Fish and a certain river

Last weekend, people would have heard the odd but sad story of a 5 year girl killed by a jumping sturgeon on the Suwannee River in Florida.

Overlooking the human sadness element of this, Googling about it has led to a few improvements to my general knowledge:

1.  I never knew sturgeon, a weird looking fish I first became aware of as a child because a giant one features in an Uncle Scrooge story, had such a wide range.   Although, now that I look back on it, the Uncle Scrooge story in question was actually set in North America.   Sorry, it must be my later reading about Russian sturgeon and the caviar business that must have made me imagine that were mainly on another continent.

2.  Is the Suwannee (or Suwanee) River the same as the Swanee River of politically incorrect song fame?   Yes, turns out it is, and according to Wikipedia, Stephen Foster never saw it, and it doesn't even make much sense as the setting for the song.   (It's also the river the subject of the Al Jolson "Swanee" song, with music by Gershwin.)     Other sources say that Foster in fact first wrote the song using the name of a different river (the Pedee - which seems to now be called the Pee Dee - Americans seem to have trouble with consistency in river names)  and that river, being located in the Carolinas, makes a bit more sense for the song's story.

3.  Googling the Swanee song led me to this Youtube of Hugh Laurie doing a version of it.  I knew he sang, but he really is quite the jazz pianist:

But all cheese is magic...

Frenchwoman behind Chile 'magic cheese' scam jailed for three years | World news | The Guardian

Michelle Grattan on this weird government

Q&A affair has become theatre of the absurd: Has Q&A put some spell of madness over the government and their media mates?

I would like to point out that I was making references to mental illness on this issue before Michelle. 

No questions asked

The current revolution in the West in terms of both private and State treatment of homosexuality is, as I have argued for years, based on an assumed certainty of human psychology that reflects more of a social zeitgeist than a solid scientific understanding.

There are two things on the net recently which I think back me up on this.

One is the outpouring of Facebook support for a young male of indeterminate age looking sad and making the statement that he's homosexual and is worried that people won't like him.

I find it remarkable that (as far as I can see) no media outlet dealing with it has questioned the delicate matter of the age of the boy.   The reason is pretty obviously because it has become terribly, terribly politically incorrect to question whether a person is clearly understanding their own sexuality, regardless of their age.  (And sure, there are some people in threads following reports on this who are questioning whether the kid is "jumping the gun" here, but my point is that journalists seem loathe to raise the matter.)

Some media reports put him as a "young teen", which many would say is an age at which the sexuality self identification may very well be established.  Apparently, the Facebook site he appears on never reveals age, so it is all a guessing game.  (It's very hard to be sure, but I would say he is pre-teen.)   To some commenting about him, he could be as young as 7 or 8, and the issue of at what age kids clearly understand their sexuality simply doesn't matter to them.  

I know this for sure as I was listening to a discussion of the Facebook post on local ABC radio yesterday, where the two people specifically thought he looked all of 7 or 8, and the matter of whether he fully understood self identification as homosexual at that age was simply not an issue to them at all.

So, at what age do most adult gay people say they realised they were gay?  I've heard it said in a couple of places lately (one was Julia Zamiro - a dislike of whom I find impossible to fathom - talking to British comedian - who I don't find very funny - Matt Lucas, who came across as much more likeable than I expected) that it was a case of waiting for an expected attraction to the opposite sex to develop as a teen, but it never arrived.   I think this makes some sense, and appears confirmed by some survey evidence:

A national survey of 1,752 college students found:

48% of self-identified gay and bisexual college students became aware of their sexual preference in high school while 26% found their true sexuality in college

20% of self-identified gay and bisexual men knew that they were gay or bisexual in junior high school, and 17% said they knew in grade school

6% of self-identified gay or bisexual women knew that they were gay or bisexual in junior high school, and 11% knew in grade school."

Allowing for the fact that there may well be a bit of retrospective revision going on here (where what at the time of grade school was an understanding that they were different, with a later identification that it was homosexuality)  I think it seems pretty safe to say that a clear self identification as homosexual at the age of 7 or 8 is quite unusual.  Dare I say, but it may not even be entirely reliable. 

So why do people not factor that in to their response to this story?    It's clearly a case of an over-reaction to previous conservative shaming or even criminalization of homosexuality, but can't people see an over-reaction when it's in front of them?  


The second story is the terribly interesting one about the attack a decade ago on J Michael Bailey, who questioned whether all transexuals' self understanding was really accurate.   This is dealt with in a recent book which is mentioned on Greg Laden's blog, but I first read about this via a link earlier this year from Jason Soon to some (I think, conservative?) site that had a lengthy interview with Bailey.   Bailey's theory, as explained by him, sounded quite plausible to me, and I meant to link to it at the time but forgot to.

I see that Bailey is probably continuing to upset the transgender activists by weighing in on the "Caitlyn Jenner" kerfuffle, where, again, it is viewed as completely improper to question the self reporting of transexuals as to how they got there, so to speak.  Here's Bailey talking about it:

WT: Do you believe that Caitlyn Jenner is autogynephilic? If so, why?
MB: I believe it is very likely that Caitlyn Jenner’s transition was motivated by intense autogynephilia. I believe this because the best science suggests there are two completely different reasons why natal males become women: because they are feminine androphiles (lovers of men) or because they are autogynephilic. Jenner’s history shows none of the former and is very consistent with the latter. I refer specifically to his previous heterosexual marriages and secretive crossdressing.
WT. She says she always had gender dysphoria and that there was no erotic component. Would she say this if she were autogynephilic? Why?
MB: Autogynephilic individuals experience gender dysphoria, typically beginning in adolescence, when their intense erotic longing for female characteristics almost always begins. There is evidence (John Bancroft published an article long ago) showing that after changing sex, some show memory distortion. They begin to assert that their gender dysphoria began in early childhood and was far more overt than they had alleged before. They also deemphasize the erotic component, even if they admitted it before. I think they do this for at least two reasons: shame (because: sex is involved) and the desire to believe they really have the brains of women (as Jenner suggests she does–um, how does she know that?). I think also that Jenner (and others in the spotlight) likely enjoys the media spotlight, and the mainstream media loves the “was always a woman trapped in a man’s body” story and can’t deal with the “experienced intense sexual arousal when crossdressing or imagining I had a woman’s body” story.
WT: If Jenner doesn’t want people to think her transition was due to autogynephilia, why shouldn’t we just go along? 
MB: This inaccurate denial of autogynephilia is not for the good, because being honest could help lots of males struggling with their autogynephilia. (And there are lots who are.) It might help them understand themselves. It might help them accept themselves. It would at least say “Autogynephilia is nothing to be ashamed of.” I would say that people who admit and deal with their autogynephilia are even admirable.
Falsely misrepresenting one’s gender issues is also bad for science. It’s not good for people to believe false things merely because journalists don’t want to go certain places. Even among scientists, too many don’t bother to learn about the relevant literature and just listen to transgender people’s explanations (“I have the brain of a woman.”). This leads to bad scientific studies and ideas.

Well, that'll upset the transgender support movement, which appears to be reaching some sort of zenith at the moment in the West.

Update:   Some survey results from 2013 in the US (although not with all that many participants) indicates that relatively few adult gays find their sexuality is a "negative" factor.

Terrible tax plans from the Right

Lessons On How Not To Run Your State Government

Funny how you don't hear the IPA or the group of "we hate Keynes" columnists at The Australian talking about the Laffer inspired budget disasters going on in some American States over the last few years, with Kansas as the prime example.  But I see that Bobby Jindal has been doing silly things as well.

As the writer of this column says:

First, no leader should promise never to raise taxes because, frankly, there are times when it is necessary.

It's a statement of common sense under which David Leyonhjelm fails at the first hurdle.   

Polling talk

Last week I was waiting for a Newspoll that never arrived, but now it has, along with a Fairfax poll.

In news to cheer the soul, I see that despite what was supposed to be a good recent run for the Abbott government, it is still stuck on 52/48, or worse. 

Even the Essential Report of last week, which for some reason is the slowest changing poll, seems to confirm the Greens are improving slightly under their new, less sour looking, leader, which is leaking to improved TPP vote for Labor.  

The main hope for the Coalition would seem to be that it is doing well in New South Wales, which I half expect is due to the boyish charms of their Premier who, I gather,  has managed to balance budgets due to the huge amount of stamp duty from the Sydney market falling into his Treasury.  

I have been intending to do a post about the extraordinary talking up of security crisis with last week's "Border Force" press conference, but I've been a bit busy. 

Indebted to pond scum

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150701-the-origin-of-the-air-we-breathe

Gee blogging with a tablet is still harder than it should be. I'll try the link again, and fix it latter from the laptop if it doesn't work.

Life and movies

After a recent spate of shark attacks along one part of the American East Coast, some people were quoted as saying it was rather reminiscent of "Jaws".

It seems we might have a similar thing developing around parts of the Australian coast, at least if this morning's story is true after yesterday's shark attack just down the road at Ballina.

Some action required...

...not about the ABC or Q&A, but the extraordinary, are-they-quite-right-in-the-head obsession that (The Australian editor) Chris Mitchell/Tony Abbott/ whoever-the-heck-is-behind-all-this have about Q&A and the ABC.

It's getting so bad I'm starting to wish something actually bad would happen at the head office of The Oz so as to give them justification for the tens of thousands of fevered words being written about the ABC and its role in the Muslim threat, amongst other tabloid obsessions.

I'm daydreaming along these lines:  Tony Jones' secret ice addiction finally sends him into a psychotic episode in which he dresses up as a Muslim terrorist, breaks into the Oz's offices and holds Mitchell and his editorial team hostage with a semi automatic he found under the seat on the ABC bus they use for Q&A audience runs from Western Sydney.    If only Tony Abbott was visiting the office at the time it would be even better.  

No, wait:  if only Jones could also threaten the room with a rabid dog that Jonny Depp secretly didn't return to the US, we would have the Most Perfect Murdoch Tabloid Story ever conceived. 

Thank you.

Oh great...

ISIL warns Hamas in video message - Al Jazeera English

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has threatened
the Palestinian armed group Hamas, vowing to end the faction's rule in
the territory.

In a 16-minute long video shared by social media accounts sympathetic
to ISIL on Wednesday, fighters based in Syria's Aleppo province
condemned Hamas for its crackdown on Salafist groups in the Gaza Strip,
and its failure to implement a rigid enough interpretation of Islamic
law. ..
"The road to liberate Palestine goes through Iraq and we (ISIL) are
getting closer, day by day ... while they (Hamas) are moving away from
that goal."

Another fighter condemned the Palestinian faction for referring to
ISIL and its supporters as "khawarij", a term used to refer to a group
of Muslims in early Islamic history, meaning "those who have
transgressed".

The fighter later refers to ISIL's seizure of parts of the Yarmouk
refugee camp in the Syrian capital of Damascus after clashes with
Palestinian groups, including a faction associated with Hamas.

"What is happening today in Syria, especially in the Yarmouk camp, we swear by God, will happen in Gaza," the fighter said.

Hamas has clamped down on alleged supporters of ISIL in recent
months, in a campaign to snuff out purported attempts by the group,
which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq, to establish a foothold in
Gaza.

Planets approaching

A nice view could be had from Brisbane tonight of the close approach of Venus and Jupiter in the evening sky.  It's not a great or carefully planned photo, but it gives you the idea:

As if written by the IPA

Palm oil: scourge of the earth, or wonder crop?

Actually, the headline of this article written by a Professor described in part as an "independent researcher" (a term I'm more familiar with as being applied to climate skeptics, I have to say,)  and an adviser to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, should just have been "Palm Oil:  Wonder Crop".

It's a piece that is so obviously PR spin that it automatically engenders skepticism.  

Just following the Saudi lead

Isis militants behead two Syrian women for witchcraft | World news | The Guardian: Islamic State militants have beheaded two women in a province in eastern Syria after accusing them of witchcraft, the first time such an execution has been carried out under the rule of the self-proclaimed caliphate, activists said.

This is terrible, of course.  But I would have thought it could have been mentioned in the article that Saudi Arabia still executes people (including women) for witchcraft and sorcery too.

To go a bit science fiction-y for a moment, this horrible playing out of a centuries long religious war between the two arms of Islam is something that 20th century science fiction writers  might have resolved by using advanced technology to send a peace message that people would perceive as supernatural.  (I dunno - giant holograms in the sky, or something like that.)  I would presume that there is a team in PsyOps in the US who has been thinking about this; certainly they have a target audience primed to believe in the supernatural.   I wish they would try something:  it could hardly hurt.

Why staffers shouldn't use social media

That Jason Wilson in The Guardian wrote at length about how Lefties can't trust libertarians (rather obvious, really), but he did do us a service by linking to a site showing a twitter exchange which shows Helen Dale being upfront about the cynical use of "wind turbine sickness" by her boss to attack the wind energy sector.

Here is part of the relevant sequence:

Of course, everyone sensible knew that this is the motivating factor behind Leyonhjelm and his adviser's interest in wind turbines and infrasound.

But it's funny to see his staffer confirming it....
 

Appeal

I know little of defamation law, but it is rather odd that, apparently, you can be defamed by a headline on a poster when the newspaper article itself does not defame.  Who believes that newspaper headlines are always literally true?   Are Gillard and Rudd now free to cast their eyes back over 5 years of stupid Daily Tele and Herald posters to see which are defamatory?

I hope there are grounds for appeal on the Hockey case.

Even if there are not, unless this dud of a Treasurer declares that he is giving his damages to charity, the win is not actually likely to improve the public's poor perception of the guy.

Update:  having watched 7.30's explanation last night, the most interesting thing is the way the case found that the tweet with a link to the story (with the story itself not defamatory) was still defamatory.   The logic was that the hundreds of thousands who saw the tweet but did not follow the link had been given the defamatory claim without checking the detail which would have set them straight.

But surely the fact that so few people who got the tweet clicked on the link can be used to argue that people know not to trust headlines, and the fact they didn't follow the link shows they did not interpret the headline to be literally true.   I mean, if they thought the tweet meant that the Treasurer had literally changed policy due to a bribe, then many more would surely have wanted to follow the link to the story.

I can't see why the judge made law shouldn't be aligned with what people actually expect from the media:  attention grabbing headlines that are given proper explanation in the article.   

Not allowed to take comedy seriously?

Manohla Dargis gave a detailed, serious minded critical review of the latest crude movie by the wealthy, but tragically stuck as a permanent 14 year old, Seth MacFarlane (the move being the not particularly well performing Ted2), and people (including Steve Sailer) are mocking her for it.

I dunno.  When a movie features an attempt at humour described as this:

Mr. MacFarlane’s fixation on anatomy is especially striking and reaches its nadir in a scene at a sperm bank. There, John accidentally knocks over a shelving unit and ends up splashed with ejaculate that, a nurse explains, has been excluded because the donors have sickle cell anemia. As John writhes, Ted laughs. “You’re covered in rejected black guys’ sperm,” Ted says. “You’re like a Kardashian.” Mr. Wahlberg plays the moment with the right level of desperation, but Ted’s lines are depressing and desperate. 

I don't see at all what is wrong with some serious discussion of what is meant to make comedy funny.  This section by Dargis is spot on:

In “Ted 2,” he generates squirms, largely because his humor is so tone deaf. A Freudian might enjoy trying to figure out if his repeated references to black male genitalia represents a fear of black (male) power or something a wee more personal. And Mr. MacFarlane may believe that mechanically reciting words will drain them of their force, which superficially recalls Lenny Bruce’s idealistic claim that the repetitive use of a familiar racial slur would do the same. “The word’s suppression gives it the power,” Bruce said in 1962, “the violence, the viciousness.” History has proved otherwise, and the word, its violence and viciousness are still with us. I think that Mr. MacFarlane knows this, and that’s why he cast a few well-known black actors in authority roles, as if to signal, wink-wink, that the race stuff is just all in good fun.

She talks a lot more about the race aspects of the attempted jokes.

There is nothing wrong with a review of this kind.

The party line fails

What, so I don't get a fresh Newspoll after all?  Disappointing.

But what wasn't disappointing was Media Watch and Q&A last night, which made it perfectly clear (if it wasn't already) that the Abbott government massive over-reaction to the Mallah appearance on Q&A was ridiculous from the get-go and utterly fails to bear calm scrutiny.

It was hard to pick who came out looking stupidest last night - bloviating, needs-to-retire bore Paul Kelly, fumbling his way around trying to explain why his paper could do an article painting Mallah as a reformed jihadist but Q&A was the worst show in the world for having him ask a specific question about how proposed citizenship rules could affect him; or Tim Wilson getting upset that people laughed at him when Jones had a silent dig at his selective take on when we can hear free speech on the ABC and when we can't.  

The most absurd thing about all of this Abbott hypersensitivity to his government being asked pointed questions is that, in fact, the Australian media (including the ABC) has collectively  let his government get away with unjustified secrecy and cover up of a major issue of national interest (boat turn backs, lock ups on the high seas, and what goes on in Manus Island and Naru) to a disgraceful extent.

But Abbott, being the dumbest Prime Minister of at least the last 50 years, doesn't realise the soft glove treatment he's received on this. 

Update:  am amused to read that the readers of Catallaxy seem to think Wilson and Kelly came out looking good last night.  It's like a public service now, that blog:  it lets the dumb, the blind, the immature and the offensive who can't get a gig on Bolt's threads comfort and support each other in one little corner of the 'net that's safely cordoned off for people who don't want to hear from them.

Weekend movies reviewed

Far From the Madding Crowd:  unfamiliar with the source material, or the 1967 version which seems to be held in pretty high regard, I was quite satisfied with this beautifully shot romantic melodrama.  I should really write melodrama with a capital "M":  I didn't realise that Victorian authors other than Dickens were so much into co-incidence as a plot driver, but Hardy certainly was.  As reviewers have noted, the movie makes the story feel modern, but now having read a bit about Hardy's work more generally, I see he tended to upset quite a few with his take on marriage, women and sexuality.  (And he wasn't gay - something that the 1990's run of Merchant Ivory films has sort of conditioned me to expect for the source material of period drama.)

There's a very enthusiastic review of the film in Salon which I pretty much agree with, as well as fascinating article in The Conversation about some real life women who managed agricultural estates in that period.

The movie is well worth seeing - but if you are male, be prepared to be in an audience that is about 80% not of your gender, and to look out of place if you are there alone...

Noah Goes Psycho:   That's what they should have called that Noah movie from last year.  What a disaster, from concept to execution.   I just can't get my head around the point of it all:  reinventing a Bible story to make it a modern eco parable and in the process attempting to make some of it more "plausible" to modern minds (by the "drugging the animals" bit, so they don't eat each other) while making other bits more bizarrely improbable (rock encrusted angels - apparently the "giants in the earth" - but of somewhat uncertain allegiance; the Tolkien-esque CGI fighting off the hoards; not to mention the glowing Adam and Eve.)   In this movie, God sure has an oblique way of passing on messages to Noah, so much so that he seems not to understand the ultimate point at all and starts to go all serial killer.   And while the issue of God and "natural evil" may be one that a modern agnostic Greenie does not fret about in his or her love of all animals not human, surely any sensible post-Fall Old Testament figure would have worked out that nature as it is around them is not the same as it was meant to have been in the Garden of Eden?  

Look, getting into the mind of the authors of some of the Old Testament is a challenge as it is*; but I hardly see the point of making odd myth even stranger than it was originally.   None of this movie made sense at any level.  If you want a detailed explanation of where it invents things for no clear reason, you can check out  this article in Slate.

* Eg, no one seems to have a clue what the whole Noah getting drunk and being seen naked was all about, but the movie keeps it in, and indicates it's mere prudery.  So something that deserves some creative explanation doesn't get tackled at all.)

Jurassic World:   a lot of fun and a very worthy sequel; in fact, probably what should have been the only sequel to the original movie.  (I consider Lost World to be a one of Spielberg's worst, perhaps second only to Always, which I think is at the bottom by a country mile.  I haven't ever watched the whole of JP3, but it didn't seem too bad.)

The movie looks fantastic from the very start (that's one realistic dinosaur hatching that alone indicates how special effects have improved since the original) and the theme park setting as a whole looks completely convincing, no doubt due to the wonders of modern CGI when used to make realistic looking sets as opposed to gloomy, fantasy landscape.   (It also looks like it has a budget significantly bigger than the first film - but with the way they can fake crowds and buildings these days, who knows?)  The dinosaurs all look great and all, to my mind, significantly better than in the first film.  The least realistic looking thing - the oversized mosasaur - was still fun to watch.

The movie reminded me somewhat of the disaster films of the late 70's but with some mild modern skewering (the near kiss of the co-workers was quite witty), and it was about ten times better than any of Emmerich's awful films. 

Sure, it's not perfect, but well directed, likeable enough actors and moves with a pleasing amount of mayhem.

I really don't think they should try to re-visit it, but the huge success means they inevitably will. 

It's the vibe

I'm curious to see what Newspoll says tomorrow (even if one poll is never entirely trustworthy, especially when the company is changing its polling methods) to see whether it reflects what the nation's political commentators have already decided.

It seems to me that we're in one of those weird bits of self fulfilling punditry you see overwhelm the Australian media from time to time.  They've all decided, whether from the soft Left or the tabloid right, that Tony Abbott is looking in "winning" form again, and Shorten is on the skids.   And all this despite nearly all polls being stuck for a very lengthy period on a Labor winning 52/48 TPP, not to mention the latest polling appearing to boost the Greens to 13%.  And also despite the fact that, as even a cursory look at social media show,  Abbott's performance last week on "national security" bombast has confirmed him in the minds of a huge number as the biggest numbnut of a Prime Minister in a lifetime.

We've seen odd periods like this before, and I'm not sure how it happens.  Gillard had terrible runs with media commentary too, when Labor polling was behind but not necessarily disastrously so.    I guess it could be that they (Canberra journalists) get the inside mood from the dissatisfied in the parties, and then that colours their own views; but it always strikes me as having a enormous amount of seemingly unrealised self fulfilling prophesy to it, yet they keep at it.  

Inappropriate, alright

Today's Saturday Paper alerts me to Helen Dale's 14 June Facebook post which is, indeed, completely inappropriate for a Senator's staffer to be writing with respect to a person her boss wants called to give evidence before his committee.  In full:

Okay, this is a message for those skeptics friends of mine in Australia who are into Public Health.
You need to pull the likes of Simon Chapman and Nathan Lee into line. First, you need to teach both of them to stop with the ad hominem. Then you need to teach the former statistics and how to read them. Then you need to teach both of them how to argue and clarify their thoughts.
David and I can turn both of them into mince on Twitter - yes Twitter - without much effort. This should not happen. I'm a lawyer with a finance major and David's a vet with an MBA.

Now while it's very nice to win arguments all the time, that's not the same as being right. And I'd rather be right than feel smug about my own argumentative aptitude.
My suspicion is - like many people on the left - they live in a bubble and get neither their arguments nor their evidence tested severely or regularly (the very opposite of this Facebook page, for starters).
I'm relying on you to fix this. And if it isn't fixed, I will take great pleasure in ensuring the individuals in question aren't just minced on Twitter.
Getting minced by a Senate Committee is a lot less fun, I assure you.

It also shows her tenuous relationship with sound judgement in that it is extremely unlikely that in a Committee match up between Chapman and Leyonhjelm that it's Chapman who will come out looking bad.

Dale doesn't seem to realise that outside of her small circle, most of the public already consider Leyonhjelm an eccentric kook.