A strong budget reply

Bill Shorten and his enthusiastic cheer squad in the gallery certainly delivered impassioned and (pretty much) principled opposition to the Abbott budget.  Labor should be feeling justifiably heartened, and the government looked pained and uncomfortable.

I'm sure everyone with an interest in politics can't wait for some reliable polling to appear after this week.

Over him

It seems to me that trendoids have lost interest in Chris Lilley, as I haven't noticed much prominence being given to discussion of Jonah from Tonga on the usual suspects, like The Guardian. 

I've always been something of a Lilley skeptic - for every character that works there is one that doesn't, and his satirical targeting is often of very unclear purpose.   I see that News Corp is running a story about the Pacific Islander community backlash against the show.  I'm glad that's happening.  As far as I can tell, it's pretty insulting towards them.

Solar wind and lightning

High-speed solar winds increase lightning strikes on Earth

This interesting report begins:

Scientists have discovered new evidence to suggest that lightning on Earth is triggered
not only by cosmic rays from space, but also by energetic particles from the Sun.

Somewhat interesting to think that for religions which thought the Sun was a god, and lightning his or her vengeance, may have been a bit closer to the mark than previously expected. 

The unimpressive Hockey, and university policy from out of the blue

I'm starting to get the feeling that Joe Hockey has been rehearsing and retelling the line that the government hasn't broken promises that he's starting to believe it;  a sad example of the psychological trick of pretending a lie is the truth for long enough that you start to believe it.

He gave a woeful interview on the radio just now in which he tried to pretend the GP co-payment idea was an example of extra funding needed for health.  His problem is, of course, that it is destined for this medical research fund instead, so he had to pretend that it really does fund health because it may find a cure for cancer!

He also will not be honest and say flat out what everyone knows - he expects the States to ask for GST to be increased if they are to be the ones holding the can for long term hospital funding.

In other Budget commentary, I note that on The Drum last night, Judith Sloan made brief mention of the Budget being "really mean" towards "youth" - which is up to the age of 30.

This aspect of the Budget is (so far) attracting less attention than I expected.   I am rather surprised that Shorten and Labor have not yet come and condemned that change already as clearly too draconian and must be modified.

I was also listening to Christopher Pyne on the university deregulation idea.  He seems to think the youth will like it because they can go get a diploma easier which will then the basis for entry to an undergraduate course.  Just rather sounds like adding a rather unnecessary step if you ask me - at greater expense.

These changes seem to have come pretty much out of the blue, and have serious long term effects on students.   If he can come within 1 km of a university gate without risking getting egged, I'll be surprised.

I will also be very surprised if the youth vote does not collapse entirely for the Coalition.

Update:    thought I would see if I could quickly Google up the Coalition's election 2013 policies on tertiary education.  Here it is:

•We will ensure the continuation of the current arrangements of university funding.

•We will work with the sector to reduce the burden of red tape, regulation and reporting,freeing up the sector to concentrate on delivering results and services.

•We will review and restructure government research funding to make sure each dollar is spent as effectively as possible.

•We will ensure the sector has a stable, long-term source of infrastructure funding.

•We will work with the sector to grow higher education as an export industry and to support international students studying in Australia.

 Yep, nothing in there about doubling the cost of a university degree.  As one Professor from UQ says:

The 2014 budget is taking the higher education sector into uncharted territory. One imagines that a deregulated market for university fees cannot be good for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds but, as Bruce Chapman says, no-one really knows what the social effects of this will be. It is certainly true, however, that this will bring us much closer to a privatised higher education sector where those with the greatest ability to pay will receive the greatest benefit. It would be surprising if there was not a serious political objection to the implications of this initiative; there is every reason to see it as a measure which will increase inequities of opportunity.

Update:   Go back further to 2012, in an article in The Age, and you get Christopher Pyne claiming this:

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said reports the Coalition was considering raising fees were "wrong".
"While we welcome debate over the quality and standards in our universities, we have no plans to increase fees or cap places," Mr Pyne said.
But Mr Pyne's spokesman declined to comment on whether the party had plans to deregulate the capped fees universities can charge for courses.
"Our higher education policy will be released at the appropriate time before the next election," he said.

I don't believe it was.

Someone who thinks Abbott is toast

Adieu Mr Abbott! 10 super ways to lose the next election - SuperGuide.com.au

I don't know who Trish Power is, but Mr Denmore reckons she knows a lot about retirees' sentiments, so her views on  Abbott being toast may be worth listening to.  (In fact I was talking to a financial adviser this morning who also said there are changes that haven't been fully understood by most retirees yet that are going to be very unpopular.)  

Measuring neutron life

Neutron death mystery has physicists stymied : Nature News & Comment

As if on TV

Hotel guest thought drowning couple were part of murder mystery prank, inquest told - Telegraph

An unfortunate assumption made by a hotel guest, but given the "murder mystery" weekend, perhaps not unreasonable.

What really strikes me is that the whole incident sounds so unlikely - rather like something you might see on Jonathan Creek, or some such.

Priorities wrong and petty (and - again - Abbott is a complete policy flake)

Again, I find myself pretty much in agreement with Bernard Keane's take on the Budget.

The Budget represents a re-arrangement of priorities which end up doing nothing much different in terms of getting to balanced budget any faster than Labor could have.

What few deserved things it does achieve in terms of welfare and revenue reform (regarding the indexing of pensions, for example, and indexing petrol excise) are outweighed by some clearly undeserved hits on the poor, youth in search of education, science, clean energy, health and public broadcasting; a lifting of existing taxes on many companies, and giving city road construction priority (with no real assessment as to which projects are most economically deserved) over public transport.

It is, in fact, when you look at that list, a right wing ideologically driven set of priorities which is  stuck in the past.  And no, an increase in tax on the relatively comfortable wage earners does not make it alright.  I am also not so impressed with the medical research fund, when there is evidence that even a modest co-payment will make the poor get treatment at less than optimum times for some conditions, as well as cost shift to State run hospital outpatients departments who are having their funding cut by the Commonwealth as well.   Medical research should always be funded at some level, but not at the expense of existing good use of money for treating the presently ill.

Have a look at what St Vincent de Paul says about the budget (he's livid):

ST Vincent de Paul Society Chief Executive, Dr John Falzon, says this Budget is deeply offensive to the people for whom every day is already a battle.

"The government would like us to believe that this Budget is tough but fair but for the people who struggle to make ends meet it can only be described as being tough but cruel.

"There are measures in this Budget that rip the guts out of what remains of a fair and egalitarian Australia.These measures will not help people into jobs but they will force people into deeper poverty.

"You don't help young people or older people or people with a disability or single mums into jobs by making them poor. You don't build people up by putting them down.

"And as even the OECD acknowledges, you don't build a strong economy by increasing the level of inequality.You don't create a strong country on the backs of the already poor.

"There's nothing human or humane about humiliating people because they are outside the labour market or on its low-paid fringes. There's nothing smart about making it unaffordable for people to see a doctor.

"We are not in the throes of a fiscal crisis but if we embark on this treacherous path of US-style austerity we will be staring down the barrel of a social crisis."

Let us remember - it's only a couple of years ago that even Judith Sloan was suggesting that Newstart should be increased, using words Falzon would endorse:

If we are to expect the unemployed to search for employment with confidence, there is no point pushing them into grinding poverty.  

The Abbott government is not even following her advice, then.  Not Tea Party enough?

And as for Abbott being a complete and utter policy flake:  I was reminded on Radio National this morning that under Howard, Health Minister Abbott was pushing hard for the Commonwealth to take over all funding for State hospitals.   Now it's "well, it's up to you States", with the pretty obvious agenda that this will mean the States beg for GST to be increased.  OK, so I have said before GST almost certainly needs to be increased, but that doesn't mean that I have to be happy about the crappy tactics that Abbott engages in to get there.

I expect the budget (and the government generally) to be deeply unpopular with youth, especially when you have Christopher Pyne as education minister developing a sudden interest in changing universities.   But it will also not be popular with their parents, or pensioners, drivers, welfare workers, hospital staff, CSIRO scientists, the Catholic Church, or (of course) Canberra real estate agents.  On the other hand, I expect miners, banks and road construction companies will be quite OK with it.

I wonder if we can have a double dissolution by virtue of Clive Palmer?

Update:  Lenore Taylor on the "sharing the burden" line:

First, the pain is not really shared, not in the long term anyway. We are not actually all schlepping this economic burden in equal measure, no matter what the sound grabs say.

A young person who can’t get a job will no longer get any unemployment benefits for six months and will still have to pay $7 to go to a doctor and an extra $5 for medicine. That’s pretty painful.

A single income family on $110,000 with a couple of school aged kids will from next year lose more than $120 a week in family payments, more than 5% of their current income. There may be good reasons to try to encourage the stay at home parent into the workforce, but that kind of cut also has to count as painful.

But a backbench MP, by contrast, earning $200,000, would pay $400 extra year because of the deficit levy, or 0.2% of their annual income. Even with a few $7 hits as they visit the doctor, that’s not much more than a graze. And the government is promising the levy will be gone in three years anyway.

By contrast the freezing of the rate of thresholds for a whole range of government benefits has a compounding impact over time.

Second, the proceeds of the “pain” are not entirely directed at budget repair. They go to roads funding and the new medical research fund and the new emissions reduction fund.

My prediction for the effect of the Budget on the youth vote

Before the budget*:

Post budget**:

*  Graph from the Whitlam Institute.  I am surprised the 18-34 year old voting intention result has been as high as it is for the Coalition recently, to be honest.

** Coalition vote to be even lower if Rupert gets Alzheimers and makes Catherine Deveny editor of the Australian and Daily Tele.

An effect of white hair

I see that the climate change skeptics/deniers/do-nothing-even-if-it's-happening proponents are celebrating some alleged abandonment of climate science by a Swedish "famous scientist" who has worked a lot in meteorology.   Lennart Bengtsson is his name, and he's clearly not so famous that I recognised who he was.

Anyhow, the excitement is over his joining the "Global Warming Policy Foundation",  a British rogue's gallery of "skepticism."

As a rule of thumb, I find the first thing to check in these stories of (alleged) scientific "conversions" against the climate change consensus is the age of the scientist involved.   There is no doubt at all that the climate change skeptic field is heavily weighed down by white, male hair.   Someone ought to actually work out the mean age of those scientists prominent in that movement - but you really just have to have seen the photos.  Lindzen, Spencer, Carter, Plimer, Dyson, Happer, Paltridge.   All past their prime.  (Actually, I think Spencer might just have prematurely white hair - it looks like he finished his science degree in the 1970's.  But he's become silly and shrill on his blog lately because no one is listening to him.)

Even James Lovelock - he went all apocalyptic about climate change a book or two ago in a way that most climate scientists thought was just a wee bit hysterical, only to now, at the age of 94, to be sounding all "well, we don't really know what's going on after all" in his latest.   As George Monbiot noted, he's also picked up credulously other anti-environmental furphies like the one about (alleged) DDT bans, and as George's piece summariese "genius is no defence against being wrong."   Especially, I would add, when you're north of age  75.  (Actually, 70 might be more accurate.  Worrying signs usually appear when your hair has turned white, regardless of chronological age.)

So, how old is Lennart anyway?  Born 1935.  Aged 79.  Right in the ballpark of the commencement of age related unreliability.

Of course, Judith Curry is lapping him up.. How old is she, by the way?   To my surprise, she finished her first science degree in 1974, which would indicate (I guess) a birth year in the mid fifties.  She's must be at least 60 this year, and I'm pretty sure the glamour shot from Scientific American:

must involve hair colouring.   She's almost certainly got a lot of grey underneath.

Krugman on "Marxism!"

Crazy Climate Economics - NYTimes.com

Was I sounding too Right wing in the last post?  Time for a corrective, then.

An excellent column yesterday by Paul Krugman on the craziness of the ideological rhetorical (much of) the American Right has adopted in the last decade.   A taste:

Everywhere you look these days, you see Marxism on the rise. Well, O.K., maybe you don’t — but conservatives do. If you so much as mention income inequality, you’ll be denounced as the second coming of Joseph Stalin; Rick Santorum has declared that any use of the word “class” is “Marxism talk.” In the right’s eyes, sinister motives lurk everywhere — for example, George Will says the only reason progressives favor trains is their goal of “diminishing
Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.”

Ha!  Didn't Atlas Shrugged indicate that a certain author who had a fetish about individualism thought trains were OK?  (Actually, at Slate, they looked at this question in detail a few years ago.  Libertarians apparently still like trains - as long as they are privately owned trains.)

Krugman predicts that the Right's reaction to Obama using the EPA to address CO2 (because they won't let him use market based methods) will again be to claim "Marxism":

You can already get a taste of what’s coming in the dissenting opinions from a recent Supreme Court ruling on power-plant pollution. A majority of the justices agreed that the E.P.A. has the right to regulate smog from coal-fired power plants, which drifts across state lines. But
Justice Scalia didn’t just dissent; he suggested that the E.P.A.’s proposed rule — which would tie the size of required smog reductions to cost — reflected the Marxist concept of “from each
according to his ability.” Taking cost into consideration is Marxist? Who knew?

As he goes on to argue, very reasonably:

Why is this crazy? Normally, conservatives extol the magic of markets and the adaptability of the private sector, which is supposedly able to transcend with ease any constraints posed by, say, limited supplies of natural resources. But as soon as anyone proposes adding a few limits to reflect environmental issues — such as a cap on carbon emissions — those all-capable corporations supposedly lose any ability to cope with change.

Now, the rules the E.P.A. is likely to impose won’t give the private sector as much flexibility as it would have had in dealing with an economywide carbon cap or emissions tax. But Republicans have only themselves to blame: Their scorched-earth opposition to any kind of climate policy has left executive action by the White House as the only route forward.

The Right in the US has (in large part) become an intellectual embarrassment, and we are all waiting for the recovery.
 

Islam as a disastrous religion

Looking back over the last few decades, I guess you could say that modern concerns with Islam and its interaction with the West really kicked off with Iran, both with the 1979 hostage crisis, but more particularly (because of its actual outreach into the West itself),  the 1989 Salman Rushdie fatwa. (A good 25 year anniversary article is here.)

Then of course you get 9-11, and everyone worried about radical Islam.   As for me, I read some of the more right wing anti-Islamic blogs, but (as with Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs) it became clear that some of the push back was becoming far too Tea Party right wing nutty and racist, and a less hyperbolic approach to the issue was appropriate.  I even read one of Karen Armstrong's books on the religion, and it did (even though I was aware of her excuse making tendencies) make me more sympathetic to the idea that Islam did not have to be viewed as always being nutty and reactionary, and in fact originally had a social philosophy which was (in today's terms) progressive.

But come to the present day, and man, is Islam having a massive PR crisis again, or what?

I mean, where ever you look now, its influence just seems to be disastrous, and if it's not the centuries old branches having it out with massive death and destruction on the battlefield (Syria) or streets (Iraq, Egypt), it's the influence it has on maintaining a positively anti-modernist system of education and social structures.

On Syria, a conflict about which I have not exactly been bothering to understand in detail, Reuters had an article last week on the influence of the apocalyptic prophecies in attracting combatants:

The power of those prophecies for many fighters on the ground means that the three-year-old conflict is more deeply rooted - and far tougher to resolve - than a simple power struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and his rebel foes.

Syria's war has killed more than 140,000 people, driven millions from their homes and left many more dependent on aid. Diplomatic efforts, focused on the political rather than religious factors driving the conflict, have made no headway.

"If you think all these mujahideen came from across the world to fight Assad, you're mistaken," said a Sunni Muslim jihadi who uses the name Abu Omar and fights in one of the many anti-Assad Islamist brigades in Aleppo.

"They are all here as promised by the Prophet. This is the war he promised - it is the Grand Battle," he told Reuters, using a word which can also be translated as slaughter.

On the other side, many Shi'ites from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran are drawn to the war because they believe it paves the way for the return of Imam Mahdi - a descendent of the Prophet who vanished 1,000 years ago and who will re-emerge at a time of war to establish global Islamic rule before the end of the world.

Well that's great.  Some people used to worry about fundamentalist Christian "End Times" views leading an American President into some Middle East nuclear war scenario, but fortunately, the American system always seems to work as a filter so that we only end up with Presidents who have a faith that is strongly kept in control by pragmatism.  (The extent to which they are genuinely, deeply religious, rather than doing it for show, is always a matter of speculation as well.)   

But in Islam, you really do have apocalyptic views directly involved in war and mayhem.

What's more, the anti modernism streak in Islam just makes for some really rotten countries.   As I noted last week, Afghanistan looks completely hopeless, with a primarily rural based population that barely gets educated and whose only concession to modernity seems to be in wanting modern weapons.  (And the freedom to export drug addiction around the world as a way of making a living.)  Saudi Arabia still executes people for using black magic.  Here's a 2013 article in The Atlantic about that country's "war on witchcraft".
That country's list of scientific innovations - despite having squillons of dollars that could be put into science - seems limited to intensive studies of what camel's milk (and urine!)  is good for, yet it turns out that camels are probably spreading the deadly MERS virus.

And as for sexual politics - well, apart from the general plight of women, last night's Four Corners looked at the extensive problem of male child sexual abuse in Pakistan.    Not only that, but I liked [/sarc] the irony of how many homeless kids are also addicted to heroin from the Taliban in the country next door.

And then, of course, you have Nigeria and the kidnapping of girls, but apparently that is just part of their plan for creating an Islamic State.

And while one might think that modern communications means that there should be a natural tide towards vaguely modern ideas of how communities can successfully live - Sharia law is coming to Brunei, and strengthening in those parts of Indonesia where it is allowed. 

So, as I say, it is extremely difficult to find positive things to say about Islam at the moment.   Sure, Christianity has its centuries of conflict, witch burning, attempted social control and sexual abuse to point the finger at as well, but any social problems it causes have (by and large - still tidying up going on in the sex abuse and homosexuality side) been sorted. 

The thing that's depressing about Islam is that you can't really see how it is going to improve.  I guess a resolution to Israel/Palestine matter would help - and Israel's present leadership is not helping there - but at a more fundamental level and long term scale, Islamist TV still telling its kids (as it has for years) that its good to shoot the Jews is actually the bigger problem.

The only good thing you can really say (and, in a way, the only grounds on which to still not too deeply regret the way the West got into the Iraq and Afghani wars) from "our" point of view is that while ever Islam is fighting itself, it's not concentrating on fighting the West.  Yet, I want to feel better about the world as a whole - to see progress towards peace everywhere and better and fairer societies.

So, someone who can tell me why I should revert to a more optimistic view for how Islam will improve, please let me know.

Bernard's on the money

Bernard Keane is a bit of an odd fish, but sometimes he seems right on the money.  His column yesterday is just excellent, and here are some extracts:

...this dissonance between what the Coalition said in opposition and what it now says isn’t merely about being mugged by reality, or even about breaking promises. The weekend’s silliness about freezing MPs’ pay, announced triumphantly in a drop to News Corp papers, was highly symbolic. The Rudd government had done precisely the same thing — but who should have railed against that but Tony Abbott himself, who labelled it a “populist stunt” while, apparently, living hand-to-mouth on his post-2007 salary. It demonstrated how, on virtually any issue, from climate change to paid parental leave to the economy to taxation to political consistency itself, it is straightforward to find a quote in which Tony Abbott has declared, hand on heart, entirely the opposite to his current position.

And:

“I’m not playing word games,” Hockey averred, hilariously, to Laurie Oakes during one such discussion. Indeed, it’s less like playing word games and more like waterboarding the English language. It’s beyond casuistry; it makes John Howard’s legendary parsing of his own statements look epistemologically rigorous.

 And this, which is, I think, a fair summary of the state of modern politics:

Some, like John Quiggin, argue that a lack of interest in facts is increasingly a characteristic of the Right — that it’s in the Liberals’ DNA, so to speak — which overlooks that relativism has been a defining characteristic of much of the scholarship from the cultural Left from the 1970s onward and is still to be found adorning identity politics. It is true, however, that progressive parties like Labor, especially, in Australia, and the Democrats in the US, have struggled to find a way to counter how politicians of the Right have freed themselves from the shackles of consistency and evidence. But for now, the most sound analytical approach is to ignore what the Coalition says and focus entirely on who benefits from its use of power. That will provide the most basic test of its first budget.

Talk about your interruptions to the in flight movie

A curious story appears in today's article in the Fairfax press about how Pope Francis has been emphasising the reality of the Devil:

During the conference, the Reverend Cesar Truqui, an exorcist now based in Switzerland, recounted one experience he had aboard a Swissair flight. "Two lesbians," he said, had sat behind him on the plane. Soon afterward, he said, he felt Satan's presence. As he silently sought to repel the evil spirit through prayer, one of the women, he said, began growling demonically and threw chocolates at his head.

Asked how he knew the woman was possessed, he said that "once you hear a Satanic growl, you never forget it. It's like smelling Margherita pizza for the first time. It's something you never forget."

Mostly rubbish

Jason Soon on twitter points with some approval to a column by the "hey, we only win by pretending we're the Liberal Party party" Senator elect David Leyhonhjelm.

Yet what's the first sign this is a column by an ideological goose?  This:

It is noticeable that advocates for big government are only Keynesians on the way down (when recession equals budget deficit) but they refuse to follow their own rules and advocate a budget surplus when growth rates have recovered. Economic growth has followed long term trend for the last few years so by any standard (Keynesian, Classical, Austrian) we should not now have a budget deficit.

That is flagrantly dishonest if he is suggesting (and I reckon he is) that Labor was not seeking to return to surplus.  The problem with getting there as promised was some out of kilter forecasts of Treasury; not the view that returning to surplus did not matter.

And then we go into the details:

the LDP proposed budget provides a modest drop in tax revenue along with nearly $40 billion in spending cuts, so that the 2014-15 budget moves from a $33.9 billion deficit to a predicted $3.1 billion surplus. It can be done, and it should be done.

Yeah, sure.  Government spending can be turned off like a tap and it's "hey, no big deal" only if you come from an ideological commitment that government always should be tiny.

But look at some of the things included in the table in the article as to where the savings are coming from:

$5 billion in savings from including the family home in the pension assets test!

That is ludicrous - to suggest that such a change could be implemented in one hit.  Just how many houses owned by pensioners does he want to see hit the market in an immediate effort to downsize?   Where does he think all the people who need to do this are going to move?  I don't see the capital cities having a hell of lot of $200,000 properties for sale, last time I looked.  Reverse mortgages?   Yeah, the LDP hates governments taking people's money in taxes - they would prefer they lose it instead on interest to the banks to be able to keep buying bread.  (And note - I am not suggesting that there is no scope for some adjustment of current pension policy on this - what I am objecting to is the ridiculous suggestion that you can do it and raise $5 billion immediately without dire disruption.) 

And then there's the immediate $5 billion dollar reduction to the higher education subsidy.  Yeah, sure, no disruption to the system there...

And there is a lot more, including some ideological driven points on taxes and how they are bad, bad, bad, but I can't go on right now - I got to do some other things.

It's clear enough, though, that the LDP "budget" is pure fantasy land.

Jason - stop getting into the boxing ring.  It's knocking some of the common sense out of you.

Update:  I am amused by monty's savage takedown of the bald one's "budget", too.

So that's why we're getting more road spending

Tony Abbott's grand infrastructure plan may be an expensive road to nowhere | World news | theguardian.com

Lenore Taylor casts a (justifiably) jaundiced eye over why the Abbott government is talking up road building, whether or not anyone has worked out if it is worth it.

It comes down to this, does it?:

Abbott is convinced of the voter, as well as economic, appeal of road
funding. He wrote in his book, Battlelines, that even the "humblest
person is king in his own car."

Uhuh.

About an animation studio

DreamWorks Animation at 20 - Los Angeles Times

This article takes the usual LA Times industry insider look at how Dreamworks operates, and there were a couple of things of particular interest:

DreamWorks is also making strides overseas, with much of the focus on China, where
the "Kung Fu Panda" films have been very popular. Katzenberg has been at the forefront of Hollywood's push into China, visiting the country once a month for the last two years.

The studio is working with local partners to build an entertainment and cultural district in
Shanghai called DreamCenter. The center, set to open in 2017, will include a 500-seat Imax cinema, multiple performance venues and Broadway style-theaters. The area also will house Oriental DreamWorks, an animation studio that currently has 200 employees and will hire 150 more by the end of this year to work on various film and TV projects,
including "Kung Fu Panda 3."

"China in three or four years will be the No. 1 movie market in the world,"
Katzenberg said. " I just look at it as a place of opportunity."

Gee.  I would not have been sure at all that Kung Fu Panda would have worked in China.   But there you go.

DreamWorks also is one of those companies where the benefits are good:

The studio's perks include a full-time doctor's office, free meals, game rooms and a college-campus-style environment with waterfalls and koi ponds.

There are yoga and sculpture classes, and an art show that enables employees to express themselves freely in ways not permitted in their everyday work. A profit-sharing plan pays bonuses to employees based on the studio's financial performance.

Such benefits have made DreamWorks a regular on Fortune magazine's annual list of 100 best employers. Last year it was the only Hollywood studio to make the list,
ranking 12th.

I think the studio has put out some fine films over the years, so I hope it does continue to exist for a long time yet.

John Oliver reads a letter

John Oliver was always one of the funniest parts of Jon Stewart's show, and I see that quite a few official clips from his own show are being put on Youtube.   The writing is clearly in the same style as that for The Daily Show, but that's not a problem.  Here is one of the less sweary clips I could find, as I still have standards as to what you can hear from this blog, you know:

Things that please me

*  Firefox has been updated to 29.0.1, and I find the new look very attractive.  Not a huge change, I guess, but pleasing none the less.  There's something about new tab pages carrying ads, though, which I don't quite follow.  Guess I will have to wait and see.  Firefox has been my preferred browsers for more years than I can remember.  It's the vast library of add ons that make it great, I reckon.

* I just watched The World This Week, a summary of reports by the ABC on international issues (from their international correspondents) over the last week.  It's great, and makes the effort privately owned media puts into TV journalism on international issues look truly pathetic.  (Of course, I have often praised the ABC's Foreign Correspondent too.)  Can anyone explain why you seem to need a national broadcaster in order to do really good, informative reporting on international issues?

* I think Melbourne and Adelaide have long had small local smallgoods manufacturing that meant that good, fermented style smallgoods (like salamis, etc) in a wide range similar to what you may get in Europe were always available.  Local manufacturing of these in Brisbane has (it seems to me) finally taken off in the last 10 to 20 years, and we now can get a similar range of products, but you still tend to have to seek them out, often at the weekend farmer's markets.  (The somewhat slow moving redevelopment of the Brisbane showgrounds is supposed to include a permanent farmer's market - something that is sorely missed in this city.)   For the moment, Adam's Continental Smallgoods in Brisbane's west is pretty good, and sells an extensive range of meats too, but it is a bit far to go for people on the other side of the city. 

On Saturday we went to the Kelvin Grove Saturday farmers' market again.  We hadn't been for a while, but it is always good for cheap (and a big range of) fruit and veges, and some specialty meats and snacks.  It has one permanent smallgoods vendor, and we tried their chorizo and (what was called) a French style salami-ish sausage.  Both were very good.  The company's name is Backa Gourmet Foods.  They seem to be based in Beenleigh and just sell in Queensland local markets.  This is pleasing.

An unpleasant parasite, and HIV in Africa

A Simple Theory, and a Proposal, on H.I.V. in Africa - NYTimes.com

Call me a big wuss, if you want, but the number of nasty parasites that lurk in the middle of Africa makes me rather disinterested in visiting at least that part of the continent.  (That and a sense of over-familiarity inspired by decades of David Attenborough, I think.)