Do as the giant robot commands!

Gundam promotes Tokyo 2016’s Olympic bid
(Go to the link to see a photo of said giant robot in Tokyo)

Iraqi veteran fabulist

The story of the Marine who wasn't - Los Angeles Times

As it happens, I am pretty certain I currently have a client who is a big-time fabulist.

My suspicions are likely to be confirmed soon if promised large amounts of money (not for my benefit) do not arrive.

Miyazaki news of the day

Hayao Miyazaki, Anime’s Master, to Visit San Diego Comic-Con - NYTimes.com

(The article talks about him generally, and his lack of commercial success in the US.)

Big dill hits Big Apple?

It's usually Tim Blair's job to track all things "Hicks", but here we go.

The New Yorker ran an article noting that it finally appears confirmed (in a new book by his ex-wife) that Osama Bin Laden made a short trip with her to the United States in 1979. According to the wife, it seemed most Americans were nice enough towards them.

In the comments that follow, there is one by someone calling him (or her?) self "davidhicks1" who is from "downunder". I'll just put it here in full:

"I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice." Well of course 'most' Americans are thus. The only 'problematic' ones are those that have been supporting the Racist State of Israel these many decades past. There is a feeling around -and some hope in the world these days- that these unfortunate policies may be about to be minimised( Stay on course President Obama!),and maybe even reversed. How many Americans could list the THREE 'demands' of Osama bin Laden post 9/11. I'll give you a clue from 'downunder.' One had the word PALESTINE in it!

To my ear, this does indeed sound like something the real David Hicks would say, but who knows. Certainly, it seems odd that the writer finds "most" Americans are nice, but then finds the (very large) proportion who support Israel "problematic". Are they overlapping sets, with some Americans being both nice and "problematic"?

Whoever the writer is, he (or she) should not plan on visiting the States any time soon.

Julia, Julia

Annabel Crabb today has a pretty witty column about how right wingers have become infatuated with Julia Gillard, in much the same Margaret Thatcher was seen to have sex appeal by her male opponents of a certain age.

Well, it may have something to do with the mysterious allure of her fleshy ears, since I can report again that barely a day goes past without a few people landing at this blog via a Google search of "Julia Gillard earlobes" or some variation thereof. (For those fans, Julia's sometimes coyly hiding lobes were on very open display last night in a 7.30 Report interview. Knock yourselves out.)

As for me, I think I have mentioned here before that my response to her softened when she showed a surprising graciousness on election night by declining Kerry O'Brien's offer to put the boot into John Howard for not making way for Peter Costello. (When asked whether this had been Howard's big mistake, she replied that, while such simple analysis would be easy to make, in reality all the Labor polling indicated that the Coalition would have done worse under Costello.)

Of course, her policies will still lead to rack and ruin in industrial relations, but she does seem a more genuine person than K Rudd by a few country miles.

The dubious god of Silence

Review: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong | Books | The Guardian

Here's a review of a new book by Karen Armstrong, in which she makes her response to the views of the modern militant atheists.

If the review is accurate, I have an immediate problem with her version of the history of religion (in much the same way many have had a problem with her history of Islam):

Karen Armstrong takes the reader through a history of religious practice in many different cultures, arguing that in the good old days and purest forms they all come to much the same thing. They use devices of ritual, mystery, drama, dance and meditation in order to enable us better to cope with the vale of tears in which we find ourselves. Religion is therefore properly a matter of a practice, and may be compared with art or music....

This is religion as it should be, and, according to Armstrong, as it once was in all the world's best traditions. However, there is a serpent in this paradise, as in others. Or rather, several serpents, but the worst is the folly of intellectualising the practice. This makes it into a matter of belief, argument, and ultimately dogma. It debases religion into a matter of belief in a certain number of propositions, so that if you can recite those sincerely you are an adept, and if you can't you fail. This is Armstrong's principal target. With the scientific triumphs of the 17th century, religion stopped being a practice and started to become a theory - in particular the theory of the divine architect. This is a perversion of anything valuable in religious practice, Armstrong writes, and it is only this perverted view that arouses the scorn of modern "militant" atheists. So Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris have chosen a straw man as a target. Real religion is serenely immune to their discovery that it is silly to talk of a divine architect.

That sentence in bold, if it reflects Armstrong's arguments, sounds hard to justify. I mean, you don't have to read much of the history of early Christianity to be struck by the seriousness of the intellectual battles over how Jesus was to be properly understood. Wikipedia gives a list of pre-reformation "controversial movements", and Paul Johnson in his enjoyable "History of Christianity" made the point that many of the early Christian theological controversies were beset with language difficulties: he writes that Greek lent itself to complexity in theological discussion, but finding equivalent words in Latin proved difficult:

The upshot was that it proved comparatively easy to devise a definition in the Latin West; much more difficult to produce one for the Greek East, and almost impossible to create a translatable formula which both East and West could accept in good faith.

My point is: intellectual understanding of itself has always been important in Christianity, not just since the 17 th century. Maybe she argues that to the average participant in Christianity, such debates had little practical impact. That might be plausible, but isn't the exact nature of (say) a 5th century congregation's personal understanding of their religion at least a little hard to judge that from this point in time?

According to the review, Armstrong thinks this:

So what should the religious adept actually say by way of expressing his or her faith? Nothing. This is the "apophatic" tradition, in which nothing about God can be put into words. Armstrong firmly recommends silence, having written at least 15 books on the topic. Words such as "God" have to be seen as symbols, not names, but any word falls short of describing what it symbolises, and will always be inadequate, contradictory, metaphorical or allegorical. The mystery at the heart of religious practice is ineffable, unapproachable by reason and by language. Silence is its truest expression.

Well, this immersion in mystery is certainly what the likes of Peter Kennedy and his St Mary's in Exile crowd are now promoting.

The author of the review is skeptical, as am I.

This is a tricky area: from a Catholic perspective, mystical or meditative experience is certainly not dismissed as invalid; but I think it would be fair to say that the mystically inclined saints of the Church never doubted the concrete reality of the God that they believed the human mind was inadequate to perceive. The Cloud of Unknowing hid a mountain. The problem with the pop-mysticism of today, with all of it's "everything we can say about God is just a metaphor for the great mystery" approach is that it has converted God into a cloudbank with nothing solid in the centre at all.

Simon Blackburn says this at the end of his review of Armstrong:

Silence is just that. It is a kind of lowest common denominator of the human mind. The machine is idling. Which direction it then goes after a period of idling is a highly unpredictable matter. As David Hume put it, in human nature there is "some particle of the dove, mixed in with the wolf and the serpent". So we can expect that some directions will be better and others worse. And that is what, alas, we always find, with or without the song and dance.

Sounds about right. How can anyone be sure that the meditative practice, or "song and dance" does have a significant effect on the ethical or moral behaviour of the participant in their dealings with others? If you want to address behaviour that is wrong, you need to be able to articulate why it is wrong, not just take the transgressor by the hand and share a quiet moment together. In fact, couldn't it be argued that indigenous cultures had plenty of time for ritual, yet some treated people (women, children and rivals) in pretty appalling ways. The abundance of ritual did not obviously make them more "moral" societies.

Blackburn makes the point that the "proof in the pudding is not my beatific smile but how I behave." For the religious at least, how you behave should surely be significantly influenced by your intellectual understanding of what your religion is about, not just your emotional experience of participating in ritual or worshipping mystery for the sake of mystery.

Bored? Sorry.

UPDATE: Jesus, Mo (& Moses) explain why Armstrong's approach is unappealing.

What art students do for fun

Dezeen - Tantalus Dinner by Ioli Sifakaki

Royal College of Art graduate Iola Kalliopi Sifakaki designed a dinner service cast from her own body and then invited a dozen of her male friends to feast from the tableware.

The dinner service, and the dining furniture Sifikaki designed, are based on the Greek myth of Tantalus, in which Tantalus boils his son Pelops and offers him up as food to the gods to appease them.

OK, but was there any particular need for the male friends to turn it into what looks like a food fight? It has way too much of Peter Greenaway art wankery about it, if you ask me.

Scrapping cap and trade

BBC NEWS | 'Time to ditch climate policies'

An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change.

The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail....

LSE Mackinder programme director Gwyn Prins said the current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading in emissions permits had led to emissions continuing to rise.

He said world proposals to expand carbon trading schemes and channel billions of dollars into clean energy technologies would not work.

"The world has been recarbonising, not decarbonising," Professor Prins said.

"The evidence is that the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying approach have had and are having no meaningful effect whatsoever.

Dot Earth has more about this. It appears that these particular critics think Japan can teach us a thing or two about worthwhile policy. They are quoted as follows:

....the last thing one would do is invent layers of regulatory bodies requiring international accord and transparency in arenas like energy policy, where countries traditionally go it alone. As Professor Prins put it in a statement, “Worthwhile policy builds upon what we know works and upon what is feasible rather than trying to deploy never-before implemented policies through complex institutions requiring a hitherto unprecedented and never achieved degree of global political alignment.”

Hear hear.

Sort of a win for Israel?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaza conflict: Views on Hamas

OK, who knows how representative the views of three people in Gaza really are, but the the comments of 2 of them indicate that many don't exactly feel that Hamas did them a favour by provoking Israel's last attack. The first guy in particular:

"Hamas and the Jews both did this. Hamas don't have the power for war - so why did they launch rockets at Israel? Israel needed war here, but who gave Israel the key to come here? Hamas.

Thank you George W

Obama to Russia: stop Iranian nuclear weapon and US will scrap missile defence - Times Online

I think I have made the point before, but if this strategy works, shouldn't someone be thanking the last president for providing this one with an effective bargaining chip?

Oh the irony...

World needs to be saved from spending spree: PM | The Australian

Market saturated?

Tough times hit scooter sales

Well, I wouldn't have guessed this:

TWO years ago they were the darlings of the roads: sales were up 400 per cent in three years, and hip new riders were taking to the streets every day.

But in the first six months of 2009 scooter sales collapsed, as economic times got tougher and petrol prices eased.

..... scooter sales slumped 29.3 per cent, recording sales of 5592, compared with 7915 over the same six months in 2008.

Guessing the future strength of markets is evidently tricky. I mean, I still wouldn't mind one, so what's wrong with the rest of you?

Explorer Royale

A new journey of exploration for Michael Palin - The Independent

Palin is the new head of the Royal Geographical Society.

It is entirely appropriate that the man who first went Across the Andes by Frog should receive this honour.

Nuts

Husband and wife share home with pythons that roam freely - Telegraph

Fortunately, they have no children.

Reasons to become a priest

The Sci Fi Catholic: Deej to Seminary, Part 2

Sci Fi Catholic, who is currently a young archaeologist, has decided to train for the priesthood. He has quite a funny explanation as to why, at the above link.

Odd weather

Drought alert as El Nino works up double whammy | The Australian

Brisbane is having its wettest winter for ages (I heard that rain of up to 50 to 100mm may be expected over the next couple of days,) and its dams are up to 77% full, yet all the warnings are that an El Nino is forming, with drought on the way.

Not that I wish it for this reason, but a repeat of a 1998 El Nino hot spike would at least stop the current wave of triumphal-ism amongst the AGW skeptics.

Under the kilt problems in Scotland

Gay minister inducted at service

The background:

Mr Rennie, 37, a divorced father-of-one, was minister at Brechin Cathedral but was appointed to Queen's Cross earlier this year, where he is expected to preach his first sermon a week on Sunday.

He has been open about his relationship with his partner and plans to live with him in the manse in Aberdeen.

Some sections of the Church of Scotland feared Mr Rennie's appointment could cause the greatest divide since the Disruption of 1843, when part of the Kirk broke away to form the Free Kirk.

Just noting the story...

UPDATE: If a minister is divorced and was wanting to live with (as opposed to marrying) his new girlfriend in the manse, I would have thought that would be a major problem. (You really want your ministers just shacking up with their girlfriends?) If you say "well, the problem for this guy is that he can't "regularise" this relationship by marrying, even if he wants to, so we shouldn't penalise him," then isn't the issue to do with the Church's understanding of marriage? In other words, if the Church does not permit marriage as a sacrament for gay couples, how can it say this Minister's relationship is not a problem?

Where's the outrage?

Israel has right to hit Iran: Biden

Can you imagine how quick the outrage would be at Huffington Post if this had been said by a Vice President Palin?

As far as I can see, no Huffpo post on it yet. (Lots and lots of talk about Palin quitting though.)

Lucky for Andrew Sullivan

'Denial of pregnancy is not classified as a psychiatric illness' France 24

What will he do if Palin doesn't keep a high profile? He'll have withdrawal symptoms, I have no doubt.

Adelaide revisited

By virtue of some very cheap airfares from Tiger Airways, (I find them a good, no nonsense airline) my family and I had a long weekend in Adelaide last week. Here's my list of good things about Adelaide:

1. North Adelaide. I don't think any other city in Australia has such a concentration of impressive 19th century mansions, houses and public buildings as Adelaide does in North Adelaide. I had lived in Adelaide for about 2 years in the 1980's, so I knew North Adelaide was a nice area, but I had forgotten just how impressive the buildings are. (Have a look at this Flickr set which contains quite a few from the suburb.) This visit, we in fact stayed in North Adelaide in a little 1870's cottage which, sad to say, had a hot water system which suited its era, and an airconditioning system which did not keep the living room warm. But still, it was in a great location and is without doubt the oldest building I've ever stayed in Australia, so that counts for something:


Doesn't seem to be haunted, either.

2. Eating. We enjoyed a great tapas style dinner at Sparrow Kitchen and Bar in North Adelaide. It's only been open since Christmas, apparently, but it seems terribly popular, and justifiably so. I can't recommend it highly enough - at least for tapas and its Spanish wines.

3. Cheese. Look, even Queensland does cheese well now, but we did particularly enjoy the cheese from Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley. Our favourite: a washed rind goats cheese from the Barossa Valley Cheese Company which is gooey straight out of the fridge, with that powerful, hard to describe washed rind flavour.

4. The Adelaide Hills. Seems to have a lot of wineries now, and is a significantly prettier drive than the Barossa. Here's a shot of cows in the mist, at least showing how green it is at the moment:


My photos of the Barossa don't look all that different, I guess:


But trust me, much of the Barossa is more like an open plain, and it's hard to see how it ever got the name "valley" attached to it:


I know from past experience that, in summer, those baked brown plains are not particularly attractive. Barossa Valley towns are also nothing special to look at. Angaston is probably the pick. (And it has that cheese.)

5. The South Australian Museum: it shows up how inadequate the Queensland Museum is. I've been meaning to do a whole post on this topic, but the Queensland Museum is just terribly inadequate. For example, it devotes just about a whole floor to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island stuff, but it feels mostly empty. The Adelaide Museum has a much better indigenous section, where you can actually learn things, although the lighting is keep extraordinarily dark and "moody" for some reason. In the oldest part of the museum, they have a very old PacificIsland section with such fun bits like decorated skulls and talk of headhunters. Yes, children can learn the lesson from a museum like that their modern Western culture is a considerable improvement over some of it predecessors!

They have some interesting science stuff too, including a mini cloud chamber which lets you watch radioactive particles zipping by in front of you. But the only photo I'll include is one of a space suit Australian astronaut Andy Thomas wore on one trip. Not that you can tell from the photo, but he must be pretty short:


6. A new airport. Gone are the days of it being an overgrown shed. It's really quite a lovely airport now.

7. Coffin Bay oysters. They seem pretty cheap and plentiful. Maybe a bit too big for my liking, but not bad.

So, even though I really disliked living there in the 1980's, a short visit in the 21st century proved to be quite enjoyable.

Update: I forgot to mention:

8. Smoked fish. There seems to be a big interest in smoked fish in Adelaide; much more so than in Brisbane. We picked up some (cheap) smoked tuna in a fishshop in the Adelaide Central Markets, and were suitably impressed. (But let's face, I like just about anything smoked. Shoe leather probably tastes good done that way.)

9. Adelaide Central Markets: well, I've been talking about food so much, you probably already knew that I went there and liked it. One practical feature I admired: a big carpark with cheap fees adjoins it.

Now, there must be something to get this list to 10. I'll put my mind to it...

Speaking of bargains...

Anyone with an interest in visiting Japan can do so at the moment at incredibly low cost. It would appear that the Jetstar "two for one" sale is still on 'til tomorrow, which promises two people can get there for under $400. (Whether you can find a flight back at the same cost is perhaps another question.)

But even with one person travelling, it looks like you can still get there for about $800 return, if not cheaper.

Even JAL has got a Sydney to Tokyo sale fair of $907.

I can tell you, it's been a long, long time since you've been able to get to Japan so cheaply.

Must visit bottle shop....

Australian wine prices driven lower than water | Business | News.com.au

Major wine retailer Dan Murphy's is currently selling cleanskins for $1.99 a bottle - cheaper than some bottled water - due to the oversupply crisis that has led to some vineyard owners leaving grapes to wither on the vine.

Deep thoughts for a weekend

Philosophy Now | Kant By Default

Here's a summary by the author of what his book is about:

The central question is whether morality can be understood apart from the outcomes we expect to ensue from our actions. ... The consequentialist says that whatever results, intended or not, decides the morality of what you did. This is why, for example, theft is morally wrong: the relative net results of theft are usually negative, that is, worse than not stealing. The nonconsequentialist demurs: theft could be wrong even if the relative net results were positive. And why is this? In other words, if not consequences, then what does make something right or wrong? The answer depends on which kind of nonconsequentialist one asks. A Divine Command Theorist would claim that God’s commandments make something right or wrong. A Kantian, such as myself, would claim that the criterion of morality, or ‘categorical imperative’, is whether anyone (including an animal) is treated merely as a means: if they are, then the action is wrong, and otherwise not. But whether it’s God or the categorical imperative that is calling the shots, the actual outcomes don’t affect the moral quality of the action. Thus, if following God’s commandment or avoiding treating someone merely as means led to a catastrophe, it would still be the right thing to do, according to these views.

He then says:

Laid out in that abstract fashion, one or the other of the opposing positions may strike the reader as compelling. I think that both are compelling for all of us, but at different times and to different degrees.

This is too deep for Saturday morning thoughts, but the switching between the two different views makes some sense, I think, even from a Catholic perspective which has to be (at the meta level) nonconsequentialist.

For example, sexual infidelity may be clearly immoral, but if you decide to have the affair anyway, surely the consequentialist argument that it is better to limit the possible negative consequences by using a condom makes sense.

The problem is, the Pope doesn't want anyone to sin, so he doesn't want to talk about preferable ways to sin. But really, I can't see the sense in not being a consequentialist as to the consequences of sin.

Looking forward to the day you can refuel the car at home

Producing hydrogen from urine

Interesting...

Israel sends subs through Suez Canal | Israel | Jerusalem Post

IDF sources said the decision to allow navy vessels to sail through the canal was made recently and was a definite "change of policy" within the service. In 2005, then OC Navy Adm. David Ben-Bashat decided to stop sending Israeli ships through the canal due to growing threats in the area.

However, the Dolphin-class submarine sailed through last month to get from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Israeli officials said it passed through the canal above water, and that it was not done covertly.

That's the second biggest robot rat I've ever seen

Robot rescue "rat" feels its way through rubble - video

I like robots, I like rats, so put them together and I'm bound to be impressed. Well, more or less. (Needs more cuteness.)

Australian ex-pats killed

It's the tragic, and largely unknown, story of hundreds of Australians living in Nevada, of all places, being senselessly slaughtered in a raid in 2003.

Mind you, it appears many of them were being fed cow manure, probably completely without their knowledge, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Reading recommendation

I have my doubts that Andrew Bolt goes off looking for rebuttal of climate skeptics' statements, but if he did, he should visit this one at Real Climate regarding Roger Pielke Snr's recent claims, to which AB was happy to link.

The truth about Al Franken

I get the feeling that the Weekly World News does not get the attention it deserves. People just get sick of too many poorly photoshopped "alien meets President" photos, I guess, and read The Onion for parody now instead.

But some of the writing still seems to me to be pretty funny, such as this piece (even if it does have a distinctly Colbert ring about it):

In a private ceremony involving robes and jasmine scented aromatherapy candles, Franken was sworn in as a Democrat with his right hand placed on the original hand-written Communist Manifesto, and standing atop a Bible. While waving olive branches, the assembled Democrats watched as Nancy Pelosi branded him with the words “Peace at Any Cost.”

Now Al Franken will have all the perks of the upper echelons of the Democratic Party. He will have access to the Democrat Library, which includes all the war plans of Jimmy Carter and the actual Kenyan birth certificate of Barack Obama. He also received a Democrat Decoder Ring, which also gives him a 20% discount at Pottery Barn.

As a Senator, Franken will now be instrumental to the Democratic Party. His presence grants them a filibuster-proof “Super-Majority.” Franken’s win in the Minnesota Courts places the Democrats even closer to pushing through strong reforms they’ve been looking forward, to like European-style Socialism, sex education in kindergarten and mandatory gay marriage.

When asked for comment, Franken said, “I’m glad that my presence will help turn America into what it needs to be: Europe.”

On a more serious note, the Christian Science Monitor points this out:

It's better for Democrats than 59. But a Senate supermajority didn't much help the last president to have one: Jimmy Carter.

Novel way to avoid Jehovah's Witnesses

Frogs found living in elephant dung

Convenient for the man, that is...

Gulfnews: Controversial marriage proves convenient option

In a misyar marriage, the wife willingly waives the rights to live with her husband in a house provided by him and to get alimony when they are divorced.

This marriage complies with the basic pillars of marriage in Sharia, said Mahmoud Ashour, a Muslim cleric at Al Azhar....

Historically, misyar was adopted as an option for men who travelled extensively.

Part of the problem

I know nothing about anthropologist Peter Sutton, who appeared on The 7.30 Report tonight discussing indigenous community problems. It was hard to avoid the impression that he has at least a little bit of guilt about the role he and his like-minded baby boomers played in encouraging remote area aborigines to not assimilate (oh, sorry, we don't say "assimilate" now, we say "modernise") which has led to the disastrous situations they find themselves in today. Here's a key section:

KERRY O'BRIEN: How have you changed your views in 40 years? How dramatically have you changed your views in 40 years?

PETER SUTTON: Quite dramatically because I was of that generation of people living in remote communities who aided and promoted and took part in things like decentralisation back to outstations in the bush, who promoted cultural traditionalism and supported it where they saw it, took on interest in it, recorded it, filmed it or whatever. And there was a sort of an army of baby boomers, really, who spread out across the outback from the late '60s onwards who I think played a fairly significant role, among other people of course, and I was one of those, that cadre of people who were involved in that. For us, culture was absolutely central, cultural preservation and preservation of knowledge of the bush and of places was absolutely central.

Now, I really think we have to start with three-year-old children, what's essential for them. If it works for them, that's the way to go. If it doesn't work for them, no matter how much it might be about keeping some cultural practice going, the practice needs to be questioned and people need to work out whether they're going to drop it or not.

By the way, do anthropologists like him only feel "safe" to espouse views which common sense conservatives have held for years when there is not a conservative government in power? (The reason being that they don't want to face the criticism of their mates that they are siding with something like the Howard government?) Just a theory...

Only works if everyone owns a mobile phone

Germany's Green Idea: Streetlights on Demand - TIME

Every night at 11 p.m. the village of Dörentrup in central Germany is thrown into total darkness. For the past few years, the village's cash-strapped local council has been switching off all the streetlights in the village each evening until 6 a.m. the following morning. In most places, a nightly blackout would provoke outrage as residents find themselves fumbling and stumbling their way home through the dark. But in Dörentrup, they have seen the light, with a new scheme that allows residents to turn on streetlights on demand — anytime, anywhere — using just their cell phones.

Sort of a neat energy saving idea, except my dislike of mobile phones means I don't like schemes that only work if you have one.

Helps explain vampires' longevity...

Biological 'Fountain Of Youth' Found In New World Bat Caves

More than you needed to know

Pedophiles, Hebephiles, and Ephebophiles, Oh My: Erotic Age Orientation: Scientific American

Well, Michael Jackson would presumably not be pleased to see that his death has led to a detailed discussion of pedophilia in Scientific American.

The column is by Jesse Bering, who is gay and tends to spend a lot of time writing on issues of sexuality, always with a gay sympathetic viewpoint, of course.

I for one did not know there were so many possible names for sexual interest in those of certain ages:

If Jackson did fall outside the norm in his “erotic age orientation”—and we may never know if he did—he was almost certainly what’s called a hebephile, a newly proposed diagnostic classification in which people display a sexual preference for children at the cusp of puberty, between the ages of, roughly, 11 to 14 years of age. Pedophiles, in contrast, show a sexual preference for clearly prepubescent children. There are also ephebophiles (from ephebos, meaning “one arrived at puberty” in Greek), who are mostly attracted to 15- to 16-year-olds; teleiophiles (from teleios, meaning, “full grown” in Greek), who prefer those 17 years of age or older); and even the very rare gerontophile (from gerontos, meaning “old man” in Greek), someone whose sexual preference is for the elderly. So although child sex offenders are often lumped into the single classification of pedophilia, biologically speaking it’s a rather complicated affair. Some have even proposed an additional subcategory of pedophilia, “infantophilia,” to distinguish those individuals most intensely attracted to children below six years of age.

The column is of interest, as it notes there is currently controversy in the psychiatric profession as to whether hebephilia should be counted as a medical disorder.

In that context it talks about one of those studies where the male subjects' sexual response to certain stimuli is tested by "phallometric testing":

Because this technique measures penile blood volume changes, it’s seen as being a fairly objective index of sexual arousal to what’s being shown on the screen—which, for those attracted to children and young adolescents, the participant might verbally deny being attracted to.

I don't know: this type of study has always sounded to me like it could have a very large "false positive" rate. At least for younger men, there's going to be some instances during the test of "increased blood volume changes" which are not necessarily related to the particular stimulus.

Anyway, according to the research:

...it’s possible to distinguish empirically between a “true pedophile” and a hebephile using this technique, in terms of the age ranges for which men exhibited their strongest arousal. They also conclude that, based on the findings from this study, hebephilia “is relatively common compared with other forms of erotic interest in children.”

Bering makes the point that it probably makes evolutionary sense that older men should have some attraction to pubescent teenage girls. Yet, he does admit that the reason some older gay men are attracted to teenage boys is harder to fathom.

Anyhow, some comments following the article think that Bering is setting up excuses for those with an interest in sex with youngsters. I don't think he necessarily is, even when he points out that it seems that society will forgive the artistic type for their sexual activities with youth more readily than they will if the guy is an unkempt lower class loser with the same interests.

All interesting reading, in any event.

UPDATE: readers wishing to conduct their own phallometric test are recommended to visit here.

Not convinced

Technology Review: Carbon Trading on the Cheap

This article about the inadequacies in the US carbon trading scheme (yet to pass the Senate) probably doesn't make any new points that haven't been canvassed elsewhere, but it's not a bad summary.

I remain somewhat puzzled as to why so many economists think it's a great idea when the system in its trial European version showed so many problems.

Yet everyone from John Quiggin, Harry Clarke and even Monbiot (sorry, no time to provide the links yet) have come out saying it's a good thing overall. Monbiot's attitude is perhaps the oddest, as he spends the first half of the article completely rubbishing its ineffectiveness.

Still, the attitude seems to be "it's better to have at least the bones of a system in place, it can always be improved in the future". In other words, they think it is good to have the gesture, even if everyone knows it won't make a real difference. But what is the evidence that such improvements will ever be politically "do-able".

I am not convinced at all. As the Technology Review article says:

Surveys of business leaders suggest that they will not seriously reconsider the way they use energy until the price of carbon exceeds 30 euros per ton. The late Dennis Anderson, a professor of energy and environmental studies at London's Imperial College, concluded in 2007 that significant change will come only when carbon prices "move to the upper end" of a range that he put at 40 to 80 euros per ton. Anderson estimated that the 40-euro threshold would have to be met to make onshore wind farms and nuclear power a better investment than natural-gas or coal-fired power plants, while prices would have to approach 80 euros to make carbon capture and storage worthwhile. Even higher prices would be needed to make solar and offshore wind economical.

Economists at the International Energy Agency have recently calculated that holding global warming to a reasonable level would require an annual investment of $1.1 trillion per year. And it would require a $200 per ton price on carbon, said the IEA, to drive the necessary innovation.

And the current price:

Global recession is now undermining the second phase of the trading system, which started last year. The European Union set the cap for the 2008-2012 period at 6.5 percent lower than the cap for the trial period. Trading volumes initially exploded, according to Point Carbon. But the rally proved short-lived. The EUA price slid to an average of just 11 euros in the first quarter of 2009, as manufacturing slowed in the face of the recession.

The faltering trading scheme may be doing real harm.

11 euros is about $15 US dollars.

I know the ability of the market to determine the price depending on economic circumstances is sold as a benefit. But it's a funny kind of market if you have to keep fiddling with how it works to get it to realistically reflect the price that is really needed to drive investment in new power production.

As I said, not convinced...

Newly revealed hazard

In an Online Opinion article today, which is mainly a complaint about Catholic attitudes towards the Gardasil vaccine, this interesting bit of information appears:

Research presented this month at the American Society of Clinical Oncology has confirmed that HPV-16 does not only cause cervical cancer. It also causes throat cancer in both men and women. This means that Gardasil may play an important role in preventing cancer in male populations.

Researchers led by Farshid Dayyani at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas, found that people who tested positive to HPV-16 were 58 times more likely to have throat cancer compared to those who had no history of having the virus.

Research has also shown that the virus is transmitted through fellatio and cunnilingus, and that both men and women who have performed oral sex on five or more partners (of either sex) are at a significantly higher risk of developing throat cancer. So much so, that they are considered to be at more risk than those who smoke or drink heavily.

I'm surprised I haven't read this elsewhere. I need to use Google alerts more, although it would be slightly embarrassing to set one up for the terms needed to catch this story.

Slate ponders Japan

Why does Japan, the world's most efficient economy, have so many elevator operators and gas station attendants?

This article talks about one contradictory thing (amongst several, I suppose) that is very noticeable about Japan.

I like this joke in particular:

Late last week, I visited Toyota's astonishing Tsutsumi auto plant, near the car company's headquarters in Toyoda City. With a capacity of 400,000 vehicles per year—this is where the Prius is made—it's clean, bright, full of erector-set conveyer belts, and thinly staffed. The welding shop is like a scene from The Terminator—a thicket of robots extend their arms, moving large pieces of metal and blasting them with shots of heat. (The section where robots stamp "Obama '08" and "NPR" bumper stickers on the hybrid vehicles must have been around the corner.)

Plimer's oceans (and why salmon matter more than you think)

When it first came out, I was led to believe by a radio interview that Ian Plimer's "Heaven + Earth" did not address ocean acidification in detail.

It turns out that was a mistake. Someone at Marohasy's blog, where I occasionally enter the fray, pointed out that Plimer had a section of about 8 pages (from memory) on the topic.

Over the weekend, I was in Adelaide (travelogue post to come) and was able to browse quickly through Plimer's book in the Museum of South Australia bookshop. (!) Indeed, he does address the topic, but from my quick look, I am certain that a very thorough Fisking of that section could easily be done by anyone who has actually read things such as the Royal Society 2005 paper.

However, there's no way I am forking out $40 for the privilege of doing that.

If anyone knows how I could get my hands of those pages from the book, I would be happy to hear from you.

[Now for my attempt to be "fair and balanced", just like my favourite TV news network. (Well, I do like quite a lot of it.) It is definitely the case that popular media reporting of ocean acidification is increasingly using terms which suggest that the ocean will actually become acid in future. This is completely misleading and inaccurate, but it gives Plimer a straw man to complain about. (By the way, I could see from my quick browse of his book that Plimer spends a lot of time repeating what he briefly says in that link, namely, that the oceans can't go acidic. Yes, Ian, we know that.)

The scientific concern has never been that humans burning carbon can turn the oceans' .pH from the alkaline side of the scale into acid. Rather, the reduced alkalinity alone has sufficient effect on the ocean's carbonate chemistry to have effects on its ecology. There's no way the ocean is going to go completely sterile, but the worry is that pretty damned big changes are underway, as has happened in the past.*

I can understand Plimer and the skeptics being annoyed at the way the media is reporting it, but by the same token, it is disingenuous of him to spend time arguing how the oceans cannot "turn into acid" when that was never the issue.]

* I heard for the first time, in a recent nature documentary on the ABC about the salmon breeding cycle in North America, about how the massive number of salmon that die far inland after spawning are now believed to provide a lot of the nitrogen that the huge conifers there need to grow. So, it would seem a reasonable assumption that, if future acidification reduces salmon food and decreases that population, the coastal forests of North America are going to suffer in the long run too. It's a good example of why it is prudent not to just take the attitude that the ocean ecology will sort itself out and we don't have to worry about it.

Back, but....

I'm back, but slowly circling the blog, waiting for inspiration.

There seems to be a fair bit of blogging abandonment by conservative Aussies lately, but my own idiosyncratic corner of opinion (conservative yet taking CO2 seriously, an abiding distrust of horses and cats but a fondness for rats, making sure that the LHC really isn't going to blow up Switzerland) is so certain never to be replicated anywhere else, I feel an obligation to protect this endangered cyber-thing.

End of financial year madness

I get busy this time of year. Back on about 30 June.

First there was the Urban Sombrero, now..

Urban Camping by import.export

This would have to be the silliest design concept I have seen in a long time.

(And imagine being in the top ten during a thunderstorm. Lightning, please hit me.)

Another dint in the "aborigines lived in harmony with nature for 40,000 years" story

New evidence in giant roo extinction

Researchers have found more evidence that hunting by humans may have caused the extinction of the giant kangaroo.

The giant kangaroo measured two metres in height and was wiped out about 40,000 years ago.

It was previously thought that climate change and land burn-off led to the extinction of the mammal, but researchers at Flinders University say this is not so.

Comparisons noted

AIDS denial: A lethal delusion - health - 22 June 2009 - New Scientist

Here's an interesting article on the history of HIV/AIDS denialism.

The story does have some parallels to global warming skepticism: there are a few scientists out of thousands who believe they have identified the truth, and that everyone else is wrong and just won't admit it because of self interest. Their work is not usually directly in the field of HIV research, rather they critique the work of the "believers".

As I have also said in the past, skeptics should remember the number of engineers and other science types who are 9/11 conspiracists.

And I make this post with my usual reminder that my position is that, even if warming is not proceeding at a dangerous pace, ocean acidification alone is reason to reduce CO2.

Puffed up outrage, indeed

OK, so Malcolm Turnbull over-reached. But, after seeing Kevin Rudd and him on 7.30 Report last night, I still come away thinking that Rudd's counter over-reach does his image no great help either.

What is wrong with Rudd? Annabel Crabb called his performance "puffed up outrage", as indeed was, but it did seem to me that Rudd was also taking it excessively personally. (Maybe that is an artefact of repeated performances during the day: pretend something long enough and you can really start to believe it.) It had something of a "glass jaw" air about it to me: how dare Turnbull call for my resignation [left unsaid: just because a public servant felt he was under pressure from my office to help someone special to me.]

Turnbull, on the other hand, did not seem to me to be deathly worried about it killing his leadership. He even managed to smile once or twice. (I take it from Turnbull's demeanour that he is not worried about the prospect that his own former adviser created the email, which was the rumour reported yesterday.)

Turnbull clearly comes across as having a barrister's style, which can be off putting at times, but elements of a likeable character seem to come through occasionally. As for Rudd, I still don't think anyone outside of his family likes him. (I guess people could say that Howard did not have seem to have a big circle of friends either, but I would still put him down as having a much more genuine public persona than Rudd.)

I think it was clear that even Kerry O'Brien knew Rudd was over-reacting, and for once, Kerry seemed a tad sharp in his handling of him.

Michelle Grattan's commentary on this seems pretty reasonable. (Short version: Turnbull's attack was not without justification as of 3 days ago.)

Of course, Turnbull's future probably does depend on more revelations about the origin of the email, and whether there were any grounds on the face of it to indicate fraud.

UPDATE: I saw Skynews Agenda program on this last night, with its regular commentators Grahame Morris (old Howard chief of staff) and Bruce Hawker (don't know who he worked for, but he's the Labor guy.)

I am sure it is not just my conservative bias that leads me to say this, but I have always found that Bruce Hawker is a complete bore as a commentator as he only ever recites the current Labor spin. You know exactly what he will say, and he will never, ever, concede harm to Labor in anything they do.

Morris, on the other hand, does show independence of thought, and is always much more open to admitting harm to his side of politics. He comes across as much more than a mere mouthpiece for the party he used to work for.

Late night wars

Who will have the final say in the clash of America’s TV chat kings?

According to The Independent, Conan O'Brien has lost ratings badly on The Tonight Show.

I haven't seen much of it, but from what I did see, I thought he was making the transition pretty well. Certainly much better than Jimmy Fallon, who I think is hopeless in the O'Briens former, later night, role.

I thought this segment from a couple of weeks ago was pretty funny. (Part 2 is here.)

Oh....

Economist puts dent in optimism: bigger crash is coming - ABC News

I must admit, while I understand little about economics in detail, my common sense take on it all makes me share this guy's skepticism that the worst is over.

Interesting photo

U.S. Fortifies Hawaii to Meet Threat From Korea - WSJ.com

Have a look at the photo in the article of a Boeing floating radar. Looks very suitable as a Bond villain's lair, I think.

Swiss suicide service - open for all

Suicide clinic challenged over patients who could have lived 'for decades' | Society | The Guardian

Questionable fashion

In Venice, Peter Greenaway Takes Veronese’s Figures Out to Play - NYTimes.com

Well what d'ya know, Peter Greenaway is still working, although now (thank heavens) it's only on an arty video installation, and not a movie. The article is perhaps most notable, however, for the photo of Greenaway wearing what appears to be a large pink towel as a scarf or something. Very odd.

While we're talking fashion (and, quite possibly, this is the first time this blog has ever done so,) the NYT also has an article on "innovative" men's fashion from Korea, yet it has no photos. (It does mention a blog called "Your boyhood", which seems a good name to look up at work if you want to be suspected as a pedophile.)

Well that's odd, I just looked at that blog for you, and it features more women than men. Well, I think they are women, anyway.

Finally, David Mitchell has some funny things to say about fashion (and controversy in England over wheelie bins - of all things) in his piece in The Guardian.