Keeping things in perspective

For all of the talk of increasing electricity bills in Australia, I note that this month's bill for me (household of 3 adults) is $147 - a bit higher than last month, probably due to the number of times wet weather has necessitated the use of the clothes dryer.

According to websites I just looked at, this is a pretty average household price.  

But what about energy rich (and often Republican controlled) American states?   According to this website, they range from $80 a month to $150, with an average of around $111 a month.  But convert that to AUD, and you get - $153 average.  (The more expensive American states - and some seem to be Republican too - of $150 a month works out to $207 AUD.)  

Now, to make a fair comparison, we cook on a stove top with bottled gas (one 9 lt bottle seems to last 2 to 3 months), but a replacement gas bottle is still are costing under $30.   So I probably have another $150 or so in gas expenses, per year, or about $12 a month extra in non-electric "utility" costs.   

My point is:   for all of the talk of "soaring" gas and electricity costs coming our way, if you want to compare our cost of electricity with the "land of the free" (which has multiple power sources, including nuclear)  - we're not doing too bad.   Pretty comparable, really, but you wouldn't get that impression when reading the media.

Next up:  don't get me started on people who don't like to switch what they eat when there's a temporary price rise due to floods and other factors.   Yes, a $5.50 iceberg lettuce is expensive - but a butter leaf one in the same supermarket is still selling for $3.    (I just checked!)  Seriously, iceberg lettuce is a bit crap anyway, save for a very small number of dishes.   But if they are expensive for a time, just avoid them, it's not going to hurt to eat another type of lettuce.

There is nearly always something that is still good, seasonal, value in the shops.  I've noticed that potatoes and apples (and eggplants) are still cheap and plentiful.  Sure, it's a pity if you want to use tomatoes at the moment, but they'll come down in price again soon enough.   If you normally use them in a casserole, a can of crushed tomatoes from Italy is still ridiculously cheap and serves the same purpose.

More fantastic American administration

Another story of terrible American administration, this time at their airport.  

An Australian traveller was denied entry to the US, cavity searched, sent to prison alongside criminals and subsequently deported 30 hours after arriving, due to a little-known entry requirement for the US.

This part is the key problem: 

Dunn said he had since suffered panic attacks over his detention and called on Dfat to clearly advertise the entry rule on its Smartraveller website so others can avoid his experience.

US government websites explaining eligiblity for the visa waiver program, which Smartraveller advises Australians to consult, do not mention the specific entry rule that resulted in Dunn being deported.

 

An accurate take

 

The American criminal law system seems kind of 3rd world

This reminds me of the recent publicity given to people in the US wrongly arrested for "stealing" hire cars that they actually returned.    I posted briefly about it here.

This guy's story seems incredible - and again, a large part of the problem seems to be the way people can be arrested in one state and held for many days not knowing what the charge (from another state) is really about.

I just don't imagine that happening to anything like the same extend in Australia.   Fewer states is a good thing, I think.

Warped priorities

As for this related news:

 Elon Musk has a "right not to consummate" his acquisition of Twitter and a "right to terminate the merger agreement," according to a letter from his lawyers to the Twitter general counsel Vijaya Gadde sent Monday morning.

he should just pay the billion dollar termination fee and walk away.   It's very clear he didn't think it through, and/or didn't read the contract (with its apparent waiver of due diligence) carefully enough.

 

A complicated aspect of climate change

There's a twitter thread that's worth a read, even if it is still a little unclear on what it might mean for climate on land around the world:

 

Someone in comments asks this:

It all makes a mockery of having any confidence about the economic effect of climate change in the long term.   

Update:  here's the easier to follow summary by Prof England at The Conversation.

I wouldn't even bother with nuclear submarines, actually

 

How to look competent

 Hilariously, Currency Lad posted after the election that Penny Wong's sexuality and serious demeanour would mean she would go over like a lead balloon with socially conservative nations in the region (Fiji, etc.)

In fact, the optics of all of her meetings have been extremely impressive, with nary a leader frowning and saying "but you're a lesbian!"

Perhaps CL needs to re-evaluate his political judgement?  Ha ha ha.  As if.  It's yearning for a DLP style government and 1950's social mores forever, as far as he's concerned.

Another significant double slit experiment?

This is interesting.  The headline sums it up:

Neutrons In The Double-Slit Experiment Really Do Individually Take Both Paths

Here's another article explaining it, at Science Daily. 

And this is from the "discussion" section of the paper itself:

It should be emphasized that all results are completely
consistent with standard quantum theory. The conclusion that
particles can be physically delocalized between paths in which
no strong interactions occur and that the localization or delo-
calization is decided by a measurement that takes place after
the particles have propagated along the paths is a possibility
inherent in the paradoxical aspects of quantum superpositions.
In the present paper, we demonstrated that standard quantum
theory predicts precise and specific effects of the presence of
a particle in a path, even when the particle only undergoes a
very weak interaction on its way though the interferometer.

Now, this reminds me: back in 2017 I spotted on arXiv a Chinese paper that I thought sounded significant, regarding the paths of photons in a double slit experiment.   (It was pretty memorable for the inclusion of a very Chinese dragon illustration!)  Yet, I don't think anyone - like, no pop science site or Youtubing physicist - ever commented on it.

But now that I re-read it - I think it was basically arguing the same thing as this neutron experiment.

Maybe I should drop a line to Sabine Hossenfelder and ask her to discuss both experiments!

Now that's a headline you don't see every day...

Especially from Singapore!:

Man attacked with 20cm tactical harpoon in his back at Ming Arcade

 

How self-abasing can he get?

I missed this from last week:

Sky News host James Morrow has blamed the poor police response during the Texas school shooting on the left’s demonisation of “masculine virtues”.

“I don’t want to make it political, but it is coming from the left to de-mythologise heroes, to take heroes down a peg and say: ‘don’t be heroic’,” Mr Morrow said.

“And also, let’s be really frank about it, to take down masculine virtues.

“These masculine virtues of manliness and protection have also been taken down by the left.

“It’s the same sickness that produces the shooting.”

On being optimistic enough to have children

I strongly agree with the argument set out by Ezra Klein in the New York Times:  climate change is a very serious and urgent issue, but it is nonetheless lacking perspective to think that it is such a dire problem that adults who would otherwise like to have kids should decide not to have any.

Hurt ego

I saw that Tim Wilson was trending on Twitter, and found out that this is why (from The Age yesterday):

Wilson, who before parliament was a policy director at the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs, and a human rights commissioner, plans to go hiking in Yosemite National Park with his husband Ryan. He also plans to set up his own climate and energy advisory business, utilising his experience as a junior minister for industry, energy and emissions reduction.

“I’m very open about the journey that I’ve gone through, from foetal position crying on Sunday morning through to seeing a psychologist yesterday,” Wilson told an energy efficiency conference in the week after his electoral defeat.

There is, shall we say, not an awful lot of sympathy for Ego Boy being shown on Twitter.

Crazy old women

Jeez, how absolutely loopy is Bettina Arndt, not to mention ungrateful to a government which thought they were on her side of the culture wars and gave her an AM.

The crazy old Cassie, at the blog for ageing Australian wingnuts and Putin admirers, has extracted a part from an email Bettina sent out to her subscribers after the election:

It wasn’t that the Morrison government didn’t listen to women. This pussy-whipped crew sniveled, and groveled, like a cuckolded man clutching desperately at the ankles of his departing wife. Remember the appalling apology to Brittany Higgins? Or Morrison’s forced smile when Grace Tame insulted him with her infantile side-eye. Or the cowardly act of allowing Christian Porter and Alan Tudge to be pushed out of their ministerial roles over unproven sexual assault allegations. Or the cringing over the parliamentary harassment report, denying the very low incidence of actual harassment and high rates of female bullying.

Beautifully put Bettina.

Ha!   Yes, if only the Morrison government had talked tougher to the women appalled at an apparent cover up of an alleged rape at Parliament House.   If only Morrison had refused to have any type of enquiry into a historical rape allegation against the nation's top law officer.   Wait - he did!  

You have to be extraordinarily stupid to think that Morrison (or, of course, Porter, who folded his defamation action) handled it appropriately or well.  

I like the way she uses the sexist term "pussy whipped" too - and when I Google that, I see she used it against the Shorten government - but she still got her AM from Morrison - what an embarrassment.  

Earlier this year, Arndt wrote a bizarre piece at online Quadrant about the inquest about the Hannah Clarke murder case - the one where the husband burned alive his wife and 3 young children - in which she claims to condemn his actions (well, duh) - but then criticises the attitude of the police officer that the murderer's nightly demand for sex was a domestic violence warning sign.   Yes, it's all feminism gone mad, pushing a man beyond his limits.  [Sarc].  Ridiculously, Bettina lists a string of other appalling and extremely controlling behaviour by the father that came out of the inquest, including threats to kill a previous partner - but she still concluded "I will now write an article about how this man was not given enough help."    You know someone has pushed the line when a reader of Quadrant responds in comments:

It’s not often I disagree with anything Ms Arndt writes, but she’s lost me on this one.

But that's Bettina for you.  She's absolutely nuts.  (As is Cassie - whose hyperventilating climate change post I might copy one day too.)

Some good news

Whoops, I originally copied a tweet that Sky News Australia was going to no longer on the WIN regional network, but it from last year and came into effect July 2021 by the looks.  Have to pay closer attention.

By the way, I wouldn't mind betting that, despite being as Trumpist as all hell, the Sky News at Night right wing blatherers do not like touching the guns rights issue in the USA, given that everyone in Australia would think them idiots if they promoted the Wingnut pro-gun views...

Christofascist watch

 

Must be time for some...Friday physics (dark matter edition)

This video is a fantastically clear and concise explanation of the search for dark matter, and pleasingly, has an Australian connection.  (I think I had heard about a new dark matter detector being set up in Victoria before, but here we get to see what stage it is at, and a super clear explanation of how dark matter detectors work.)

Waiting for the Republican "too many doors" analysis

Tulsa police confirmed that a shooter killed four people at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Okla., on Wednesday.

"Four innocents and one shooter" are dead, Jonathan Brooks of the Tulsa police department said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The link.

Update:  So now we know.  A guy upset with his back surgeon goes out and buys a rifle and shoots up the doctors, a receptionist and an innocent by-stander.  No discussion of security in the building, although I would suspect most large medical centres in the US would have an armed security guard.   

Anyway, I thought this Trevor Noah piece, made before this latest shooting, effectively satirised the "it's anything but guns" pathetic Republican arguments.

Details becoming necessary to maintain long term political support

I wrote this in November 2021, and in light of the change of government, I think it has become even more relevant:

The transition to clean energy - time for specifics, isn't it?? 

I mean, there is a strong tendency for the media to jump to catastrophic predictions about what may be (relatively) short term energy problems:

Australia is on the "precipice" of a UK-style energy crisis that could send many of its power retailers broke and fuel a surge of households unable to pay their bills, a leading expert has warned. 

And:

I also do not doubt stories that the easily scared - like old pensioners - will take such headlines as a sign that they need to risk ill health by not turning on any heat in their homes out of fear of the cost.

But part of the reason for such stories having legs is the impression (well justified I think) that while governments are busy committing to reduce emissions, there is scant detailed explanation of how we are going to get there.

But with the timelines being talked about, that's just not good enough now, surely?  

I don't think that everything can be worked out right now, but my post made suggestions as to what I think government could do to help, but seemingly isn't.

 

More on that Sussman trial

This was written back in September, when the indictment was first brought:

While lying to the FBI is a serious crime, deserving of attention and in many cases prosecution, this charge looks dicey. The entire case comes down to Baker’s recollection. But Baker himself testified to Congress in October 2018 that he did not recall whether or not Sussman had represented himself as representing Clinton or the Democratic Party. The entire case turns on the allegation that Sussman lied to Baker. Yet Baker — essentially the only direct witness to the purported lie — testified three years ago that he could not remember what Sussman said about the key issue in the case.

As troubling as that is, it’s not even the biggest problem for the prosecution. The indictment discloses that, when Baker spoke to an FBI assistant director about the meeting with Sussman, the assistant director’s notes state that Sussman “Represents DNC, Clinton Foundation, etc.” So the crux of the indictment is that Sussman didn’t disclose to the FBI that he represented Clinton — but the FBI knew he represented Clinton anyway. That, folks, is what we prosecutors call a problem.

You should read the whole article.

Oh, and Bill Barr calling the Russiagate investigation "seditious" - he is going down in history as the worst Attorney General the nation has ever had, no doubt about it.  

Update: