IPA director praises IPA mouthpieces

I didn't know Janet Albrechtsen was a Director at the IPA.   No wonder I sensed no reason to read her for the last few years.

It's funny reading her heaping praise on Paterson and Wilson as new Liberal Party recruits to Parliament, followed by a comment below:

Thanks Janet for the objective and inspired journalism.

Was Jon having a laugh?

More European terrorism

I can't think of much else to say about the Brussels terrorism attack, apart from repeating the sentiment I expressed after the Paris attack.  

I also see that it is, as usual, driving some on the Right nuts. 

The latest from Katesland

It's very entertaining watching Steve Kates (whose reviews of kids films lead his grandchild to comment "Daddy, Grandpa is scaring me") ramp up the love for Donald Trump.  Today's entry:

For a change, a conviction politician in the mould of Margaret Thatcher, but someone, also like her, who can get things done and is every inch a conservative.

I wonder if Sinclair Davidson now avoids him in the staff room at lunch?

Disbelief in the ancient world

Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World review – disbelief has been around for 2,500 years | Books | The Guardian

This is quite an interesting topic:  the forms that doubt, agnosticism and/or atheism took in the ancient world.  Here are some extracts from the review:

Classical scholars may turn to Whitmarsh’s book, as I did, with
questions about whether the term “atheism” is really the right one for
discussing pre-Judaeo-Christian religious doubts and resistance to
religion. It is an academic commonplace to distinguish between the
“orthopraxy” of Graeco-Roman religion – the focus on collective rituals,
sacrifices and festivals – and the “orthodoxy” of modern monotheistic
religions. No ancient Greek or Roman ever recited a Creed. Besides, in
classical Greek, the word atheos (“not-god”) is usually used to
mean “godless” or “against-the-gods”, rather than a person who does not
believe that gods exist. But Whitmarsh builds a case that stories about
“battling the gods” are actually ways of articulating doubts about
traditional religious teaching. He argues that classicists have gone too
far in presenting ancient religion as primarily concerned only with
action, not faith. As he rightly notes, this historical claim relies
heavily on public sources, such as inscriptions, which may teach us a
lot about ritual practices but much less about what individual
worshippers thought was true and false. Public documents can only give
the “official, ideologically sanctioned versions of events”. For this
reason, much of Whitmarsh’s work is a careful teasing out of the
literary and philosophical sources, including those that exist only in
fragmentary form, as he searches for hints of people in antiquity who
questioned the gods’ existence.

The ancient Greeks certainly did not assume that the gods are likable or
lovable, and hostility to the gods is a familiar trope in Greek
literature. The Homeric poems –
which were never treated with the reverence afforded to the holy books
of the Islamic or Jewish traditions, but which were by far the best
known texts of Graeco-Roman antiquity – depict anthropomorphic gods who
are very much of this world, and who interact with humans, even fighting
with them on the battlefield. Battling the gods was a common enough
trope in the Greek imagination that they had a word for it: theomachia.
One might think that stories about gods as threats to humans must imply
a strong belief in their existence. But Whitmarsh argues that theomachy
stories express “a kind of atheism, through the narrative medium of
myth”. One key example is the archaic tale of Salmoneus, who claimed to
be Zeus, demanded sacrifices to be offered to himself, and created
thunder by dragging kettles around behind his chariot. Whitmarsh
suggests that this story raises disturbing questions for believers in
the gods: “If gods can be fashioned by mortal imitation, how real can
they be?”

 (Go on Jason - you know you want to link to that review.)

What the heck?

The Australian reports:

Indigenous journalist and author Stan Grant has been in talks with the Liberal Party about running for the marginal western Sydney seat of Parramatta.
The move would be a coup for the Liberals and could prove a potential upset to sitting Labor MP Julie Owens, who has held the seat since 2004 but had her margin reduced to 1.3 per cent at the last election.

After watching Grant on Julia Zemiro's Home Delivery recently, I had intended posting about how intensely annoying I find him.  He's a bit like an aboriginal version of Michael Ware: so earnestly self-involved I have trouble listening to them for more than 10 minutes.

Is the Liberal Party on some sort of mission to recruit all of the most annoyingly self assured, but actually intellectually vapid, personalities in Australia? 

Tipping points are back?

Risk of multiple tipping points should be triggering urgent action on climate change

My impression is that concern about climate change tipping points has been out of fashion in the IPCC  for some years, and that those who have been worried about things being worse than they seem (such as Hansen with his papers) have been rather pooh-poohed by others.

But they are still possible, and still worth considering, even if I am again dubious about the attempt to economically value them.

Privacy and clean cars

The Atlantic has an article about how smart, self driving cars are likely to mean the final nail in the coffin of privacy.

The one thing they don't mention, though, in the context of a future fleet of shared self driving vehicles, is the matter of people doing rude things in them and how you could stop that without some serious privacy infringement.  (I'm sure I posted about that recently, but again Google is failing me.)   I sort of want to claim to be one of the first people to anticipate that problem; but then again, I'm not sure it's something to want to get credit for.   After all, it would appear that it has not yet occurred to American teenagers, since in a recent survey they don't appear all that keen on automated cars.

In other self driving car news - Wired has an article about infrastructure changes that self driving cars will likely need.  (It's not big a list, though.)

The persecuted Ted

This is the first clip I have watched of Samantha Bee on her new TV gig, and I'm not sure I like her delivery.  But nonetheless, this clip about how amazingly unpopular Ted Cruz is with his fellow Senators still has many funny bits:

A lovely piece by Jericho

I no longer see my daughter's Down's Syndrome, I only see a beautiful girl called Emma | Greg Jericho | Opinion | The Guardian

More Bolt than you could possibly handle

Andrew Bolt is going to do 4 nights a week on Sky News??   Gee, are there that many people willing to be interrupted in interviews to keep it going?   And bear in mind his TV audience couldn't really stay with him once a week over the long run, let alone 4 times a week.

A rather strange decision by a cable network I don't get to see anyway, and (I would guess), an unhealthy workload for Andrew.

Nurse!

Good Lord.  I think the world's foremost free market economist from RMIT (the one who knows that 95% of other economists don't understand the subject) may be on the verge of needing a compulsory rest in a peaceful white room somewhere.  Here's his reaction on viewing Disney's current hit animated animal film Zootopia:

It is impossible to describe how depraved this film is. In every way worse than I could have imagined. It makes you understand how Europe and America have ended up with civilian invasions for which there are almost no psychological defences across the culture. Here is the final line of the film which is its ultimate message, superseding even the often-repeated mantra that “anyone can be anything”. These words are the actual point:

“Trust – and make the world a better place.”

We are a generation of naive and guileless fools, and if you are looking for the evidence, the 99% critics approval with the audiences at 95% tells you a great deal about what you need to know.
Not recommended, although the 108 minutes passes easily enough if you are curious about understanding how intellectually defenceless and inanely stupid our culture has become.

Mind you, I haven't seen the movie yet.  Somehow, though, I can't see it provoking anything like the same reaction.
 

Testing the limits of my enjoyment

As readers might be able to tell, I like science.   Always have.  Read a lot of kids' science books in primary school, sometimes, for example, spending pocket money on buying a new "How and Why" book - remember those?  And people gave me children's encyclopaedias as a gift, or books about space.  (Happily, even in Year 8 I got a spacey book from school as some sort of achievement prize.  I think I'm remembering this right - I still have it on the shelf and should check.)

This is by way of background to explaining that I have taken particular enjoyment in helping my kids with their school science.   Honestly, for parents like me, I wouldn't mind if the school could just sent me the assignment and cut out the middle child.  (I'm joking - sort of...)

But this weekend, my patience on this was tested.  

My son had to a write up of an experiment on Newtons laws of motion (so far, so good); but the experiment set up was this:  rolling two different sized (different weight) marbles down a slope and measuring the time taken.  Not only that, but it was done on four different surfaces (carpet, wood, pipe, and some non slip mat.)

He did this at school, and got some results.  (I had to learn about Excels charting functions to make him do the bar charts better though.   Now we both know.)

But the problem is with the interpretation and discussion section.

Let me assure you, dear reader, that any time spent Googling the topic such as "does a heavier ball roll down a slope faster than a lighter ball" will quickly show you that this is a topic that causes massive confusion, and is actually very complicated and well beyond the simple "Newtons three laws of motion."   (If you think I'm exaggerating, go have a look.   It's a topic that is much worse than the more straight forward "why do objects fall at the same rate under gravity in a vacuum.")

It really drove me a bit crazy trying to work out what my son could legitimately and accurately say regarding this, given the relatively light exposure to Newton that a Year 10 student gets.  I think I came up with some useful suggestions, but did the silly teacher really have to complicate this further by the use of different surfaces? 

This is by far the worst science assignment my son's teacher had ever me work on, and I expect better next time!

Well, that makes voting for Bill Shorten easier...

So, Wilson got pre-selection by 142 to 140 votes.   Reminiscent of the start of the Tony Abbott climb to the position of Most Embarrassingly Weird Prime Ministership since Federation, really.  I expect pretty much the same of Timbo's parliamentary career.

Watching Joan

Wow, that Luc Besson 1990's Joan of Arc (on SBS tonight) looks absolutely fantastic, and is very enjoyable in its over the top sort of way.   I see that Besson made it after the truly awful Fifth Element, yet it was that film which was his critical and commercial success.   How wrong is that?

A good, odd list

From the BBC, I learn that there is an annual prize for oddest book title of the year.  The shortlist for this year does sounds enticing:

Actually, that last one might have some information on something I find odd - the matter of medieval belief that witches would happily kiss Satan's infernal you-know-what.   (Oh look, it has a Wikipedia entry.)  Doesn't that seem a rather odd myth, and hard to fathom how it started?*   Now that I think of it, what does the (much less specific) "kiss my ass" derive from?

* But then again, how did any weird story about what witches could do get started.  I read about this one years ago:

 German clergyman Heinrich Kramer described the epidemic in Malleus Maleficarum (1486)—one of the most famous medieval treatises on witches—writing: “Witches ... collect male organs in great numbers, as many as 20 or 30 members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them in a box.” But the disembodied penises didn’t just hang around. “They move themselves like living members and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many,” Kramer wrote.

 It's the little detail of "eating oats and corn" that really floors me as a bizarre thing to dream up.

The paranoid style in Australian politics

There's nothing like a stupid university student office invasion/demonstration/semi ransack to bring out the  "crack them over the head with batons/just shoot them" reaction from those who comment at Catallaxy.

And yes, of course it was stupid and pointless and damaging, and some arrests based on video identification would be well deserved.

But long time commenter CL, who has a paranoid streak a mile wide about how leftists are out to get Catholics, and gays are out to get the children, now thinks queer university students are out to kill conservative's wives, apparently:

Oh, and anti smoking campaigners - it's personal, didn't you know?:

I wonder if he's still a smoker.  It apparently contributes to paranoia.

Petty

I find it pretty distasteful the way Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair  (more or less) high five themselves when their media opposition downscales journalist jobs.  All tied up with their campaign against "leftists" generally, and the ABC for allegedly crowding out the news media here.

This argument is beloved of their aging, remarried boss; except that I don't see how it can account for the fact that American newpapers, without anything like a government funded media outlet competitor, have been suffering exactly the same decline for the last decade or so.

And let's face it:  apart from the basic news services, commercial TV here gave up serious domestic and international journalism decades ago in favour of magazine TV.   Was this due to ABC "crowding out"?  I doubt it. 

Still sounds 'orrible..

Dance yourself happy: the rise of the sober rave | Music | The Guardian

Tim and the pre-selection

Funny how The Australian and Andrew Bolt are coming out strongly in support of professional self promoter Tim Wilson in his pre-selection run.   Does Bolt's son still work for the IPA?   I almost feel he should make a disclosure of that before he does one of his puff pieces on how suitable ex IPA people are as Liberal politicians, because it will be only be another couple of years and Bolt the Younger will be making a run as well.  (I see wet behind the ears James Paterson's maiden Senate speech - which I haven't watched - included promoting an Australian embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  At last!  The really important issue that the citizens of Victoria have been waiting for their Senator to finally tackle.   They'll be dancing in the streets.)

Honest to God:  if Tim Wilson gets up in this preselection at the other end of the country from me, I'll have trouble voting for the Liberals for another decade at least.

Laughably, Bolt says of Wilson:

Tim Wilson has a long record of publicly fighting for Liberal values and has the scars to prove it.

Like the "scar" of a directly gifted Human Rights Commission job worth about $400,000 in salary and benefits?  What Bolt means is "Wilson supported me when the s.18C case was taken against me, which I could avoided by an apology and correction for mistakes, but instead decided to grandstand and lost.  Of course he's well suited to be a Liberal candidate in a safe seat, then."

Georgina Downey, on the other hand, may have had a bit of a charmed life as a daughter of a famous politician;  but I find it hard to credit that a person with this academic and work background outside of thinktank wankery is not smart and well qualified for political life:

Ms Downer is a lawyer turned diplomat who served in Australia's embassy in Japan for four years. The mother of two has a Masters in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and degrees in Law and Commerce from the University of Melbourne.  She is fluent in Japanese and French.

The Liberal Party needs to distance itself from the mystery corporate funded ideologues of the IPA, not get tied up with them closer.   If they go with Freedom Boy, it will be their loss.  

An interesting take on the Nordic system

Why Bernie Sanders Is Adopting a Nordic-Style Approach - The Atlantic

The basic message is that it's not that Nordic folk are more altruistic - it's that they see their style of socialism-lite is great for the middle class.  In other words, they support it because they are selfish.