Don't forget climate change

What with all the disease, violence and protests, it's easy to overlook the bigger picture.

This study has very big implications for civil engineering (including what is presumably the difficult job of retrospectively increasing urban drainage to cope with peak flows):

The likelihood of intense storms is rising rapidly in North America, and the study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, projects big increases in such deluges.

"The longer you have the warming, the stronger the signal gets, and the more you can separate it from random natural variability," said co-author Megan Kirchmeier-Young, a climate scientist with Environment Canada.

Previous research showed that global warming increases the frequency of extreme rainstorms across the Northern Hemisphere, and the new study was able to find that fingerprint for extreme rain in North America.

"We're finding that extreme precipitation has increased over North America, and we're finding that's consistent with what the models are showing about the influence of human-caused warming," she said. "We have very high confidence of extreme precipitation in the future."

Look at this graph:

From the report again (bear in mind the temperature scale is F, not C):

At the current level of warming caused by greenhouse gases—about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above the pre-industrial average—extreme rainstorms that in the past happened once every 20 years will occur every five years, according to the study. If the current rate of warming continues, Earth will heat up 5.4 degrees by 2100. Then, 20, 50 and 100-year extreme rainstorms could happen every 1.5 to 2.5 years, the researchers concluded.

Nut noted

Yeah, I like highlighting how nutty and isolated in their own fantasy world are Australian wingnuts.  So sue me.

This is the same guy, remember, who had to stop himself from freaking out over a teacher doing a foot tap instead of a handshake with his son. Lives in a deeply unpleasant mental landscape of continual outrage and theorising that his side is about to win the dis-aster that is the culture war.   A nut, basically.

Keynes Vs Friedman

A biographer of Keynes has some interesting things to say about him, and the comparison with Friedman, in an interview at the Washington Post:

...Keynes himself never wanted to be remembered as a deficit therapist. He was a social thinker who was concerned with the great problems of his day: war and economic depression. And I think he would be very troubled by the idea that government spending on anything at all became the hallmark of his legacy in the economics profession.  ...

I think he would be perplexed by what we deem to be political battles in the United States. He thought economic policy was the central political battleground for social justice, and the way economics has become technocratized and hived off from mainstream politics as an arena for specialists would have both excited and frightened him. He would be terrified by the idea that central political questions about equality and inequality have become the terrain of experts who essentially rule in favor of inequality, regardless of which political party is in charge. Keynes viewed inequality as a very dangerous thing — it’s something that preoccupied him when he wrote “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” and “The General Theory” — his two masterpieces.

OK, here's the bit with the comparison:

The conventional understanding now places Keynes, a champion of stimulus, against Milton Friedman, who came after him and is seen as a champion of austerity. Is that a useful binary?

I think we lose track of the fact that Friedman and Keynes had different social visions. They weren’t just arguing across the generations about which policies would best create the same desired result. They were arguing about what kind of world they wanted to live in. And the mathematicization of economics in the 20th century really obscures this deeper ideological conflict, often by design. Keynes wanted everyone to live in the Bloomsbury of 1913, having their hair cut by Virginia Woolf while drinking champagne and debating post-impressionism with Lytton Strachey. Friedman wanted to preserve these activities as the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Why be rich if you can’t live a better life than the masses? To which Keynes would counter: Who cares about the masses when you are drinking champagne with Virginia Woolf?

So literal champagne socialism?

It depends on which Keynes you’re talking to, but by the end of his life, I think that’s about right. Keynes had a complicated relationship with the word “socialism.” He was ferociously critical of the Soviet Union. But he also thought the socialist Labour governments in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s were much too timid and insufficiently committed to economic justice for working people. In the United States, we remember Keynes for deficit spending, but his most comprehensive policy victory was the establishment of the National Health Service in Britain. He was the financial architect of socialized medicine in the U.K. 

An air of desperation, Part 2

He, and the Murdoch family that employ him, are disgusting.

An air of desperation

The Republicans and "law and order"

An interesting long article at Politico about Republicans and their historical relationship with the "law and order" issue.

The subheading explains what it is all about:

A punitive brand of conservatism embraced by Trump and some GOP hardliners is rapidly falling out of step with public opinion.

A big plug for psychedelic psychotherapy

This is in The Guardian:

I head the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, the first of its kind, supported by about £3m in philanthropic donations. For 15 years, my research has focused on how drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT and MDMA work in the brain, and how they may be useful in treating disorders such as depression. Like the present pandemic, a psychedelic drug experiences can be transformative – of the individual – and of society. Both illuminate the extent to which the condition of the world we inhabit is dependent on our own behaviours. And these, in turn, are a consequence of how we feel, think and perceive....

The Centre was founded in April 2019. A few months later, Johns Hopkins University in the US announced a supersized version, floated by $17m. If you have read Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind or seen the first episode of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix series, The Goop Lab (titled The Healing Trip), you may be aware that such developments reflect a rising interest, and investment, in the mental health application of psychedelic drugs.

As I have indicated before, I am not completely against the concept, but I remain cautiously sceptical for a few reasons:

*  seems to be a lot of money involved looking for success, and while with a vaccine or drug treatment for a physical illness you can get very clear cut results, with a treatment of a psychological illness the boundaries of success are (I expect) a bit more rubbery (hence leading to overly optimistic claims of early success).

* the basic idea has been around a long time, with people like Cary Grant famously taking LSD in controlled psychotherapy.   Did those early users really find it had a long lasting effect?   Perhaps the other drugs being tried are better than LSD for this purpose, but I still suspect the issue will be how long term the effects may be.

* although the author of the piece is indicating it is only likely to be a treatment for the more serious cases of depression, as with medical marijuana,  I suspect there is likely to be a drift towards use and prescription to people with less serious cases of illness.

* A bit of a warning of his over-enthusiasm - the claim about how this could be transformative "for society". 

* the treatment featured on The Goop Lab?   Hmmm. 

A life considered

Youtube threw this up at me as a recommendation, and I am glad I watched it:  a short film about a 107 year old American woman who is still as sharp as a tack, looking back at her life.



There is one rather big surprise that comes out of it, relating to her marriage, but I won't spoil it. 

I watched it with my daughter, and at the end was happy to point out to her that her father had been right all along about the husband.   The point being, of course, that if I don't like one of her future boyfriends, she should pay attention.   She didn't say much in response...

Local mental illness

The always interesting topic of mental illnesses which are specific to particular countries or cultures is given a detailed discussion at BBC Future.

We get the old favourite "koro" (fear of the penis shrinking away), and a description of an outbreak in Singapore in the 1960's.   But we get a few other examples which I hadn't heard of before:

In the central plateau region of Haiti, people regularly fall sick with “reflechi twòp”, or “thinking too much”, which involves ruminating on your troubles until you can barely leave the house. In South Korea, meanwhile, there’s “Hwa-byung” – loosely translated as “rage virus” – which is caused by bottling up your feelings about things you see as unfair, until you succumb to some alarming physical symptoms, like a burning sensation in the body. Dealing with exasperating family members is a major risk factor – it’s common during divorces and conflicts with in-laws.

"Rage virus" seems to be the common affliction at Catallaxy, but I digress.

Then there is this problem, out of Cambodia:

“I would say that there are definitely instances where the meaning that is attributed to experiences actually changes biologically what that experience is,” says Bonnie Kaiser, an expert in psychological anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She gives the example of the illness kyol goeu, literally “wind overload”, an enigmatic fainting sickness which is prevalent among Khmer refugees in the US.

In their native Cambodia, it’s commonly believed that the body is riddled with channels that contain a wind-like substance – and if these become blocked, the resulting wind overdose will cause the sufferer to permanently lose the use of a limb or die. Out of 100 Khmer patients at one psychiatric clinic in the US, one study found that 36% had experienced an episode of the illness at some point.

Bouts usually proceed slowly, starting with a general feeling of malaise. Then, one day, the victim will stand up and notice that they feel dizzy – and this is how they know that the attack is starting. Eventually they’ll fall to the ground, unable to move or speak until their relatives have administered the appropriate first aid, which usually consists of massaging their limbs or biting their ankles.

 There's a lot  more at the article, so go read it.

Observed on Australia's "centre right" blog

If I were the Queensland Premier, I'd be getting the police to give Sinclair Davidson a call:

I mean, we know the quality of the deep thinkers there:

but it's still no excuse.

Woody Allen considered

I'm not exactly a fan of Woody Allen, as I consider most of his work to be overrated.  Yet I did think Crimes and Misdemeanours was very good, and I can see why his two biggest hits (Annie Hall and Manhattan) were liked, even if they didn't speak much to me.

But I still find him interesting, and recommend this review of his autobiography at The Atlantic.  

Surely a popular take

Why does no political party actually take this up as a policy?   It is as clear as day that the government and community has for years been struggling to find nominees for the ridiculous number and category of awards that are given out.

Panic mode

Why is the populist, climate change denying, culture war fighting Right so bad at risk assessment?   Look at Andrew Bolt:

He has no imagination for the effects of 2 or 3 degrees average global temperature on "civilisation";  but some (I think) unexpectedly violent rioting in London that defaces statutes and injures police and it's meant to be civilisation crumbling before our very eyes.

It is, I suppose, all part of the culture war mentality - that their version of the Right is the only side on the side of goodness and light and the rabble is always just barely kept from destroying civilisation.   You see it at Catallaxy all of the time. 

A mustard cream sauce

Seems odd that I have never made one before last Saturday.  (My wife has, but not me.)

There are a million recipes for it out there, but I settled on a simplified version of this, from Epicurious:

Ingredients

1. • 1/2 cup dry white wine
   • 1/4 cup chopped shallots
   • 1 cup whipping cream
   • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
   • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
   • 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

Preparation

1. 1. Boil white wine and shallots in heavy medium saucepan over high heat until liquid evaporates, about 4 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-high. Add whipping cream and simmer until reduced to 1 cup, about 2 minutes. Add Dijon mustard, basil and dill. Simmer 2 minutes to blend flavors. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. 
    

You might guess the simplifications:  used a finely diced half of a brown onion instead of shallots;  some dried herb instead of fresh.  Also, I don't think it matters much whether it's seed mustard, or dijon, or a mix of both.  I used dijon and some German sweeter mustard that was waiting to be used up.

Worked fine.  Not sure why the recipe says add a cup of cream and reduce to a cup.   I reduced a bit more than a cup. 

Anyway, it was very nice.  

Why didn't this happen within 24 hours of his death?

Axios notes:

Minneapolis has agreed to ban the use of police chokeholds and will require nearby officers to act to stop them in the wake of George Floyd's death, AP reports.

On Twitter today

I thought this was witty:

And if I were someone like Greg "look, I've been to America lots of times and racism is not a big issue" Sheridan, I would feel more than a little ashamed after watching the clip at this tweet:

Here's a link to the tweet.

Conspiracy watch

*  For those interested, Graeme is still making comments and I not letting any through, regardless of content.   He is sure, though, that there is some sort of coup against Trump being organised by the you-know-who's.   (Maybe that apostrophe is not technically correct?  But it needs something...)

To what end?  I don't think that matters to Graeme - it just always has to be the fault of the you-know-who's.  Even if they are the beneficiaries of pro-annexation policies under Trump they still want him replaced, apparently.   Huh.

* Poor old "my old friends won't talk to me anymore" Steve Kates is having another "the Left and the media! They're all constant liars and idiots and pure evil - why won't they engage me in genuine political debate?"  moment.  Of course, his post is headed by a Tucker Carlson clip, because Kates knows who to listen to as an objective and fair commentator on matters political.  The other 95% of commentators on TV are just pure evil liars, don't you know?  Their failure to support Trump and the Republicans is self evident proof of that.

Sinclair likes to let people post at his blog regardless of the embarrassment they cause themselves.  Did he never see that ad about how "mates don't let mates drink and drive"?    Sinclair gives them the keys, cuts the brake line, and gives the car a push towards the edge of the credibility cliff.  What a pal.

* Conspiracy and cult membership at Catallaxy is popular, though.   Again, it's a case of circles within circles, when you read things like this:

Oh I see.  Hadn't worked that one out - perhaps because I don't have a streak of paranoia a mile wide?

And, of course, it is possibly the end of the world as we know it:

Yeah, the progressive Lefies of the police forces bashing with abandon, I guess.

Self fulfilling police protests

Things are getting very weird in the US.  The original "black lives matter" justification for the protests seems to have broadened out to a general "why are all police jerks to everyone" raison d'etre due to the scores of videos of them unjustifiably roughing up protesters of any colour.

The latest example - the shove to the old guy in Buffalo who stumbles backwards and hits his head on the pavement (with blood obviously flowing out) - is very remarkable for the way the police just seem to look at him and don't jump in to offer immediate assistance.

But as if Trump would have any idea what to do to encourage widespread police reform.  As I posted recently (and had not realised before), the police unions had campaigned against Obama for (what I have read) were relatively modest reform initiatives.

As someone had written earlier this week (at Vox I think), the most accurate way to view it is that the police are counter-protesters.   Maybe they are getting really upset about how the ubiquity of phone cameras is interfering so much with their traditional tactics?

A unfortunate association

I've found I quite like Abbott's Village Bakery brand bread.  It is thicker cut than your cheaper loaves, and has "body" too.  Also seems to keep fresh quite a while.

But - every time I use it, I am reminded of Tony Abbott, which is off putting.   I would suggest a change name, for the same of removing an unwanted association in the minds of (probably) more than one Australian.

Thank you.

Google is trying to educate me (and succeeding)

Because Google knows a disturbing amount about me, it knew that I was recently saying how I knew next to nothing about ancient Indian history.   So when I was looking at recommendations on Youtube on my TV last night, it suggested a video about the Indus Valley civilisation.  

Sure, this channel (Cogito) seems made for (I guess) kids at about an late primary school/early high school level, but if you know nothing about a subject, there's nothing wrong with starting there.

I thought it was pretty good, actually:



I wonder, though, if the language is still a mystery, whether some of the claims of how they lived are really accurate deductions from archaeology, or not.

I then saw that they also dealt with the old Indian king Ashoka, who I mentioned recently, so I got myself a short education about him too:





Ah, the internet being used for the forces of good instead of evil and misinformation.  Warms the heart.