As I suspected...

The view that it really was a Blue wave midterm election has become more popular, as late counts increase the number of House seats going to Democrats, and likely recounts in the Senate might even reduce GOP wins.

I was also interested in the question of what the popular vote would indicate if repeated in the 2020 Presidential election, and I see that Nate Silver has done that guesstimate, with the result being a solid Democrat win.

I'm also surprised that it was the Wall Street Journal which ran with the story overnight about Trump being highly involved in arranging the payments to silence two women he had affairs with.  It's not usually the paper to do investigative stuff to harm a Republican.   Is Murdoch turning on Trump? 

The Trump personality

While the fake reason for banning the somewhat annoying Jim Acosta from the White House was nauseating (seriously, all women who defend Trump to the death make me queasy, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders deserves ignominy til the end of time), I was bit more interested in the earlier clips of a raccoon faced* Trump gloating over Republicans who didn't support him and lost.  Jimmy Kimmel ran it last night and made the correct call - "he is an absolute child, he really is".




* Isn't it telling that no one has the guts to say to him, "Seriously, Donald, the white eyed look is really noticeable today.  A more natural face looks better on TV."

Friday science

Have you noticed the lengthy New York Times magazine article on the always fascinating topic of the placebo effect?   It's really good, and I particularly liked the explanation of how it was more or less discovered as a thing when Benjamin Franklin was involved in French ordered investigations as to how Mesmerism seemed to be effective, for some.

I will extract some of that:

In a way, the placebo effect owes its poor reputation to the same man who cast aspersions on going to bed late and sleeping in. Benjamin Franklin was, in 1784, the ambassador of the fledgling United States to King Louis XVI’s court. Also in Paris at the time was a Viennese physician named Franz Anton Mesmer. Mesmer fled Vienna a few years earlier when the local medical establishment determined that his claim to have cured a young woman’s blindness by putting her into a trance was false, and that, even worse, there was something unseemly about his relationship with her. By the time he arrived in Paris and hung out his shingle, Mesmer had acquired what he lacked in Vienna: a theory to account for his ability to use trance states to heal people. There was, he claimed, a force pervading the universe called animal magnetism that could cause illness when perturbed. Conveniently enough for Mesmer, the magnetism could be perceived and de-perturbed only by him and people he had trained.

Mesmer’s method was strange, even in a day when doctors routinely prescribed bloodletting and poison to cure the common cold. A group of people complaining of maladies like fatigue, numbness, paralysis and chronic pain would gather in his office, take seats around an oak cask filled with water and grab on to metal rods immersed in the water. Mesmer would alternately chant, play a glass harmonium and wave his hands at the afflicted patients, who would twitch and cry out and sometimes even lose consciousness, whereupon they would be carried to a recovery room. Enough people reported good results that patients were continually lined up at Mesmer’s door waiting for the next session.

It was the kind of success likely to arouse envy among doctors, but more was at stake than professional turf. Mesmer’s claim that a force existed that could only be perceived and manipulated by the elect few was a direct challenge to an idea central to the Enlightenment: that the truth could be determined by anyone with senses informed by skepticism, that Scripture could be supplanted by facts and priests by a democracy of people who possessed them. So, when the complaints about Mesmer came to Louis, it was to the scientists that the king — at pains to show himself an enlightened man — turned. He appointed, among others, Lavoisier the chemist, Bailly the astronomer and Guillotin the physician to investigate Mesmer’s claims, and he installed Franklin at the head of their commission.

To the Franklin commission, the question wasn’t whether Mesmer was a fraud and his patients were dupes. Everyone could be acting in good faith, but belief alone did not prove that the magnetism was at work. To settle this question, they designed a series of trials that ruled out possible causes of the observed effects other than animal magnetism. The most likely confounding variable, they thought, was some faculty of mind that made people behave as they did under Mesmer’s ministrations. To rule this out, the panel settled upon a simple method: a blindfold. Over a period of a few months, they ran a series of experiments that tested whether people experienced the effects of animal magnetism even when they couldn’t see.

Go read it all, as it goes onto to talk about recent research indicating a molecular reason why placebos seem to work so well on some people, at least.   

Malcolm Turnbull continues to disappoint, even as an ex PM

I had something of a hope that Malcolm Turnbull would use his exit from politics to try to blow up the Liberals by stating the obvious:   there is no working with those in the party who deny climate change.   The party needs to split, as there is within it too large a rump of Right wing, American style "conservatives" who are more obsessed with trying to win back an already lost culture war, and it poisons their judgement against good and necessary policy on climate, economics, and even humanitarian issues.  (The first two because evidence is ignored in favour of conspiracy and ideology; the latter because fighting a culture war means being obsessed with strength and never admitting you have gone too far - hence punishing wannabe refugees can continue forever as far as they are concerned.)

But Malcolm on his Q&A session last night gave no hint of understanding his party that way.  Sure, he makes a good point that the electoral evidence from 3 former safe Liberal seats (now with independents) is that people are wanting Liberals to be centrist, small "l" liberals; but he just does not still seem to appreciate that the conservative wing who dumped him will continue to make it impossible to market the party as the one that he wants it to be.

"Broad church" fails when it tries to accommodate those who won't even acknowledge that a key and urgent issue such as climate change, with its broad impact on energy and economics policy, really exists.

Even Andrew Bolt seems to understand this better than Malcolm, since he has muttered about a split recently. 

So, bring on an election, and let the Liberals have their crisis in Opposition where they can do less harm.

Election talk

Gee, it's hard to find a list of historic popular vote results for US midterm elections.   But I finally turned up this graph, which shows the popular vote swing back to the Democrats is very significant:

The other vote analysis coming out all seems to be showing the old story of the Republican's demographic problems - the party is wildly unpopular with young voters, blacks, Latino/Hispanic and Asians:

When you pile these patterns in the white vote on top of the now-familiar racial divides — CNN’s exit poll shows Democrats winning 90 percent of black voters, 69 percent of Latino voters, and 77 percent of Asian voters — you get a clear sense of what lead to last night’s results: Democrats winning big with minorities and educated whites.   

The party remains strongest with under-educated older white guys.  Way to go, Republicans...

Triumph's return

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is reliability funny, especially on politics:



I see that the US midterms have gone pretty much in accordance with polling - Democrats have taken the House by what looks like a pretty substantial number (even though there seems to have been considerable reservation in US media early in the count to call it a "blue wave"), but the Republicans keep the Senate.

Ted Cruz seems to have been returned by the skin of his teeth, but as someone at Nate Silver's place says, it means Beto O'Rourke might have a better run this way to go for the Presidential nomination. 

I have not seen his media performance at all, but I assume he must have some pretty strong charisma.

Watching other people fish

Somehow, on the weekend, I stumbled across a Youtube channel of Jon B, a young American guy who seems big in the world of spectator fishing.   He also recently had a trip to Australia to meet up with some local, somewhat bogan-ish, guys who do the same thing.   Amusingly (I thought) Jon flew into Sydney, then up to the Gold Coast, only to find his Australian hosts had decided to take him fishing on islands off Airlie Beach (!) a 13 hour drive away.   I have no idea why they didn't suggest he fly up there instead of having to endure the long drive on not very great Queensland highways.

I have to admit, I do find Jon B's videos enjoyable.  He's very positive, doesn't swear to any significant extent, and has an amusing line in American youth slang.   And, of course, video cameras have become so cheap, and editing so easy, that amateur Youtube travel/fishing content now looks more like David Lean or Spielberg than the Leyland Brothers.    I find his videos sort of relaxing, too.

I see that he is all of 22 years old.  He seems to have travelled widely.  I am not sure whether he manages to live off Youtube income, or just comes from a rich family.   I haven't found much biographical detail about him yet.

Anyway, good luck to him, I reckon. 

Brisbane weather

I've been meaning to talk about the local weather for, oh, 6 months or so.

The 2018 winter in Brisbane was, I think, colder than recent ones, certainly at night anyway.  It was also very dry, even though winters here usually are.   One odd result:   a distinct lack of winter weeds.  In previous years when we have had a serious bindi problem in the backyard in (if I recall correctly) early spring, we have nothing this year.   There was no mowing needed for a long, long time too.

Then, with a recent burst of rain, grass everywhere grew suddenly.

This week, as I think often occurs in November, felt like a flip of the switch into summer.   It's been hot (about 34 or 35 degrees) in Western Brisbane for about 4 days now, and humid.   No big storm activity, yet, though.

Toads have suddenly come out of hiding and into the yard at night.   Our dog's hunt for them during the day has resumed.  She has a good memory of where she saw one the night before, and as soon as she is let outside of a morning, she goes and has a good sniff around the area, acting for all the world like a bloodhound.  If she finds one, she bites or mouths it, drops it, and continues harassing it.   This can lead to frothing mouth and the risk of poisoning, but I think the theory that some dogs like the "high" that toad poison gives them has a lot going for it.

You may now resume your regular reading.

Run properly or else

Another horse has died at the Melbourne Cup meeting? 

Look, I think it clear that they're just not trying hard enough to be careful where they put their feet.

You can't expect a horse to understand the consequences of carelessness without a demonstration.

Therefore, I suggest that before the start of each race, when they are all at the barrier, a bit of theatre needs to be performed:  a two person pantomime horse races onto the track, feet all over the place, and stumbles and falls.   A guy in an overcoat rushes out and pulls out a fake rifle and shoots the stupid panto horse, shouting loudly all the time, like Basil Faulty attacking his car with a stick.   If that's not enough, someone can fake chainsaw the "horse" in two, and other assistants drag away the two halves by the feet.

Race track cleared, the event can begin.

You know it makes sense.

[Now that I think of it, I fear that Roy and HG may have already proposed this, many years ago.  My apologies if that's the case.]

Lee Kuan Yew's immodest proposal

Well, the South China Morning Post knows how to write an attention getting headline.   This is mentioned right at the top, but you have to get to the bottom of the article (interesting if you are into Singaporean modern political history, I guess) to find it mentioned in scant detail:

As an aside, Lee Kuan Yew was more liberal than we think. Or more practical. When the tourism sector was down, he floated the idea of allowing a nudist colony on Sentosa or an offshore island to bring them in! The younger ministers vetoed him.

I'm not sure who would want to be naked in the sweltering sun of the equator, but I guess he was open to new ventures.

Floating solar is suddenly "hot"

Hey, I started saying the stuff in this article months ago:

Floating solar is more than panels on a platform—it’s hydroelectric’s symbiont

For example:

Solar panels prevent algae growth in dammed areas, and they inhibit evaporation from occurring in hotter climates. (According to Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, major lakes in the southwestern US like Lake Mead and Lake Powell can lose more than 800,000 acre-feet of water to evaporation per year, and the adorably-described "floatovoltaics" could prevent up to 90 percent of that evaporation.") Additionally, floating solar avoids taking up space on land that is priced at a premium.

I still say it should be incorporated into the Snowy Mountains 2 project to actually power the pumps that make the scheme work like a giant battery.

Get me the Prime Minister's phone number?    Oh, he's touring the country in Trump like caps.  He's a dill.

Sordid, rubbery history

I think I knew that the vulcanization of rubber had led to cheap condoms.  I didn't realise it had another sex related product boom:

When I was teaching nineteenth-century literature and social history, I told my students to remember at least one significant date: 1844, the vulcanization of rubber. Charles Goodyear’s invention of that process went on to bring effective contraception to Britain and the United States. But I didn’t know that it was also the origin of the rubber dildo. One of the many fascinating asides in Amy Werbel’s study of Anthony Comstock, the tireless crusader against pornography in late nineteenth-century New York, is an account of the modernization of this ancient sex toy. The first rubber condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps came on the market in 1869, quickly followed by dildos in many colours and shapes; one company sold twelve versions.

Comstock – who was, on paper, a Postal Inspector like any other, charged with catching “crimes that may adversely affect or fraudulently use the US mail” – was astounded to find these “articles for self-pollution” widely advertised, as he described in his indignant and baffled report to Congress in 1872: “One concern was engaged almost wholly in this manufacture. Who were its customers?” Certainly not prostitutes or the married or the poor, he concluded; indeed the “white rubber Dildoe [sic]” was being sold for $6, a steep price in 1870, roughly equivalent to $116 today. The Grand Fancy Bijou Catalogue of the Sporting Man’s Emporium, which carried dozens of advertisements, called it a “happy and harmless” penis substitute for “reserved females”. By 1874, through his allies in the New York Police Department and the Post Office, Comstock had confiscated and destroyed thousands of dildos in a round-up of 60,300 “articles made of rubber for immoral purposes”. But, predictably, an ingenious sex industry made and marketed the products faster than he could condemn them, and writers and photographers quickly exploited their erotic, instructive and commercial possibilities.

Well, count me as surprised at the apparent number being sold.  

I've always been a bit surprised that anyone would buy one, too.  How has C20th understanding of sex changed this, I wonder?   Did they used to be around from ancient times because it was assumed the male appendage in some form was essential for female pleasure?   Has the sexual revolution meant that they are bought less now, even if more widely available?

Someone else can Google that for me, and let me know.

Lulz Cameron

It's very hard not to be amused by the sacking of Ross Cameron at Sky for using "slant eyes" in the course of a rambling defence of the Chinese.   And sacked by Paul Whittaker, who has come over from running the appallingly tabloid Daily Telegraph.   What fun.

"But the context! He was being ironic"  say some of his defenders at Catallaxy, some of whom are  are busy cancelling subscriptions to Fox.       

The trouble is, of course, that a history of buffoonery is its own worst enemy against that defence.  If you are making a show that frequently attacks political correctness, how are viewers supposed to know when they are being ironically racist. 

Someone at Catallaxy says they know that Cameron gets up early to run a business in the day, then does (or did) his Sky News garbage dump at 11pm.   They do their pathetic attempt at political entertainment live at 11 pm?   The guy's been getting by on 4 or 5 hours sleep, perhaps?   Getting sacked was probably a blessing in disguise.

Hilariously, the guy at Catallaxy who knows Cameron is trying to cast it as some sort of scary "they're coming for us" bit of thought policing:

Just remember, first they came for the SkyNews after dark commentators.

Um, yeah, sure.  Might be a tad more credible if it weren't a long time Murdoch flunky doing the sacking. 

Andrew Bolt is talking about some change or other too - dropping his show, perhaps?

I'm pretty pleased that the Fox News-ification of Sky News at night has such a terrible reputation and low ratings.   The Australian political landscape is much saner than the American due to this.

A personal ban on Netflix original movies

Google the topic "why are Netflix original movies so bad/mediocre" and you'll find much discussion along those lines.

On Saturday, despite getting a bit overdosed on Netflix haunting material lately, we watched the lengthily titled "I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House": a very minimalist and peculiar ghost story that doesn't just flag where it's going, but draws a diagram within the first 5 minutes and doesn't divert from it.  As a result, there is nothing of surprise (save for one bit of sudden violence), even though I expected it must have a twist ending which never came.

The movie, surprisingly, was considered very good by some reviewers:  it seemed to me (and my son) more like a complete waste of 90 minutes.  I thought it had the feel of a student project, really.   Certainly, it should have been cheap to make.   Could the lead character have any less charisma, I wonder?

Given this poor experience, I'm very inclined to not try any more Netflix original material.

Update:   speaking of hauntings, we have started to watch The Haunting of Hill House series on Netflix.  

I have not seen the original movie that it is based on,  and I gather that this series is a very divergent  modern updating of the themes in the original, rather than re-playing the story.   (Now that I think of it, rather like how the re-invented Lost in Space goes all into family drama as a major them.)

I think I will continue watching it, but I have to say, I am getting tired of certain haunted house tropes:

a.  if you wake up very scared by a sound at night, the first thing normal people do is turn on a light.    People in haunted houses would rather stare out into the dark, it seems.

b.  On the occasions they do turn on the light, it becomes clear that they have no idea about wattage strength for their light bulbs.   (Always buying ones that are about a third as bright as they would be in a normal house.) 

c.  People who are renovating haunted houses are much more interested in money than the psychological health of their children.

Taleb being ridiculed

For entertainment, you could do worse than read the perpetually angry and arrogant Nassim Taleb attracting many attacks on twitter for an initial mistake which he then doubled down on, convincing no one in the process.

As I have said before, there is something seriously wrong at a personality level with him.

Great minds going astray

I very much enjoyed this article in The Atlantic:  My Grandfather Thought He Solved a Cosmic Mystery.

The problem was, no one could understand what he was trying to explain. 

Very satisfying

Um, it might just be that I know the young woman playing this lead last night pretty well.   She practised this a lot, and (especially when mic-ed up as she was at her school music gala last night), it sounds (I think) pretty damn impressive:

[And, as I have written before, getting drawn into the world of young musicianship - even for a musical dunce like me - makes it hard to feel pessimistic about the future not being left in good hands.   People should seek out their communities' local youth orchestras and see how optimistic their individual and joint effort can make them feel.]

Update:  In the interests of even handedness, I might also know the young man who does a sax solo during this Big Band opening last night:

Evangelicals and tech nerds will be the death of us

Given that there is much concern being expressed that Brazilian President Bolsonaro will be giving companies the go-ahead to bulldoze and mine the Amazon rainforest, and his support base amongst Evangelicals is probably the only religious group n the world that refuses to take climate change seriously, it's disturbing that (once again) the misuse of social media for political lies featured so heavily in the election.  As in India, where it has been blamed for riots and deaths by spreading false rumour, WhatsApp is getting a lot of the blame:

...Aos Fatos, the fact-checking organization that I lead, crowdsourced from over 6,000 WhatsApp users more than 700 false or misleading posts being shared on the app. These rumors distorted at least four key categories of information: statements by political candidates, news of electronic voting and legislation, the nature of protests and the outcomes of opinion polls. These messages were largely aimed at right-leaning political groups, Catholic and evangelical churches, trade and business associations, and military groups.

There were widespread false reports, for example, of how the Venezuelan government hacked Brazil’s electronic voting system and of how Bolsonaro’s rival, Haddad, handed out baby bottles with penis-shaped tops at schools to combat homophobia. One of Bolsonaro’s own sons, Flávio, helped spread such rumors. On Oct. 7, the day of the first round of presidential voting, he tweeted a video that had already been zinging around WhatsApp falsely claiming that the Brazilian voting system was rigged to automatically give all votes to Haddad. When the video was later debunked, Flávio subsequently deleted his tweet, but the damage was done. At least 800,000 people shared the video on Facebook and Twitter. Because of encryption, however, we don’t know how many of WhatsApp’s 120 million active users in Brazil saw it.

That's awful.

The barely human looking (or acting) Zuckerberg is helping bring down the planet while making
squillions.   Who would have guessed 20 years ago that a combination of Evangelicals, tech nerds (and libertarians) would be responsible for global environmental catastrophe?

Things not understood

In life, you only have so much time to learn about the rest of the world. 

I've confessed before about the large chunk of Western Europe that I consider too complicated to get a good grip on its history, but I'm starting to feel my ignorance zone should probably extend down into the Southern Hemisphere too.

Because I've realised lately I don't really understand why good government seems such a difficult thing to achieve in virtually every country in Central and South America.   Sure, there will be lingering issues with exploitation from the West and all, but it seems to be taking a remarkably long time for it to be overcome.

I should probably also admit that it would seem I didn't even have the right impression of Brazil, culturally.   I thought the gaudy display of  Carnival, the small bikinis on the beaches of Rio, as well as the mixed skin colours showing a relaxed attitude to intermarriage between races,  all indicated an openness to sensuality that would mean they are not all that culturally conservative, even if religious.  Which would mean the election of an obnoxious Trump-like President is a bit hard to understand.

I guess I was sort of right, as this WAPO article starts with:

Brazil for years reveled in its image as a post-racial, left-leaning society. Now Jair Bolsonaro — a far-right outsider who says he “loves” President Trump — has surged to the front of the pack in Sunday’s presidential election, sharply dividing Latin America’s largest nation.   

But - I had also missed how big the swing to evangelical Christianity had been in the last decade or so:

 In recent years, as crisis has consumed Brazil, there has been a notable shift in political, social, and religious attitudes. According to a 2016 survey, 54 percent of the Brazilian population held a high number of traditionally-conservative opinions, up from 49 percent in 2010. The shift is particularly evident on matters of law and order: Today, more Brazilians are in favor of legalizing capital punishment, lowering the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults, and life without parole for individuals who commit heinous crimes. Observers have ascribed this phenomenon to Brazilians’ increasing fear of violence over the last few years. This rightward shift has been accompanied by a massive growth in the country’s Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal churches, which constitute the greater part of Brazilian Protestantism. The percentage of those who identified as evangelicals in Brazil has grown from 6.6 percent in 1980, to 22.2 percent in 2010.

Another article I read recently, but which I am having trouble finding now, indicated that the society is more conservative than first impressions give.   A third article from earlier this year explains how Carnival is a bit misleading:

Irreverence is a fundamental element of carnival, as are costumes mocking politicians or political scandals. In his 1979 book Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes, anthropologist Roberto DaMatta detailed how carnival’s temporary libertarianism and role-playing actually expose the rigid social structures and codes of Brazil’s deeply conservative society. The classic carnival costume of a poor man dressed as a king shows how hierarchical Brazilian society is. “It has a sociological role. It is an escape valve,” he told the Observer. “What happens in carnival dies in carnival.”

Anyway, it's incredible how closely Bolsonaro's policies, behaviour and life are closely aligned with Trump's - he too has been married several times, and has risen to the Presidency on the back of social media and the creepy, cultish worship of his followers that indicate they are voting for him more for emotional reasons than rational.   Maybe he is more sincerely Right wing than the mere opportunism of Trump - and certainly he actually has done military service.   But the similarities as political figures are still pretty amazing.

Bugs at home

From a review in Nature of a new book Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live:

The book is structured around sub-habitats in our homes — our bodies, rooms, water supply, pets and food. It considers an awesome range of organisms, from the rich fungal flora on bakers’ hands to the diversity of fly larvae in our drains.

We discover that warm, moist shower heads are ideal for the growth of biofilms containing trillions of bacteria, including Mycobacterium species that are harmful to human health. Dunn and his colleagues invited thousands of volunteers globally to send in samples from their bathrooms. The researchers are finding, for instance, that the more a water supply is treated with chemicals designed to kill microbes, the greater the abundance of pathogenic strains of mycobacteria. We also learn that the numbers of plant and butterfly species in our gardens are correlated with the robustness of the community of microbes on our skin; that some German cockroaches have evolved to perceive glucose as bitter, thus avoiding poisoned bait; and that dogs can give us both heartworm and a top-up of beneficial bacteria from their microbiomes.

Don't recall knowing that dog heartworm can spread to humans - but it's not quite as bad as it could be:

 Human infections seem to be quite uncommon and, interestingly, while this is a serious problem in dogs, it tends to be rather innocuous in people. In fact, the biggest problem with heartworm infection in people is the fact that it can be confused with other, more serious problems, leading to invasive testing.

After infecting someone, D. immitis works its way to the blood vessels in the lungs. This can result in  a small area of inflamed tissue in the area. If a chest x-ray is taken, a "coin lesion" (a small, usually 1-3 cm spot) is often present. The parasite infection usually doesn’t cause any problems in people, but lung cancer and tuberculosis can look the same on x-rays. Usually, open-chest surgery ends up being performed to get a biopsy of the area because of the concerns about cancer. In heartworm cases,the biopsy identifies the problem as D. immitis, which is much better than cancer, but the risks associated with having undergone such an invasive procedure are much greater than that of the parasitic infection itself.

Typically, treatment is not recommended in people because the infection rarely causes problems and people are "dead end" hosts, meaning they cannot pass on the infection. (Unlike in dogs, infected people don’t have the parasite microfilaria in their blood, which is how the infection is passed on to  mosquitoes and other animals).

 In any event, prevention in dogs is now easier than ever, with a once a year vaccination.   Here's our pup, giving me the side eye:

 She couldn't harm me, could she?