The Return

Well I'm back from Japan, and more posts are coming soon.

A couple of things:

1.  my hunch about the election being much closer than most pundits (or certainly, the betting market) expected turned out pretty right.*

2.  I think I read that Tim Wilson won his seat with an increase in the Liberal vote (even when the predecessor was the high profile Andrew Robb).   For a man already with an ego the size of Tasmania (well, if self promotion is any guide to such things), this is a bad sign.  I half expect that if Turnbull loses the PM job, Timbo will be putting himself up as a replacement candidate immediately.


*   I'll add this to the list of things I have correctly picked over the years - that Rudd would be at risk of being stabbed by his own MPs - well before it happened;  the exact number of college votes by which Obama would win his second election (true - a prediction made at a Catallaxy thread); and that Helen Dale would leave her job with Leyonhjelm within 2 years.

Cohen on Brexit

Prominent later life anti Leftist Nick Cohen really gets stuck into the pro-Brexit politicians in the Guardian today.  More reason to think it was a bad decision.

Brexit noted

I really haven't followed the Brexit story in any detail at all, except that I was applying two excellent and reliable rules of thumb:

the rabid Right, and the anti-regulation, must have small government at any cost ideology tank (it's not really a "think tank",) IPA was thoroughly for it; and

Krugman thought it a bad idea, while acknowledging at the same time the problems of the European Union as originally established, and saying that the economic downside won't be quite as bad as some claim.

It is therefore a certainty that the vote outcome is not a good thing.

Krugman's nuanced view is well worth reading (see last link.)

Also, it's a tad ironic, or something, that the Right took advantage in this campaign of a refugee crisis that is essentially of their own making.  If it weren't for the fact that socialism is perfectly capable of still conducting fantasy experiments that cause economic and social disasters (see Venezuela) the "street cred" of the Right in terms of experiments it's been willing to try has been taking a battering in the last decade or so.  But some idiot somewhere  is usually still giving nutty economists grounds to point and say "ha!  Look at how bad Leftist experiments are!"

Current sources of happiness

*  Brooklyn Nine-Nine, currently running twice a week on SBS 2, I think.  It is just the funniest thing on television.  I think I may have missed the entire second season though, so I perhaps should go looking as to how I could see it.  On Netflix?

*  Anticipating rabbits. 

*  Anticipating a Spielberg movie (I saw today that The BFG is out on 30 June.  Not sure if I will have to bribe the teenagers to see it with me, or not.  They reluctantly went to The Jungle Book, but both liked it.)

* A detailed story about a sport fart incident in The Guardian, which reads as if it could have come from The Onion. 

* I dunno, I still think an election upset in Australia is a possibility:  probably with Xenophon and The Greens undertaking to support a Labor government.

*  Speaking of the election, when going to vote early the other day, one of the staff recognised me from 30 years ago.  For the last 20 years, she had been living in the next door suburb, no doubt shopping at the same local shopping centre, but we had never run into each other.   Anyway, after giving me sufficient hints as to where I should remember her from, I did remember her first name.  Good.  Brain not degenerating too much yet.

*  And speaking of memory:  I had a dream the other night in which I was annoyed I could not remember the name of a friend's child.  (Which would have been true while awake too, as I knew I had been thinking of the child recently.)   Anyway, it was in the dream that the name suddenly came to me.  Seemed a mundane thing to be dreaming about, but interesting how the brain recalled it while asleep.

* About to catch a plane, for the first time in a few years.  Posting may be light for a little while...

Current annoyances

Hey, what good is maintaining a blog if you can't complain to no one in particular?

1.   Ear candles being sold in pharmacies.   Yes, I first saw them in a pharmacy years ago, but last night I saw them again, and in a suburb with a big university student population.   This really annoys me - a totally useless, fantasy science based product that is barely a step above employing a witch doctor to provide consultations in the corner.  (In fact, that may be considerably safer.)  Lift your game, pharmacists!

2.  The extraordinary number of words still devoted to a violent fantasy soap opera each new season.   You know the show I am talking about (OK, Game of Nudes About to be Killed, or whatever) - and given that I noticed some news story devoted to explaining how a particularly realistic violent death was done in a recent episode, I still consider it extremely likely that the show is morally degrading.  

3. While I'm getting indigent about corrupting TV shows - what about Drunk History??  I've tried watching a couple of episodes of the British version of this show on SBS on Demand, and I was going to go on a rant about the depravity of modern England, but I gather now that in fact the British version came after an American version, which I have never seen.   In any event, I can't imagine a stupider idea from a social policy point of view than starting a show with "And today's narrator, after downing 2 pints of lager and 8 double scotch and soda, will now tell the story of ...."   I mean, for God's sake, are they serious about the amount claimed to have been consumed at the start of the show - because in one episode it sounded literally enough to kill some people if it was consumed within a couple of hours.   Honestly, I really can't imagine a worse idea:  well I can, although I suppose executive producers may be somewhat wary of going to jail if they try a show based on comedians who have just snorted two lines of coke.  And if they try one based on stoned comedians in cannabis legal America - being stoned just doesn't make people funny, from my limited experience around them.  But in any event, as far as I could make out, the end result even with alcohol is just not very funny.  It is a terrible idea.

More lightning deaths, or just more news?

India lightning strikes leave 93 people dead - BBC News

Seems to me that for some reason, international deaths by lightning are attracting more media attention lately.  Is it just journalists noticing this for the first time, or is there an unusual amount of lightning this year?  

Best to lose

Gee, I think it in David Leyonhjelm's best interest not to win re-election to the Senate.  The stress of the job is changing him in subtle but noticeable ways: 

Krugman talks Europe (again)

When Virtue Fails - The New York Times

Rabbiting away

Soon, I hope to be meeting rabbits - scores of rabbits. 

So it seems appropriate that I note Beachcomber's recent post about killer rabbits.  

I expect the ones I meet to be nicer.

To be read later, I'm a bit busy...

How American Politics Became So Ineffective - The Atlantic

South Pole rescue

Daring Antarctic rescue mission sets off for South Pole : Nature News & Comment

Someone's sick at the South Pole station and a little twin engine plane is flying there to the rescue.  It has happened before, but the conditions are extraordinary:

In 2001, Ron Shemenski, another physician overwintering at the station, came down with gallstones and pancreatitis. The NSF decided his condition was severe enough to warrant bringing him out. “I didn't want to look back on that year and think there might have been something we could have done to save his life,” says Jerry Macala, who was the station manager for the winter and participated in discussions about whether to evacuate Shemenski. Eventually, a Twin Otter flown by Kenn Borek pilots touched down on a runway outlined by
flaming barrels.

“It was very cold, more than 90 below,” says Nathan Tift, who served as one of two meteorologists that winter. The evacuation was “so strange”, he says, “just because it had never happened before”. Crew members filed out and took a photograph of themselves with the visiting Twin Otter. But then, when the plane tried to take off, they realized that its skis had frozen to the runway from the friction of landing.

Workers had to rock the plane from side to side to liberate it, so that it could eventually take off.

Trump lying noted

Trump: When I said more people at the Orlando nightclub should have had guns, I meant guards or employees � Hot Air

Campaign going down

Donald Trump’s May fundraising totals are disastrously bad - The Washington Post

If I understand the article correctly, Trump raised $3 million in May compared to $27 million by Clinton.

I am guessing that part of it may be due to his followers still thinking he's going to be self funded all the way to the White House (which, of course, he is not going to reach.)  They liked the idea of his being self funded - giving money would interfere with that.

What an amusing problem for the Republicans.

Paranoia has a win

I see that the Department of Justice made a statement justifying their initial decision to release a redacted  transcript of the Orlando killer's call as follows:

The Department of Justice released a statement later on Monday defending the redaction.
Officials said they wanted to remain sensitive to the victims, their families and the ongoing investigation, while also not providing "the killer or terrorist organisations with a publicity platform for hateful propaganda".
"Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organisations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime," the statement said, before releasing the full transcript of Mateen's first 50-second phone call.

Seems reasonable enough to me.  But then, they underestimated the amount of nutty right wing Obama paranoia in their own country.

Who would have guessed (certainly, I don't think any science fiction writer ever did) that the trajectory of American history would read "start of the 21st century - first American black president elected - sends 25% of American population nuts."*

*  I'm willing to entertain debate on the precise percentage.   But it's significant, whatever it is.

Actual potheads

Cannabis use during pregnancy may affect brain development in offspring

Compared with unexposed children, those who were prenatally exposed to
cannabis had a thicker prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved
in complex cognition, decision-making, and working memory. 

The study sounds pretty careful, too.  No one is sure how to interpret it, though.

Oh Good Lord - the NRA is more sensible than Donald Trump?

NRA says Trump’s Orlando comments ‘defy common sense’ | New York Post

WASHINGTON — Two top National Rifle Association officials took aim at  Donald Trump on Sunday, blasting his suggestion that armed clubgoers could have prevented the deadliest mass shooting in US history as one that “defies common sense.”


“No one thinks that people should go into a nightclub drinking and carrying firearms,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action told ABC’s “This Week.” “That defies common sense. It also defies the law.”

Trump fired up a Texas rally on Friday by saying if some people at the Pulse nightclub “had guns strapped … right to their waist or right to their ankle” it would have “beautiful sight” to have them shoot “the son of a bitch.”...

But Wayne LaPiere, NRA’s CEO, said Sunday that pistol-packing revelers are not a realistic solution.

“I don’t think you should have firearms where people are drinking,” LaPiere told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Seems they're more sensible than David Leyonhjelm, too.

What Trump promises his base

Everything! 

Out of curiosity, I watched some of a live stream of a Trump rally from Arizona this morning.

As far as I can make out, his policy prescriptions are:

1.  I'm a winner! 

2.  guns are great;

3.  [missed the bit about Islam, so can't summarise it]

4.  I'm a winner:  look how awesome my primary wins were!

5.  the media are nasty liars

6.  build Mexican wall and Mexico will pay for it

7.  did I mention how great and awesome my win was?


8.  big tax cuts to everyone, especially the middle class*

9.  repeal Obamacare and replace it with "something better"

10.  winner!

11.  will not touch Medicare or any government benefit the sort of people who come to my rallies get

12.  something about Iran fooling the US, the US being stupid for getting involved in the Iraq/Iran balance of power in the first place, and how the US will get involved in the Middle East again to "smash" ISIS

13.  Veterans will get better healthcare

14.   re-negotiate trade deals

15.  "there will be consequences" for companies that dump American based manufacturing and go overseas**

16.  I'm a winner!  

I can't wait for this walking orange ball of contradictory thought bubbles to have to debate with someone, and with moderators, who will not let him bluster his way through his policy prescriptions. 

He is, as if we didn't already know, running on pure, thoughtless, populism;  promising that his base can "have it all", so to speak.   

*  read the extreme scepticism this has already met.

**  where's the free marketeer economists' questioning of that, I wonder

Just you wait

So, after a disastrous couple of weeks for Donald Trump, where the over-reach in his reaction to Orlando that I predicted came into effect even more spectacularly and more quickly than I expected, how is BS artist Scott Adams going with his meme about Trump being the "master persuader"?  

Well, just like the positive effects of Laffer inspired tax cuts in Kansas, it's a case of "just you wait", apparently.  He writes it's just the last hiccup in the third act of an action movie:

This isn’t the Republican nomination, where Trump could dominate. The general election is a new game. There’s no way for Trump to solve a problem this big, right?
That’s what you are supposed to think at this point in the movie.
Wait for the plot twist this summer. You’re gonna love it.

What a maroon.  

Breaking up sleep

Somewhat interesting article about whether humans are better off with "bi-phasic" sleep:

Anthropologists have found evidence that during preindustrial Europe, bi-modal sleeping was considered the norm. Sleep onset was determined not by a set bedtime, but by whether there were things to do. Historian A. Roger Ekirch’s book At day’s close: night in times past describes how households at this time retired a couple of hours after dusk, woke a few hours later for one to two hours, and then had a second sleep until dawn.

During this waking period, people would relax, ponder their dreams or have sex. Some would engage in activities like sewing, chopping wood or reading, relying on the light of the moon or oil lamps.

Ekirch found references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th century. This is thought to have started in the upper classes in Northern Europe and filtered down to the rest of Western society over the next 200 years.

Interestingly, the appearance of sleep maintenance insomnia in the literature in the late 19th century coincides with the period where accounts of split sleep start to disappear. Thus, modern society may place unnecessary pressure on individuals that they must obtain a night of continuous consolidated sleep every night, adding to the anxiety about sleep and perpetuating the problem.

About mass shootings

6 Things Americans Should Know about Mass Shootings - Scientific American

Some good information in this article.