World Toilet Day noted

The BBC notes that it's World Toilet Day with a set of international photos of "My Toilet". 

Perhaps I shouldn't be mentioning this in the context of India while their rock star PM is here, a country strangely motivated to fly space missions while having trouble getting toilets to a huge proportion of their population.   (By the way, I had not realised how nationalistic expat Indians could be until now.) 

But it is true, Modi does recognize his national toilet problem, even though the issue there involves more than just building them. According to a recent report, even if villages have toilets available, a lot of people just still like doing it in the field:

The study found open defecation is very common, even in households with toilets. Toilet use did not necessarily increase with prosperity: in Haryana, one of India's richest states, most people in the villages continue to defecate in the open. Also, men living in households with toilets are more likely to defecate in the open than women.

Why do so many Indians still prefer not to use toilets, even if they are available?

The survey found a range of replies - most said they found it "pleasurable, comfortable, or convenient". Others said it "provides them an opportunity to take a morning walk, see their fields and take in the fresh air". Still others regarded open defecation as "part of a wholesome, healthy virtuous life".

It's a bit hard from a Western perspective to see the "virtue" in poo-ing in the open.   Even Greenies who might yearn for recycling their own will at least use a composting toilet.

The other recent story about Indian toilets was about a study indicating that having them available did not obviously improve local health.   Men doing it in the field despite a toilet being handy may well account for part of that.

Ray on that climate deal

Obama’s U.S.-China climate agreement: Carbon budget and exponential curves show why this is a fair deal.

Ray Pierrehumbert, who has posted a lot at Real Climate, explains why he is cautiously optimistic about China reducing its emissions in a helpful way.

I would make the observation that it seems that energy forecasting is always subject to a hell of a lot of guesswork and ideological motivation.   The great pessimism of the 1970's in terms of oil has been completely replaced by great optimism; the enormous influence of fracking technological change seems to have gone more or less unexplained until it was actually happening; solar and energy efficiency seems to have become cheaper faster than was expected.

What I'm hoping for is that the ability to increasingly incorporate renewables in the energy mix in a reliable way has been underestimated by the pessimists.

Senator dependent on voter confusion wants to keep it that way

Crossbench senator David Leyonhjelm threatens to oppose key Government legislation over legal action
Oh, very funny David L:

"They are claiming that in essence I was elected in NSW with [about] 9
per cent of the vote because of a mistake, because of confusion,"
Senator Leyonhjelm said.

And they would be 100% correct.  Even after months of getting your head on TV and interviews in the press as the first libertarian Senator, your party scored a vote of 1.82% in the WA Senate re-run.

Which is nothing compared to how minuscule your and your party's vote was in NSW before it changed its name:

In 2007, David Leyonhjelm, an agricultural consultant with a love of
guns and finely hewn libertarian views, stood for Bennelong against then
prime minister John Howard. As the candidate of the Liberty and
Democracy Party (LDP), he came 12th in a field of 13. He won just 89
votes.

The LDP's Senate team in NSW had won just 7772 votes, 0.19
per cent. But a few months later, the party applied to change its name
to the Liberal Democratic Party. The Liberal party objected strongly,
warning that the new name could confuse intending Liberal voters. But on
legal advice, the Australian Electoral Commission allowed the change.

In 2013, the Liberal Democrats, headed by Leyonhjelm, drew
first place in the 45 columns on the NSW ballot paper. Hundreds of
thousands of voters saw the size of the ballot paper, saw the word
''Liberal'' in the first box, and just put a 1 against it. The LDP won
434,002 votes, or 9.5 per cent - 50 times the vote it won in 2007 before
it adopted the name ''Liberal Democrats''.

What a complete and utter unprincipled shonk David Leyonhelm is for resisting going back to a name that incorporates "liberty", because it suits him and his party to confuse voters.

And Leyonhjelm staffer Helen Dale is apparently on board with her boss's political bribery attempt, tweeting today "Well, the cat is out of the bag, now. Leave our name alone, or say goodbye to TPVs".   Gee, a nastier person than me might make a wisecrack along the lines of "who'd have expected she would be comfortable with deliberate deception?" 

Let's hope for their personal end of the world soon

BBC News - Islamic State: What the Kassig murder video tells us

There's a good piece of analysis here about the recent IS video which (I didn't realise 'til today) showed 19 men being beheaded, most of them Syrian prisoners.

And again, this branch of Islam's grandiose beliefs are important to understanding what is going on:

Unlike previous videos which are believed to have been filmed in Raqqah, a Syrian city which serves as Islamic State's stronghold, this one is shot in Dabiq.

The city features in a recorded statement attributed to the Prophet Mohammed, known as hadith. The hadith are very important to Muslims and are regarded as providing another source of law alongside the Koran.

Dabiq features strongly in the eschatological aspects of normative Islamic belief.

Based on Prophetic sayings, IS believes the town will take centre stage in a cosmic battle between East and West. The armies of Islam will triumph and the West will crumble.

IS will have chosen the town for their latest video quite deliberately as Western leaders are taunted to send ground troops. "We will break this last and final crusade," says "Jihadi John".

If ever a bunch of killers deserved to be blown up pronto by a drone, it would be the group of men who participated in this cold blooded, religiously motivated, mass murder.

A very good Krugman

When Government Succeeds - NYTimes.com

This column adds further justification to my view that libertarianism is nonsense (and dangerous):   it reflexively dislikes government (save for its barest functions) and hence encourages the policy cynicism that Krugman notes at the end:

The moral of these stories is not that the government is always right
and always succeeds. Of course there are bad decisions and bad programs.
But modern American political discourse is dominated by cheap cynicism
about public policy, a free-floating contempt for any and all efforts to
improve our lives. And this cheap cynicism is completely unjustified.
It’s true that government-hating politicians can sometimes turn their
predictions of failure into self-fulfilling prophecies, but when leaders
want to make government work, they can.

Oh, and by the way, the most important part of the column as an example for Australia was about the actual success of the US government's clean energy funding program.  Here's from the link to Bloomberg:

The U.S. government expects to earn $5 billion to $6 billion from the renewable-energy loan program that funded flops including Solyndra LLC, supporting President Barack Obama’s decision to back low-carbon technologies.

The Department of Energy has disbursed about half of $32.4 billion allocated to spur innovation, and the expected return will be detailed in a report due to be released as soon as
tomorrow, according to an official who helped put together the data.

The results contradict the widely held view that the U.S. has wasted taxpayer money funding failures including Solyndra, which closed its doors in 2011 after receiving $528 million in
government backing. That adds to Obama’s credibility as he seeks to make climate change a bigger priority after announcing a historic emissions deal with China.

A $5 billion return to taxpayers exceeds the returns from many venture capital and private equity investments in clean energy, said Michael Morosi, an analyst at Jetstream Capital
LLC, which invests in renewable energy.

Why the British rush?

Exclusive: The three-parent baby trap - is new IVF technique safe? - Science - News - The Independent

It's truly puzzling, the British rush to endorse experimentation with a method of "three parent" IVF that bears no resemblance to  anything that happens in nature for a tiny number of mothers who would use it to bear their "own" baby in lieu of adopting a genetically healthy child.

I was also interested to read, in Wired, of all places, an article that noted freezing eggs is certainly not the fertility panacea that fertility clinics would like young women to think it is.

It's hard to see reproductive technology as not being driven more by money making potential and a modern sense of entitlement over well reasoned ethics and caution as to what is appropriate or not in assisting reproduction.

We don't do "looters and moochers" in Australia

Once again, I see that Sinclair Davidson makes a reference to the Randian term "moochers and looters", and a sweeping and unjustified categorisation of the modern "Left".

Even in America, it didn't do Romney any favours to sound like he was adopting a Randian approach; in Australia, Joe Hockey went Randian-lite with "lifters and leaners", and hasn't it served him a treat?  

So it's puzzling in a way that an economics Professor who is a member of a think tank that would like to have some influence on a "liberal" party's policy should so openly display his own tin ear for political terminology that, quite rightly, does not work in Australia.   The country has long positioned itself as interested in social fairness and eschewing the extremes of both free market capitalism and socialism; what's more, Randian libertarianism doesn't work here either - Australians like gun control and don't have a fetish about rich business men and women being exemplars of all that is fine and noble. 

But seeing I think this is a hopeless Prime Minister of a bad government (something on which the Professor and I might agree on) I should encourage Abbott and his team to ramp up the Randian phraseology.  There would be no surer way of helping them lose the next election.

Yet another visiting world leader making a "shirtfront" joke - Andrew, they're OUT OF CONTROL

Indian PM Modi does a Cameron, and makes a jokey "shirtfront" reference to Parliament.   Do they have no sensitivity at all, Andrew Bolt?   They are OUT OF CONTROL.

Ex-cellent

So far, Tony Abbott's efforts at schmoozing with the big boys (and girls) has helped his popularity, and that of his government's, not one iota.

Delightfully, Newspoll today has two party preferred up to 55/45 in favour of Labor.

While it is not true that the public is always right, it seems pretty clear that this government's unpopularity is due to:

a.  a whole string of broken promises within 12 months of gaining office, and no compelling justification for any of them;
b.  the introduction of one completely un-foreshadowed policy with massive implications for a large section of the population (university fee deregulation);
c.  budget ideas with attempted justifications that anyone can see are nonsense ($7 co-payment that does not pay for the government's health budget, but is going to help reduce health costs in future by funding a cure for cancer?  Yeah, sure.)
d.  Tony Abbott becoming a victim of his own rampant and unprincipled opportunism that gave him leadership of his party, because he can't please everyone on climate change, and is discovering that the noisy, nutty Right's view on the matter really isn't as widely held as he thought. 
e.   A party that does look fossilised and nastily partisan where it should not be - Bronwyn Bishop as speaker will long be remembered as an embarrassment.   And the culture war that many are still wanting to wage is not as widely shared as the Right wing commentairiate has led them to believe.

Not missing Johnno

Seeing Brisbane's been in the news, it seems an appropriate time to note that I finished reading David Malouf's "Johnno" on the weekend, which many regard as the quintessential literary novel about my home town.

I can see why people like the book's atmospheric description of Brisbane of the 40's and 50's. (Actually, it perhaps ends in the early to mid 60's - it's not made clear.)   It certainly paints a picture of a city that has quite a bit of "Southern Gothic" about it, which is not exactly how I remember it as a child.  But then again, the city did take a long time to start developing strongly - I remember sewerage  being installed at home in about '65, and we were only about 9 km or so from the the GPO.   So perhaps his description is accurate, just that I never experienced it.

One small point I did note with particular interest was Malouf's description of Brisbane's icy, cutting winter winds.   In fact, I am pretty sure that global warming has taken care of that, as I do remember  August winds as a child being much colder than I have experienced in the last decade or two.

But as for the story more broadly, I have to say I was very underwhelmed.   The main problem is that I think the book fails completely to explain why Dante (the semi-fictional Malouf) continues into adulthood to be bothered sharing time with Johnno.   I mean, the titular character is really painted as quite a dangerous, permanently immature loon, without any particular redeeming features that I could detect.  Dante is a thoughtful loner, and while you can understand why as a child he might be attracted to Johnno's inordinate self confidence, it really doesn't wash when they become adults and Johnno's thoughts and behaviour become more boorish and self destructive.   [Spoilers ahead] The ultimate revelation  (which I knew was coming, thanks to a review of the book)  of his unresolved feelings towards Dante gives a partial psychological explanation of some of the earlier episodes in the book, and explains why Johnno kept wanting Dante to see him, but it does nothing to explain why Dante would indulge him.   There seems to be no sense of fun for Dante in anything they do together.

According to Wikipedia, Malouf really doesn't like it when people call it a "gay" novel, and I can understand why, as it handles ambiguity of the narrator's sexuality in a pretty mature, matter of fact way that appeals a lot more than the intense identity politics of sexuality that has developed since the novel was written in the mid 70's.   Yet there is little doubt that Johnno's character shows elements of game playing (with women and prostitutes especially) which is hard to see other than as arising from internal conflict about sexuality.   To the extent that it seems to suggest that Johnno not facing up to his true desires is what drove him nuts, yes, it is a "gay" novel.   Sorry, David.

The book also reminded me a bit uncomfortably of "My Brother Jack", a vastly overrated Australian novel about which I can remember very little, except for one evocative passage near the beginning, and the fact that it also dealt with an outgoing character who is ultimately revealed as not the success he thinks he is.    

I can't say I have ever read an Australian novel that I have considered a complete success.  But then again, it's not that I've gone looking very hard.   I've only tried one Tim Winton and was unimpressed.   I think I started something by Peter Carey once - I can't remember what now.   As with Australian film, I just don't find our home grown material terribly interesting or convincing.

The anti intellectual Right

Pope Francis and the G.O.P.’s Bad Science - The New Yorker

... They have Inhofe, who, beginning in January, will possess the authority to interfere with nearly any scientific initiative that the Obama Administration introduces.  You can find the particulars of  his position on climate change, and scientific research generally, in his 2012 book, “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.” Inhofe frequently invokes Genesis in his battle against science because, well, he is a humble man: “My point is, God’s still up there,’’ he has said. “The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is, to me, outrageous.”

So a man who believes that the international scientific consensus is a “hoax” will be in charge of the committee that approves funding for scientific programs in a nation desperately in need of  improving its scientific literacy. If anything, the appalling Cruz is worse; he won’t address evolution directly, but he is an energetic climate skeptic, an opponent of NASA funding, and, of course, the man who, last year, almost single-handedly shut down the government of the United States, which, as Scientific American has pointed out, caused serious and permanent damage to American science.

The article goes on to illustrate that this is a modern sickness of the Right of American politics:

Political leaders never used to care who scientists voted for or whether they believed in God. Scientists were not seen as Democrats or Republicans. (This change did not begin with Cruz and his Luddite colleagues.) In 2006, I wrote a piece for The New Yorker on the Bush Administration’s war on science. It noted that “Vannevar Bush was a conservative who opposed the New Deal, and not quietly. Yet President Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to appoint him, or to take his advice. In 1959, after Dwight Eisenhower created the position of science adviser, in the wake of Sputnik, the Harvard chemist George B. Kistiakowsky assumed the post. Jerome Wiesner, a Democrat who subsequently became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sat on the Science Advisory Committee—which met each month with Kistiakowsky and often with the President. When John F. Kennedy took office, Kistiakowsky and Wiesner simply switched roles.” None of that would be conceivable today.

He's lost Alan Jones, hey?

One term Tony may be looking more likely if this morning's extract of an interview with Alan Jones is anything to go by.  As reported in her Guardian blog by Kathrine Murphy:

More lightning coming?

Lightning May Increase with Global Warming - Scientific American

More lightning in Australia, given our bush's propensity for burning, would not be a great outcome.

Why I liked the G20 meeting

*  I don't think anyone really, honestly, thinks Tony Abbott came out of it looking particularly good. I mean, even Dennis Shanahan in Saturday's Australian didn't think he started off well:

In a close encounter with leaders only, the Prime Minister appealed for frankness and drew a global scene of the need for economic growth and job creation.
Yet, curiously, addressing leaders facing crises of massive proportions with huge unemployment, inflation, territorial disputes, violence and financial stagnation, Abbott detailed his own difficulty in getting university fee reforms and a Medicare $7 co-payment through the Senate.

Of course, by today, Dennis has returned to grovelling form:

It is fair to say that Abbott delivered in overall stylish form.

But any momentary doubt of Abbott from Dennis is rather like Margaret and David expressing a reservation about an Australian film that they still want you to see - you know the problem is much bigger than is being admitted.

*  Who could not enjoy the irony of record breaking November heat in many parts of South East Queensland on the weekend our esteemed host and his "I hate wind turbines even from 10 km away, and no I do not believe climate change could ever detract from economic growth" side kick were wanting to keep free from discussion of climate change?  (I can also assure readers that, with the nearest suburban weather station to my house recording 42 degrees today,  it was extraordinarily hot for November in Brisbane.)

*  And who could also not enjoy Obama going over Abbott's head to put the issue not only on the meeting's agenda, but front and centre in public discussion?.  There has been the odd twitter suggestion that Abbott was very annoyed with the speech.   I don't know if that's true, but if he was, that would be very pleasing.

*  More irony this afternoon when Abbott had to announce a G20 position that sits very uncomfortably with his own government's policies:

We reaffirm our support for mobilising finance for adaptation and mitigation, such as the Green Climate Fund.

Hey Tony, what was the policy you took to the last election?  Oh, that's right:

Within the first sitting fortnight of Parliament, the Finance Minister will introduce legislation to shut-down the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. 

Good thing for you, Tone, that Palmer and the Greens have (so far) prevented you from enacting that one, hey?   Otherwise you might have looked like a 100% hypocrite on the matter, rather than just the 95% one you presently are.

*  Despite it being hosted by a PM who has now arguably achieved the status of international, not just national, embarrassment, it appears that the group did make some worthwhile moves on various issues.   One positive summary is to be found here.  No doubt there will be some more worthwhile analysis soon.

Update:  Gee, someone at The Australian is really annoyed with Obama.  Greg Sheridan's usual suck up to old pal Abbott is today headed:  With friends like Barack Obama ... treatment of Tony Abbott capricious and reckless.

Update 2:   Tim Blair puts right wing spin, and maturity, on full display:

That’s not quite how things worked out. Yesterday Abbott dragged climate alarmism into the street, gave it a solid kicking, and ignored the screams of Obama and other cash-craving carbon crybabies:

Oh noes! Shirtfronting jokes break out everywhere.

Andrew Bolt must be absolutely furious.   And/or looking like the biggest right wing bloviating goat in the country.   Wait, wait:  those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Bill Leak, whose cartooning has taken on a distinct right wing edge in the last few months in particular, much to the delight of Boltian blowhards at Catallaxy, managed to fit a "shirtfront" joke into his cartoon today:

and now I'm reading that David Cameron made a shirtfront joke to Parliament! Andrew, isn't this absolutely outrageous? I mean the way Bill Leak and Cameron have joked about something the ABC joked about the other night? 

They're OUT OF CONTROL Andrew, I'm sure you'll agree.

Oh, and Malcolm, you look a bit of a ninny too.

Go G20, and Brisbane

Well, it's a public holiday in Brisbane, as they wanted world leaders to see Brisbane city as some sort of ghost town, I presume.   I haven't been into the city centre all week, but with all the barricades set up everywhere I am seeing on TV, it has the distinct look of overkill.*  Still, having a dozen world leaders killed due to a ramming Commodore would be a bad look, I suppose.   Someone on local ABC radio yesterday rang up with a bit of alleged insider gossip, saying that his very reliable medical practitioner's daughter had told him that 2,000 body bags had been procured to be on standby.  Given that it would just about take a jumbo jet crashing into the convention centre to cause that much need for them, I somehow have my doubts about the figure cited by this "friend of a friend" source.

Speaking of the convention centre - that's were it's happening, and as I'm sure I've said before, I am inordinately fond of that gigantic venue.   It is, I was told by my own friend of a friend who works there, a very successful centre for attracting international conventions, but it also does mid sized concerts very well, in addition to the massive Lifeline second hand book sales twice a year.   If nothing else, I trust everyone visiting Brisbane says they like that building.   I did, however, just hear on breakfast TV that some foreign journalists go food poisoning last night - I hope the Convention Centre doesn't wear the blame.

As for publicity for Brisbane,  The Guardian is the wrong paper to be running a sardonic column on "what you need to know" about the place, given the number of wanky comments we all knew it would attract about what an uncultured and bor-ing city it is.   It did attract one comment which I can endorse, though, and I am pleased to see that it has now been pushed to the top:


Personally, I recommend Hoo Ha Bar over the Scratch, and the biggest craft beer outlet that I know of - Archive at West End always has a good, if slightly expensive, range.  (It actually is in handy walking distance to the convention centre.  I hope it does well with the foreign correspondents.)

As for Brisbane culture generally - I am reliably informed (by listening to ageing but well connected and cool dudes like Richard Fidler on ABC, now a Brisbane resident) that the city has a lively music and arts culture, even if I don't personally partake of it.   I was even pleased to see a new mid sized live music venue open last weekend in an old hangar building in the Valley, although I am not sure I am ever likely to get there.   Maybe when I hit my late mid-life crisis, or something.

In any event, even without seeking out performances while here, any visitor to the city must surely be impressed with the arts precinct at South Bank.   They are great and very active galleries, with lots of parking and a good outlook over the city.  I am not completely convinced, to put it mildly, about some of the aesthetic decisions the city centre has taken over the past decade (the new, plastic looking City Council building is an eyesore, if you ask me, although not as spectacularly as  bad as Federation Square in Melbourne), but other parts of the city are developing very well.   Teneriffe is perhaps already the coolest area for rich urbanites, and it is only going to get better.

So, anyway, I like the city and excitement of all these foreign aircraft coming here so much that I'm heading down the coast, to watch it on TV from there, as well as fish, swim and use a Sevylor inflatable canoe that I purchased in about 1986 by my reckoning.  Who knew that they would last so long?  It only has the smallest of holes that need patching.   That boat deserves a post all of its own.


*  [I thought Brisbane was not the sort of city to be home to many anarchists - any who were alive during the Joh reign left for Southern cities decades ago.   Would many travel back here to protest?  We'll see.] 

Down the road

I recently suggested that Pope Francis, if driven out of Rome as an Antipope , should take his seat of power down to Copacabana.   (An aging Barry Manilow can write the music for his arrival.)  

But now I see that there is perhaps reason to move a bit further down the road:  to Abrico.   A nudist Antipope on the beach at a rave - that's the sort of speculation you are only likely to read on this blog....