Boris not so hot in Parliament

Before Boris Johnson got the top job, I was saying to his sympathisers here that it seemed to me that most observers long thought he was not a particularly good parliamentary performer.

Most journalists commenting on the situation now seem to agree that Corbyn has been sounding surprisingly good, and Johnson is continuing his underperformance.  

Good.

Feeling poorly

I'm never 100% sure how to tell whether a dripping nose with little else going on is hayfever or a head cold.

I'm going with hayfever this time.  

Seriously?

The Conversation occasionally throws up an article that reads close to "peak Guardian".  Like this example from a part of academia that needs to be sacked if this is all they have to think about:

Sex robots increase the potential for gender-based violence 

I've complained before:  why does this topic attract so much attention, as if every second man in future is going to have one in his cupboard?  Has Westworld been way, way too influential?

How can I take this latest article seriously when it claims:

 Over 40 per cent of men who participated in an online survey said they could imagine buying a sex robot in the next five years.

The link shows it was to a survey of 263 men, with no details of where the survey was conducted.  Viz magazine? 

And this: 

 The concern is that if human-robot relationships continue to play out in such a manner, there is a possibility that the way users view and practise consent in their human relationships could shift, with negative consequences for women.

Acts of violence towards sex robots have also been observed around the world over the past few years. These include incidents of decapitation, mutilation and molestation. For individuals who might be inclined to act in this way, the availability of a robot to violate could feed these behaviours.

And the final paragraph:

The way sex robots are currently programmed is obviously problematic. It encourages the porn-ification of women, devalues consent and does not punish violence and aggression. Providing intelligent and somewhat autonomous machines with a full set of rights is excessive, but finding ways to protect them from harm is a positive solution. This ethical approach could preclude harmful human behaviour and in turn protect us from ourselves.

 I really can't believe people make a living fretting about giving some sort of rights to masturbation devices.

Network

I've been at home today trying to get a workplace laptop to work through my home internet (it won't - or at least, not properly), and this has reminded me that the worst aspect of modern computing, which seems ridiculously immune to adequate simplification, is networking.  

With all the alleged brilliance of AI, when are we going to get to a situation where I can say to my laptop "you're at home now, there's a new wifi you need to connect to, and I need Outlook and my other software to work from here today", and it will do it?

They ought to scrap the way it works now and start again.

Fun and games in Britain

Just thinking out loud here, but if an election is called on 14 October and the pro-Brexit-at-any-cost parties win, couldn't they get Parliament going in time to get any pre-election legislation delaying Brexit revoked?  Does it really take that long to get the Queen to roll up at Parliament?   Couldn't they ask her to just read one statement:  "My government will now ensure Brexit proceeds, and do a lot of other good stuff.  See you next Parliament." 

Someone will know, somewhere...

As I suspected

Slate has an article about the "no shampoo" idea, which has a certain following in Australia, but of which I am rather sceptical.  One quote:

So zero shampoo is not the answer for me—or most people. The idea that your hair will naturally rebalance after a period of not washing is “an old wives’ tale,” noted Joshua Zeichner, the director of cosmetic and clinical research at Mount Sinai Hospital to me via email. Moreover, it’s not good for your scalp, which does need to be cleansed now and then to stay healthy. “This no-shampoo movement has been a problem,” dermatologist Rebecca Baxt told me. She’s seen an uptick of people coming in with dead skin built up on their scalps, which itches and flakes, and ironically looks kind of dry, which can further feed the no-washing cycle. From a doctor’s perspective, the scalp skin is what you’re really caring for when you wash your hair. 

I heard the comedian Dave Hughes on his radio show some time ago say that he doesn't use shampoo very often, and once he got in the shower and was surprised to find that his hair was bubbling under the shower, when he hadn't put anything on it.  Turned out his wife had told one of his kids to secretly drop some shampoo into his hair while playing with him, so that he would finally wash his hair properly. 

Since then, when I have seen him on TV, I have thought "yeah, this guy's hair does look kind of stiff and as if it needs a good wash."  I wonder how many other people who follow this idea I could detect as having not-so-nice looking hair.

David's keeping count

David Neiwert writes on Right wing violence in the USA, and someone re-tweeted this from 2018, in which he lists some prominent Right wing murders (and acknowledges two cases of Left wing motivated killing.)   It is easy to forget these incidents, even if you don't have a political motivation for doing so.

And as it says at the start: 

For some reason, folks on the right have extremely short memories when it comes to acts of right-wing political violence. This is especially the case when they are in the middle of a propaganda campaign to make "the left" look violent. A long thread with lots of pix follows.

Well, made me laugh

In America, it's time to drop the kids off to their college dorm for the first time, I gather.   I thought this was a funny first tweet in response:

Give me some good news

A lot of "downer" news at the moment, no?

Families being thrown out of Australia when there appears to be no real need to; a severe hurricane mashing up the Bahamas; mass shootings in the US with responses in Twitter including a fair swathe of "don't worry, when we get even more guns into the hands of citizens, and they get the right training, things will come good"; (as already noted) a Conservative minister muttering about how governments don't have to follow Parliament, when push comes to shove; and Hong Kong in considerable turmoil.

Cheer me up, someone...

Bad news story from Vietnam

The ABC has a story up about the problem of family breakdown, runaway boys, and their exploitation by sex tourists in Vietnam (it talks about Hanoi in particular.)

I've been wanting to holiday in Vietnam, thinking that there would not be much of the obvious problems of poverty to be seen, particularly in the big cities.   But sounds like there sort of is.

Not a worry at all

Yeah, so Australian pro-Brexit readers (I think I have three):  are you not the teensy weeniest embarrassed that you now have a Conservative Minister saying that the government may not abide by laws passed by Parliament?

I can't see that Helen Dale has tweeted about that remarkable interview, either.


And to pre-empt a response of "but giving the country Brexit is following the democratic will of the people from the referendum" - the referendum was not binding, and it was up to the government to work out how to do it.  Regardless of laws passed previously to get the ball rolling, of course Parliaments can change previous legislation.    

Sorry, but democracy and rule of law is more important that your feelz about how important Brexit is.

What are the chances...

...that I would intensely dislike that Joker film?  

It's just about the safest bet in the world, given that I don't respond to comic book universes that purport to be serious, and have never gone out of my way to view movies in the "lonely, emotionally fragile man goes berserk" genre.  (Yeah, call me a film history philistine, but I still haven't got around to seeing Taxi Driver, King of Comedy, or Falling Down.  Dark themes of that kind have never held much appeal to me - so sue me.) 

What's more, Joker, while getting some ecstatic reviews, has received some pretty solid negative ones too,  most notably from Time's Stephanie Zacharek.   Given the strange world of comic book fandom, what's the bet that she has already received some disturbing threats over the net?  (Which would be kind of ironic, I guess.)

Anyway, the negative reviews have already primed me for the reasons I would dislike it.   Yet my son, being of the age where darker themes appeal, badly wants to see it.  

Perhaps I should deliberately hate view this one, and let out many sighs and mutterings throughout to annoy him?   Don't think I will, as maybe I would get into too much trouble from others in the cinema, too.

Do not wander towards this movie

I tried watching the Chinese science fiction blockbuster (at least in China) The Wandering Earth last night.

It's spectacularly bad - like the worst Michael Bay (or Roland Emmerich)  movie times 10, with even less character development, terrible opaque-to-understanding action editing, very 2001 derivative in one plot element, underwhelming special effects, and an awful,  clunky script.  About the only slightly interesting thing was that there was a light relief character (who didn't have much to do, actually) who was meant to have one parent from China, and one from Melbourne.  I think there was sort of a suggestion that his Australian genes had dumbed him down, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, I put up with its awfulness for about half the way, before speeding up to the end to see what happened.   Yeah, heroic male sacrifice featured, as might be expected.  Chinese audiences must be absolutely desperate for special effects heavy science fiction movies to have seen this one in large numbers, is all I can say.

I see that on Rottentomatoes that there are OK reviews from some American critics in the "just a bit of escapist, science fiction disaster movie fun " variety.  They are wrong.

The gigantic keyhole tombs in Japan

I've never spent much time around Osaka prefecture - is that why I hadn't actually heard of the gigantic "keyhole" tombs near it, which are explained in this BBC video?  Here's a photo:

Pretty interesting - and pretty amazing how Japan doesn't believe in any form of archaeological digging on them.  

All good stuff for a science fiction/fantasy movie, too, I would imagine.  Probably already been done in some anime already, I suspect.

Evidence is optional

I see that James Allan, the conservative blow in legal professor who writes for reliably wingnut Quadrant and Australian Spectator, has a new contribution to the former magazine:  a report on a road trip through America. 

The article is lightweight guff, ending on the note that in all Red states they passed through, conversations with people having breakfast in diners convinced him that Trump will romp it in at the 2020 election, such is the love expressed for the Orange one.   Now, anecdotal evidence is something people like to cite, but I have my suspicion that talking to "locals who eat breakfasts in Red state diners on any regular basis" is not safe sampling - it's going to be selective for the more Right wing type under any President.  I could be wrong - I've never eaten at such establishments - but you would certainly get the impression from their depiction in US media that they would swing that way.

Anyway, that's not really why I am posting about his article.  It was this claim (my bold):

What saves time, and I think I mentioned this in my recounting of the 2013 road trip, is that the US has sane and normal speeding laws.  On interstate highways, the big ones that criss-cross the nation, you can drive at least 80 miles per hour (about 130 kph) before there is the slightest chance of a speeding ticket.  And there are no speed cameras.  Either the police catch you that day, then and there, or you don’t get a ticket.

And you know what?  All that revenuers’ propaganda about Australia’s ridiculously low speed limits promoting safety is guff. Compare deaths over distance travelled and Australia is no bastion of safety. 

Because I had only posted earlier this year about how I didn't realise the American road death rate was so high, I thought this sounded suss.

So, looking up an annual report comparing OECD countries road safety, I find this table:

Um, a rate of .52 is way under .73.

If Allan's throw away line is meant to imply that America's per distance travelled death rate (with its higher speeds and looser enforcement) is not so different to Australia's (and let's be honest, that's his intention), it is flat out wrong.

As with anyone who loves Brexit, sympathises with Trump and his voters, and (I am betting) doesn't believe climate change is a serious issue, James just doesn't care about evidence.

It's the marker for the state of conservative Right wing politics now.

Looking for connections

Science magazine is running a series of reports on suicide, which includes this map for suicide rates in 2017:

On the website version, you can hover over the country and get the exact figure, with Australia showing as 11, the USA as 14, Russia 25, and Greenland at the top of the chart at 51.  (And that's before they heard Trump wanted to buy them.)

What strikes me most is how Muslim countries are all very low.  For example, Pakistan is at 4.44, Bangladesh at 6, but neighbouring India is 15.59.   Saudi Arabia is a startling low 2.9; Indonesia 3.1.

The other consistently low rate countries are those which are very Catholic, particularly those with their own local ethno-Catholicism, like Mexico and the Philippines, as well the European strongholds in Italy and Spain. (France is not so good:  at 12.4 it is close to our rate.)  Mexico surprises me:  for a country so notoriously dangerous for murder, at 5.9, the violence in the form of suicide is about half of ours.

I guess I should note that Buddhist countries are very much a mixed bag - Japan is as high as the US, but other, smaller Buddhist countries are low.  China is quite good at 7.2, too. Not sure what accounts for that.

I have posted before about the pretty well established connection between Protestantism and higher suicide rates, but I don't think I had realised before how being Muslim, or at least, living in a highly Muslim society,  seems to be even more "protective" from suicide than being Catholic.
 

Catholic schism in Italy, too

For once, a useful link from that ugly blog.

An article in Foreign Policy noting that Italian politics is caught up in the Great Schism in Catholicism:

It is a tale of two Catholic churches. One is focused on social justice, welcoming migrants, helping the poor, protecting the environment, defending the virtues of the European Union,  and building bridges rather than walls.  It proudly sports a cosmopolitan identity and talks about diversity and inclusion. It firmly opposes leaders like Salvini and U.S. President Donald Trump, whose ideology is one “that always ends badly—it leads to war,” as Pope Francis said in a recent interview with the daily La Stampa, adding that he’s concerned “because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934.” The poster child of this Catholic Church is Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist whose initiatives have been blessed by the pope.

The other Catholic Church stresses the importance of tradition and defending the so-called Judeo-Christian West from mass immigration, pledges to protect the traditional family, and fights permissive laws on abortion and LGBT rights. It is skeptical of a bureaucratic, highly secularized EU and believes that Christianity thrives in a world organized around nation-states as opposed to supranational organizations. This faction fears that the current Vatican leadership may eventually turn the church into a progressive NGO.

In this highly polarized ecosystem, both sides claim to represent the true faith. And both sides are struggling to find a political home. Italy’s government crisis reveals a deeper tectonic shift in the Catholic world that has left many devout voters with no political home. In Italy, 74 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, but only 27 percent of those are actively practicing. In the recent election for the European Parliament, more than half of practicing Catholics didn’t vote.

Go watch it

I finished watching Happy Jail on Netflix last night. 

I've already recommended it, but I'm back to say that it is just extraordinarily good as documentary, and I am not sure why it hasn't attracted more media attention.   (My son liked it too, so it's not just my eccentric taste.)

PS:  I think it obvious why so many documentary/local reportage shows look so good these days - everything from Backroads, to Foreign Correspondent, to Happy Jail -  is the invention of the cheap drone with camera.   Beautiful aerial shots are just ubiquitous in these shows now, and we all know why.   But I don't care how many times they are used, really:  getting a God's eye view over settings I just find pleasing every time.   Maybe it subconsciously feels like it is satisfying those "cool! I can fly" dreams?    

What ugliness

When I see a Bunnings ad featuring an ethnically diverse woman, I think "that's good...another sign of successful integration into a typical aspect of the Australian way of life.  Especially good that it's a Muslim woman.  Good on you Bunnings for your diversity in hiring, too."  

But when a poisonous soul who comments at Sinclair's club for ugly conservatism sees the ad, this is what she thinks:

For the millionth time, I honestly don't understand how Sinclair Davidson can feel satisfaction running a blog that lets people display themselves in all their ugliness. 

Saturday photo

Everyone likes the ornate design of this building, surely?  I like to imagine it has a hunchback living secretly in the roof space and spires, or the dark, creepy basement I am told exists too.