Fiddling

As you can see, a process of fiddling with my template has begun. I think I can go back to the old one if I want to.

I don't like HTML.

Blowhard

Ferguson 'an effective blowtorch', says Caltex boss

This would have to be one of the most unusually phrased compliments a politician has ever received:

However Caltex chief Des King has defended the Minister, saying Mr Ferguson may have made his case behind closed doors.

"I met with [Mr Ferguson] personally many times, and he can be a very effective blowtorch," he said.

Christian China?

Late Night Live - 19June2008 - John Micklethwait: The Economist and globalisation

While we're gazing into the future, I only caught a bit at the end of the interview that you can hear at the above link.

John Mickethwait said that he had been in China recently, and the home church movement was massive. He expects that by (I think) the middle of this century, China could have the largest number of Christians of any nation.

I think I am recalling the details correctly. Phillip Adams was surprised at this suggestion, as was I.

Dooming men to unhappiness

Indian girl-boy ratios at 'all-time low': British charity

This article talks about the continuing massive disproportion of boys to girls in India. (All due to gender selection in abortions.)

It's hard to imagine that in 20 years time the current crop of boys are going to sanguine about this, when there will clearly be huge numbers of them simply incapable of finding a wife (or even girlfriend.)

The things you can buy on the internet today...

Ready, steady, grow: athletes turn to Viagra - Times Online

Athletes may be using Viagra as an on field performance enhancing drug:

Experts believe that Viagra, which dilates blood vessels, could help in events requiring explosive power, such as sprinting. Others suggest it could help endurance – not so much marathon sex sessions as marathon running – particularly at high altitude or in polluted conditions, such as those expected at the Beijing Olympics. The drug is believed to aid the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to muscles.

How close in time to the race do they have to take it? And has there yet been a case where a guy who has taken it has had problems with the unintended side effect? It's not actually banned right now, by the way.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, British officials are taking action to prevent athletes fooling dope testers by using false penises when giving urine samples. The penises, and untainted urine, are widely available on the internet.

Ah, the old false penis full of clean urine in the underpants trick. How to fight this:

Doping control officers have been given strict guidelines that athletes must be observed and their bodies visible from the stomach to the knees when they produce urine specimens.

I assume that paruresis can be a career threatening condition for athletes.

For those curious about the "readily available" fake urine test penis kits, you might be amused by the comments about the new and improved "Whizzinator" here, but the photo of the product makes it NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK. Here's a section:

By implementing a hidden internal check-valve, the act of urination is so realistic that even a direct observer will not be able to detect that it is in-fact simulated. There is no fumbling around with obvious switches or clamps. This eliminates a big problem associated with the original Whizzinator which has an on/off switch that is very audible and very obvious!

Hydrogen car scepticism

Technology Review: Blogs: The Last Car You Would Ever Buy--Literally

Sounds like some pretty good arguments being put in that post about why hydrogen fuelled cars of any variety are not a good idea.

Chick lit from Saudi Arabia

Sex and the Saudi girl - Times Online

Here's an interesting story on a 25 year Saudi author who has written Arabic version of "chick lit". This section is a little surprising:

When her book hits the shelves in Britain this week, western readers will get a peek at what’s going on behind the veils and under the burqas. Disappointingly, the scenes are not too dissimilar to a western hen party: bitching, belly dancing and gossiping about men. The atmosphere seems far from warm and sisterly. Girls obsess about bodies and eye each others’ “front bumpers” and “back bumpers” with envy.

You’d think that one advantage of being forced to cover up in public would be a freedom from a looks-fixated culture. Yet these women want nose jobs, they want liposuction, they want gym-honed booties and are highly competitive with it. In modern Riyadh it seems that hell isn’t other people, hell is other women.

“Women want to look good for themselves, not just for men,” says Alsanea. “All women show off to one another and like wearing designer clothes. I’m not showing a whole new world. In a lot of respects Saudi women are just like everyone else.”

The glowing pony, and other physics news

'Abundant health from radioactive waste' - physicsworld.com

Physics World notes a recent paper prompting radiation hormesis (the idea, supported by at least some studies, that exposure to just the right low levels of radiation is actually good for you.)

The paper comes up with some novel suggestions:

In his paper, Luckey goes so far as to suggest that schools be built "in used nuclear power plants", and children be given sculptures that are impregnated with nuclear waste to boost their exposure to radiation (and their health). He does caution, "However, children should not ride [sculptures of] radioactive ponies for more than a few minutes every day".

Yet another reason to go nuclear!

Also on the Physics World blog, they have an update on the suspiciously under-reported recent Japanese demonstration of what might be a form of cold fusion, and an article pointing out that Canada is building another couple of nuclear reactors.

We seem to be slipping well behind the technology stakes when even Canada has more of a nuclear industry than us.

Bad review news

Wow. Mike Myer's new movie, The Love Guru, is getting some really savage reviews. Dana Stevens at Slate has a pretty good opening paragraph:

There are good movies. There are bad movies. There are movies so bad they're good (though, strangely, not the reverse). And once in a while there is a movie so bad that it takes you to a place beyond good and evil and abandons you there, shivering and alone. Watching The Love Guru (Paramount Pictures) is a spiritual experience of a sort, but not the sort that its creator and star, Mike Myers, intended. This tale of a guru who brings joy to all who meet him is the most joy-draining 88 minutes I've ever spent outside a hospital waiting room. In the course of those long minutes, Myers leads you on a journey deep inside himself, to the source from whence his comedy springs—and it's about as much fun as a tour of someone's large intestine.

The Happening has received reviews nearly as bad. How does M Night Shyamalan keep getting funding for his films (and big movie stars to appear in them?)

Both he and Myers show what can happen when creative control is centred for too long in one person.

Conservatives go Prius

Roger L. Simon: I did the Prius thing

Conservative climate change agnostic Roger Simon got himself a Prius recently. When you read the comments, you'll see that the car seems to have quite a following amongst his conservative-ish readers.

I'm a little surprised: more than one says that they have found best fuel efficiency on long highway drives. I thought that was were they were known to be at their worst, but these are actual drivers who have the experience.

I see that the Toyota Australian website claims a Prius gets 4.4L/100km.

Tim Blair recently was talking up the diesel sipping Hyundai he took for a spin, but you would have to take into account that diesel is more expensive here than unleaded. In terms of cost, I suspect the Prius may still come out on top for a similar trip.

Nice one, Phil

Two women found guilty over euthanasia | NEWS.com.au

So, a couple of women who supplied a fatal dose of Nembutal to a man who had moderate-to-advanced Alzheimer's disease have been found guilty of manslaughter.

(How could it be manslaughter instead of murder, I wonder. The jury found that it was an unintended death?)

Anyhow, the main point of the post is the hysterical and irresponsible comments of Dr Philip Nitschke, who as usual (seems you just can't keep him away from someone who wants to die,) was involved in this:

Dr Nitschke said his organisation, Exit International, would now change the way it advises people with Alzheimer's.

"Any sign of Alzheimer's disease and you're going to lose any option for anyone to help you, and anyone who does dare to help you had better look carefully behind their shoulders because they could be facing a murder charge," he said.

"Many people said this person knew what he was doing. I thought he knew what he was doing. Yet they base it on the medical evidence that he had lost his ability to make a decision, that he had lost his ability to say whether he could die or not.

"We'll be advising people not to (declare they have Alzheimer's).

"Don't go to your doctor. Don't have the tests done. And if you do have the tests done that show that you're starting to lose mental capacity, make sure it is not recorded."

Just how irresponsible can you get? He's a doctor, telling people not to see a doctor if they are worried that they might have early signs of Alzheimer's. No mediation for those who might benefit from it, then. All because they want to reserve their ability to top themselves later with less risk of legal complications.

His enthusiasm for euthansia trumps best medical practice, clearly.

Mile high club

Mile-high tower wars: How tall is too tall? - Features, Art & Architecture - The Independent

An interesting article here about a 1.6 km high skyscraper to be built at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

According to the article, it will cost $5 billion. I would have thought it could be more than that.

Such projects raise mixed emotions in me. I like anything high tech, and this building is so far ahead of anything else, it'll be fascinating just to see if they can make it work.

On the other hand, it's hard to believe anyone wants to live that high above the ground, especially in Saudi Arabia, which is not exactly on most people's "must see" list of destinations.
It seems to have "white elephant" written all over it.

A promising Pixar

Introducing WALL-E, a silent movie star - Times Online

Early impressions of the latest Pixar are very positive, according to this article.

Not a bad summer season of films it seems, especially for those who like entertainment you can take the whole family to.

Attack of the cutes

Just so that this blog can't be accused of being too depressing lately, here's an attack of the cutes (and I don't even like cats):



(The second half is funnier than the first half.)

Deep sea CO2

There have been a few articles in The Guardian about sending CO2 to the deep ocean. It has certain advantages over pumping it underground, and the fate of such CO2 is more complicated than I realised:

First, in order to ensure that the injected CO2 has adequate time to mix throughout the deep sea, injection should be at depths greater than 3,500 metres - that is, the depth below which "liquid" CO2 becomes more dense than sea water.

Experiments conducted by Peter Brewer, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, not only confirm that this is the case but also demonstrate that the CO2 injected rapidly reacts with sea water to form a solid clathrate, which is more dense than both liquid CO2 and sea water. Hence, the injected CO2 would end up on the sea floor as a slush. This would gradually dissolve, releasing the CO2 to the surrounding sea water, where it would react with the dissolved carbonate and borate ions to become chemically bound in the form of bicarbonate ion. As the concentration of carbonate and borate ions is small, the neutralisation would take place gradually as the CO2-rich sea water mixed into the surroundings.

But how much can you fit in the Pacific Ocean?:

Broecker says 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide could be safely dumped directly into the waters of the deep Pacific, equivalent to the carbon pollution from about 16 years of the world's current fossil fuel use.

Not that much, really. And some say that it would increase the acidity of the deep ocean, which as we all know, may not be a great idea.

Just go back to nuclear sounds a much better option.

You should read this

Regular readers know that I keep referring to the worrying theory that the great mass extinctions in earth's pre-history are connected with high atmospheric CO2, and its effect on ocean chemistry. The Scientific American article which first brought this to my attention said that the great extinctions seemed to be associated with CO2 levels of just under 1000 ppm. That's a fair way from where we are now, but still within sight of a century or so of current CO2 increases.

However, there's now a paper here, found via the Ocean Acidification blog, which suggests that maybe the "unifying theory" for mass extinctions is a CO2 level that specifically interferes with the operation of a particular enzyme. The biology is a little complicated, but the big concern with this theory is that severe trouble for the ocean environment may actually start at only 560ppm CO2. That could easily be reached by the middle of this century.

It's not too hard to read the full paper (in .pdf format), and it is well worth the effort. The implications for the future are set out towards the end. I'll put it here in full, and break it up a bit to make it easier to read:

Over the next century, if anthropogenic CO2 emissions proceed at the rates predicted by the IPCC scenarios (IPCC, 2001), then the identified pCO2 threshold concentration of 560 ppmv may be exceeded as early as 2050 (Fig. 3). Whilst the direct climatic impacts of this overshoot remain difficult to quantify with certainty, simple extrapolation of the central tenets of the urease hypothesis suggests that there is little doubt regarding the disruption and mass mortality that it will initiate within organisms that are heavily reliant upon the urease enzyme.

Previous mass extinction events appear to have guided the evolutionary process away from urease-dependence in higher vertebrate animals, but the threat remains for the lower invertebrates and plant communities. Importantly, these at-risk ecosystem elements are fundamental to: (i) the productive food chains, (ii) the essential habitat, and (iii) the stable climate cycles, upon which the higher vertebrate animals (including humans) rely for their survival.

Of particular note is the potential for a collapse in ocean productivity to initiate rapid greenhouse warming (Rampino and Caldeira, 2005). In this case, the cessation of marine biological export of 25 organic carbon from the surface would cause an increase in surface-ocean dissolved inorganic carbon, some of which would leak into the atmosphere to increase atmospheric pCO2. Modelling results suggest that a cessation of productivity today would result in a rapid doubling of pCO2 (Rampino and Caldiera, 2005). It is therefore a plausible scenario that a collapse of ocean productivity occurring at 560 ppm could trigger a rapid “post-apocalyptic” rise in pCO2 levels beyond 1000 ppm – leading to rapid global warming of 3–6C.

Recovery of atmospheric pCO2 from such a perturbation would be governed by the time scale of equilibrium of the ocean chemistry 5 with the carbonate system (c 104 years) (Archer et al., 1997). Post-apocalyptic greenhouse spikes of similar duration have been associated with previous mass extinctions (Retallack, 2005), and may be responsible for triggering additional climate change dependent kill responses (Elewa, 2008).

Clearly, the urease hypothesis forewarns of the global imperative that atmospheric pCO2 levels are stabilised well below 560 ppmv. This will require the development of technologies and solutions that are presently unavailable – thus demanding our immediate attention and resources.

Now, this is clearly presented by the author as a hypothesis, and it is called a "discussion paper". The author is a researcher from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, but his exact qualifications are not clear. However, it certainly sounds like an idea worthy of some pretty intense investigation.

It is consistent with my position that arguing about whether the earth is currently warming or cooling is irrelevant to the issue of whether keeping CO2 levels down is a good idea.

What's more, the climate change sceptics are still largely silent on the issue of ocean changes as a result of high CO2. (Pointing out that corals have re-established in nuclear test lagoons is hardly relevant.) I don't think they can find any credible scientist who has compelling arguments as to why such concerns are not worthy of being taken seriously. Correct me if I am wrong, Jennifer Marohasy. (I note that she ran with suggestions earlier this year that the cooling temperature would see the alarmists start to run with ocean acidification instead. This is not an answer to the actual concerns, however.)

On the gay front

Widespread reporting today of one study indicating similarities between gay brains and those of the opposite sex. One part that surprised me:

The researchers said that the study cannot say whether the differences in brain shape are inherited or due to to exposure to hormones such as testosterone in the womb and if they are responsible for sexual orientation.

But this is something they plan to look at in a further study of newborn babies to see if it can help predict future sexual orientation.

Would such a study be ethical? Are PET scans completely without risk, and just how important is it for science to pin down when such brain changes (if this study is correct) are formed?

As other people have argued before, it's not even certain that it is helpful for the gay lobby to encourage a belief that it is innate. On the one hand, they can argue against discrimination because it is not something they can choose (a cultural idea that has widespread currency already in the West;) on the other hand, it can still be taken that they are, in a sense, a biological mistake. If it is clear that babies are born that way, would a course of the right hormones be able to "cure" them?

And how would such studies also make sense of the (apparent) widespread bisexuality of Ancient Greece? The question of what exactly was going on in Greece, and a couple of other ancient civilisations, is perhaps a little difficult to be sure of from this point in time; but still, given that their neighbours at the time even thought they were strange indicates that they probably were.

On a related matter, the New York Times last week ran an article on how gay marriage is panning out in Massachusetts. I think it has been found in all places allowing it that there is an initial rush to the registry by couples who have been together for years anyway, followed by rapidly dwindling numbers. In Massachusetts:

Of the more than 10,500 same-sex couples married here since May 17, 2004, 6,121 wed in the first six months. There were 2,060 weddings in 2005; 1,442 in 2006; and 867 in the first eight months of 2007, the most recent data show.

More figures of interest:

The Census Bureau recorded 23,655 same-sex households in Massachusetts in 2006.

Nearly two-thirds of the weddings have been lesbian marriages, including one between two women named Melissa McCarthy. And while nearly half of straight people marrying are under 30, more same-sex married couples of both sexes are older — nearly a third are in their 40s.

So it sounds like about half of gay couples living together there are married now, but with the diminishing numbers who are getting married annually, will that really continue to be the case?

As for the view of the meaning of marriage that some gay males have:

Eric Erbelding and his husband, Michael Peck, both 44, see each other only every other weekend because Mr. Peck works in Pittsburgh. So, Mr. Erbelding said, “Our rule is you can play around because, you know, you have to be practical.”

Mr. Erbelding, a decorative painter in Boston, said: “I think men view sex very differently than women. Men are pigs, they know that each other are pigs, so they can operate accordingly. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Still, Mr. Erbelding said, most married gay couples he knows are “for the most part monogamous, but for maybe a casual three-way.”

Well, I'm glad we overturned millennia of humanity's understanding of marriage so that some gay men who want to continue to openly play the field can still get the financial benefits of having a favourite boyfriend. (Yes, I know, we don't criticise heterosexual marriage as an institution because some - very, very, few I suspect- enter into "open" marriages. But if such attitudes are widespread amongst married gay men, I think it does mean they don't treat marriage seriously, and it weakens the case as to why they should be accommodated.)

It also makes a bit of a joke of the "conservative case" for gay marriage, which I have heard Justice Michael Kirby (amongst others) argue. Let them marry, they say, and it will encourage monogamous relationships and stable families and that is a good thing as far as conservatives are concerned.

Sounds nice in principle, but really, it doesn't realistically take into account nature. As a rule, men (both gay and straight) find sex without commitment easy, and evolutionary biology plausibly explains why. Even with modern young women willing to have purely recreational sex, it still carries more risk of emotional or procreative complications compared to 2 men who meet purely for sex. Making gay marriage available is not somehow going to suddenly make the great majority of them think that they would be better off getting into monogamous relationships any time soon.

Gay women, on the other hand, still seem to have the nesting instinct even when their partner is another woman. Not much of a surprise there. They didn't need any encouragement to "settle down".

But worse than all of this, as far as I am concerned, is the procreative interests of gay couples. That lesbians use artificial insemination to have babies seems to me far more offensive to the conservative viewpoint than the nature of the relationship between the adults. That argument, however, seems to be lost in the West, at least for now.

UPDATE: a reasonably well argued conservative commentary on the topic is at American Spectator.

Something to wonder about

Sewage disaster leaves over 700 gallons of human feces in Kingston woman’s home

I only post about this because of this part of the report:

"This was completely flooded with feces and water and pee, and of course I smelled it. When I came in and I called the city guys and it’s estimated at 786.24 gallons of human feces got backed up into my house," Riley says.

Well, just lucky it wasn't 786.45 gallons. (Why on earth is that figure so precise?)

More religion

Bush 'may convert to Catholicism' - The Independent

Tony Blair and now George W? How interesting.

Meanwhile, Liberal Anglicans are doing their best to stop their church resembling anything even vaguely unified by holding a prominent "marriage" of two gay priests. Despite the priest who led the ceremony denying that it was provocative, it was liturgically as close as a marriage service as possible. According to The Times:

Had it not been two men standing at the altar, any observer would have taken the service for a traditional wedding. The service – at the Church of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London – began: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God . . . to join together these men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity.” After a confession of sin “through our own deliberate fault”, the congregation heard a lesson from 1 Samuel 18, a Bible passage about the love between David and Jonathan.

Dr Lord was asked: “David, wilt thou take this man as thy partner, in the sight of God? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?’” to which he responded: “I will.”

They also pledged to love each other physically, as in the traditional Anglican marriage service, stating: “With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

Oh no, that's not provocative at all!

What fun the Lambeth conference will be this year. Rowan Williams may as well be looking at how to formally end the worldwide communion right now.

Prince Caspian

For those readers who have been dying to know what I thought of Prince Caspian (cue crickets chirping), here it is.

Reviews for Prince Caspian fall into 3 broad categories:

1. The irreligious who can't stand CS Lewis' use of fantasy as an allegory for Christianity, and therefore cannot bear any of the Narnia films due to their quasi-proselytising nature.

2. The irreligious who feel that Prince Caspian works as adventure and is more enjoyable than The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe because it's allegorical content is considerably diminished compared to the first movie. A lot of Australian reviews I have read fall into this category.

3. Those who who admire CS Lewis and his aims, and are therefore a little disappointed that the movie does seem to soft peddle the serious side.

I'm not entirely sure that I have read any review that clearly falls into category 3, but that was my reaction. I suspect that (apart from the appalling timing of releasing it a week before Indiana Jones in the States) there are probably significant numbers of American Christians who share the view, and this is a partial explanation for why it seems destined to make barely half of what the first movie made. (Still, as far as I can tell, it won't lose money.)

On the positive side: it looks fantastic, and the use of computer effects is kept to a level where it is not making you think "look at those 50,000 combatants who are obviously all CGI". (I'm looking at you, "Lord of the Rings".)

The story also has the benefit of real humans playing real characters (contrast, again, LOTR) and the acting is fine. Also, Andrew Adamson is really a talented director.

On the downside, Aslan comes and dispenses wisdom and assistance only a couple of times. It's been so long since I read the book (if I did at all; I can't even recall clearly which I have read beyond three titles,) that I am not entirely sure if it is the same there. Certainly many reviewers have noted that the book is perhaps the least interesting of the Narnia series.

I certainly don't want to put anyone off seeing it: it is a fine movie; just one that feels a little lacking if, like me, you loved the first one. (By the way, you can always tell a movie has impressed people when a fair few stay in the cinema watching the credits. That did happen at the screening I went to.)

Of course, one of the most disgraceful things is that Sex and the City beat it at the Australia box office on opening weekend. Can't the Pope issue some sort of condemnation of that film? If we lived in Old Testament times, I would expect God to demand the human sacrifice of Sarah Jessica Parker (on an altar erected in front of some fashion house in New York, the contents of which would form the funeral pyre for her body) as a condition of letting the rest of humanity survive. And that would sound perfectly reasonable to me.