Rats in her underwear

We're the ones caught in the rat trap

Melanie Reid in The Times writes of an pretty "full on" rat infestation of their house:

The rats started stealing my clothes. One morning, I found my shirt jammed hard down a hole in the floor behind the washbasin in my bathroom. When I tugged it out it was shredded: the rats had been trying to drag it down to make a nest. They just miscalculated its size. Confronted with unassailable evidence, I did an audit of my underwear, and found half of it had disappeared. My husband, table-leg at the ready and a desperate look in his eye, swore that it wasn't him. Nightly, it seemed, the rats had been on forays to tug my discarded knickers and socks underground.

Kind of amusing, from a distance.

Green and glowing

Nuclear power? Yes please... - The Independent

Nuclear power is increasingly back in favour:

Britain must embrace nuclear power if it is to meet its commitments on climate change, four of the country’s leading environmentalists – who spent much of their lives opposing atomic energy – warn today...

The four leading environmentalists who are now lobbying in favour of nuclear power are Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace; Lord Chris Smith of Finsbury, the chairman of the Environment Agency; Mark Lynas, author of the Royal Society’s science book of the year, and Chris Goodall, a Green Party activist and prospective parliamentary candidate.

Mr Tindale describes his conversion as follows:

“It was kind of like a religious conversion. Being anti-nuclear was an essential part of being an environmentalist for a long time but now that I’m talking to a number of environmentalists about this, it’s actually quite widespread this view that nuclear power is not ideal but it’s better than climate change,” he added.

Australia, meanwhile, with lots of uranium, twiddles its thumbs.

Come one, come all

ROME MUST GO – ST MARY’S STAYS - Workers Bush Telegraph

The Courier Mail claimed that having an "estimated" 1500 people turn up at Mass with Peter Kennedy last weekend "may have dealt a blow" to the Archbishop's plans to remove the priest from the parish.

Apart from mild curiosity about the accuracy of that count (and noting that not many of them hung around for the afternoon's "rally"), it's worth pointing out that Peter Kennedy has not been shy about drumming up support from all quarters.

Have a look at the post above that appeared last week on Worker's Bush Telegraph, a website that seems devoted to things like organising protests against Starbucks, unconditional support for Hamas, etc.

The post is not by Kennedy, but he takes the opportunity in comments to invite everyone to come last Sunday, and "to bring all your friends and neighbours." (Religious affiliation is clearly optional.)

The comments are actually worth reading for the contribution of John T, who appears to be a local activist type (probably aboriginal?) who has some major issues as to why many people attend St Marys. It's worth pasting a big slab of it here:

I cannot understand why radicals and intellectuals have totally bought into this bullshit that St. Mary’s does such good work with the poor and oppressed, a narrative repeated in tonights 7.30 report as a key element of the church.

On Saturdays and Sundays a travelling show comes into South Brisbane. Like ants, the St. Mary’s congregation come from all over south east Queensland to have a special experience with each other and then they return to their communities. Hardly any of them are locals who are likeley to run into the poor and oppressed at the shop or have them knocking on their door asking for a cup of sugar.

These outsiders administer the biggest welfare agency in Brisbane, not just South Brisbane, that deals with homelessness. Micah is a government funded organisation that operates within government policies and programs regarding homelessness. It is government outsourcing.

While the social workers are administering their programs, the St. Mary’s community remains insulated from the poor and oppressed including those of the South Brisbane community just as church goers in every other congregation in Brisbane do. St. Vinnies, run by amongst the most conservative catholics, operates on a direct engagement between congregation members in each parish and the welfare clients. The congregation actually gets to meet the people they are helping which is more than what occurs with the St. Mary’s mode.

St. Mary’s is just another West End illusion that people from outside West End come to experience, just like the coffees shops are for people from all over Brisbane come to be part of the West End experience.

Not every activist is so keen on the parish, then.

Keep Baz at bay

Will Hugh Jackman get Oscars call back?

Let's hope not.

For me, Hugh Jackman has a touch of the Mel Gibson's about him: a lot of people seem to like him, but for reasons I can't explain, I just don't care for anything he does.

Nearly everything about last night's Oscars seemed a little "off". The dance numbers were underwhelming, particularly the second one. (Jackman was too self-consciously ironic, and it seemed a huge waste of the number of dancers on stage.) But at least it brought with it some vindication when I found out that Baz Luhrmann was responsible. Keep that untalented bowerbird away from song and dance, please! (And movies too, while we are at it.)

For those of you who are, like me, obsessively keeping score on the number of bad reviews of Luhrmann's "Australia", (gee, I wonder why I don't have many readers) last weekend featured two new ones: in the Japan Times, and Greg Sheridan in the Australian. (The Japanese have a particular reason to take issue with the film, with its entirely fictional land invasion of an Australian island.)

The Luhrmann inspired tourism campaign is also copping recent criticism from the industry.

Can't he just take up painting or something?

Flying geeks denied

Journey's end for Flight Simulator

Here's an amusing take on Microsoft's announcement that they are (apparently) no longer going to be developing Flight Simulator beyond its present incarnation. I like this part:

Of course, what every simmer dreams about is being called on to land an actual plane in an emergency. A trembling stewardess announces over the public address that both flyers upfront are suffering debilitating convulsions from the in-flight catering and has anyone flown an Airbus before?

"Er, not really but ….." you splutter.

You are the last hope and with increasing confidence and cool, you inform ground-control that the myriad of dials and gauges you face, once the ailing captain has been hauled from his seat, are second-nature. Eventually, you plop the aircraft on the runway with a couple of harmless bounces, just for dramatic effect, and applause from the passenger-cabin rings in your ears.

I wonder: was the product used by the 9/11 hijackers in addition to their "real"training?

Is he a priest in any meaningful sense?

There was a remarkable article on Father Peter Kennedy, the sacked parish priest of St Mary's South Brisbane, in the Courier Mail Q Magazine on Saturday. (It looks like the website does not put up weekend articles until much later than they appear in print, so I will keep a look out for it. UPDATE: you should be able to read the article as a .pdf here.)

Essentially, Peter Kennedy appears to have been doubting his faith and/or the value of priesthood for much of the time he has been ordained, and in many respects sounds like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Another interesting profile of both Kennedy and the Archbishop was in The Australian over the weekend. (This one, however, does not delve into Kennedy's history so much, and argues that he mainly became radicalised as a result of some controversy while he was a prison chaplain in the 1980's. I think his disenchantment with the Church and priesthood comes well before that, however.) The article does make a good point, though:

Kennedy insists that St Mary’s is a community church that is acting in the spirit of Vatican II in being driven by the congregation. He parts company with Bathersby in that he believes the role of the priest is to help guide the congregation, not dictate to it.

Yet here’s a contradiction: Kennedy insists that while St Mary’s is about the community rather than him, his presence there is vital. “This community will die when I leave,” he says. “After that, they will either appoint a priest who’ll toe the line and deliver exactly the Mass they want, which will mean a lot of people will leave, or it will be absorbed into another parish.”

I have come to the view that he is incredibly disingenuous in nearly everything he says. His talk this weekend was that he would not enter into negotiation with the Archbishop because it was up to his parish "community" to negotiate about it, and anyway he already knows his community wants him. (Never mind that his idea of "community" for St Marys obviously does not extend to the "community" of the entire Roman Catholic Church.)

It is also ridiculous to be taking such an attitude while at the same time threatening legal proceedings (in his own name, I presume) about unfair dismissal.

The Archbishop and Father Ken Howell are, I believe, being too kind in their response to this man who should have given up the priesthood as soon as he realised he was not really cut out for it in the 1960's or 70's. He would have been much happier being a social worker directly on the streets all of those years since then. I think it would be a serious mistake to let him co-celebrate mass with the new priest, even if "the community" were to allow it.

I am inclined to think (as Mild Colonial Boy suggested to my last post) that this will only be solved by physically closing the Church. Presumably, Kennedy and his mob will follow him to another premises, they can continue to think they are Catholic for all I care, and after 12 months the old building can be re-opened with another priest. The dispersal of much of the Kennedy emotionalism might ensure it can then be run without the current group staging a scene.

Why defend emissions trading?

An argument for emissions trading at John Quiggin

I don't understand why an economist on the left of politics like John Quiggin is still arguing for an emissions trading scheme as being preferable to a carbon tax.

Surely, the recent experience of financial markets ought to make anyone very cautious about a proposed new scheme which is welcomed by those who can see that there is money to be made in a potential novel market. I expected it would make Labor types especially skeptical.

In the post linked above, Professor Quiggin argues boldly that the recent collapse in the price of the European emissions permits is not a warning against using ETS:

Most commentators have seen this as a strike against emissions trading, but actually it’s a positive. The big concern about price uncertainty arises when we are very uncertain about the cost of reducing emissions. Under cost uncertainty, setting the emissions target too low could impose unexpectedly high costs on the economy.

What’s happening here is that we are uncertain about the rate of growth of the economy. An emissions target is countercyclical since it imposes a relatively high cost when the economy is strong, and a much smaller cost when the economy is weak. This is a Good Thing.

There are many comments following which contest that view, and I find some of them very convincing. TerjeP argues, for example:

If the focus of the carbon emission policy is to reduce carbon emissions by ushering in new energy technology then the key business sector that needs price certainty from a carbon tax is the renewable base load energy sector. They are after all the ones in need of new capital and who must persuade investors and bankers that things will work out as planned.....

However dealing with the volatile carbon price that an ETS would deliver makes investment in such unproven high risk commercialisation a far less certain venture.

And besides which: doesn't a hell of a lot depend on whether the US goes down the ETS path as well? If Obama actually goes for a carbon tax, wouldn't it be wise to follow?

UPDATE: How convenient. Penny Wong has column space in the Australian this morning in which she explains why an ETS is preferable to a carbon tax. Her key point:

Arguments around the merits of emissions reductions policies can be complex, but the core explanation for why emissions trading is superior to a carbon tax is simple. A carbon tax does not guarantee emissions reductions. A cap-and-trade scheme does.

Delivering a target is a key part of domestic and international efforts to reduce carbon pollution.

Cap and trade gives us certainty that targeted reductions will occur, whereas a carbon tax gives no guarantee over the quantity of reductions. Under a cap-and-trade scheme, the government issues permits for each tonne of carbon up to the total cap. Under a carbon tax, the government needs to estimate how emissions levels would respond to a carbon tax rate, introducing uncertainty about whether the target would be reached.

But Penny: that assumes that the ETS actually works. She claims:

Emissions trading gives businesses and the community more certainty.....While the carbon price will fluctuate under a cap-and-trade model, there is a capacity for firms to use market instruments to help manage movement in the carbon price.

Yes, market instruments have been working so well, lately. (Disengage sarcasm mode.)

More Wong claims:

Emissions trading opens up the prospect of sharing the burden of reducing emissions with other countries through linking the CPRS to schemes overseas. A carbon tax would take Australia out of this emerging international market.

But problems with the credibility of credits claimed for reductions in other countries has been one of the major issues of the European ETS, hasn't it? And wouldn't common sense suggest that there is always going to be an incentive for businesses engaged in quantifying the effects of overseas mitigation to be biased towards overstating the benefits of schemes? I mean, that keeps all potential customers happy.

I would have thought that one of the benefits of a carbon tax is that you can cut out that part of an ETS and just worry about accurately assessing what is going on in your own country.

Penny doesn't want to wait, though, and that's a worry:

Now is the time for getting on with the job not kicking around theories.

It's not the theories we want discussed, Penny; we're saying it's the practicalities that need to win out over theory.

Investigating methane

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice - Los Angeles Times

The potential for trouble from methane and other carbon being released from thawing Arctic regions is given a bit of an overview in this article. Some disturbing thoughts:

The upper 3 meters -- about 10 feet -- of permafrost stores 1.9 trillion tons of carbon, more than double the amount in the atmosphere today, according to a recent study in the journal Bioscience.

"We are seeing thawing down to 5 meters," says geophysicist Vladimir Romanovsky of the University of Alaska. "A third to a half of permafrost is already within a degree to a degree and a half [Celsius] of thawing."

If only 1% of permafrost carbon were to be released each year, that could double the globe's annual carbon emissions, Romanovsky notes. "We are at a tipping point for positive feedback," he warns, referring to a process in which warming spurs emissions, which in turn generate more heat, in an uncontrollable cycle.

Re-appraising Lewis - again

Film - Hey, Laaaady! Jerry Lewis, the King of Comedy, Finally Gets Recognition From Oscar - NYTimes.com

Here's another article (this time from the other side of the Atlantic) re-appraising Jerry Lewis' career in light of his receiving an award for humanitarian work at this year's Oscars.

I am very curious as to how his acceptance speech will go.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one speculating how badly a Jerry Lewis acceptance speech may go at the Oscars. Will update further once I have seen the real thing.

UPDATE II: Lewis managed to be brief and sincerely appreciative. Congratulations.

Teaching sex

There's a fairly sensible article in The Times, written by a teacher with first hand experience, about the state of sex education in England today. (A certain babyfaced 13 year old father has caused a degree of national reflection on the topic.)

The writer does not sound all that intrinsically conservative, but she notes this oft-repeated concern that conservatives have about sex education:

The non-statutory curriculum for PSHE says, of the sex and relationship component, that “it helps [students] to understand human sexuality and the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”.

Yet so much of PSHE ignores the latter half and focuses instead on how not to fall pregnant or catch a sexually transmitted infection. As one girl said to me recently: “Miss, they’ve been showing us how to put condoms on penises for years, but they never talk to us about relationships or how we choose.” Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings.

The danger is that so much information is being blasted at these children on how not to conceive, where to go for help, the dangers of chlamydia, that the implied subtext is that it is all right to experiment with sex whenever you want. The curriculum does say that learning the advantages of delaying sexual activity should form part of the content, but how often is that touched upon?

Her experience when she does try to get a lesson taught in the school emphasising marriage or "stable relationships" is instructive:

I seized on the second part of the general statement about sex and relationships education (“to understand . . . the significance of marriage and stable relationships as key building blocks of community and society”) and designed a lesson on marriage. It was a good lesson. I taught it myself and it generated thoughtful conversation about responsibility and parenthood and such like. But one of the PSHE teachers came to me and refused to teach it.

She said it made her “uncomfortable” and was “not relevant”. I pointed out that “stable relationships” were to be emphasised as much as marriage; no one was to feel uncomfortable, that is the whole point of good PSHE. Still she refused. If parents don’t, and teachers won’t, teach children the basic tenets of moral responsibility, what chance do those children have?

The problem is, I suppose, that it is extremely difficult to teach the benefits of "stable relationships" (or, God forbid, "marriage") without experiencing it directly. How can teachers show kids that there is something better than the patterns of dysfunctional adult relationships they may be watching at home?

Meanwhile, in a report in the same newspaper, the government is issuing a leaflet which will do its whimpy best to discourage young parenthood"

The leaflet suggests that parents should start the “big talk” with children as young as possible, before they pick up “misinformation” from their peers in adolescence. The best way to raise the topic may be while performing mundane tasks such as “washing the car . . . washing up, watching TV, etc”, it says.

The main controversy about the leaflet is that it suggests parents should back off on the 'right and wrong' aspects of the discussion. This is justified by a psychologist as follows:

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said educating older children and teenagers about sex had to be a process of negotiation. “We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines,” she said.

Like that's going to help.

Add that one to the list of movies I just didn't get

So, I finally caught up with The Last Picture Show.

What a dreary, pointless story. As with much European cinema, the story is told competently, but at the end of it I think "why did they think this story was worth telling?"

It's also a severely underpopulated film, similar to most Australian movies, where there just doesn't seem to be enough people on the screen. I know it was meant to be a dying, dead end town, but really, art direction that made the streets look like an absolute ghost town just made it look unrealistic to my eye.

Critics love to hail the American movies of the early 1970's as some sort of artistic highlight of cinema: I reckon they were just mostly depressing, dark movies with few redeeming features.

UPDATE: just thought that is an appropriate place to list some other movies that I "just don't get". (This means I am forever puzzled by their critical and/or commercial success):

1. Forest Gump. Not offended by it; I would rate it as "harmless". But why was such a downer of a silly fairy tale a critical and box office success?

2. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Proof that one catchy song can sway hundreds of millions that they have had a good time during an entire 90 minutes. At least the sequel was a gold plated dud.

3. Pretty Woman. Proof that two attractive stars can make people forget that they are being sold a wildly improbable fairy tale which seems designed to make people feel better about prostitution as an industry or temporary career choice. Offensive.

A viewing recommendation

For a long time, SBS seems to have reserved Friday nights at 8.30 for World War II documentaries, and currently it is running a lengthy series called "Churchill's Bodyguard".

I haven't seen all of it, but what I have seen has been very interesting, and stuffed full of footage that I have either never seen, or only seen briefly, before.

As the title suggests, the series is based on the memoirs of Churchill's long serving bodyguard, so you get a very detailed and intimate view of Churchill's activities and character. (It seems virtually everyone who was close to Churchill has written about it: at a holiday unit some years ago I found an old book by his personal physician who followed him around during WWII as well.)

Last night's episode featured the long and dangerous trip Churchill made in secret to first visit Roosevelt on board a ship in Newfoundland.

It occurred to me while watching it that one of the things that makes WWII so fascinating is that the technology was just at the right level of development for providing drama. It allowed the sort of secret operations and trips that would be impossible today between the major powers. But the rush to develop and perfect new technologies also gave this war a large part of its dramatic character too. You just can't imagine such a scenario ever happening again.

It was also noted in last night's episode that Churchill appeared to believe that supernatural protection was being provided to him to "complete the mission".

(On the other hand, Hitler was lucky to survive as long as he did. Maybe he had infernal protection, and it was all a proxy war. Could be a movie in that!)

Circus denied

Rebel priest defies deadline

What the hell? I get no media circus to watch on the Sunday night news after all.

Father Howell has given up on the idea of trying to get into St Mary's church this weekend, and he and Archbishop Bathersby are going to let ousted priest Peter Kennedy run the show as always.

Howell is quoted as follows:

"I have been a priest for 25 years, and I will not engage in a situation whereby the celebration of the Mass becomes a place of conflict and division.

"I don't believe that anyone would attend this weekend's services with the intention of behaving violently. However, tensions are high, people are upset, and Father Kennedy has urged as many people as possible to attend the service in a spirit of protest."

Father Howell said he remained committed to taking up his position as administrator of St Mary's.

Catholic Archbishop John Bathesby has conceded to enter a mediation with the maverick cleric.

"I believe a sensible next step would be to have an experienced, independent and eminent mediator meet with the archdiocese and Father Kennedy to attempt to achieve a peaceful and dignified outcome to the current impasse. I would strongly urge Father Kennedy to participate in this process," Archbishop Bathersby said.

Hmpff. Kennedy has shown no inclination of budging in his (or "his community's") practices. As far as I can see, mediation will involve him telling the Archbishop that he is wrong.

A physical confrontation at the church is delayed, but I doubt it can be avoided indefinitely.

Next he should look up the meaning of "disingenuous"

As noted a few posts back, "rebel" priest Father Peter Kennedy, now finally officially relieved of his duties, went as far a calling the temporary replacement "a religious scab."

Kennedy is quoted today:

Fr Kennedy said he regretted calling Father Ken Howell, whom Archbishop Bathersby has appointed to take over St Mary's, a "religious scab".

"I looked up the word scab in the dictionary and certainly Ken doesn't fit that , so I apologise for that," he said.

LOL!

Father Ken Howell, meantime, is trying to shame the parish into letting him in by being very, very nice:

Fr Howell, who has invited Fr Kennedy to jointly celebrate all the masses at St Mary's this weekend, said he was disappointed by the remark.

However, he said he thought it was the comment of a man under pressure.

This is on top of comments that he doesn't see that there is a problem with the Gay and Lesbian Choir continuing to use the church.

It's an interesting tactic, but I doubt it is going to work.

Complicated

Carbon Capture Firm Could Use the Ocean to Combat Global Warming

I guess if money and energy are no object, there are lots of ways you can fiddle with the environment:

The study, "Electrochemical Acceleration of Chemical Weathering as an Energetically Feasible Approach to Mitigating Anthropogenic Climate Change," lays out a means of making the ocean more alkaline by reducing its acid content, in a process "equivalent to the electrochemical acceleration of the Earth's natural chemical weathering process."

In essence, the study proposes using electrolysis to convert weaker carbonic acid in the oceans into hydrochloric acid - "the engineered process accelerates the weathering kinetics to industrial rates," the study states. That could speed the rate at which silicate rocks –basalt, granite and other minerals that make up most of the Earth's crust – absorb the acid from the ocean.

"The increase in ocean alkalinity resulting from the removal of HCl causes atmospheric CO2 to dissolve into the ocean where it will be stored primarily as HCO3 without further acidifying the ocean," the study states. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean already, causing it to become more acidic - and that is leading to problems for coral reefs, giant squid and other ocean life, scientists say.

I think I have heard of this before, but not posted about it. Probably because of this:

Undertaking such a vast engineering project would be daunting, to be sure. It's the equivalent of building about 100 plants the size of major sewage treatment facilities to capture about 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, the study states.

"Our current estimates indicate that running the process described here at scales sufficiently large to impact the earth's climate is unlikely to be commercially viable in the near future," the study says.

The redundant blogger

Jennifer Marohasy - Gone Fishing

It's hard not be bemused by what happens at Jennifer Marohasy's blog when she disappears for a break. (It's been nearly three weeks now.) The raucous, rarely enlightening, debate by the band of regular commenters just continues unabated.

I can't quite work out whether, as a blogger, Jennifer should feel proud or embarrassed that her blog is almost as active without her as when she is posting.

What a surprise

The Hindu News Update Service notes that:

The Asia Pacific Sexual Health and Overall Wellness (AP SHOW) survey found that men with "suboptimal erections" are less satisfied with sex and other aspects of the sexual experience.

Love that terminology. It makes me want to use at least part of it every day. For example: "Kevin Rudd, our suboptimal PM".

The Taliban concept of "truce"

Pakistani reporter is killed after celebration of truce

A rally to celebrate a day-old peace deal between the government and a hard-line Islamic cleric in the Swat Valley ended ominously Wednesday when a Pakistani television journalist was shot and killed after covering the march.

Fast work

Short works of genius that cheer up the writing profession | The Spectator

A good column from Paul Johnson about the speed with which some famous novels (or plays) have been written.

A bit rich

Why men can't apologise - Times Online

A female "relationships expert" says (citing one example) that men have trouble saying "sorry".

The comments are already flowing in the other direction:

What a stupefyingly assumed, breathtaking generalisation of an entire gender based solely on one person's own prejudices and the singularly thin example of one incident! How do I know this? My girlfiend would rather lose an arm than say sorry!

And it is true that, in my vast range of relationship experience (hahahaha,) one important lesson learnt is that women do not generally feel a need to apologise for things said or done when feeling even slightly hormonally grumpy. Men, on the other hand, are expected to pretty much apologise for everything.

I doubt I am unique in this finding.