Donations for art lessons always welcome...

Cancel the anti-depressants?

Newspoll predicts a cliffhanger | The Courier-Mail

One reason to be against a massive win for Labor is purely for entertainment value.

Especially with daylight saving, it can be very annoying to have the beer, a bowl of popcorn and remote control at the ready to channel surf the election coverage, only to find out it has been virtually decided by 7pm Brisbane time.

No, I don't like anyone calling it until 10.30 at the earliest.

We need a law to maximise the entertainment value of election nights: elections should only be held outside of daylight savings periods.

Under darkening skies

Business confidence plunges on election uncertainty - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Like the dramatic post title? Expect more from here over the weekend. I expect to be unhappy.

Annabel's fun column

Such a cute little piglet but then things get curly - Opinion - smh.com.au

Annabel Crabbe does a fine, funny column again today.

And at last, rather than Kevin Rudd's "ping" ad annoying me, I see Fairfax websites today are being blitzed by Liberal ads which are so bluntly negative they make me smile.

Jackie's fine legacy

There must be a case to be made that Jackie Kelly was the luckiest Howard government politician ever. The surprise delivery of an "aspirational" seat to the PM, surviving the challenge and second poll, being made sports Minister for the Olympics as a reward: just the ridiculous luck of running for the right seat at the right time.

But her success made me very cynical about what it takes to be a successful politician in our democracy.

You see, how do I put this politely: based on some past experience with her, I always took the view that she was the ultimate example of the triumph of style over substance.

For all I know, she was a good local member. I don't think it takes much to do that if you have good staff, go to lots of local meetings and actually help some constituents with personal problems. All politicians work hard in terms of the time they have to put in. But a Minister? Bah.

Anyway, I find it funny (in a schadenfreude sort of way) that this current Muslim leaflet debacle has involvement from her own home (her husband). If Howard loses, what a weird set of bookends to his government Jackie will have made.

I should have emailed Howard with a warning when she won her seat. (Although I am not even sure I had an email account way back then!)

UPDATE: a perhaps even more damaging claim from the past by a Liberal about Jackie Kelly.
And she is being completely ridiculed by every commentator in the land for her performance on the media this morning. Schadenfreude overload!

Having said that: of course this doesn't make me change my vote. I wish the examples of famous Labor dirty tricks at the electorate level would come to mind, but I am sure they are there. I thought the Libs were looking at losing Lindsay anyway.

Good point

Rudd reckons it would have been easy being Howard

A pithy and accurate post by Andrew Bolt, even though I still blame him for much of the Coalition's problems in this election.

Red Kerry

I say there is no way anyone can credibly deny that Kerry O'Brien's approach to interviewing Rudd tonight was (yet again) less aggressive, softer and more forgiving of avoidance than his approach with Howard the night before. (Even though I thought Kerry's thanks to Howard at the end did show a degree of respect.)

For whatever reason, there has been little criticism of ABC bias in this campaign, but it's been there. The only thing I take comfort in is that even an ABC journalist like Barry Cassidy can find Rudd's tactics annoying.

Keeping Deveny happy

Australians have a chance to prove they're not all that bad - Opinion

Catherine Deveny has a column condemning one half of Australia for daring to have voted Coalition in the last few elections. It's truly eye-rolling stuff.

It's so easy to ridicule, I can't be bothered.

I will just make the point that she typifies what I have said for many years: those who support the Coalition generally think that people intending to vote Labor are simply unwise. A significant chunk of Labor supporters, on the other hand, think that those who vote for the Coalition are insanely stupid and morally depraved.

Life lessons from the Duke

Like the Duke, just get on with it | Libby Purves - Times Online

Libby Purves thinks we can learn something from the attitude of Duke of Edinburgh. (Stop second guessing what could have been, and just get on with life.)

Not a bad attitude.

Tony Abbot made similar sense when he recently made the point that in times of strong employment, unhappy employees are generally better off just getting a new job elsewhere rather than seeking to punish their boss through litigation. (Of course, there are extreme cases where bosses should be pursued, but the great majority of unfair dismissal cases are not like this, I feel sure.)

I have personally seen an unfair dismissal case which followed what I suspect to be the typical pattern for small businesses:

1. young employee claims boss said "X",
2. young employee with parental encouragement and free legal assistance starts action in State Industrial Relations system;
3. at first "mediation" at the tribunal, boss strongly denies she would ever say that to anyone, and it was not the reason for ending employment anyway;
4. being honest, boss admits she did not take notes of the disputed conversation at the time. (She didn't know what was going to be alleged at that time, after all)
5. industrial relation commissioner rolls her eyes at how silly it was for boss to not have written down such details immediately;
6. boss pays employee "go away money".

Expect more of this again if Federal Labor gets in.

Parents who encourage their adult children to take such action have always bothered me. There was a much worse case I also had some involvement with years ago, where the employee performed a patently stupid and dangerous prank which resulted in physical, possibly permanent, injury to another employee. Disciplinary proceedings ensued, employee admitted he was guilty and was duly punished. Afterwards, his parents became involved in a protracted complaint about how his whole career had been mismanaged by the service. I couldn't believe it. He was (as I recall) in his early to mid-twenties, and still he has parents who are fighting his battles for him. (They made it pretty clear that they figured that his dangerous act of stupidity was somehow caused by boredom due to his career mismanagement.)

Parents with such attitudes drive me crazy. Be like the Duke. Take personal responsibility. Move forward. And encourage your children to do the same.

Surge works (cross fingers)

Good news from Iraq. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine

Hitchens summarises some of the positive reporting coming out of Iraq at the moment. When both the New York Times and the BBC carry reports like this, you know it's not just wishful right wing thinking.

Of course, a city with 5 dead bodies a day still turning up, and 16 suicide bombings a month, it is not exactly ready to start taking tourists yet. But compared to where it was...

More research definitely needed

Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon Dioxide

This story on the possible role of plankton in helping the oceans absorb more CO2 contains this surprising statement:

The world oceans are by far the largest sink of anthropogenic CO₂ on our planet. Until now, they have swallowed almost half of the CO₂ emitted through the burning of fossil fuels. However, can the oceans continue to alleviate the steady rise in atmospheric CO₂ in the future? Current models for the development of the global climate system do not incorporate the reaction of marine organisms nor the processes that they influence.

I would have thought that such models would at least have made some guesstimates about this, but it doesn't sound like it.

The experiment this team showed that plankton did respond strongly to more CO2 dissolved in the ocean:

“We expected the organisms to show distinct reactions to changing CO₂ conditions. What really surprised us, however, was the dimension of this effect. Basically, we can now say that the biology in the oceans is significantly affecting the global climate system.”

The downside is that more plankton sinking and decaying into the ocean might cause less oxygen at greater depth.

Still, it is somewhat surprising how preliminary the experimental research on this important area seems to be.

Image

Howard and Costello in TV love fest - Federal Election 2007 News - theage.com.au

Michelle Gratton goes too far in her scathing assessment of Howard's and Costello's joint interview last night, saying they don't even "respect" each other. Despite Costello's frustration at waiting for the top job, I think it's pretty clear that have always managed to work together, and "respect" is surely a part of being able to do that.

I don't see her spending much time on the past relationship of Rudd, Swan and Gillard.

At News Limited, George Megalogenis makes some fair criticism of Rudd's playing to the young audience. George's commentary has always been pretty fair and balanced, I think.

John Laws seems to be sitting solidly on the fence about this election, but given his decreased ratings, I'm not sure that he is seen as all that influential now anyway. What's Alan Jones been rabbiting on about in Sydney, I wonder...

The Age meanwhile, tries to revive the Iraqi wheatboard scandal, with the dishonest headline "Downer "knew" about AWB kickbacks". You've got to read the story to see that this claim is based on a former Austrade director who feels certain (but seemingly without any direct knowledge) that there must have been cables to Downer about a meeting he went to. The current Austrade is quoted as simply denying there were any such cables about that meeting, and, well, that should be the end of that, shouldn't it? Not for the editors of The Age it isn't.

The only thing to look forward to if Rudd wins is that he is clearly not left enough for The Age, and will start coping criticism of that nature soon enough.

Unpleasant lives

Observer review: Bad Faith by Carmen Callil

I'm about a third of the way through this book, which is a very detailed biography of Louis Darquier, an appalling Frenchman who ended up working in the Vichy government as "Commissioner for Jewish Affairs" and was responsible for the deportation of thousands of French Jews to Auschwitz.

There are quite a few things in the book which I did not know about France and Europe between the wars. For example, as a small time wannabe politician and general rabble rouser in Paris in the mid 1930's, Darquier started making anti-Semitic statements, and immediately found himself the beneficiary of Nazi money.

I hadn't realised that the Nazis at that point in time were quite so obsessed with the "Jewish problem" that they were not only setting up for the "solution" in their own country, but were also going out of their way to support anti-Semitism anywhere it popped up in Europe.

Darquier seems to have turned into an anti-Semite in 1935, and it appears to have had the unexpected consequence of ending his financial problems. He and his wife had, for years before that, spent most of their time moving from hotel to hotel to avoid paying their huge bar and food bills, while he tried (unsuccessfully) to become a novelist and journalist. They sponged off his brother for financial support.

Then, put onto the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" by some French nationalist quasi-intellectuals of his acquaintance, his problems were solved. I do not quite understand why the thorough debunking the Protocols had received in the early 1920's in England just didn't catch on in Germany, or much of Europe.

The odd Australian connection to the story is that Darquier's wife was an Australian woman from Tasmania. She also became a hopeless drunk, a financial leech on her husband's family (even though they couldn't stand her) and a mother who completely abandoned her only daughter to a nanny in England, who often went unpaid for her efforts as well.

Oddly, even though it is very well written (save for one exaggeration I reckon she makes about Tasmania), and seems to have received plenty of favourable reviews in England and America, I found it for sale here in a 'remaindered' book shop for $10. Occasionally (very occasionally) you can come up with high quality reading in such shops.

If you enjoy true life stories of extremely unpleasant people, I can recommend this book.

The eternal entry ticket

Woman seen scattering ashes at Disneyland- Travel - LATimes.com

Odd story from last week I had missed.

Panpsychism discussed

Mind of a Rock - New York Times

A pretty good read from Jim Holt here about panpsychism, which he describes as the following hypothesis:

Perhaps, they say, mind is not limited to the brains of some animals. Perhaps it is ubiquitous, present in every bit of matter, all the way up to galaxies, all the way down to electrons and neutrinos, not excluding medium-size things like a glass of water or a potted plant. Moreover, it did not suddenly arise when some physical particles on a certain planet chanced to come into the right configuration; rather, there has been consciousness in the cosmos from the very beginning of time.

It's a cute idea, but I didn't think it had much current support. Not so, apparently:

The Australian philosopher David Chalmers and the Oxford physicist Roger Penrose have spoken on its behalf. In the recent book “Consciousness and Its Place in Nature,” the British philosopher Galen Strawson defends panpsychism against numerous critics.

I didn't think that Roger Penrose's controversial ideas on mind could quite be described this way.

Here's a review of another book defending it.

I know that Augustine rejected pantheism, but am not entirely sure whether panpsychism has ever really attracted that much attention by famous Christian theologians. (Maybe it has simply been dismissed as too improbable to consider.)

Kind of interesting, anyway.

Why change now?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran eyes nuclear options abroad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to discuss with Arab nations a plan to enrich uranium outside the region in a neutral country such as Switzerland.

He made the announcement in an interview for Dow Jones Newswires in Saudi Arabia where he is attending a petroleum exporters' summit.

Gulf Arab states recently proposed setting up a consortium to provide nuclear fuel to Iran and others.

Hadn't Russia offered to do this for Iran ages ago? What is causing Iran to suddenly find it something worth talking about?

Something to make Brisbane proud

Yes, Brisbane can come up with deadly and innovative weapons with the best of them:

Metal Storm reaches Navy test range

I either didn't realise, or had forgotten, that the Metal Storm company, which has been busy developing uber guns, is based in Brisbane. One of their systems is being tested by the US Navy now, as (from memory) one of its proposed uses would be for ships to spray a defensive curtain of metal against incoming missiles.

The Metal Storm website has lots and lots of information, with photos and videos of their systems, and indeed the company appears to be a very significant enterprise. Yet, according to the CEO's latest bulletin, despite all the international interest, they are disappointed in the current share price.

If only I had a stockbroker.

Cuckoo

Daddy dearest: Many men are finding out they are not the father after all

The paternity testing industry is finding itself much more popular:

Almost a quarter of paternity tests conducted by one of Australia's largest DNA laboratory companies show the man submitting a sample is not the father, compared to an estimated one in 10 "exclusions" 10 years ago.

The number of tests taken in Australia has doubled from 3000 in 2003 to more than 6000 last year.

As a result, at least one men's rights groups is suggesting compulsory paternity testing at birth. Just how many surprises this would reveal seems pretty unclear:

Some experts say the proportion of negative paternity tests reflects the fact that the men coming forward already have reasonable doubts, and that of the entire population, only 1 per cent of fathers are not the "real" parent.

The men's rights group are opposed by feminists who see this just as men seeking to punish their unfaithful partners. But the men's rights argument has this very plausible strand:

"People's lives are being ruined by this. It is not just the men, it's the children who grow up thinking one person is their father and then find out it's someone else.

"In the future, more and more health treatments are going to be based on genetic technology, so it is going to be even more important to know who your biological father is.

"Mandatory testing would get rid of all these problems."

Indeed, it seems the modern push to allow for re-union with fathers for those conceived with anonymous donor sperm has often cited the importance of a child being able to know their genetic inheritance.

The other thing to consider is that testing may mean that for every purported father happy with the result, there is likely to be a previously undisclosed father who is unhappy. Feminists can't really argue then that the men as a group are going to the winners of compulsory testing.

Of course, there would be some cases where a father accepts that a baby may not be his and his happy to treat it as his own anyway.

How about a compromise system then: compulsory testing unless both of the parents sign forms confirming they do not want it. By doing so, the father would accept financial responsibility for the child forever, regardless of whether later testing reveals he is not the father. The later testing would be available for the child's benefit in the event of separation.

In fact, in a post last year I had nearly forgotten about, I had suggested compulsory paternity testing at separation of the parents. This has some good arguments going for it too.

But if the priority is going to switch to children having a right to know their true genetic inheritance, then switching the system to one of testing at birth would be more important.

Every UFO should have one

Technology Review: Stopping Cars with Radiation

Anyone familiar with the history of UFO's (or even those who recall a key scene in Close Encounters,) will probably think of the possible flying saucer connection when they first see this story:

Researchers at Eureka Aerospace are turning a fictional concept from the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious into reality: they're creating an electromagnetic system that can quickly bring a vehicle to a stop. The system, which can be attached to an automobile or aircraft carrier, sends out pulses of microwave radiation to disable the microprocessors that control the central engine functions in a car. Such a device could be used by law enforcement to stop fleeing and noncooperative vehicles at security checkpoints, or as perimeter protection for military bases, communication centers, and oil platforms in the open seas.

The system has been tested on a variety of stationary vehicles and could be ready for deployment in automobiles within 18 months...

Unfortunately, though, it is not believed to be the ready explanation for UFO car stalling stories from the 1960's:

The radiated microwave energy will upset or damage the vehicle's electronic systems, particularly the microprocessors that control important engine functions, such as the ignition control, the fuel injector, and the fuel-pump control. However, electronic control modules were not built into most cars until 1972, hence the system will not work on automobiles made before that year.

As this article shows, car interference cases really kicked off in the 1950's, and in fact my strong impression is that such reports have become much less frequent since the late 70's despite Close Encounters' popularity. (Clearly, though, that movie may have been very influential at the subconscious level with respect to the popularity of alien abduction claims in the 1980's.)

The Condon Report notes that lab tests were done in the 60's to see if a strong magnetic field could stall a car, and the results indicated this was not a plausible explanation. However, whether tests were ever done on the effects of strong microwaves on the cars of the day is something I don't know. Maybe everyone is assuming it will only work on microprocessors in modern cars, but are we sure?

It will be the youngster's fault

Rudd's youth appeal trumps PM | The Australian

There's a lot of talk in The Australian this morning about how Kevin Rudd's appeal to the under 35's will be the main source of his likely triumph.

Yes, the demographic that values idealism more than practical results on the ground, and does not (for the most part) yet have children at school, or mortgages, is about to hand government to Kevin Rudd.

Oh well, you have to let youngsters learn by experience, I suppose, even if we know it will all end in tears.