Waste of time

Bill of rights

A PROPOSAL for Australia to adopt a human rights act appears to have hit the fence after widespread opposition within the federal cabinet.

Senior sources have told the Herald that the proposal, sponsored by the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, met stiff opposition because it had the potential to shift power from the executive to the judiciary.

No final decision has been made but there is little prospect of an act being adopted.

''Put it this way, there's not a great appetite for a major transference of power from Parliament to the courtroom,'' a source said.

Err, why didn't someone tell McClelland and Father Frank Brennan this before the committee toured the country consulting the tiny fraction of the community that actually had any interest?

Grand Tour recommended

Just a quite note to say how much I have been enjoying Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour documentary series on ABC. It traces the origins of English neo-classical architecture and decoration, explaining that it all arose through the popularity of Italy as a destination from the 1600's onwards for architects (and men of all types) who, as well as having a generally debauched holiday, spent a lot of time sketching and copying ideas to incorporate buildings back in England. Tonight's episode in and around Naples was particularly entertaining, featuring as it did a very eccentric 83 year old woman who seemed to only want to talk about sex.

The episode is currently on iView, and is repeated soon on ABC 2. McCloud is a great host for a travel show like this: enthusiastic, humorous, and able to speak the language.

Hot in Brisbane, and elsewhere

I've long been making the observation that the worst of summer in Brisbane now routinely seems to come in February. This seems different from the 60's and 70's, when I would have said January was the hottest month. But then again, I didn't have quite the same interest in noting the weather as I have now.

Brisbane also gets some periods when the weather feels much hotter than the Weather Bureau seems to be saying it is. This used to be because temperature on the TV and radio came from Brisbane Airport, which is right on Moreton Bay. But they changed that some years ago, so that temperatures were taken from somewhere in the city. In the last few days, however, I have heard the radio referring to Brisbane Airport a lot again. I don't know why.

In any event, the last few days in Brisbane have been stinking hot and humid, despite the Weather Bureau giving out maximums of only 31 degrees or thereabouts. Yesterday was particularly unpleasant. I see that Ipswich had a maximum of 36 degrees, while Brisbane recorded nearly 31. I was somewhere between them, and would say it was definitely close to at least 35 degrees.

We got the edge of a storm last night, and this morning it is ridiculously humid again.

As I have remarked here before, the hottest, most humid nights I have even been through in Brisbane were in a February in a year I couldn't quite recall, but a reader reminded me that it was in 1998. The last few days have not reached quite those heights, but 1998 was an El Nino year as this one is.

Which reminds me, I don't think I posted on the record January temperature that the UAH satellite recorded. To his (very, very slight) credit, Andrew Bolt did note this. Yet strangely, this figure does not seem to have received much attention in the mainstream press, which instead in currently in an obsessive cycle of beating up on errors in any IPCC reports which are ultimately not very important. Real Climate's posts about this are useful as a corrective, and I am sure everyone who reads Andrew Bolt rushes there to see what climate scientists actually say about the issue. (Ha!)

So how hot will February be according to the satellite? I see from this page that it looks like February is on track to be very hot indeed. Will we finally see the 1998 record broken?

Finally, for all of the cheering about "Climategate" from the right wing skeptic/denialist corner of journalism and blogs, you would think that absolutely no one in Australia is supporting the government's ETS. In fact, even to my surprise, today's Newspoll indicates 57% support for it still. Amongst the young and Labor voters, support is still very strong. The weakest support (and the strongest denial of AGW generally) comes, as I always suspected, from older men. (Although, again to my surprise, the figures for "warming is at least partly caused by humans" is pretty high even in that group.)

This gives me some cheer that Australians might not be as easily swayed as the British and Americans, and perhaps this supports my argument that, apart from the current rubbish journalism, the snowy winter in those places has been very persuasive on public opinion.

Still, as the average audience for a Christopher Monckton talk has shown, it would appear that retired men don't have sheds to potter around in any more. Instead, they sit on their computers listening to a skeptic echo chamber all day.

Sounds about right

Alexander McQueen | Fashionistas are freaks

I don't know who George Pitcher is*, but his rant against the fashion industry following the death of Alexander McQueen (a name that previously escaped this blog's - and I suspect most of the public's - attention until now) has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald (originally from The Telegraph.) It's a rant worth repeating:

...the fashion industry that he dominated is one of the least attractive legal activities on earth, populated by weirdo artists, freakish PRs and emaciated and mentally disordered models. To be even tangentially exposed to it is to enter a world of phoneys and airheads, mutually massaging the pointlessness of each other's professional existence, self-regarding to a degree that would make Narcissus blush, committed only to ripping off a market made docile by cocaine, champagne and the odd canape. Fashion is a chimera of a real industry, the absence of which would harm no one other than its self-serving catamites and courtesans. It is a disgusting place to make a living.

* I see now from Wikipedia that he is a journalist and has worked in PR, and is now an Anglican priest. As a priest he is apparently not conservative, but not gay either.

Another career path overtaken by technology

Sexing chickens: Hey little hen | The Economist

According to the article, chicken sexing is a huge industry (needed to determine the fate of unfortunate rooster babies before they get fed too much.)

Yet a technology to sniff out the genders while they are in the egg has been perfected.

3D TV not so likely?

ABC The Drum Unleashed - Keep doing that and you'll go blind

Interesting article here by someone who should know the problems with 3D technology (seeing he was working on a Sega system which was never deployed.) He reckons that long term exposure to 3D is likely to be bad for the brain.

I just find it very hard to believe that 3D TV would be a worthwhile experience. I still haven't seen Avatar, but probably will some day. The only recent 3D movie I have seen is Monsters V Aliens, and as I wrote here before, the effect to me seemed to be of watching action on a intricate diorama, especially when there are action sequences taking place in the city. This is curious effect and enjoyable enough in its own way (it was like watching a movie unfold on the world's biggest train set) but it didn't in any particular sense make it feel "more real". Of course, it was a cartoon, so that may be an unrealistic expectation, but I am a little curious as to whether Avatar induces a similar feeling in me.

In any event, even with a 90 minute film, I found the 3 D system a bit tiring, so I am not at all sure how I will go with Avatar in 3D.

I just can't see the point of wanting to view most things in 3D on TV.

Shellfish can mess with your mind

Neuroskeptic: Beware The Clam of Forgetfulness

Fascinating story here about a rare problem with clams and mussels:

It turns out that there's a neurotoxin, domoic acid, which can indeed cause brain damage including memory loss. It's produced by certain algae, and can accumulate inside shellfish, especially mussels.

Domoic acid is responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning, which struck a cluster of over 100 people in Canada in 1987; 4 died, and several others suffered permanent neurological symptoms, including epilepsy and most notoriously, anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories.

This could be a useful plot device in a movie:  criminal scientist tracks down witnesses to some evil deed he has committed and makes them forget by giving them doses of domoic acid.  [Maybe he has them over for mussels :) ]

Anyhow, I can apparently rest assured that I won't be killed by mussels or have my memory erased:

Since 1987, there have been no further cases in humans, thanks to shellfish harvesting regulations.

I certainly hope that's a failsafe system they have in place now.

Culinary notes

It seems to have been quite a while since I tried a new Saturday night recipe which was an unqualified success. (Well, one child didn't care for it much, but just how often can you bring a new dish to a wife and two kids under 10 and have all of them approve?)

Last night it was a whole snapper that had to be cooked, and I had grown tired of always grilling them Asian style (you know, soy, honey, ginger, sesame oil, spring onions and some chilli on the part the grown ups will eat.) So I tried Mediterranean style baked fish, from a recipe in the gigantic Stephanie Alexander book (which most Australians who have any interest in cooking would know about), and it was very good. It's pretty straight forward and goes something like this:

* cube some potatoes
* saute in olive oil for 10 minutes
* add finely sliced red onion, garlic, and chopped seeded and peeled ripe tomatoes
* cook for another 5 minutes
* pour over seasoned fish, and drizzle more olive oil and the juice of a lemon over top
* start baking
* about 10 minutes before fish is done, throw a handful of black olives over the dish as well.

For a recipe that is pretty simple, the results are quite delicious.

And here's something I have been meaning to ask since I first tasted them:

Where have you been all my life Sicilian green olives??

I think it was about two years ago that I first tasted these on an antipasto plate at an Italian restaurant, and I immediately liked them. I asked the waiter what they were, as I could not recall having such nice, fruity, not-so-salty olives before.

Since then, they have started appearing in deli's and even Coles supermarkets, but I swear they were unknown in Brisbane 5 years ago. (The Coles ones with lemon aren't the best example of the genre, by the way.)

Maybe stuffed green olives have always been of the Sicilian kind? I wouldn't know, because somehow I have never liked the looked of stuffed olives. What I am talking about is the plain, un-pitted Sicilian green.

Brisbane is not exactly ground breaking when it comes to selling new foodstuff to the general public, so I am curious as to whether they have always been sold in Melbourne or Sydney, and for some reason they have just come across the border? I don't recall any TV cook ever talking about them, so that probably doesn't account for their sudden appearance.

In any case, they are delicious, and a small deli in the shopping centre near my house sells them. I have to keep buying them every week in a show of support.

Try them if you never have before.

A dubious move

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall - NYTimes.com

In Arizona:

Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

I'm not at all sure this is a wise move.

Hardly a dump

Better Homes and Gardens - Yahoo!7 Lifestyle

Haven't various Prime Ministers over the years complained about The Lodge as being a pretty inadequate official residence? Or was it mainly Paul Keating?* I see that in 2007 Bettina Arndt (?) was writing in the Canberra Times that the house is a "shameful" official residence, although how often and why the sex therapist may been visiting there is probably an interesting question of its own.

Anyhow, last night's Better Homes and Gardens (see link above for the video) had a segment showing some of the house and the gardens, and it seemed to me be to a perfectly fine looking shack for our PMs.

* Actually, a quick Google search indicates that Tamie Fraser instituted some big renovations in the late seventies, and as of 1979 the government decided to plan for a new prime ministerial residence.

That's the anti sport spirit!

Why the Olympics and Other Sports Cause Conflict - Newsweek.com

Yay. Christopher Hitchens seems to dislike sport of all varieties just about as much I do. (Is dislike too strong a word? I certainly ignore 99.9% of it, and am very cynical that it is "character building" in any sense at all. Building stadiums is just about the biggest waste of government money ever invented. Now that I think about it, maybe I hate sport.)

Anyway, it's a fun read.

Why not to love the (Iranian) bomb

Debunking the nutty theory that Iranian nukes are a good thing. - By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine

Pretty good article here debunking some of the recent opinion pieces that suggest Iran having the bomb might be a good thing regionally.

I'm not sure that Kaplan's optimism about how much time is left is right, though.

How Kevin lost his mojo

I won't bother providing links to support my claims in this post, but here goes.

It seems that many people sense a sudden turnaround in the image and political fortunes of one Kevin Michael Rudd. It's not just News Limited journalists either, whose changes of tune often seem strangely uniform after hints appear from the lips of the boss, but commentators such as Michelle Grattan, Bernard Keane, and even the folks at the lefty blog Larvatus Prodeo.

The climate change skeptics of the media and blogosphere think that Tony Abbott's ascension to being Leader of the Opposition is the explanation. But that seems far too simple and easy to me. I admit I pretty much despise Abbott for the opportunistic way he trashed climate change policy he previously supported to grab the leadership, but I still feel that Rudd's sudden tarnished image is more one of his own making than as a result of change of leadership. Here's my list of what's gone wrong for him:

1. Copenhagen: Rudd expected to be welcomed as a hero and to have an important role in negotiations. He took an enormous delegation with him to cheer just in case the leaders of 90% of the rest of the world said "who's he?" Instead, the conference showed all the dangers of any process organised by the UN, being hijacked by a bunch of mismanaged countries more interested in shaking down the West than talking about emissions, and one big powerful country (China) playing a spoiler role because it can.

So, it turned into a PR liability very quickly.

I did not expect it to go so badly either, but it was Rudd who put a lot of political eggs in the basket on this one.

2. He took a holiday. For once, Kevin stopped appearing on TV for a few weeks in January. He gave clear air for Abbott to turn up on whatever TV or radio appearance he wanted, with little government response following. If this was a deliberate tactic, it didn't work. Even though there was nothing significant policy-wise said in this period, all these "action" shots of (Tony in his speedos, Tony in his lycra cycling gear), at least give people the impression that he might be someone who can get things done. Which leads to the next point:

3. A sudden realisation that Rudd hasn't got all that much done. It seems to have taken a hell of a long time for the polls to reflect a cynicism in the public that Rudd is all waffling talk and light on the ground on actual results, but it finally seems to have kicked in.

Maybe it's the realisation that we're close to an election and (amongst other things) few students have got their free laptop; aboriginal housing is being fixed at a glacial pace and at huge cost; nothing obvious has changed in the State hospital system and any Federal 'takeover' is receding into the distance; even industrial relations changes seem to have taken a long time to become fully effective.

4. Now that Rudd has started to appear in the media again, he is doing it in a Presidential style which serves to highlight his deficiencies as a speaker and advocate. His weekly sessions on Sunrise to answer viewer questions is an appallingly dull format, and I don't understand why his media advisers (and the shows producers) haven't changed it completely already. (I missed it this morning, but could hear it in the background and suspect it may have tweaked already.)

I missed his "Q&A" show, but take it that it didn't go over so well. And when will some adviser be brave enough to tell him "Kevin, you simply have to stop with the 'and you know what'?" and his other rhetorical cliches which people are well and truly sick of.

Oddly, from what I see of his parliamentary performance, he's actually still looking confident there, but this counts for little just at the moment.

5. He never was very likeable but people seemed to give him the benefit of the doubt. That attitude is drying up fast.

Consumer revolt

The Cost of an E-Book Will Be Going Up - NYTimes.com

It does seem odd that, just at a time there is an expectation that e-book readers are really going to take off, the cost of e-books is expected to go up. But as noted, this is meeting stiff consumer resistance in the States.

Meanwhile, it would be good to be able to get more than just a Kindle in this country. Grr.

Fun reading ahead

Psychiatry's draft new 'bible' goes online - health - 10 February 2010 - New Scientist

It seems the draft new version of the DSM-V, the bible of mental health diagnosis, is now available on line.

Lots of potential fun there is trying to pin down what exactly is wrong with some of my fellow bloggers. :)

Legs astride the barbed wire fence

Rowan's apology falls short

I see that the Archbishop of Canterbury continues to try to do the impossible task of keeping the Church of England from splintering over sexuality, saying he's sorry to gays and lesbians if they feel he hasn't done enough for their recognition, while telling them they should still wait.

What a hopeless task.

Quite beautiful

Have a look at this mesmerising 4 minute film. (Watch it in full screen is best.)

The "making of" video shows how it is largely a digital construct, pretty much like Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow, which was very much underappreciated.

Something to watch out for

The Ghostman of Skye | Ghostwatch | Fortean Times

True life ghost stories told by sincere sounding people can be both intriguing and entertaining, but as this review of a recent BBC documentary notes, television's treatment of this topic in the last few years has been dominated by appallingly silly ' psychic ghosthunter' style programs which no sensible person can watch.

But I'll have to look out for this doco. Some of the spooky stories are described as follows:

Among the most remarkable accounts were sightings of a ghost car on the Portree to Sligachan road, which have caused something of a sensation on the island. One driver described how he had pulled in twice to avoid what he believed was a real vehicle approaching, only to see the headlights mysteriously vanish. On a third encounter, he instead drove boldly towards the headlights, much to the discomfort of passengers in the car, only to find the lights unaccountably vanishing once again. An elderly ex-policeman told of seeing a headless lady in green; where the head should have been it was “vacant, missing”. Other stories told of strange lights associated with road accidents and drownings, which were seen as omens.

A phantom child, five or six years old, was seen by two men out walking. The vision occurred about an hour and half before the discovery of a body of a child who had drowned in a loch, and for whom neighbours were searching that night. An account from a John McGillivray told of a light seen climbing up from the shore and moving up the hill. This was reportedly seen at a spot where a body was later discovered, with the light moving along the track where the body was later carried to the nearest graveyard.

Not encouraging

Climate 'Tipping Points' May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster

"Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them," said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings. "Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning -- systems can 'tip' precipitously.

"This means that some effects of global climate change on ecosystems can be seen only once the effects are dramatic. By that point returning the system to a desirable state will be difficult, if not impossible."....

Among the tipping points Holdren listed were: the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, leading to drastic changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns across the whole Northern Hemisphere; acceleration of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, driving rates of sea-level increase to 6 feet or more per century; and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide absorption, causing massive disruption in ocean food webs.

Coming soon

What the LHC could find at half-power - New Scientist

There's no mention in this short note as to whether half power is enough for mini black holes. The answer will be somewhere on the internet.