Political commentary of the day

Both Paul Sheehan's and Glenn Milne's commentaries today are worth reading.

Meanwhile, Newspoll probably confirms that last week wasn't great for Howard. (My feeling about the concentration on Howard's "sorry is not an apology" is that it a result of the distorting media filter that Milne talks about - in the sense that it was only a very small part of a long media engagement. I guess Latham could claim the same about that handshake, come to think of it.)

It's true that the Coalition has had trouble finding the overarching, pithy, punchy theme for its campaign: "Don't vote for a twerp" mustn't have passed muster at the focus groups. But given where they are in the polls, I'd give it a try if I were campaign manager. Labor has spent 10 years calling John Howard much worse.

I might need to restrict posting to evenings this week, if I can. During the day I will be learning how to use a backhoe to dig the underground bunker in the back yard where the family and I will live for the next three years after election night. Just to be safe, I'll also ready some pits for the spiked mantraps that may be helpful to keep the re-possessing banks and homeless, workless neighbours at bay. (If a vote 55% TPP happens, it'll be two terms of the Rudd at least, unless he's knifed in the back by a member of his own Cabinet. Are the betting agencies taking money on that yet?)

UPDATE: sorry, first version of this referred to Peter Hartcher's column instead of Paul Sheehan's. Been rectified.

The campaign launch: I saw some of it live on TV. Howard gave pretty good delivery, I thought, and his section on Labor's changing opinions was actually pretty sharp and witty.

As for the actual policies: the home ownership savings accounts - will be accused of "me-too-ism", but maybe is the best that could be done in the circumstances. The removal of CGT on homes co-owned by parents and kids struck me as more significant, and well worthwhile.

The other policies: I am waiting to read more detail about them.

Colebatch on interest rates

Will Rudd cut inflation? - Federal Election 2007 News - FederalElection2007

Good to see someone in The Age confirming that Kevin Rudd is really selling a crock when it comes to interest rates. In fact, by Rudd going on about Howard needing to "take responsibility" for higher interest rates, isn't he setting himself up for the same criticism being used against him in 3 years time?

Mark Latham thinks that blaming a "skills crisis" for current interest rates is also "overblown", just as I had suspected. (Although it is a little disturbing to find oneself agreeing with him about anything.)

Don't diss deodorant

Cast Aside Underarm Protection, if You Dare - New York Times

This article argues that deodorants are now overused. Most people, it suggests, probably barely need it at all if they wash once or twice a day.

A lot must depend on the particular bacterial flora that inhabit your body. My father never used deodorant a day in his life, laboured in the summer humidity of Southeast Queensland for a living, and never smelt at all. Sadly, such mysterious immunity from body odour never extended to the rest of the family.

The New York Time article notes that:

Gabrielle Glaser, the author of “The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival,” argues that the phenomenon [ a "fear of dampness and smell"] started in the early 1900s when marketers urged immigrants to eliminate their body odor to become more American.

“If you were new to the country, you wanted to do whatever you could to not offend,” said Ms. Glaser, a former contributor to The New York Times. “During the Depression, the marketing encouraged people to think that they could lessen their anxiety about losing their jobs by making sure that they didn’t stink.

He makes it sound like it was a pure cynical marketing ploy, but who could dispute that reeking of BO might have been a disincentive for employing an immigrant?

Then there is the argument that comes close to suggesting deodorant use is the cause of increased divorce:

“There is experimental evidence in humans to suggest that we may have some mating preference for those who have a different immune system then we do,” Dr. Preti said. “The scent caused by underarm bacteria is part of what signals a different immune system.....From a biological standpoint, deodorants are overused because they can make people seem more attractive than their basic biology.”

Well, sounds vaguely plausible, but most people would take the higher risk of a mating mismatch over sitting next to someone who reeks on the bus.

Emotional Lego

Microtrends: Brickfilms - Times Online

These original Lego films are pretty good.

Trouble

US fears Israeli strike against Iran over latest nuclear claim - Times Online

This seems to be attracting little attention in the Australian media.

Global warming news

Cirrus clouds might not be playing the positive feedback role in global warming that most scientists assumed. (Less of them around may mean a welcome negative feedback.) Possible good news gets the smallest of media attention, though.

Meanwhile, Planktos wants to try more ocean iron fertilization, but are getting threats from environmentalists and criticism from many others.

I don't know, seems to me to be rather hypocritical to be both in a panic about global warming and also oppose full assessment of possible alleviation measures.

Unknown stuff on the way

LHC completes the circle

One day I will get around to tagging all my posts about mini black holes, strangelets, mini time machines and other LHC stuff. In the meantime, feel free to use the blog search feature.

Getting away from it all

Antarctic Team To Install Seismographs, Where 'No Man -- Or Woman -- Has Gone Before'

The team ... will go to remote regions of Antarctica to place seismographs in both east and west Antarctica, to learn about the earth beneath the ice, and glean information about glaciers, mountains and ice streams. The location of their field camp, called AGAP-South, has never been visited by humans before, and the entire region of Antarctica has only been traversed by a Russian team 50 years ago and by a Chinese team last year.

It's good to know there are still places to go where no human footprint has been before. Of course, if I were there I would also be worrying about discovering UFOs under the ice with shape changing aliens on the loose.

Germaine has too much time on her hands

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - art: Why has the world gone pink mad?

Things improve, slowly

A life, stolen - Times Online

This is a long story about the harshness of the British mental health system of the 20th century, and how its repercussions are still felt today.

It does often surprise me to think how different and harsh some attitudes were within very recent times.

In fact, I am also surprised at some cultural differences that still exist. In the area of divorce, for example, it seems that the attitude of some Chinese and (perhaps to a lesser degree?) Japanese is that, in the event of remarriage, the father is better off severing all ties with the children of his first marriage, and each party makes their own completely new life. Perhaps re-establishing some contact with the child as an adult is OK, but the father takes no part in their formative years.

I have seen this happen with someone I know well, and although his character is generally likeable, he accepts without question his family's attitude that he should have no contact with his first child. (In fact, he already had nearly no physical contact, but was in regular communication with her. Now even that has stopped, even though he did see her again for the first time in years before he re-married.)

This strikes me, and I would think most other Australians, as terribly, terribly sad for the child. I would hope that it is a cultural attitude that will slowly die out, but it still seems strong at the moment.

Take your own fire extinguisher

In Russian renaissance, safety takes backseat - International Herald Tribune

From the report:

More than 17,000 people died in fires in 2006 in Russia, nearly 13 for every 100,000 people. This is more than 10 times the rates typical of Western Europe and the United States, according to statistics from Russia's government, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States and the Geneva Association, a Swiss organization that analyzes international fire statistics....

The death toll - hovering this year at about 40 people a day - flows from myriad factors. Among them are aging electrical and heating systems in public housing and rural homes, dilapidated firefighting equipment and widespread violations of safety codes.

High rates of alcoholism and smoking are also factors, fire officials say, because intoxicated people are often unable to escape fires, or inadvertently set them.

More trouble coming

China's economy generates billionaires by the dozen - International Herald Tribune

China has a lot of new billionaires, but there is reason to expect they won't stay that way forever:

Analysts are skeptical about the way China's stocks are valued, particularly those with huge amounts of untradable government shares, like PetroChina. But to the buyers in Shanghai, at least, it dethroned Exxon Mobil as the most valuable company in the world. And by the same criteria, they would consider China Mobile the world's most valuable telecommunications company. ICBC, a state-owned bank that was nearly insolvent a decade ago, is worth more than Citigroup to the speculators.....

But many analysts argue that there is nothing underlying the skyrocketing valuations - or, sometimes, that the companies' obscure finances make it impossible to know. And if the Chinese stock market is a bubble, the new billionaires will disappear as quickly as they rose, since much of their wealth was generated by the stock markets, as well as by the Chinese real estate boom and the Chinese economy, the fastest-growing in the world.

And if you thought the US had inequality in income:

As much as the bounty of billionaires is a source of pride, it is also a potential cause for concern in a nominally communist country. Per capita income in China is less than $1,000 a year.

"One issue is social stability," said Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California. "In Latin America you had such a concentration that revolutionaries wanted to redistribute it."

For Melbourne Cup Day...

A story about horses you many not have heard before (from the History of Psychiatry):

Anthropophagic horses have been described in classical mythology. From a current perspective, two such instances are worth mentioning and describing: Glaucus of Potniae, King of Efyra, and Diomedes, King of Thrace, who were both devoured by their horses. In both cases, the horses' extreme aggression and their subsequent anthropophagic behaviour were attributed to their madness (hippomania) induced by the custom of feeding them with flesh. The current problem of 'mad cow' disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is apparently related to a similar feed pattern. Aggressive behaviour in horses can be triggered by both biological and psychological factors. In the cases cited here, it is rather unlikely that the former were the cause. On the other hand, the multiple abuses imposed on the horses, coupled with people's fantasies and largely unconscious fears (hippophobia), may possibly explain these mythological descriptions of 'horse-monsters'.

These psychiatrist seem to think it is all mythology, but it seems to me just as likely that when a horse bites, it's actually tasting you...

The narrowing

There's not a lot of excitement in the papers about the latest Newspoll, but it's given me a nice warm feeling for the following reasons: at least the polling is going in the right direction; there are enough people (barely) who could still swing it around to the Coalition; and there must be one or two innovative announcements to come from Howard yet.

Seemingly, the voters won't completely blame the Coalition for another interest rate rise, so maybe that won't be as influential on the polls next week as some think. It remains possible that increasingly dire financial shakes that may come overseas in the next fortnight could work in the Coalition's favour.

Ah yes, time for a port and an imaginary cigar. Except I am work and need to stop posting. Bah.

Cosmology news

Even get the feeling cosmology has many more uncertainties in it than the experts like to admit?

It's possible that the universe is 20% lighter than previously thought because of some rubbery interpretation of certain measurements. (Sounds a lot when its mass and density helps determine whether it will ever turn into a "crunch" in future).

There is also a suggestion being made that dark energy may be an artefact of the local bit of the universe we live in. I am sure most cosmologists would be happy to get rid of dark energy as a concept, but no one is really convinced the problem is gone yet.

Maybe they should just stick with it being turtles all the way down.

Another Pebble Bed reactor advantage

Science Show - Uranium supplies underestimated

The Science Show had an interesting interview on the weekend, in which this (new to me) feature of Pebble Bed nuclear reactors was mentioned:

Martin Sevior: The Chinese are pursuing pebble bed reactors and those are about four times as efficient in the use of uranium as light water reactors.

Robyn Williams: Could you explain how the pebble reactors work?

Martin Sevior: The pebble bed reactors basically have...your uranium is embedded in a carbon matrix which serves as the moderator. In a standard nuclear reactor, light water is the moderator. Water is also a very good absorber of neutrons, so carbon is much more efficient in that way, it doesn't absorb neutrons. So you can actually employ less uranium for the same about of power because instead of your neutrons being lost through absorption in water, they can initiate more reactions.

Now, I would still like to know the answer to a question I asked earlier this year: do they need to use much water in their operation? If not, we can forget about the Labor scare campaign of a string of nuclear power plants along the Australian coast.

Loose lips

Another journo backs Price on Garrett's backflips

Well well. Charles Wooley does indeed support the idea that Peter Garrett has been going around giving winks and nods about Labor electoral promises:

"Peter Garrett agreed, he intimated that 'What we say in Opposition might not be what happens in government.'''

The biggest significance of this may be for Garrett's ministerial ambitions. They have receded faster than Peter's hairline.

Got off lightly, it seems

Goat killer forced to make apology

A 26 year old, pretty normal looking woman (go to the link), got up to something rather abnormal in a Brisbane outer suburb last year:

The court was last month told Arnold had been drinking at a Friday the 13th party at Bellbowrie when she and three others decided to conduct a mock satanic ritual.

Documents tendered to the court last month stated the group drove to a property on Moggill Road, Pinjarra Hills and stole the goat, which was grazing at the front of the property.

They then broke into the church, which was under construction but close to opening, and dragged the animal to a raised platform where they slaughtered it.

So far, so bizarre. But was this a completely abnormal bit of behaviour over which she felt deep shame the next day? Seems unlikely:

The goat's head was later found by police in the freezer of Arnold's home, along with a camera containing photos of members of the group with the head.

A newspaper clipping reporting the incident was also found on top of the fridge.

Of course, solicitors sometimes have to put the best spin they can on acts which are very hard to spin:

Arnold's solicitor John Jacob said his client suffered from an alcohol addiction but psychiatric reports indicated she did not have a "macabre predisposition" to commit violent offences.

"There is nothing in Ms Arnold's personal background or her psychological character that makes her any more likely to be involved in offences of this nature," he told the court.

"(But) when she drinks alcohol she makes poor decisions."

Her punishment: 2 years probation, no conviction recorded. Has to consent to psychiatric treatment (although for what it is not clear.)

Warning: all young men in Brisbane looking for a date. Study the photo at the link. Commit it to memory. Remember just how poor her decision making can be.

This has been a public service announcement of Opinion Dominion.

Money and sanity

Recovery From Schizophrenia: An International Perspective.

Apparently, according to a WHO international study, living in poorer countries gives a better chance of recovering from schizophrenia:

Outcome from schizophrenia is routinely better in developing world settings, and this difference becomes apparent during the initial 2 years of illness. But even for developing world patients with a poor early course, outcome is superior to that of developed world patients with an equivalent early course. Employment rates are substantially greater for developing world subjects, and some authors have attributed this to the freedom from the economic disincentives to employment that can accompany the provision of disability benefits in the industrial world (1). The editors, who include a well regarded medical anthropologist, are cautious about attributing the improved developing world outcomes to specific cultural factors. Shantytowns may not be ideal "communities of recovery," they point out, and extended families can be tyrannical as well as supportive. They conclude, however, that family involvement may be a key positive factor. They point to "the extraordinary engagement of Indian families in the course of treatment," (p. 280) coupled with low criticism and reduced demands. They also point to a startling difference in one component of social inclusion. Nearly three-quarters of Indian subjects with schizophrenia were married at follow-up, compared with about one-third of people with the illness in the developed world centers.

How odd.

Reviving polytheism

Bring back the Greek gods - Los Angeles Times

I missed this a couple of weeks ago - the Los Angeles Times runs an article arguing that polytheism makes more sense than monotheism, and suggesting that the modern world would be better off with it.

Yes, I think we should have some type of contest for new, more appropriate gods for the 21 st century.

I would like to take the article to task on several of its suggestions, but have no time right now.