More twitter stuff I agree with

It's the paranoid streak in American (and Australian wingnut) politics writ large, and it is obviously unhealthy and dangerous to democracy, and why I despise Rupert Murdoch for using it for profit:

Impossible to disagree

David Frum deals with it at greater, more eloquent, length:

Trump’s perfect emptiness of empathy has revealed itself again and again through his presidency, but never as completely and conspicuously as in his self-flattering 2018 Memorial Day tweets. They exceed even the heartless comment in a speech to Congress—in the presence of a grieving widow—that a fallen Navy Seal would be happy that his ovation from Congress had lasted longer than anybody else’s.

It’s not news that there is something missing from Trump where normal human feelings should go. His devouring need for admiration from others is joined to an extreme, even pathological, inability to return any care or concern for those others. But Trump’s version of this disconnect comes most especially to the fore at times of national ritual.

The brightness on distant planets

I watched Stargazing on the ABC last week, and enjoyed it enough.  (The "world record for number of people looking at the moon" seemed rather pointless, but people seemed to support getting out and it was a science-y thing, so what the hey...)

Back here in my backyard, while I wait for the dog to finish its wee before going to bed, I've been noticing how bright Jupiter and Mars seem to be at the moment.   The brightness of Jupiter in particular put me in mind of the question of how bright things would seem if you were an astronaut on one of its moons.  I remembered that this had been dealt with in a Robert Heinlein juvenile, where he had written that the eye on Earth is flooded with light during a bright day and just ignores the excess (so to speak); the result being that even on a Jovian moon, daylight would still look pretty much as bright as a day here.

I wondered last week if this was right, and have now just Googled the topic.   It would seem to be not too far off the mark, according to explanations at Quora and this table, which indicate that being on moon of Jupiter would be brighter than a hospital operating theatre.   They're all pretty bright, aren't they?  (Oddly, it makes one comparison indicating that being on Neptune the brightness would be able the same as "typical public bathroom".)

Things would be starting to look pretty dim at Pluto (somewhere between "public bathroom" and "typical night lit sidewalk"), but you would still be able to see colours.  In fact, this very neat NASA web page lets you enter your location, and come up with the next time that the light outside would look like midday light on Pluto!   Neat.  For me, it will be tomorrow morning at 6.24 am.   (Sunrise is 6.29am.)   I know the sky is still pretty bright at that time, but I will take particular note tomorrow while at the breakfast table.   I hope my son is still there too, so I can inflict some unwanted science on him.  I love doing that to my children....

Distant, small objects

How many small planets (asteroids?) do you think they've now discovered way beyond the orbit of Pluto and Neptune?    840, apparently, which does seem a lot to me.

And one will be visited next year by that New Horizons probe that went past Pluto last year.  

Speaking of that probe, there was a talk by the NASA folk who worked on it on Radio National last week (in the Big Ideas series.  Here's a link to the podcast.)   It was very interesting.  

Live in a nasty fantasy world of their own

I am gobsmacked at the ludicrous conspiracy/fantasy world uber Catholic CL lives in, when he has this to say about the video of an African guy who quickly scaled the outside of an apartment building in Paris to rescue a dangling child:

and:

Then the commenter with the name that is no doubt meant to be sardonic, but I reckon it's accurate, weighs in:


It's not just foolish, it's nastily foolish - Muslim, African = fraudsters prepared to put 4 year old in danger, in their tiny minds.  

Nearby sorcery

NPR has a lengthy story up about poor old PNG and the uptick in sorcery motivated killings.

If ever a country could do with some re-invigoration of modern Christian evangelism, this would be it.

A sitcom appreciation

Oh look.  The very fine American sitcom (which never really took off here) The Middle has come to an end, and someone at Vox writes in praise of it as a very underrated show.  I agree.

Regarding current sitcoms from America:   have tried looking at Modern Family a few times - seems pretty awful to me.   Last time I saw Big Bang Theory, I thought it had run out of steam again (after having staged something of a recovery after the silly story lines involving Howard being an astronaut.)   I have also seen a bit of the revived Roseanne.   Sorry, but it doesn't have the same spark as the best of its first incarnation.   That actress who plays Darlene, though - she seems to have never aged.

In short, good sitcoms from the US are currently hard to find.

Marijuana legalisation scepticism noted

There's a column at WAPO by a former pot smoker, now a research psychologist (I think), who gets annoyed by the over-simplication of debate on marijuana legalisation.

Given that's what I complain about too, there's a lot in the article that I can agree with.

One matter which is new to me, though, is this suggestion:

Recent data is even more alarming: The offspring of partying adolescents, specifically those who used THC, may be at increased risk for mental illness and addiction as a result of changes to the epigenome — even if those children are years away from being conceived. The epigenome is a record of molecular imprints of potent experiences, including cannabis exposure, that lead to persistent changes in gene expression and behavior, even across generations. Though the critical studies are only now beginning, many neuroscientists prophesize a social version of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” in which we learn we’ve burdened our heirs only generations hence.

Wood framed office block goes up quickly

In King Street, Fortitude Valley.  I posted a photo of it earlier this year.

The photo above was taken a week ago.  Here's a photo taken today:

You can see the frame has gone up another  level.  I know nothing about construction, but still, this looks a fast way to build...

Back to the count

I see via Hot Air, of all places, that Gallop has published polling indicating that the number of Americans identifying as falling within the LGBT category has gone up six years in a row.

Funnily enough, back in 2013 I looked at some studies and made my own guess that for men, the percent who would would say they were gay or bisexual was probably 4 to 5%.   And what do you know - the Gallop poll shows that 4.5% of all Americans are now claiming to be LGBT.   But, there are fewer men than women in that figure:

Overall, 5.1% of women in 2017 identified as LGBT, compared with 3.9% of men. The change among men over time has been minimal, with the LGBT percentage edging up from 3.4% in 2012 to 3.7% both last year and this year. On the other hand, the percentage of women identifying as LGBT has risen from 3.5% in 2012 to 5.1% today, with the largest jump occurring between 2016 and 2017. 

Still, my spitball estimate seems pretty close.

Anyway, the biggest feature of these figures is the very big growth in young people identifying this way.   Look at the table:

You would have to strongly suspect that the increase in millenials identifying as such says more about their susceptibility to experimentation and social fashion than a settled view of their own sexuality.   (I mean, if it was a case of social mores meaning more people are happy to come out, you would expect some growth in the numbers of older folk identifying, but it's just not there.)  

It certainly indicates that the Catholic Church is just going to continue to be bypassed in influence in the matter of its teaching on sexuality.

Historical dentistry

The somewhat gruesome history of the development of dentistry is always a good topic, and apparently there is a new display about it in England.   Some things I didn't know (after the part about Elizabeth I having black teeth, and the English problem with decay being caused by sugar):

A major culprit in decay was, of course, sugar, a product of globalization and the slave trade. In the late sixteenth century, a German visitor to Queen Elizabeth I’s court noted that the monarch had black teeth, “a defect that the English seem subject to, from their great use of sugar”. But consumption of the sweet stuff was initially confined to the super-rich. Two centuries after Elizabeth, the habit became more widespread, and fixes for the inevitable rot and tooth loss sprang up. It’s therefore not surprising that a hint of the macabre emerges in this show.

That is notable in a section on technologies devised to replace lost teeth. Efforts to fashion dentures from hippopotamus ivory or even porcelain failed to mimic the durability and appearance of the human tooth. Later, dentists resorted to what were known as Waterloo teeth — harvested from corpses — for use in dentures. These were named after the momentous 1815 Battle of Waterloo in present-day Belgium, whose 50,000 dead supplied plenty of material.

Understandably, extracting teeth from dead bodies made some squeamish. Eighteenth-century Scottish surgeon John Hunter experimented with an alternative to dentures: transplanting teeth from living donors. The fruit of a bizarre early experiment is on display — a human tooth transplanted into the comb of a cockerel. Hunter considered the work a success, thinking that the tooth had actually integrated itself into the comb. Modern examiners have since concluded that he merely did a good job of firmly shoving it in. Yet transplantation thrived for a few decades, says curator Emily Scott-Dearing. Five transplanted teeth are on display, as is one of the most chilling sights in the collection: a cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson from around 1790, depicting an impoverished child in pain after having a tooth yanked to fill out the smile of a wealthy woman.

Just what you want around nuclear missiles

'Bad trip': air force members guarding nuclear missiles took LSD, records show

Interestingly, the article notes that sitting around all day looking after a stationary weapon that never gets used makes for an unhappy workplace:

None of the airmen was accused of using drugs on duty. Yet it’s another blow to the reputation of the Air force’s nuclear missile corps, which has struggled at times with misbehavior, mismanagement and low morale.

Although seen by some as a backwater of the US military, the missile force has returned to the spotlight as Donald Trump has called for strengthening US nuclear firepower and exchanged threats last year with North Korea. The administration’s nuclear strategy calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending in coming decades.

Slow news

That investigation into the Malaysian plane shot down over Ukraine is taking so long, I had assumed it was over. 

Investigators looking into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, say the Russian missile that hit the plane originated from a Russian military unit.

The passenger jet crashed, killing all 298 people aboard. Moscow has denied being responsible.

I wonder if Trump will have anything to say about it.

Some humour for a Friday

Seen at The Onion:

Joining the club

From the Guardian:

For kids in Greece, Spain and Italy, the Mediterranean diet is dead, according to the World Health Organisation, which says that children in Sweden are more likely to eat fish, olive oil and tomatoes than those in southern Europe.

In Cyprus, a phenomenal 43% of boys and girls aged nine are either overweight or obese. Greece, Spain and Italy also have rates of over 40%. The Mediterranean countries which gave their name to the famous diet that is supposed to be the healthiest in the world have children with Europe’s biggest weight problem.

Yet other European countries are still doing OK, although these lines are obviously confusing about what the true rate for Ireland is:

France, Norway, Ireland, Latvia and Denmark also have low rates, ranging from 5% to 9%. Ireland’s rate is 20%. The UK does not contribute data to the study, but about one in three children are overweight or obese when they leave primary school at the age of 11.

I'm betting Ireland would be 20% - all those potatoes and Irish stews.

Trump and the stupifying circle of Right

This article at AP explains how Trump deliberately is using "branding" to rile up his dumb sucker base, and Republican congressmen and the Wingnut media are along for the ride:

Trump has told confidants in recent days that the revelation of an informant was potential evidence that the upper echelon of federal law enforcement has conspired against him, according to three people familiar with his recent conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly. Trump told one ally this week that he wanted “to brand” the informant a “spy,” believing the more nefarious term would resonate more in the media and with the public.

He went on to debut the term “Spygate” on Wednesday, despite its previous associations with a 2007 NFL scandal over videotaping coaches.

So, much of this time, you can't tell where within this self stupefying circle of Right wingnut spin an idea has originated - did someone at Fox News put it into Trump's head, or Andrew McCarthy's more high brow (but just as scurrilous and unfounded) conspiracy columns - but in this case it seems to be Trump's own idea.   (Probably discussed during a bed time phone call with Hannity, though.)

And once the idea is out there, you only have to read the likes of Catallaxy threads, including the comments by rich, gullible and kinda dumb JC who swings by here occasionally, to see how Trumpkins lap it all up, just as Trump intended.   [Monty, just give up.  Too. Dumb. To. Engage. With.]

We have never really seen anything like this, I reckon - particularly the role of Fox News in encouraging authoritarianism in the US. 

[Oh - and now starting to make excuses for other, murderous, authoritarians.  They're just misunderstood, it seems.]

On Roth

I haven't read a thing by Philip Roth, and the descriptions of his work and style in this article in Slate doesn't really encourage me to try him, either.   I don't know - the whole intense American Jewish introspection thing just doesn't appeal to me. 

I was struck by this paragraph regarding his most infamous book:

What you can’t really feel anymore is the shock, or the funniness. Portnoy’s problem is that it was too successful: It remade the culture in its own smutty image. Today the bawdy set pieces—crude masturbation jokes involving raw liver—seem as American as American Pie. What remains, under the antic comedy, is the familial sadness of the Portnoys, so much love leading to so much misery, and the hectoring voice that would carry so much of Roth’s subsequent work.

Yeah, thanks for nothing, Mr Roth...

Edging towards modernity

From NPR:

The Philippines, where roughly 80 percent of the population is Roman Catholic, is one of only two countries in the world where divorce remains illegal (with exemptions for the roughly 5 percent of the population that's Muslim). The only other country where divorce remains illegal is Vatican City.

I guess there's not that much need for divorces within Vatican City.

Anyway, change may be on the way in the Philippines:

But a bill passed in March by the Philippines House of Representatives is giving hope to proponents of divorce. It would allow divorce for a variety of reasons, including irreconcilable differences, abuse, infidelity and abandonment....

To become law, the bill needs to be passed by the Senate and approved by the president. But the House bill, which passed by a vote of 134 to 57, is significant since no divorce legislation has ever made it this far in the Philippines, says sociologist Jayeel Cornelio of Manila's Ateneo University. He calls the bill "unprecedented," but also logical in a country where a recent survey showed more than half of Filipinos are in favor of allowing divorce "for irreconcilably separated couples."

"The influence of the Catholic Church, when it comes to political matters and private moral affairs, is becoming weaker and weaker in the country," Cornelio says. "The resistance of the Catholic Church to the divorce bill is increasingly seen as not in the interests of the public but only the interests of the Catholic Church."

Cornelio says a divorce bill is a sensible, and even "inevitable" next step after the passage of the country's reproductive health law in 2013, which allowed poorer Filipinos in particular access to birth control. Many municipalities have been slow in implementing the reproductive health law, which took more than a decade to pass — evidence of how much power the Church still enjoys.
Still, there is an unusual level of bipartisan support for the divorce bill — a matter of concern for the Catholic Church.

China and children

Good post at The Interpreter:  Will China finally end its one child policy?

It makes the point that China has two clear demographic problems - not enough workers and not enough women:

By 2050, one in four people in China will be a retiree. This will definitely put an incredible strain on China’s one-child generation, who will have the 4-2-1 problem of taking care of kids and elderly parents, with but a nascent social safety net for support. With fewer workers paying into the system and more pensioners drawing from it, China’s pension shortfall could by 2050 reach trillions, according to a Deutsche Bank estimate.

There are, of course, other countries with greying populations. Japan takes the lead, but it has a far smaller population and a per capita GDP four times larger than China’s. That is why there’s the common saying in China, “We’ll get old before we get rich”.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that China shot itself in the foot demographically with the one-child policy. From having five people to support one retiree, the country will soon have 1.5 workers per retiree. Its bachelors need brides, its elderly need caretakers, yet its women were reduced by the one-child policy. Coupled together with a long-standing cultural preference for sons, this has led to a shortage of 40–60 million females.

 

Reform already finished?

The modernisation of Saudi Arabia has hit a road bump.  (Or, perhaps more accurately, the government car of modernisation has swerved to deliberately hit a few women who were cheering it on to go faster.)

For months, Saudi Arabia had been enjoying a public-relations windfall. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS, the kingdom’s charismatic future leader, seduced the world with his vision for a new, modern nation. There have been live concerts, and cinemas are opening, with many more planned. Women can attend soccer games. Last September, MbS announced a bold promise to overturn the country’s ban on women driving, a change that is set to go into effect on June 24.

Then, late on Friday, it all came crashing down: Reports emerged that the women activists who pressed for the policy change had been arrested and imprisoned. As of this morning, 13 are reported to have been arrested; most are women. Apart from the driving issue, they have campaigned against so-called guardianship rules which require Saudi women to receive permission from a male relative before making many life decisions, like traveling. One of those detained was Loujain al-Hathloul, who was photographed at the 2016 One Young World Summit with none other than Meghan Markle, who married Britain’s Prince Harry on Saturday.

The same article notes a widely told story about the modern prince:

One anecdote about MbS that seemingly every ambassador in Riyadh tells is the “bullet story.” When MbS was 22 (roughly 10 years ago), he wanted to build a business career. On one occasion, he needed a Saudi judge to sign off on a deal. But there was a problem with the contract, so the judge declined. MbS, the story goes, pulled a bullet out of his pocket and put it on the man’s desk. “You will sign or this is for you,” he said. The man signed the contract, but complained to then-King Abdullah, who banned MbS from the royal court.

I won't be booking my holiday visa to Riyadh anytime soon.