Some recommended posts

From around the blogosphere, here's some recent posts which are well worth checking, if you haven't seen them already"

* Zoe Brain has a lengthy post post about the amazing (and dangerous) Muslim/arab rumour mill of the Middle East. Is the Holocaust the only thing they won't believe?

* Andrew Norton points out the holes in Clive Hamilton's "dissent is being silenced in Australia" schtick in a great post here.

* Tigerhawk wonders whether dove-ish US Senators might inadvertently help convince Iran that they Bush must be getting ready to strike.

* Last weekend, a Daily Kos post got very worked up over the question of whether any Vietnam vet was ever actually spat upon in America. Called baby killers, yes, no one doubts that, but those who have claimed to be spat upon? Well, apparently a sociologist wrote an entire book about it claiming it was actually an urban myth. What a vital debate to have now. Funny thing is, I bet 90% of Kos readers who label it an urban myth still believe in the plastic turkey, despite actual media retractions.

Update: to be fair, it is not just Daily Kos, but also Slate (which seems to be down a lot today) which has now had a go at Newsweek for bringing up allegedly discredited the 'gobbing' on vets story. I see Jack Shafer wrote the Slate article, although I have not been able to read it yet. I note that he spends a lot of time at Slate arguing that crystal meth use is not the crisis (in the States) that the media likes to make out it is. I am sceptical of much of his analysis.

Woops

Europe gets busy thinking they are being green, while actually causing lots of CO2 emissions on the other side of the planet:

Just a few years ago, politicians and green groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the country's early and rapid adoption of "sustainable energy," achieved in part by coaxing electricity plants to use some biofuel — in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia....

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the razing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rain forest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there. Worse still, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peat land, which sent huge amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Factoring in these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world's third-leading producer of greenhouse gases that scientists believe are responsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China, concluded a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands.

Maybe the fine print clears it up...

I don't often do more than smile at Japundit's examples of odd Japanese use of English on signs and clothes, but this is one which did make me laugh in surprise.

Against the wind (farm)

Quite a lot of anti-wind farm stuff in this New Scientist article. They tend not to be great for bogs if they are built on them (as many apparently are in Europe), which is a pity since bogs store a lot of CO2. (Australia needs more of them, obviously.)

But if you build them in deserts instead:

The ecological impact in these environments is largely unstudied. Somnath Baidya Roy from Princeton University and his team have done research suggesting that rotating turbine blades lead to desiccation of the surrounding area, which may be particularly damaging in deserts (Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2004JD004763). In addition, a recent study of Californian ground squirrels reveals that those living close to wind farms are more edgy and cautious than those that inhabit areas of desert where there are no turbines.

Well, maybe I wouldn't lose too much sleep about squirrels getting nervous. But the birds, well that is a different matter. The article goes on:

After re-analysing previous studies last year, researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, concluded: "Available evidence suggests that wind farms reduce the abundance of many bird species at the wind farm site." But the most striking aspect of their report was how little evidence is available. The researchers found just 15 articles drawing on 19 datasets, of which only nine were complete. Lead author Gavin Stewart says that many studies are kept secret, sometimes for commercial reasons, with statistics on bird kills being kept from bird conservationists.

And there is more detail in the article about how many birds are killed in some locations.

It's always fun when later studies bolster a hunch.

Update: I see this was actually an article from July 2006 which the New Scientist website has only just made available for free. No matter. Still good reading.

So the French really are good at this?

The IHT reports on France's rise in its birth rate. According the article, it seems not to be due to immigrants having babies, although it is hard to tell from the way they keep records. The article notes:

Another possible birth incentive in France, which may not be copied elsewhere, is its 35-hour workweek. It has been suggested that the French have so much leisure now that they have found nothing more interesting to do with it than have babies, combining fun with demographic patriotism.

Nuns aren't what they used to be

A bit of a weird story about the apparent attitude of a modern nun:

A young disabled man who receives care for his life-limiting illness at a hospice run by a nun spoke yesterday of his decision to use a prostitute to experience sex before he dies.

Sister Frances Dominica gave her support to 22-year-old Nick Wallis, who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sufferers usually die by their thirties.

Mr Wallis told staff at the Douglas House hospice in Oxford that he wanted to experience sexual intercourse. ...

The hospice staff, after taking advice from a solicitor, the clergy and health care professionals, decided to help him.

Hmmm. I wonder what the clergy person's advice was.

It seems unclear as to whether Mr Wallis is Christian himself, but if it was the job of Christians to help non-Christians have a morally dubious time, the work of charitable nuns is going to involve a lot more fun than it has for, oh, the last 2,000 years or so.

As for the nun herself:

Sister Frances described Mr Wallis as "delightful, intelligent and aware young man".

"I know that some people will say 'You are a Christian foundation. What are you thinking about?'. But we are here for all faiths and none," she said.

"It is not our job to make moral decisions for our guests. We came to the conclusion that it was our duty of care to support Nick emotionally and to help ensure his physical safety."

OK, so many people are going to have a lot of sympathy for the guy. (The actual experience didn't seem to be so great for him anyway, and if he was a sensitive soul the nun perhaps could have told him to expect that out of a one-off commercial relationship.)

Seems to me that liberal nuns aren't exactly helping the cause of the Church by being flexible to this extent.

Mean looks

Don't you think that this self confessed multiple murderer looks a lot like a certain new Labor politician with a musical past?

A question

A story in the IHT about how schools and places of learning have increasingly the target of violence in Baghdad:

In the past month, according to Interior Ministry officials, primary and secondary schools in and around Baghdad have been targets at least six times. In some cases, gunmen ambushed schools during classes and guards fought them off.

In other cases, mortar shells struck, killing 10 at Al Gharbiya, for example, a secondary school in central Baghdad.

Several principals and teachers have been kidnapped and killed, a pattern of terror that started with university professors and seems to have trickled down the educational chain.

Can the "withdraw now" crowd explain how coalition troops leaving Baghdad is going to assist the school kids?

Islam and public health

A prominent Islamic doctor in Britain warns Muslims not to use some vaccinations:

Dr Abdul Majid Katme, head of the Islamic Medical Association, is telling Muslims that almost all vaccines contain products derived from animal and human tissue, which make them “haram”, or unlawful for Muslims to take....

Katme’s appeal reflects a global movement by some hardline Islamic leaders who are telling followers torefuse vaccines from the West.

In Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India, Muslims have refused to be immunised against polio after being told that the vaccines contain products that the West has deliberately added to make the recipients infertile.

What wouldn't they believe when it comes to rumours about the evil West?

Famous nudist Trekkie

Everyone has heard of the Richter Scale. But it seems that very few have known that its creator was a very odd man. From a review of a his biography (the first ever) in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Richter, it turns out, was also an avid nudist, a frustrated but prolific poet, a Trekkie, a devoted backpacker profiled in the pages of Field and Stream, and a philandering spouse who was quite possibly in love with his sister and whose globe-trotting wife may have been a lesbian. While that may not sound all that unusual to the modern-day San Franciscan, keep in mind that the guy was born in 1900. ...

Richter was a reputed publicity hound, on one hand, and hopelessly awkward in social situations, on the other. Hough speculates, also late in her book, that he may have suffered from Asperger's syndrome. Indeed, this theory does neatly reconcile some of his more contradictory traits: his inability to make small talk with his adeptness at one-sided conversations with the press, or his lack of focus on long-term research projects with the obsessive logs he kept of "Star Trek" episodes.

Suburban 'roo

All Australians have heard a story about a foreigner who believes that there are kangaroos everywhere on the streets of Australian cities. Dumb foreigners.

I live about 18 km from the centre of Brisbane, in a large slab of suburbia. (There is some undeveloped land a few kilometres away, and I have seen wallabies there, but they keep to themselves.)

This morning, when I was about to start mowing the front yard, I was surprised to see a pretty large kangaroo coming down the street. It went into the little park opposite my house, stayed a short time, then hopped its way back up the street in the direction from which it came.

This is not an every day occurrence. Here's a couple of pictures:

Clever photons

This story appeared a couple of weeks ago, but I have overlooked mentioning it 'til now. Mainly because I don't entirely know what it means in terms of possible future technology. Still, the basic idea sounds impressive:

Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image's worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact.

If by slim chance I have someone reading who knows what the future may hold for this, why not enlighten me in comments.

Hydrogen on Earth, Oxygen on Mars

Robert Zubrin, the engineer with an obsession about going to Mars, has been thinking about the establishment of a hydrogen economy, and is more than sceptical. Have a look at his article in The New Atlantis, which seems to be a pretty interesting site in its own right.

His objections about the economics of making, transporting and storing hydrogen all sound pretty convincing, but it would be good to see who disagrees with him.

His suggested practical solution to US dependence on oil sounds somewhat more credible: the government to mandate "flex-fueled" cars, which can run on any mix of alcohol or gas. Interesting, although it doesn't help that much on the greenhouse gas issue, does it?

Meanwhile, Zubrin's ideas about terraforming Mars are set out in Popular Science here. All it takes is a 1,000 years to have a habitable atmosphere. (Mind you, it also involves things like crashing 40 asteroids on the planet.) It is, perhaps, the plan you would use if you had unlimited money and foolproof technology.

At least you can't accuse him of thinking small.

UPDATE: the prospects for a legislative requirement for flex fuel cars are looking up. See this CSM article which goes into some detail.

Some Iraq posts

One of the brothers behind Iraq the Model argues that people should tone down "last chance" talk about the new security plan. He points out the practical points which it should address (disarming much of Baghdad, for example.)

Francis Fukuyama thinks that modern radical Islam can correctly be described as an outgrowth of modern "identity politics". His article about this is broad ranging and interesting, as it talks about the origins of identity politics in the first place, but I sure that there are grounds on which to disagree. If he is correct, he argues that it has this unfortunate consequence:

...the problem of jihadist terrorism will not be solved by bringing modernisation and democracy to the middle east. The Bush administration's view that terrorism is driven by a lack of democracy overlooks the fact that so many terrorists were radicalised in democratic European countries. Modernisation and democracy are good things in their own right, but in the Muslim world they are likely to increase, not dampen, the terror problem in the short run.

Note the last words there. Maybe in the longer run it still is likely to help end it?

Like I said, I am not entirely convinced by his argument, but it is interesting.

The Moon becomes more dangerous

Yet another risk identified for astronauts living on the Moon. Not only do high speed particles from solar flares and cosmic rays pose a threat, but the Sun spurts out x rays too, which are sometimes energetic enough to kill an unprotected person. New Scientist explains:

It had been thought that the X-rays were not copious enough to be a major hazard, but a new study suggests X-rays really do pose a threat to astronauts working outside of protective spacecraft or bases. The research was carried out by David Smith at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, US, and John Scalo of the University of Texas in Austin, US.

Using the observed rate of solar X-ray outbursts of different magnitudes, they worked out that a lunar astronaut has a 10% chance of receiving a dangerous dose of X-rays from a solar flare for every 100 hours of activity outside of shelters.

The level of radiation they consider harmful is 0.1 Gray or more, which can cause bleeding ulcers and other internal damage, and would certainly increase an astronaut's risk of cancer. The Sun has even produced flares that could kill an unprotected spacesuited human on the Moon, they say, although these are extremely rare.

Astronauts working far outside need to have an x-ray umbrella with them for protection from such outbursts.

It's sad that Robert Heinlein's stories of boy scouts camping on the Moon are not likely to ever come true. (Exploring deep lava tube caves might still be an alternative, though.)

The Left and Iraq

There's excellent reading here in a two part extract of a new book by Observer columnist Nick Cohen.

His story is similar to Christopher Hitchens: he comes with excellent Left credentials, completely understands why the Left criticised Western support of Saddam in the 1980's, but argues that it is the Left which changed its stripes and became hypocritical in its approach to the Iraq war and its aftermath.

This has puzzled me for some time. The anti-War Left feels vindicated over the issue of the justification for war. Fine, let's not quibble over the actual details, which they constantly misrepresent, and just assume for the sake of the argument that the decision to invade was a grave error, and even an immoral act. (This is just "for the sake of the argument" talk, remember.)

Second point: does any serious analyst anywhere in the world suggest that the withdrawal of coalition forces at any point up to and including now would have meant immediate greater stability in Iraq and the region? Not as far as I know.

The crux of the matter then is this: how does promoting a step that would now make the average Iraqi's position worse suddenly become defensible from the moral high ground that the Left supposedly occupies?

Cohen explains it this way:

There was too much emotional energy invested in opposing the war, too much justifiable horror at the chaos and too much justifiable anger that the talk of weapons of mass destruction turned out to be nonsense. The politically committed are like football fans. They support their side come what may and refuse to see any good in the opposing team. The liberal left bitterly opposed war, and their indifference afterwards was a natural consequence of the fury directed at Bush.

It is a fair argument, which I've heard many times, although I wince at the implied passivity. People don't just react to a crisis: they choose how they react. If a man walks down the street trying to pick a fight, you can judge those he confronts by how they respond. Do they hit back, run away or try to calm him down? The confrontation is not of their making, but they still have a choice, and what choice they make reveals their character and beliefs. If you insist on treating the reaction to the second Iraq war as a one-off that doesn't reveal a deeper sickness, I'll change the subject....

The anti-war movement disgraced itself not because it was against the war in Iraq, but because it could not oppose the counter-revolution once the war was over. A principled left that still had life in it and a liberalism that meant what it said might have remained ferociously critical of the American and British governments while offering support to Iraqis who wanted the freedoms they enjoyed.

Cohen argues that no such support was offered. (I note that those European countries which opposed the war might have grounds to argue that their troops' lives should not lost because of an error of the pro-War countries, but even so, have they tried to offer diplomatic or other assistance of any form between the regional powers?)

The likelihood of success of the current "surge" is hotly debated, which is fair enough. (Even Hitchens seems fairly pessimistic about it.) I freely admit to not knowing enough to really be able to judge its chances of success; Bush's critics on this issue all appear to be armchair experts on counter-insurgency tactics. (That some retired Generals oppose it is far from conclusive; some of those still around must have given it support, and in a situation as politicised and unique as this one, dissenting voices even within the military are to be expected.)

If the surge fails, and the political process within Iraq is unable to rise above sectarianism, there will be a point in the future where the US will have to exit as gracefully as possible. But the problem Cohen writes about is the anti-War Left's immediate isolationism after the fall of the regime and continuing today. It is not a position that should be held with pride.

Porn and technology

There's an interesting story on Fox News (odd source, hey) about the role the porn industry plays in shaping the take up of technology. It claims, for example, that the porn industry seized on the VHS format, and the rest was history for Betamax. The same thing might happen to Sony again with Blu-ray, apparently.

But apart from that, the article points out that the porn industry is worth a lot of money:

Although the vagaries of entertainment accounting have become legendary, it is universally acknowledged that the U.S. adult-film industry, at around $12 billion in annual sales, rentals, and cable charges in 2006, is an even grander and more efficient moneymaking machine than legitimate mainstream American cinema (the latter's annual gross came in at $9 billion for 2006).

Figures of around $10 billion a year always interest me, because that is getting pretty close to the budget of NASA. (Well, now it's up to close to $17 billion, but as recently as 1999 it was only $13 billion.)

This may be a handy figure to keep in mind when you next have to argue with someone who whines about the expense of the space program. People hear "billions" and without context it means nothing.

Also, with figures like this, is public direct sponsorship of a space program really out of the question? All we need is an entrepreneur who is out to raise money to set up an orbiting studio specifically to make zero-G porn. (All the earth bound variations of sex were surely filmed by about 1985 anyway. ) Richard Branson is probably already considering a sex hotel anyway, I reckon.

Hitchens steps up to praise Steyn

Wow. Christopher Hitchens is bound to face criticism from the Left over his generally supportive stance towards Mark Steyn's anti-Islamic arguments in "America Alone". Of course, Hitchens dislikes all religion with a passion, but at least he is not a relativist who holds back him from citing radical Islam as the particular threat that it is.

Super fit to super dead

Even with a generally low interest in sport of any kind, some have always seemed to me to be particularly stupid. Marathons and triathlons fall into that category. When amateurs get a thrill from completing these events in a particular time it makes me doubt their good sense and see them more as being self absorbed rather than passionate. (You could say this about many sports persons, I suppose, but at least other forms of sport keep the displays of self punishment within more reasonable time frames.)

I therefore take some mean spirited pleasure from reading this:

People who regularly take part in endurance sports could be putting their lives at risk from damage to the right side of the heart, research suggests.

Marathons and triathalons are fast-growing events, more than 10,000 people regularly running, cycling and swimming long distances. But the super-fit athletes who train hard for such races can develop a life-threatening condition called ventricular arrhythmia (VA), in which the heart beats at an irregular rate and rhythm, according to the Belgian study. The condition increases the chance of sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, which kills 500 healthy Britons a year.

So, it's essentially a pointless activity that can also induce heart problems. Ban the fun run, I say!

From the "only in Japan" files

In Osaka, there is a unique "restaurant" dining experience to be had (and, incredibly, it has been a success for four years.) The Japan Times explains:

Here, you can choose from a wide selection of delectable delights ranging from Spam to asparagus, and enjoy them in their purest form -- straight out of the can. No need to heat anything up (there's no oven on the premises), no need to have a waiter deliver the dish to your table and no need for fancy plates or silverware, as management thoughtfully provides plastic spoons and forks upon purchase. After you've ordered, pull your food and drink up to one of the steel barrels that serve as tables in the dining area, which is actually a bare lot, open to the air in summer and enclosed with plastic sheeting during the colder months....

Kanso is the brainchild of Osaka-based Clean Brothers, a company specializing in the design of restaurants and cafes...

You might well ask why anyone would pay to eat cold food out of a can?

"It's a combination of the friendly atmosphere and the novelty of the place," explained one customer. "A lot of people I know have started coming here."

I have an idea for Australia: this might be the simplest cafe franchise system, ever!