The irony

To be honest, I think the White House Christmas decorations are at least better this year than the blood red theme that Melania chose last year (and which many mocked as resembling something from the Overlook Hotel):

But the funniest thing in the White House produced video (which gives the impression Melania personally sets this all up) is the bit where it shows a tree decoration reading "Be Best".

That the wife of the appallingly "Be Worst" tweeting President should have chosen that as a theme for her "everyone, be nice to each other" campaign is just irony run amok. 

Sordid

Well, this is a headline you don't see every day:

War and pissoirs: how the urinals of Paris helped beat the Nazis 

Unfortunately, most of the article is about how the Paris "pissoirs" came to be installed and then widely used by men for illicit sexual encounters.   I find that very surprising, given that I would have thought that the open air design of these things, whereby you can see who and how many are using the facility, would have meant that this protected them from such use. 

But there you go.

It is interesting that the opening anecdote is this:

At 11pm on 6 December 1876, policemen patrolling the Champs-Élysées discovered a well-to-do bourgeois in a public toilet, engaged in what they described as “indecent exposure” with an 18-year-old labourer. The older man, it turned out, was the prominent Catholic politician Eugène de Germiny, a bastion of the reactionary right who railed against the government’s secular tendencies and advocated a society based on family, religion and a return to monarchy.

The press immediately called out Germiny’s double standards. Despite his protests – he claimed his adventure was merely “research” – he became a magnet for satire, his political opponents making much of his hypocrisy. The writer Gustav Flaubert described the scandal as a “comfort that encourages the will to live”. Germiny was sent to jail and went into exile on release.

That put in mind of certain high profile "family values" Republicans in America caught out in toilets or with male staff over the years. 

And on the straight sex scandal side, this recent one shows another Trump supporting Republican with low grade morals:

Mr. Hunter is accused of spending more than $200,000 [of campaign funds] on personal expenses. The indictment, which was released last year, detailed spending on lavish family vacations to Hawaii and foreign countries, large bar tabs, and grocery purchases for his family. 

Mr. Hunter was also accused of using campaign dollars to fund several extramarital affairs between 2010 and 2016, including one with a member of his staff. Prosecutors also alleged that the congressman, a Republican elected to represent a Southern California district in 2008, attempted to pass off some of those expenses as charitable contributions to veterans.

Until Monday, Mr. Hunter had remained steadfast that he was innocent of the charges, at one point calling it a “deep state” conspiracy. Despite the allegations, Mr. Hunter won re-election to his seat in November 2018.

On a Polish question

A couple of links for a friend, if he happens to visit, and put here as a result of a conversation on Saturday night:

Kielce: The Post-Holocaust Pogrom That Poland Is Still Fighting Over

And in The Atlantic:

The Truth About Poland's Role in the Holocaust

Remarkable phones

I've been very happy with my Moto phone, but am very tempted to buy an OPPO phone when I can next justify an upgrade.

I convinced my son to buy the Reno 2Z at JB Hi Fi yesterday.  As usual, I am blown away by the increasing sophistication of newer phones in the mid range market.   And this phone was on sale for (I think) $455 - when I had only been looking at it recently at its normal price of $599.  (In fact, looking online, this does not seem to be a nation wide catalogue sale price - do JB Hi Fi do local store sales too?)  

The specifications for the phone are remarkable - especially at under $500. 

6.5" AMOLED 1080 x 2340 screen
128GB storage
8GB RAM
16MP front facing camera
48MP/f1.7 + 8MP/f2.2 + 2MP/f2.4 + 2MP/f2.4 rear cameras
Bluetooth v4.2
4000mAh battery + VOOC 3.0
Hidden Fingerprint Unlock 3.0

And I really like the pop up selfie camera, which avoids the whole issue of a camera lens cut out at the edge of a screen.  (I presume people get used to that, but it still seems an annoying feature of new phones to me.)

Of course, I might be doing my part to support a worrying wannabe world dominating nation by going for a Chinese brand over a Korean or Taiwanese one - but they make such cool stuff.  

Someone thinks Boris is not doing so well...

A really vicious take on Boris Johnson's campaign performance from someone writing (where else?) in The Guardian:

...with Boris Johnson we are in the political wild west. A one-man amoral no-go zone, whose prime motivation is his own survival and who can only talk in staccato bursts of white noise – an incoherent stream of unconsciousness designed to run down the clock in any public appearance.

Quantity theory breaks down with Johnson. The longer the election campaign goes on, the more bloated and pneumatic he becomes. Yet the more space he inhabits, the more distant he seems. Day by day, there is less to him than meets the eye. He neither looks like a prime minister, nor sounds like one.

Johnson used to at least be able to give a passable imitation of being Boris Johnson. Now he can’t even manage that. The gags and the mannerisms that used to be his calling card, now just fall flat. A one-trick pony whose one trick everyone knows. The surface has been stripped bare to reveal a core of molten need. Someone who craves attention and fears he wouldn’t exist without it. Someone whose narcissism leaves him devoid of empathy. Incapable of either giving or receiving love.

I must say, from the other side of the world, it is very hard to see why he is as successful as he is in Britain.  It would be a bit akin to, I don't know, some eccentric like Bob Katter being taken seriously as Prime Minister material here.

A recent daily visitor

It's been cute finding a wallaby having a rest at the side or front of our suburban house each recent morning, but it does cause the dog to go berserk:

By the way - that side of the house is a mess, but it can't seen from the street, and we have no reason to go there either.  Still, yeah, it should be cleaned up.

Appeal...

Against my expectations, a New South Wales court has found negligence proved in the class action against the operators of Wivenhoe dam in the 2011 floods.

Of course, I don't know the exact detail of the evidence presented, but what always seemed fishy to me was the complexity of modelling, compiled from overseas,  to show what level of flooding would have happened following different release patterns.

From memory, the modelling didn't even show that earlier releases would have guaranteed no flooding, just reduced heights.  If so, it should not be as if every house flooded deserves compensation - it should only be those in which flooding reached above the level that would have happened under the best scenario.  But maybe the judgement incorporates that?

I will be curious to see whether the litigants end up happy with the final results, or indeed, whether there might be an appeal.  The problem is, with an election looming, State Labor probably does not want to appear to be the one holding up "justice", even if there is doubt about the weighting given to conflicting expert evidence.

Update:  I wrote (surprisingly extensively!) about the details of flood levels discussed at the inquiry into the dam operation back in 2012.   It should be clear from that why I was extremely dubious of a court win on the negligence case.

Fast food review

It's been a long time since I tried a Hungry Jacks burger, but I wanted to give them a go with their fake meat burger.  I thought I had read that the patty was made by Beyond Burger, but I see from Lifehacker that (in Australia at least) it's by an Australian start up.   Cool.

So I had it last night.

First - I think it's amusing marketing (which probably causes some irritation to conservatives) that they have called it the Rebel Whopper.   Yeah - us real rebels are now the one disdaining meat [at least once a week, anyway.:)]  It was also at the very top of the drive through order board, indicating either that there is high demand for it, or the company is trying to generate high demand.

Second:  I had the Rebel Whopper Cheese.   No need to go completely hair shirt just because I'm not eating meat on my burger.

Thirdly:  the taste - really good, actually.   Sure, if you think about the texture too much, it is softer than a beef burger, but the flavour is very similar.  There was a lot of some creamy sort of sauce, but I didn't mind that.

Fourth:  even the chips seemed nicer than what I remember from HJ's.  Pretty salty, but nice texture and less fatty than McD's french fries.

Fifth:  the price - $11.70 for the medium meal.  Compares very well with the golden arches.

I will buy one again.  I liked it.

So this is what has become of the White House press corps under Trump...

Wow:

"TruNews" has a person in the White House press corps.  Completely normal times, hey?

(It would be rather like Graeme Bird getting press corps credentials.   And no - Graeme, I can and will still delete your comments at will, even if I mention you in a post.)

Can actual academics talk about this?

Re the Bruce Pascoe/ "Dark Emu" fight between Andrew Bolt and Leftists attacking Bolt's attack:

*  Andrew Bolt can, obviously, be a terribly sloppy and careless (not to mention stupid) polemicist, and being (more or less) on his side on any issue should give anyone sensible pause for concern.

*  That said, those on the liberal Left are clearing responding reflexively against him in defence of a book that is seen as supportive of aboriginal rights;

*  I have tried finding detailed reviews of Pascoe's book from when it first came out, but they are few and far between, and as far as I can tell, nearly all by people who are  not experts in this field but are broadly sympathetic to the aim of improving cultural perceptions of the aboriginal inhabitants at the time of colonisation.  Even so, there does seem an admission in them that Pascoe's claim might not be "fully proved", or such like, while still praising the enterprise overall.   Certainly, this has been enough to enable the book to be endorsed by the soft Left within the education departments of most States. 

* I am suspicious that there are academics out there who would be very critical of some of Pascoe's interpretations of historical reports, but they are probably reluctant to "stir the pot" and find it far more convenient and politically correct within the circles they work to remain silent on the matter.

* My impression, which I almost hate to admit, is that the Bolt take on the matter is likely more correct than those who think the book a brilliant work of valid revisionism.   I think it is very likely that it is really a political book based on scant evidence that hasn't been discussed much before only because it is quite properly considered scant and unreliable evidence by real academics who are choosing to remain silent.

That's my current take on it all, anyway.

What "you can't believe the modelling" looks like

Tamino at Open Mind has done an updated bit of graphing, and while it looks a lot like what Gavin Schmidt does from time to time, it's worth publicising anyway:

I took the data for global average temperature from climate model simulations in the CMIP5 archive; those are computer models used in the latest IPCC report. I used only those models with the “RCP4.5” emissions scenario (a middle-of-the-road choice). I then aligned them all so their average value was zero during the 1961-1990 “baseline” period. Finally, I calculated yearly averages for each of the 108 models included.

That enables me to compute the “multi-model mean,” the average of all the models at each moment of time. Also at each moment of time, I computed the standard deviation of the model values and recorded the highest and lowest model values (which can be different models at different times).

Now I can graph the multi-model mean over time as a thick red line, together with a yellow outermost envelope showing the range from highest to lowest, a tan-colored middle range the limits of the 2-sigma range (about 95% of the models) and a pink band the 1-sigma range (about 2/3 of the models).

And I can also plot actual observed global temperature from NASA (yearly averages using the same 1961-1990 baseline) as a black line:

 Someone in comments notes that Ross McKitrick has done a similar thing, but it's not as good as it ignoring coverage bias with HadCRUT.  Yet, when you look at his graphing, it still indicates a relentless climb, just lower in the "pink" band.   Which makes his scepticism look kinda pointless...

In other obituary news

Sir Jonathan Miller, the writer, theatre and opera director, and member of the Beyond the Fringe comedy team, has died at the age of 85.

In a statement his family said Miller died “peacefully at home following a long battle with Alzheimer’s”.

I thought Miller gave one of the funniest Parkinson interviews I ever saw, and his series The Body in Question was just terrific viewing.    I'm not sure that I saw another series referred to in his Guardian obituary - Madness - if I did it obviously did not leave the same memory traces as did his first series.

In any event, a very clever and witty man.

Hey, he brought it up first

When I heard of Clive James' death, and heard his obituary on the ABC, I did think about his late-life climate change scepticism, and thought it best not to mention it today in light of the pleasure he brought to lots of people.

BUT:   look who did bring it up on Twitter in his very first comment about him:

I would have thought that Ridley might have realised that claiming James as a part of the climate change disbelief club hardly does more than illustrate what is so, so, obvious:   it's an old (mostly white, mostly male) persons' game, held mainly by those with no actual science education who think they can see a conspiracy that those damn young ones who keep getting on their lawn cannot.

But no, Ridley wasn't bright enough to stop his bank from crashing, so it was too much to imagine he might have realised this too.  

Update:  look who else is running the line "He was one of ours!  A poet, novelist and former media star who came out as a climate sceptic at the age of 77 when he had terminal cancer was one of ours!  What a sad day."

First world consumer complaint

I've put up with this enough:  the ACCC should take immediate action to direct any maker of frozen, crumbed fish pieces (and frozen chips) to be more realistic in their time estimates for when the product will be ready (when oven cooked) to a nice, crispy, finish.

I have come to the conclusion that the times on these products, regardless of manufacturer, are all at least 50% underestimated, if not more.  Have you ever got your oven baked frozen chips to a nice, non-soft finish in the 20 or 25 minutes these companies claim?   And yes - I preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and turn the chips or fish over half way through, taking the tray out to do so in order to keep the oven as hot as possible.   The oven seems to work within the margin of error you might expect from those given in cookbook recipes, but for frozen fish and chips - I reckon it is a clear case of misrepresentation. 

Alan Fels still gets his noggin on TV a lot.  We need him back to take on this important issue.

Sleep paralysis at home and abroad

I don't think I have mentioned this before - my teenage daughter has, over the last year or so, began to experience episodes of sleep paralysis.   All the classic stuff:  waking up and unable to move, and a dark entity moving towards her bed.  Tries to call out but can't.  She recognises that it most likely would happen when very tired before bed, and sleeping on her back instead of her side.  She said that in successive events, the dark entity was getting closer and closer to her bed. 

Fortunately, I think I had told her about this before she had her first episode.  (Seems to me it's probably a good idea to warn all children that this is a not so rare occurrence that they might experience, and they should not read too much into it.)   The point is, my daughter finds the experiences disturbing, but also understood what was going on from the first time.  (I think she realises what it is during the event, even though she can't stop it.)

Anyway, I'm talking about this now for two reasons:  there is an article at NPR summarising the phenomena, and a couple of weeks ago I was reading a Reddit thread about it, where someone commented that they thought it likely that this was the likely explanation for widespread belief in demons, witches and/or malevolent spirits across all old societies.

Oddly enough, that latter thought had not really occurred to me before - it may be a key element in the widespread belief in a supernatural realm generally.  

Here is some interesting information along those lines from the NPR article:

About 75% of the time, those experiencing sleep paralysis will hallucinate. "Most of the time, we'll hear that it's something frightening," Kushida says. "But there have been instances where a person will report that one of their loved ones was there."

In fact, the hallucinations typical of sleep paralysis are frequently influenced by a person's culture and described in terms of "paranormal activity." There are descriptions from Newfoundland of an "Old Hag," or witch sitting on the person's body. In Japanese folklore, the same phenomenon is called kanashibari, which means "bound in metal." Some researchers think sleep paralysis is to blame for reports of alien abductions.

This prevalence across cultures makes sense in light of Pennsylvania researchers' systematic review of scientific studies across a 50-year period. The review estimates that 8% of the general population has one episode of sleep paralysis in the course of their lifetime. The study found that this number is variable within populations. For example, more than 30% of psychiatric patients had an episode of sleep paralysis, and the disorder is most common in adolescents.

This is not to say that I don't believe in supernatural events at all - but it does seem a very plausible argument that people believe in devils and demons in particular because of this natural, medical phenomena. 

The most miserable country

I saw some of the documentary series on SBS last night "Russia to Iran: Across the Wild Frontier" and it was pretty interesting.

The thing that always strikes me about shows which travel through the lesser known parts of Russia is how miserable the country and its inhabitants routinely seem.   Sure, they drink and sing a lot, but the average Russian on the street always seems to look tense and miserable.  Not to mention the extreme level of police and secret service scrutiny that they still have to put up with. 

Last night, there was a large, largely abandoned, former mining town of the Soviet Union, set in a very spectacular looking valley.  There was an old guy who was paid to caretake something - it wasn't entirely clear what.  It was like meeting a character in a dystopian computer game.   Even his dog looked depressed.

I find it perversely interesting - how miserable a country can be.

I agree with the sentiment

b-boy is wrong to suggest that no one tweets about these Right wing armed "we will fight socialism on the streets" conspiracy freaks;  but he's right that it makes the hyperventilating by Right winger  about things like colleges students being rude to conservative speakers on campus and trying to shout over them look like trivia.

Food and racism

So I see that blanket dismissal of Indian and Chinese food as generically bad now causes cries of "racism".  

Seems a tad over the top, both the opinion and the most accusatory responses.  While the criticism of what foreigners eat can be closely aligned with racism,  it's not much fun if you can't go over the top in your dismissal of an entire cuisine once in a while.

I get into trouble routinely by dismissing Greek food with some acquaintances who have invited me to a local restaurant that they say is good.

I respond with:  it's the least interesting national food that I know of, although more than likely Russian cooking is even worse.  It's just that Russian restaurants don't really exist here, and so I can't compare.

There is nothing sophisticated about the seemingly very limited range of recipes that come out of Greece, and while it is certainly edible, it's also so uniform that all Greek restaurants or cafes seem to me to be virtually interchangeable in their bland-ish quality.   I may have mentioned before, I was pleased to hear Rick Stein say, when he did a series through that country, that his friends back in England said they thought it was a dull food destination.  He tried his best to talk it up, but the recipes he cooked or watched being cooked all looked just like pretty standard, pretty basic, Greek food to me.  And their desserts - just sweetness overload.

So there...

At least they're not very good at it?

Not sure whether I agree entirely with this "what's the big deal?" take on the story of an (alleged) direct attempt by China to have a government spy in Parliament:

but I at least take some comfort in the fact (assuming its true), they don't seem to be real good at  keeping the process a secret.   If your target runs to ASIO and then ends up dead, you haven't done it right.

And for all those who are going to say "of course the sell-out Left isn't as upset about this as they should be" (hi Jason) - yeah, I do find it ironic that they were not upset at all with the blatant, bad faith spying on East Timor by Australia.  (Someone notes that in Bruce Haigh's tweet thread, too.) 

Another failure for libertarian/small government economists

Along with their failed predictions of high inflation due to government spending to help deal with recession, economists on the American Right (and at Catallaxy) have warned about minimum wage increases being a disaster for employment.

Axios says (in a pretty detailed post for that site) that it hasn't happened:

Eighteen states rang in 2019 with minimum wage increases — some that will ultimately rise as high as $15 an hour — and so far, opponents' dire predictions of job losses have not come true. 

What it means: The data paint a clear picture: Higher minimum wage requirements haven't reduced hiring in low-wage industries or overall.