Armstrong and the Prophet, again

"Muhammad: a prophet for our time" is the second Karen Armstrong biographical book on the founder of Islam. (Does she actually like wearing big "kick me" signs taped on her back?) It's been out for a couple of months but seems to have attracted little in the way of reviews.

This weekend, a review in The Tablet starts off seemingly well, but it doesn't last:

In her elegantly composed and absorbingly narrated story of Muhammad's life and achievements, Karen Armstrong aims at doing just this and even more. She sees Muhammad not only as "a moral exemplar" but also as no less than "Prophet [and not only a prophet] for our time". Her account is based partly on a straightforward and uncritical reading of the work of Muhammad's earliest biographers, taking the Qur'an as her main source of information.

....Armstrong arrives at what seems a contrived interpretation of Muhammad's life: "Muhammad literally sweated with the effort to bring peace to war-torn Arabia, and we need people who are prepared to do this today. His life is a tireless campaign against greed, injustice, and arrogance ... he wore himself out in the effort to evolve an entirely new solution."

For Armstrong, the violent phase in the career of Muhammad must not be taken as its climax: Muhammad "eventually abjured warfare and adopted a non-violent policy". This statement is bizarre and corresponds to no Muslim account. It is highly questionable also in the light of all the bloodshed during the early history of Islam, starting with the Medinan period of Muhammad's career. Is it really historically convincing to claim that the battles of Muhammad and his immediate successors "had no religious significance"? Or that the first four caliphs, the "rightly guided ones", "in expanding the Arab Islamic empire by diplomatic and military means", were "responding to a political opportunity ... rather than a Qur'anic imperative"? The Qur'an clearly indicates that Muhammad's first great victory, at Badr, was to be understood as an act of divine intervention, vindicating Muhammad in his struggle against the enemies.

Other anti-Armstrong reviews:

From a University of London academic Efraim Karsh (this was noted in LGF in September):

Ms. Armstrong goes out of her way to whitewash Muhammad's extermination of the Jewish presence in Medina, especially the beheading of the entire 600 to 800 male population of the Qurayzah tribe. "[T]he Qurayzah were not killed on religious or racial ground," she claims, adding that "Muhammad had no ideological quarrel with the Jewish people." This is of course a travesty of the truth. Muhammad might have had no ideological quarrel with "the Jewish people," but he was seething with anger at the Medina Jews, who had not only spurned his attempts to woo them into his incipient religion (for example, by adopting a number of religious Jewish practices and rituals) but had also become his fiercest critics. Reflecting this outrage, both the Qur'an and later biographical traditions of the prophet abound with negative depictions of Jews. In these works they are portrayed as a deceitful, evil, and treacherous people who in their insatiable urge for domination would readily betray an ally and swindle a non-Jew.

And from the Boston Globe:

Readers will find her style stilted: At her best, she makes use of her intellectual skills to explore the tension between the personal and the historical, presenting Muhammad as an average individual doubting his choices, a visionary testing the limitations of his epoch; at her worst, she's didactic, frequently making sermonizing comments about thinking critically about jihad that are a mere rhetorical device. For Armstrong isn't a savvy, inquisitive thinker: She tells rather than shows, assumes rather than explains.

Vague cause for optimism

While not arguing with Israel's right to take steps to stop the never ending random rocket attacks on its territory, shouldn't they be reconsidering the use of shelling (with its inherent risk of error) as an appropriate method? Sure, missile attacks from helicopters and drones kill passersby too, but their explosive force is usually must more limited than a shell coming through the roof of a house (or hitting a beach.)

That said, I continue to wonder why the Palestinians think their rocket attacks are worthwhile when they are (in comparison) causing few deaths but, as a terror tactic, make it impossible for any Israeli government to say to its citizens that they should just ignore it.

I see from this BBC report that at least some Palestinians seem to share this view:

An old man called Muhammad Hussein broke down as he talked of the deaths of his sister and other relatives.

"They were all killed - pieces!" he shouted as he wept. "Thrown in pieces. I saw them! I put them in a sack! Eighteen people - they were killed."

But he said there should be no retaliatory suicide bombings.

"I don't like it," he said. "I myself don't like it. I am more than 70 years old. I want to live in peace!"

A much younger man called Nasser Hamad agreed.

"Palestinians should think carefully," he said.

"Palestinians should go to the peace process. We should not stop negotiating with the Israelis because they are pressuring us to lose our control and do unjustified actions against them."

He described suicide bombings as an ineffective tool.

They are talking about suicide bombings, but I presume that they would not agree with the rocket attacks either. It's a start, although I imagine it is a little hard for grass roots peace movements to get going within Gaza.

The yearning Tracee

Tracee Hutchison's column in The Age today is easy to ridicule in part:

A COUPLE of weeks ago, Silverchair's lead singer Daniel Johns made a bold political statement with a spray can at the annual ARIA awards. Having paid homage to ARIA Hall of Fame inductees Midnight Oil with a powerful rendition of the Oils' 1981 anthem I Don't Wanna Be the One, 27-year-old Johns spray-painted "PG 4 PM" on a strategically placed piece of plasterboard.

It was a fascinating moment.

Maybe for those who pay attention to the political opinions of an overly sensitive, arty musician who was far too successful far too early for the good of his own mental health. (Well, you go read the transcript of the Enough Rope interview he gave. It made me feel very uncomfortable watching it.)

Talking about Midnight Oil, Hutchison writes:

In truth, there are probably more bands making political statements in their lyrics now than there were when the Oils were in their prime. It's just that the Oils were an extraordinary rock'n'roll band first and foremost and their powerfully persuasive lyrics came wrapped in wonderful melodies, so their message reached more people than most.

I may be a musical ignoramus, but I am very surprised at the suggestion that Midnight Oil were big on melody.

But I shouldn't be too tough on this Hutchison column, because she does express cynicism about the relevance of things like this:

Now, more than ever, young, and not so young, people are looking for something, someone, to show them the way.

How else can you explain U2 lead singer Bono's ability to persuade 50,000 fans at U2's Brisbane concert to send a text message to the Make Poverty History organisation while pointing their mobile phones at the moon?

Exactly how 50,000 texts to the ether helps anyone but the shareholders of the phone companies is a mystery...

Quite true. But Hutchison's only source of inspiration in politics today? :

Activist-turned-Greens leader Bob Brown aside, the absence of inspired political leadership in Australia has never been starker. And the need to give people something to believe has never been more crucial. As a twentysomething, Peter Garrett sang about not wanting to be the One. Maybe so. But we need more Garretts, Browns and Stott Despojas engaged in the political process and we need them being heard.

I don't know. It seems to me a large part of the problem is this: teenagers, as a general rule, have always thought they know more than their hopeless parents who are running the world. Nowadays, psychological teenage-hood often extends into the early 30's, and so the class of disaffected "youth" had accordingly increased. (And, if they are all convinced of coming global catastrophe, they will probably have fewer children and avoid the life lessons that child rearing often entails.)

There are issues with how Western youth and society as a whole now chose to find meaning in life. But just complaining that oldies don't listen to and don't know how to lead the disaffected youth is not exactly a helpful contribution.

Bush and a carbon tax?

While it seems to be based on pretty slim evidence, Timothy Noah in Slate speculates that maybe Bush will become a carbon tax convert. It would be some surprise...

The baby flap

I haven't posted anything about Japan for a while, but this article in the Japan Times caught my eye:

KUMAMOTO (Kyodo) A hospital here plans to create a drop box where parents can anonymously leave unwanted babies, hospital officials said Thursday.

Jikei Hospital said it will begin the work to create the drop box as soon as it obtains permission from local public health authorities. The hospital wants to set it up by the end of the year.

Drop boxes for abandoned babies have been introduced in Germany, where they are known as a "babyklappe" (baby flap) or "babyfenster" (baby window) in German. In Italy, they are called "culle per la vita" (cradle for life).

A Jikei Hospital official visited Germany, where they are usually set up at hospitals or social centers, in 2004.

Jikei Hospital said its baby drop box, called "konotori no yurikago" (cradle of storks), will be a boxlike chamber similar to an incubator, accessible from outside the hospital by opening a window. When a baby is dropped off, an alarm will alert nurses.

I had heard of this idea before, but did not know it was already well established in Europe.

It's a peculiar idea in some respects; and I find it odd that giving up a baby this way doesn't cause all sort of problems for the mother in explaining to neighbours and relatives what happened to the baby.

Further down in the article, the depressing figure of the number of abortions in Japan is mentioned:

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, in fiscal 2004, the number of abortions in the prefecture stood at 5,619, while the nationwide figure came to 301,673. No figures were available on abandoned babies in Japan, which is struggling to find ways to stem a falling birthrate.

Just how big a difference to the population problem in Japan would a reduction in abortions mean? According to the BBC in August 2006:

Almost 550,000 births were registered in the six months from January to June, up by more than 11,600 from the same period last year.

So, that means (if this increase holds up), about 1,100,000 births a year. The number of deaths in 2005: about 1,077,000. (More people died in 2005 than were born.)

The point is, if they are going to insist on very low migration as a source of population growth, then halving the current abortion rate would stop the population slide by a substantial number.

UPDATE: by coincidence, I see that there is a recent Japundit post about the birth rate, and the strange attitude of Japanese to immigration.

Good news/bad news on greenhouse gases

Good news on the greenhouse gas front is rare to find (and not exactly over-reported.) But it turns out that atmospheric levels of methane, an important greenhouse gas due to it having a larger effect than CO2, has stopped increasing. From American Scientist:

This happy development wasn't entirely unanticipated, given that the rate of increase has been slowing for at least a quarter-century. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicated many of its conclusions on scenarios in which methane concentrations would continue growing for decades to come. Thus the recent stabilization of methane levels is something that some scientists are trying very hard to explain.

Edward J. Dlugokencky, an atmospheric chemist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has tracked atmospheric methane for many years. He says that "even as the reduction was happening, people doing emission scenarios weren't accounting for it." Dlugokencky maintains that the evolution of methane levels in the atmosphere mostly just reflects the attainment of a chemical equilibrium, such that methane production is balanced by its destruction. In sum, he says, atmospheric methane "looks like a system approaching steady state."

But now for the bad news. Over at Real Climate, there is a recent post about how much additional CO2 in the atmosphere might be "safe".

As usual with their site, they don't believe in over-simplifying their explanations for easy understanding, but the figures suggested, although appearing fairly "back of the envelope" look pretty bad:

This is a bit of a guessing game, but 2°C has been proposed as a reasonable danger limit. This would be decidedly warmer than the Earth has been in millions of years, and warm enough to eventually raise sea level by tens of meters. A warming of 2° C could be accomplished by raising CO₂ to 450 ppm and waiting a century or so, assuming a climate sensitivity of 3 °C for doubling CO₂, a typical value from models and diagnosed from paleo-data. Of the 450 ppm, 170 ppm would be from fossil fuels (given an original natural pCO2 of 280 ppm). 170 ppm equals 340 Gton C, which divided by the peak airborne fraction of 60% yields a total emission slug of about 570 Gton C.

How much is 570 Gton C? We have already released about 300 Gton C, and the business-as-usual scenario projects 1600 Gton C total release by the year 2100. Avoiding dangerous climate change requires very deep cuts in CO₂ emissions in the long term, something like 85% of business-as-usual averaged over the coming century. Put it this way and it sounds impossible. Another way to look at it, which doesn't seem quite as intractable, is to say that the 200 Gton C that can still be "safely" emitted is roughly equivalent to the remaining traditional reserves of oil and natural gas. We could burn those until they're gone, but declare an immediate moratorium on coal, and that would be OK, according to our defined danger limit of 2°C. A third perspective is that if we could limit emissions to 5 Gton C per year starting now, we could continue doing that for 250/5 = 50 years.

According to a chart that was part of my last post on CO2, the atmospheric level of CO2, on a "business as usual" basis, would be reached by about 2040. (We're already at about 380ppm.)

These figures are not good. However, the argument goes on in the comments section about whether Kyoto is a help or hinderance. Post number 105 comes up with some fairly imaginative ideas about reducing CO2 with self replicating robots and such like, and ends on this note, which neatly summarises conservative's concerns about Kyoto:

..many of the problems associated with CO2 is best solved with wealth. Indeed technology induced wealth solves both CO2-related problems AND all other sorts of nasty problems unrelated to CO2 such as poverty, disease, hunger, misery and disasters. By insisting on strangling economic growth, not only are you robbing the world of the best way to cope with climate change -- technology -- but also robbing the poor of the world the opportunity to cope with just about anything.

I haven't read the Stern report, or many of the articles criticising it yet, so I can't comment helpfully yet. But the main point of this post is just how bad the figures look for how hard it will be to keep that much carbon out of the atmophere.

Uncommon medical advice

I like stories about doctors who have gone mad, assuming no harm is done in the process:

A doctor at a family planning clinic told a patient that she needed an exorcism because there was something sinister moving around inside her stomach, a medical tribunal was told yesterday.

Joyce Pratt, 44, allegedly told the patient, who was seeking contraceptive advice, that she might be possessed by an evil spirit and needed religious rather than medical help.

She gave the woman crosses and trinkets to ward off black magic, allegedly told her that her mother was a witch, that she and her husband were trying to kill her, and suggested that she visit a Roman Catholic priest at Westminster Cathedral in London.

During the consultation at the Westside Contraceptive Clinic in Central London the doctor was said to have told the patient that she had black magic powers that could help to alleviate the problem.

I am sure Queensland Health could find a place for her in any event.

On the US elections

Complicated system, this having a separate executive from the legislature.

As far as Iraq is concerned, it's hard to see how a Democrat controlled house is going to help come up any time soon with a concrete change of plan in Iraq. The Guardian helpfully points out that important Democrat figures are all over the place:

....suggestions that Democrats have the answers on Iraq appear sadly misplaced. In the first place, they lack decisive power. Mr Bush remains arbiter-in-chief of America's foreign and security policy. More to the point, they have no coherent, collective view - and are scared of being accused of betraying frontline troops.

Hillary Clinton, the 2008 presidential hopeful, opposes an Iraq withdrawal timetable. John Kerry, beaten by Mr Bush in 2004, wants a firm deadline. John Murtha, who will control the House committee that appropriates cash for the Iraq war, has demanded an immediate pullout. Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, is advocating a tripartite division of Iraq. And there are many other points of view. All that unifies them is criticism of Mr Bush's performance.

The paper also points out how new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has previously spoken of the President:

While the two have appeared together at some social functions, their relationship has been marked by mutual disdain.

"He is an incompetent leader. In fact, he is not a leader," she said in a 2004 interview. "He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide on." Bush, for his part, has painted Pelosi has a tax-loving Democrat, although during the midterm campaign he left the mud-slinging to party operatives who depicted her in political adverts as a stereotypical San Francisco liberal.

I have not paid attention to the nature of the Republican attacks, but I see that some say Fox News spent a lot of time on her.

Interesting times ahead.

A realistic military option with Iran?

This article makes a very plausible argument for a type of military option for dealing with Iran if the need arises.

(My idea of using electromagnetic pulse weapons does not get a mention, but maybe someone in the Pentagon reads my blog. Or perhaps I have to type in the words "Praise Allah, here are the plans for nuclear weapon" to be sure that will happen.)

An interesting take on Stern report

This short article from TCS daily argues that cost of fighting global warming, as suggested in the recent Stern report, is much higher than it first appears. (Roughly $400 billion annually.) The writer suggests that if this is the sort of money involved, then maybe some global engineering solution (of the mirrors in space variety, for example) is not so out of the question after all.

Speaking of which, here's another suggestion for such a solution:

Angel and colleagues propose launching a constellation of trillions of small free-flying spacecraft a million miles above Earth into an orbit aligned with the Sun, called the L-1 orbit. The spacecraft would form a long, cylindrical cloud with a diameter about half that of Earth, and about 10 times longer.

Some 10 per cent of the sunlight passing through the 97,000 kilometre length of the cloud - pointing lengthwise between the Earth and the Sun - would be diverted away from our planet. The effect would be to uniformly reduce sunlight by about 2 per cent over the entire planet, enough to balance the heating caused by a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

But the trick is how to get them there:

According to Angel and colleagues, the sunshade could be deployed by a total 20 electromagnetic launchers launching a stack of 1 million flyers every 5 minutes for 10 years.

Oh. Suddenly sounds less than plausible. Do it from the moon instead would seem a much better bet!

This idea also made me wonder whether anyone has suggested nanotechnology as a possible shielding solution. I quite liked Michael Crichton's novel "Prey", about swarms of nano gnats that start eating people. Of course, that such devices will ever exist seems farfetched, but if something like them could be made on an industrial scale, and launched to live high in the atmosphere, could the swarm form a controllable high altitude dusty sunshade? Just thinking outside of the circle, folks...

About Saddam's verdict

You can always trust Huffington Post to run some Hollywood star, comedian, or ex-journalist with the most anti-Bush take possible on current events. (OK, occasionally they have someone with an opinion I can agree with.) But today, Joan Z Shore (apparently an aging former journalist) makes this ridiculous comparison on Saddam's guilty verdict:

How can anyone in a civilized world justify or condone what has
happened? Invading (preemptively) a sovereign nation, occupying it,
capturing its leader, setting up a kangaroo court, and sentencing him to
hang for crimes against his own people.....

Did we dare do this with Idi Amin, with Joseph Stalin, with Chou
En-lai, with Pol Pot?

Of course not. Maybe those nations were too big too tackle, or too
far away, or maybe there were no economic interests (e.g., oil) hanging in
the balance. Or maybe our leaders then simply had a commendable sense of
caution, before waging a unilateral attack on a foreign dictator.

Emphasis mine.

So, George W is meant to suffer by comparison with the "caution" of past presidents who failed to invade Communist Russia and China? Joan: if, as you virtually concede, it is bleeding obvious that they is no comparison, why make the comparison?

As for the fairness of the trial, despite the chaos surrounding it, Radio National this morning spoke to Mark Ellis, the executive director of the International Bar Association, and he did not seem to have major issues about that. I felt that Fran Kelly had a twinge of disappointment that Ellis did not get on a high horse about how procedurally unfair it had been. Instead, he made it clear that the evidence was there and it was a compelling case.

Christopher Hitchens has turned up on Lateline tonight (transcript should be available soon) making it clear that while he doesn't support capital punishment, he can see that the execution will at least serve the practical purpose of ending the substantial fear in many Iraqis that he will some day return to rule again. This argument is surely persuasive when you consider the amount of insurgency still going on in the country. I don't support capital punishment for your run of the mill murderer or criminal either, but the difference between them and former charismatic but murderous national leaders is the potential for more deaths caused by the latter's supporters.

Finally, a string anti American and British comments can be found on the BBC's comments section. My favourite so far (from "Julie in Stourbridge") is this:

Okay, i feel like the little boy in the emporers new clothes for saying this but how on earth do we know this is the real Saddam and not just an actor or a double.
Saddam was known to have many doubles and his wife did say many months ago that this was not her husband on trial.

Is the whole thing just a stage show for the benefet of the public while the real Saddam is playing Golf with George Bush?

That's worthy of Daily Kos, that one.

UPDATE: Ever since the turmoil in Iraq has increased, there have been a few voices from some the anti war, anti-death penalty Left who have actually suggested that Saddam should be re-instated. The fact that such voices exist at all only further strengthens my argument that it is too dangerous for him to left alive, as the Sunni insurgents would always have the hope of his return as an incentive to keep creating enough chaos.

I note that the Guardian has published what appears to be a serious "tribute" to Saddam, although there appears to be some suggestion that it might be satire. Satire should be clearly recognisable as such in order to work, though, shouldn't it? Certainly, some of the argument is so egregious as to be truly breathtaking. As one of the comments following says:

What next. Joseph Stalin: a Tribute. "Yes Uncle Joe murdered millions of people and was a despotic tyrant, but at least he got tractor production up in the urals and made the Moscow metro run on time". You are mad

What is worrying is that a lot of comments are semi-supportive, or at least along the lines of "if he hangs, so should Bush and Blair". As Jim Nolan argues today, such comments are:

"...confirming yet again, if confirmation were needed, that new depths of moral obtuseness not seen since the Hitler-Stalin pact are resurgent."

Go John Kerry

On a lighter note, some of the commentary on the disastrous John Kerry "joke" is pretty funny. Gerard Barker writes :

IN John Frankenheimer's electrifying 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, an American soldier is captured by communists during the Korean War, brainwashed and programmed to return to the US and, years later, to assassinate a presidential candidate.

There is compelling evidence now that John Kerry is a kind of Manchurian Candidate of Democratic politics.

Read it all.

Conan O'Brien's segment on Late Night (shown on Comedy Channel here last night) was also very funny. Unfortunately, no clip of it is available on his website yet, but maybe one will become turn up later. Before Google came into the picture, I would have expected to find it on You Tube, but much of the posting of TV clips has sadly come to an end.

More war with Lebanon?

A pessimistic assessment from John Keegan in the Telegraph about Israel having to go to war again soon. Within a year, he reckons.

In Gaza, killing continues, and women who heed the call to act as human shields get killed.

As if there weren't enough problems in Israel already, a fight is going on about a planned gay pride parade in Jerusalem next week. The police think it is more trouble than it is worth, and want it stopped. If it goes ahead, at least Conservative Jews and Muslims will be meeting on the street with a common aim, for a change. Somehow, I don't think that is the point the march organisers want to achieve.

This Jerusalem Post article about the whole issue is interesting. Apparently, many areas of Jerusalem are being abandoned by secularist and left to the religious conservatives. (Incidentally, the parade is planned to be through the secular commercial areas.) But what is life like in Jerusalem for gays? I was a little surprised to read that it's not so bad:

The leaders of Jerusalem's gay community are obviously pleased at the enormous amount of publicity their parade has been receiving. But they are aiming for a Pyrrhic victory. Jerusalem is not the most difficult Israeli city for gays to live in. The capital has a vibrant gay scene, with a number of bars operating peacefully, while the Open House social center is funded (under a Supreme Court order) by City Hall, where there is an openly homosexual City Council member. Of course, there is some degree of homophobia, and a number of cases of harassment - but no more, and probably much less, than can be found in many other places around the country.

And the need for a march therefore is....?

Fiddling with life for the benefit of Chad

The LA Times certainly brings attention to the culture wars with a series it has run this week about what 2 gay men did to get a baby:

...they had decided to have a child through a gestational surrogacy arrangement. They would pay one woman to provide her eggs and then, after fertilizing them in vitro with their sperm, pay another woman to carry the resulting embryos to term.

Section one is here. (To avoid having to register in to see following pages, click on the "one page" choice at the bottom.)

By and large, the article strives for a very non judgment tone, with lines like this:

It was a quest that would take them to the frontiers of medicine, bioethics, technology and the law, as well as to the front lines of the culture wars.

And:

Rather than creating a life in the privacy of a bedroom, Chad and David would plot this conception in law offices, doctors' suites and Internet chat rooms. It would take a village to manufacture their child.

Why did they chose this method of getting a baby:

They had considered adoption, but Chad, 33, and David, 35, wanted to participate more fully in the process of bringing a child into the world. They longed to see the first ultrasonic images of a tiny pumping heart and even to provide coaching in the maternity ward, just like straight fathers.

Why did they decide on such a complicated procedure (rather, say, than impregnating a volunteer mother)? Because this method reduces the chances of the mother making claim to any parental rights (the child is not genetically hers). So, take the riskiest path possible for this manufactured child, hey boys?

Despite the writer's efforts, some creepiness gets through:

For weeks, they had evaluated virtually any woman who entered their field of view. One night, when David met friends at a Georgetown bar, a striking woman with olive skin and dark eyes asked him to dance. When he later told Chad how flattering it had been, Chad could only ask: "Do you think she would be our egg donor?"....

They didn't want to consider appearance at the exclusion of all else, but they couldn't deny, in the privacy of that room, that it mattered.

"You can't ignore it," David said. "I mean, who wants an ugly child?"

"David, some people would be happy with that," Chad scolded.

Did I say the article was non-judgement? This description of the young David, and the perfect nature of their relationship, goes beyong that:

David's materialism made friends roll their eyes. But beneath the Neiman Marcus veneer they found a razor intellect, a generous heart, an optimistic spirit, and an almost effortless charm. By the time David came to grips with his sexuality, a lacerating tongue had mellowed into a quick and often wickedly entertaining wit.

From the outset, Chad and David seemed perfect complements. David grounded Chad, and made him more secure. Chad softened David, and made him more sensitive.

(Look, even if it was a straight couple, you would have to question this in anything resembling journalism.) It wasn't even as if both of them had life long desires to be fathers:

It wasn't until Chad and David went to couples counseling in 2001 that David revealed he had serious reservations about being a parent. He liked their life as it was, he said, and he wasn't convinced he was the nurturing kind.

This section here just about sums up neatly the zenith of the commodification of reproduction that this story represents:

Now that the technology existed, they asked themselves, why shouldn't gay men have the same right as straight people to produce a genetic heir? All they lacked were eggs and a womb. As it turned out, they could buy the first and lease the second.

Chad gets his way. They don't have much luck:

It was their fifth attempt in 15 months to create a pregnancy through a gestational surrogacy arrangement. To get to this point, they had gone through two egg retrievals, 58 eggs, 43 embryos, two embryo freezes, three frozen embryo thaws, four failed embryo transfers, two surrogates and more than $100,000.

Part 2 of the story is here.

Long story short: Chad's sister ends up being the surrogate (how perfectly liberal this family must be). What's more, it's twins.

Happy ending? No way. Babies born at 24 weeks. Chad and David rush to hospital. Of course, they are the perfect grieving parents:

It didn't take long for the hospital staff to conclude that Chad and David were more devoted than many parents who passed through the unit.

Both babies die. Teary scenes by everyone, because, you know, they are just such a loving couple.

Chad and David are trying again. Through double implantation again. Did I mention that they are both Christians?

I find this story just appalling on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. I don't think I will even try.

Scott Adams' humour

I was aware some time ago that Dilbert writer Scott Adams had a blog. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to read it. Must add him to blogroll.

His recent entries on the Sheik Hilali ruckus, and the Slate story I mentioned about the internet and rape, are both funny. (The Sheik has sure made an international name for himself, hasn't he?)

As used by Chris Masters and Phillip Adams

From Japundit, a Japanese English label.

Tim Dunlop goes professional

I am pretty surprised by this. Tim Dunlop is turning into a professional blogger for News Limited.

I know that in the past, Tim has been on friendly enough terms with Tim Blair, and makes the occasional comment that is sort of respectful to opposing opinion on going into the Iraq war. However, it has seemed to me that he has become increasingly nasty and afflicted by Howard (and Bush) Derrangement Syndrome over the last 18 months or so that I have read him. Those who regularly comment on his site are worse. It is an unpleasant place to raise dissent.

I therefore have no idea why News Limited finds him a good bet for hosting a blog, although it is clear that puts a lot of time into his own.

I am also very curious as to what such a job pays.

Sunlight good for at least one cancer

An interesting suggestion from this study:

Using newly available data on worldwide cancer incidence, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at UCSD have shown a clear association between deficiency in exposure to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet B (UVB), and ovarian cancer.

It's all to do with vitamin D.

On drinking for health

I like this post by Bryan Appleyard, especially the last line.

Religion and women

Some good points are made in this opinion piece in the Times:

It is the asymmetry that I object to in Muslim thought, the fact that men can wear what they like while women cannot. Are women supposed to be more evolved than men, more in control of their passions? In that case it seems odd that they are not even allowed to enter many mosques, let alone preach in them.

No, Muslim men seem to want to have it both ways. They want complete leadership of their community, with women’s voices seldom heard, but then they are happy to reduce themselves to the status of animals — feral cats in the Mufti’s sermon — when it comes to sex, unable to resist the charms of a woman with an uncovered head.

The issue ranges beyond the Muslim community. For it’s not much fun for the rest of womankind, dressed perfectly modestly in their own eyes, to know that, because their heads are bare or their calves exposed, many Muslim men will see them as tarts.

What is more, Western women are prepared to cover right up if they visit a strict Muslim country where local people would be offended by skimpy shirts or shorts. Yet there are still many Muslim women living in liberal Britain who continue to wear the full veil, hiding their face, whatever offence or alienation it might cause here.

The Anglican Archbishop of Perth, however, uses the debate about Islamis views on women to criticise the conservatives in his own church who are against the ordination of women:

The thought forms that treat women as second-class human beings have foundational elements that are similar in many repressive religious traditions.

One of the leading academics from Moore College, Dr Mark Thomson, made it clear that there was nothing to discuss regarding women in ministry as "God has not left us alone to guess what any part of Scripture is saying. God is a very good communicator — we have been convinced that the teaching of Scripture is authoritative — we rejoice in the word God has given us".

Hilali in his logic reiterates that Allah is forgiving and merciful yet wise and all powerful, so the word that is given must be for the good of humanity. Women just fall into this divine pattern of submission — it is the way things are — and it is good.

The divinely sanctioned world view authenticated by the selective use of Scripture by these Islamic and Christian scholars keeps women in subjection and gives a clear passport to heaven for the chosen. Those who see the Scriptures differently will find their destiny in the fires of hell.

Is this really a fair or correct representation of what the Anglican opponents to women's ordination say?

The Archbishop goes onto say:

In Christianity, as I am sure in Islam and in other faith and non-faith systems, there are other texts and a humbler interpretation given by many other scholars that gives rise to a different, equally divinely sanctioned world view. All humanity and the whole created order are loved into a dignity that invites all to move from slavery to freedom.

Yes, the Bible is funny like that, can be interpretted to support a wide variety of propositions. That Catholics and Anglicans are not fundamentalists in the generic sense is therefore a good thing. The use of reason is good.

But the pro-women's Ordination argument that it is all about overcoming ancient prejudice against women I find very tiresome. It assumes an inherent unreasonableness on the part of their opposition for refusing to recognise their own prejudice.

I don't think it is helpful if the conservatives really do claim that their opponents are destined for hell if they ordain women. But I equally find it unacceptable for pro-ordination forces to claim that the opposition is inherently unreasonable, as I think they are inclined to do.

The fundamental problems of faith in the modern world are not, in my view, really to do with issues about rights and social justice anyway. Those churches that concentrate on those matters at the expense of emphasising their, um, supernatural or metaphysical (I am not sure of the right way to characterise this) role in the life of their individual church members are losing ground in popularity anyway, because those churches have dealt themselves out of having any special value or purpose anyway.

In this way, concentration on an issue such as women's ordination is a side issue and hurts churches, but in exactly the opposite way to which most liberal churches think.

Charts and stuff on CO2 levels

Hearing figures and statistics on CO2 levels and the Kyoto protocol can make it hard to process the information. I therefore had a look around the web for some charts and graphs that would make it easier for me to understand. Here's a few that I think help:

First, here's the "per capita" chart for greenhouse gases that pro-Kyoto people like to refer to:


Yes, yes, Australia looks bad on a per capita basis. However, the next chart shows some total figures:

Where does Australia fit in? It's kind of confusing because of the different ways different charts are counting carbon, but the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory says:

Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors totalled 564.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO₂-e) in 2004 under the accounting provisions applying to Australia’s 108% emissions target.

That figure sounds about right, according to the next chart too. Anyway, the USA and Europe are pretty much on top. However, here's the really worrying thing (assuming you think CO2 is a worry):

Just look at that growth curb for China. It hits US levels in a little over 10 years time, and then keeps climbing. I am not sure if this is on a "do nothing" basis or not. However, even on current "do something" ideas, I doubt it's going to have much effect within 10 years.

China is, of course, amongst the many countries which Kyoto doesn't currently cover, as shown clearly shown here:




Finally, projections for CO2 increase over the next 100 years or so (on a "business as usual" basis):


Kind of a steep curve, hey.

The lesson I take from this is: the really, really serious issue is preventing China's huge climb, as well as reducing the US. As the US is already economically advanced, I guess there is greater grounds for optimism that it can develop and afford the technological fixes which may help. But there will be a huge need to get those technologies into China fast. How the international community can help China in this process is not a topic I can say I have heard a lot about.

More about Islam and women

While I am talking about the Imam Hilali uproar, fierce Islam critic Robert Spencer's Frontpage article about this is worth reading. While most people probably know of the difficulty that rape victims in strict Sharia law countries have in getting the rapist convicted (most rapes not occurring within sight of 4 male witnesses), the extent of the related problem of the complainant being at risk of going to jail for adultery surprised me:

What’s more, in traditional Islamic law rape cannot be established except by the testimony of four male witnesses who saw the act, as stipulated by Qur’an 24:4 and 24:13. Consequently, it is even today virtually impossible to prove rape in lands that follow the dictates of the Sharia. Unscrupulous men can commit rape with impunity: as long as they deny the charge and there are no witnesses, they get off scot-free, because the victim’s account is inadmissible. Even worse, if a woman accuses a man of rape, she may end up incriminating herself. If the required male witnesses can’t be found, the victim’s charge of rape becomes an admission of adultery. That accounts for the grim fact that as many as seventy-five percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape.^[i] Several high-profile cases in Nigeria recently have also revolved around rape accusations being turned around by Islamic authorities into charges of fornication, resulting in death sentences that were only modified after international pressure.^[ii]

Attempt at humour ends in tears

A Times of India blogger posted about the Imam Hilali "cat meat" issue in terms clearly meant not to be taken entirely seriously:

Clearly, the woman by not wearing a burkha is not commiting a crime. She is merely exposing herself to the weaker sex (men) who in their weakness will rape her which indeed is a crime. Yes it is so even per the Quran.

Sooooo, logic would dictate that all muslim men wear a burkha so that they cannot see anything and cannot derobe easily to rape. Perhaps all muslim men should be made to wear some form of a chastity belt the key to which is held by their mother until they are married and their wives after that. This way the “weaker” sex, i.e., the male, will not be able to lose to tempation and commit a crime.

After all crime prevention is about keeping criminals at bay not the innocent.

Now I would like to see some Imam make that law :-)

Reader reaction, which unfortunately seems not to be available, was clearly not good, as the blogger makes clear in his follow up posts:

This post and many others on O3 reveal expose one thing. The scum in our society. My post may be interpretted as discriminatory but if you read it carefully it is not. On reading the comments to my post I am shocked at some posts such as those by this person calling him or her self as “human“. My dog is capable of higher levels of inteligence.

And the next day:

Let me set the record straight on this issue. I don't give a rats ass as to what someone is wearing. My post is not against burkhas. It is against idiotic statements and practices that have no place in todays society. And these practices are not limited to Islamic practices. What do I mean by that? Quite simple. No one should dictate what anyone wears, sings, believes, eats, drinks etc.

If you are that averse to freedom then perhaps you need to seek out a nation that will deprive you of your freedom and go live there. This goes out to people of all religion, caste, creed, color, shape, size, whatever......

Obviously, it is challenging to mix humour and commentary on Islam in India.

My "Wallace" post

When I was a kiddie, there seemed to be only about 5 different fresh cheeses commonly available in Brisbane supermarkets. Mostly cheddar. And then there was the rubbery cheese-like foil wrapped bricks of Kraft processed cheese, which seemed to have a shelf life of 5 years or more. Is it still available? I haven't gone looking...

Cheese varieties available grew over the 1970's, and seemed to explode in the 1980's. Now, every self respecting foodie area of Australia has its own small cheese factory, even in South East Queensland.

Here are two I have been to in the last 12 months, one at Mount Tambourine (not far from the Gold Coast) and the other at Maleny (not far from the Sunshine Coast). These cooler high areas are both well worth visiting for their scenery anyway, and they also have several competent wineries, although more often than not these are just outlets for wine made in the Stanthorpe region. There is also a nice goats cheese made by a Frenchman near Gympie that is available at the "farmer's markets" held at various locations around Brisbane.

Both of these small cheese factories made excellent cheeses and deserve success. In fact, the art of competent cheese making seems something that Queenslanders found a lot easier to master than making competent wine. (There are good Queensland wines now, though.)

The Witches Chase factory even runs 2 day cheese making classes, for those truly obsessed with cheese, I suppose. Their website is, however, one of the worst commercial ones I have ever seen.

Of course, true cheese connoisseurs will go on about how ridiculous it is that Australia will not allow cheese to be made from unpasteurised milk. (I have never tasted it so don't know what I might be missing.) They will also watch the cable TV show "Cheese Slices", which is truly European cheese pornography. (Well, I have seen an episode or two and have to admit to enjoying it.)

There is something deeply satisfying about melted cheese on toast when you are really hungry. I feel like some now.

Unnecessary research

Condom woes lead to erection 'deflation' is the heading on this New Scientist story. Enough said...

Two articles on Iraq

Christopher Hitchens still isn't showing any signs of jumping ship on the whole Iraq issue. From his latest Slate article:

I am glad that all previous demands for withdrawal or disengagement from Iraq were unheeded, because otherwise we would not be able to celebrate the arrest and trial of Saddam Hussein; the removal from the planet of his two sadistic kids and putative successors; the certified disarmament of a former WMD- and gangster-sponsoring rogue state; the recuperation of the marshes and their ecology and society; the introduction of a convertible currency; the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan (currently advertising for investors and tourists on American television); the killing of al-Qaida's most dangerous and wicked leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and many of his associates; the opening of dozens of newspapers and radio and TV stations; the holding of elections for an assembly and to approve a constitution; and the introduction of the idea of federal democracy as the only solution for Iraq short of outright partition and/or civil war. If this cause is now to be considered defeated, by the sheer staggering persistence in murder and sabotage of the clerico-fascist forces and the sectarian militias, then it will always count as a noble one.

Meanwhile, Juan Cole, who Hitchens has ripped into before, writes what seems to be an unobjectional piece in Salon, explaining why the partitioning of Iraq is not really an option:

But aside from the selfish interests of all the political actors inside and outside Iraq, as a practical policy, partitioning Iraq is too risky. It would probably not reduce ethnic infighting. It might produce more. The mini-states that emerge from a partition will have plenty of reason to fight wars with one another, as India did with Pakistan in the 1940s and has done virtually ever since. Worse, it is likely that if the Sunni Arab mini-state commits an atrocity against the Shiites, it might well bring in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. They in turn would be targeted by Saudi and Jordanian jihadi volunteers.

A break-up of Iraq might not stop at Iraq’s borders. The Sunni Arabs could be picked up by Syria, thus greatly increasing Syria’s fighting power. Or they could become a revolutionary force in Jordan. A wholesale renegotiation of national borders may ensue, according to some thinkers. Such profound changes in such a volatile part of the world cannot be depended on to occur without bloodshed.

Both articles are worth reading in full.

The crime fighting internet and further thoughts. (An adult post.)

This story in Slate is fascinating.

Turns out that one serious study on crime statistics indicates that internet access reduces the number of rapes (although mainly for teenage perpetrators).

So, all that lack of "mastery of domain" that the internet encourages in teenagers has at least one upside.

One downside, I am sure I have read somewhere in the past, is that widespread familiarity with the explicit porn around today had led many people - mainly men I guess - into having unrealistic expectations of what a sexual partner should be happy to try. This can have serious effects on what otherwise might have been a good relationship.

In fact, the whole issue of community attitudes to what is "acceptable" in terms of everyday sexual practices is pretty interesting, in that it seems to me underappreciated (especially by younger people, who have grown up in the current decadent period) how quickly it changes over time. This is not a subject I have spent much time researching, but as an example, I remember an SBS documentary in which an old gay American guy said that, prior to about the 1970's, gay culture was not at all fixated on anal sex as its predominant sexual practice. As I recall, he claimed that in the 1940's and 50's, gay men who wanted that were seen by most other gay men as being somewhat extreme. This, however, has now changed completely in the gay community. On the heterosexual side, I suspect that the equivalent change in the 20th century is in the attitude to oral sex. (Slate has previously run a story on the apparent very recent increase in oral sex amongst American teens in particular. Experience of heterosexual anal sex has had a big increase too, although I would be curious to know how often this is a matter of regular practice, rather than one off experiment.)

Of course, much of what I am relying on for my impressions is anecdotal evidence, but establishing in retrospect what were previous community attitudes has obvious problems. The type of studies that Kinsey did on this - which do indicate a wide variety of sexual practices earlier in the 20th century - are now considered very methodologically suspect.

Everyone knows, of course, that all sorts of sexual practices were illustrated by older cultures, as shown on Greek, Chinese and Hindu art. The fact that they were illustrated, however, tells us little about the average person's attitude towards those practices. It seems still very arguable as to what exactly was the average Greek man's attitude to homosexuality, for example.

Nor is it clear that relying on famous writer's views is necessarily a good guide to past communities' attitudes. Everyone knows at least a little about the great moral panic about masturbation in the West that ran for a couple of centuries or so, yet how likely were the mountains of pamphlets and books warning of its great dangers to influence the common man's view of it? Surely most father's experience of it as a youngster would have lent some sympathetic understanding of their own offspring's practice? Even Kant, who I generally admire, went completely overboard on this topic, writing:

The obstinate throwing away of one’s life as a burden is at least not a weak surrender to animal pleasure, but requires courage; and where there is courage, there is always respect for the humanity in one’s own person. On the other hand, when one abandons himself entirely to an animal inclination, he makes himself an object of unnatural gratification, i.e., a loathsome thing, and thus deprives himself of all self-respect.

So, there is at least something to admire in suicide, but masturbation is completely depraved?

This post is going no where, I guess, except to make the point that I feel it is important to recognize that attitudes to sexual practices are subject to cultural fashion and highly debatable intellectual analysis. I am not arguing that current Western laissez-faire attitudes are inherently an improvement over past attitudes, even though I have made my view of the moral panic over masturbation clear. Rather, I am suggesting that the current predominant Western attitudes deserve analysis and justification if they are to be any more than just another cultural fashion. My tendency, of course, is to support more conservative analysis, and in that respect I would hope Roger Scruton's approach is worthwhile, but I haven't read much by him about this yet.

I haven't even directly touched the whole current attitude to sexual identity either, which I think should be subjected to the same critical approach, but that is a post for another day.

Back soon

I've been away for the weekend, and work is going to slow down blogging for a day or two. Stay with me, vast international readership, for I shall return. (With cheese shop recommendations too!)

The value of flu shots

My elderly but very active mother has always been sceptical of the benefit of flu vaccination, and every winter takes pleasure in pointing out which of her family and acquaintances have succumbed to the "flu" despite having had the shot that year. (I continually point out that there is a difference between a heavy cold and the flu, but never get far with this argument.)

However, it seems that some doctors also question the value of the flu vaccination programs, and even the evidence for their value in the elderly is a bit all over the place:

Only among people who suffer bronchitis could he find good evidence that flu vaccination was worthwhile. In infants up to two, vaccination was no better than placebo and in older children there was little evidence of benefit.

Nor could he find enough evidence of benefit among people with chronic chest problems, asthma and cystic fibrosis.

In healthy adults the best evidence was that, on average, flu vaccination of a population would prevent 0.1 per cent of a working day lost.

Combined studies of the elderly showed a variation from no effect to a 60 per cent difference when "all cause mortality" was measured.

"These findings are both counter-intuitive and implausible as other causes of death are far more prevalent in older people," he writes.

Score one for my mother?

Disturbing things to do with dogs

"Shanghai Dogs implanted with chips" is the heading of a Science Daily story of no particular interest, except it made me think "well, better than being served with chips."

Such thoughts are encouraged by the fact that I currently work with 2 people who recently told me that they have both eaten dog and highly recommend it, taste wise. (In fact, one of them says he knows how to get it in Brisbane.) I have pointed out that if ever he is caught in a raid of a dog banquet at a Brisbane restuarant, it would get a spectacular amount of publicity which would hardly be good for his career.

I have also vowed never to let him order in a restaurant where I can't understand what is going on.

It is sort of interesting to note the difference in cultural attitudes to eating dog, and how it is hard to overcome the repulsion which you know a fair slab of the rest of the world just doesn't get.

Adams and Masters talk about sex, presumably

Phillip Adams had Chris Masters on his radio show last night but I missed it. It will be repeated today at 4pm, but I will probably miss that too. The show is available on line, but no transcript.. This should be interesting, given Adams' previous column about Jones which I criticised here.

Pelican Lector

Breaking news: a pelican goes mad in London and (wait for it) - eats a pigeon! The gruesome details in The Times, complete with slightly suspicious looking photo.

Snide Masters

The piece in the Australian this morning by Tim Barton, a person who gets a mention in Chris Masters' work of pseudo-freudian journalism on Alan Jones, is worth reading. This section sums up the case against Masters perfectly:

Masters justifies his exploration of Jones's sexuality on the basis that he couldn't ignore the elephant in the room, that "the masking" of Jones's "apparent homosexuality is a defining feature of the Jones persona" and that Jones's "concealment of his sexuality" preserves "a dishonest power base".

I suppose any proponent of this apparently Freudian approach to journalism could argue that a person's sexuality is a defining feature of persona. Perhaps Masters's own sexuality or sex life, whatever that may be, along with his relationship with his mother and his feelings towards his father, are relevant to his persona, including his public role as a journalist.

But even if drawing such a long bow made sense, does that legitimise the dumping of conventions of privacy and fairness? I don't think so. On Masters's analysis, any person with a power base who chooses not to talk about their sex life is somehow dishonest and therefore fair game. Forget that no wrongdoing is involved and forget that the allegations are speculative.

What's also amusing is how Masters snidely draws Tim Barton into the picture he wants to paint of Jones.

Even I am caught in the crossfire of Masters's calculated and facile innuendo. Jonestown's first reference to me describes a "slim, artistic youth". Good gracious, I wondered, was my persona about to be deconstructed or did Masters simply think the shirt I wore on the only occasion we have met was particularly snazzy? Who knows what constitutes his definition of artistic? But, arguably, Masters's curious adjectives are sufficiently charged to send certain readers' minds in particular directions.

Thanks, Chris. Not.

More seriously, Barton then cites a clear factual matter where Masters is wrong in the book, and despite Barton having clearly told him the correct version.

I wonder if Masters if feeling the pressure about all this, or is he just laughing all the way to the bank? His credibility is suffering.

The "one planet" lifestyle

The Guardian also notes this from the World Wildlife Fund:

The world's ecosystems are being degraded at an unprecedented rate, and by 2050 humans will need at least two planets' worth of natural resources to live as they do now, the conservation group WWF warned today.

If everyone lived as Britons did, three planets would be needed to sustain the world's population, the group said....

"A commitment to one-planet living must include a commitment by the UK government to adopt ecological footprint as a sustainable development indicator and set targets for year-on-year reduction.

"Otherwise, one-planet living is at risk of becoming just another overused soundbite with no teeth."

Hey, who said we could never use other planets' resources? Start with putting an big sail on an asteroid and bring it to near earth permanent orbit. Go to the moon and see how humans like it there. (Would at least be a great sports venue.) Try terraforming Venus, no one else is using it. (Probably won't work for a million years, but will be fun watching what happens.)

Not enough imagination at the WWF.

New male contraceptive

The Guardian reports on early research linking excessive mobile phone use to lower sperm counts and quality in men. Someone should now do an international comparison between mobile phone use and infertility in different countries. Would be interesting, even if completely inconclusive.

The balanced ABC

Phillip Adams does the predictable and hyperventilates today about a renewed attempt to make the ABC more politically balanced:

Focusing on perhaps 5 per cent of its output, critics will conduct frenzied attacks on the organisation and a handful of individuals within it, demanding balance and accountability.

I am curious as to where he gets the 5% figure from.

I've said before that local ABC radio (at least the Brisbane version of it) displays little in the way of political bias. In other States it is different: Sydney has Richard Glover, used to have John Doyle (I think), and Melbourne still has Jon Faine: all broadcasters with clear Labor leaning sympathies. But Radio National, Phillip's own treasured turf, displays balance by this line up of presenters:

Phillip Adams: I understand he made his riches via the most readily criticise-able aspect of modern capitalism (advertising). Now devotes much of his 4 hours of radio each week to left-ish commentators who are critical of capitalism. Also gets to recycle his views in the feverishly unbalanced News Limited media. Like much of Radio National, also has an international audience via Radio Australia and the WWW. (Some voice in the wilderness, hey). Often tells us lately how successful his podcasting is going. Doesn't write books about how stupid belief in God is, just brings it up directly or indirectly in his newspaper columns about once a month. (Hey, it's a guess, but maybe as accurate as his 5% figure.)

Terry Lane: seems to have had an hour a week forever to spout his Phillip Adams-esque views on life. Also a strident atheist who writes books about how silly belief in God is. Also is straining to be heard because of a weekly newspaper column in The Age.

Robyn Williams: 20 year fixture as host of The Science Show. Athiest. Writes books showing why religion is stupid.

Stephen Crittenden: runs the Religion Report, and seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time on the issue of gays in the church. Googling him tonight seems to have confirmed that he is openly gay. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, at least if you are a political conservative.)

Geraldine Doogue: been a floating fixture around the ABC on TV and radio forever and a day. A Catholic, but, I suspect, one with very liberal leanings. Can't find much to confirm that yet, but I am sure the evidence is out there!

Paul Collins: frequent commentator on religion. Ex Catholic priest who now worries a lot about ecology.

Fran Kelly: adequate enough host of morning show, but not as good at keeping bias in check as previous host Peter Thompson.

Radio National identities in whom I have not really identified anything clearly indicating a left wing bias: Norman Swan and Alan Saunders.

Radio National presenters with clear conservative-ish reputation: Michael Duffy. (Maybe he is just more of a general contrarian.) Has one hour a week. The show has been on for about a year.

Get the picture here?

A Lefty can still be a good broadcaster; and clearly it doesn't stop me listening to their shows. But there is nothing evenly vaguely resembling a fair range of political and social opinion in the staff of taxpayer funded Radio National, and further moves to balance this up can only be good.

Oh no

ABC broadcaster Maxine McKew won't be with the ABC much longer. I've always liked her as an interviewer and current affairs host. Despite the fact that she's been living with (now married to, apparently) senior Labor figure Bob Hogg, she has always seemed to me to be a more balanced interviewer than Kerry O'Brien or Tony Jones.

I am surprised that she is 53. She wears it well. Here's a photo of her from 2003:

The SMH profile of her from which that photo is taken was very interesting. In fact, I was only telling someone last week how this snippet from that story had stuck in my mind:

During the hungry years of her early career, McKew's private life was not good "There were a lot of Heathcliffs. A lot of 'bad, mad and dangerous to know'.' Hogg was a revelation. He was "a lovely grown-up".

"I had never met a man who had milk in the fridge that hadn't passed the use-by date, or a clean bathroom or fresh flowers on the mantelpiece. It was the way he looked after himself. It was grown-up."

I remembered this because I found it hard to imagine her going out with "bad men". (It also makes Bob Hogg sound like a big girl, which is kind of funny too.)

I hope I remember to watch her last Lateline, whenever that may be.

Appleyard blogs

I discovered over the weekend that Bryan Appleyard has a blog.

He is a bit of an odd character, and can come across as fairly pompous, but his 1992 book "Understanding the Present" impressed me, even though it suffered by a sudden infusion of Wittgenstein at the end.

Anyway, his views seem never to be entirely predictable, which makes him an interesting read.

The problem with stem cells

Nature has a story that explains the problems with attempted stem cell treatment of Parkinson's Disease, which always seems to be the disease most mentioned as being potentially curable by such treatment.

The problem is cancer caused as a side effect.

I also saw most of an SBS Insight program about therapeutic cloning and stem cell research a few weeks ago. It was interesting to see at least some medical experts expressing scepticism of stem cell treatment:

JENNY BROCKIE: Jack Martin, you're former director of St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research. Do you share this optimism about stem cell research?

JACK MARTIN, FMR. PROF. OF MEDICINE, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: No, I have to say I don't. And I would take issue with quite a number of things that Elizabeth Finkel has just said. She's implied that there has been proof of concept of efficacy of embryonic stem cell therapy in a number of diseases and mentioned Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury and diabetes, and that is absolutely untrue. There are temporary and partial improvements in chemically induced Parkinson's disease in rodents and in a couple of monkey studies, and in no case has this been prolonged and in no case has it been a long enough.. It's either been associated with a serious complication of cancer teratoma formation or it's not been carried out for long enough to determine whether that's been avoided or not.

Of course, there were others present who were much more optimistic than this.

Not a happy picture

This lengthy essay on the recent history of the Middle East in the Economist is pretty good reading. The article argues that all of the "threats to global order" that have come from there in the last 60 years have one thing in common:

They have all been, in essence, resistance movements, inspired by a seemingly unquenchable popular urge to challenge the dominant perceived injustice of the day, whether it be European colonialism, Zionism, American hegemonism or the grip of local governments charged with selling out to the West.

The most reliable populist cry today remains “resistance”. Sudan's strongman, Omar al-Bashir, blasts the proposed deployment of UN troops in Darfur as the spearhead of a new Western crusade. The Shias and Sunnis in Iraq may be fighting each other for dominance, but the call to “resist” the American occupiers and the weak (though elected) government they sponsor wins passionate followers to both camps. Hizbullah rouses region-wide cheers for bloodying Israel's nose. Clearly, although times have changed, this dynamic has not.

What has changed is that the call to resist now inspires unprecedented enthusiasm, galvanising many disparate political streams at once, secular and nationalist as well as Islamist. The religious element, boosted by the great revival that has swept Muslim societies across the globe, adds a scriptural drumbeat to the call. And lately the impulse to resist has also been strengthened by the failing prestige of traditional countervailing forces—America, the moderate governments in the region and the liberal-minded minority of their citizens.

Generally, my feeling is that the essay is too fast to point the finger at the USA and Israel, at the expense of any substantial mention of the social and political dynamic within the countries that has resulted in a group of nations with vast material resources having such unhappy citizens. Still, worth reading.

Dill

Serial sleeping driver George Michael sings the praises of marijuana. Problem solved for the advertising executives trying to come up with the next anti-drugs campaign.

In space, no one can hear you scream...(except for fellow astronauts)

An interesting article in New Scientist about "etiquette" recommendations to future space tourists. Much of it is obvious (be tidy to help prevent tensions with the other astronauts), but this risk of motion sickness drugs I had not heard before:

Space sickness will likely be a big issue for novice space flyers – even highly trained test pilots still get queasy in the new environment of microgravity. Buckey says medication will probably be part of the solution.

When NASA scientists started giving anti-motion sickness drugs to students who flew experiments on the C-9 aircraft that simulates weightlessness, they noticed a much lower rate of motion sickness than in students who had not taken the drug.

But the drug they inject to quell space sickness, promethazine – sold under the brand name Phenergan, has its own set of problems. In space, Phenergan has been linked to urinary retention. Four crew members have had to have catheters inserted into their bladders during spaceflights.

On the odd medical front

Slate's Human Nature column has two surprising stories in it at the moment:

1. A medical journal article cited refers to the complications of tongue piercing as having included brain abscess, heart infection, tetanus, dental damage. OK, so I knew about the dental damage before, but brain abscess and heart infection!

2. There are some cases of pre-schoolers hitting puberty. As Slate summarises it:

Suspected factors: 1) Adult use of Andro, testosterone skin creams, and "prohormone" sprays that are passed to kids by contact; 2) estrogen in cosmetics; 3) shampoos with estrogen or placental extract; 4) industrial byproducts in food made from contaminated animals. Internet sales pitch: Buy our cream, and we'll guarantee your erections. Fine print: And we'll throw in a few more for your first-grader.

Hey, I wonder if Zoe Brain has ruled out a change in shampoo as being the cause for her transformation. :)

Pressure in the biosphere

Wired has a short interview with Jane Poynter, who was one of the 7 people who locked themselves up in Biosphere 2 in the 1990's.

Apparently they stayed there for nearly 2 years, which is longer than I recall. I don't remember this aspect of the experiment getting much publicity:

Throughout their stay, short tempers, depression and even the specter of insanity kept life interesting for the "biospherians." In her new book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2, Poynter gives an insider's view of the famous experiment.

It might be a fun read, just to hear about the psychological effects.

Daniel Pipes on modern war

Daniel Pipes' column here is quite interesting about how the world has changed. An extract:

....the solidarity and consensus of old have unraveled. This process has been underway for just over a century now (starting with the British side of the Boer War in 1899-1902). As I wrote in 2005: "The notion of loyalty has fundamentally changed. Traditionally, a person was assumed faithful to his natal community. A Spaniard or Swede was loyal to his monarch, a Frenchman to his republic, an American to his constitution. That assumption is now obsolete, replaced by a loyalty to one's political community - socialism, liberalism, conservatism, or Islamism, to name some options. Geographical and social ties matter much less than of old."

Sounds about right to me.

Mysterious weapons still around?

The Guardian revives the issue of whether some new weapon is being used by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza. I posted about this some months ago, expressing considerable scepticism at the time.

This new article adds a little:

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

Aljazeera.net has a version of the story too.

Both articles say that a Dime is in fact intended to have a small blast area, thereby reducing the collateral (human) damage. If it does in fact do that, it's a good thing, isn't it?

Anyway, the Guardian quotes some Israeli figures as denying that there is any new weapon at all. Some Italian journalists are sending off some material from wounds for testing. I guess we should know sooner or later if there is any hard evidence about this one way or another.

Hold the caffeine, mother to be

A surprising finding reported in Nature, that even low doses of caffeine taken by pregnant mothers seem to have a developmental effect on their kids, at least in rats:

To see how the cellular changes were affecting behaviour, the Michigan team took baby rats whose mothers had been caffeined-up and ran them through a series of behavioural tests. Nunez says that the animals showed no cognitive defects, but were more active and less inhibited than those whose mothers had not received caffeine.

The rats were more willing to explore new environments, for example. When placed in a small dark space with an opening into a larger lit area, it took control animals around 4 minutes on average to emerge. But the caffeine rats left after an average of just 25 seconds.

Other tests showed similar, if less pronounced, changes. The rats were more likely to explore exposed environments, and spent more time interacting with other animals.

"You have an animal that doesn't know when to stop," says Nunez.

Anyone thinking ADHD in human kids?

Is it politics or theology - or both

A pretty pessimistic article from TCS Daily argues that Islamic fueled terrorism is both politically and theologically motivated, and that means there is not that much the West can do to settle down the troubles any time soon. It's a good review of the different sides of this debate, anyway.

Adams lies

Of course Phillip Adams could be expected to be all giddy over the Lancet's highly disputed estimate of fatalities in Iraq. However, what doubt can there be that he is an outright liar when it comes to repeating this line:

Three thousand Americans die on 9/11 and an incoherent Bush blames Baghdad.

This is complete and utter dishonesty.