Guardian goodness

Two good columns in the Guardian recently:

*  Greg Jericho on the pitfalls of privatisation (why is it he sounds so much more convincing than "just privatise everything" message of Julie Novak I heard on Radio National last week - perhaps it's because he actually suggests an evidence based approach, rather than a pure ideological one?)

*  Lenore Taylor on the culture war approach of this Abbott government.   Donnelly leading a review of curriculum is a bit of a joke;  in my view, he's become a perpetual whinger who doesn't acknowledge improvements towards the centre that education has made over the last decade or so.

I'm waiting for Abbott to announce a Rupert Murdoch led enquiry into media ownership and regulation in Australia.  It would make as much sense.

Drug problems can turn up in the oddest places....

Charts: Vermont's "Full-Blown Heroin Crisis."

No, he didn't like it

We went off to see Frozen yesterday, and I for one came away completely underwhelmed.

The last couple of the so-called Disney "princess"movies - The Princess and the Frog and Tangled - were great in all respects.  In Tangled in particular, the combination of the beauty of the animation and music in a key scene nearly brought me to tears; but both movies made a real effort in the slapstick-y style of the humour to appeal to boys as well as girls.

Frozen is a fizzle is any way you care to compare it.   The music is a mess in all respects - it starts off sounding awfully like something from the Lion King (for no discernible reason), then has an all male chorus song with lyrics I couldn't decipher, and the "hit"tune is of the pretty generic Broadway pop-ish style that is quite forgettable (it reminded me of the style of a couple of the songs I have heard from Wicked.)  

The computer animation has received lots of praise, but I have to say that when you get to this level of photo realism, the characters start to look at bit distractingly like actual toys:  it's as if you were watching Ken and Barbie come to life, which is OK in a Toy Story movie, but not so much in one where they are meant to be people.   I have noticed this a bit before in other computer animated movies, but it bothered me particularly in this one for some reason.

The biggest problem is with the story and characters - the title character is pretty resolutely annoying throughout the whole thing; the sympathetic male lead is underwritten; and it really is (to my mind) the most relentlessly girl oriented Disney film since (probably) the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastically catchy hit song.   And, it's just not very funny or witty. 

So why has it been a substantially bigger box office success than Tangled?   (Box Office Mojo shows US box office of $300 million already; Tangled had only $200 million.)  I have absolutely no idea.  

Both movies seem to have the same high scores on Rotten Tomatoes, and I was surprised to see that Anthony Lane from the New Yorker was listed as liking Frozen.   But this is an example of the sometimes dubious tallying of Rotten Tomatoes, as when you go read his actual review he hardly gave it a strong endorsement:

In short, where is our villain? Idina Menzel, who voices Elsa, played the green-faced lead in “Wicked,” on Broadway, so everything is set for vengeance and spite, but nothing happens. True, Elsa starts waltzing around in a long skirt slashed to the thigh, which is hot stuff for Disney, but, still, Cruella de Vil would skin her alive.

The other sister is Anna (Kristen Bell), who follows on from Belle, in “Beauty and the Beast,” and Rapunzel, in “Tangled,” being spunky and reckless, with a hint of tomboy, though retaining her capacity to swoon if anything princely shows up. Most of the men, by contrast, look milky and mild, with a hint of tomgirl, and, once a chatting snowman is introduced, presumably to keep your toddlers satisfied, much of the movie turns to slush. Disney has thus arrived at a mirror image of its earlier self: the seriously bad guys and the top-grade sidekicks—the Shere Khans and the Baloos—are now a melting memory, while the chronic simperers, like Cinderella, have been superseded by tough dames. As Anna sings, “For years I’ve roamed these empty halls, / Why have a ballroom with no balls?” Go get ’em, sister. 

 He's still the wittiest reviewer around (and that also explains the reminder of Wicked from the songs.)

My negative reaction to the movie caused some interesting family revelations - both my wife and daughter rated it as better than Tangled or Princess and the Frog - my wife saying she particularly didn't like the latter.  I only recalled her saying she quite liked the music from it,  and in fact I bought her the CD.   (My daughter and son both like the Randy Newman jazzy style of the music, actually.)  I kept wanting to explain last night why I thought this movie was crook - the family kept telling me to stop going on about it, but fortunately there is always this outlet, which I can always imagine someone has read to this point, even if no one actually got past the first line. 

The other big, intensely girl orientated animation by Disney/Pixar, Brave, was also a dud.   It seems to me someone at Disney has suddenly forgotten how to make them.

Cold weather

I suppose I should put a link or two here about how the cold American winter is not that cold for the country, polar vortex or not.

I thought this post at Wonkblog dealt with the whole climate change denying mocking response of the Right very well.  Except that, of course, most of them are too stupid to read it.

Truly, the Right is currently intellectually bankrupt, but when will this finally pass?   We really have to wait for the next global heatwave (to get past 1998 on Roy Spencer's chart) before they'll reconsider?  (Funnily enough, Spencer's figure for the month of December 2013 does not even show it as a particularly cool month, globally.  Yet Roy himself has joined in the "ha ha!" mood, showing what an ideologically driven tosser he is.  Judith Curry did the same on her blog about the ship stuck in ice in Antarctica - quoting serious papers discussing why Antarctic sea ice is lately increasing, none of which doubt AGW - but then going "ha ha, isn't it hilarious how this is a PR disaster for AGW.")

They are not to be taken seriously.

It might be important, or it might not

Cloning quantum information from the past | KurzweilAI

If I could understand the explanation better, I might be able to tell if this is of significance to the issue of an understandable means for a future resurrection.

An odd thing to be wrong about

N-test legacy in stratosphere bigger than thought

It was previously thought that plutonium radionuclides—radioactive atoms which can take decades or thousands of years to degrade—were present in the stratosphere only at negligible levels.

It was also believed that levels of these pollutants were higher in the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere that is closest to the ground, than in the stratosphere. Both ideas turn out to be wrong, according to the new study, whose authors also found no likelihood of a hazard to health.

Radiation levels in the stratosphere are "more than three orders of magnitude higher than previously thought," study co-author Jose Corcho of the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Protection told AFP.

Somehow, I expected scientists to have a better grip on this topic than they appear to have had.

A look at US income inequality

Is income inequality as bad as Obama says? In many ways, yes. - CSMonitor.com

This seemed to me to be a pretty fair and dispassionate look at the topic. Yes, they do have a problem. 

Frank should give Steve a call

The Agony of Frank Luntz - Molly Ball - The Atlantic

I haven't really noticed this Frank Luntz before, but given that he is a right wing figure who appears to have slid in depression after Obama's election win, and blames it all on Obama being a divisive figure who is ruining society, he should get on the phone to Australia's own analyst of the "damaged women" who foolishly voted for Obama, Steven Kates.    They appear to have much in common. 

(Actually, at least Luntz has enough nous to recognise Romney made major campaigning mistakes.  I don't think Kates has even acknowledged that.   But their insistence that the problem is with a large slab of the public - which was just too stupid to understand - marks both of them as political dunderheads.)

More brain boosting discussion

Can I increase my brain power? | Science | The Guardian

I should have added this to my last post, but for those interested in the future of artificial brain enhancement (I'm hoping for a electric skull cap to hold off deterioration by the time I'm 80), this article is a pretty good read.

Three odd science stories for the New Year

*  I didn't realise it was so big, either.  (The Andromeda Galaxy, if you could actually see it fully in the night sky.)

*  The NSA is looking into quantum computing?   That, along with Google (and its near impossible to follow rules about what they can do with info they glean from use of their products) means you may as well abandon any last hope you had of future privacy right now.  In fact, you should probably buy and install the bedroom webcam while they are cheap before they become compulsory.

*  The hunt for evidence for time travel on the internet fails for now.  I could have told them that.  Some years ago I invited future scientists to email me (they don't have to personally visit, just send the information back in time) next week's winning Lotto numbers, but they never arrived.  (Just in case - future scientists, you can find my permanent email address at the side.  Don't give up!)

Drug commentary

So, while I was on holiday, I see that David Brooks has copped a lot of flak for his column which might be summarised as "sure, I tried marijuana as a teenager too, but all successful people realise that it's basically for losers.  We shouldn't experiment with legally selling it."

Much of the criticism is over the top, I think, and they let indignation get in the way of some sound points.  (See the Slate article Should Black Kids Pay for David Brooks’ Pothead Sins? as a good example.)

And, let's face it, it is hard not to be a little annoyed with the "don't do as I did, you young 'uns, or you might not end up as President" approach of, well, US Presidents.  

As for libertarians;  for goodness sake, they keep on citing Portugal's decriminalisation of possession of drugs as if it is something they think should be emulated, when in fact the system is nothing like an easy going libertarian dream at all.  Sure, the possessor of small quantities may not face court, instead they face this (assuming Wikipedia has it right):

The drugs are confiscated, and the suspect is interviewed by a “Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction” (Comissões para a Dissuasão da Toxicodependência – CDT). These commissions are made up of three people: A social worker, a psychiatrist, and an attorney.^[9][10] The dissuasion commission have powers comparable to an arbitration committee, but restricted to cases involving drug use or possession of small amounts of drugs. There is one CDT in each of Portugal’s 18 districts.

Oddly enough, one of the fairest takes on Brook's article is to be found in an Economist blog, even though that magazine keeps on talking up relaxing drugs laws.   (And, everyone has to admit that America has had issues with dealing with drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one.  But the Australian and European approaches have generally not resulted in excessive criminal prosecution for small time users, and we have long been advanced in matters such as the methodone program for heroin users, and needle exchange programs.)

As it says in the Economist article that I'm recommending:

The point is that however the cost/benefit formula is constructed, there are factors on both sides of the equation. Lives have been ruined by marijuana as well as by its prohibition. It may be facile to lament the legalisation of the drug while ignoring the damage wrought by prohibition, but it is equally silly to assume that there will be no losers from the unprecedented experiments in Colorado and Washington. Mr Brooks may sound supercilious and priggish, but he is a columnist for the New York Times; that is virtually a job requirement. He does not explicitly argue for prohibition to be maintained, as many of his critics appear to assume. Nor would his conclusions be incompatible with widespread decriminalisation of marijuana, which would alleviate much of the harm of prohibition without carrying the implicit imprimatur of state approval Mr Brooks dislikes so much (that is not my position, nor that of The Economist, but it is not a dishonourable one). Opposition to marijuana legalisation is the position of a substantial if dwindling minority. Perhaps Mr Brooks's column is best understood as an expression of that minority concern.

[Update: here's a short article from a site I am completely unfamiliar with, linking to other pieces I haven't actually read yet, about the genuine complexity of legalising the use of marijuana.]

As for a broader bit of commentary on drug use, I was quite impressed by this article in Slate:

Cocaine trafficking horrors: Users are complicit in the atrocities of the drug trade

in which a scientist can't get over the fact that rich Americans who want their cocaine simply will not factor in that they are feeding a horrendous situation in Mexico.  Sure, they can say the true blame is the government anti-drugs regime (at an international scale) that sets up the money to be made in drugs by criminals.  Put surely the proper, moral thing to do in that case is to campaign against that approach to drugs, while not personally feeding the system that is causing criminal mayhem in poorer countries.

I imagine some readers might argue that you could say the same thing applied during Prohibition, and ask whether I think all people who went to a "speakeasy" in that period where immoral too.  Well, basically, yes: I think they were if they knew the extent to which they were directly fuelling murder in their country.  The thing is, as bad as gang warfare might have been in the mafia in that period, it was  nothing on the scale of what people can read about in the situation in Mexico and other countries today.  (Read the Slate article on that point.)   Also, people are (or should be) better exposed to the effects of their paying for drugs now given modern communications compared to how people got the news 90 years ago.

The argument that cocaine is a drug which, like marijuana, is capable of use just for occasional recreational fun is a two edged sword - libertarian types will puff up and get indignant about why such a drug is criminalised and banned at all, but I say the fact that some users only want it for that special one night buzzy feel makes it even worse that they will not consider the dire consequences of their feeding the criminality in Mexico.

Why can't people just live with the one, ancient, social (but still dangerous) drug that comes in thousands of taste varieties?  

UPDATE:   Add Slate's David Weigel to the list of writers over reacting to Brooks.  In fact, while Brook's "confession" of once not being to perform in front of his class due to overindulgence was a bit embarrassing, Weigel comes up with is own confession which I find a tad cringeworthy in its own way:

Actual confession: I smoke pot. I've never bought it, but I've had it when friends bring it out to enliven a party. Frankly, I'm a terrible pothead. Having never really smoked cigarettes, I'm all thumbs at lighting a pipe or joint. The last time I smoked, earlier this week, the product overcame the wan barriers of my tolerance and I passed out on a kitchen floor—actually a pretty excellent goodbye-to-the-old-year metaphor, though somewhat embarrasing at the time. (UPDATE: Should note that the time before this, pot was part of a lovely evening of conversation and record-playing. It's like any other drug, and the experiences vary.)

David, David.   As I assume you are mature enough to not pass out through over indulgence in alcohol any more, it's not that great an advertisement for marijuana to tell us you passed out from it a bit unexpectedly only last weekend.

And then he runs with the "it's not so different from alcohol anyway" argument:

Point is, I didn't fear or confront any other consequences. I knew I wouldn't because none of the people I've smoked with, in D.C. at least, have found it impeded their work any more than a bit of heavy drinking would. As a habit, it's somewhat less dangerous than heavy drinking, as it neuters the violent instinct, is hard to overindulge on, and isn't as fun to ingest. (Your choice: Suck on a wet roll of paper full of vegetation in your friend's bedroom, or knock back an aged and aerated red wine across the table from a date?)

 Oh OK, so like I argue, good alcoholic beverages can taste great and  (I take David's word for it) are more fun to ingest.   So why do people who want to use it (say) once a month so insistent that they are missing out on much if they can't get it?  Go buy a particularly good bottle of one of that "more fun to ingest"drug instead.

Look, as the Economist article suggests, what most of these attacks on Brooks are suggesting is that moderate personal use of marijuana should be largely decriminalised, because the over the top approach to criminalising it in the US has gone too far.  Australians and Europeans can largely agree with that.

But the Brooks article is about the effect of outright legalisation, which is quite a different thing.

New Year improvements

I'm suffering a touch of New Year, post Christmas holiday ennui, especially as going to Canberra made the sensation of  humidity and heat of Brisbane feel more extreme than ever.   Tonight I am sure I can smell the smoke from the week long fire on Stradbroke Island too.

Anyhow, before I start posting my fascinating notes from a driving holiday, I am thinking about getting serious about losing weight, and that intermittent fasting idea does hold appeal.

Here are a couple of recent articles about it:  one from the Los Angeles Times, warning that it is not really studied enough in humans; and another from the BBC, indicating that it seems to have long lasting effects beyond weight loss.  (And really, that could be a reason to try it anyway.)

I did think about this a couple of months ago, and started looking around for reasonable options for the 600 calorie days (I would just follow the Michael Mosley plan of 2 days a week fasting - Tuesday and Thursday seem the picks of the week, and certainly the "fast every other day" version has no appeal.) It is trickier than I thought working out a day's eating to exactly 600 calories, and often sources on the web refer to brands of food from overseas, but I could get there, I'm sure.

Perhaps next week is the start.We'll see...

Now to greet me every morning....

Humble beginnings

A pleasant Christmas, World.

Good Christians

Heart of the slums

This was a pretty remarkable story in Fairfax over the weekend about a couple of Christians who take their religion very seriously in terms of helping others.

Amongst other things, I did not realise Bangkok was quite as "slummy" as the article indicates.

You can tell the news isn't inspiring me this weekend...

Yes, I'm down to re-posting cat Christmas photos...

Baby face

I was very amused by the photo used for this story on Slate this morning:

Smoke away, kids

If Marijuana Legalization Sends the Wrong Message to Teenagers, Why Aren't They Listening? - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Reason, unsurprisingly, poohs poohs the idea that legal marijuana (medical or otherwise) has caused an increase in teenage use of the drug.   Yet it does note:

It is true that marijuana use among teenagers has been "drifting higher in recent years" (as the University of Michigan researchers who oversee the Monitoring the Future Study put it). But this upward drift began around 2007, whereas the first medical marijuana law (California's) was enacted in 1996. In between, past-month use among high school seniors went up and down, but it did not exceed the 1996 rate until 2011, 15 years after cannabis was first legalized for medical use. It certainly does not look like marijuana reform is driving increases in adolescent pot smoking. If you dig a little deeper, comparing cannabis consumption trends in states with and without medical marijuana laws, there is little evidence that such legislation boosts pot smoking by teenagers.

 and they end up saying:

  I would therefore not be surprised if legalization is accompanied by an increase in marijuana consumption by teenagers, although not because of the message it sends so much as the increased access it brings.

Yeah, talk about your finest of lines, there.

In all honesty, given that there seems to me to now be clear acceptance amongst the medical researchers that teenagers in particular should not be using marijuana due to its effect on still developing brains, what I am most surprised at in the Reason story is the percent of American teenagers who do use it by year 10, let alone year 12.

This, of course, will be a matter of little concern to libertarians. 

Note to time travellers

Was Jesus a common name back when he was alive?

If one was travelling back to Israel at the time of Christ, it seems to me that it may not be all that easy to identify Him until he started to get a reputation as a preacher*:

Many people shared the name. Christ's given name, commonly Romanized as Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Jesus' death. The name also appears 30 times in the Old Testament in reference to four separate characters—including a descendent of Aaron who helped to distribute offerings of grain (2 Chronicles 31:15) and a man who accompanied former captives of Nebuchadnezzar back to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:2)....

What was Jesus' last name? It wasn't Christ. Contemporaries would have called him Yeshua Bar Yehosef or Yeshua Nasraya. (That's "Jesus, son of Joseph" or "Jesus of Nazareth.") Galileans distinguished themselves from others with the same first name by adding either "son of" and their father's name, or their birthplace.

Now, I don't know how big a town Nazareth was at the time, but it seems a very good bet that there was more than one "Jesus of Nazareth", and (I would guess) another local "Jesus, son of Joseph" sometime before our Jesus hit 30.

And while on the topic:  I see that Wikipedia has at this entry (under the subheading "Jesus") a list of science fiction books and stories featuring time travel back to Jesus' time.

The one story idea which I don't see mentioned there is a time travelling expedition from the future to make sure the Jesus story as shown in the Gospel happens.  (Sponsored by someone from the Catholic Church who has lost faith, but figures on utilitarian grounds that the net benefits of belief to society would be worth the fraud, and employing one of the modern illusionists of the kind we see on TV now apparently performing convincing tricks in the middle of the street.) 

Having thought of this idea quite some time ago, it has had the unfortunate effect that when hearing a Gospel reading at Church, my mind often wanders to how a modern illusionist would replicate the effect.   Certainly, the glowing or shining appearance of angels, especially at night, is easy to imagine with simple UV light; unconsumed burning bushes (yes, I know, wrong Testament) would be easy as, too, and so  on.


*   Yes, I know a bit of Jesus identity confusion did feature in one episode of Red Dwarf, and I'm not being completely original.

Abbott's understanding questioned (again)

RET cuts: Why Abbott has got it all wrong on green energy | Crikey

The argument about the effect of renewable energy on costs to business and households is, I do tend to find, a difficult one to follow.

But, given that I think Abbott is not smart enough to know who to take advice from, I'm naturally willing to believe he's wrong on this, for the reasons outlined in the article above.