Why does this seem to happen in Sydney, in particular?

Say this just now:

Almost 1,000 recently completed apartments in Sydney’s north are at risk of collapsing due to “serious damage” to concrete in the basements caused by defective workmanship, according to the New South Wales building watchdog.

The developer Greenland has been issued with urgent rectification orders over the four apartment buildings at the Lachlan’s Line development at 23 Halifax Street in Macquarie Park.

The Building Commission NSW found there was “serious damage and spalling of the concrete slab at the joint locations in basements and the ground floor caused by defective workmanship” after inspections last year.

“This is a defect in a building product or building element that causes or is likely to cause the basement slab to fail, namely, to fracture and collapse, leading to the destruction of the building or any part, or the threat of collapse of the building or any part,” the rectification order said.

This is another example over the last few years of relatively new high rise apartment blocks in Sydney being found to have structural issues making them dangerous.  It would seem, from the list noted in this article in 2019, to be the fourth block that it has happened to.

What puzzles me is why these disasters seem particularly centred on Sydney constructions.

There was an ABC (perhaps Four Corners) show about the high rise residential building industry a year or two ago, in which they seemed to indicate that Queensland and other states had a more rigorous independent inspection regime during construction than NSW.  But surely these faults are related to engineers and certifiers who are engaged by the builder to check the work, too?   

I mean, I don't really understand how they can risk their professional reputation over certifying shoddy work that will come to light in the near future...

Some details on the Trump Iowa win

From the Washington Post:

Republican front-runner Donald Trump added Iowa’s most religious regions to his strongholds in Monday’s caucuses. He combined religious areas with the state’s lower-income and less educated counties to pull a majority of all caucus voters, more than double what he earned eight years ago.

Trump dominated the caucuses in the style of other Republican winners of the past 20 years, a pattern that works in Iowa but did not propel them to win the nomination. Meanwhile, Trump’s weakest performance was in the parts of Iowa that more closely resemble the rest of the country, with fewer White evangelical Christians, fewer farmers and more people living in cities with higher education and more income.

It's the details like this (as well as his continuing court cases, and his dubious health) which convince me there is no need to sweat about Trump winning another term.

The perfect "Labor isn't Left enough" faux crisis

I reckon this story:

 

...is pretty much the perfect example of an issue that only excites political commentators who have no perspective at all of what really does, and should, interest the broader public.   

I find it very hard to get excited about it.  

Why no one should be panicking about US poll numbers at the moment

Here's a useful article at The Conversation on the above topic.

 

Homing dogs

A propos of nothing, as they say:  an article in the Guardian about the remarkable homing abilities (some) dogs have been able to display.

Mealy mouthed Trump analysis, continued

Once again, we seem to be witnessing editorial decisions at the major mainstream print media to not go out of their way to offend people who would vote for Trump. 

This has driven some online commentators nuts ever since Trump was campaigning in 2016.  As it should. But it's pretty appalling that it is still going on. 

I offer these examples.

From the Washington Post, an article headed ‘Ordained by God’: Trump’s legal problems galvanize Iowa evangelicals (gift linked), we get these lines:

In several ways, Trump is an unlikely hero for those who identify as deeply religious Christians given his history of committing adultery, promoting falsehoods, and uttering vulgar comments and insults about women and people who cross him. But many have overlooked these indiscretions and questionable morals.

Now, it's true, the next paragraph speaks more strongly - but it is using the words of a commentator, not the newspaper itself, which, I think it fair to say, takes a "two sides-ing approach":

“The support has gone from begrudging to enthusiastic. Many evangelicals now see Trump as their champion and defender — perhaps even savior,” said Barry Hankins, a history professor at Baylor University who is an expert in evangelicalism. “Unwittingly, in my view, many evangelicals are welcoming authoritarianism and courting blasphemy.”

More from the article:

Standing outside a commit-to-caucus rally in Clinton, Iowa, recently, Paul Figie, a pastor and a Trump caucus captain, said Trump is “ordained by God.” He pointed to how he has seen Trump as being mistreated by the justice system and Democrats, equating the former president to a martyr. He dismissed the viability of other candidates, saying he was convinced that a higher power would put Trump back in office.

“Trump is the guy to be in there, and amen,” he said.

Trump has accused the Biden administration of discriminating against people of faith, suggesting at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, that “Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before.” Fact-checkers, however, have debunked that claim. Experts on religious liberty, such as John Inazu from Washington University in St. Louis, cite multiple major religion-related Supreme Court cases and say religious freedom is perhaps more protected than ever.

Trump has leaned into biblical comparisons. He recently shared on Truth Social a nearly three-minute-long video depicting him as a messiah — and played it at a rally. A narrator intones that “on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump” as a baby picture of Trump fills the screen.

See what I mean about "two sides-ing"?   "Trump often claims X.  Factcheckers say it isn't true.  Evangelicals would prefer to believe Trump."   It ends:

On a recent Sunday outside Walnut Creek Church in downtown Des Moines, Mark McColley, 71, explained why he is backing Trump.

“I am very disappointed that this country has been so brutal on Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s really brutalized him for the last six to eight years. And I don’t think that that’s warranted. I think he cares about this country. And I think that’s an important thing that we need to have.”

Over at the New York Times, meanwhile, we are getting headlines like this:

Election 2024 On Eve of Caucuses, Trump Casts Iowa as a Battleground for Victory Over ‘Cheaters’

The former president assailed his rivals before a rally crowd that braved subzero temperatures to see him. Nikki Haley got a boost from Maryland’s former governor.

And beneath that:

Democrats Fret That Biden’s Power Players Are Not at His Campaign Base

And also on the on-line front page, more "let's try to understand Trump supporters" guff:

How College-Educated Republicans Learned to Love Trump Again

Blue-collar white voters make up Donald Trump’s base. But his political resurgence has been fueled largely by Republicans from the other end of the socioeconomic scale.

In which we read  more mealy mouthed stuff:

Their surge toward the former president appears to stem largely from a reaction to the current political climate rather than a sudden clamoring to join the red-capped citizenry of MAGA nation, according to interviews with nearly two dozen college-educated Republican voters.

Many were incredulous over what they described as excessive and unfair legal investigations targeting the former president. Others said they were underwhelmed by Mr. DeSantis and viewed Mr. Trump as more likely to win than former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina. Several saw Mr. Trump as a more palatable option because they wanted to prioritize domestic problems over foreign relations and were frustrated with high interest rates.

And look at some of the voters they quote!:

Ruth Ann Cherny, 65, a retired nurse from Urbandale, Iowa, said she was turning back to Mr. Trump after considering whether the party had “a younger, dynamic guy.”

She considered Mr. DeSantis, but decided she couldn’t support him because “dang, his campaign is such a mess.” She wanted to support Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and political newcomer, but concluded he was too inexperienced and could not win.

“Trump has been in the White House once, and maybe he has a better lay of the land this time and will know who’s who and what’s what,” Ms. Cherny said.

Yolanda Gutierrez, 94, a retired real estate agent from Lakewood, Calif., whose state votes in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5, expressed similar views.

“I know Trump’s got a lot of baggage,” she said. “But so much of it is make-believe.”

Ms. Gutierrez, who studied education in college, said she had voted twice for Mr. Trump but had been leaning toward Mr. DeSantis because she liked his record as governor of Florida and thought the party needed a younger leader.

“But now I prefer Trump because Democrats are trying to find any way they can to jail him,” she said.

Are the editors at these papers a bit thick??   As I said above, online commentators have been talking for years about how important "framing" an article is, and how treating supporters of authoritarianism as just "reasonable people who need to be understood" is completely useless when they are under the sway of a character who, to them, is effectively a cult leader for whom reality doesn't matter, and for whom a large sway of self serving media barons (both mainstream and smaller) have pledged allegiance.  

The New York Times has also graced us recently with a column by Brett Stephens along the lines of "hey, you know I don't support Trump, but today I'm going to try to paint the best possible picture of him to explain why he still appeals to people."    

And Ross Douthat offered his opinion to try to held the Supreme Court rule that no court can find that Jan 6 was an insurrection attempt - he wrote a piece for subscribers entitled Why Jan. 6 Wasn’t an Insurrection.

He's quite the fool at times. 

Douthat has had plenty of pushback, including from columns at Reason and The Atlantic.  And on Twitter:

 

But it's still terrible that his trademark "excusing the authoritarian I personally don't like" comes under the New York Times banner.

Finally, while I should say that I actually do not think it likely that Trump will win an election against Biden, and think it much, much more likely that Biden might lose against an alternative runner, I nonetheless find it frustrating that the key US media outlets are still just "trying to understand" Trump supporters when they should be attacking them and not giving default endorsement to them as worthy of serious consideration that "they might have a point". 

UPDATE:

Cult members, remember to die for your leader:

Can you imagine the Right wing media machine going off its collective brain if Biden said something like that?   And for Trump, to the MSM, it's just "Just Trump being Trump".

UPDATE 2

Here's a couple of tweets making the point I did in comments (pretty much).

UPDATE 3:

Heh.

Co-sleeping, considered

I'm not sure I've learnt much that I hadn't read before here, but it's still a somewhat amusing article on how, until modern times, "co-sleeping" was quite the norm.  Some extracts:

Sharing a bed did not have the same sexual connotations that it does today. In the medieval era, the Three Wise Men from the Christian bible were often depicted sleeping together – sometimes nude, or even spooning – and experts contend that any suggestion they were engaging in carnal acts would have been absurd.

Sociable sleeping was so desirable, it even transcended the usual barriers of social class. There are numerous historical accounts of people bunking down each night with their inferiors or superiors – such masters and their apprentices, domestic helpers and their employers, or royalty and their subjects. In 1784, a parson wrote in his diary that a visitor had specifically requested to sleep next to his servant. Night-time tussles over blankets and hours of strange bodily noises tended to afford a certain equality that didn't exist outside of the bedroom.

Well, I think it certainly a good idea that an employee no longer has "sleeping right beside your unpleasant boss" as a work condition!

The article goes on to mention Samuel Pepys's diaries:

In addition to the minutiae of daily life and frequent lewd descriptions of womanising, the diary records just how often he slept in the same bed as friends, colleagues, and perfect strangers. And they reveal the many nuances of successful – and unsuccessful – bedsharing.

On one occasion in Portsmouth, Pepys went to bed with a doctor who he worked with at the Royal Society in London. In addition to laying "very well and merrily" together, presumably talking late into the night, the doctor had the added advantage of being peculiarly delicious to fleas, who consequently left Pepys alone. (It's also been speculated that the pests didn't like his blood – and perhaps this helped him to avoid catching the plague.)

Tucked up under several layers of blankets, with their nightcaps resting on their heads, Ekirch explains that well-suited bedfellows might exchange stories well into the early morning – perhaps even waking to analyse their dreams between their first and second sleeps. (Learn more about the forgotten medieval habit of biphasic sleep.)

These hours spent chatting in the blackness of night helped to strengthen social bonds and provided a private space to exchange secrets. Handley cites the example of Sarah Hirst, a young gentlewoman and tailor's daughter, who had several favourite sleeping partners for whom she developed great affection. When one of her regular bed mates died, she wrote a poem expressing her grief.

Oh, I don't think I knew this:

Though she had many beds at her disposal, it's thought that Queen Elizabeth I never slept alone once during her 44-year reign. Each night, she retreated to her bedchamber with one of her trusted attendants, with whom she would unburden herself and dissect the day's activity at court. These women also provided her with protection.

 

I'm sure Boeing really appreciates this guide in the Washington Post...

 Update:

And this amused me: 

This is a very odd story

Here's the New York Times version:

Secret Synagogue Tunnel Sets Off Altercation That Leads to 9 Arrests

Videos showed a tumultuous scene as young Hasidic men clashed with the police in the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitcher movement in Brooklyn.

Makes it seem like peoples from a certain part of the world share part ant genes, or something.  (I've been watching quite a few ant keeping videos on Youtube lately!)

Hiding in plain sight

Yeah, this a very appealing idea because it's both cool and kind of funny. (Not that the post mentions AI in particular, but I mean the idea that an AI could be hiding within a computer network used for other purposes.)

Made me laugh

Maybe this has been around for a while?  (Hope I haven't actually posted it before!)  But I think I only notice today:

 

Everyone likes a tidying mouse

House-proud Welsh mouse may be ‘tidying’ for fun, say scientists

The rodent was filmed repeatedly gathering objects and placing them in a tray in a shed in Builth Wells

And in more pro-rodent discussion, this is on the ABC:

Why author James Mackinnon says our perception of rats and their role in the Black Death is wrong

No one thinks this was a good idea

This is not exactly the world's most important story, but it is interesting how the New York Times running a 5,000 word opinion piece by a "queer" staffer explaining why they are sure - positive! - that Taylor Swift has always been queer and has been sending cryptic messages along those lines in her lyrics since forever has been hit with near uniform criticism from both the Right and Left.   I mean, even in the comments following the article, the great majority were saying "Really?  Why is the NYT running this fangirl speculation at such length and with no thought to how annoying it could be to the person whose privacy has always been invaded?"

 

El Nino and dry weather

I'm getting a bit sick of the media coverage about "why is this summer so wet across Australia when the weather bureau said it should be dry because of El Nino?"

I mean, I was sure that I had read often in the past that El Nino does not necessarily guarantee a dry summer, and it took all of one Google search to find a BOM page from 2016 that confirms this:

El Niño is often, but not always, associated with drought in Australia. But the drying influence of the 2015–16 El Niño was initially tempered somewhat by very warm temperatures in the Indian Ocean. From April to August, above-average rainfall fell over parts of inland Western Australia, New South Wales and eastern Victoria.

But by spring, the Indian Ocean was helping El Niño, resulting in Australia's third-driest spring on record, limiting growth at the end of the cropping season. A record early heatwave in October further reduced crop production in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Yes, I get that the BOM late last year did give a seasonal forecast of dry conditions because of El Nino, but I have always assumed seasonal forecasts are "rubbery" because they fall into the "bumps along the way" gap between short term weather forecast (pretty accurate, but only up to about 7 - 8 days) and long term predictions of certain climate changes, like increasing global average temperature (also pretty accurate because it's based on physics and the bumps along the way are averaged out).  

I thought this was pretty obvious, but media with its "BOM got it wrong - why?" style headlines are not helping much.

 

I think this article came out the day before the "hole in the plane"

 Boeing is asking federal regulators to exempt a new model of its 737 Max airliner from a safety standard designed to prevent part of the engine housing from overheating and breaking off during flight.

The story ends:

The 737 Max went into service in May 2017. Two of the planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max jets were grounded worldwide for nearly two years while the company made changes to an automated flight-control system that pushed the nose down based on faulty sensor readings.

More recently, Max deliveries have been interrupted to fix manufacturing flaws, and last month the company told airlines to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

 

 

Guardian, don't give me false hope

Are tattoos about to become uncool?

On the upside:  the writer claims that tattoo parlours are facing tough times, with reduced demand for their services.   (Seems just anecdotal, though.)

On the downside:  one just opened within about 800 m of my house, whereas before that I would guess the nearest would have been good 3 or 5 km away.

On the upside:  it's a bit like suicide prevention, it seems (sorry for the OTT comparison) - if you can delay the first urge, it reduces the risk:

Even a short delay in your first tattoo can set a person on a path of no tattoos.

Just over 50% of Australians get their first tattoo aged 18-25. And tattoos beget tattoos – most Aussies who have a tattoo have more than one. So if you make it to 25 without your first ink, you’re far more likely to keep your skin as is forever.

On the downside:  people in their 50's or older getting one under the influence of the younger cohort's fashion ideas seems to be a thing.    

And what to do about the head tattoo and employability?  Yesterday, I saw a guy, perhaps in 20's or early 30's, with hair trimmed on his head so short so that you could see that his skull was covered in tattoos, extending around to his face.   (Not to mention heavily tattooed arms and legs.)   He was Caucasian, and the tatts were not of any "tribal" design anyway, so that excuse didn't apply.   Is this a "don't bother employing me" tactic taken by men who want to live on welfare all their life? 

Another recent example of one of my big objections to tattooing - the kitch nature of so many tattoos as art - an attractive enough looking young woman, a bit overweight but not too much, with a prominent tattoo on (I forget where exactly) her upper arm or leg of the famous The Shining twin ghost girls - but with no face.  Seriously, what's the point of that as a permanent feature of your body?

 

More on that Catholic problem

At the New York Times (gift link):

Blessing of Same-Sex Couples Rankles Africa’s Catholics

It is out of step with the continent’s values, many bishops say, and threatens to derail expansion in the church’s fastest growing region in the world.

Also, as noted in a CNA report:

Catholic bishops in some countries, particularly in Africa, have expressed various degrees of dissent over the Dec 18 declaration, known by its Latin title Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), which was approved by Pope Francis.

The fact that the Vatican needed to issue a five-page clarification of an eight-page declaration - little more than two weeks after it was issued - appeared to underscore the extent of the confusion it caused in many countries.

Further down:

Last week, Burundi's President Evariste Ndayishimiye called on citizens to stone gay people.

Uganda passed a law last May that carries the death sentence for certain categories of same-sex offences and lengthy jail sentences for others - a move that was widely condemned by Western governments and human rights activists.

On a side note:   do the "anti-colonial" academics - many of whom seem to be LGBT activists (if not LGBT themselves) really expect us to believe that it is the past colonialism that has caused a persistent culture of harsh anti-gay attitudes in much of Africa?

Airplane issues

Feels hard not agree with the sentiment expressed here:

This latest accident seems particularly ill timed for Boeing given that the whole world, virtually, just watched an Airbus deal successfully (from a passenger safety point of view, at least) with being drenched in fuel and lit alight.  (Admittedly, though, I didn't realise carbon fibre could burn away so thoroughly.). 

Whenever Airbus vs Boeing comes up, I am also reminded how some of the "rah-rah American free enterprise/European socialism stinks" crowd at the old Catallaxy blog used to dismiss Airbus because of their "how can you trust Europeans working together to get anything right?" attitude.

A long term concern for Singapore

Singapore's mean sea level may rise by up to 1.15m by 2100, exceeding previous estimates

According to updated projections from Singapore's third National Climate Change Study released on Friday (Jan 5), the mean sea level around Singapore will rise even higher than previously expected.

The study is based on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) sixth assessment report.

Previous projections forecast a mean sea level rise of up to 1m by the end of the century, but this third version of the study has revised the figure to 1.15m.  

The study has also gone beyond the end of the century, projecting a mean sea level rise of up to 2m by 2150 under a high carbon emissions scenario. The projected figures are relative to the baseline period of 1995 to 2014. 

Even though it will take decades to happen, this is still a major issue.  But if ever there was a country that I would trust to make some good long term planning decisions to try to mitigate this, it would be Singapore.

Genes and sexual behaviour, yet again

A news story at Science about a new study, which is summarised adequately in the title:

Bisexual behavior genetically tied to risk-taking, controversial DNA analysis finds

Study also finds different genes drive bisexuality versus other same-sex sexual behavior, but scientists split over data and potential for stigma

The first couple of paragraphs:

Politically and ethically fraught, research into what leads to bisexual behavior or exclusive homosexuality typically sparks controversy. The latest study, published today in Science Advances, is no exception. By mining a DNA database of some 450,000 people in the United Kingdom, a research team has concluded that the genes underlying bisexual behavior are distinct from those driving exclusive same-sex behavior, and may be intertwined with a propensity for taking risks. This connection to risk-taking, the authors suggest, may also explain why men with a history of bisexual behavior still have a reasonably high number of offspring, albeit fewer than heterosexual men, possibly explaining why the genes driving such sexual behavior have persisted.

The work has drawn a mix of strong reactions. Some scientists called the findings valuable, whereas others found fault with the underlying data. Still others argued the research could potentially stigmatize sexual minorities. The result that bisexuality is tied with risky behavior, some scientists say, could be used by others to discriminate against, and further perpetuate false narratives about, bisexual people.

I would have thought that part of the problem may be the way "risky behaviour" is used.  Here further down there is a line:

These DNA patterns were linked to taking risks in life and being open to new experiences.

Well, seems almost a given that you could describe a key aspect of bisexuality as "being open to new experiences".  If that was the extent of the DNA influence, it would surely count as "unsurprising".

There are some other parts of the article which are of interest, though:

From one stark evolutionary perspective, sex without the prospect of producing children could be seen as waste of time and energy—behavior that might be selected against. Yet population surveys have consistently found that about 2% to 10% of people engage in sex with others of the same sex. Studies of twins have suggested such sexual activity is at least partly heritable, and therefore has a genetic component. And scientists have proposed several evolutionary theories explaining why same-sex sexual behavior may persist.

In 2019, a research team used data from the UK Biobank, a large genetic and health database of half a million people of European ancestry in the United Kingdom, combined with data from the consumer DNA testing service 23andMe to pinpoint gene variants linked to sexual behavior. In what is still the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) on this topic, the researchers found that having certain genetic variants could explain up to 25% of same-sex sexual behavior.

The 25% figure sounds surprisingly low?   I suppose the issue of exposure to hormones in utero could take up a lot of the slack?  

Anyway, the article notes that there is a lot of criticism of the study, and yeah, that issue of the use of the term "risk taking" is one of them:

Steven Reilly, a geneticist at Yale School of Medicine, and others note the use of the UK Biobank’s data itself is problematic. Most of the people in it are more than 50 years old and grew up during a time when same-sex sexual encounters were illegal in the U.K. and homosexuality was considered by many a mental disorder. That history of stigma could have affected how they responded to questions about their sexual history, he notes. He adds that because the risk-taking behavior trait used in the study comes from the answer to a single question, it’s not clear, scientifically, what “risk-taking” entails.

So, overall, sounds more than a tad dubious, but it is interesting if it does provide reason to definitely accept bisexuality as a "genuine" thing. They have complained forever that both straight and gay people get up their nose (not literally!) when they label them as just "gay in denial".   And this is blackly funny:

Important formative work has been conducted that aims to understand the concept of bisexuality in the consciousness of the general population. One study, using a feeling thermometer technique, found that bisexual men and women were viewed less favorably than all other comparison populations provided (including religious, racial, political and sexuality groups), save for injection drug users.31

I've always found this modern "disbelief" in bisexuality hard to understand - I would have thought that the ancient world of Greece and Rome, not to mention China and Japan, and various other societies at various stages of history, (not to mention more modern high profile individuals like Oscar Wilde), provide plenty of evidence that some men, in particular, were open to sexual activity with both genders, and didn't get hung up on categorising their behaviour.