Khatastrophe

Is Yemen Chewing Itself to Death? - TIME

Well, I knew little of the habit of khat chewing until reading the above fascinating article. Apparently, Yemen is hooked on this legal-for-Muslims alcohol substitute:

Khat is popular in many countries of the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa, but in Yemen it's a full-blown national addiction. As much as 90% of men and 1 in 4 women in Yemen are estimated to chew the leaves, storing a wad in one cheek as the khat slowly breaks down into the saliva and enters the bloodstream. The newcomer to Yemen's ancient capital can't miss the spectacle of almost an entire adult population presenting cheeks bulging with cud, leaving behind green confetti of discarded leaves and branches. ...

At around $5 for a bag (the amount typically consumed by a single regular user in a day) it's an expensive habit in a country where about 45% of the population lives below the poverty line. (Most families spend more money on khat than on food, according to government figures.)...

"You sit up discussing all your problems and think you've solved everything, but in fact you haven't done anything in the last four hours, because you've just been chewing khat and all your problems actually got worse," says Adel al-Shujaa, a professor of political science at Sana'a University and the head of the Yemen Without Khat Association. Plus, he says, "all the decisions you've made are bad because you've made them while on khat."

And there are other problems, like the water it diverts from useful things, such as growing food. What a problem.

RealClimate looks into Plimer's questions

RealClimate: Plimer’s homework assignment

A detailed examination here of Ian Plimer's questions to George Monbiot, for those who are following the story.

Andrew Bolt seems to be avoiding it, for one.

Kennedy strikes a pose

St Mary's in Exile of the Trades and Labor Council has had a new website up for a few weeks now, but they seem very slow to post new videos of the weekly liturgies. It wouldn't be because, as far as I can guess from the last one I viewed, congregation numbers are dwindling somewhat?

Anyhow, for more amusement, have a look here to see Peter Kennedy in full Christ-like pose in a photographic work entered in the Blake prize for religious art. George Pell has noted "There is almost an element of kitsch about it", and he's not far wrong.

For more self-aggrandisement from the supposed leadership of the group, have a look at Terry Fitzpatrick's article in July Green Left Weekly:

On April 19, a huge mob of St Mary’s people made a pilgrimage out of a church and into the Trades and Labor Council (TLC) building, home of the Queensland Council of Unions.

They walked out of the church to the TLC, 200 metres down the road in silent vigil with candles and lanterns, banners and balloons - not unlike the Jews of the Old Testament escaping from the slavery of the Egyptians to the liberation of the Promised Land (minus the balloons).

As for the Church they didn't want to be told they were no longer a part of:

We too feel liberated from the shackles of a failing institution caught up in dogmas and creeds that belong to another age. We felt it was time to take a stand from the constant bullying we have experienced for many years.

He then goes on to list the things for which they have been "bullied": blessing gays and lesbian relationships, not using "sexist" language, signing a treaty with local aborigines.

With so much mistreatment, why did they ever want to stay?

Well deserved

Regular marijuana usage robs men of sexual highs - New Scientist

Stoners may be trading sexual highs for the chemical kind. Males who smoke marijuana daily are four times more likely to have trouble reaching orgasm than men who don't inhale, finds a new study of 8,656 Aussies...

Even though many male smokers experienced sexual problems, they reported more partners than non-smokers. Marijuana users were twice as likely to have had two or more sex partners in the previous year than men who didn't smoke pot.

Pitts' team found an even stronger trend for increased sexual activity among female smokers, who were also seven times more likely to have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection in the last year than non-smokers. However, female smokers had no more problems in the bedroom than abstainers, Pitts' team found.

It's interesting to read the comments that follow the story, many of which are somewhat amusing:

Perhaps stoners are just twats and that is why these problems occur. Yeah - from those I've known that hypothesis fits the data pretty well. I never met a stoner who wasn't a total wanker. Someone needs to do the necessary research to confirm it.

And:

Here are my (unscientific) theories

1) more partners

the stoners just can't be bothered to put up with each other's crap all the time and thus split more readily

2)trouble reaching orgasm

the stoner just can't stop thinking about that new cushion recently purchased, how do they make them that fluffy!?

Can't help myself

Look, I'll stop obsessing about the fact that Inglorious Basterds got good reviews and has opened strongly. Any day now, I promise.

But in the meantime, I have a few observations:

* The geography of critical reaction is puzzling. Reviews from the United States were good overall, with the notable exceptions of the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, the New Yorker and Slate.

Yet in England, it was hard to find a good review. The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, the Telegraph are all bad reviews. The Times, for example:

"When we finally get to it (Tarantino has never been one to cut to the chase when he can masturbate through endless pages of smarty-pants dialogue) , the film’s climax proves to be its downfall."

This surprises me, as I hate most other cultural movements in England at the moment, but at least their critics seem well and truly "over" Tarantino.

I thought the explanation may be that the closer you get geographically to the reality of the War, the more offensive the film may look. But in Germany, the reviews are apparently enthusiastic. Oh well, it's not as if German sensibilities were ever easy to comprehend. I suspect that giggling about the moustache alone would have prevented Hitler's rise to power in any other European country.

In Australia, it's all positive reviews as far as the eye can see. You would have thought, given our cultural position straddled somewhere between the United States and England, there would be some negative review somewhere, but there isn't, as far as I can tell. Odd.

* The fans are a worry: those sophisticates who aren't worried about the empty rattling sound made by the space in his head where Tarantino's maturity should reside should at least worry about the types of fanboy they are probably sitting next to in the cinema. I base this on the ridiculously aggressive response you see in comments whenever there is a bad Tarantino review. The worst ones I saw on Rottentomatoes, referring to a desire that the reviewer's wife be raped, have (I think) now been deleted. Let's face it, a lot of his fans get off on the violence.

Full marks to Kenneth Turan at LA Times who wrote:

"As it goes on and on, 'Inglorious Basterds' feels increasingly like the kind of hollow, fanboyish cinema that is all the rage these days."

"Hollow" seems the perfect word when talking about Tarantino.

* What is it with the Left and movie violence now? Back in the 1960's and 1970's, it seemed that it was primarily the Left that used to disdain unnecessarily graphic movie violence. Revenge and vigilante movies were (correctly I think) seen as an angry right wing phenomena, at a time in which there were still identifiable right wingers working in Hollywood.

Now, virtually all reviewers, and all of Hollywood, come across as Left wing, yet they have embraced a nerdy director with a revenge and violence obsession. They have also, more generally, made their peace with graphic violence and gore, no matter what the context or reason for for it. Even apart from Tarantino, think of the Saw movies and the other examples of an especially grotesque and sadistic slasher genre that has come into its own in the last 10 years.

Yet, as with the extensive amount of real sex in Shortbus, having seen something once or twice seems to mean critics - even those who presumably might be somewhat middle of the road in their politics - won't question the morality or wisdom of what's on the screen anymore. The only issue you will sometimes seen raised is the feminist aspect of a story. A movie perceived as anti-feminist will be still be in for an ideological hiding, but that's about the extent that lefties worry about movie morality now.

Well, that's just not right. Sure, some critics take Tarantino to task for his morally vacuous use of violence, but it's damn few, and to Lefty luvvies like David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz it doesn't matter a hoot.

Grow some moral testicles again, Lefties, and make a call on the morality or social effect of what you are watching on the screen for a change.

Unpleasant household duties

Yes, that's how my Sunday morning was spent - in the roof space tracking down a dead animal which had chosen - with a sense of revenge, no doubt - to die directly above the linen cupboard. Hence, when getting new towels on Saturday night, we were greeted with a strong dose of dead animal smell. I don't think it has gotten into the sheets and blankets, but it's a little hard to tell.

At least this time the culprit was easily found: as expected it was a dead rat. They are frequent noisy visitors to the roof space during winter. Baits laid a couple of months ago evidently were still doing their job. It was full of maggots, so at least I got to it in time to avoid the mystery plague of flies getting through the exhaust fan into the house which we have had before.

On two previous occasions, dead smells from beyond the ceiling have been hard to find, mainly because there is fibreglass insulation up there. When you think about it, putting insulation in the ceiling, while no doubt sensible, must look to rats like a gigantic housing estate made especially for their benefit: rat-scale acres of nice, soft fluffy stuff under foot that's easy to tunnel through and make a nest out of.

Anyway, while I was up there I did move around more insulation, and found two other mummified rat bodies. If only they made roof cats....

Speaking of dead bodies, and apologies for making light of a human tragedy, didn't that American model who was (apparently) killed by her husband looked remarkably like an android kewpie doll, or something artificial, in the most common photo the media seems to be using.

A slight delay

Too busy to post til this evening, I think.

A Tarantino antidote

The Dawn Treader – Now with Tail (Updated!) | Narnia Fans

While I continue to gnash my teeth over the fact that critical success presumably means Tarantino will get to make another film, I can take some solace from the fact that, not too far from my house, they have built a full scale Dawn Treader for the next Narnia movie.

Good pictures of it are at the link above.

They are also allowing people to visit and watch filming from 31 August.

Very cool.

UPDATE: this very Catholic blog, which you can get to via the above link, has many, many more photos. One thing I am curious about: as you can see from some of the photos, the tide goes out a fair way at this part of Moreton Bay, leaving an un-photogenic rock-and-mud flat behind. Even when the tide is in, the water is not particularly blue and clear close to shore. How do they get around that when filming? Special effect sparkling ocean inserted later?

Tilsit

The strangest bridge

300kg man trapped in Brisbane apartment

What makes this story noteworthy is that it was not your normal "apartment" that this guy had to be rescued from - it was a residence inside Brisbane's Walter Taylor bridge.

I think nearly everyone in Brisbane knows that the towers at either end of the old bridge are rented out and occupied. (I once drove over it while people were at a party on a balcony on the inner side of the towers.) But for people not from Brisbane who are curious as to what it looks like, here's a good photo.

It really seems a quite unique place. The fact that a person weighing nearly 4 times me lives there just adds to the fascination.

The navel gazed

The male gaze: I see it at Larvatus Prodeo

Well, Larvatus Prodeo has a long thread about why there are few Australian women political bloggers.

It is, without doubt, one of the most tedious threads ever to appear on LP. (Even a Tim Train appearance makes no difference.)

I'm feeling cranky today, so may I suggest: maybe it's because the current limited number of Australian women bloggers with overtly political interests come across as humourless and dour commentators who (as a group) span the political and feminist ideological field all the way from A to B? What women would want to join in that jolly crowd?

Further proof of English madness

Outdoor kitchens - the next 'in' thing - Telegraph

Fancy-smanchy outdoor barbies for outdoor entertaining in England? For those two nights a year the evening weather is enticing, I suppose. What a waste.

Ha!

Microsoft asks court to hold off on Word ban

Microsoft Corp. is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to allow it to keep selling Word software as it fights an unfavorable patent ruling.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas found Microsoft infringed on a patent held by a Canadian company, i4i LLP. Last week, the judge ordered Microsoft to pay $290 million and to stop selling copies of its word processing program that use the patented technology within 60 days.

The patent relates to the way Word 2003 and 2007 let users customize document encoding.

I still get the horrors when I have to work in Word, compared to using my beloved Wordperfect.

You know what really annoys me? I sometimes have young people in my office who have only ever used Word, and think it bizarre that I am a holdout for Wordperfect. (Mind you, every Word user who tries Wordperfect picks it up with no training and find it quite intuitive.) But when I have a formatting problem with Word that I can't work out, and go to these university graduates who have used Word all of their lives, 9 times out of 10 they can't work out the problem either. They can't identify why Word is doing it, and either give up or (at most) suggest a complicated and arcane work around.

The big defenders of the product rarely know how to get around a problem when using it.

There's no way in the world anyone is going to convince me that Word is a better program than Wordperfect.

Just for the record

State of the Climate | Global Analysis | July 2009

The global ocean SST for July 2009 was the warmest on record for the second consecutive month, 0.59°C (1.06°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.4°C (61.5°F). This broke the previous July record set in 1998. Sea surface temperatures during July 2009 were warmer than average across much of the world's oceans, with the exception of cooler-than-average conditions across parts of the North Atlantic Ocean and the southern oceans. Sea surface temperature anomalies in all Niño regions continued to warm during July 2009, where the monthly temperatures were more than 0.5°C (0.9°F) above average. If El Niño conditions continue to mature as projected by NOAA, global temperatures are likely to continue to threaten previous record highs. Please see the July 2009 ENSO discussion for additional information.

Mind you, there has been discussion in at least one skeptical blog about a new paper arguing that the net flow of heat in and out of the oceans switches around quickly, which (they say) is inconsistent with the proposition that the oceans contain heat that is "in the pipeline".

I don't think I have seen any commentary about this from the AGW side of the street, but I assume it is coming.

When physics and philosophy collide

0901.4255v2.pdf (application/pdf Object)

The arXiv essay above is given the following abstract:

The claim that the observation of a violation of a Bell inequality leads to an alleged alternative between nonlocality and non-realism is annoying because of the vagueness of the second term.

Yes, this is one of the fun things about modern physics: they can't even decide what "real" means. Talk about going back to your basics.

For those with a spare $8 million

Third Most Complete T-Rex to Be Auctioned in Vegas

Of course, it could end up being bought by a museum, but not necessarily:

At least 20 institutions have shown interest, “but then there’s always the elite that have a lot of money and like unique and unusual items, especially the Hollywood types,” he said. “There are a couple of major actors that are collectors of dinosauria.”

The anaesthetisation of good taste continues

Inglourious Basterds Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes

Hey, what's this? Initial reviews from Cannes were very mixed, with quite a high degree of negativity in many. But now that more critics have seen it, the positive reviews are far outnumbering the negative. Yes, once again the director who is so easy to dislike both personally (have you seen him in interviews?) and aesthetically is still selling glossy trash and violence to the critics and they are still (by and large) lapping it up. (I'm not so sure it will be a huge hit at the box office, though.)

For me, the effect of his oeuvre is like a cultural anaesthetisation of good taste and decency in cinema. A movie can have tension, wit and excitement without being graphically violent and morally vacuous, but Quentin doesn't seem to know that.

Of course, there are some critics who have come to dislike him, and the best negative review so far is from David Denby in the New Yorker:

Like all the director’s work after “Jackie Brown,” the movie is pure sensation. It’s disconnected from feeling, and an eerie blankness—it’s too shallow to be called nihilism—undermines even the best scenes....

Moral callousness has been part of Tarantino’s style in the past. In “Pulp Fiction,” his merry roundelay set among Los Angeles lowlifes, the aggressive acts that the characters commit against one another are so abrupt and extreme that they become funny. The movie’s outrageous panache gave the audience license to enjoy the violence as lawless entertainment. But, in “Basterds,” Tarantino is mucking about with a tragic moment of history....

Tarantino’s hyper-violent narrative reveals merely that he still daydreams like a teen-ager....

The film is skillfully made, but it’s too silly to be enjoyed, even as a joke. Tarantino may think that he is doing Jews a favor by launching this revenge fantasy (in the burning theatre, working-class Jewish boys get to pump Hitler and Göring full of lead), but somehow I doubt that the gesture will be appreciated. Tarantino has become an embarrassment: his virtuosity as a maker of images has been overwhelmed by his inanity as an idiot de la cinémathèque.

I have never quite understood why the media gives such a juvenile director so much attention. For example, he gets a big spread by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic this month. (It's worth reading merely to confirm how immature Tarantino sounds.)

Goldberg seemingly enjoys the movie as showing Nazi revenge that he used to fantasise about, but later has reservations:

When I came out of the screening room the night before our interview, I was so hopped up on righteous Jewish violence that I was almost ready to settle the West Bank—and possibly the East Bank. But when my blood cooled, I began to think about the morality of kosher porn in the context of current Middle East politics. Some of this was informed by my own experience in the Israeli army, in which I saw my fellow Jewish soldiers do moral things—such as risking their lives to prevent the murder of innocent Jews—as well as immoral things, like beating the hell out of Palestinians because they could.

When Tarantino asked me how I thought his film would be received in Israel—he’s visiting for the first time this summer, to promote the film—I told him that Israelis, who have actual experience with physical power (in a way that most Jews over the course of the past 2,000 years did not), might not take to the film in the way that many of their American cousins might. Some Israeli liberals, including the country’s many filmmakers, might not like his movie very much at all.

Well, revenge movies have never appealed to me. The only movie that I really liked that had a degree of a personal revenge as a theme was probably The Untouchables. (But even then, it was more a matter of spontaneous taking-justice-into-his-own-hands type of thing.) The whole vigilante/avenger thing with Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood never appealed.

So I am sure there will be no need for me to reconsider the value of this latest movie. As for the rest of the world: I feel confident that the intrinsic low value of Tarantino's work will be fully appreciated in retrospect.

UPDATE: a Salon blog goes at length into the Goldberg article and the question of whether this movie is "good for Jews". Certainly the comments that follow indicate that a large number of the public hate Tarantino and see through him better than your average critic. It also links to an amusingly vicious take on Tarantino and Inglorious Basterds in particular.

Power to the Moon

Technology Review: A Lunar Nuclear Reactor

Thank you for not suggesting that

I like this bit from the MSNBC story on some more recently released British Defence UFO files:

The head of the ministry's UFO desk wrote briefing notes in 1993 reporting a spate of sightings in southwest England and speculating whether they might be connected to Aurora, a secret U.S. spy plane whose existence has never been officially admitted.

Atop one of his letters, someone scrawled: "Thank you. I suggest you now drop this subject."

G&T considered

Gin and tonic: the drink that puts the fizz into Britain - Telegraph

Yes, here at Opinion Dominion we have long considered the gin and tonic the perfect pre-dinner drink.

As someone in this article notes, lime is the better citrus to use, which basically means that, unless you are in a very upmarket bar, you will make a better one at home. (Unlike beer, where the quality runs in the opposite direction.)

In fact, it was just last weekend that I was using home grown lime in my G&T, and commented to my wife how good it was instead of lemon. Cheers.