And now for something completely different

Found by accident, here's some very innovative looking stage magic with (what looks like) laser light.



Very, very cool!

Things you never knew about whaling

This is one of those New Yorker book reviews of very pleasing length, where you end up up feeling that you have learnt a lot of things you didn't know before, with the added benefit that it seems hardly necessary to buy the book now.

The book in question "Leviathan", is a history of American whaling.

One thing it has taught me is that there was a fair bit left out of the movie version of Moby Dick:

Nor is there anything like skinning the whale’s penis, “longer than a Kentuckian is tall,” and wearing it as a tunic while you slice up the fat harvested from the rest of its body. Melville’s narrator, Ishmael, claims that the mincer of blubber usually wore such a tunic, in a clerical cut that made him look like “a candidate for an archbishoprick.” For “Moby-Dick,” Melville drew on scientific, historical, and journalistic accounts of whales, but he had a reputation for blurring the line between fact and fiction, and scholars have noted that for this chapter “none of Melville’s fish documents was particularly helpful.” In other words, he may have made the tunic up, for the sake of the archiepiscopal pun and perhaps, too, as a symbol.

It's a really interesting read. Go to it.

Revenge of the dolphins

Taiji officials: Dolphin meat 'toxic waste' | The Japan Times Online

Letting nothing get between them and a school of fish, the Japanese residents of Taiji kill hundreds of dolphins each year in a particularly gruesome fashion. Foreign Correspondent had a story about it in 2005. It was noted there that some of the dolphin meat is eaten locally.

The Japan Times story at the top says that this is a bad idea, because testing indicates it contains a very high level of mercury. All very unfortunate for the local school kids too, who have had dolphin meat put in the school supplied lunches.

The Japanese Fisheries bureaucracy remains hard to convince. God forbid that anything, even human health, should stop them killing and munching on whatever sea creature they like:

Tetsuya Endo, a professor and researcher at Hokkaido Health Science University's faculty of pharmaceutical sciences, affirmed the other doctors' condemnation of small-cetacean food products.

In a terse e-mail sent to this correspondent, Endo said, in reference to dolphin meat, "It's not food!"

In 2005, Endo published the results of a three-year study on random samples of cetacean food products sold throughout Japan, and concluded all of it was unhealthy because of high levels of mercury and methylmercury.

However, Hideki Moronuki, deputy director of the government's Far Seas Fisheries Division of the Resources Management Department, in an interview with The Japan Times, maligned Endo's study, calling it "misleading information." When pressed, though, he failed to substantiate his accusation.

The Japanese obsession with fish is a problem. As another Foreign Correspondent report (this one on massive Japanese overfishing of tuna off Australia and elsewhere) noted:

Japan has only two per cent of the world’s population yet Japanese eat a chunky ten per cent of the global fish catch. The national appetite seems almost insatiable.

Looking at Iran

Is Iran paranoid or does it really have something to hide? | Guardian Unlimited

This is a fascinating report on a recent attempt at PR by the Iranians for its nuclear industry.

It really sounds like a crazy government:

Petrol costs about 10p a litre, so Tehran is usually one continuous traffic jam. On Friday there is gridlock at midnight. And electricity is 70% subsidised. Seen from the air at nights, the capital burns as bright as any American metropolis. Because petrol is sold so cheaply, it makes no economic sense to build refineries in Iran, but because of the absence of refineries there is actually a petrol shortage. Rather than raise prices, the government has introduced rationing, handing out smart cards that limit most users to 100 litres a month. There was an initial wave of protests a month ago when the scheme was first introduced but those have since faded. The lull may be an illusion though. Many people have burned through much of the four-month ration on their initial smart card in just over 30 days. When the cards run out and people can no longer get to work, there is likely to be another bout of anger and frustration.

Geo engineering risks

'Sunshade' for global warming could cause drought

Read the linked story for some scepticism of one of the more plausible geo-engineering ideas against global warming (using sulphur particles high in the atmosphere).

Necks and blood pressure

How a pain in the neck could be bad for your blood pressure

This is an interesting little story about the possible connections (at least for some people) between the neck and high blood pressure.

I recall reading years ago in a Discover magazine (perhaps as far back as the 1980's) about some cases where experimental surgery on (I think) a nerve on the neck seemed to cure some cases of high blood pressure. I thought it interesting at the time, because of a relative of mine who has had high blood pressure from a relatively young age, yet has always led a healthy, active life style.

After that, I don't recall seeing anything about necks and blood pressure anywhere. Of course, it is not something I go out of my way to look for.

Homer's brain on display

Doh!

Very amusing to see that Homer Simpson's brain somehow made it onto a serious Chinese media report.

No one believes the Courier Mail?

Haneef caught in Groundhog Day, says lawyer | The Courier-Mail

Yesterday, the Courier Mail reported on what may have been in the undisclosed evidence that Minister Andrews has referred to in his Dr Haneef visa revocation decision.

It's pretty major stuff: that Haneef had come to the attention of MI5 because he was in contact with radicals they were monitoring. The Courier Mail repeats it briefly today (see link above).

I heard this mentioned on Radio National Breakfast yesterday, not in the "news" but in the "what's in the papers today" section.

Yet, that is absolutely the only reference to the story I have heard anywhere else. Instead, the dodgy , just created Indian "dossier" got all the attention, and even Keelty seems to dismiss that as not very important.

Why would this story be being ignored? Does no other journalist in Australia trust the Courier Mail? Why has no one mentioned it to Keelty?

I find this very puzzling....

UPDATE: a Google news search confirms that this story is getting virtually zero attention. It seems to me that there has to be a reason for this.

Annabel's fun

Tortuous treats of old Silver Tongue - Opinion - smh.com.au

Since returning to Australia, journalist Annabel Crabb's brief appears to be to write as Fairfax's version of Matt Price. (Always humorous, but still insightful, political commentary.) She's doing a pretty good job too.

More questionable than I expected

Angry Toxicologist : Fluoride - it's not just for teeth anymore!

The anti-fluoridation crowd usually sound a little too much like cranks to me to pay them too much attention. Surely I can trust all those dentists who want the water fluoridated, can't I?

Brisbane's water supply is still not fluoridated, (I think), and the post above at a Seed science blog makes me think those against it may have more going for them than I expected.

A viral mystery

Effect Measure

See the link for an interesting article about how little is actually known about the details of flu virus transmission.

Interesting way to kill time?

Digital archive casts new light on Apollo-era moon pictures

There's a project underway to get extremely high quality scans of the Apollo era film photographs of the Moon on line. From the article:

....the grain of the original film is visible when scans are fully enlarged. The most detailed images from lunar orbit show rocks and other surface features about 40 inches (1 meter) wide.

I wonder just how carefully these photos have been looked at already (there's 36,000, after all.) What's the bet that some people might will be spending hours looking at them for an alien artefact that been missed so far.

Steinophilia

The Cornish giant | Food and drink | Life and Health

I have always liked Rick Stein's TV shows, and in particular, loved his last series set about a canal trip through France. He has always struck me as the most likeable of the British TV cooks, even though his recipes still often seem to follow an English tradition of involving either significant amounts of fats and oils, or types of fish you don't get here.

(His recipes are, however, nothing to compare with the amazingly dangerous food of the Two Fat Ladies. I wouldn't mind betting that a large part of their audience were people who watched simply in order to be amusingly appalled at how much lard, butter, duck fat, cream, etc they could cram into every single dish. Certainly, that was the main fun I got out of watching it.)

Anyhow, the link above is to an article in The Guardian about him, and it informs us that another TV series is on the way. Great.

Dr Haneef Part V

I've been busy fighting the good fight over at Larvatus Prodeo's latest thread about Dr Haneef, concerning the evidence disclosed yesterday that, to my mind, will convince a lot of people to give the government the benefit of the doubt about the decision to revoke Haneef's visa. (And remember, there is more evidence not disclosed.)

I don't think the fact that Haneef tried to contact the British police is at all conclusive on the issue of removing "reasonable suspicion". It would certainly help in a defence of a criminal charge, where all you have to do is raise a reasonable doubt, but that's not what we are talking of here.

I don't want to repeat the various points I have made over at LP; you can read the "Steve from Brisbane" posts if you like.

But I will repeat a couple of points here. My remaining criticism of Andrews is this: it seems to me that he could have avoided the "overriding the magistrate" criticism if he had been able to show that he made his decision before the Magistrate made her bail decision. As it was indeed a parallel process, I see no reason why he could not have made it beforehand, and put in place some form of proof as to when he made the decision, but then not announced it until after the bail decision. (To announce it beforehand would have invited criticism that he was seeking to prejudice the case before the Magistrate.)

This is still, I think, a relatively minor criticism in the scheme of things, and it is more about appearances than substance. The Australian is completely over the top in its editorial about this today, seemingly deciding that having put the boot into Andrews previously, it would look too embarrassing to now admit that maybe he was on solid grounds after all.

I am also thoroughly sick of the attitude that there must be strong criticism of the government to be found somewhere in all this. Now, some commenters and even papers have suggested "well, why did the government let him go. He could have been released into the community and watched." Surely this is forgetting that we are talking a non citizen here (admittedly one who was doing us a favour by working in our health system.) There are high costs involved in monitoring someone, and inherent risk involved that terrorist action may be attempted and not prevented.

The critics are the same ones who wanted to see him released into the community completely exonerated. Now it's "OK, maybe there was reason to suspect him, but you should have kept him here anyway."

Maybe, various critics, the answer is that you never knew enough about this to be making such confident judgements. And there is considerable hypocrisy in complaining about Andrews not disclosing all information when, in other circumstances, people would be complaining about breach of privacy if the Minister was releasing all "protected information" that led him to not issue (or revoke) a work visa.

UPDATE: the argument moved from LP to Club Troppo, where Ken Parish seems to have surprised most of his mates by siding with the Minister (while, like me, being fairly mildly critical of the timing of his decision.)

Iraq optimism for real this time?

TigerHawk

In all the kerfuffle within Australia about a certain Indian doctor, it may have gone unnoticed that there is some pretty serious revision of prospects of success in Iraq underway in American at the moment. Tigerhawk's post linked to above has extract from a New York Times article by a couple of Brookings Institute analysts who have been there recently. It's interesting reading.

In fact, even within The Guardian there have been a couple of cautiously optimistic reports from within Iraq in the last couple of weeks.

Problem is, car bombs against civilian targets are extremely hard to stop, and while ever you have a couple of them going off and killing scores of Iraqis every week or fortnight, it's hard to convince us in the West that things are improving overall in the country.

Still, it would be rather interesting politically for Australia if, by our Federal election, the belief in progress in Iraq as a result of the surge has actually caught on.

Why dutch?

From 'Dutch wives' to old wives | The Japan Times Online

The Japanese call sex dolls "dutch wives". The link above mentions a recent exhibition of this product in Japan.

As to why "Dutch wives", Wikipedia offers an explanation, but I am not sure it makes sense:

Silicone dolls are quite popular in Japan, where they are known as "Dutch Wives" ('datch waifu'). Their name originates from the term, possibly English, for the thick rattan or bamboo bolster, used to aid sleep in humid countries by keeping one's limbs lifted above sweaty sheets.

I just thought that maybe it was internationally recognized that the Dutch were the world's first perverts.

But back to the Japan Times link, talking about the exhibition in Japan:

A completely bald man with a cane, who appeared to be in his 70s, entered the gallery and, after fondling a fake female, chuckles and remarks, "Their hair's black — I like that. These days young women all dye their hair."

The gent fired a series of questions at the staff, apparently hoping they would ship a doll to him disassembled so he could sneak it into his house. The man was encouraged to visit Orient Industry's sales showroom in Ueno, but he settled onto a nearby couch and wistfully gazed at the dolls.

So, if you are in Japan and see some old codger bringing into his house what looks like a series of dismembered limbs, there may be a perfectly innocent explanation. (Depends how you define "innocent", too, I suppose.)

OK, now that I have brought this to your attention, you can go back to work.

So that's what Griff's been up to..

Travels with Griff Rhys Jones - Times Online

Only the other day I wondered what happened to the British comedian Griff Rhys Jones, who I used to find very funny.

Turns out he has done a bit of a Michael Palin and been doing travel shows and books. As far as I know, they haven't appeared here.

The article above contains some mildly amusing anecdotes, but overall, it seems to me not very well written.

Dr Haneef Part IV

Some more points I want to make about Dr Haneef's case:

1. Talk about not being able to win with journalists no matter what you do. This morning on Radio National Breakfast, The Age's Michelle Gratton said that Immigration Minister Andrew's suggestion that he may now be able to release the extra information on which he decided to revoke Haneef's visa raises the question of why he could not release it previously.

Bloody hell. At the press conference when he announced the revocation decision, the journalists were immediately asking him questions along the lines of "well, now that you've found him to be of bad character, how do you expect him to get a fair trial." You can imagine the journalistic outrage if he had actually gone into the extra information in detail at that press conference.

The difference, Michelle, is that the criminal case is now gone. Bleeding obvious that this may make a difference, isn't it?

I also heard mention on some other news report this morning that Peter Russo had indicated there may be a "legal problem" with the release of the additional information. Is this because the Federal Court case will still be heard?

2. As the doctor's 60 Minutes interview: I note that a Sky News poll on whether he should get his visa re-instated is close to a 50/50 split. I think that a Sunrise one this morning had a majority against.

Subject to my normal major reservations about such polls, it still seems that the interview did not overwhelmingly convince the Australian population that he should get his visa back.

I wonder whether this is to do with a cultural difficulty in judging the sincerity of Indians. Their politeness, body language and facial expressions are different from ours, and I think the end result can be uncertainty as to how to "read" them. I have found this in my professional dealings with people from the subcontinent. I don't raise it as any excuse for clear mistakes made by the Federal Police/DPP; it is simply an observation.

3. I was initially puzzled at the Minister's decision on Friday to let Haneef stay at "residential detention", which was clearly inconsistent with the earlier decision that he should go into Villawood (at least if he ever availed himself of the bail that had been granted.) However, the reasons now seem clear: Dr Haneef met with immigration and indicated he would be leaving the next day, after giving an interview with media. There simply was not much point in sending him to Sydney prior to his departure, given the timing.

4. Any lengthy inquiry into this case would seem rather a waste of time to me. Investigations into who leaked what when there are many possible sources (and there were hundreds of police involved in this) are not likely to come to any firm conclusion. Evidence of mistakes being caused by wrong information given to the Federal Police from the British would be interesting, and might go some way to partially restoring the Fed's image. However, I think it is already clear that the stuff up was shared by the Federal Police, the DPP and its barristers.

But all this talk of it creating a crisis of confidence in the ability to handle terror cases is just journalistic overkill.

At worst, some guy who deserved to have his connections to terrorism investigated was detained for a month, and released after a poorly considered charge had been laid but then quickly dropped.

You can go on about the political "interference" in the visa revocation decision, but again at the end of the day some non citizen has had a working visa lost in circumstances which many people think unfair. I would expect that a significant number of other people have been rejected for visas in circumstances that may also be considered unfair by half the population if you let them see the information on which the decision is based. It happens. It is not the worst form of injustice in the world, or indeed the country.

People should just keep what has happened in some perspective here.

I would even include terrorism law supporter Peter Faris in this: on Friday I heard him suggest on radio that Dr Haneef should be paid a million dollars in compensation! Just overkill.

5. As I have mentioned me before, what annoys me about journalists' role in this is that they do not acknowledge that they themselves are part of the problem when they choose to publish unsourced leaks from the Federal Police or elsewhere. The media is a willing party to the attempted public manipulation of events; they have the ability, yet not the ethics apparently, to chose not to publish information which they must know is being leaked to prejudice opinion in favour of the police.

Yet it seems to me that the media will not criticise its own for doing this. Instead, it will only seek to take credit for leaking the defence material in rebuttal of rumours the media should never have published in the first place.

Journalists deserve the low reputation they have.

Changing their tune on marijuana

Medical opinion comes full circle on cannabis dangers

You have probably read newspaper reports of this latest study, but the news@nature version linked to above (which, annoyingly, will likely disappear soon) makes this point which I have not seen elsewhere:

The finding, which comes from a new study that combines results from 35 previous surveys, represents a significant U-turn from previous suggestions that cannabis is harmless to mental health. The analysis is published in medical journal The Lancet, which in 1995 began one of its issues with the sentence: "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health."

Now their tune has changed, with the latest study having this dire conclusion :

This suggests that 14% of all psychotic illness in Britain is caused by cannabis use.

Yes, how dare one question the Lancet on anything, hey.

Antibiotic harm

Prescribing of antibiotics to children still at a level to cause drug resistance, warn experts

From the article:

A paper published in 1999 reported that over half (55%) of children aged 0-5 years in the UK (the group of patients who receive most antibiotics in the community) receive an average of 2.2 prescriptions for a ß-lactam antibiotic like amoxicillin from their general practitioner each year.

Although a reduction in prescribing (and the strategy of recommending a 24-48 hour delay before filling antibiotic prescriptions) has probably resulted in about a 40% fall in consumption since then, unpublished data suggest that community antibiotic prescribing is again rising, they say.

I would be curious to know how much Australian prescriptions have dropped over the last decade.

How to make space tourists nervous

Three die in Branson's space tourism rocket tests

This could be one of the shortest commercial tourism ventures ever.

Continuing the rat theme...

Lefties like to call our PM "the rodent, " as if that is an insult. But really, have a look at this video of an endearing rat:



One disturbing thing I have noticed while looking around Youtube rodent related videos are some showing snakes being fed live mice or rats. There is even an extremely gross video of a giant ugly pet frog eating live mice. (I am no fan of frogs at the best of times.) I will not link to it.

I really wonder about people who keep snakes and such like that (apparently) need to be fed live animals. You can't tell me that a snake, lizard or frog can respond to their human keepers in the way even a rat can, so I suppose they are kept mainly due to some sort of appreciation of their looks, or more likely, just for novelty value. But when such a pet involves the owner regularly feeding them other live animals, it just seems that it must involve some desensitising to cruelty.

The Grim Purrer

Oscar the cat 'predicts deaths' - World - smh.com.au

From the report:

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours.

His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Yes, Oscar is a clever cat, but dogs are more useful in that they can detect cancer before you die from it, you know.

Teenagers of all species a worry

Adolescent rats enjoy cannabis more than their elders - health - 25 July 2007 - New Scientist

Heresy

Renewable energy could 'rape' nature - earth - 25 July 2007 - New Scientist Environment

Quote:

Ramping up the use of renewable energy would lead to the "rape of nature", meaning nuclear power should be developed instead. So argues noted conservation biologist and climate change researcher Jesse Ausubel in an opinion piece based on his and others' research.

Save it for the gin and tonic

Lemon douche is a cervical cancer risk

From the report:

Lead researcher Dr Atiene Sagay, from Jos University in Nigeria, told the International AIDS Society conference in Sydney that women douched to avoid infection but it was totally ineffective.

"People suggested it could be a microbicide (but) we know much better than that now," Dr Sagay said.

He said the practice was not an effective contraceptive measure either, as semen kills the citric acid.

Dr Haneef, part III

New English PM Gordon Brown is proposing doubling that country's current limit for detaining terror suspects without charge from 28 to 56 days:

Mr Brown said an extended detention limit was necessary to sift through the volume of evidence needed in terrorism cases...

Mr Brown said that extensions beyond 28 days would be subject to scrutiny by a high court and by parliament in specific cases.

Quite the contrast to Australia, where a frenzy of complaint erupted in certain quarters over Dr Haneef being kept in custody for a fortnight, and only then with the apparent reluctance of the court, which was only approving extensions for days, not weeks, at a time.

The Australian terrorism detention laws may have no set time limit for total detention. But in practice, as it is supervised by a court from the start, there is no realistic prospect of it being endless. To think otherwise means you have to be paranoid enough to believe that the Federal government could control a State appointed Magistrate.

The DPP today advised that it would review the evidence relating to the criminal charge against Dr Haneef. Even if the charge is dropped soon, as many suspect it will, it should be no reason to question the reasonableness of our pre-charge detention laws, which the British example indicates are far from draconian by international standards.

Dr Haneef's lawyer Peter Russo says that, apart from the issue of reviewing the criminal charge, the immediate issue is getting his client out of custody. I saw Dr Haneef's cousin, here to visit him, confirming on TV tonight that the doctor is being kept alone in his cell for 23 hours a day.

I will say it again: as far as I can tell, if Dr Haneef had arranged for the $10,000 bail surety to be paid (and even members of the public were offering to do this, although I am not sure if that is acceptable to the court), he could have avoided being in a cell in a real jail for 23 hours a day, and been kept in the much more relaxed form of detention in the immigration detention centre in Sydney, where he could mix with people who are not criminals and have had access to many recreational facilities not given to any type of prisoner.

If he is stressing out over the kind of detention he is being kept in now, it appears to be his own decision, and one that makes less and less sense the longer the review/trial process goes on.

All you wanted to know about bonobos

Our Far-Flung Correspondents: Swingers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

This is a long (12 page!) article from the New Yorker about bonobos, the (supposedly) sex-loving hippy apes of the Congo.

As you may expect, all is not what it seems. The first page of the article is very amusing, pointing out the seriously weird attitude that some people have of bonobos as societal role models. At a fund raiser for bonobo conservation, the writer meets "Wind":

I spoke to a tall man in his forties who went by the single name Wind, and who had driven from his home in North Carolina to sing at the event. He was a musician and a former practitioner of “metaphysical counselling,” which he also referred to as clairvoyance. He said that he had encountered bonobos a few years ago at Georgia State University, at the invitation of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a primatologist known for experiments that test the language-learning abilities of bonobos. (During one of Wind’s several visits to G.S.U., Peter Gabriel, the British pop star, was also there; Gabriel played a keyboard, another keyboard was put in front of a bonobo, and Wind played flutes and a small drum.) Bonobos are remarkable, Wind told me, for being capable of “unconditional love.” They were “tolerant, patient, forgiving, and supportive of one another.”...

It was Wind’s turn to perform. “Help Gaia and Gaia will help you,” he chanted into a microphone, in a booming voice that made people jump. “Help bonobo and bonobo will help you.”

Yes, no doubt, if we all lived like bonobos, there would be no global warming.

The problem is, a lot of bonobo research was based on captive groups:

Captivity can have a striking impact on animal behavior. As Craig Stanford, a primatologist at the University of Southern California, recently put it, “Stuck together, bored out of their minds—what is there to do except eat and have sex?”

Bonobos in the wild are not always nice. For that matter, nor are bonobos in zoos:

“I once saw five female bonobos attack a male in Apenheul, in Holland,” he said. “They were gnawing on his toes. I’d already seen bonobos with digits missing, but I’d thought they would have been bitten off like a dog would bite. But they really chew. There was flesh between their teeth. Now, that’s something to counter the idea of”—Stevens used a high, mocking voice—“ ‘Oh, I’m a bonobo, and I love everyone.’ ”

Stevens went on to recall a bonobo in the Stuttgart Zoo whose penis had been bitten off by a female.

I'll stick with the humans for the moment.

An insight into Hawking

Not Even Wrong - My Life With Stephen

Peter Woit's blog (Not Even Wrong) has a very interesting post summarising some of the memoirs of Jane Hawking, the ex-wife of Stephen Hawking. Go read.

More rat facts

Smart, Curious, Ticklish. Rats? - New York Times

It is the ongoing duty of this blog to point out the positive features of rats. This New York Times article summarises some things that have been mentioned here before (eg, rats can be tickled) but contains some information that's new to me:

When it comes to sex, the analogies between rats and humans are “profound,” said James G. Pfaus of Concordia University in Montreal. “It’s not simply instinctual for them,” he said. “Rats know what good sex is and what bad sex is. And when they have reason to anticipate great sex, they give you every indication they’re looking forward to it.”

They wiggle and paw at their ears, hop and dart, stop and flash a come-hither look backward. “We imbue our desire with words and meaning, they show us through actions,” he said. “The good thing about rats is, they don’t lie.”

I wonder how you give a rat "reason to anticipate great sex", as opposed to perfunctory sex with a partner they don't even like.

Anyway, there's more:

Rats have personalities, and they can be glum or cheerful depending on their upbringing and circumstances. One study showed that rats accustomed to good times tend to be optimists, while those reared in unstable conditions become pessimists. Both rats will learn to associate one sound with a good event — a gift of food — and another sound with no food, but when exposed to an ambiguous sound, the optimist will run over expecting to be fed and the pessimist will grumble and skulk away, expecting nothing.

I wonder if a glum rat can still be tickled to help cheer him up.

Monbiot making some sense

Ethical shopping is just another way of showing how rich you are

George Monbiot may be one of the biggest doomsayers about global warming, but at least he calls a spade a spade when it comes to eco-consumerism. Here's an extract from his column above:

Dozens of new books seem to provide an answer: we can save the world by embracing "better, greener lifestyles". Last week, for instance, the Guardian published an extract from A Slice of Organic Life, the book by Sheherazade Goldsmith - married to the very rich environmentalist Zac - in which she teaches us "to live within nature's limits". It's easy. Just make your own bread, butter, cheese, jam, chutneys and pickles, keep a milking cow, a few pigs, goats, geese, ducks, chickens, beehives, gardens and orchards. Well, what are you waiting for?

Her book contains plenty of useful advice, and she comes across as modest, sincere and well-informed. But of lobbying for political change, there is not a word. You can save the planet from your own kitchen - if you have endless time and plenty of land. When I was reading it on the train, another passenger asked me if he could take a look. He flicked through it for a moment, and then summed up the problem in seven words: "This is for people who don't work."...

Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing - one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk....

And this line:

Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status.

He is being too polite when he says it is "in danger of becoming". I thought it was pretty clear that it's already here.

Go read all of his column, he gives many examples of silly eco-consumerism.

40% achieved

Hey, I know it's all statistically irrelevant when you consider a margin of error, but psychologically it is encouraging to see a poll where the the primary vote for the Coalition is back up to 40%. That "4" looks a lot better than a "3".

Pity the "Unnamed Family Member"

I stumbled across some Muslim blogs on the 'net today, and found this one: "A Muslim Wife". She lives in Florida, has not been married long, and wears the niqaab. I can't actually tell if she is an American convert to Islam, but given some of her expressions, I think that's likely.

She sounds a like a lively enough woman who really, really loves being a serious Muslim. From this post of a few months ago, she talks about how much she enjoys her friendship with the wife of one of her husbands friends:

I am especially fond of this couple; the brother is one of hubby's best friends and his new wife is also a niqaabi. It felt so good to be with someone - go out with someone, get ready with someone, talk with someone, walk with someone - who I can really relate to. Just the small things like knowing to talk in a whisper when the hubbies are around. Or when in public, to go out of our way so we don't have to walk near a man, or serving our husbands first, etc. Just all the little things that matter so much, that have become second nature to us, that are apparently FOREIGN to other sisters.

Hmm, yes I suppose wearing a niqaab in the stifling humidity of Florida is not enough to convince any man in the street that you are definitely off limits. You also have to go out of your way to cross the street to get away from them. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

But, spare a thought for her relatives. This post caught my attention. Called "Private Conversations," she relates some snippets of conversation with a family member who (by the sounds of it) is not a Muslim at all (or is one who doesn't worry about what angels think of dogs):

Dog: bark! bark!
Me: "So we talked last time about your dog, I see you didn't get rid of it yet?"
Another Unnamed Family Member: "Nope, I didn't. I can't have him killed."
Dog: bark! bark! bark!
Me: "(laughing) No one said kill him, just get rid of him. Give him to a shelter or something."
Another Unnamed Family Member: "I can't (the baby) is so attached to him, he'll be sad."
Me: "Oh. Well you know the hadith I mentioned last time, about the angels not entering your home and the loss of mountains of good deeds for every day you keep him."
Another Unnamed Family Member: "(looking over my shoulder into the distance at anything more interesting than me) Mmm hmm. "
(followed by cold shoulder for the remaining of the week).

Oh dear. I say give the "Unnamed Family Member" a medal for keeping the response to "mmm hmm" and a cold shoulder for a week.

Karen Armstrong and the Deathly Religion

Karen Armstrong has a peculiar sense of priorities. In her latest "Comment is Free" article, she notes the several absurd inconsistencies in modern Islam, starting with the surprising finding that although she was invited by the government of Malaysia to give public lectures there, she found on arrival that three of her books had been banned.

Yet she is always keen to try to show that the West also has "double standards":

For Muslims to protest against the Danish cartoonists' depiction of the prophet as a terrorist, while carrying placards that threatened another 7/7 atrocity on London, represented a nihilistic failure of integrity.

But equally the cartoonists and their publishers, who seemed impervious to Muslim sensibilities, failed to live up to their own liberal values, since the principle of free speech implies respect for the opinions of others. Islamophobia should be as unacceptable as any other form of prejudice. When 255,000 members of the so-called "Christian community" signed a petition to prevent the building of a large mosque in Abbey Mills, east London, they sent a grim message to the Muslim world: Western freedom of worship did not, apparently, apply to Islam.

She made a pretty fundamental mistake there when she argued that free speech implies "respect" for the opinion of others. As several comments note, it only implies toleration of the expression of different opinion. No one has to "respect" the opinions of holocaust denier or 7/11 conspiracy theorist.

It's also pretty facile to argue that objection to a large mosque (seating up to 12,000) in London is an actual "attack" on freedom to worship in a Western country. The decision whether to let it be built is presumably going to be decided on planning laws, and one suspects that regardless of the motivation of the petitioners, "Islamophobia" will not be what actually decides the matter.

Contrast this to the actual situation on "freedom of worship" in countries with an even moderate version of Islam like Malaysia. Reuters reported last year that Malaysia was having a spate of Christian churches being actually demolished on flimsy grounds. Perhaps even more importantly, the article claimed this:

The issue of religion has also been controversial for Muslims. They are not allowed to formally renounce Islam, and apostates are sent for counselling and, ultimately, fined or jailed if they do not desist.

Lina Joy, a Muslim by birth who converted to Christianity, recently lost a six-year battle to have the word "Islam" removed from her identity card.

Karen Armstrong typically ended her article with this:

When Gallup asked what the west could do to improve relations, most Muslims replied unhesitatingly that western countries must show greater respect for Islam, placing this ahead of economic aid and non-interference in their domestic affairs. Our inability to tolerate Islam not only contradicts our western values; it could also become a major security risk.

The thing which Armstrong seems to never want to admit, even in an article like this one where she does criticise Islamic governments, is that the Western "lack of respect" is not institutionalised and is actually very minor when compared to legally enforced intolerance to freedom of religion that is evident in even moderate Islamic countries.

PS: That very last line of her article is quite a doozy too, isn't it? The clear meaning seems to be that the West had better learn to tolerate the (by her own admission) rather intolerant Islam, otherwise it will be its own fault if it is subject to terror attacks for showing such lack of respect.

Dr Haneef Part II

If the criminal case against Dr Haneef is as weak as media reporting is tending to suggest (but bearing in mind that there may be some evidence about which we have heard nothing yet,) then the proper thing his lawyers ought to be doing is making submissions as soon as possible to the DPP to consider not proceeding with the charge.

The DPP (and indeed the Federal Police, although having come up with the charge they cannot be the ones seen to make the decision to withdraw it) would surely have some sensitivity to their ongoing credibility if the case is one with a high likelihood of crashing and burning in a spectacular fashion.

If the charge is withdrawn, the main party that I see losing face would be the Federal Police. That would be no bad thing in its way; it would make them more careful and more cautious in future. It may make whoever it is who seems to have leaked wrong information to re-consider the tactic in future. It doesn't hurt for the Police to get a slap down, every now and then.

Meanwhile, I continue to see no substantial advantage to the refusal of the surety being paid so as to allow Haneef to be released on bail and held in Villawood in Sydney instead of as a terrorist on remand in Brisbane. I do not think the issue of getting instructions and providing him with legal advice in Sydney is that big an issue. There would appear to be little extra that Haneef can currently add to his Federal Court appeal, and the cost of getting instructions on the criminal case (even if it involved a personal visit for a day to Sydney) would surely not be huge.

Instead, it seems pretty clear that keeping him in Brisbane in normal remand is a matyrdom tactic of his own lawyers, who want political pressure to come to play on the visa revocation issue. In my view, Haneef would be better served by having lawyers who refused to play the media/political game, and took a quieter approach to ending quickly the incarceration of their client.

If the DPP did pull the criminal charge, then the astute thing for Minister Andrews to do would be to say that he has reviewed the case, and be more explicit as to whether it is the "secret" evidence alone which is sufficient to justify his decision to revoke the visa. If it is, then it's goodbye Dr Haneef and he can be deported. He has no inherent right to be here, and he would presumably be glad to be gone.

My current opinion remains that it is the Federal Police and Haneef's lawyers who have both played games here, with the media acting like a cheerleader to both sides of a game. (First half spent gee-ing up the crowd for the Federal Police, second half crossing over to the other team.) Of course the media has a job to do in reporting on justice issues, but I get peeved when they act as if it is a particularly noble role.

The history of losing your head

Earlier this week, I noted how I was enjoying reading "Across the Nightingale Floor", a story set in medieval Japan. I also said it would make a good movie.

I have now finished the novel, and I can see the difficulties of making this into a movie. (In fact, in the last 1/3, the whole story becomes very Japanese, in that most major characters want to kill themselves!) I don't want to give the plot away entirely but:

SPOILER WARNING ! SPOILER WARNING !

a pretty crucial plot point happens when a major sympathetic character gets beheaded in a way which was, apparently, not unknown in medieval Japan, but it was quite shocking for me with my Western sensitivities. It's not the technical means of the beheading as such, it's the circumstances.

I have always felt particularly repelled by the idea of watching a beheading, even a fictional one in the movies. The novel was written before the recent spate of Islamic beheadings in Iraq, and this renewed appearance of the activity in the real world is unfortunate timing for someone having the film rights to a book in which this act plays a central role.

This made me wonder whether someone has written about beheadings as a cultural issue, and indeed Wikipedia has a gruesomely interesting entry for "decapitation". (In fact, it is this entry which makes me think that what happens in the novel sounds culturally and historically plausible.)

Maybe it is modern Western urban sensibilities that find it so appalling as an act: I imagine that people who live in countries where the open slaughter of animals by throat cutting is commonplace find the idea of killing people the same way not so extraordinary. (My witnessing the killing of some chickens as a young child hasn't desensitised me, though. I don't clearly remember the chopping, but do remember my mother cleaning out the entrails. The not completely formed eggs were interesting.)

Still, I don't like thinking about the act, and wish all heads to be kept firmly in place in novels and movies.

Howard, Costello, etc

The 7.30 Report - ABC

It seems to me that the media, and the ABC in particular, is disproportionately salivating over the issue of just how much Costello and Howard like/dislike each other.

The bottom line is this: Costello has felt hard done by for years, and we already knew that. But, for whatever reason, Costello polls very poorly in preferred PM stakes compared to Howard. No one in their right mind, including Costello, would think that means its a good idea to do a leadership swap now.

The only issue of relevance to the election is Howard being put under pressure to declare that he will really hand over the leadership in the next term. But, surely this time, that's a given anyway.

So Kerry, Tony, Michelle, that's about it really. Go have a Bex and a good lie down and find something else to talk about.

Unfortunate positioning

Quake-hit atomic plant sits atop a fault line | The Japan Times Online

From the article:

The fault along which Monday's magnitude-6.8 earthquake occurred appears to extend right beneath Niigata Prefecture's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the world's largest atomic power complex, an analysis of aftershock data by the Meteorological Agency showed Wednesday.

Seems to me to be a good argument for the modular, smaller Pebble Bed Reactor. To get a big power station, you just string a half dozen of them together, and the modular design (I imagine) would mean less risk of all of them being taken out at once in one earthquake or other disaster.

Dr Haneef

There's a couple of things about this case that I haven't noticed being said yet:

1. One of the consequences of Dr H deciding to fight the Commonwealth's decision to revoke his visa is that the surety has not been paid and he is spending the next few weeks in remand in Brisbane instead of at Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney (where people undergoing immigration detention are kept.) The detention in Brisbane is described in The Age as follows:

Queensland Corrective Services Minister Judy Spence said Haneef would face a different regime to other prisoners.

He would be allowed no contact with other inmates and would be given an hour a day to exercise. Ms Spence said Haneef would be managed as a terror prisoner under terrorism legislation.

"Anyone who is charged under terrorist legislation is obviously seen as a greater threat to the good order of our society than other type of prisoners," she said. "A terrorist prisoner is required to be held apart from the mainstream prison population, so he will be held in a segregated environment."

It seems certain that the Villawood detention centre would have conditions nothing like this, as he would be bailed on the criminal charge and simply be there as a visa-less person awaiting his ticket overseas after the trial on the Brisbane charge.

I wonder whether his lawyers have made this clear to him, as spending a few more weeks in custody as a terrorist subject is a serious issue. (There is also the issue of the ease with which he can get access to lawyers when in Villawood. However, it's not like Sydney is a million miles from Brisbane, and I expect telephone contact is readily available. Who is paying for his representation anyway? That has never been made clear to me.)

2. I am curious as to what people think about this hypothetical: if the doctor were lodging his visa application today, after the attempted attacks in England by the relatives he has obviously been close to, should the government approve his visa? What would the media reaction be if it was disclosed that he had been approved to come here, despite the family connections, and sharing the same profession?

Should the government in that circumstance simply accept the applicant's claim that he knew nothing of his relative's plans, and only ever had "innocent" association with them?

If you think that the government in that hypothetical situation should not approve the visa application, acting on a precautionary principle, then how could you really complain about the government revoking his visa now?

There is too much hot air blowing around this case, mainly from lawyers. I don't like the media and other's role too (whoever was leaking before the barrister did too.) It's reflecting badly on both sides if you ask me, but I still don't think the government is going to (or should) lose on the issue of deporting him.

How England became England

New Scientist reports how the English Channel appears to have been carved out in a giant "mega flood".

Such stories of spectacular geological events are always interesting. The English Channel event was about 500,000 years ago, though. The flooding of the Black Sea is more interesting due to its affecting people.

The famous playwright

Dazzled again by Stoppard's big ideas

I wish Tom Stoppard plays were produced more often in this country. He seems to be the only English playwright of the last 30 years who deserves fame for having such a combination of wit and intellect.

But he's turning 70! I don't know that there is really anyone on the horizon who is likely to replace him.

From the "only in Japan" files

Sex seems to be the topic of quite a few posts here so far this week, and it's not even spring yet. Still, who can resist looking at some highly amusing packaging for Japanese condoms? (I think I may have seen some of these around the web before, but here they are together with some funny commentary.)

Found via the entertaining Japundit.

Questioning everything about CO2

In a series of posts late last year, I explained that the effect of increasing ocean acidification from the rapid rise in CO2 levels over the next century was enough for me to drop scepticism about the worthiness of programs to seriously reduce CO2 emissions. The benefit of this approach means you don't really have to continue worrying about who is right in terms of how much the temperature will increase, and what effect it will have on climate generally.

Still, it is interesting to see that arxiv has published last week a very lengthy article arguing that the physics of CO2 warming is completely wrong. (Maybe this argument has already been discredited, as I haven't followed all of the skeptics arguments all that closely over the years. It is hard to believe that thousands of other scientists are wrong.)

In any event, it would be nice if we didn't get as hot as predicted because of misunderstood atmospheric physics.

On marriage

Madeleine Bunting has an interesting column in The Guardian about the political response in England to high rates of family break up.

I don't agree with her conclusion (politicians should just give up on trying to promote marriage, and just make sure that there are plenty of services to ease the effect of separation on children.) Still, there is interesting information in the article, such as:

Relationship breakdown is not caused simply by poverty and inequality - they may contribute as a stress factor, but something else is going on too. Some of the world's highest separation rates are in Scandinavia, yet countries such as Sweden and Denmark are among the most equal and have the lowest rates of poverty. Other commentators attribute relationship breakdown to increasing working hours and the pressures of employment, but most Scandinavian working cultures are genuinely family friendly.

Just remember that when the ACTU and Labor party go on about Workchoices being bad for families!

She does allow that some deeper cultural issues are probably at play:

What's also involved is that a set of cultural assumptions about how to conduct long-term relationships, and what can be expected of them, have gone seriously askew - as one thirtysomething father said ruefully after the break-up of his relationship, "our generation just can't do it". The right likes to call this moral breakdown, but it's more tragic than that - often it's a kind of lack of emotional capability.

To which I quite liked this response from commenter simonx:

Why on earth are Guardian writers so loathe to praise and support the institution of marriage?

.....today, we have Ms Bunting blaming the break-up of relationships on a ' lack of emotional capability.' Yet loyalty itself should not be dependent, surely, on the whims of emotion. Instead, it is founded on the solemn promises and commitments couples make to each other when children become part of their relationship. There's nothing which underlines these vows better, surely, than the symbolism of marriage.

For the record

I really don't like The Australian's new website design. (What is it about News Limited: I have never learned to like the last re-design of the The Times website either.)

The blue pill that's good for the economy

The widespread use of Viagra seems to be causing significant problems, according to a long article in The Times. Some young idiots find it necessary to counter the effects of ecstacy:

Hayley, a 24-year-old fast-track civil servant, said men in her social circle take Viagra because it counters the effect of cocaine and ecstasy, which raise lust but cause impotence. “By about 3am you might have run out of everything else, so you might get two girls and a guy, or maybe a bigger group, taking Viagra and going off to have sex for the next three hours. With Viagra, guys can do it again and again.

So it would seem, according to a young man who gets it from a mate who fools his GP into giving him scripts:

“With Viagra you can do it four or five times in a row,” says Olly. “I’m sure I wouldn’t be completely crap at sex without it, but it puts your mind at rest that you’ll be able to perform.”

Even at the lust filled age of 24, there is something seriously wrong with wanting to "do it four or five times in a row", isn't there? I presume that the other recreational drugs might have something to do with the desire, as Hayley said.

The article goes on to explain that Vaigra use, and the husband's subsequent pressuring of the wife to have sex, is being increasing cited in divorce cases. Sounds plausible.

Yet there are doctors who won't have any of this talk of a downside:

John Dean, a doctor specialising in sexual medicine in London who took part in the original trials of Viagra, insists that its use has brought happiness to millions of couples, saved the cost of treating epidemics of depression and other illnesses linked to mental health, and allowed many men to increase their economic productiveness.

Finally, the key to never ending economic growth. I like this part too:

Pfizer is trying to persuade the Department of Health to allow routine NHS prescription of the drug, and it is developing a programme to help GPs recognise erectile dysfunction.

"Hullo, hullo, hullo. What's this we've got here? Erectile dysfunction I do believe. Wouldn't have recognized that unless Pfizer told me what to look for.."

All very interesting.

Monday Miscellany

There's a few things which I have read lately but haven't yet mentioned:

* It's been there for a couple of weeks, but there's an interesting interview in The Observer with an American author of a book comparing international attitudes to adultery. She points out that different countries have different "scripts" that most people expect to be followed in the course of adultery:

The key points of the American script resonate so strongly, it's almost tedious. For example - the first rule of infidelity in the US and the UK is that it becomes understandable, borderline-permissible even, if the prospective cheat says they're unhappy in their marriage. 'And of course,' says Druckerman, 'everyone has flaws in their marriages, things that aren't quite perfect... but here and the US, you start complaining about your marriage, and that way, you're not some lousy guy who cheats on his wife because he wants sex, you're a puppy dog who's looking for love.' Which might sound so trite that it hardly merits comment - until you consider the Japanese script, in which a cheating man praises his wife to his girlfriend, to demonstrate that he's a good husband.

I read a short novel about an Englishman having an affair in Japan a couple of years ago. He didn't mention his wife to his girlfriend, but then again, he was English. One thing the novel did point out, though, was that one of the hazzards of breaking up with a lover in Japan was the risk that she would commit suicide. The whole issue of the cultural attitude to adultery in Japan is an interesting topic. (A purely theoretical interest on my part, I hasten to add!)


* Speaking of Japan, I am currently reading "Across the Nightingale Floor", the first of a series of fairly popular novels set in a semi-fictionalised medieval Japan by Australian author Lian Hearn.

I am very impressed so far. The genre is a little hard to describe, as it contains a fantasy element, but it is really just a case of some characters having psychic abilities. (Sort of like psychic ninja, in a way.) I don't feel that the introduction of that alone means "fantasy" is an appropriate description for what I am reading.

I can say that the novel really has a very authentic sense of place. (I have spent my fair share of time around old Japanese temples, historical villages and castles.) The writing style is not overly ornate, but it has a very visual or "cinematic" quality to it, and it is a pleasure to read. I think it would be very easy material to convert to a screenplay.

I see from Hearn's website that Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy (who have produced many films with Spielberg, and generally have a good track record) have acquired the film rights. I reckon it would make a great movie, except one would hope they use Japanese actors instead of Chinese, as in Memoirs of a Geisha. (That was one spectacularly good looking film, by the way, but the story only so-so.)

* Nick Cohen talks about the odd fact that, once Middle East terrorists really became a serious threat to the West, Hollywood stopped making films about them. He points out that the BBC drama "Spooks" went even one better:

The 2006 series of Spooks, for example, showed Islamist suicide bombers taking over the Saudi Arabian embassy. Nothing too far-fetched in that; real MI5 agents are running themselves ragged as they try to close down terror cells. The BBC's novel twist was that its fictional MI5 agents discovered that the Islamists weren't Islamists at all, just Mossad agents in disguise engaged in the perennial Jewish conspiracy.

An interesting read as usual.

* The Guardian has a "Comment is Free" article by a prominent gay activist who complains that, despite vast improvements in their legal position, homosexuals still have to put up with a lot of prejudice and hate, and suggests that in fact the title "gay" should be given up. (He suggests that bisexuality, or simply fluid sexuality, is more prominent than people realise.)

The odd thing about his argument is that he starts with a (I think) jokey thought that inadvertently shows why "gay" has an image problem:

I had a gratifyingly zeitgeist moment the other day in one of London's smarter clubs. It had met with a spot of bother; people were going into the loo cubicles together to share lines of coke. So now the loo doors brandish a strict sign: 'Any two people found in this cubicle using drugs will be ejected from the club.' And I just thought of a member of staff knocking on the door when a boyfriend and I were over-amorously engaged therein and being able to say: 'Don't worry we're just having sex,' and the doorman saying: 'OK. Carry on.'

It seems very odd to me that he doesn't realise that he is encouraging an image of gay men which he is seemingly arguing against in the rest of the article. If you want to "normalise" an image of sexuality, you don't do it by suggesting that toilets are appropriate place for sex, whether gay, straight or some other colour. Similarly, hasn't the concept of a gay Mardi Gras outlived its overall political usefulness? If you truly want to blend into a society and not be treated differently, why run a parade which has such an "in your face" approach to its participant's sexuality? As with sex in a toilet, it is far from dignified, and (I would argue) counterproductive in terms of changing the minds of those who may already either hate, dislike, or just be sceptical of, the whole modern Western concept of gay identity.

Something you didn't know

If you want some esoteric information to share around the dinner table tonight, try this. The keeping of rats as pets (in England, at least) seems to have started with Jack Black, who Wikipedia describes as:

...rat-catcher and mole destroyer by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Victoria during the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Black cut a striking figure in his self-made "uniform" of scarlet topcoat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a huge leather belt inset with cast-iron rats.

The title "mole destroyer" has a certain ring to it, don't you think? As Wikipedia goes on to explain:

When he caught any unusually coloured rats, he bred them, to establish new colour varieties. He would sell his home-bred domesticated coloured rats as pets, mainly, as Black observed, "...to well-bred young ladies to keep in squirrel cages." Beatrix Potter is believed to have been one of his customers, and she dedicated the book Samuel Whiskers to her rat of the same name. The more sophisticated ladies of court kept their rats in dainty gilded cages, and even Queen Victoria herself kept a rat or two.

How would you all manage without me providing such vital information?

Not common knowledge

Christopher Pearson's column in The Australian today talks about the "noble savage" view of aboriginal society, and mentions some extracts from Louis Nowra's recent book "Bad Dreaming".

While most people have probably heard of the traditional custom of female "child brides" in some aboriginal groups (as it is indeed still an issue today), I for one had not heard before of the customary pederasty in some aboriginal groups:

Nowra notes evidence of "boy-wife arrangements that are known to have existed late into the end of the 19th century", citing the work of Carl Strehlow. "Pederasty is a recognised custom among the Arunta and has a name, kwalanga. It prevails especially among the Western Loritja and tribes north of the MacDonnell Range, the Katitja, Ilpara, Warramunga, etc. Commonly a man, who is fully initiated but not yet married, takes a boy 10 or 12 years old, who lives with him for several years."...

Nowra comments: "Boys in a boy-wife arrangement were called chookadoo (about age five) or mullawongah (ages five to seven). Some boys could remain in such a marriage up until the age of 11 ... Even into the 1930s, there was evidence of homosexuality (among) the Kimberley Aborigines. The youths of 17 or 18 who were still unmarried would take boys of 10 or 11 as lovers.

"The women did not regard it as shameful and considered the practice a temporary substitute for marriage."

Heterosexual abuse gets a mention too:

Nowra's evidence of heterosexual abuse is just as compelling. For example, he says that "when a nine or 10-year-old girl was handed over to her husband, there was generally no sexual intercourse (until) after puberty" but notes anthropologist Phyllis Kaberry's caveat that "sexual intercourse without penetration did take place but infrequently".

Anthropology has never been a huge interest for me, but common sense has always suggested that it is one of the "softest" sciences in which political and personal prejudices of academics in the field have played a huge role. It seems to me that such prejudices are behind the lack of common knowledge of the harshness of sexual and other aspects of many traditional aboriginal societies.

Too much

It's reaching the bottom of the barrel when I post about Rosie O'Donnell, but some days the regular news just doesn't inspire me much.

In case you have never seen it, Rosie O'Donnell maintains a blog (of sorts) which regularly features video addresses to her admirers. Her girlfriend/partner and kids feature sometimes too.

This is a good example of one of her video entries. Go have a look and see if you agree with my observations:

a. Without make up, a hair do and studio lighting, she becomes startlingly unattractive.

b. The way she interacts with her girlfriend/partner makes it seem like a relationship dominated by Ms O'Donnell.

c. She is currently on one of her gay family cruises, alone, as her partner has had a neck operation. If Rosie has a shipboard romance, would she blog about it? Probably. This sort of exposure of a happy domestic life just feels like a set up for a spectacular fall. (It's like couples who renew marriage vows. Don't do it! It will make you look much more of a goose than necessary when one of you has an affair within a year.)