On Obama

There's only so much time to waste in a day, and I have resisted talking about the American Presidential race because I just don't really read that much about it. Not at this stage of the game, anyway.

But I have some impressions about Obama that I may as well share now:

1. There's a certain touch of the Kevin Rudd's about him. Lots of talk about symbolism and changing paths, etc; but pretty empty with clear, concrete policy when you come down to it. It's all to be worked out in the future.

2. Am I the only person who thinks that his political success is about 50% attributable to his voice alone?

3. Some things that raise doubts about his general wisdom: that church, and he was/is a smoker. (Yeah, sorry, but a guy with a family in his forties who still smokes is showing reduced common sense. Tough but true!)

4. His wife looks a little mean to me.

5. I worry that he will be another Jimmy Carter: all well intentioned, but weak when it comes to dealing with difficult nations.

6. He is really going to galvanise the pro-lifers in the campaign if this statement from this article from American Spectator is correct:

And he promises, "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," which would over-turn hundreds of federal and state laws limiting abortion, including the federal ban on partial-birth abortion and bans on public funding of abortion.

7. Apart from youth, the comparisons with John F Kennedy are somewhat off the mark. At least Kennedy had both distinctive military service and 14 years as a federal politician behind him. (Actually, I didn't realise JFK had been in politics for so long before he became President.) That crack that Hilary Clinton made about her experience versus Obama's "one speech" certainly rings very true.

UPDATE:

8. Great gaffe made by Obama about Jerusalem this week. He's really got the trainer wheels on. (How Bush would be slammed by the Democrats if he had said the same thing.)

Every computer should have one

Fake Progress Bar - look busy whenever you want at the press of a button - The Red Ferret Journal

Looks fun

Kung Fu Panda Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

While you are busy ignoring my warnings of ocean-led environmental catastrophe, it looks like you could do worse than take the kids to go see Kung Fu Panda. (Or just take yourself anyway.)

I saw the shorts at Indiana Jones, and thought it looked "nothing special". But the initial reviews from the States (see link above) are generally very positive.

Ocean acidification, continued

Climate change effect on oceans under-estimated: CSIRO - ABC News

From this very short report:

CSIRO marine scientists say the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and scientists worldwide are neglecting the earth's oceans in researching the effects of climate change.

In an article published today in the journal Science, the researchers argue that the effects of climate change on oceans is being underestimated.

Meanwhile, the Hobart Mercury reported recently about a conference there:

CSIRO marine scientist Bronte Tilbrook said what was already known about ocean acidification was troubling.

"Indications are that we will see some fairly significant changes in the ecosystem," Dr Tilbrook said.

"Under the CO₂ emissions scenarios -- and it's the high ones we seem to be tracking at present -- in about 2060 we'll cross a chemical threshold in the Southern Ocean where one form of calcium carbonate will become chemically unstable.

"It's very early days to say there will be a decline in (fishery) production or an increase -- some species will do better, we just don't know if they're going to be of much value for the ecosystem."

And earlier in the report:

The gathering of some of the region's leading climate change experts was told oceans would reach a carbon saturation tipping point within 50 years and nobody knew what might happen then.

Now, as the article makes clear, these problems are going to happen regardless of successful cuts in current CO2, because of the time it takes for the ocean to absorb CO2. So, you could argue that there is not much point in worrying now anyway.

But, go back to my original posts about this for my argument as to why we shouldn't let CO2 creep up towards 1000 ppm.

Pay attention, people.

Unkind cuts

Male circumcision is a weapon in the sperm wars - New Scientist

This article speculates on why circumcision (and more drastic forms of cuts around the genital area) developed at all.

While I had heard about subincision before, I didn't know about crushing a testicle:

In some African and Micronesian cultures, young men have one of their testicles crushed.

And you thought public circumcision would be something to fear as a 12 year old!

Anyway, the article argues that this is all to do with reducing the risk of younger men impregnating older men's wives. This is particularly the case in polygamous societies:

The older men have also gone through the ritual, and seen their own reproductive effectiveness reduced. But if a man with, say, four wives wants to ensure that any children his wives produce are his, there is pressure to make sure other men can't successfully impregnate them.

The husband's own reproductive ability is impaired, but continuous and repeated access to his wives makes up for it, while any genital mutilation is a greater handicap to an interloper trying to sneak brief occasional sex with his wives.

Sounds plausible, but caution is always advised in such matters of evolutionary biology.

(Incidentally, in the all the guff that anti-circumcision groups go on with, do they ever take into account a preference that women may have for circumcised men? As this article indicates, I would assume that circumcised young men have more of an issue with premature ejaculation, which women don't exactly welcome.)

Me, me, me

I got it right the first time | The Australian

Well, it's sort of fun to watch the emotionally needy Paul Keating say "it was me, me, me" again. He does go on about "lost years" of Howard government diplomacy, doesn't he? What exactly does he think Australia could be doing differently in China or Indonesia now if his great and glorious leadership had continued?

Anyhow, it's good to see Labor people being skeptical of any burst of symbolism from Rudd.

Speaking of needy personalties, as if you didn't know, we can add Richard Woolcott to the list:

....the Herald learnt that Mr Rudd's special envoy for the project, the former diplomat Richard Woolcott, found out about the proposal only two hours before it was announced on Wednesday night.

Can't he just develop an interest in fishing, or something?

Prat

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Film Reviews - Film - Entertainment

So, The Age gives us a review of Prince Caspian which is purely based on Philip Pullman-like ideological hatred of CS Lewis. Have a look at this line:

Sometimes critics are accused of reading sinister messages into works of harmless entertainment but that won't wash in the case of Lewis - a fierce polemicist who used fantasy as a platform to rail against everything he disliked in the modern world, including democracy, lipstick and progressive education.

I wouldn't mind betting that Wilson, the author of that "review", is a youngster atheist who has never read Lewis.

You can safely assume that Wilson is on his own planet here: both Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton gave it respectful reviews, and they are both liberal lefties who are uneasy about Christian stuff. (Oh, while you are at At the Movies, you should read the conflicting reviews of Sex and the City. It's pretty funny.)

I'll be off to see this weekend. Then I should go wave protest placards in front of Sex and the City.

Tim Train: I expect you to attend this weekend too. And you had better like it!

Red wine and the fountain of youth

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging - NYTimes.com

A chemical in red wine is being tested for its potential to extend life:

He and others have tested resveratrol’s effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts in red wine. One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

Of course, the morning after a bottle of red, I'm not usually feeling like going out for a run. And how much bottle equivalent of this compound were the mice given?:

....the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

Marathon runners should still hold back on the red the day before, then...

The chickens call her "Kali"

Notes on the urban chicken movement. - By L.E. Leone - Slate Magazine

Ms Leone has chickens at home, and butchers them herself. Her reaction?:

There's a part of me that likes to kill. When I do what I do with a hatchet and a chicken, I feel like crap, and I feel like God. I feel alive and in love and closer than ever to death. So I guess that is, for me, mixed feelings, yes. And the mix itself is welcome and intensely gratifying. In fact, it's almost too much. Too swirly, too soupy. I can tell you that the part of this swirl which seems "good," as opposed to "evil," has absolutely nothing to do with foiling the chicken industry or saving the environment or taking personal responsibility for my role in the food chain. It has to do with getting a little bit bloody and gross, like the complicated, hungry animal that I am.

I dunno: if I were Mr Leone (if he exists,) I'd be a feeling a little nervous after reading that description.

More on French annulments

Fake virgin ruling sparks storm in French parliament - ABC News

As I noted a few days ago, the French law regarding annulment of marriage sounds very peculiar to Australian ears. This article gives some examples of what the courts there have found to be "an error about the person or the essential qualities of the person":

....marriages have been annulled for reasons such as impotence, if a partner does not reveal a previous marriage or a child, or if the wife hides the fact that she had been a prostitute.

Very odd. These sort of factors are (apart from impotence) of a moral nature, and as such might be relevant to church law. But in a secular state, why not just let divorce deal with the issue of unhappiness with what might be called "inadequate disclosure" by the spouse, instead of pretending a valid marriage never took place?

My new retirement plan

Despite free land, no cry of northward ho in Japan - International Herald Tribune

Let's all sing now: (to the tune of "North to Alaska"):

"North, to Hokkaido, a-go north, the rush is on

Way up North, (North to Hokkaido)
Way up North, (North to Hokkaido)
etc"

Actually, I thought the words to that song were different, but I haven't heard it for decades. (And perhaps some of my younger readers will never have heard it.)

Here's an added bonus: with global warming, the weather will probably be nice on the (currently very snowy) Hokkaido within 30 years.

I'm seeing glasses half full today.

The International Herald Tribunal also ran an article last week suggesting that Japan had pretty reasonable prices for real estate now. I had a quick look around some websites, but it's hard to tell. Certainly, you can't beat the interest rates for mortgages:

Fixed interest rates for terms of more than 10 years can be as low as 2 percent at leading Japanese banks, with average rates standing around 3 percent. At GE Consumer Finance, interest rates vary depending on customers' credit profiles, but the top rate now is 4.6 percent.

Now, if only they will have people to run the country in 40 years time, everything would be fine.

Food needed

Rich nations must drop 'beggar thy neighour policies', says UN chief | Environment | guardian.co.uk

An interesting report here on the UN food summit:

Trade barriers should be lowered and export bans removed to stop the spread of hunger, the UN said at its summit on the global food crisis today, as its secretary-general Ban Ki-moon declared world food production must rise by 50% by 2030.

The decision that there is a crisis seems to have come on awfully quickly. Still:

Food prices have risen 83% in the last three years, according to the World Bank. It is also estimated that soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger.

The director-general of the UN's Food And Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, said wealthy nations had spent billions of dollars on farm subsidies and wasteful food consumption.

But of course it can't be a UN conference without some stupidity amongst delegates. The most spectacular example here is, of course, Robert Mugabe:

Speaking this afternoon at the summit, Mugabe defended his policy of seizing land from white farmers by saying he was undoing a legacy left by Zimbabwe's former colonial "masters".

He blamed international sanctions for many of Zimbabwe's problems and said his own policies have been "warmly welcomed" by his people.

"Over the past decade, Zimbabwe has democratised the land ownership patterns in the country, with over 300,000 previously landless families now proud landowners," he said.

Well, proud landowners who don't know how to farm it. Still, having a really, really big backyard for the kids to play in while they lose weight must make them feel good.

But some sense was spoken:

The foreign office minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, Mark Malloch Brown, said Mugabe's attendance was "like inviting Pol Pot to a human rights conference".

He said: "Zimbabwe is one of the few countries whose food crisis is not due to climate change or global prices, but due to the disastrous policies pursued by Mugabe."

Just one idiot speech is never enough for the UN. I didn't realise before, but Ahmadinejad turned up too. Guess whose fault he thinks it is:

...the appearance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prompted distraction after the Iranian leader attacked Israel.

"European peoples have been most hurt by the Zionists, and today the economic and political costs of this false regime are on the shoulders of Europe,'' he said.

I suppose the Hidden Imam will work it all out, when he arrives any day now.

UPDATE: here's a couple of articles at Online Opinion talking about the international problem.

The darkness

After Years of Effort, Dark Energy Still Puzzles Scientists - NYTimes.com

Here's a pretty good article about the puzzle of dark energy.

Those carbon eating trees

There's been a lot of attention given to Freeman Dyson's article in the New York Review of Books about global warming and its possible solutions.

As a writer, he does have an usually clear and succinct style, which makes the article a pleasure to read.

His discussion about the issue of discounting is a very helpful and useful contribution to debate, I think.

But the second major aspect of the review, in which he expresses confidence that the answer to excessive CO2 will be genetically engineered super trees, hardly seems something that we should make plans around. As some people have said, we're all still waiting for our rocketbelts, household robot servants and a cure for cancer and the common cold. The best predictions of practical applications of new-ish technology can be way off the mark.

Over at Real Climate there is criticism of his views both in regard to discounting and the genetically engineered solution. There are also hundreds of comments following the post arguing in each direction.

It's all interesting reading. Not a mention of ocean acidification though, although presumably Dyson would say that the trees will be the prompt answer to that too.

More Indian crime files

Wife poisons husband to death-Patna-Cities-The Times of India

More amusing choice of words from the loveable Times of India:

According to reports, wife Shobha Devi allegedly poisoned her husband in their house because he had come to know that something was brewing between her and a village guy, Dinesh Yadav.

I really should get back to work...

but in the meantime, have a look at some photos of some very cool buildings by a Japanese architect:

JAPAN-PHOTO | MODERN ARCHITECTURE | WATANABE MAKOTO SEI

I am particularly keen on the Aoyama Technical College, which looks from some angles like the top half of a giant robot.

Here are some much clearer photos of it.

Mahmoud's mouth just won't stop

Ahmadinejad: 'Israel soon to disappear.' | Jerusalem Post

You would think that he might tone down the rhetoric just a little, given that he has most of the world worrying about whether he's developing nuclear weapons. But no, Mahmoud keeps up the threatening language.

By the way, last week Phillip Adams interviewed an Iranian journalist who has written a biography of Ahmadinejad. In the introduction, Adams said:

After his suprise election as President of Iran in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quickly passed into caricature in the Western media - mocked as a diminutive blacksmith's son with a beaming grin, and demonised as an apocalyptic visionary who denies the Holocaust and seems intent on playing a game of nuclear 'chicken' with the US.

Who is Ahmadinejad really? And how much of a threat does he pose to his country and the rest of the world?

The funny thing is, I think it's fair to say that the journalist did nothing to indicate that he had been "caricatured" at all, and painted a picture of a potentially very dangerous, naive man too certain of his fundamentalist belief that he will hand over to the Hidden Imam.

Adams' cynical introduction, implying the unfairness of Western views of the man, were not vindicated.

Unfortunately, they don't do transcripts of Late Night Live, but if you have time to listen to it, the audio of the interview (at the previous link) is well worth it.

UFOs of the outback

An elderly couple in the Northern Territory say they were buzzed in their car by a "dark silvery" UFO. It's an interesting report, because it is said to have happened at 4pm, which rules out a lot of possible explanations (fireballs, etc) if it had happened at night.

No air force activity up there at the moment? An F111 using terrain following radar would fit the bill.

A good idea

Mile-high urinals | Gulliver | Economist.com

Possibly, we will see urinals in Airbus planes.

They have them in Shinkansen (the "bullet trains") in Japan, and I would have thought that women would appreciate the cleaner sit down toilets that they would leave.

Toxoplasma spreads out

The world's most successful bug hits dolphins - life - 02 June 2008 - New Scientist

Don't you hate toxoplasma gondii? It's everywhere on land, and now increasing evidence that it is spreading to marine mammals. Given that there is some evidence that infection affects human personality, I hope the dolphins don't start attacking swimmers any time soon.

Not only that, they may accumulate in oysters and mussels!

You mean my fondness for well-done meat, and never having a pet cat, is still not going to protect me ?

I think this calls for drastic measures. Outlawing pet cats may be a start.