Holding the candle for Tony

I can only assume that it's courtesy of former Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker's taking on the top job at The Australian that it has become so firmly the National Paper of Yearning for the Return of Tony Abbott.  

Which is really pretty hilarious.   No matter how badly Turnbull may be perceived to perform, there is no way that voters are going to think the solution is to go back to gormless Tony.   I work around people pretty passionately against Labor - none of them thought Abbott was a success as a PM.   They think he was an inarticulate idiot in the role.

But it's good to see The Australian sinking further and further into negative credibility and/or irrelevance. 

Update:  as people on Twitter are saying:

Evidence for harmful reef effects already taking place

Landmark experiment confirms ocean acidification’s toll on Great Barrier Reef : Nature News & Comment

Given the complexity of this type of experiment, I would still be a little cautious about its conclusions.

But it's still not good news for the long term prospects for the GBR.

Something I would have thought obvious, but evidently not...

Yeast study offers evidence of superiority of sexual reproduction versus cloning in speed of adaptation

Apples in India

While reading about that too-good-to-be-true cheapo smart phone in India last week, I was reminded about how iPhones barely sell there:

Now, a sales target of a million iPhones is within breaching distance in a country where the installed base of smartphones is very low. According to Counterpoint Technology Research’s senior analyst Tarun Pathak, 106 million smartphones were sold in India in 2015 but 300 million more smartphones are expected to be sold in the next two years. Significantly, Apple has only about 1 percent share of this booming smartphone market. “It is a huge, enticing market that just cannot be disregarded,” says Pathak. “India is a high-potential market not only in terms of volume but also the massive scale and opportunity that lies ahead.”

Amazing.  (But then again, it could just be that I'm easily amazed.)

It would be, like, Peak America

Douthat Apologizes For Trump Joke | The Daily Caller

Poor old Ross Douthat attempted a joke about how an assassination attempt (like one in a movie, which involved the target using a baby to shield himself and thus losing credibility) could end the Trump campaign.  He's since deleted the tweet and said sorry.

Well, normally, conservatives would complain about PC self censorship, but not now, hey?

Because, honestly, who with any imagination at all hasn't had an idle thought about how deeply ironic and "peak America" it would be if Trump were shot on the campaign trail, preferably by some schizophrenic migrant nutter with no health care plan (perhaps with immigrant parents from Mexico?) who had still managed to legally buy a gun with cash supplied by the Koch brothers?

And, as I have noted before, Right wing nutters have been fantasising about Obama being shot for his e-vil (non-existant) plans to seize American's guns.

So Ross should be cut some slack...

Ooh, a mystery!

BBC Future - The quest to solve YouTube’s strangest mystery

I suppose if I read Reddit more carefully, I would have known about this earlier.  And now it's slightly more mysterious, given that when I check the channel in question, it seems the recent Youtubes have been taken down.

All sounds very "numbers station" to me...

A reasonable take on lock out laws

Sydney wasn't vibrant before these alcohol laws, it was embarrassing - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Inner city areas change all the time - weren't people complaining about Oxford Street dying long before the lock out laws?   As the author writes in this very fair minded article, it's also the case that 24 hour liquor licences and sudden popularity with hoards of drunk youngsters crowds out other, more sedate, businesses (like restaurants).

Overly liberal licencing laws therefore benefit some type of businesses at the cost of others.  Tightening those laws means there may be a transition to the other type of businesses in the area.   Residents may well find their property values increasing; drug peddlers, prostitutes and strippers may have to find some other area to work from.  Such is life when governments decide, with voter approval, that regulation needs tightening.

President Troll

I was going to post about how much Trump's campaign behaviour resembles one gigantic troll of the Republican party, and the entire planet, but I see the point has been made before.

The thing is, some trolls can be pretty funny, and I'd be pretty sure that at some of those supporting him think it is all part of a game.

But I can't see it lasting all the way to the White House.

The fact that the Koch Brothers are starting to fight harder against him doesn't mean much - didn't they blow a huge amount of money on the Romney run?

Trump winning the candidacy would therefore have a couple of benefits - it may further impoverish the Koch's bank account and influence, and (presumably) blow up the Party whose behaviour and nonsense ideology for the last decade deserves blowing up.

I also didn't mind this article that gives a possible explanation as to why even evangelicals are voting for Trump:  as a "last hurrah" against a lost culture war.  Or, maybe, evangelicals just enjoy a funny troll, too...

About that Safe Schools program...

Many years ago, I wrote a post complaining that American schools with their gay support clubs were going too far, in the sense that I don't see that teenage sexuality really warrants school based scrutiny or endorsement.   All sensible adults don't really want high school teenagers of any type having sex;  that complete sexuality self understanding is not something that teenagers (in particular) actually need to be certain of seems badly unacknowledged these days; and an emphasis on the right to privacy in terms of sexual feelings should (to my mind) be the priority.   But, as is usual, I find it hard Googling my own blog successfully, so I haven't re-read it for a while.  I think that is how it went.

So now we have some hoo-ha about an anti-bullying program that concentrates on sexuality based bullying.  The idea of an anti bullying program that incorporates sexuality based bullying is fine.   Part of the concern about the Safe School program, though, is that some of the suggested exercises seem a tad too advanced for the age intended.   (The bit about asking 11 year olds to imagine they're 16 and with "someone they're really into".   My recent experience with 2 former eleven year olds is that this would have been like asking them to imagine they're an aardvark - it would have been pretty incomprehensible. )  But as I understand it, educational material like this is not set in concrete - the manual gives suggested exercises that teachers can pick and choose from, as would appear to suit their circumstances.

So part of the complaint appears overblown to me; but it probably does grate somewhat against my views about how sexuality is dealt with not just in schools, but in the media and broader society these days.

Can't an anti-bullying program just emphasise that it's none of  a student's business to care or complain about which gender a fellow student might feel some sexual attraction towards, and that bullying based on that will be sternly dealt with?

But this is not to say that I have any particular problem with school based, quite detailed, sex education material regarding how your basic sex works, and its practical and emotional consequences.  (And contraception, of course.)  After all, the European approach to this does seem to work reasonably well.  And as if teenagers want to hear the details about it from their parents...

A modest proposal

Malcolm Turnbull sticks to Tony Abbott's defence spending pledges in long-awaited white paper - ABC News 

Well, Malcolm Turnbull seems to be truly turning into an Abbott Lite (or "Not So Lite") with this announcement that we'll be going for 12 new submarines.  (And a commitment to a 2% GDP defence budget.)

Now, I like defence technology as much as the next, um, man/woman/transgender defence person, but the whole problem with our submarine fleet has long been not being able to convince sailors to serve on them, hasn't it?.  

How do they propose getting around that problem with a fleet of 12?

My proposal - which will presumably cut costs too - subcontract out their running to the Filipinos.
I understand that they already run a huge percentage of cargo and passenger shipping.  They'll work for half the salary, too, provided they are left with tips after a successful voyage.

I cannot see why I'm not a politician. 

Amazing technology

Li-fi '100 times faster than wi-fi' at shine of a light presented at Mobile World Congress - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Did I post about this before?  I forget, but I have read about it previously.  I find it hard to believe that an LED bulb can transmit data this quickly:

Laboratory tests have shown theoretical speeds of over 200 gbps —
fast enough to "download the equivalent of 23 DVDs in one second",
founder and head of Oledcomm Suat Topsu said.

"Li-fi allows speeds that are 100 times faster than wi-fi" which uses radio waves to transmit data, he said.

Fair enough

Proposed Senate electoral reform is essential

The man with the dorkiest face pic at the Conversation (please change it, Adrian) writes about the Senate voting reform, and figures that (unlike Labor's concerns) that Labor and the Greens may benefit from it.

Brain parasite reconsidered

The Myth of "Mind-Altering Parasite" Toxoplasma Gondii? - Neuroskeptic

Hey, maybe cats aren't quite as evil as we all suspect.*   Read above for an interesting study looking again into the question of whether toxoplasma gondii has much effect on human behaviour.


* I doubt this.  I have a theory that they may explain libertarianism.

Marked "not to be trusted"

Chris Uhlmann should mind his language on 'cultural Marxism' | Jason Wilson | Opinion | The Guardian

Interesting column here about Uhlmann believing a right wing campfire scare story that I had never bothered looking into because I always thought it improbable.

Look, my rule of thumb for reliability across a spectrum of subjects holds good here:  Uhlmann years ago made it plain that he thought belief in AGW was more religion than science - a favourite trope of climate change denialism.   This alone indicates he's not the brightest, and his time as host on 7.30 confirmed him as not particularly quick witted, and routinely soft on the Coalition and dismissive of Labor. 

You can't really trust him on anything.

Entirely reasonable

Government set to change Senate voting in bad news for 'micros'

I find it hard to credit that making people vote so as to indicate their actual preferences, as opposed to letting people vote when they are absolutely in ignorance of where their preferences will go, can be argued as being bad for representative democracy.  

I suppose that the "micro" argument is that, regardless of how they get there, having more micro members (so to speak) in the Senate is better for democracy.   They like the current system, but they should be more upfront that it pretty much like running a lottery for a handful of Senate seats each election. 

I would also assume that, should this reform be followed by a double dissolution, it will be goodbye to my favourite Senator to hate, Leyonhjelm.  I will have to re-focus the target of my political hatred elsewhere if that happens.  But I can live with that.  

Goodbye to Ms Lee

Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89 - The New York Times

I did enjoy this obit for Harper Lee last week.

One thing I am curious about:  it reminded me that she had said her father (a lawyer) was the model for Atticus Finch, and according to her obit, she appeared in photos with him in a profile done once she was famous.

But, with To Set A Watchman, which was virtually an early (although very different) draft of Mockingbird, she painted a father with racist attitudes.

So, has anyone worked out what the true attitude of her father was? 

News of no interest to Republicans, I presume

Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries - The New York Times

It's a bit weird, isn't it, that despite some Republican friendly East coast states of the US having increasing coastal flooding problems, Republicans seemingly don't believe this could be tied to global warming.  Because, I guess, they just don't believe AGW is possible, as the water laps around their ankles?

OK, time for a new theory, that ties in with my last post.

The Right in American is currently so bizarrely nutty (hello, Trump: but also nonsensical tax plans and climate change denialism of the rest of the candidates) that there might be a hitherto unknown pathological cause.  A mosquito borne virus, perhaps?

You heard it here first...

A panic worth having?

At first I thought that the spread of the zika virus might not be as big a global health concern as some seemed to think.  (Although, of course, it would be a big worry if you were planning on having a baby in a poor area with poor mosquito control.)

But more recent articles tend to make it sound definitely worth worrying about for a variety of reasons.

This article in the New York Times talks about its possible mental health consequences, for example:

The possibility that in utero infection could contribute to mental illness first emerged with an observation in 1988 by Finnish researchers that children born during the 1957 Asian flu epidemic had high rates of schizophrenia later in life.

Researchers have long noted that schizophrenia is highest in adults who were born in winter and early spring — just after the peak of flu season.

But estimates of the size of the risk vary. One 2011 analysis of other studies estimated that maternal infections of any kind account for 6 percent of all cases of schizophrenia. (Researchers have done very large studies in Finland, Sweden and Denmark because they have cradle-to-grave records on millions of citizens.)

By contrast, a 2001 study of adults born to mothers infected with rubella, or German measles, during the last American epidemic, which lasted from 1964 to 1965, found that 20 percent had schizophrenia symptoms. The expected rate among adults is below 1 percent.

Dr. Alan S. Brown, the director of birth cohort studies at Columbia University Medical School and leader of that study, said it was “certainly possible” that Zika posed a similar risk, “although ideally, you’d want a controlled study.”

And at Vox, this article starts with the surprising information that:

Before last year, scientists knew very little about the Zika virus. As late as 2007, there had only been 14 documented Zika cases in the world. Research on the virus was so limited, in fact, that printouts of all the world's published literature could basically fit into a shoebox.

A bit of a worry...

It'll blow your mind

A Journey recommended

A couple of weeks ago, SBS showed a Chinese comedy fantasy which really catches one's attention with its opening sequence.

The movie is Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, and its only towards the end that it became clear (to me) that it was like the origin story for the Buddhist Monkey King.  It is on SBS on Demand., and I think its success in China was well deserved.