Some very random stuff

*   Hollywood's Edward Zwick (director/producer - and writer?) teased us with tweets about the movie making business for a couple of years, it seemed, while he was writing a book about it.  The book is now released and is getting good reviews.  He also has this interview at the NYT.   He seems a likeable guide to when Hollywood made better movies than it does now.  

You know, one thing that puzzles me a bit about Hollywood is that movies or shows that feature heavily story lines about how awful the acting/production business is - the most recent example that brought this to mind is the series Barry - always seem very convincing, yet the shows are made by Hollywood producers. Every decade we do have movies or TV shows which say "this business is awful and full of awful people", but it doesn't seem to change much regardless.   Isn't that a little odd?

*  I'm old enough to remember when shave gels first came on the market - I would guess the early 1980's? - and I have always liked them for the way they transform.   But I have been using shave soaps for quite a while - they are fun in their own way.  (And a tube of the cheapo Palmolive Lather Shave and a shaving brush is the best for travel shaving.)   

But a certain laziness meant that I have recently starting using gels again, and can now say for sure - Shick's Hydro Gel is better to use than Gillette's equivalent.  

*  Are modern sausages made much saltier than they used to be?  We don't eat a lot at our home, but that is often the impression I get - and I don't buy the cheapest, either.

Generally speaking, buying German style sausages is the best way to go - the brand at Aldi is especially good.  It's the only thing worth preserving about German cuisine, I reckon.

*  I take it as a sign that Elon is having a lot of trouble selling advertising on X/Twitter that my feed has been chock full of advertisements for "toe mushrooms" - nails with fungal infections - for a week or more now.   And it's not just me, I saw someone else say "why am I seeing 50 pics a day of gross toe nails?"

* There's a long, magazine style article from the Washington Post about the losses of Catholicism to Evangelical churches in Brazil - in particular, the isolated parts of the Amazon, where sometimes a priest would only turn up once a year.   All pretty interesting, although I didn't get to the end yet.

Tuck's incredibly shrinking credibility

Well, it was already in the negative range, but now it's in freefall:

 Update:  one of the Right-iest writers at Hot Air attacks Tucker hard.

Powerline calls him "stupid".

PJ Media says he is "wrong".

It's hard to find any right wing outlet that doesn't criticise this pathetic exercise...

Frankenrice

 Well, this is interesting:

Rice has been used as a scaffold to grow beef muscle and fat cells, resulting in an edible, “nutty” rice–beef combo that can be prepared in the same way as normal rice.

The study, published today in Matter¹, uses manufacturing methods similar to those for other cultured meat products, in which animal cells are grown on a scaffold in a laboratory, bathed in a growth medium. Using rice as the scaffold has the benefit of adding nutrition to the rice, with the beef–rice having a slightly higher fat and protein content than standard rice.

The team of South Korean researchers behind the project hopes that the beef–rice will find use as a supplement for food-insecure communities or to feed troops, and will reduce the environmental impact of rearing cattle for beef. “Finding alternative protein sources or making conventional livestock production more efficient is critical,” says Jon Oatley, an animal biotechnologist at Washington State University in Pullman. “It’s probably one of the most important things facing the future of the human race.”

I guess it gets over the "how do we make the texture like real meat" issue with growing a bunch of meat cells in a lab, but it still sounds like an expensive way to increase protein and fats.  And if the rice is sitting in liquid for a week, while cells grow on it, what sort of texture does it end up with?  Mush?  No, according to this, it's harder?   How does that work?

...the researchers found that coating the rice in fish gelatin and the widely used food additive microbial transglutaminase improved cell attachment and growth. After glazing uncooked rice grains with the gelatin–additive mix, the team seeded the grains with bovine muscle and fat cells. Then, the cells sat in the growth medium for around a week.

After the culturing period, Park washed and steamed the beef-infused rice as she would conventional rice. “It was definitely different from regular rice,” she says. “It was more nutty and harder.”

And I'm sceptical about the cost claim:

The team estimates that 1 kilogram of the rice as it’s made now would cost US$2.23, comparable with normal rice ($2.20/kg) and far less than beef ($14.88/kg). And the study estimates that hybrid rice will have a lower emissions footprint than farmed beef.

We will see if this goes anywhere, but I have my doubts!

Too smart to recognise the damage he's causing?

I happened to see that Jon Stewart's reappearance as a (once a week) host of the Daily Show was on YouTube last night, and he put in a disappointing performance.  I agree with most of the takes here:

Yes, he really lost me, and struck me as kinda stupid, when he mocked the answer Biden gave on Gaza at his press conference:  the very answer I praised the other day!  It was in fact another case of editting to hide the big picture - he showed Biden's caution at the start of the answer, while he was clearly thinking how to diplomatically express himself, and painted it as a sign of Biden feebleness.  

Really, that's pretty disgraceful, and Stewart deserves to be attacked for it.

I don't doubt he's smart, but seemingly not smart enough to see the harm he is doing in encouraging cynicism among voters who don't get their preference to see a younger candidate.

Time for some light relief

I thought that this sketch from last week, which was a "cold opener" for an interview Colbert did with director Christopher Nolan, was very witty.  He has pretty great writers:

Why let a lie be repeated so often?

We are at the anniversary of my post saying this, after watching much of Biden's State of the Union address (in which he painted an optimist picture for the USA, and which, economically at least, has been proved correct since then):

But the thing that struck me most is, once again, how utterly stupid the Right wing commentariat looks for their years of claiming Biden is virtually a demented nursing home candidate, all based on brief video edits of no consequence.

As I have complained many times, anyone who has first hand experience of actual dementia decline in a parent, if they are honest, knows that someone with serious issues cannot handle themselves in public speaking in the manner that Biden does. 

But the mainstream media has let the nutjob Right repeat it to itself a million times, and rarely comments how this is pure, offensive, propaganda that, by rights, should remove all credibility on every issue.

And here we are again, with the media frothing about his mental abilities.

AGAIN, so much of this is due to people not watching more than propaganda edits, or mindless media (even mainstream media) repeating of what Right wing propaganda says we should be thinking.   (And then they have the hide to do subsequent reports on "polling indicates voters very worried about Biden's mental health.)

The actual press conference is here, and what is remarkable is:

a.    the screeching, undignified, harassing nature of the press behaviour - by rights he should have walked out until they agreed to ask questions in an orderly fashion;

b.    more importantly, for the purposes of this post, is that  it's from about the 9 minute mark where he takes a completely off the cuff question about the Gaza situation, comes back to the podium, and speaks (off the cuff) in a completely cogent and compassionate and careful manner about what he has been doing and trying to achieve.   This has been completely overwhelmed by the misnaming of a leader - a mistake he been making for decades, according to some tweets I have seen, and which Trump has been doing himself repeatedly, and recently.

It is literally absurd for Right wing pundits to claim this is proof of dementia.   

His answer, as a whole, shows the exact opposite of how it is being portrayed, and it is an appalling failure of the main stream media to be aiding this propaganda rather than attacking it, as the New York Times has been particularly inclined to do (the promotion of propaganda, I mean).  As with "but her emails" and "Hilary is on her death bed" propaganda of 2016, the Right has become so enamoured of telling itself lies and twisting truth into pretzels they just can't stop now.   And MSM helps by not attacking it.

Here's the video: 

 

 

And here are some tweets of note on this:

The reviews are in...

....and they don't sound too good for the Tucker/Putin interview.

That's the impression I get from this summary from Hot Air.    

Of course, lots of MAGA types are still trying to hit their erections with a cold spoon about how brilliant Putin is (compared to Biden) in giving a 30 minute (or was it one hour?) lecture on his version of Russian history.   

But the e-vil Leftists think it wasn't a good look for Tucker:

And this:

 

 

The conspiracy nutters weigh in:

More:

 

Here's the nuance on classified documents

Gee, the Washington Post does some good "explainer" articles on political stories.  Here's one on the investigation into classified documents found in Biden's house, and why it is very, very different from what Trump did.  (It's a gift link, btw.)

Hardly surprising that idiots don't recognise a useful idiot

I should have taken a screenshot of a tweet last night which summed up the wingnut, wetting-their-pants-with-excitement, reaction to Tucker Carlson doing an interview as Lord Haw Haw/Tokyo Rose with Putin:   the Deep State/Left is going berserk over it because they know that if normal people watch Putin being interviewed at length, they will realise what a decent human being he is, only interested in saving the world with decent Christian values (and against the LGTB takeover of the West.)   This wasn't the tweet, but it's similar:

There were several tweets following along the lines of "yes, I have made a study of Putin speeches given over the last few years, and people just don't understand how reasonable and likeable he is."

But I find it hilarious that MAGA, culture war, "save us Putin!" types live in a world where they constantly imagine their culture war enemies as being in a permanent state of terror that The Truth is About to be Revealed and We Must Stop That; instead of the reality that we are simply appalled that so many have gone down a conspiracy rabbit hole and are too stupid to recognise their own manipulation by a murderous autocrat with no interest in democracy or stability in the West.

As has been obvious for years, the reason many of the MAGA Right is in love with Putin is purely due to culture war issues, especially on sexuality and gender, on which the Right has (to a large extent) already lost the war.  (Sure, they are making some ground on trans issues, but there's no way you could say that the recognition of gay relationships is at risk of going backwards in those parts of the world where they have made ground.)     

There are other reasons involved too, of course, as noted in greater length in previous posts like this one, but the depth of oblivious idiocy on Musk's madhouse (Twitter) has become bottomless, all aided and abetted by Musk himself.   

Trump and immunity

I thought this analysis piece in the Washington Post about the appeals court decision that Trump didn't have immunity was pretty good, so I'll gift link it.

You can thank me later. 

Apparently, about the only (formerly) significant lawyer disagreeing is Alan Dershowitz, who has long joined the ranks of "old fools for Trump".  

The giant expanding Liberal/National melon heads

I missed the first episode of the ABC's political doco Nemesis, but caught most of the second instalment last night.  

It was kind of depressing, being reminded of the rapidly increasing lack of charm, intelligence and competence that became the hallmark of the Liberal/National Parties over the last decade.  (I should watch the first episode, to see what was said about the universally acknowledged - except by them - deeply weird relationship of Abbott and Credlin.)

Of course, I still have something of a soft spot for the intelligence and frequent charm of Turnbull, while accepting that his high regard for himself was never likely to inspire a lot of loyalty amongst his fellow parliamentarians.   (Somewhat like Kevin Rudd in that regard, really.)    But the inevitability of his unpopularity with many on his own side just makes it all the easier for me to condemn him for cowardice for not  inciting an actual split in the party between those who deny the reality and seriousness of climate change, and those who, you know, have always accepted science and been vindicated year after year.   (It seems that instead of the conservative side having an actual split over the issue, we just have to wait until the gullible losers within it who backed the wrong horse 15 or 20 years ago die off gradually.  It's a pathetic way to ensure policy paralysis for an entire generation.)   

But one other thing I noticed was that (whether it was the camera lens used, the lighting, or just my imagination, I'm not sure),  the show made it seem that ageing conservative politicians in Australia often suffer from expanding melonhead-itis.  Look at George Brandis, whose head was always large, but now seems close to Moon size, and with flaky skin that makes him look in dire need of not only a diet, but a dermatologist.  (Actually, I think his skin has always looked bad, and it could be a condition hard to treat, so I feel a bit guilty for pointing it out.)  

But Barnaby Joyce - what an unhealthy looking specimen with a huge head and an utterly unapologetic approach to adultery with staff.   (He's just upset that he was the one caught out, is what it comes down to).   Warren Entsch was made to look big headed.   And John Howard's head seems to be expanding sideways.   

There are others I have probably forgotten.  Malcolm Turnbull seems to have escaped the fate, but there is something pretty typical about the physical way a lot of Liberal politicians seem to age (see also Peter Costello) that is pretty unattractive.  Too many dinners on corporate boards probably accounts for much of it.

Sunrise really, really wants a change of government in Queensland

I've been lamenting for years about the swing to Right wing populism very evident on Channel 7's morning Sunrise show.   It seems to me that there must be producers with connections to the Liberal Party now, even though you could say a similar thing from the other direction back when they spent a lot of time priming people to accept political nerd Kevin Rudd as a potential Prime Minister.    (Yes, and what a dubious call that was, too.)

Anyway, the appalling murder of a grandmother in the far Western suburbs of Brisbane (technically, a suburb of Ipswich) on the weekend by an African migrant youth got the full political treatment on Sunrise this morning, with Liberal Opposition Leader David Crisafulli given free rein to score points on it in an election year.   Sunrise itself, in the form of its (relatively new) host Matt Shirvington was completely into helping Crisafulli, with plenty of "this is so outrageous" comments in support.  

Crisafulla went on about a youth "law and order crisis" in the State and gave populist responses about howit was because the courts are being too soft, etc.   But anyone with a brain who has been following the issue knows its not as simple as that - dealing with youth crime is particularly complicated, given that there is obviously the question of family support is involved too, and that criminology research indicates that mere incarceration as a widespread response can lead to more re-offending as youth age, not less.  In fact, Labor in Queensland has been widely criticised from the Left for already taking steps such as allowing kids to be kept in watchhouses meant for adults, and has faced enormous difficulty in getting youth detention facilities adequately staffed so that kids don't have to be locked up in their cells all day when they cause trouble.

Don't get me wrong - I am somewhat sceptical of much of what passes for justice reform commentary from the Left.  (I am particularly struck by the continual lack of detail in how diversionary programs are supposed to work, even if fully funded, when it seems increasingly the case that it is hard to get adults who want to work in the field.  Especially amongst the indigenous, the idea that only fellow indigenous can deal culturally appropriately with troubled youth must surely limit the practicality of such schemes.)

It's also not as if it is always clear what drives crime rate rises and falls - in America, they have arguing about it for a decade or two now.   Criminology just seems an inherently complicated and tricky topic.

So yeah, it bothers me when either side of politics seeks to capitalise on crime and justice issues when we all know that, in reality, they are really difficult problems for any side of politics, and there is virtually never a simple or obvious solution.     

But I do think that, as an issue, it is one on which Queensland Labor is likely (but unfairly) going to lose votes.

One has one's doubts

In an article on the BBC news website entitled:

Neuralink: Can Musk's brain technology change the world?

we get this amusing comment:

The real trick will be developing a system which can interpret or translate the signals coming from the brain with a far greater level of accuracy. If and when that happens humans may be able to communicate with computers and other electronic devices in a way that is difficult to comprehend today.

Imagine being able to order a takeaway with your thoughts, or search the internet, or translate one language to another immediately in your head, just by thinking about it.

Musk himself has already talked about a future where his device could allow people to communicate with a phone or computer "faster than a speed typist or auctioneer". ...

Others are more sceptical: "At the moment, I'm struggling to see an application that a consumer would benefit from, where they would take the risk of invasive surgery," says Prof Vanhoestenberghe.

"You've got to ask yourself, would you risk brain surgery just to be able to order a pizza on your phone?"

Given the plentiful evidence on Twitter of Musk not thinking things through very carefully, the idea of a future version of him making super rapid decisions without careful analysis first sounds more dystopian than anything else... 

So about that Apple headset thingy

Some Tweets:

 

Some nuance:

On that last point, though, I posted years ago about WhatsApp or similar helping promote lynchings  and other panics in some poor countries.  Let me find it.  Ok, here it is.

I watched some reviews of the Apple headset on the weekend.  It's nearly universally greeted with "Well, this is amazing, but you could only use it for an hour or so due to the weight and eye strain, but it shows us the future.  Don't sweat it, it'll be really good when they improve it in the upcoming versions - maybe in 2 or 3 versions time."

As such, I still don't expect it to get a large following.

Right wing insane conspiracy watch. Brought to you by Elon Musk (sometimes personally)

Here's a choice selection from Musk's home for the deranged:

The other war in Russia

From The Guardian:

Russia hands out first convictions in connection with anti-LGBT law

On Thursday, a court in the southern region of Volgograd found a man guilty of “displaying the symbols of an extremist organisation” after he posted a photograph of an LGBT flag online, according to the court’s press service.

The man, known only as Artyom P, who was ordered to pay a fine of 1,000 roubles (£8.69), admitted guilt and repented, saying he had posted the image “out of stupidity”, the court said.

On Monday, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, sentenced a woman to five days in administrative detention for wearing frog-shaped earrings displaying an image of a rainbow, according to Aegis, an LGBT rights group.

The woman was called to the police station after a man filmed himself approaching her in a cafe and demanding she remove the earrings, and posted it online.

A trial will resume next week in Saratov, south-west Russia, of a photographer who posted images of rainbow flags on Instagram, the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported.

 

Wall sitting my way to lower blood pressure

Here's the Washington Post story about how wall sitting seems to be remarkably good at lowering blood pressure:

A recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that isometric exercises, like wall sits (also known as wall squats), can help reduce blood pressure even more effectively than other forms of exercise, including aerobic activity, weight training or high-intensity interval workouts.

The research is good news for people who struggle to meet physical activity guidelines that recommend at least 150 minutes of weekly moderate-intensity exercise, like brisk walking or bicycling. The new analysis found that about eight minutes of isometric exercise, three times a week, can lead to a meaningful reduction in blood pressure.

This means holding a wall sit for two minutes and resting for two minutes. Repeat for a total of four wall sits with breaks in between. A single session, including rest, will take only 14 minutes.

Given that I'm always up for the quickest and laziest way to keep my health, I might give this a go.   

Movies on a plane

On my recent trip I got to watch two movies and offer my brief review:

Barbie:   Yeah: cute, amusing, "heart-in-right-place" kind of movie, and Margot is drop dead gorgeous and very likeable.  It still felt a little underwhelming to me, but there are many worse movies that have been mega successful, so I'm not going to sweat it.

The Holdovers:   as virtually all the reviews say, it's a character driven period piece (set in 1970) that really feels like the character driven movies that came out in that era (or at least, before the summer blockbuster changed the movie business, seemingly forever.)   As such, it's a refreshing, welcome revival of the type of movie adults used to enjoy seeing.   Nonetheless, I did feel that the ending needed something a bit more cathartic than what we got.  Realism is fine, but sometimes we feel it needs more.  (I'm sounding a bit like Spielberg, perhaps, who obviously felt exactly the same way regarding how he handled Oskar Schindler's departure scene, which is nearly universally seen as a fault in an otherwise devastating film.) 

The future of floods?

I'm not sure how many people in the rest of Australia realise this, but it seems to me to be a pretty remarkable thing that the weather in Queensland this summer has not only been wetter than forecasts suggested (based on the general rule that El Nino summers are more likely to be - but are not necessarily - dryer), but the flooding that has been happening on a frequent basis has been so localised.

In other words, we seem to keep getting examples of intense, but quite localised, rainfall rates, causing flash flooding that only extends over a relatively small area - a couple of suburbs, but no further.

I meant to comment about this a few weeks ago when I woke up to see houses inundated in suburbs to the West of mine, but we hadn't even had any rainfall at all overnight.   

Something similar seems to have happened again a few days ago, where some northern suburbs were overcome with flash floods, but the rest of Brisbane had a pretty "normal" wet day. 

I would not be at all surprised if this is a pattern that continues in future, and it is recognised as a (more or less) unforeseen and problematic consequence of climate change in many parts of the world.

 

Krugman on Europe and the US

Here's Paul Krugman, in his witty style, looking at comparisons between Europe and America:

In my most recent column I had a bit of fun with Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, who has ominously warned that President Biden will turn us into Europe. I joked that this would mean adding five or six years to our life expectancy. When I shared Noem’s remarks on social media, some of my correspondents asked whether this meant that we’re about to get good train service and better food.

A note to younger Americans: We already have better food. It’s true that Bolognese remains infinitely better in Bologna than anything you can get here, even in New York, but you have no idea how bad American cuisine was in the 1970s.

And this:

I fairly often encounter people who believe that Europe suffers from mass unemployment and has lagged far behind the United States technologically. But this view is decades out of date. At this point adults in their prime working years are actually somewhat more likely to be employed in major European nations than in America. Europeans also know all about information technology, and productivity — gross domestic product per hour worked — is virtually the same in Europe as it is here.

It’s true that real G.D.P. per capita is generally lower in Europe, but that’s mainly because Europeans take much more vacation time than Americans — which is a choice, not a problem. Oh, and it should count for something that there’s a growing gap between European and U.S. life expectancy, since the quality of life is generally higher if you aren’t dead.

 A key point:

In real terms, the U.S. economy grew a lot more over those two decades — 53 percent versus 31 percent. But almost all of that difference is explained by the fact that the U.S. working-age population (conventionally, if somewhat unfortunately, defined as adults 15 to 64) grew a lot, while Europe’s hardly grew at all (and has been declining in recent years). Real G.D.P. per working-age adult rose 31 percent in the United States and 29 percent — basically inside the margin of error — in the euro area.