Scott Adams and his precious bodily fluids

In "what is nutty not-so-crypto Trump lover Scott Adams saying about US politics now" news:  he's worried that the DNC is having a bad effect on his hormones:

I watched singer Alicia Keys perform her song Superwoman at the convention and experienced a sinking feeling. I’m fairly certain my testosterone levels dropped as I watched, and that’s not even a little bit of an exaggeration. Science says men’s testosterone levels rise when they experience victory, and drop when they experience the opposite. I watched Keys tell the world that women are the answer to our problems. True or not, men were probably not feeling successful and victorious during her act.

Let me say this again, so you know I’m not kidding. Based on what I know about the human body, and the way our thoughts regulate our hormones, the Democratic National Convention is probably lowering testosterone levels all over the country. Literally, not figuratively. And since testosterone is a feel-good chemical for men, I think the Democratic convention is making men feel less happy. They might not know why they feel less happy, but they will start to associate the low feeling with whatever they are looking at when it happens, i.e. Clinton.

On the 2D playing field – where policies and facts matter – the Democratic National Convention is doing great. And when it comes to exciting women, it might be the best ever. But on an emotional level – where hormones rule – men have left the building…that they built.

 Is he still married?  Being recently dumped by his wife would explain a lot...

Update:  I just happened to catch much of Obama's pretty sensational convention speech - although some American writers are saying Biden was even better.  Can poor old Scott feel his hormones rising again, I wonder? 

Happy Stagflation Anniversary (and what it's an example of)

OK, so I am a day early:  but tomorrow will be the 5 year anniversary of the Sinclair Davidson stagflation warning.   I am reminded too that my lengthy post about this in 2013 attracted a comment from a Catallaxy reader (they're the only ones who address me this way) as follows:

You can wait Stevie, perhaps stagflation will happen, or not. Certainly there is a recession around the corner.

Maybe this won't affect you, but there will be about 1.5 million people who will be effected.

Not sure how long I have to wait to declare that prediction wrong too - how far away is "a corner" in economic terms?  

Anyway, how's inflation going?   It is very low. Now true, this might not be the best sign economically - but it is not "stagflation".   (I presume that the economic doldrums that do not incorporate high inflation would still be claimed by Sinclair to be "the consequence of pursuing Keynesian economic policy" - because that's the beauty of being ideologically committed to a view against government spending - everything's the fault of Keynesian economic policy!) 

Catallaxy also no longer features any posts by the Prof about the "pause" in the global temperature record - presumably because the long term temperature/modelling record now looks like this:

In fact,  his series of posts about "the pause"; his stagflation warning (which seems to have been inspired by a very short term bump in CPI);  his (more recent) attempts to decry tobacco plain packaging as a failure by analysing some post introduction short term data about tobacco consumption; and his blog's (though not his own) posts about the dire state of renewable energy because of a very high but very brief spike in South Australian electricity prices - all show up a clear pattern.   Namely, a continual rush to make claims out of obviously limited short term data.   But look at the longer term and the claims either have collapsed entirely, or look extremely wobbly.

Do the threadsters of Catallaxy appreciate this pattern?  Of course not.   Ideology and short term evidence trump long term results every day.  (Oh yeah, and speaking of Trump - most of them are on board with him being better than Hilary.   What a bunch of jokers.)

Is he still the GOP candidate?

Trump’s news conference was chock-full of outrages and lies - The Washington Post

Must be near full blown panic amongst establishment Republicans about how they can't stop Trump giving disastrous press conferences like that one. 

Bad Zika news

Florida investigates four mysterious Zika infections - BBC News

Reasonable advice from a playwright I don't care for

David Williamson's advice to playwrights - write like a TV writer | Daily Review: Film, stage and music reviews, interviews and more.

I don't know that I have ever seen anything by David Williamson that I've really liked.  Yet, oddly enough, his comments in the talk at the link about the issues he sees confronting Australian theatre seem all pretty sensible to me.

The vague appeal to me of trying to write a play is that there are not that many words involved, compared to writing a novel, or movie script.  The difficulty of my doing so is that I freeze up with the thought that I don't really know how people talk when I'm not there.  (Actually, that stops novel writing stone cold, too.)   Does that make sense?

More on stupid Julian

At WAPO, an article about Assange's deliberately timed attack on Clinton includes this part:

In the interview, Mr. Assange told a British television host, Robert Peston of the ITV network, that his organization had obtained “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication,” which he pronounced “great.” He also suggested that he not only opposed her candidacy on policy grounds, but also saw her as a personal foe.

At one point, Mr. Peston said: “Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?”

Mr. Assange replied that what Mr. Trump would do as president was “completely unpredictable.” By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Mrs. Clinton would wield power in two ways he found problematic.

The first was to do with "freedom of the press" (because she wants Assange indicted):   yes I can just imagine Donald Trump being much more conciliatory towards those who partake in security leaks.

The second was to do with her being a "liberal war hawk":  in this respect, Assange would prefer to have someone who is "completely unpredictable", and who contradictorily promotes himself as a new strongman who will "smash" ISIS (in contrast to the "weak" Obama), while at the same time suggesting that the US should stay out of the Middle East (and, by the way, hints that some NATO countries may not get protection they were expecting, either.)

Assange is a twit. 

In Trump We Trust 2

Trump Time Capsule #57: Russia, and Taxes - The Atlantic

James Fallows argues that the media has been way, way too soft on the matter of Trump refusing to release his tax returns, especially in light of suspicion that Russians were involved in the Wikileaks hack.  (Assuming it was a hack, I suppose - I had first assumed it was probably a leak by Sander's sympathisers.  But no, it does seem to have been an outside hack into the system.)

In Trump We Trust

Those Freedom Kids Who Performed at a Donald Trump Rally Are About to Sue Him | Mother Jones

Product placement

Amidst the general news of death and mayhem in the world, let's pause to appreciate something relatively simple.

[I have a strong sensation of acting like one of those TV ads that purport to give information about a product when it's actually just an ad (what is that series in Australia with the terrible intro music? - can't remember) but here goes.]

My family and I are very impressed with the Zoosh range of salad dressings, and in particular, their aioli:

We're also enjoying the South East Asian salad dressing at the moment

Trust me, they're distinctively good.

Owners of Zoosh company - please send me money!

Not great news

Global rate of new HIV infections hasn't fallen in a decade : Nature News & Comment

Mind control

Why did Iran destroy 100,000 satellite dishes? - CSMonitor.com

Some surprising information here about the Iranian government's determination to control television content.

Transplant gamble

‘I Can Do Absolutely Nothing.’ The First American With a Double Hand Transplant Wants Them Removed | TIME

Whether a hand transplant will give you a usable hand seems a very big gamble:

The surgeon who led the transplant in 2009, Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, is currently at Johns Hopkins where he’s preparing to perform penis transplants for American veterans. Lee says the need for removal is uncommon and has occurred in six out of 100 similar transplants in the U.S. and Europe.

“Mr. Kepner’s transplanted hands do not function as well as those of other hand transplant recipients,” said Lee in an email to TIME. “Our team has performed bilateral hand/arm
transplants in four patients to date, including Mr. Kepner. The other three patients have had significant functional return in their hands and have been able to resume completely independent living, including driving, working, and going to school.”

“Complex surgery such as hand transplant do not produce uniform results in everyone,” Lee adds, “but we have been encouraged by the functional return in the great majority
of our recipients whose lives have been transformed by the procedure.”

I suspect medical science is better off pursuing robot hands.  

Putting a face to the voice

'Ghost' Soprano Marni Nixon, Who Voiced Blockbuster Musicals, Dies At 86 : The Two-Way : NPR

I've probably seen her face before, but I don't recall it.

Well, actually, I definitely had, just that I didn't know it:

After My Fair Lady was released in 1964, Nixon appeared onscreen in only one movie — The Sound of Music — as Sister Sophia, one of the nuns who sing "How Do You Solve a
Problem like Maria?" The film's star — Julie Andrews — didn't need any help in the singing department.

Yet more "Don't Panic" from yours truly

Trump versus Clinton polls: why the next 2 weeks of them will be basically meaningless - Vox

Interesting, though, that Julian Assange is on a revenge mission over Clinton.

Does he really expect that he, America, and the world, would do better under Trump?   Prone to fantasy, that boy.

Trump update

I am rather surprised that some on the Left are running around like headless chickens worrying that Trump's acceptance speech was evil but effective.   I'm not the first to notice, but the giant, angry, head of Trump put me more in mind of this, rather than anything else:

and the dark tone is surely recognized by a very large slab of Americans as an exaggeration, and a cynical one at that.

The Democrat email leaks don't even have me particularly worried - internal party politics can be very dirty, so why should anyone be surprised?  And Clinton has chosen a respected Democrat politician who speaks Spanish, and is Catholic but respects Roe v Wade - ticking quite a few boxes there for voter turnout.  (Speaking of Catholics - surely there are few Catholic bishops in the States comfortable with the idea of a Trump Presidency?)

I remain entirely confident that Trump will not become President.

Shell shock via rabbit

Rabbit Death at Manassas - Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

A mostly amusing story involving a rabbit, which despite the title, does not die.

How toys evolve

The History of Dollhouses - The Atlantic:

In the beginning, dollhouses had only two purposes: display and pedagogy. First built in the 17th century in northern Europe, primarily in Germany, Holland, and England, dollhouses were designed for adults. They were closely associated with wealth and served as markers of social class and status. As Faith Eaton explains in The Ultimate Dolls House Book, the German word dockenhaus meant not dollhouse but “miniature house.” And a miniature house was not a house to play with. In Holland, these exhibits of wealth were called “cabinet houses.” The front of the house opens like a china cabinet on hinges that can be closed and locked. Inside cabinet houses, people could both show off and conceal their collections of expensive miniature objects.

Beginning in the 17th century, “Nuremberg kitchens” might contain a hearth, cooking pots, a straw broom. These all-metal houses were designed without ornament, for purely utilitarian purposes. Used as teaching tools for girls, Nuremberg kitchens allowed mothers to show daughters how to set up and control a house. All about learning rules, a Nuremberg kitchen was the opposite of a dollhouse as a dream world of fantasy. It was a place where girls learned to manage not only the objects of the house but also its servants, where girls would learn to become the lady of the house.

By 18th-century England, the “Baby House” emerged. The Baby House was an exact copy of the owner’s home, a replica designed to showcase the owner’s wealth—a small, “baby” version of a real-life house. Unlike the Dutch Cabinet House, which might have miniature furniture but tended to be full of expensive or rare objects, the Baby House was full of
furniture in tiny versions of the owner’s rooms.

Changing definitions of childhood in the beginning of the 19th century shifted ideas about play. But it took the industrial revolution and the increase in mass-produced objects to make dollhouses and miniatures begin to be construed as toys. And it took until after World War II, when the U.S. stopped importing goods from Europe, for dollhouses to become mass-produced and affordable. Miniatures began to take on a second, different life.

More on Bolt

He's muttering about (I presume) defamation against Fairfax for Elizabeth Farrelly's recent column comparing him to Enoch Powell, and he's recently complained about The Australian's Paul Kelly and Chip Le Grand's concern about him, over the same issue.

Today he's defending Pauline Hanson against Chris Mitchell (!).

Gee, at some point, maybe Bolt will realise the problem is his complete alignment with the dog whistle (is that the right term when it's actually direct shouting and fearmongering?) politics of Hanson?

And further:   what is this complete entanglement with the IPA for the hyping of his book (containing just old columns)  all about?   I presume his son still works there, and I presume Roskam and Sinclair Davidson still consider him a "mate", but is that enough to tie the IPA so closely into promoting someone who has gone so Hanson right wing on immigration?  Isn't Davidson embarrassed by his blog entries?  Why does he say nothing?   Why is Bolt himself seemingly so desperate to promote the book?  

I find this all rather weird.

High temperatures noted

Heat and rainfall making headlines around the world | Official blog of the Met Office news team: 

Across parts of Iraq, western Iran, Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia, extremely high temperatures have been recorded over recent days. On Thursday Basrah Airport, Iraq reached 53.4C, while Mitribah in northern Kuwait recorded 54.0C. Both of these temperatures, subject to confirmation, are new national records and the 54.0C recorded at Mitribah is among the highest temperatures ever recorded in Asia.

The highest ever temperature recorded globally was 56.7C at Death Valley, California, USA on 10 July 1913.

The high temperatures will continue today (Friday) with 53.6C recorded at 1200 GMT at Basrah Airport, Iraq, but the weekend should see a break from the heat as northwesterly winds bring cooler air to the region.

While it was worthwhile the article noting the all time global high, the significant difference is that no one has built cities, towns and airports in Death Valley, have they?

The Bolt descent continues

Maybe Bolt considers himself in the running to head Fox News?  He'd fit right in with his increasingly shrill and dumb posts which seem to now be in competition with the style of nutty and stupid exaggeration by the execrable Gateway Pundit. 

Look at this post about Obama - for a video that is supposed to be "bizarre" and "chilling" (all because Obama briefly cracks a smile when he realises he shouldn't personalise it too much)  - how come it's the Press in the audience that actually laugh at the fleeting incident?

Message to Bolt:  the media does not generally laugh at "chilling" comments made by a President. 

Also: he seems unable to contemplate the possibility that a report that the Munich teen killer was shouting "Allahu Akbar" was wrong.   The claim seems to be based on one witness?