Warning

Bird specimens stolen from national collection - Crime, UK - The Independent

Thieves have stolen a priceless collection of tropical birds from the Natural History Museum.

Curators said almost 300 brightly-coloured specimens were taken from a collection in Tring, Hertfordshire.

They said the birds, some of which are more than a century old, are a priceless part of the world's ornithological heritage.

Well, I suppose this means that the next time a stranger approaches you in the car park and offers a really cheap price on a rare 19th century stuffed spangled drongo from the back of his van, you should immediately call the police.

It's also interesting to note this bit at the end about the extent of the collection:

The Natural History Museum holds 70 million specimens brought together over 350 years. The majority are held at its South Kensington headquarters.

The ornithological collection in Tring is one of the world's largest and holds 750,000 birds representing 95% of known species.

750,000 stuffed birds?! Maybe a few more live ones would be around today if the collectors of the past were a little less enthusiastic.

Mocking chicken

Today's lunch comprised a fried egg, tomato and cheese sandwich.

It's a curious thing, isn't it, how the combination of egg and tomato seems to result in a completely new, distinctive, taste.

It put me in mind of a party dip from my childhood, "mock chicken", eaten on Jatz crackers, which I haven't seen for a very long time. Recipes for it are on the internet, although there are variations, and I am not sure which most accurately represents what was once common in 1960's Brisbane. I'm sure the essential components were egg and tomato, but whether it also had cheese and onion, I don't know.

Incidentally, I am drawn to any recipe with "mock" in the title. I recall years ago, when visiting somewhere historic in Australia, looking at a reproduction of an old, simple Australia cookbook, maybe dating from early last century or perhaps even colonial times. It had a recipe for mock duck, which, I swear, went like this: "Take large piece of beef steak. Tie in the shape of a duck. Bake." That was it.

While on the topic of food pretending to be something it isn't, I have a confession to make: I don't mind many of the vegetarian sausage products made by health food companies. They could fairly be called mock sausages, although the marketing departments prevent truth in advertising. We serve them to kids sometimes as a healthier version of a hot dog. With tomato sauce, they don't really seem to know if it is meatless or not, and I am happy to eat them too.

I even had a period in my life when I used to buy TVP, textured vegetable protein, and make a chilli con carne recipe which was on the side of the box. Buried in a chilli tomato sauce, I thought the cubed version of TVP did have a resemblance to meat. But the digestive consequences of beans, chilli tomato sauce and TVP in the once dish were, shall we say, nothing short of explosive. I didn't even like being around myself the next day, so, kind husband that I am, I haven't cooked it since I got married. I don't think you can even get the cubed version of TVP now, anyway.

I'm tempted to try making some mock chicken soon, but anyone who can remember their mother's version of it is welcome to comment.

Spotting the influence of aliens

Newfound planet orbits backward - Space.com- msnbc.com

This story reminds me of something I have been meaning to post about for a while.

Astronomers keep finding signs of planets around other stars. Yet they all seem to be pretty weird in one way or another, and don't resemble our solar system at all.

My question: has anyone seriously put their mind to the question of how odd a planetary orbit or solar system would have to look to be indicative of alien mega-engineering?

Presumably, thought has been given to what a Dyson sphere or "swarm" would look like (or a Niven "ringworld"), but isn't it possible for there to be other planetary engineering, on a less grand scale, that may be visible from Earth?

Would a weird enough orbit of something assumed to be a planet be enough?

Update: another "backwards planet" found.

By the way, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that a retrograde orbit alone is anything to be very suspicious of. Seeing we have a retrograde moon in our own solar system, it can just happen. Still, what would it take to assume alien engineering?

Credibility own goal

Plimer resorts to attack as the best form of defence | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Ian Plimer agreed to be asked, in writing, a series of questions by George Monbiot about apparent errors and uncited claims in his book. Plimer has not yet responded, except to provide a list of convoluted questions back to Monbiot.

If Plimer merely does this, and does not answer Monbiot's direct questions, it will be pretty much impossible to read it other than having the subtext "hey, I am a Professor, I know so much more than you, mere journalist, that I don't have to provide citations for any claim, or explain any apparent error."

I hope Andrew Bolt is reading this exchange.

Update: this comment in the thread following Monbiot's post provides a good "translation" of what Plimer's questions mean.

A peculiar case

Piracy fears off UK coast after cargo ship disappears in English Channel - Times Online

I have no comment: it's just a very strange case of a missing ship, possibly hijacked by somewhat mysterious parties.

Why acupuncture seems to work

Chinese Acupuncture Affects Brain's Ability To Regulate Pain, UM Study Shows

I find it remarkable that sticking fine needles into skin seems to genuinely help with various aches and pains. This study suggests the brain mechanism behind it, but I guess it still doesn't explain why the fine needles (which you can barely feel, from the one time I had some in me) in skin cause that reaction in the brain. (To be more specific, maybe it's not surprising they cause some reaction in the brain, but that it should be big enough to have effect of other aches and pain still seems very odd to me.)

Discouraging news

Earth could be blindsided by asteroids, panel warns - space - 12 August 2009 - New Scientist

Existing sky surveys miss many asteroids smaller than 1 kilometre across, leaving the door open to damaging impacts on Earth with little or no warning, a panel of scientists reports. Doing better will require devoting more powerful telescopes to asteroid hunting, but no one has committed the funds needed to do so, it says.

Waiting for the return of a spouse

Modern Love - Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear

I found this via the Catholic blog "First Things". Although the writer's response to being told by her husband:

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy”

was not apparently motivated by faith, the idea of not immediately abandoning a relationship for that reason has obvious appeal to those who believe marriage is truly "til death do us part".

It is an interesting column, and has many comments following it, the great majority of which praise the writer for her simple "I'm not buying it" response. I am surprised that there has not been more of a liberal backlash against it.

What a country

Christians burned to death in Pakistan - Catholic Herald Online

Eight Pakistani Christians were killed, 50 homes destroyed and two churches burned when a rampaging mob of up to 3,000 Muslims tore through the town of Gojra, in eastern Pakistan, last Saturday.

The victims, who included two young children, were either burned alive or shot. ...

The mob gathered after rumours had spread that children had cut up a schoolbook which included verses from the Koran. The children had supposedly been making confetti for a local wedding.

As well as those killed, more than 20 people were injured in the attack as the mob, carrying sticks, clubs and a small number of firearms, took to the streets last weekend.

The attacks came two days after a related incident in the nearby village of Korian where gangs set fire to more than 70 Christian homes and two small Protestant churches.

I missed a lot of media over the weekend, but I don't know that this got widely reported.

Make your own lunar air

Scientists Make Oxygen Out of Moon Rock

Based on experiments with a simulated lunar rock developed by NASA, the researchers calculate that three one-meter-tall reactors could generate one tonne of oxygen per year on the Moon. Each tonne of oxygen would require three tonnes of rock to produce. Fray noted that three reactors would require about 4.5 kilowatts of power, which could be supplied by solar panels or possibly a small nuclear reactor on the Moon.

I wonder, how long does a tonne of oxygen last for, say, a dozen people?

Presumably, find frozen water on the Moon would make oxygen production easier.

There was a lengthier version of this story on Nature News, but I think their stories still disappear behind a paywall after a short time.

The perpetual teenager

Pew, that was a lucky escape | theage.com.au

Catherine Deveny writes about Catholicism, her childhood religion, with all the subtly and wit of a 15 year old know-it-all flaunting a new-found sexuality and atheism to annoy her parents. (That is, with none at all.) Trouble is, she's 40.

I also wonder about this section:

The priest, obviously drawn by the unusual sight of new people, approached us to welcome us to his flock. I shot out my hand. "Hi, I'm Catherine."

All the blood drained from his face. "You're that writer?" "Yes," I replied. I happily introduced my sons, who, in an uncharacteristic display of manners, shook the priest's hand and said, "Nice to meet you." The priest wandered off in a daze. Or was it a trance? Maybe it was religious melancholy.

Why would the priest even recognise her? Unless she gave warning of her attendance (and why would she bother doing that?) I would be quite surprised that she would otherwise be known to him.

She's seems profoundly proud of her kids being brought up as free thinking libertines:

After surveying the ''good news'' of carnage and damnation on the wall, the 11-year-old asked what a virgin was. I explained. Then he said, "Is there something wrong with sex?"

We know what her answer would be. One gets the impression from previous columns that she intends to be terribly non-judgemental and open-minded to the point of quasi-encouragement to experiment, probably as a continuation of her resentment of her parents trying to set some boundaries for her. (Just a guess, there, but she does write in her column today how a comment made in the car by her father, about another family, made her want "to jump over the front seat and ram my father's head into the windscreen".)

If there is any justice, at least one of her kids will have a conservative rebellion and end up very religious. It will, hopefully, annoy Deveny no end.

The real Big Day Out

Time for a report on the trip to the Brisbane Exhibition last Sunday.

If it was up to me, I would arrive at 9am and leave at 9.30pm, but my wife is not from these parts, and considers that to be just a ridiculously long day. (You have to be born and raised in Brisbane to have the inordinate fondness for the place that quite a few of us here share.) I think she actually threatened last year to just leave me to take the kids this time, but somewhere in the intervening 12 months she changed her mind, and ended up a relatively happy participant. She missed my daughter - now 6 - telling me in the afternoon, without prompting, that it was "the best day ever". I passed the message on to my wife with a small degree of smug satisfaction.

[Later in the day, I observed to my wife that it is pleasing to see a lot of Asian and other immigrants at the show. She claimed it was because Brisbane was short of entertainment anyway, and people just go to whatever is on. As you can see, the brainwashing has some way to go yet.]

Before I leave the topic of the marital dispute over the exact degree of enjoyment an adult can appropriately extract from the Ekka, I should also mention that I took my aged mother along this year too. (She resisted getting in the car at first, but after a bit of shoving she accepted her fate.)

We arrived at about 11am, and left after the fireworks at 8.45.

So this year's highlights:

* new lambs in the sheep birthing place were cute (but we didn't actually see one being born)

* I get happiness from the fact that my kids chose relatively cheap buys in the show bags, yet were very satisfied. The boy takes the show as an opportunity to weaponise himself for the following 12 months, and this year he was happy with one $10 machine gun that, I must admit, I would have liked as a boy too. The girl went for a cutesy pet bag with lots of stationary in it.

* the "jet truck" was new and kind of slow and pointless, except it did make a very big flame that is pretty spectacular.

* we all decided that the latest rides look downright dangerous, and potentially not just to the riders. The current new types seem to involve variations on a theme of long arms which spin people sitting at the end around in a vertical circle. Why anyone thinks this is fun is beyond me; I can barely stand the roller coaster type rides at Disneyland, where one feels Uncle Walt surely wouldn't scare you to death. (Space Mountain is probably the strongest ride I have ever been on.) Not being a fan of the falling sensation, this looks particularly horrendous to me:




It's also clear that if there is a catastrophic failure, then, depending on the exact point of the circle it happens, the passengers could end up some distance away and take out many passers-by. I certainly did not like to stand in the plane of the ride, just in case.

Anyhoo, a pleasant day was had by all, even though my mother elected to stay the night but by the end decided she really was too old to spend that much time there. I pointed out that she was giving up to easily: there is always the wheelchair option when she's 90. (She's only got 5 years to reach that milestone.)

Finally, I note that big re-development of the site is finally going to get underway, which means that residential units and some all year round commercial use will be allowed on parts of the land. (As I recall, it is all owned by the Royal National Association, and the Council and State government have been lusting after the re-development potential of the place for decades.) This report gives an idea of some of the changes. I am not sure how it affect the Ekka itself; it's hard to imagine some of the old buildings gone. But the upside is: maybe I can retire there, as one of the blessed 10,000 residents. Not quite like living in Disneyland, but still...

Talking about solar

I see someone in the Economist talks about his options for domestic solar power in the US, and how it has become significantly more affordable in recent years.

I know that everyone says that solar power does not make economic sense at the moment, but there is one thing I think people don't factor in: the strong appeal of semi-independence from the grid.

On the weekend, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Brisbane Ekka (a longer post will follow), and I did notice a lot of people asking at this company's display about its domestic solar cells. I think the price was something like $2,995 for a 1.5 KW system. (After rebates I presume?)

I've never looked into it much, but from what I can gather, anything less than 2 KW is hardly worth the effort. Still, I think people just like the idea of not being so reliant on the grid, even if the cost is no where near going to be recovered in electricity savings.

If (as seems certain) an ETS is going to send up electricity costs pretty quickly, the appeal of solar is surely going to increase, although again it may not actually make economic sense. If an ETS encourages more people to install solar, and thereby reduce the drain on coal fired plants, that appears to be a good thing. The issue, I suppose, is at what cost to the government, as I presume that solar will still only succeed (in the sense that many people will buy it) with heavy government rebates.

If the money the government spends on supporting solar could be spent in other ways that are more effective at reducing CO2 from coal fired plants, then it's not such a good idea.

All I am saying is that experts should not overlook the inherent appeal of free electricity from the roof.

Appleyard takes on the Godless (again)

Bryan Appleyard reviewed a book "The Evolution of God" in The Times on the weekend, and now has followed up with an entertaining and interesting post on his blog.

Rich on US woes

Op-Ed Columnist - Is Obama Punking Us? - NYTimes.com

Frank Rich has an interesting column on Obama and the increasing perception that the US system of government is more-or-less corrupted wholesale by lobbyists. He ends with this:

The best political news for the president remains the Republicans. It’s a measure of how out of touch G.O.P. leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are that they keep trying to scare voters by calling Obama a socialist. They have it backward. The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy. If anything, the most unexpected — and challenging — event that could rock the White House this August would be if the opposition actually woke up.

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.