This'll be interesting

Let battle commence! Climate change denialist ready for the fight | George Monbiot

Monbiot tells us that Ian Plimer has accepted his challenge to a debate, first in writing, and then in person.

George has posted at the link above his list of questions to Plimer.

The response shall be very, very interesting.

Hardly worth the effort

Does wind power reduce carbon emissions? - BraveNewClimate.com

Barry Brook quotes at length from some work indicating that wind power in Australia in practice will save little in carbon.

Sunday scandal

Sex scandal behind Brideshead Revisited - Times Online

Quite a detailed re-telling here of the English aristocratic sex scandal which gave the inspiration for Brideshead Revisited.

This part shows a somewhat relaxed attitude to what was permissible in staff interviews those days:

Boom — as Beauchamp was known, ostensibly because of his foghorn voice — was said to have “exquisite taste in footmen”. His interviewing style was unique. He would pass his hands over their buttocks, making a similar hissing noise to the one made by stable lads when rubbing their horses down. If the young man was handsome and pleasant, the earl would remark: “He’ll do well. Very nice indeed!”

The true life story was much more scandalous than what goes on in Brideshead, though.

That's useful

Israel to blame for Arafat death: Fatah | The Australian

THE ruling faction of the Palestinian Authority has formally blamed Israel for the "assassination" of Yasser Arafat, one of the founders of the Fatah party.

At the party's conference in Bethlehem yesterday, delegates unanimously passed a resolution blaming Israel for Arafat's death and setting up a committee to investigate the death.

Well, that'll help things move forward. Maybe they are just annoyed that a significant part of the world believe the rumours that it was AIDS.

But the Saudi King makes some blunt comments that (except the "criminal enemy" quip) are useful:

Saudi King Abdullah said: "Even if the whole world agreed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with all the needed support and backing, it will not be established as long as the Palestinian house is divided."

And referring to Israel as "the criminal enemy", King Abdullah wrote: "I'll be honest, brothers. The criminal enemy could not over long years of continued aggression have inflicted as much damage to the Palestinian cause as did the Palestinians themselves in a matter of a few months."

Over at Gulf News, there was an opinion column earlier this week (I can no longer see it) which urged Palestinians to make alternative plans for what happens if a two state solution is never achieved. The writer did not give any clue as to what the alternative for the Palestinians might be.

Sad Hollywood news

John Hughes, director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and writer of Home Alone, dies - Times Online

I mentioned him here last year, and he was only 59. I can't think of anyone from Hollywood who has replaced him as a source of witty entertainment that (nearly always) could be enjoyed by adults, teenagers and younger children together. (It's better to put it that way than to use what has become a semi-derogatory phrase: "family entertainment".)

It's a miracle!

Opinion: Do you believe in miracles? - opinion - New Scientist

I'm still pretty busy, but in the meantime, readers of a philosophical bent can go read the above article about the issue of miracles.

I've only read it quickly, and while it's not as clear as it could be, it seems to make some decent points.

Comet or volcano?

Was there a comet impact in AD 536? Maybe.

Doodling discussion

Playing with a graphics tablet is a lot of fun, but I have some trouble finding the best software to use when wanting to do my somewhat pathetic and rushed attempts at cartoons.

My natural inclination is to go for freeware, but I can't say I have found anything I like much. I've tried Dogwaffle, and it is OK, but sometimes hard to find things easily. (One point I want to make is that, when you are using a stylus to move around the screen, the "left click" or "right click" functions are no where near as natural feeling as when you use a mouse. I therefore find software that requires those to bring down menu options quite annoying. (Although you can just tap the screen sometimes in lieu of a left click.)

I have also tried the free version of Art Rage, but for simple pen or pencil functions, I don't care for it.

The best software I have found is actually Art Dabbler, which came bundled with an old tablet before my current one. I find its interface very natural and easy to use. (You open a "drawer" to find your different tools.)

I also find it makes reproduces very smooth lines - something which Dogwaffle, Painter and and free programs do not always achieve.

Sadly, Art Dabbler was sold to Corel and is no longer available. I do have Corel's Painter Essentials (came with current tablet), but there is a bit of a learning curve involved, and it is just not as easy as I would like. (All I want to do is draw nice lines with a "pen" or "pencil" and be able to colour it easily.)

I am sure this is all very boring for people who have never used a tablet to draw, but if anyone has used freeware with their tablet which they are happy with, please let me know.

Lots of steam

World's Largest Solar Cooking System Installed in India

If poorer countries are going to reduce their CO2, while still cooking food, then systems like this will presumably have a role to play:

India already had the previous world's largest solar-powered cooking system, serving 15,000 pilgrims daily at the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh. But now that one has been been one-upped, Taragana reports. The new system has been installed at the shrine of 19th century saint Sai Baba in Shridi and can feed up to 20,000 people per day:

The system generates some 3,500 kg of steam daily, which replaces on a yearly basis 100,000 kg of cooking gas.

3,500 kg of steam? That's how you measure steam?

Anyhow, it would be interesting to know whether the cost is worthwhile in terms of gas savings.

Turnbull and the amazing, all-knowing Rundle

Turnbull's solid case may fail to rescue credibility

Michelle Grattan in The Age is pretty forgiving in her assessment of Turnbull and the "utegate" affair. As she says:

...most honest journalists would have to admit that, presented with Grech and his document, they would have thought they had a pretty watertight story. Especially given that the evidence points to a long relationship with the Opposition.

The worst commentary on this is from Guy Rundle in Crikey (which is the subject of a LP post here), yet because it is a silly exercise in psychoanalysing all the major players and condemns Turnbull and everyone around him, the people at Larvatus Prodeo think it's great.

I don't begrudge that the leftie readers of LP think that Turnbull has shot himself in the foot in a major way. But what really annoys is that they (and in particular, Mark Bahnisch, who reproduced the article) do not call out the obvious flaws in the Rundle article as a piece of analysis. I mean, really, it starts:

It should have been obvious to anyone who came into contact with him that Godwin Grech was not a man whose robustness could be assumed. Apparently frail and ill from childhood, a solitary type who joined the CPS directly from university, he clearly found in public service a framework for his existence, and a meaning for a life he reasonably assumed would be foreshortened.

He can also tell how meetings he never saw must have gone:

Most people would have spotted instantly that someone like Grech was out of his element, in crisis, that there was a point at which to stop.

And Turnbull's decision to run with the issue:

...contributed to the ruination of a man whose one hope for a meaningful and rounded life, for a life that made sense, was to have been, and been remembered as, a dutiful and effective public servant. Turnbull was the stronger man. It was his fault.

As for Turnbull and Abbott:

Like many of a certain type of Roman Catholic, and Turnbull is the same, Abbott is a man without a soul who outsources its provisioning to the most dependable outfit around — and one that, unlike protestantism or Islam, doesn’t demand that you make much of an effort to change your nature.

You can bet your bottom dollar that Bahnisch, if reading some equivalent armchair psychoanalysis of Labor figures would be calling it as overheated rubbish and pathetic as an exercise of alleged serious political analysis.

The point is, Mark likes to get annoyed about the quality of political journalistic analysis, but only when it is against his side of politics.

Small black holes delayed

Large Hadron Collider Struggles, Adding to the Mysteries of Life - NYTimes.com

The LHC is currently planned to be turned again in November, but its major, major teething problems mean it won't be working at its intended full strength for some time (maybe never):

.....scientists say it could be years, if ever, before the collider runs at full strength, stretching out the time it should take to achieve the collider’s main goals, like producing a particle known as the Higgs boson thought to be responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass, or identifying the dark matter that astronomers say makes up 25 percent of the cosmos.

The report goes on to explain the technical nature of the problem, for those interested.

Still can't buy in Australia, though

Sony Cuts Prices on E-Books and Unveils Readers

Bah.

Yes, but at what price

LEDs Are As Energy Efficient as Compact Fluorescents

Yet doesn't this mean that that are hardly worthwhile investing in over compact fluorescents until they become closer in cost?

Report explained - news not good

Station ALOHA data reveal ocean acidification

A few posts back, I had a post updating some recent stuff on ocean acidification, and ended noting a study on waters near Hawaii that examined the 20 year history of pH levels. I said it was kind of hard to understand clearly, as at that time I only had a link to the paper itself, and scientists aren't all that good at writing clear summaries.

Anyhow, my guess as to what it meant was correct, as shown in this easier to understand summary linked above:

.....over the two decades of observation, the surface ocean grew more acidic at exactly the rate expected from chemical equilibration with the atmosphere. However, that rate of change varied considerably on seasonal and inter-annual timescales, and even reversed for one period of nearly five years. The year-to-year changes appear to be driven by climate-induced changes in ocean mixing and attendant biological responses to mixing events.

The authors also found distinct layers at depth in which pH declines were actually faster than at the surface. Dore and colleagues attribute these strata of elevated acidification rates to increases in biological activity and to the intrusion at Station ALOHA of remotely formed water masses with different chemical histories.

This seems to me to be a pretty important study, as it is confirmation from long term measurements that the predicted rate of ocean acidification is correct. (The fact that there are bumps along the way is, I suppose, like the difference between weather and climate.)

To the extent that they note that at depth, acidification at times seems to be happening faster than expected, is not good news.

Britain needs nuclear

Nuclear power ‘needed to fill energy gap’ - Times Online

With North Sea oil and gas production in steep decline, Mr Wicks is expected to call for the UK to boost the share of electricity generated from nuclear stations to as much as 30-40 per cent of the total, up from only 13 per cent last year.

He will also propose that the Government should adopt a more interventionist approach to ensure new reactors are built — and in greater numbers — than currently planned.

If a private company treated its employees this way..

...you'd have Sharon Burrows and/or Julia Gillard complaining about the corporation's heartless and incompetent personnel management.

But because it is happening under the Rudd government...

I'm talking about the following extracts from Godwin Grech's response to the Auditor General's report out today. He's a man who did a very stupid thing, but look what he says he was putting up with:

page 101: ...when I returned to Treasury in September 2008 it soon became clear that the 'normal’ rules of direction, reporting and accountability had changed significantly and were oftentimes confused and chaotic.

page 102: My essential point is that the environment I found myself in from late 2008, involved confused lines of accountability, poor overall management and frankly an almost anything goes attitude as long as the relevant policy initiative was delivered on time and the Prime Minister kept satisfied....

page 103: The normal policy development disciplines had broken down, with many policy options, certainly those that I had exposure to, being developed without any real opportunity by the Department of Finance and Deregulation to undertake proper costings, if at all. Relevant portfolio departments were either not involved in the policy development process or were given very limited information or opportunity to contribute.

page 111: I did raise resourcing issues with Treasury Deputy Secretary, Mr Jim Murphy on a number of occasions – both in mid to late December 2008 and again in early January 2009. I was told that options would be explored – but nothing happened. Indeed, the overall resource effort diminished especially after the 5 December 2008 public launch of OzCar by the Prime Minister and Treasurer in Sydney.

And here's the section which indicates how completely thoughtless Treasury was in failing to provide significant assistance to Grech:

page 111 - 112: In addition to the very significant work load pressures that were placed on me, it was well known to senior Treasury management, including Dr Ken Henry, the relevant Deputy Secretary, Mr Jim Murphy, and the relevant immediate supervisor, Mr David Martine, that I was physically impaired and suffered from a complex array of serious medical conditions. This included the loss of my colon, advanced dysmotility and malrotation of my small bowel that resulted in 7 small bowel obstructions since March 2005.

Treasury management were aware that I had a near fatal episode in late 2006 when a blockage resulted in an intestinal haemorrhage which led to septicaemia and acute renal failure. I never fully recovered from this episode having since developed stage 3 chronic kidney disease and metabolic bone disease including osteoporosis. I have suffered a further 3 small bowel obstructions since the near fatal 2006 episode – the most recent in February 2009. Treasury is aware of all of this and was at the time.

Unbeknown to Treasury management – or to me – I was also suffering from chronic clinical depression which doctors believe has been present and untreated for some years.

Given this complex medical condition, and the stark reminder of my vulnerability following my hospitalisation in both February and March 2009, senior Treasury management could – and I say should‐ have taken action to ensure that I got the support that I needed. This did not happen.

Not an Obama fan

Ayman- al Zawahri: Israel must be wiped off map

Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaida's second-in-command, said on Monday that Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.

Zawahri also accused US President Barack Obama of conducting a policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues that was bound to end in failure for the Palestinians, Reuters reported, saying that Obama wanted a Palestinian state that would serve as "an extension of the CIA."

"Israel is a crime that should be removed," the news agency quoted Zawahri as saying in an interview with al Qaida's media arm As-Sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.