Scant attention

Gulfnews: More than 80 civilians killed in Yemen air raid, witnesses say

I've noticed for quite a while, via my visits to Gulf News, that there has been a lot of internal turmoil within Yemen. Now we get this alleged incident:

Details have emerged from a government air strike on a refugee camp in the Yemeni province of Amran on Wednesday, leaving more than 80 civilians dead.

Many of the victims were women and children according to witnesses on the ground.

There has been no government comment yet on the strike. Yemen has entered its fifth week of fighting between the government and the Shiite separatist rebels in the northern provinces.

Yet it seems that the Western mainstream media is paying scant attention. Given that it borders Saudi Arabia, I would have thought we should hear more about it.

Chips cashed in

BBC NEWS | Americas | US 'shelves Europe missile plan'

I thought the idea was that the US would pull back on the missile plan in return for Russia changing its tune on Iran.

Instead, apart from getting entertainment from this oddly graphic metaphor:

Russia's ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, said the move was "a breakthrough" for US-Russian relations, although they were waiting for official confirmation from the US.

"It's like having a decomposing corpse in your flat - and then the mortician comes and takes it away.

"This means we're getting rid of one of those niggling problems which prevented us from doing the real work," he said.

there doesn't seem to be any trade off from Russia.

We'll have to wait and see, but if the world takes it as a sign of US weakness, I wonder if this may be seen as the start of a re-run of the Carter presidency.

Unhelpful thinking

Lightning kills five Cameroon children - Yahoo!7 News

A lightning bolt killed five children at their school in northwest Cameroon as they were preparing to begin their school day, a local doctor said on Wednesday.

Some 58 others were taken to a hospital near the small village of Bamali, which is some 460 kms northwest of the capital, Yaounde....

Several witnesses, including a prominent traditional ruler, said they believed the event had mystical roots. Belief in witchcraft is common in the West African nation, and a thunderbolt is traditionally seen as a way of settling disputes.

Belief that natural disaster can have a supernatural origin in God is one thing; it may be completely mistaken, but if the belief is in a fundamentally good God, surely the most likely result is self examination as to what sin the person or community has committed so as to deserve punishment.

But belief that accidental death and illness is almost always initiated by your enemy or rival is a different kettle of fish entirely: presumably such thinking is only destined to cause never ending cycles of disputes, fighting, bloodshed or torture in societies where the idea is widespread.

To the extent that Christianity does not have a particularly strong biblical basis for belief in the personal control of supernatural powers for evil purposes, its adoption is presumably an advance in such societies.

Of course, excessive belief in possession, which does have a strong basis in scripture, can be harmful in its own way. I would still think it an improvement for society overall to have some unfortunates mistreated for possession rather than a semi-permanent state of fighting between clans, etc.

Jungian thoughts

Carl Jung and the Holy Grail of the Unconscious - NYTimes.com

I was interested in Carl Jung for a time and read a couple of his books. Certainly, some of his ideas are at least culturally significant, and his conflict with Freud (in which an allegedly paranormal - or at least highly co-incidental - event featured) is pretty important in the history of the ways to think about the mind.

Yet, he didn't exactly lead an exemplary life himself, and some of his self reported dreams (a gigantic God defecating on a church for example) tend to just make the eyes roll.

What's more, he became a popular figure amongst new age nuns and others who want to just talk vague spirituality instead of facing the rigours of morality that traditional religion expects. I expect he was popular for a time amongst those at St Mary's in Exile, although I get the impression liberal Catholics have moved on a bit from him.

Anyhow, this is all preamble to referring readers to the long article in the New York Times Magazine about the release of a journal he kept during his (somewhat early) mid life crisis. Apparently it's full of lurid art and accounts of his hallucinations, and reader's reactions will probably depend on whether they are already an acolyte or not.

An interesting read anyway.

As I was saying

Too much radiation for astronauts to make it to Mars - New Scientist

In praise of Lileks

James Lileks is a fine writer. The only thing that stops me visiting him each day is that he is too much of a fine writer; i.e., he writes vast vistas of words and blog pages that are just too time consuming to keep up with.

In any event, this passage, about cleaning up around home, is a good example of his wry style:

And that’s another thing: out go the old colognes. I use the stuff very sparingly, but I’ve been dealing with two fragrances I can’t bear to toss because the containers are so cool, and the fragrances so distinctive. They’re so distinctive I cannot tell whether I like them or not. They have a top note of pepper and musty fireworks. Both came from the Bath & Body Shop; both were quickly discontinued, which makes me suspect they’re either really awful or cause genetic mutations. Back to the fall classic: a dash of Bay Rum slapped on the cheeks after a shave. I need only a straw boater and a celluloid collar; wear that stuff, and people wonder if you’re also wearing spats.

Deadly african lakes

Methane mining could trigger killer gas cloud - New Scientist

Interesting story about the potential for deadly gas outbursts from a Rwandan/Congo lake. The number of people at risk: only a couple of million!

Curious

BBC NEWS | Health | Genes blamed for early first sex

This study claims to have likely identified a significant genetic component behind the age at which teenagers first have sex:

Jane Mendle, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, who led the study said: "The association between father's absence and children's sexuality is best explained by genetic influences, rather than by environmental theories alone.

"While there is clearly no such thing as a 'father absence gene', there are genetic contributions to traits in both mums and dads that increase the likelihood of earlier sexual behaviour in their children.

"These include impulsivity, substance use and abuse, argumentativeness and sensation seeking."

If true, how is sex education ever going to adequately address those issues?

Some others question the conclusion of this study:

Simon Blake, from the sexual health charity, Brook Advisory Centre, took issue with the idea that genes were the overriding factor in early sex.

He said: "We know from research that factors associated with young people having first intercourse at a younger age are: lower educational achievements; friends and the media being the main source of information about sex education; socio-economic status; early sexual experience and the earlier age at which girls start their periods.

On that last point, I'm not sure if it is widely accepted that father's presence in the house seems to somehow delay the start of menstruation. I wonder how big a factor that alone may be for accounting for early sex in girls?

Teenagers are very odd animals.

Sure

Weddings? I prefer funerals - they're far more real

Catherine Deveny, who I have previously observed as having the entrenched views typical of the most irritating kind of 15 year old, confirms this again today in her spray against the very concept of marriage.

The best part was this:

Me? No. Never have, never will, never wanted to. Better dead than wed. Wouldn't I like to be princess for a day? No thanks, I'm a princess every day.

Yes, the one with the title "sourest princess on earth".

I have a relative, quite the atheist (well, perhaps agnostic, I'm not certain) who became a civil marriage celebrant. She observed that it was extremely common for a quasi-cynical partner to say in the pre-wedding meeting that marriage didn't mean that much to them, as they had been living together for so long anyway, only to find at the wedding that they were often the ones who went all gooey and emotional.

Complaining about Tiger

A sting in the tail with $49 Tiger Airways flight | Fees | Fine print

There seems to have been a serious outbreak of complaints about Tiger Airways in the last few weeks. The latest, in The Age, does appear to have a strong grounding, at least in terms of a lost item and bad advice.

I have flown Tiger twice now (on return trips) from the Gold Coast. Both times were quite satisfactory, and at extraordinary low cost.

You can't judge its performance in the same way as a major airline like Qantas. At most, it is comparable to Jetstar I suppose, with the same strict cut off times for checking in and (presumably) strong compliance with baggage weight limits.

It is obvious, isn't it, that airlines that offer their cheapest prices on the basis of carry on only are going to be ruthless about checking weights? Same if your check in baggage increases the cost incrementally according to its weight. Anyone who complains about trouble with rearranging luggage at check in to make it comply with the rules are just careless, lazy or incompetent.

I would have also thought it obvious that an airline as small as Tiger which has (I think) the one plane doing the one return route, say, three times a day, is going to have more delays than larger airlines, with presumably longer delays as the day progresses. In my case, the flights have mainly been morning ones, and they were only slightly late.

You have to come to Tiger with very low expectations, because you really are just catching the equivalent of a flying bus with some strict rules. But the price can make it worthwhile.

The slow burn

Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal and Christopher Hitchens in Slate are pretty much on the same wavelength when it comes to pessimism about Iran and the prospects of the West stopping its nuclear advance.

Beautiful but mad

Dezeen - 55 Blair Road by Ong & Ong

It's been a while since we've looked at a fancy bit of house architecture at Dezeen, but here we go.

The re-design of a Singaporean house shop looks beautiful in a blue/white sort of way (even the books on the shelf have been given white covers so as not to ruin the purity of the look.)

But, as is often the case with sexy architect designed interiors, when you look at the layout of the place, there is something just wildly impractical. (In Japan, it will usually be a disastrously steep staircase with no rails and sharp edges.) In this case, it seems to be that every walk from the living area to the kitchen involves going across 'stepping platforms' over the pool, and appears to be open to the sky. This in a country which, if my short visits are a guide, seems to have a thunderstorm about every second day.

Children, or even the ever so slightly tipsy, need not apply. But it's pretty, there's no denying it.

A director of literature writes...

Books will survive, but not on paper - On Line Opinion - 15/9/2009

This section caught my eye from the above article:

For a number of years, the Australia Council has funded online journals and we are viewing with particular interest the rise of the well-written blog. Canadian blogger Christian Lander's Stuff White People Like was picked up by Random House for print publication and subsequently optioned for film. Our own Marieke Hardy was the key speaker at this year's NSW Premier's Book Awards.

A blog was optioned for a film?

Marieke Hardy gets to speak at book awards? Her blog was unreadable.

Big in Japan

Regurgitator hope to savor big-in-Japan feeling again

I didn't even know they were still around. Hoodoo Gurus are doing what sounds like a birthday party gig with them in Japan. Odd.

Gropers beware

Tokyo police launch weeklong anti-groping campaign on trains

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department launched an anti-groping campaign on Monday, with some 200 high school girls handing out fliers and tissues at Ikebukuro station and plain-clothed officers being posted aboard trains on lines which run through Tokyo.

Just in case you are wondering, the handing out of tissues has nothing to do with the private habits of the gropers. Free pocket tissues, for advertising anything from mobile phone deals to English language schools, are commonly handed out in Japanese cities.

Harassing for respect

Gee, people sometimes have the hide to complain about how Australia treats visitors and residents from Asia. Have they read the Jakarta Post recently?:

Dozens of NGO activists dubbing themselves Relawan Ganyang Malaysia (Anti-Malaysia Activists) Tuesday conducted a raid on a street in Central Jakarta in a hunt for Malaysian nationals until the police halted their activities.

Starting from 10 a.m., about 40 activists, sporting red-and-white attire and paraphernalia, stopped pedestrians, motorcyclists and cars in front of their office on Jl. Diponegoro in the plush area of Menteng.

They asked them to show their ID cards or passports to prove they were not Malaysian citizens.

No Malaysian citizens were caught in the raid.

And from another report last week, perhaps referring to the same incident:

Dozens of activists from the Ganyang Malaysia (Crush Malaysia) Volunteers conducted a street sweep against the neighboring country’s citizens on Jl. Diponegoro, in Central Jakarta, on Tuesday...

One of the volunteers, Aji Kusuma, said the group initiated the sweep as they were disappointed with the government's slow response to Malaysia’s repeated claims on Indonesian cultural heritage.

Last Saturday, and the idea is spreading:

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s call for an end to excessive reactions against Malaysian nationals has fallen on deaf ears as a Betawi (Jakarta native ethnic) group reportedly plans to harass citizens of the neighboring country.

Barisan Muda Betawi (BMB) activists said they would conduct an ID check targeting Malaysians in a show of protest against the government’s failure to take tough measures against Malaysia’s disrespect for Indonesia.

And the cause of all this:

The harsh reaction against Malaysia was triggered by last month’s Discovery Channel’s TV advertorial program Enigmatic Malaysia that featured Balinese Pendet dance as a Malaysian art form.

Both the Discovery Channel and the Malaysian Tourism Ministry have apologized over the polemics.

The world is sinking beneath the waves

Credit crunch signals end of The World for Dubai’s multi-billion dollar property deal -Times Online

It's about Dubai; it's about failure. Of course I'll blog about it.

The showerhead of doom

Daily bathroom showers may deliver face full of pathogens, says study

It's not surprising to find pathogens in municipal waters, said Pace. But the CU-Boulder researchers found that some M. avium and related pathogens were clumped together in slimy "biofilms" that clung to the inside of showerheads at more than 100 times the "background" levels of municipal water. "If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy," he said.

Just lucky this research wasn't done while Howard Hughes was around to hear it.

Engineers and terrorism

September 11 Reflections: Terror and Technology - Edward Tenner

Edward Tenner reminds us that engineering has figured pretty prominently as the career of choice of several Islamic terrorists.

Well, anyone who has worked with engineers knows that they are often, shall we say, a bit of a worry.

Unintended consequences

Elton John wants to adopt Ukrainian orphan who 'has stolen his heart' - Times Online

The international children’s charity EveryChild yesterday condemned Sir Elton’s plans, claiming that they could result in more youngsters being abandoned. Anna Feuchtwang, its chief executive, said research showed that news of adoptions by wealthy foreigners encouraged mothers to place their children in care in the hope that they would get a better life. “The actions of celebrities such as Madonna, and now possibly Elton John, could be actually increasing the number of children in children’s homes in countries like Ukraine,” she said.

Mind you, any international adoption from countries with serious levels of poverty, even by run-of-the-mill Western parents, runs the risk of initiating abandonment of children. Foreign Correspondent has a story tomorrow night about this happening in Ethiopia , and it goes on in India too.

I'm not sure the answer is clear, although not giving aging pop stars publicity about their adoption intentions would be a good place to start.