Not sure I'd feel comfortable within 20 m of it...

They've been talking about the need to clean up the Ganges River in India for years, possibly decades, but here we have another lengthy article at the BBC about the dire condition it's in.  How's this chart, for example:

And after that appears the line:

Here in Varanasi it is sometimes more than 150 times the recommended safe level for bathing, yet vast numbers of people bathe away regardless.

Mice behaviour

Mice cooperate if they benefit -- ScienceDaily

I didn't know mice often have communal nests:

Female house mice can raise their young with other females in a communal
nest. Two or several females pool their litters in one nest and jointly
care for all offspring, even if litters differ by a few days in age. As
the females cannot tell apart between their own young and the offspring
of the other females, they indiscriminately nurse all pups in the
communal nest. If one female has more pups than the others, she invests
the same into nursing but weans more young and therefore has an
advantage.

All a bit socialist of them...

Help! Our cash reserves only went up $150,000 last year!

I love the way the IPA makes a call for membership/donations when there's an issue they think can motivate  the suckers  sympathising readers to part with their cash.

The reality is, as I'm sure I've pointed out before,  that the IPA already sits on a piggy bank of  cash that's been increasing substantially over the last 5 years.  Here, look at this page from their 2014/15 report:

Oh woe is them!  Cash reserves have only increased $1.14 million over the last 5 years. 

And for all of that, what did they get?   A Liberal PM who made promises directly to them that he didn't keep.    And even he's supporting the new PM in the superannuation changes the fight against which is supposed to be the rallying point for new membership.

If the IPA wants to run an advertising campaign supporting the ALP on this issue (lulz), why don't members (new or existing) tell them to use their growing cash reserves to cover it? 

Delcon dismay

The Delusional Conservatives who pine for the return of Tony Abbott as PM must be feeling some dismay at his lengthy support for the Turnbull changes to superannuation in the budget.

More skepticism on company tax cuts

Election 2016: The weak case for a company tax cut

Oh, so it's not just Crikey and Bernard Keane arguing that the benefits of cuts to company tax aren't proven.  Peter Martin now explains the reasons it might not be such a good idea, after all.

I find this issue confusing, partly because someone like Ken Henry, who was clearly perceived by some Right wing economists as being a soft headed friend of the Left, argued for it.  But as Martin says today:

And earlier plans to cut company tax were to be at least partly
funded by the companies themselves (Wayne Swan wanted to do it by
removing loopholes, the Henry review by a mining super-profit tax).
Turnbull's plan is different. It's give, without the take.

On the plus side he is cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, and to
some extent a lower company tax rate might itself make avoidance less
attractive.

The centrepiece of his election campaign is far more than a thought bubble. It derives from serious economic modelling. But it might not yet have been completely thought through.

On the matter of the "Google tax", I heard on Radio National this morning that (based on Britain's experience, which Turnbull is copying), it's not really expected to raise much tax of itself, rather it is designed to encourage companies not to minimise their tax by their offshoring profit methods.  [Hence, it wouldn't do much to make up the loss in revenue that Martin explains today.]

Both sides take damage; but only one looks nasty

I didn't see Q&A on Monday night, but have been following the story about Mr Storrar, who argued that a tax change at the high end of the scale gives no benefit to people (like him, allegedly) with income at the bottom of the scale.  Fair enough argument, one would have thought, but he did paint it in a very personal light.

I take it that Kelly O'Dwyer (who, in my opinion, used to come across as very hard nosed and an economic dry, but has softened somewhat since having a baby) didn't counter convincingly.   Whereupon The Australian decided to follow up on Storrar's personal life not once, but two days running.  Meanwhile, a unionist set up a donation site which has led to much money being promised to Storrar, most of it perhaps by people who may not have realised he didn't live with his daughters and (from today's Australian) has an adult son who is estranged from him, claims he led him into drug problems, and is annoyed at the positive image his father got from his TV appearance.

Even before this morning's story in The Australian, Sinclair Davidson at Catallaxy was angry at this guy's "sense of entitlement" and quoting passages from Atlas Shrugged(!) at him.  In comments, he went as far as calling him a "parasite". 

As far as I'm concerned, the whole incident demonstrates three things:

a.  a certain gullibility on the Left to immediately accept appearances when it comes to "hard luck" stories;

b.  the somewhat creepy way The Australian has sought to attack government critics personally, whether they be statutory appointments (Triggs) or mere audience members on an ABC show.    Sure, they came up with the goods, so to speak, this time;  and perhaps they would not have thought it worthwhile were it not for the donations being sought for him.   But it still seems to me to have become an ugly, nasty paper, even with former editor Chris Mitchell leaving.

c.  the nasty and poisonous taint of Randian name calling that is just under the surface of part of the Australian Right.  That Sinclair Davidson, a man who seeks to be influential in Coalition policy, and is invited to talk at Liberal Party functions, should use "parasite" for someone who receives government benefits shows he has no idea how that language demeans himself in the eyes of the broader Australian public.  The extreme and eccentric views of Ayn Rand have never caught on here like they have amongst a certain political corner of America, and in our more egalitarian society they are never likely to do so.  As I have said before, the Liberals could only benefit by distancing themselves from the IPA, and him.*

So, I think both sides take some damage from this story, but only the Right ends up looking nasty.

* And why no ABC journalist ever questions him when he on TV or radio about statements he has made on his blog, but give him a clear run, is a bit of a puzzle.  Perhaps they need me to supply links?

Intersex issues

The spectrum of sex development: Eric Vilain and the intersex controversy : Nature News & Comment

A somewhat interesting article here about an intersex researcher who has had his share of controversy.

Here's one part (in the first paragraph) that I thought surprising, if true:

At Necker University Hospital for Sick Children in Paris in the
1980s, he says, doctors presumed that a child would be psychologically
damaged if he or she did not have normal-looking genitalia. In Vilain's
experience, that belief was so strong that doctors would take genital
abnormalities into account when deciding how hard to fight to save a
premature baby. “The unanimous feeling was that boys with a micropenis
could never achieve a normal life — that they were doomed,” he says.
(The paediatric-surgery department at Necker refused to answer questions
relating to past or current standards of care.)

DSDs occur in an estimated 1–2% of live births, and hundreds of genital
surgeries are performed on infants around the world every year¹.
But there are no estimates as to how often a child's surgically
assigned sex ends up different from the gender they come to identify
with.

Of course they are right to worry

Packing Heat Onto College Campuses - The New York Times

Seems that there are a handful of sensible Republicans on guns:  such as this one:

The gun lobby’s relentless drive to arm students across the nation’s
college campuses ran into an unexpected hitch in Georgia last week when
Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a measure that would have let students carry
concealed weapons to class. Mr. Deal scoffed at the rationale of fellow
Republicans in the legislature that arming students would increase their
safety. “It is highly questionable that such would be the result,” he
stressed in his veto message.

But the best paragraphs of this article are at the end:

And in July of next year, all six  Kansas state universities and dozens of community colleges and tech schools must allow their students to carry concealed weapons on campus, classrooms
included.  A poll of 20,000 Kansas college employees found 82 percent said they would feel less safe on an armed campus, according to National Public Radio. Two-thirds said the presence of guns would necessarily hamper their freedom to teach effectively. Critics of the move wonder, what if students get into a gun fight in class? And what happens to open discourse in a place tense with concealed carry?

The legislative majorities pushing this issue as a public safety necessity insist armed students and professors are the best way to defend against armed intruders. But a new study of federal firearms data indicates licensed and armed private citizens wind up harming themselves or others with their guns far more often than shooting attackers. The study by the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety advocacy group, found that over a three-year period ending in 2014, less

than one percent of victims of attempted or completed crimes of violence used their firearms to try to stop crimes. The notion of quick-draw self defense remains a macho fantasy for gun buyers.

He's got it all covered...or so he thinks

Backreaction: Book review: “The Big Picture” by Sean Carroll

Well, atheist physicist Bee thinks atheist physicist Sean Carroll's book is very good.

The comments following her review are likely to go on for some time, and be interesting, at least in parts.

I see one of them refers to Peter Woit's more skeptical take on the point of the book.  In fact, Woit's comments make for more interesting reading than Bee's review.

Legal cannabis and driving is a serious problem, after all

Fatal road crashes involving marijuana double after state legalizes drug: Foundation research also shows that legal limits for marijuana and driving are meaningless -- ScienceDaily

I always suspected that this would be a likely problem, but the evidence to show that it was really was seems to have been slow coming forward.  And the thing is, because of the way THC works and hangs around for a long time at detectable levels, it's a tricky one to respond to.   (Short of saying any THC in the test will result in a punishment, I guess.)

Update:  here's a story about a recent case in Australia illustrating the difficulties of making "drug driving" laws for THC.  I see that the Greens recommend following British laws where they also test for impairment - but I've always been doubtful about the reliability of roadside impairment testing. 

Perhaps not quite as bad as it looked

Nearly 90 per cent of Fort McMurray still intact; 2,400 structures lost - The Globe and Mail

I was interested in the comparison with the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria in 2009, and (apart from the death of 173 people making it obviously a greater human disaster) here are the figures for structures lost:

So, Australia, we still do bushfire disasters way better than the Canadians. Yay, sort of.... (Sorry, is that too black?  Pun not intended either.)

When even the TLS likes it, I should see it

The TLS blog: The Jungle Book rebooted

I've been telling my (now teenage) kids that, even though they had no inherent interest in it (and nor did I), The Jungle Book has been such a critical and popular success* that we ought to see it.

Now that it is even the subject of a blog review at the TLS, I am further sure of my view.

*  $783 million globally.

Claustrophobia, anyone?

Here's an illustration from an article at Slate about how the Hyperloop designs are going:

Seriously, is no one thinking of the claustrophobic effects of being in a tube (with no windows) for even half an hour? 

So the IPA wants you to vote Labor? Ahahahaha

Disunity is meant to be death in politics, and surely the IPA's proposed campaign against the Coalition's superannuation changes is only going to hurt Turnbull and his government in this election.

Now, some might say that the sight of a think tank campaigning on the grounds "but think of the rich...the poor mistreated rich!" might actually encourage swing voters who might have leant towards Labor to go for Turnbull after all;  but I can't see it working that way.    No, I think the effect will be more along the lines that they won't vote for the side of politics which the rich think they can push around to get changes back in their favour.  

It's early days, but I suspect the Coalition must be feeling pretty nervous about the way this election campaign is going so far.

Good quotes

John Quiggin has posted quotes from Jennifer Rubin (herself a conservative) writing at the Washington Post about the need for conservative politics in the US to reform itself, and I have to agree with JQ that they are very, very sensible:

Somewhere in that mix are the contours of a platform that is contemporary and conservative and for which there is arguably a broader demographic and geographic appeal. It should not include (for there is no political appetite for these things, and they are unattainable and/or unwise from a policy standpoint): opposition to gay rights; large tax cuts for the rich; protectionism; expelling women from combat in a volunteer army; rooting gays out of the military; obsessing over bathroom assignments; fixating on local ordinances about wedding services; keeping the status quo on entitlements; cutting out (as opposed to reforming) the safety net; never, ever raising taxes on anyone; and mass deportation.

What follows will be different from 1980s conservatism because we are more than three decades removed from Ronald Reagan. Our problems are different — stagnant wages, resurgent and varied enemies, the withering of communal organizations, crumbling infrastructure. We have recognized that the old solutions — a rising tide lifts all boats (not if you have no skills) — are insufficient. However, Republicans should not sell snake oil. Telling working-class whites that the problem is immigrants is a lie. The economic data overwhelmingly show that immigration spurs growth, creates jobs and aids innovation, and no amount of junk statistics from zero-population Malthusians is going to change this. (There are solutions for the tiny segment of the workforce, usually the last wave of immigrants, that might be adversely affected.) Telling workers that millions of jobs went to China is a lie, too. The problems are real, and the solutions must be real as well. We need the world’s best and brightest workers, a humane society and methods to control borders and prevent visa overstays.

 Along with all of this, conservatives have to end their intellectual isolation and self-delusions. They need to stop pretending that climate change is not occurring (the extent and the proposed solutions can be rationally discussed) or imagining that there is a market for pre-New-Deal-size government. Conservatives must end their infatuation with phony news, crank conspiracy theories, demonization of well-meaning leaders and mean rhetoric. It’s time to grow up, turn off Sean Hannity, get off toxic social media and start learning about the world as it is. (Read a book authored by someone without a talk show, spend time with non-Republicans, take an online course in economics.) Confirmation bias has become pathological.

Good marks for effort..sort of

Thai university students caught using spy cameras, smartwatches to cheat on medicine exam

Three students used glasses with wireless cameras embedded in their frames to transmit images to a group of as yet unnamed people, who then sent the answers to the smartwatches.

Mr Arthit said the trio had paid 800,000 baht ($31,000) each to the tutor group for the equipment and the answers.

"The team did it in real-time," Mr Arthit wrote.

Of more general interest in the report is the explanation that the Thai education system is not doing so well:

In the 2014 PISA rankings, which measures global educational standards, Thai students performed below the global average and much worse than those from poorer Vietnam in subjects like maths and science.

Last year, the World Bank said improving poor quality education was the most important step the kingdom could take to securing a better future, with one third of Thai 15-year-olds "functionally illiterate" — lacking the basic reading skills to manage their lives in the modern world.

Critics say the kingdom's high corruption levels and ongoing political instability has made deep-seated education reforms impossible over the last decade.

Then there were two

Had a very pleasant meeting last evening with a long term blog reader.  This is only the second reader (of the variety who only knows of me via the blog) I have ever met, and the first was maybe 9 years ago, so it doesn't happen often.   Mind you, with my scant hit rate, this still probably means I will have met all regular readers by the time I'm 80...if I haven't done so already.  :)

Nightwalkers of all kinds

Transvestite Vicar Ghost in Interwar England - Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Beachcombing tells the tale of a night time cross dressing English vicar in the 1920's, and it is odd and somewhat amusing.

But before he gets into it, he notes:

First, it might be worth noting that there were many nightwalkers in
Victorian and Edwardian England who were often mistaken for ghosts. Some
were men or women who used the night to walk naked through familiar
countryside, and a rarer category were men who used the hours of night
to dress in their wife’s clothing.

Can't say that I've heard before of naked, pale night walkers of England as an explanation for some ghost sightings in Victorian England!  

Update:  I see that "nightwalker" had a much earlier meaning in England, as explained in this article from an interesting looking site.

Are Donald and Art even talking?

In April, Art Laffer was claiming:

“You know, [Trump] wants to cut tax rates, Poppy. He does not want to cut taxes. He wants to cut tax rates to bring economic growth back in. He wants to bring jobs back into the United States by having a corporate tax of 15 percent versus the highest tax in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]. And he’s completely right on that. And by the way, so is Ted Cruz completely right on that. Everyone else is missing this.”

Some other claims by laughing Art in that interview were, um, interesting:

Laffer then said that Trump would cut the national debt by using “asset sales.”
Adding, “You have all these properties, you have the post office, you have Camp Pendleton, which is worth $65 billion. There are all sorts of assets.”
Harlow interject, “Who are you going to sell it to?”
Laffer responded that “Southern California beachfront property is still going very nicely. You’ve got the oil reserves. You’ve got gold in Fort Knox. You’ve got all of these assets — it could probably bring down the national debt.

Again, Harlow interrupted, “I’m asking but who are you going to sell it to to eliminate $19 trillion in national debt?”
“Well, you couldn’t eliminate the whole 19 trillion with asset sales, but if you brought the budget back in, you got economic growth, you wouldn’t reduce it to zero, but you can make a huge hit. I mean the tax amnesty program by itself, Poppy, with a good tax plan could probably bring in $800 billion. I mean just past taxes being paid.”

Today, Trump is reported as saying this:

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday he was open to raising taxes on the rich, backing off his prior proposal to reduce taxes on all Americans and breaking with one of his party's core policies dating back to the 1990s."I am willing to pay more, and you know what, the wealthy are willing to pay more," Trump told ABC's "This Week."

From the rest of the report:

The billionaire real estate tycoon has said he would like to see an increase in the minimum wage, although he told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday he would prefer to see states take the lead on that front instead of the federal government.
"I don't know how people make it on $7.25 an hour," Trump said of the current federal minimum wage. "I would like to see an increase of some magnitude. But I'd rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide."
Trump's call for higher taxes on the wealthy is a break with Republican presidential nominees who have staunchly opposed tax hikes for almost three decades. Tax hikes have been anathema to many in the party since former President George H.W. Bush infuriated fellow Republicans by abandoning a pledge not to raise taxes and agreeing to an increase in a 1990 budget deal.
Democrats, including presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, have pressed for increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans for years.
Trump released a tax proposal last September that included broad tax breaks for businesses and households. He proposed reducing the highest income tax rate to 25 percent from the current 39.6 percent rate.

He is evidently the "say anything" candidate. 

Oil sands and the fire

How bad will the fires in Fort McMurray hit the economy?

Interesting report in Macleans notes this:

There is also the risk no one wants to talk about just yet: the possibility that a return
to business-as-usual in Fort Mac may simply not be in the cards. Allan Dwyer, an assistant professor of finance at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, says the wildfire is merely the latest wound to be inflicted on the oil sands and its future—and therefore Fort McMurray’s as well.
In addition to a depressed global outlook for oil prices, the current list of headwinds facing the industry include the  fractious political debate over building more pipelines, mounting concerns about the impact on climate change and recently elected provincial and federal governments that promise economic diversification. “A few years ago, when oil was trading around US$110 a barrel, there would be no doubt about it being an all-hands-on-deck approach to rebuilding and getting people back to work,” Dwyer says. “Now it could be a different response.”

Dwyer also wonders how many homeless oil sands workers will be eager to return to Fort McMurray and rebuild given the doom and gloom that hangs over the sector. “There’s been a growing sense, as the global oil prices has gone down and stayed down, that the oil sands is
somewhat of a sunset industry—that it’s yesterday’s aggressive style of producing hydrocarbons,” Dwyer says. “This only adds to that creeping negative sentiment.”