An observation

One of the funniest things to read on an election night when Labor is doing well (as it is in Queensland tonight where, in what is surely the most extraordinary reversal of fortune in Australian electoral history, it looks to have a chance of forming government after being in Opposition with a number of MPs you could count on two hands) is the Catallaxy blog.  Especially when that bunch of climate change denying numbskulls - it's a prerequisite to be part of the club there - start saying the only explanation is that Australians are too dumb. 

Update:   While he's not the only economist who seems to have too much faith in election betting markets (Kouk loves quoting them all the time too,) Sinclair Davidson's dedication to them should surely be tested after this election.  

Also - I see that Adam Creighton had a tweet last night claiming its all due to the electorate's economic illiteracy.  This from a man whose ideologically anti-Keynesian pals in the US have been predicting runaway inflation as the big worry for the last 6 years.  And, of course, his pals here include a certain blog master who warned about stagflation in Australia 3 years ago.  

Creighton's latest persistent line is that the drop in the Australian dollar is not really a good thing - I suspect because it makes his internet overseas purchases more expensive, which trumps its obvious benefits to just about anything being exported from here, as well as the tourism industry.

Update 2:   The election result seems to confirm that the Newman campaign to drum up support for asset sales by calling them 99 year leases was too slick by half.   The campaign was so obviously advertising agency manipulation to get the result Newman wanted, it backfired.  Mark this one as a Crosby Textor fail.   Couldn't happen to a better jerk, as Mark Textor clearly is. 

Update 3:  Good Lord.  Judith Sloan has a post about the apparently leaked replacement policy to Abbott's to-be-abandoned-tomorrow parental leave plan with which I agree.   The thing is, though, people like me always said Abbott was a policy flim flam man and a mere opportunistic flake.  That's how he got the leadership, for God's sake; but because the ideologically driven to not believe science  were so excited that he was their man for carbon tax removal, they weren't worried about him then.

Lost for choice

Tony is out and about, being a proud captain of Team Australia with his happy team players.

Honestly, there are more potential funny captions for what could be coming out of this guy's mouth than there are stars in the galaxy:

Remarkable droughts remarked upon

California's drought is now even more horrible.

Looks like San Francisco is definitely set to have its first completely dry January since continuous records started in 1850.    Snowpack in the Sierras (which supplies a lot of drinking water) down to 25% of normal.

As for Brazil, even the WSJ is reporting on how dire its drought is.

All with barely a degree of warming, hey Lukewarmists? 

It won't happen, but if he were to sack Peta...

Good work Waleed

The PM's woes started earlier than you think

Truth be told, I think lots of journalists have been telling this exact same story over the last 12 months, but Waleed does sum it up all rather well.

Update:  well I barely got that out, and I see that Twitter is bent over in stitches because Tony Abbott has apparently just said that Turnbull and Bishop are excelling because "they have a good captain".  

On current indications, his press club performance on Monday will, one suspects, likely see him out of the job....

The tedious world of Moffat

This summer, the ABC has been running that re-invented Sherlock show from the BBC from the start.  I had not seen it before.

There is quite a bit to like:  Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are both good in their roles, and the (novel, as far as I can recall) method of showing internal thoughts or other information simply by having the floating words in the air near the character is neat.  On the downside, I have always found the 90 minute format for character based, slightly comedic, detective stories is just a bit too long.   I remember my interest in episodes of Columbo, for example, always started petering out at the 60 to 70 minute mark, and that was with commercials.

But my main reason for the post is to make the observation that, just as Graham Greene's output seemed permanently stuck in a "Greeneland" [depressed males, often with a crisis of faith, seeking solace in sex,] co-creator and sometimes writer Steven Moffat seems absolutely stuck in pan or omni-sexual Moffatland.

It was an obvious modern joke to make in the first episode: people wondering if Sherlock and Watson are a gay couple.  Maybe even the second episode.   But last week, I think 4 shows in, and we have the lesbian dominatrix story.  And Watson still talking about how he is not gay.  And everyone wondering if Sherlock has ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Really, who cares?   It is tediously like modern Dr Who of the last 5 or so (possibly 8 or so - I lose track) years, where it seemed an episode which did not feature some jokey reference to queer sexuality or practice of some kind or other was a real rarity (in what is basically a kids' show.)

I have no idea why this obsesses Moffat so much.   Amusingly, it seems that even gay or "queer" theorists  find fault with how he deals with it.   It also appears that some feminists find Moffat very objectionable.  Maybe he is rather like Tony Abbott - can't keep anyone on any side of the spectrum happy.

But the main thing is - it's just such a bore to see a personal obsession keep on appearing with such regularity in shows which are not about sexuality.  It sticks out like a sore thumb,  from a man who seems to have issues. 

Tracking down the cause

Mystery childhood paralysis stumps researchers : Nature News & Comment

I don't like hearing that there are cases of childhood paralysis that don't have a clear cause, but there you have it.

Meanwhile, in New York...

PS:  my theory is that Rupert lives on by taking a daily infusion of more youthful blood compulsorily donated by editors and staff at News Limited papers.  Hard to explain that in one box, though...

Julie's loss noted

For those of my vast international readership who are wondering what this is about.... http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-19/julie-bishop-tweets-in-search-of-lost-earring/6024594 

Musing about the PC, 28 years ago

I'm under pressure again to dispose of my old magazine collection - many of them Omni's from the 1980s.  (By the way, they were printed on quality paper - there's really not that much page yellowing in my carelessly stored editions.)

But just glancing through these still quite appealingly designed magazines, I come across articles that remind me how the world has changed, and it's sort of charming, even if it makes me feel old.   Here's a scan of an article written by someone in the PC business in April 1987, who was asked by Omni "Is the Computer Business Dying?":

  

Cute design

Cubitat from Urban Capital and Nichetto Studios is a compact home in a box.

I like this a lot.  Of course, as a home, all it lacks is exterior walls.  But no design is perfect...

Maybe if I could just have one installed in an appropriate sized yurt...

Rupert now directing Prime Ministerial staff arrangments...

Hilarious to watch Rupert directing the show from New York:

Especially funny if Abbott really is personally responsible for the Prince Phil knighthood and didn't even run it past her...

Disappointing that I'm not smarter than I knew

Unconscious thought not so smart after all

A bunch of studies American's don't believe

Good guy with a gun myth: Guns increase the risk of homicide, accidents, suicide.

The most surprising thing, as this article points out early, is that a significant majority of Americans actually believe the NRA line that gun ownership is a good idea for personal safety.  

More common than you think

BBC - Earth - Spectacular real virgin births

A good read about virgin births in the animal kingdom.  (Quaint term - "animal kingdom" - isn't it?)

Time to 5:2 again

Fasting facts: is the 5:2 diet too good to be true? | Life and style | The Guardian

I tried the 5:2 diet last year and it did work, but having stopped completely for maybe four months now the weight has been creeping back up towards last year's starting point.  Michael was probably right - having lost the weight, doing it one day a week may be the way to maintain it.

This Guardian article starts out as if it is going to take down the claims a peg or two, but everyone it quotes still seems quite strongly supportive.  There is an alternative mentioned:

Longo himself has fasted daily for more than five years now. He practises time-restricted feeding, where he allows himself only two meals within three to 12 hours – a method that is common among centenarians and, says, “a good way for me to maintain a healthy weight”. It’s better than 5:2, according to Longo, because your system prefers a daily routine, rather than extremes every few days (he also recommends three-to-five day fasts every three months). But he wouldn’t recommend trying it without medical supervision, for fear of malnourishment and “because people like to improvise”, he says. You certainly can’t just go around fasting willy-nilly if you’re still growing, pregnant, diabetic or have other serious health conditions.

Well, until a book comes out about that, I won't try it.

Anyway, perhaps from next week it's time for me to go back to 5:2.   When it's cooler, I can throw in one of those 60 second a week exercise regimes .   Michael endorse them too!  (Heh).

Hotter

Climate change will hit Australia harder than rest of world, study shows | Environment | The Guardian

The CSIRO/BOM website that the article links to looks pretty good - it breaks Australia down into regions and explains what is on the cards regarding not just rainfall, but extreme rainfall, temperatures, etc.  It also indicates the degree of confidence.

While regional forecasts of the effects of climate change are still very tricky, it's interesting to note that one thing they are still most confident about  is that the south west corner of Western Australia will continue to get drier. 

The Guardian report also notes this:

Some of the most profound transformations are set to take place in the
seas that surround Australia, which will warm by a further 2C to 4C
unless emissions are cut.

The ecological changes that this could involve have potentially serious consequences on such mundane matters as tourism.   This summer, a boy was stung at the Brisbane bayside suburb of Wellington Point by the (sometimes) deadly irukandji jellyfish.   An article at the Conversation in 2013 noted that they are normally only in northern Queensland waters (north of Gladstone) but had been found in Harvey Bay.  Now Brisbane.   While it remains unclear whether they can establish this far south in large numbers, if they did, and effectively prevented widespread use of southern Queensland beaches for the hottest summer months, the tourism effect would be very dire.

I am guessing that economists and their DICE models haven't worked out a way to factor that one into projections for GDP effect of global warming in 2090...

Faker than a spaghetti western

Just turned over to watch some of the Baz Luhrmann film Australia, which I knew would be ridiculous, but it exceeds my expectations. 

What on earth was this director thinking?   Everything about the film screams "fake":  the awful acting of poor Nicole Kidman, the sets, the story, the stampede, and (somehow) he even makes the Australian outback look fake - it looks and sounds more like a (particularly bad) 1940's American Western.   It's a film weird in concept and execution.   Any Australian critic who liked it is not to be trusted.

And looking back at what some American critics said about its treatment of aborigines - I see exactly what they mean.

I've been out for a while...is Abbott still PM?

Tony Abbott under fire from Cabinet colleagues over decision to grant knighthood to Prince Philip

 So, the answer seems to be yes, but is on the way out...

Hot

Yesterday, ABC TV said that Brisbane had a high of 37 degrees, and Ipswich too.   It's quite unusual to see the same temperature in both locations. 

I know it was hot where we live, about halfway between those locations.  If this heat and high humidity continues well into February, I think it will start to have the feel of the 1998 summer.

Looking around the world, Brazil is apparently having record heat and continuing, very serious, drought, and California has been hot.  Its drought is also still hanging around, even though rains late last year gave them hope.  The January lack of rain is, however, highly unusual:

January is usually San Francisco's wettest month, averaging four and a half inches of rain since 1850. In January 2015, though, it hasn't rained at all -- and the forecast doesn't suggest that's likely to change. Over the past 165 years, that has never happened. Not once. The closest the city came to a rainless month was when it got 0.06 inches -- in 2014.

But back to Brisbane.

Although our weather bureau contains tables of our climate at different locations, I can't see that they provide anywhere where you can easily graph the results.   (I would welcome being corrected on that.)  But over at the Berkeley Earth temperature records, they do provide pre-made graphs for all major cities.  

Here's what Brisbane's looks like:

 Seems a clear trend since I was born...