as 1054 ergs, mostly concentrated in a pulse as short as a second. This amount of energy appears much more stunning if we think to it as being the energy emitted in a second-long pulse by 1010 galaxies each made of 1011 Sun-like stars, each emitting at a rate of ∼ 1033 ergs/sec., concentrated in a region probably smaller than a galactic core!

OK, I knew Gamma Ray Bursts were powerful, but that just sounds ridiculous. I wonder how far away from one you have to be in order to stand any chance of survival?

The paper goes on to explain that naked singularities comprise a Cosmic Time Machine, which, if I understand it correctly, can beam out huge amounts of energy from the the past and future. The author believes that these may account for some (all?) Gamma Ray Bursts.

Still, there seems to be a limit on how long the burst can last (luckily!):

Evidently the longer a naked singularity lasts as such the more luminous will be the burst because longer is the future development which will be ”compressed” by the time inversion and therefore more are the photons which will contribute to the prompt emission. This mechanism may lead to undesirable bursts of infinite intensity! Naked singularities however appear to prevent this circumstance. It is well established that a naked singularity decays to a black hole.

For the possibility of naked singularities being created right here on Earth, maybe late next year at the LHC, go see the paper extracted at my previous post here.

I presume that astrophysical naked singularities may be very, very different from the ones formed at the LHC, but as I said in my last post, it would be nice to see the possible consequences of having then in Europe clearly addressed.

The X ray bag

Found over at Red Ferret Journal, try taking this bag on board your next flight, especially if it's to the USA:


As the witty guy who writes for RFJ says:

The X-Ray Bag is guaranteed to raise a chuckle at the airport security line, oh yes. They’ll be laughing and smiling and pointing you out as a really interesting and funny person. Heck, they may even invite you home to meet the family when you get back from your trip. Or you’ve paid the bail money. Either way, it’s a wonderful way to meet people and make new friends.

A very unlucky person

Paintball Accident Made Him a Widower, and Then a Crusader - New York Times

In 2004, a husband and wife took their 10 year old son to a paintball park, but then this happened:

A 14-year-old player inadvertently detached a valve, launching his gun’s carbon-dioxide-filled cylinder as an unguided missile. It struck Ms. Contois, who was watching from a picnic area off the field, in the back of the head. She never regained consciousness, and died at the scene.

It is hard to credit just how unlucky she would have to be to die that way.

The Eddie Elephant in the Room (a TV rant)

So, Channel 9's new TV boss David Gyngell thinks that putting back Eddie McGuire into a super rich, super long, version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a good idea?

Funny, I seem to recall that when the show used to offer a paltry million bucks, it was dragged out from 60 to about 80 minutes most nights. A $5 million prize will likely mean a purported 80 minutes ends in 120 minutes. Why not just say it will be three hours then let it run right through to Today?

Although "Millionaire" maybe used to rate well enough, I have a general theory that Channel 9's problems really began when Eddie started appearing more on screen (not just when he tried his hand at management.)

I have always found him an unappealing screen personality who gives me the strong impression that he is likely a jerk in real life too. The impression was reinforced when I read in a review of "Who Killed Channel 9" that his sophisticated sense of humour included this:

When the producers walked into McGuire's office, according to Cress' diary, "Eddie is standing with his back to us, feet splayed apart and his hands firmly on the desk. 'From what I've heard about you guys, I guess I'm going to have to assume the position' ".

Cress comments: "I always suspect that someone who begins a business meeting trying to put you at ease with a man-joke is probably leading up to something less funny."

Anyway, everyone knows how Gyngell could revive Channel 9. Everyone.

Here's the new promo: Channel 9: The One that Won't Stuff You Around

Yes indeed, absolutely everyone knows that the crucial problem with most commercial television in Australia for the last, I don't know, 5 or more years, is that they decided to STUFF EVERYONE AROUND.

Do I need to spell it out? How many series are now run from episode 1 to even episode 10 without a 2, 3 or 4 week hiatus (possibly more than one,) during which there may or may not be old episodes from the same series 3 years ago, as well as at least one a change in the time-slot. (And that may be from sometime vaguely reasonable to something completely unreasonable.)

And how about this for another radical idea: programming will follow age appropriate times. I'm not talking MA shows after 8.30 pm either. No, the most astoundingly puzzling programming I have seen for years is the two English antique shows (Bargain Hunt and Antiques Roadshow) being shown on Nine between 5 and 6pm. What the hell? This doesn't count as a show with any conceivable general family interest: certainly it would send children running screaming from the room. Has Nine decided that it must help parents by running these moribund shows so as to convince primary schoolers they can then do their homework before dinner at 6? And the people in retirement villages who may want to watch it are probably in the dining room eating at 5.30 anyway.

All Gyngell has to do, apart from "boning" McGuire permanently, is to announce that, of all the commercial TV in Australia, Channel 9 will be the only one now to show series for a full, continuous season, with no weeks of interrupting repeats, and a guarantee of (at most, and only if it is truly deserved) one timeslot change per show per year.

(And Antiques Roadshow will not be shown, but a special DVD set will be send to the half dozen people who have been watching it.)