Yay for solar in hurricanes (and why aren't we floating solar?)

David Roberts has linked to two renewable stories that impress:

*  A report that despite having quite a lot of solar farms installed in North Carolina (again - a bit of a surprise that a conservative region in the US has been quietly going about installing renewables - would Judith Sloan and Alan Moran care to explain why it's happening in those parts of the US?), the solar farms seem to have come out of Hurricane Florence with little damage.

*    California is building some floating solar farms on water reservoirs.   Why aren't we?   Especially in South East Queensland, where the water cooling effect in summer may be welcome as a side effect.

More about Lachlan

I noted recently that I was surprised to read somewhere that Lachlan Murdoch was actually more conservative than his Dad Rupert. 

More detail on this is provided in The Guardian today.

I'm pretty sure, now that my memory is refreshed, that I had assumed he was not like his Dad because he had seemed to act with great haste on sacking Roger Ailes, the late sleazy head of Fox News.

But as The Guardian explains, there was likely bad blood between them going back years.  In fact, the article suggests that people think Lachlan is not one for overtly taking revenge, but take revenge he does.

So, I used to think things would improve re Fox News when Rupert died.   Now, all we have to hope for is some family wide tragedy instead.   Do Lachlan and Rupert ever take the same flight, I wonder?

Amateur, defaming detective at work

This really is a remarkably inane thing to do - but we're talking a Republican attorney here:  he's from a group that has hardly been showering itself in glory with its defence of all things Trump. 

I read the Tweet thread concerned because Jonathan Swan re-tweeted it, saying that lots of people in the White House were giving it close attention.  Then Swan realised that it was a ridiculously defaming thing to do (well,he called it irresponsible) and deleted it.   As did that NYT journo whose name I forget.

But Whelan has left them up.   It's like he's riding around Washington in the back of a pick up truck yelling through a bullhorn "So sue me!  I mean it - you, Sir, give me name so I can accuse you of attempted rape, and you'll be a million bucks richer!" 

  

China and privacy

A short article at MIT Technology Review tries to make the case that China's "big data" interest in social control may actually be a bit better than the more ultra-local forms of social control they used to be known for:

Better or worse than what?

China’s surveillance culture existed long before the rise of big data. In his book The Government Next Door, Luigi Tomba details how Chinese politics have been micromanaged at the neighborhood level. Residential communities are monitored by neighborhood committees performing semigovernmental functions: reporting dissent, resolving conflicts, and managing both petitions to the government and protests against it. These functions used to be the task of retired elderly women, whom the former Wall Street Journal reporter Adi Ignatius memorably called the “small-feet KGB.” (In traditional China, women had their feet bound at birth.) The question is whether monitoring and repression through impersonal technology is better or worse than these personal intrusions.

One of the most important roles of the small-feet KGB was to enforce China’s one-child policy. The Chinese fertility rate fell dramatically while the policy applied, from 1979 to 2015—a testament to the effectiveness of these personal surveillance tactics.

In ancient China, there was a joint liability system under which three to five households were linked together. If a member of one household committed an offense, all the households were punished. During the Cultural Revolution, punishments for political dissenters were routinely meted out to their immediate family members. The political system compensated for a lack of data on individual activities by deterring dissent broadly and harshly.

Big data would be a threat if Chinese citizens could be expected to have an abundance of political and civil liberties in its absence. But China is a repressive, authoritarian society with or without big data. Technology has made the repression more precise, but precise repression might be an improvement over indiscriminate repression.

The article also talks about how the Chinese have traditionally distrusted privacy as a concept:

One reason Chinese attitudes are different is that as recently as the 1980s, the word “privacy” had negative connotations in China. Chinese norms are anchored in 2,000 years of a Confucian culture that values the intensity of interpersonal relationships. One way to solidify those relationships is through transparency and full disclosure. A circumstance that triggers secrecy is typically an unsavory one. If something is good, why not tell us? Privacy in this context was equated with preserving a dirty secret. To be private was to be antisocial.

 The point is made that the wide surveillance now underway may be changing that.

Message for monty

I don't even know that you drop in here much anymore, but I see you are trying to have a debate with someone who thinks that the world is about to be saved by energy to be mined from the quantum vacuum or some such, who seemingly thinks that the Kansas Laffer experiment was not a failure - despite the fact that Republicans themselves reversed it.   Could you ask him why that happened? 

I am also dying for someone - anyone - amongst Lizzie's myriad admirers to raise the slightest doubt about the wisdom of repeatedly  leaving her children to the care of nannies (or whoever) in Australia while she and her rich husband take extended overseas holidays - this one for 3 months.  Parenting over Skype is not quite the same as being there...

A word that makes me reach for my (imaginary) revolver

An article in the SMH by the NSW education minister (a Liberal too!) talking about concerns regarding teacher education standards (my bold):

Both the government (as the largest employer of teachers in the state) and current teachers and principals (as guardians of the profession) have a legitimate expectation that universities produce graduates who are capable of making significant contributions to the pedagogical landscape.

Hey Minister:  you could improve the public's confidence that you are on the right path by not adopting the professional jargon by which self serving (and Left leaning) teachers who teach teachers have sought to increase their status. 

Politics is kinda weird in America

Can you imagine another other county where parties rush into PR campaigns like this to defend their Supreme Court nominee of choice?:

Speaking of weird politics:   why on Earth would our new PM think it wise, or funny, to imitate the dumbest, most character deficient world leader by doing this:

I just can't see Morrison's PR flim flam winning over voters.  

Election please...

Jaws Lite - Just what the Whitsundays didn't need

I've been feeling sorry for the Whitsunday Islands for years - resorts closing down even before cyclones came and tore them up, people who invested money there 30 years on the assumption that it would always be popular getting burnt.   And now, two shark attacks in 24 hours.

Rather unusual.

The remarkably increasingly popular Japan

From a BBC story about a couple of YouTube stars (who I had occasionally looked at before), I get this:

Global interest and international visitors could have something to do with it. Tourism numbers are rising at lightning speed – 250% between 2012 and 2017. The World Tourism Organization says that Japanese tourism has seen six straight years of double-digit growth, with a record 28 million foreign visitors travelling to Japan within the last year, a figure especially powered by China. The government aims to attract 40 million visitors in 2020 for the Tokyo Olympics.

YouTube content from the country has also been on the up and up:

The rise in J-vlogging is part of a bigger trend: YouTube is more popular in Japan than ever. “The hours of content uploaded from YouTube channels in Japan has more than doubled between 2016 and 2017,” says Marc Lefkowitz, YouTube’s head of creator and artist development for Asia-Pacific.

Its popularity is well deserved.  

Another maybe, possibly, useful line of Alzheimer's research

From Ed Yong in The Atlantic:

Wiping Out the Brain’s Retired Cells Prevents a Hallmark of Alzheimer's

Don't what to be there when the big one happens again

A brief note at Nature News explains that if the Himalayas have a repeat of the very big earthquakes of the 16th century, the death toll today (due to population rise) could be huge:

A quake in the western Himalayas in 1555 may have been as large as magnitude 8. Today, a quake of this magnitude could kill 221,000 people and injure 884,000. Meanwhile, the 1505 earthquake that struck the central Himalayas may have measured as much as magnitude 8.7. A repeat could kill 599,000 people and injure more than one million. 

Australia going in the right direction

The Guardian notes that in the UK, immunisation rates are going slightly in the wrong direction:

Data from NHS Digital revealed the proportion of children receiving the MMR vaccine by the age of two fell to 91.2% in England in 2017-18, from 91.6% the year before. The figures showed 87.2% of five-year-olds had received both MMR vaccines, well below the 95% recommended by the World Health Organization.

I wondered how Australia compared, and it's pretty good:

In 2016-17, 93.5 per cent of Australian five year olds were fully immunised, this is up from from 92.9 per cent in 2015-16 and 90.0 per cent in 2011-12. The national target is 95 per cent.

So for 5 year olds, we're a full 6% higher rate of immunisation.

A little surprisingly, it would seem that US rates of MMR vaccination for up to 35 months old kids is 91.9%.  Close to the UK rate.

Still, Australia does vaccination pretty well.

I'm suffering from an urge...

...to reach through the screen and hit this plate from below, with an upwards and backwards trajectory:

Mad as Hell's satiric perfection

The Liberal Party having provided Mad as Hell's writers and actors an embarrassment of riches to work with, I had high hopes for  tonight's series return, and they were more than met.

It was spectacularly funny, smart writing and performance:  a perfect episode where not a line was out of place.  The opening segment was especially great - I hope it appears on YouTube sometime.

Go watch it on iView if you missed it...

Pill testing and the limits of hedonism

OK, I have to admit, no matter the low regard in which I hold his work now:  my initial inclination was to agree with Tim Blair on the question of pill testing and the open drug taking culture of music festivals.

I see Bolt has done some editorial on it as well, but I don't know what position he eventually came to.

Meanwhile, of course, I've noted the vast swathe of Left leaning journalists and commentators who are appalled that conservatives don't want to just admit that the yoof will never stop dropping E and God knows what else at raves, and the war on drugs has never worked, and look at Europe where pill testing is working, etc etc.

Having surveyed a lot of pieces about this, I'm somewhat torn.   It will be too much work to link to everything, but here are my impressions:

* of course I sympathise with the conservative take that an open slather attitude to all drug taking encourages hedonistic indulgence which should not be endorsed.  (An explanation of the pragmatic conservative approach to wanting to chemically adjust mood follows).   [Update:  I also meant to mention that in the comments following a Guardian pro pill testing piece, there was a surprisingly high number of readers saying - just don't do drugs.  Given the non-conservative readership of that paper, it certainly indicates that even for Lefties, this issue is pushing the limits of toleration for demands to make hedonism safer.]

* on the other hand, harm minimisation is often an appropriate component of the response to public health issues, and I can see how it is not implausible that rigorous pill testing could save some lives in some circumstances;

*  however, the state of research on pill testing at festivals seems pretty limited and much of it seems pretty anecdotal in nature.  For example, you have people who watched the testing regime saying that some pills were dumped when the intended consumer were told that they had a dangerous ingredient.   But the research on how attendees view pill testing is often based on survey results which I am not sure are all that trustworthy, and the overall research on the effect in terms of long term reduction of deaths and hospitalisations seems pretty thin, really.   (It is, probably, a hard thing to research, given the variability of the illicit drug market from year to year.)

* drug legalisation proponents - like Alex Wodak - have always been so wildly pro harm reduction that I don't trust their advocacy at all.   It's like euthanasia - if you want to convince me, don't even think of bringing obsessive Phil Nietzsche into the debate.

* not all harm minimisation is the same, and you can draw pragmatic lines:  for example, I don't think it is hypocritical to support heroin safe injecting rooms and not endorse pill testing for other drugs.  The heroin addict has a real need to get the drug for avoidance of feeling awful and not being able to function; the party goer faces no similar down side of not taking their preferred temporary high.

* I do, once again, wish that those who think illicit drugs are simply inevitable in society would at least acknowledge that it's not impossible to imagine a functioning, rich, basically successful society where the drugs are limited to the old standbys of alcohol and tobacco - because in fact you do have a few, modern examples which are pretty much exactly like that - Japan, Singapore and (to a lesser extent - but crucial because of it being a Western society example) Sweden.   Young folk of those nations are not throwing themselves off tall buildings because life is not worth living if you can't go to a rave every second week and hug strangers under the influence of ecstasy.  Can you admit that, drug softies? 

* the practical advantage of societies with one crucial, good time, legal drug (hello, alcohol, and Japan) is that its medical effects both temporary and long term are very well known and understood.  You can target public health messaging accordingly, and set up treatment using well understood methods and drugs.   One of the unacknowledged things that drug legalisation advocates never talk about is that the state of research on the brain effects of  illicit pleasure is at a much, much less advanced stage, and it's kind of irritating that there even needs to be research on stuff that the cool kids are taking for purely hedonistic reasons and just because mere alcohol is not enough for them.


* I could fully endorse pill testing at festivals if it were done on some placebo sort of basis.   Just lie, testers ("oh wow, that's really bad - rat poison chemical in those"), or hand out substitute sugar pills pretending that they are from a stash that someone surrendered and, in an act of generosity, let the testers give out as a safe substitute.   Given what we know of placebo effect, half of the users will probably feel at least a bit high from them anyway...

Buddhism, sexuality and Asians

I'm not 100% sure, but I think most people probably know that the Western pop Buddhist view that the religion has an easy going, shrug-shoulders attitude towards matters of sex and sexuality is not exactly well founded in its origins.    But I hadn't read before this story, which appeared recently in  an AEON article indicating the amusingly extreme degree to which you can say that the Buddha himself was far from "sex positive":

The inciting incident was when a man named Sudinna left his wife and parents to become a monk. Some time later, he came home and made love to his wife – not for love or lust, but at the urging of his mother. She worried that if she and her husband died without an heir, the king would seize their property. Although there was no rule against monks having sex at the time, Sudinna felt guilty and told some other monks what had happened. Those monks tattled to the Buddha, who summoned Sudinna for perhaps the worst scolding in Buddhist literature:

Worthless man, it would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a poisonous snake than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into the mouth of a black viper than into a woman’s vagina. It would be better that your penis be stuck into a pit of burning embers, blazing and glowing, than into a woman’s vagina. Why is that? For that reason you would undergo death or death-like suffering, but you would not on that account, at the breakup of the body, after death, fall into deprivation, the bad destination, the abyss, hell.

Over the long history of Buddhism, most of its vast literature has been composed by celibate monks. Sexual intercourse – defined as the penetration of an orifice even to the depth of a sesame seed – was the first transgression to entail permanent expulsion from the monastic order. Monks have written works of particular misogyny, such as the ‘Blood Bowl Sutra’ where the blood is menstrual blood. They’ve also sought to control the sex lives of Buddhist lay people by imposing a wide range of restrictions, such as prohibiting sex during the day or the penetration of any orifice other than the vagina. These rules have remained in place, cited in modern discussions of Buddhist attitudes toward gay and lesbian sex. Buddhist texts across Asia have presented monks as models of chastity. However, their depiction in the plays and novels of various Buddhist lands can be quite different – like in medieval Europe, monks were often portrayed as lechers.

The article then goes on to talk about how the Indian idea of tantric sex, which apparently came along about a millennium after Buddha's death (really? - I wouldn't have guessed that timing), was a theory that elevated sex as spiritually important.   (I thought tantra was more of a Hindu idea that one related to Buddhism, but I've never made a study of it.)

Such efforts to spiritualise sex have always struck me as unconvincing and pre-modern; particularly so in light of an understanding of evolution.   

But as far as I know, the Indian attempt to make sex something divine still only extended to heterosexuals, and it seems you actually have to go back to later Buddhism, at least in Japan, for making the same attempted justification for homosexual activity, particularly of the pederast variety.    I was surprised to learn recently that there is a common belief there that the founder of one of the Buddhism branches gave endorsement of sodomy amongst his monks.  It's explained in detail in this lengthy (and really quite interesting) scholarly article on Buddhism and  homosexuality in Japan, from which I extract this: 

Although present, Tantric sexual imagery which involved the unification of male and female was of marginal influence in Japan.  Far more pervasive in male Buddhist institutions was the influence of homoerotic and even homosexual imagery where beautiful acolytes were understood to embody the feminine principle.  The degree to which Buddhism tolerated same-sex sexual activity even among its ordained practitioners is clear from the popular myth that the founder of the Shingon school, Kooboo Daishi (Kuukai), introduced homosexual acts upon his return from study in China in the early ninth century. This myth was so well known that even the Portuguese traveller, Gaspar Vilela had heard it.  Writing in 1571, he complains of the addiction of the monks of Mt. Hiei to ‘sodomy’, and attributes its introduction to Japan to Kuukai, the founder of Koyasan, the Shingon headquarters[6].  Jesuit records of the Catholic mission to Japan are full of rants about the ubiquity of pederastic passion among the Buddhist clergy.  What particularly riled the missionaries was the widespread acceptance these practices met with among the general populace.  Father Francis Cabral noted in a letter written in 1596 that ‘abominations of the flesh’ and ‘vicious habits’ were ‘regarded in Japan as quite honourable; men of standing entrust their sons to the bonzes to be instructed in such things, and at the same time to serve their lust’[7].   Another Jesuit commented that ‘this evil’ was ‘so public’ that the people ‘are neither depressed nor horrified’[8] suggesting that same-sex love among the clergy was not considered remarkable....

The homoerotic environment of Buddhist monasteries actually inspired a literary genre, Chigo monogatari (Tales about acolytes), which took as its theme the love between acolytes (chigo) and their spiritual guides.  These homoerotic relationships were ‘firmly grounded in the familiar structures of monastic life’[10] and were meant to appeal to their Buddhist audience. A common theme of these tales is the transformation of a Buddhist deity, usually Kannon (Sanskrit Avalokite'svara), Jizoo (skt. Ksitigarbha) or Monjushiri (Sanskrit Ma~nju'srii)[11], into a beautiful young acolyte.  The acolyte then uses his physical charms to endear himself to an older monk and thereby lead him to Enlightenment.  In the fourteenth-century Chigo Kannon engi, Kannon takes the form of a beautiful novice to become the lover of a monk who is longing for companionship in his old age.  After a few years of close companionship, however, the acolyte dies, leaving the monk desolate.  Kannon then appears to the monk, reveals that he and the acolyte were one and the same and delivers a discourse on impermanence.  Childs comments that:

The homosexual relationship between the monk and the novice implied in this tale expresses both Kannon’s compassion and his accommodation to the needs of a situation.  Kannon has appeared to the old man to teach him about human transience and the futility of earthly pleasures.  This goal is accomplished, because, as the monk’s lover, Kannon has become fully integrated into his life.[12]

The article then goes on to give other examples of how the love of "beautiful youth" was given a metaphysical context.   (Some of the other examples from literature of the time are pretty surprisingly graphic.)

Now, while I had read before that the Samurai class in Japan had a pederastic mentoring thing going, I hadn't realised that it was connected to Buddhist justification for such activity too:

As pointed out above, many sons of the samurai were educated in Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist paradigms of intergenerational friendships, often sexual in nature, influenced male-male relations in the homosocial world of the samurai more generally.  This was especially true in the Tokugawa period (1600-1857) when the samurai became concentrated in great castle towns like Edo (present-day Tokyo) where there were comparatively few women.  That there was a ‘positive moral value attached to male-male love relationships among the samurai during this period’ is clear from the large amount of literature dealing with these relationships.

I think it fair to say that there has never been anything similar in Christian history.   (By which I mean, while obviously there would have been monks having gay sex, no one ever tried to paint it as something with a divine purpose or endorsement.)   And, obviously, the question can be asked as to how much of the attempted rationalisation of pederasty is really just opportunistic.    (In fact, the description in the article suggests the Japanese monks' practice was bordering on paedophilia rather than pederasty - but it's not 100% clear.)   It also suggests that amongst Samurai, while open and nothing to be ashamed of, the sexual aspect of mentoring relationships was not emphasised, and it was expected that it would end at the boys' coming of age, even if the close friendship was to continue.

Both articles I have linked to here make the point that Buddhism was fully on board with the idea of women being defiled by menstruation - something that I think Christianity didn't dwell upon, although I am not sure why.    The second article suggests that the lower status of women in Japan helped account for the greater value put on male to male relationships, and I suppose I have read the same thing about Greece.    Did Ancient Roman culture not go down the pederastic path to the same extent because they weren't quite as dismissive about the status of women?   I'm not sure.  Certainly, in the case of Afghanistan's creepy boy love scene amongst the dirt poor rural Muslims, the low status of (and separation from) women must figure prominently into how such a cultural practice arises.

Or so you would think.   I mean, India is supposed to have long been very conservative in the matter of pre-marital sex, which apparently means some opportunistic same sex activity amongst the likes of male truck drivers, for example.  [I remember this was a concern for the spread of HIV].   But I don't think it has any kind of reputation for a cultural acceptance of pederastic interests.   Each culture is complex in its own way when it comes to these matters, it seems.   [Update:  here's an article arguing that the prudish version of Hinduism dominating modern India is the fault of the Victorian English rule!  Who knows how accurate that is?]


Anyway, the whole attitude to sexuality thing seems to be in some state of flux again throughout Asia, where it seems that China has decided to officially panic about the current fashion for young male feminisation spreading through youth media:

China's 'sissy pants phenomenon': Beijing fears negative impact of 'sickly culture' on teenagers

Everyone should blame South Korea for this.   As anyone who has ever strayed onto SBS's Popasia program in the last 6 months would have seen, it is very, very, very clear that someone in that highly controlled and somewhat weird K Pop industry has decided that the market wants not just the former soft, gay/androgynous, non threatening version of young masculinity that it (and the Japanese equivalent) used to be known for, but actually fully fledged feminised fashion which looks more akin to guys going through a transgender process.   It's really weird to see, and personally, I can't see how it can appeal to its (presumably) predominantly female audience on a long term basis.

I still wonder though whether the big gender imbalance in China is going in future to once again lead to a softening of Chinese cultural attitudes to same sex relationships.  But obviously, the government fears that this may make them look weak.

Perhaps they should be sending out experts to look at how it worked in Sparta and amongst the Samurai as examples of  how to make gay activity look masculine.   Perhaps they can give the Japanese Buddhist example a bit of a miss, though...

Oh, so that's why libertarians have a soft spot for the "gig economy"...

The Financial Times has an opinion piece noting that the so called gig economy is not really something new: it's a high tech reversion to ye olde methods of worker exploitation:

 ...in the low-paid economy that sits alongside — and often services — the higher-paid workforce, new technology has enabled the return of some very old ways of working. The courier companies that shuttle documents between London’s banks and law firms, for example, disperse the work available to couriers who they pay on a piece rate.

“It drives you crazy,” one bicycle courier told me. “You always want to be doing 20 or 30 deliveries, minimum. If it’s five o’clock or six o’clock and you haven’t reached that, you’re going to have to work extra hard another day. But it doesn’t really matter how hard you work, because it’s up to someone else how many jobs you get.”

The way she works is not so different to the vast “gig economy” that was London in the 18th century, where piece rates were the norm. It is a similar story for an agency worker on a zero-hours contract I spoke to recently, who was told to come to work in a food factory by text message that morning, only to be sent home after just two hours of paid work because of a production lull. It was the middle of the night and the first bus was not due until dawn. His working life is not so different to that of the “lumpers” who once worked at the docks unloading cargo, hired as casuals for each boatload.

I wonder - did she mean the 19th century rather than the 17th?

As I've observed before, some libertarians have a fondness for either Victorian England or 19th century America as representing the great, exciting days when government just let people get on with things (never mind the slavery, half of the population not having the vote, dangerous factory work, etc etc).   As I think it would fair to say that libertarians have been big supporters of the gig economy, you can see the connection between these two ideas.

So Rupert definitely wanted Turnbull gone

Joe Aston in the AFR says Rupert Murdoch definitely wanted Malcolm Turnbull gone:

In this context, bear the following in mind: Rupert Murdoch was in Australia the week Turnbull was toppled. The Sun King and the Crown Prince of Point Piper spoke by telephone before the Liberal leadership was spilled on August 24. The media proprietor denied his empire was campaigning for the PM's ouster, besides The Australian. "Boris [nickname of the paper's editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker] is the only one". 

But only days earlier, Murdoch met with Seven West proprietor Kerry Stokes and implied the very opposite. "Malcolm has got to go," he told the Perth billionaire.

Stokes, whose interests extend well beyond media into mining services and energy, pointed out that a change of Liberal leadership meant a certain change of government next year. "That means we get Bill Shorten and the CFMEU."

KRM was unswayed. "They'll only be in for three years – it won't be so bad. I did alright under Labor and the Painters and Dockers; I can make money under Shorten and the CFMEU." Problem is, it won't be for three years, and it's liable to be very f---ing bad.

Not sure of the source for that conversation.   Stokes himself?  (And by the way, that last quote is supposed to be Murdoch's words, not Stokes.)

Anyway, it suggests that for Rupert, it's all about making a buck.   Great...
 

Party like it's 1899

What a glorious time for women in the Liberal Party, hey?    When a bunch of women parliamentarians start complaining about how they are bullied and treated in the party, the new Vice President (female) tells them to stop their bloody whining, toughen up and start acting more like men.  (Well, that's my paraphrase, but it's not too far off the meaning.)

Andrew Bolt is completely on board, of course: 

Teena McQueen, new vice president of the Liberal Party, has no time for the Liberal Left women complaining of bullying and demanding quotas:  “Women always want the spoils of victory, without the fight.”

Can't we have an election now, instead of watching this muppet clown show for another 8 months?

More takes on the news from Sinclair Davidson's Assorted Nut Blog

Gee, Sinclair almost doesn't bother turning up personally at Catallaxy anymore, abandoning it to Trump cultist Steve Kates, ageing climate change denialist Rafe Champion, and never-saw-a-Muslim-he-could-trust anti-renewables obsessive Alan Moran.  (Oh, and an anonymous old conservative unhappy with the Coalition for not being conservative enough, who thinks he's witty but it's hard to tell seeing I can't be bothered reading him.)

Anyway, with this crowd, you can imagine how they have received the controversy over the female  professor who says she had a bad encounter with the Trump pick for the Supreme Court.   (I really haven't read that much about it - I think Australians who obsess with the intricacies of every American political controversy, down to who says what during a Supreme Court confirmation process, must have too much time on their hands.)

But sometimes Tom: ageing, cranky, the-Socialist-Apocalypse-is-upon-us-unless-Trump-prevails-in-everything commentator,  still manages to amuse with his hyperventilating hyperbole:

It's very clear - to be a fully fledged Trump-will-save-us cultist who forgives every single stupid lie and the appalling ignorance and behaviour of Trump which has been plain for the world to see, you have to have this Apocalyptic vision of the World in Crisis if Things Continue the Way They Are as a precursor.   As I noted a while ago, this applies as much to the rich (Peter Thiel) as it does to a crank obsessive from country Victoria (hi Tom.)

The weird thing is, of course, that they perceive crises which aren't there (refusing to believe that he economic recovery was strong under Obama and barely improved under deficit increasing Trump policies) and cannot believe the real long term looming crisis of global proportions (climate change.)

In short, the culture war and Conservative media has turned them completely stupid.

Sometimes, so stupid it's funny.  

Update:   I forgot to point out - it would appear from Tom's comparison that he thinks the current "scum of the earth" (Democrats) are worse than the Nazi/Imperialist Japanese enemies of WW2.  Huh.    Never thought of it that way before - because it's freakin' nuts.