Animal sympathy will save us?

First, a couple of tweets:

To be honest, it's hard to be sure it really is a koala, and not (say) a backpack - but it does look the right shape; and honestly, who ever knew until relatively recently that wild koalas, who normally do not interact with us all, could be so charmingly trusting of humans when fires are around?

Next:  poor cockatoos:

  
Apart from being woken up by them screeching at 4.45 am in a Brisbane summer, how can you possibly dislike these smart, clean looking birds?  That they should fall out of trees due to heat stress is...distressing.

It's obvious from the internet, but also confirmed by my daughter, that the impact of fires and heat on wildfire can cause more sympathy and upset than seeing dozens of burnt out houses, or hearing about someone who died in their car escaping a fire.

You can say that we shouldn't be like that, really.  But it's human nature to perceive animals (or at least, the more charming variety that we can empathise with and like seeing outside our window) as helpless victims, whereas humans take the risk of bush living and know what they might be getting into.     

So I'm not going to get too concerned about any arguments that (I would bet) some Right wing types are probably making somewhere about misplaced sympathy:  anything that leads to more political pressure to take meaningful action to limit emissions and hence limit the worst case scenario in terms of climate change is a good thing. 

The Jason Soon solution to the tragedy of the commons: "There is no solution!"

I prescribe gas masks, as inhaling smoke for a month likely interferes with thinking; and a relocation from the Western side of Sydney, as contagion from Mark Latham's angry-man-who-can-see-the-truth vibes is proving really detrimental to a susceptible mind. 

Liberal PMs can never get this "the right image for a PM during a bushfire" thing right

Either they're rushing out of the house to put on their volunteer firefighting gear and looking like they are too closely involved in the dirty work instead of taking in the big picture from an Ops room; or they're secretly sitting on the beach in Hawaii until the PR officer says "really, this is bad, bad optics, you've got to get back", and even then taking a couple of days to do so.

Yes, the problem is the Force

I haven't seen Rise of Skywalker yet, but if this article in the SMH is anything to go by:

Star Wars suffers a disturbance in The Force – and it's The Force itself 

I have no reason to re-assess my view in my post about Last Jedi - the problem with the Star Wars universe is the lack of coherency in dealing with the nature of the Force through the movie series.

Which is a pity, because it was a clever part of the appeal of the first movie, as that opinion piece argues:

Back in 1999, George Lucas explained his thinking in creating The Force. "I don't see Star Wars as profoundly religious," he told interviewer Bill Moyers. "I see Star Wars as taking all of the issues that religion represents and trying to distil them down into a more modern and more easily accessible construct that people can grab onto to accept the fact that there is a greater mystery out there.”

A bit of this, a bit of that, all thrown in together, heated and stirred: religion soup, in other words. Or, if you prefer, a non-specific kind of spiritualism, free of structure, hierarchy, church or cant.

Back in 1977, Obi-Wan Kenobi explained Lucas' hocus-pocus thus: "The Force is what gives the Jedi his power – it's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

It was nice and vague, with a bit of something for everyone; the monotheists could read that as God, the mystics as an iteration of Brahman, the atheists as a poetic rendering of universal matter.

Yes, indeed.    

Cool

This is the right thing to do, I reckon, and I think the soft Right commentators who don't like Trump but still think the Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot are just showing themselves up as more interested in the mere game of politics than the nation being left in safe hands:

And even if (or rather "when") the Senate acquits, the Trump letter, and his behaviour at rallies, indicates that it really, really hurts his narcissistic pride.

If it leads to him having some kind of mental break down and leaving the White House in a straight jacket, so much the better for the country. 

Just drink milk

Look, there needs to be a real push back against veganism by vegetarians, I reckon:

A vegan diet is generally healthy, low in cholesterol and protective of heart disease, but its followers must take vitamin B12 supplements or risk a condition that causes permanent numbness in their hands and feet, experts say.

Most people get their vitamin B12 from milk, but the plant-based substitutes do not have high enough levels to protect adults and children from peripheral neuropathy, which is irreversible.

Young festival-goers on a vegan diet may be at particular risk. “Kids these days inhale laughing gas,” said Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London. “That can actively cause vitamin D deficiency. There is a danger of young people going vegan, not having B12 and it could tip the balance to them getting a serious neuropathy.”

It could easily be remedied by the manufacturers of plant-based milks, he said. “Levels should be higher in plant milks than they are at the moment. If they were three times higher, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Internet claims that vegans do not need extra B12 were not evidence-based, he said. “I’m concerned that many people think it is a myth,” said Sanders. Gorillas eat a vegan diet, but B12 is produced in the colon and “they probably don’t wash their hands”, he said, so end up ingesting it. The Jains in India eat a vegan diet, but, he said, “all the Jain doctors I know have B12 injections”.

I am somewhat sympathetic to vegetarians who do so in the interests of minimising animal suffering;  but vegans, you're going too far.

Dress ups discussed

Gee, the Washington Post has more than a thousand comments following an article on whether it is a good or bad thing that most modern cruise line ships are downplaying "formal night", and the passengers are now not under much pressure to dress up in their best gear on any night of their holiday. What a first world problem, as many in comments are saying.

Anyway, I only post about it because of this photo in the article, of a 1920's ship (the Saturnia) which was, obviously, ridiculously ornate (at least in First Class):

You can read more about the ship on this website, and I see that it was Italian designed (that explains a lot), and yeah, completely over the top in other rooms too:

 

It's like they were trying to make the interior refuse to acknowledge it was inside of a ship.  Makes me laugh, really.

More solar power in the Northern parts of Africa

The other day I mentioned Morocco getting into renewable power in a big way.   Turns out Egypt is ramping up solar power too:

ASWAN, EGYPT – Near the southern Egyptian city of Aswan, a swath of photovoltaic solar panels spreads over an area of desert so large it is clearly visible from space.

They are part of the Benban plant, one of the world’s largest solar parks following the completion last month of a second phase of the estimated $2.1 billion (¥229.8 billion) development project.

Designed to anchor the renewable energy sector by attracting foreign and domestic private-sector developers and financial backers, the plant now provides nearly 1.5 gigawatts to Egypt’s national grid and has brought down the price of solar energy at a time when the government is phasing out electricity subsidies.

In 2013, Egypt was suffering rolling blackouts due to power shortages at aging power stations. Three gigantic gas-powered stations with a capacity of 14.4 GW procured from Siemens in 2015 turned the deficit into a surplus.

National installed electricity capacity is now around 50 GW, and Egypt aims to increase the share of electricity provided by renewables from a fraction currently to 20 percent by 2022 and 42 percent by 2035.

The article doesn't explain how they are doing to deal with the storage issue, but I assume some plans must be being made.

The case for sunny nihilism?

Interesting piece in The Guardian arguing that nihilism doesn't need to be a downer - you can have "sunny" nihilism, and there seems to be an upswing in that attitude amongst today's aimless youth.

Count me as unconvinced.  I don't dispute that nihilism can be the subject of much humour - the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy proved that quite some time ago.

But there is no reason why, as a philosophical approach to life, it should lead to this:

One of the many criticisms of nihilism is that it opens the door to unchecked selfishness. It’s a logical next step if you think there’s nothing to gain from life except personal happiness and pleasure. Yet for the people who have absorbed this message, the trend isn’t towards greed, but community-mindedness.

Skjoldborg urged his audience to solve problems. Gupta sought to build his own meaning. Tolentino’s whole book is an argument against self-serving, neoliberal systems that crush people lower down the economic ladder than you.

In the months since discovering I’m worthless, my life has felt more precious. When your existence is pointless, you shift focus to things that have more longevity than your own ego. I’ve become more engaged in environmental issues, my family and the community at large. Once you make peace with just being a lump of meat on a rock, you can stop stressing and appreciate the rock itself.

It can just as easily lead to the opposite - the view that no other lives have inherent worth and are, basically, disposable.  

Mitchell was right

Someone on Twitter has pointed that David Mitchell's piece in The Guardian in June looks very prescient in its discussion of Corbyn and the likely outcome of an election.  

He is as smart as his comedic persona suggests.

Maybe they plan on putting on a really big buffet for Him?

Mormon Church Reportedly Amassed $100 Billion Fund For ‘Second Coming Of Christ’

"It'll be an electoral disaster" seems a tad unlikely to me

As David Graham writes at The Atlantic:

The cynical read on the impeachment of President Donald Trump is that it hasn’t changed anything: Here we are, weeks into the process and on the eve of a House floor vote, and there’s scant movement in public and elite opinion to show for it. Notwithstanding the mountain of new evidence uncovered by the House Intelligence Committee, the battle lines remain the same: Most Democratic House members will vote to impeach the president, while acquittal in the Senate is a foregone conclusion.

But maybe the most salient fact about impeachment is how little something else has changed. Impeachment is incredibly popular, especially given the polarized environment.

A Fox News poll released yesterday found that a full 50 percent of Americans support impeaching and removing Trump—one point up from October. The Fox poll has always been one of the worst for the president on impeachment, but FiveThirtyEight’s polling average finds plurality support for removal—47.7 percent for, 46.4 percent against as of this writing—a finding that tracks consistent, slim support. (The site finds even broader support for the impeachment proceedings themselves, at 52.3 to 41.9 percent.) RealClearPolitics’ average, which is noisier, shows a small plurality opposing removal at this moment, though it was the opposite yesterday. The Economist finds clear plurality support for impeachment as well.

It’s worth dwelling on this for a moment: Roughly half the country not only disapproves of Trump’s job as president, but believes he ought to be removed from office, a sanction that has never been applied before. And that support comes at a time of (mostly) peace, with the economy (mostly) strong. There’s more support for impeaching Trump now than there was at the equivalent stage in the Watergate scandal—right after articles of impeachment were approved by the House Judiciary Committee. Rather than face impeachment, Nixon resigned. (Nixon, however, had far lower approval ratings than Trump does now.)....

Trump’s most likely path to reelection has always been to repeat his 2016 feat of losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College. That path remains open, but the past two months has made the chance that Trump could win a plurality or majority of the popular vote even smaller.
The matter is fairly simple: Impeachment is popular. The president is not.

Old people (mostly men) are killing us

You've probably seen the demographic breakdown of voters for Trump, Brexit and Johnson - all heavily, heavily weighted to the over 55 set.   Climate change denial (or desire for inaction) is the other big issue that, on average, owns the oldies.  

Now, I know I belong in the group I'm criticising, but I still find it very remarkable, and worrying.

I was thinking this morning, the whole inter-generational situation is so, so similar to the social dynamic during the late 60's regarding the Vietnam War and the peace movement.   American (and Australian) politicians were un-swayed by youthful protest marches, and the older generation would claim that the protesters were naive, self interested and needed to get a job and a haircut and let those who understood things more clearly (such as the threat of communism) work it out.    (Isn't it funny - in a sad sort of way - that with climate change denial, a core dismissal tactic is the very same thing used in the Vietnam War - "you young people, you just don't understand the danger of communism/socialism, and climate change is all a socialist plot.")

Yet, of course, in the long run, who does history judge as having had a better take on the situation, in the big picture, regardless of the educational attainment or naivety of many of the protesters?

I think we're seeing exactly the same thing happening with much of the reaction to Greta Thunberg and the youth protest movement around climate change (as well as in the marches we saw against Brexit in Britain.)   Sure, the protesters are not making any immediate gains, in terms of swaying politicians to action, and it's easy to say "but what is their actual plan?"  (Well, in the case of Brexit, that was pretty simple - just don't do it.)

Yet what's the bet that in the long run, history will judge the protesters as being right, in the big picture.   Climate change denial and inaction will be deeply regretted, as will (I am betting) Brexit. 

And I really don't understand why people - men in particular - who are old enough to remember (or even know about) the social situation in the late 1960's don't see that they are playing the same, ultimately losing, role in their cynical reactions to Thunberg and her popular youthful following.    

Update:  I now claim this in support:

The Irishman and Scorsese

I found The Irishman on Netflix a bit of a mixed bag:   the first hour or so is pretty great film making, and to me felt like the work of a younger director out to make a name for himself.   The middle section, basically the Jimmy Hoffa story, was slower but interesting (as I knew next to nothing about Hoffa), and I thought Al Pacino was really good and entertaining.  (As for de Niro and Pesci's performances: they are fine, but I didn't feel they had to put in much acting effort, given that the limited range of emotions the screenplay needed them to show.)

The last third (or perhaps quarter) slows down further, and ended leaving me feeling much the same way most Scorsese movies do - mostly entertaining, but with no lingering emotional effect, and therefore no desire to re-watch.

I have no doubt explained this before - Scorsese is talented enough in putting a movie together and he knows what looks good on the screen.  But I have never understood the obsession with chronicling gangster/mafia life.  Lots of critics note his interest in Catholicism (and I have seen The Last Temptation of Christ), but despite the ending of this latest movie, I don't think you can really say that redemption is major theme through his work.  Sure, he often shows what his characters lose by getting into crime (which makes him a more moral director than, say, Tarantino), but I still don't think there is much emotional depth or impact to the stories.  

Anyway, this one was worth watching, but it is really long.  I guess that does make it suited to Netflix, as several breaks are warranted.

By the way, despite what many have said, I thought the "young face" effect on the main characters worked pretty seamlessly.  My son didn't think it look noticeably fake, either.  Yay for technology.  

The usual over-reaction by both sides

I do tire of reactions after large and comfortable majority wins by one political party which hyperventilate along the lines of "this is a disaster for Party X and changes everything forever"; despite the fact that very often, within a decade, everything has reversed.

People might say "well with Brexit now happening, everything changing forever really is true for Britain", but I'm talking just about political control at the moment.

I mean, these are the figures for yesterday's election:

So the Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish Nationalist and Green combined vote was 50.4%, as against Conservative [Clown] Party at 43.6%.   I know you can't claim all Labour voters as remainers; but there is no doubt at least a smidgen of Conservative voters who are.   Hence, I doubt the election result really convincingly tells us much about how a second referendum would have gone, had the opportunity arisen. [For much more educated guessing about this by yours truly, see the update below.]

More broadly, see how first-past-the-post pans out?   43.6% of the vote gives the Conservatives 365/650 = 56.1% of the seats in parliament.   That...doesn't seem right.

Yet Imre Salusinszky, who I was thinking is a relatively sensible centre-right person, come out with this:

when asked why:

Yeah, not only win, but gain a 6% of the seats buffer, hey?    Imre's being saying a lot of things I don't agree with on Twitter lately, so I have to downgrade my opinion of him to "pretty stupid like most Conservatives these days."   I assume he is still a pal of Tim Blair, so what could I expect?

Anyway, the puzzle with Johnson is actually where his opportunistic brand of political views will take him.   What happens to Brexit now?  Is a soft one still the way forward, or is hard Brexit more likely?   No one seems to really know, but this BBC site explains that once it's started, it's still a process that has a long way to go.  What's the bet that the ageing Brexiteer in the high street has any clue about that?  

People say that his time as London's boss show Johnson as wanting to be a broad based populist:  he may be a lying, womanising, narcissist like Trump, but he is not going to let himself be beholden to the culture wars as are the American (and parts of the Australia) Right.    Or perhaps it's more a case that "culture war" means something different in Britain to what it does across the pond - with Brexit being Britain's culture war/identity issue -  but it doesn't seem to extend to things such as climate change denialism or gay marriage panic in the way American brand conservatism does.    And that, at least, is something to be grateful for.


[Update:  I've looking up some numbers to try to see what they suggest about what the election result means for Leave/Remain numbers if a second referendum was held.

I wasn't sure about the estimates for the number of Leave voters at the Brexit referendum who were Labour voters.  It seems the estimates are around 25 - 30%.  However, some of those at this election must have gone to the Conservatives already.  Also, it is a better informed electorate on what Brexit means, so presumably some former Labour Leave voters would have re-considered their position.   Hence, the proportion of those who voted Labour this time who would still want Leave remains very unclear.    Let's say 20% of Labour voters this time were still adamant Leavers.   That would put one fifth of the 32% Labour vote into the "leave parties" column - roughly 6% of the total vote.  So Tories and Brexit parties combined total of 45.6% of the vote would get boosted to 51.6% - almost identical to the Referendum outcome.   But it doesn't take account of several things if a second Referendum were held:

*  a leakage  of Conservative voters to Leave - this interesting article argues that 13% of "strong Remain" identified as Conservative in 2017, but at this election, they remained loyal to Conservatives because they would prefer to leave the EU than see a socialist Corbyn government.  That sounds pretty plausible to me, and suggests that (say) 5 to 10% of the Conservative vote yesterday could have moved to the Remain column on a second referendum - that's 2 to 4% of the total vote, and even at the lower estimate, could be decisive;

*  a likely greater turnout of Remainers, some of whom were presumably swayed by polling that they didn't really need to go and vote at the original referendum.  The turnout at the referendum was 72%; at this election 67% - it appears that the high 60's is now common for turnout at their general elections in recent decades, but it did hit 80% in the 1950's.   Thus a higher than 72% turnout in a second referendum would not have been out of the question, and I think there is every reason to expect it would have favoured Remain;

*  it's even been argued that demographic decline (that is, oldies dying off) amongst the original Leave voters might even have been influential in favour of a Leave win.

I think, therefore, that there is a pretty convincing argument that the election result is not the overwhelming endorsement of the will of the people on Brexit, at all.   Of course, Johnson would claim it as such, but anyone who factors in the British first past the post system and its inflation of seat numbers, as well as looking at the evidence listed above, should not make such claims.  Brexit got through its referendum on a 1.9% majority on a turnout that was big, but no where near a record for past elections.   There is reason to think that on a re-run, even despite yesterday's outcome, it could have lost.

Feel free to point out the error in my arguments, anyone, because I'm giving myself a pat on the back for this post.]

The Chinese are bad news for donkeys

That's not a headline I was expecting in Science magazine: Donkeys face worldwide existential threat.   (That is the headline in the magazine itself - it's not used in the article at the link for some reason.)

Anyway, the problem is once again silly Chinese traditional medicine, of which I have complained before as just about the worst cultural feature to come out of that country:

Over the past 6 years, Chinese traders have been buying the hides of millions of butchered donkeys (Equus asinus) from developing countries and shipping them to China, where they’re used to manufacture ejiao, a traditional Chinese medicine. The trade has led to an animal welfare nightmare, along with a threat to donkey populations, the severity of which is only now emerging. Without drastic measures, the number of donkeys worldwide will drop by half within 5 years, according to a 21 November report by the Donkey Sanctuary, an international equine welfare charity based in Sidmouth, U.K. The crisis threatens many of the world’s rarer donkey breeds and a vital means of transport for the poor....

Ejiao, in use for thousands of years, purportedly treats or prevents many problems, including miscarriage, circulatory issues, and premature aging, although no rigorous clinical trials support those claims. The preparation combines mineral-rich water from China’s Shandong province and collagen extracted from donkey hides, traditionally produced by boiling the skins in a 99-step process done at specific times of the year. Once reserved for China’s elites, ejiao is now marketed to the country’s booming middle class, causing demand to surge. One producer, Dong’e Ejiao in Liaocheng, China, touts it as “a creation of heaven and earth” that’s now passing “from the royal tribute to the home of ordinary people.”

Despite government incentives for new donkey farmers, farms in China can’t keep up with the exploding demand, which the Donkey Sanctuary currently estimates at 4.8 million hides per year. Donkeys’ gestation period is one full year, and they only reach their adult size after 2 years. So the industry has embarked on a frenzied hunt for donkeys elsewhere. (Importing hides is not illegal in China, and the import tax was lowered from 5% to 2% last year.) This has triggered steep population declines. In Brazil, the population dropped by 28% between 2007 and 2017, according to the new report.

Thrown into a volcano

Hope this isn't insensitive to the recent horrible deaths and injury that happened in New Zealand, but it was just a coincidence that I found this video last night.

I've taken to watching some Youtube travel bloggers - mainly ones who are based in Japan - and marvelling at the high quality videos they can produce.   (Modern video equipment is minor miracle, I reckon.)

One of them is a woman from Brisbane, who has been posting videos for quite a while under her channel Currently Hannah.   She seemingly now makes a living from this alone, and her videos have covered trips to various overseas places, not just Japan.  

I think she is quite likeable, but is inclined to be too dramatic and too talky at times.  Her Japanese boyfriend seems good natured, but I do wonder if they will last.

Anyway, last night I was watching one of her videos she made in Indonesia, where she goes to a volcano and sees a festival in which possessions are thrown into it in the hope of some good luck or benefit in return.   Yet, it's also accepted for people to go somewhat done into the volcano and try to retrieve what's thrown into it.   (And that includes chickens, which seemingly survive the ordeal, but also at least one goat, which seemed to have survived too.  They all benefit from people not being able to throw them far enough out from edge of the volcano.)   It's really weird.  Have a watch:



I quite like Poalo from Tokyo as a video blogger too, although his are all pretty much all based in Japan.  He seems a ridiculously happy and upbeat type of guy - his family from the Philippines originally but he grew up in California and then moved to Japan.  His life story is really quite interesting, if you have 25 minutes to spare to listen to him explain it.

My British election outcome explanation

Old people like clowns.

(Explains USA as well, although there it expands to "young, dumb, old and paranoid people like clowns.)  

Must be time for another "Rule for Life"

This is, I would have thought, an obvious one, even though I know it is routinely breached in the name of fitness.   And it sprung to mind because of this story: 

The day after I wrote in the Guardian about how my life as a female cyclist, and Paralympian, led to me having reconstructive surgery of my vulva – all because saddles are not designed for women – a book arrived in the post.

The rule:

*  If an activity hurts a lot and causes inflammation - stop doing it.  Permanently, if it keeps hurting.

What am I up to?  6?

1.  Always carry a clean, ironed handkerchief in your pocket.  Always.
2.  Never buy into timeshare apartments or holiday schemes.
3.  If you have a choice, buy the washing machine with a 15 minute "fast wash" option.
4.  Always buy reverseable belts. (You know, usually black on one side and brown on the other.)
5.  The best souvenir when on a good holiday is a distinctive cup or mug, which is to be used semi-regularly on your return.  (Don't get in the rut of using the same mug daily for years - you need to rotate through all of them.)  Use will prompt good memories and make you happier. 
6.  If an activity hurts a lot and causes inflammation - stop doing it.  Permanently, if it keeps hurting.

Just reviewing some of my past posts, I think I thought about adding another, but never officially did.  It's good and valid, though:

7.  If a potential boyfriend or girlfriend says, with intended irony, that they know that they can be a bit of a creep (or difficult) - don't believe the irony.   Just don't get into a relationship of any kind with them.

Ho hum

I seem to getting particularly blasted with Christmas songs around my workplace this year, and I think it's turning me off the entire season.  Certainly, any TV Christmas special in which the people start singing carols is getting me a bit queasy.