Harsh, but probably fair

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Inconsistency ignored

I suppose I can't complain too much, as I suspect that Australia can get by with a lot less than 72 of the JSFs.  But I didn't realise that blustering defence minister David Johnston has not been questioned by any journalist about his change of heart:

Why, then, didn't the RAAF get a boost from the heroic Liberal Government working tirelessly to redress the legion funding injustices rendered unto Defence by Labor? Dating back to 2009, Defence Minister David Johnston made clear that he thought an order for 72 a copout, complaining on November 26 of that year that "The 2009 Defence White Paper had outlined the purchase of 100 Joint Strike Fighters but the Rudd government will now only commit to a maximum of 72, with the rest to be considered 'at a later date'." 

Last year, Johnston was crystal clear in saying he thought a JSF order of less than 100 was a sign of incompetence, a broken promise, a number the Coalition supported. What's changed?

While talk is cheap - and fighter jets aren't - my takeaway from this is that a government of no surprises and no excuses surprised no observers by breaking a promise to sharply increase spending here, and didn't really offer an excuse. Seen through the prism of mooted pension and Medicare cuts, this might seem odd - but the Coalition relies on a quaint presumption that it's stronger on defence for little other reason than they say so.

Annoying leftisms noted

I don't care much for Bill Maher, but at least I give him credit for openly admitting that politically correct Leftisms can be really annoying and over the top.  His conclusion, though, is valid.  Watch the video here.

And you might also want to watch him on the Bundy matter, from whom right wingers are now running with great speed.

Sunday bug

Not a perfect shot, but it kept moving, dang it:

Saturday paper

Some weekends, the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald just seems to hit all the right notes.

I see that Mark Dapin has started writing for Good Weekend again.  He's the sort of bloke with whom I think I would have little in the way of common topics to talk about over a beer, but I have always enjoyed his wry, self deprecating writing style.  Take today's column, for example.  I found it particularly interesting for the mention of the "I'm not really dead, it's all a mistake" dreams after his grandfather died, since I had many of them myself after my father died.   As I think I have written before in this blog, they seem to be particularly relevant to how a certain resurrection story recently commemorated around the world may have been created; but then again, if lots of people have experienced parents dying young, as they often did back then, why wouldn't skeptics be saying  "don't be daft, you've just had the generic grief dream that we've all had when Pop died."   (I wonder if Mel Gibson knows how that translate that into Aramaic.)

One other writer who has started appearing regularly in Good Weekend is Benjamin Law.  Look, when he's talking about himself he can come across as too gay-ly self absorbed, but he does win me over with his cheeriness and (again) a large dollop of self deprecation.  He appears to enjoy good relations with his Asian family, despite his sexuality.   Here are his comments today about the weird reluctance of the Australian hotel industry to embrace wi fi.   He is, generally, I think, another good writer.

Speaking of self deprecation, Richard Glover reminds us (it's certainly not an original thought) that Australia loves a loser.  But, like him, I think it an endearing part of the national identity rather than a problem. 

As for straight journalism, David Wroe writes that one advantage of the JSF purchase is that it will boost local high tech manufacturing.   This is a not insignificant point, given what's happened to the car industry:

Some $335 million in manufacturing work has already gone to Australian firms and it is hoped this will rise to $1.5 billion. All up, including servicing and support over coming decades, the government says business opportunity could reach $7.5 billion. It will not replace the car industry, but it is high-tech work and a green shoot in manufacturing.

But those opportunities depend on our buying a decent number of the fighters, also called the F-35 Lightning II, from the US. The original expectation was for 100 aircraft. The Abbott government's announcement this week takes Australia's commitment to 72 - and possibly up to 24 more when the current Super Hornet is ready for retirement from 2030 onward.

I don't know enough to say how few fighter jets one can realistically purchase to have a viable set up of local maintenance and training, but given we virtually never use fighters for anything resembling real warfare, my inclination would be to keep that number as low as possible.  I suspect we could get by with many fewer than 72, though.   In the 50's would be my guess.

Update:  I forgot to add - Bob Ellis reviews Bob Carr's book (favourably, of course) but I can't find a link to it.  I also was interested in this article about the author Stefan Zweig, who Wes Anderson said "inspired" (very loosely, apparently) The Grand Budapest Hotel.

For Anzac Day

I noted here a couple of month ago how very, very impressed I was with the Australian War Memorial, after visiting it last Christmas for the first time in perhaps 25 years.

I hadn't looked at its presence on the 'net til today though.  It looks like its loaded with good stuff.   It is probably the only government website in existence that would be popular with all Australians of all political persuasions.  (Well, not entirely sure about some Greens..)

Lets's look at a digitised official war diary at random...

Here's one talking about the return to Australia by No 16 Quota AIF in 1919.  A pretty happy diary, given they were returning.  I see that a heck of a lot of time in camp and on the ship was spent in organised sport:  a good thing I wasn't there, then.

I also see that before they left England it was Anzac Day and there is reference to a march - I wouldn't have thought it was even recognised in 1919, but there you go.  The diary entry notes:

 "ANZAC DAY as far as possible observed as a holiday for all men remaining in camp."

Apart from the relentless number of sporting competitions organised,  there are many concerts mentioned, even a "fancy dress promenade and ball" on the ship which was pronounced to be one of the most successful events of the trip.   I can't quite work out if women were involved, however.  I think there is earlier mention of nursing sisters, but I don't think many, and one would imagine they would be kept far apart...

They weren't allowed to get off at Port Said.  The reason - naughty soldiers that were there before them:

"I consider that the troops of the Wyreema should be punished by the fact of their larrikinism at Port Said being put before the Public in some tangible form such as the press pointing out the effect it had on all subsequent Australian troops being treated as social outcasts at the ports of call en route to Australia".

The trip met some very hot weather after that - so much so that the ship's chef died of heatstroke and was buried at sea.  Later, another person died of appendicitis.

They were allowed ashore at Colombo (just for the day, not overnight.)  The next morning:

"A parade and roll call this morning disclosed the somewhat surprising fact that there were none missing"

The actual arrival home is not described in much detail.  One other odd thing - there is mention of men getting "inoculation anti-influenza".  With what, I wonder?

Anyway, just one glimpse of war time life from a random diary...

Background to Bundy

Bundy Ranch, vigilantism going mainstream: The idea that the Constitution is interpreted at the point of a gun isn’t new.

As the article says, the difference between the old constitutional vigilantism and the current version is support from the likes of Fox News and many in the Tea Party sympathetic Right wing blogosphere:

The protesters at Bundy Ranch voice the same rhetoric of constitutional vigilantism honed by the Klan, the Posse, and the militias. What has changed is that this philosophy is no longer limited to the radical fringe but has become a respectable position offered up by mainstream political figures like Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who called the protesters “patriots,” and by a stream of Fox News commentators like Sean Hannity and Andrew Napolitano, who called Bundy a hero for standing up to federal abuse.

Emboldened by their apparent victory at Bundy Ranch, the new constitutional vigilantes are asking where they can take the fight next.  Cliven Bundy declared it a victory for “We the People.” But that can only be true if we want the Constitution to mean whatever an armed mob
says it means.

Stand proud, Rupert Murdoch.  Your search for ratings and profit is making America a more dangerous place.

Piketty responses

I haven't had time to read all of this, and will probably have a bit of trouble following some of the arguments, but Brad DeLong has an interesting looking summary of the reaction to Piketty, including the criticisms.

El Nino forecast update

I see that the BOM put out an update earlier this week, confirming that an El Nino is very likely, and could be confirmed by about July:

The likelihood of El Niño remains high, with all climate models surveyed by the Bureau now indicating El Niño is likely to occur in 2014. Six of the seven models suggest El Niño thresholds may be exceeded as early as July. 

The Pacific Ocean has been warming along the equator over recent weeks, with continued warming in the central Pacific likely in coming months. Another burst of westerly winds is presently occurring in the western Pacific, and is likely to cause further warming of the sub-surface.

El Niño has an impact across much of the world, including below average rainfall in the western Pacific and Indonesian regions, and increased rainfall in the central and eastern Pacific. For Australia, El Niño is usually associated with below average rainfall, with about two thirds of El Niño events since 1900 resulting in major drought over large areas of Australia.

The amazing, poisonous hypocrisy of the current Right wing tribalism

This article at Slate ("Conservative Tribalism") gives an account of some of the issues in American which the Right used to support, but about which they have done an about face for no apparent reason other than  Liberals (and Obama in particular) support them.   (The biggest example - the health care reforms that were good enough for Romney when he was governor, but are now supposed to be socialist extremism - turns out to be only one of many examples.)

And for a bit of humour, the ridiculous hypocrisy of Fox News on the Bundy confrontation was skewered perfectly by Jon Stewart recently.  You can watch it via Salon.

When will enough on the Right in America come back to common sense and send the Tea Party and their rich enablers packing?

Tattoo push back

BBC News - The ways tattoos can get you into trouble

It's not just religious sensitivities or cultural values at play. In October 2012, the head of the Metropolitan Police in the UK forbade police officers and staff from getting visible tattoos because they "damaged the professional image" of the force. The US Army has also just released a new rulebook on tattoos.
In addition to banning extremist, indecent, sexist and racist tattoos,
soldiers are now prohibited from having tattoos on their head, face,
neck, wrists, hands and fingers. Sleeve tattoos are banned below the
elbow and knee, with the number of visible tattoos - which must be
smaller than the size of the wearer's hand - limited to four. 

Excellent news.

Cannabis and hearts

I didn't see this one coming:

Marijuana use may result in cardiovascular-related complications—even death—among young and middle-aged adults, according to a French study reported in the Journal of the American Heart Association....

 Researchers note that marijuana use and any resulting health complications are likely underreported. There are 1.2 million regular users in France, and thus potentially a large amount of complications that are not detected by the French Addictovigilance System.

Economic guesswork (please see updates too)

Here are a couple of people with some apparent credentials in the field who think that the IPCC is doing a poor job at making accurate forecasts of the economic consequences of climate change.  (They seem to think it is being too optimistic.)

Common sense suggests they are right.

But while I would not want there to be less research on the topic, I'll repeat my gripe that I find it pretty incredible that anyone thinks that economic forecasting that extends beyond about a 10 to 20 year horizon, and which is trying to take into account large uncertainties in terms of the potential for natural disasters of a scale not seen since industrialisation, has any real hope of being accurate.

The simple point is - we do not want to have to re-order the world to meet a potential for 2 to 5 degree average global temperature rise (and a global rearrangement of rainfall that would surely also be involved) if we don't really have to.   Such an increase is self evidently going to be extremely disruptive (given that the difference between an ice age and a warm interglacial may be as little as 2.6 degrees), to countries both rich and poor, and the possible compounding effect of the types of natural disaster one upon the other are really impossible to foresee.

Economics should not be allowed to overrule common sense on this issue.  There is plenty of reason to assume some unprecedented disasters in terms of humanitarian, cultural and economic life, so act to limit the potential now.

Update:  for more detail on the confusing way economic analysis is used by the IPCC, you could do worse than read this post at Real Climate, and the comments following.

Update 2:  I note from poking around The Conversation (and finding a comment by Eli Rabbett) that there is other academic support for my common sense skepticism about applying economics to climate change.     Here is the abstract from a recent paper by Rosen and Guenther, which can be read in its entirety here:

The long-term economics of mitigating climate change over the long run has played a high profile role in the most important analyses of climate change in the last decade, namely the Stern Report and the IPCC's Fourth Assessment. However, the various kinds of uncertainties that affect these economic results raise serious questions about whether or not the net costs and benefits of mitigating climate change over periods as long as 50 to 100 years can be known to such a level of accuracy that they should be reported to policymakers and the public. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the derivation of these estimates of the long-term economic costs and benefits of mitigation. It particularly focuses on the role of technological change, especially for energy efficiency technologies, in making the net economic results of mitigating climate change unknowable over the long run.

Because of these serious technical problems, policymakers should not base climate change mitigation policy on the estimated net economic impacts computed by integrated assessment models. Rather, mitigation policies must be forcefully implemented anyway given the actual physical climate change crisis, in spite of the many uncertainties involved in trying to predict the net economics of doing so.

Rarely do I find such detailed and complete vindication for a position I've espoused as a matter of common sense from people who actually know what they are talking about!

Update 3:   as noted in this article in The Conversation by a couple of Australians, the IPCC is right to note that emissions cuts are about ethics too.  From the link:

Knowing the price of everything?

Judgements about value also come into the complex debate about future economic costs and damages from climate change.

All too often, analyses focus purely on the anticipated economic damage, using lower estimates as a rationale for less action on climate change. This is a simplistic view, as it misses three crucial points.

First, as humans we care about things that are not valued in economic markets. Most Australians care far more about the Great Barrier Reef than its (nevertheless impressive) tourism revenues would suggest. Most of us also care about species going extinct, on an emotional level quite separate from the environmental and health benefits of species diversity. Ignoring these concerns means ignoring many of the values that societies hold.

Second, climate effects will vary greatly across different regions and social groups, and this is usually not reflected in simple economic cost estimates. It is often the poor who are most at risk from climate change, and will find it harder to adapt or recover. If a citizen of an Australian beach suburb loses a A$2 million house, should this be counted as 200 times worse than a Vietnamese peasant losing their A$10,000 home?

Finally, and crucially, climate change is about risks. There is a risk – perhaps small, but we do not know how small – of catastrophic impacts. Should we ignore the risk of very bad outcomes for future generations, or should we give extra weight to them?

The IPCC’s report does not provide the answers, because the IPCC is not policy prescriptive. It aims to give decision-makers the latest reliable information, and a compass to navigate their way through decisions that should be based on deeper considerations than short-term economics or electoral tactics.

Rice issue

I didn't know that rice was a particularly problematic crop for picking up unwanted elements from the soil it's grown in.

Certainly sounds like excellent reason to always avoid Chinese grown rice, then...

Maurice does not have a clue

If ever there was proof needed that successful business men can be conned when it comes to science, Maurice Newman and his amazingly ignorant interview of last night provides it.

Basically, Newman seems to have read Ian Plimer's climate change denialism book and thinks it is the last word on climate science.   And, of course, Tony Abbott gets business advice from this guy.

The story of climate change denialism in the future history books will be about how a large slab of ideologically motivated people were conned for decades by a handful of contrarians, not even all of them being scientists (Monckton, etc).

George Brandis' silly complaint that "mediaeval' tactics are being used against climate change skeptics was equally nonsensical. 

I doubt I have seen a stupider Australian (Federal) government in my lifetime.  

Update:   the hard working Sou at Hotwhopper has a detailed take down of Newman's complete ignorance. 

Lead and crime; and somehow, Hitler and poo, too...

A good BBC magazine article looking at the claim that removing environmental lead has caused an international drop in crime over the past several decades.

I wonder if anyone has looked at the lead intake of international criminal Hitler?  Were his long standing illnesses consistent with lead poisoning?  As the article says:  "It causes kidney damage, inhibits body growth, causes abdominal pain, anaemia and can damage the nervous system."   He definitely had digestive problems, and certainly a shot nervous system at least in the last few weeks.

I just Googled "Hitler lead poisoning" and the first couple of pages don't have hits about it.  I doubt it would be true, but I am the first to make the suggestion?

Update:   I have previously blogged here about Hitler's chronic flatulence.  Just Googling now for articles on his health, I see this relatively recent post which is a fun read.  It notes the flatulence:

By the mid-1930s, Hitler was the ruler of Germany… and still farting like a horse.

but also adds this bit of info about the crank Dr Morell's medicine:

Morell served on the board of Hageda, a pharmaceutical company that manufactured a strange mediation called Mutaflor, whose active ingredient was live bacteria cultured from the fecal matter of “a Bulgarian peasant of the most vigorous stock.”

Mutaflor was intended to treat digestive disorders- the theory being that digestive problems were caused when healthy bacteria, which lived in the intestinal tract and were essential to good digestion, were killed off or crowded out by unhealthy bacteria. Ingesting the cultured dung of a vigorous, clean-living Bulgarian peasant, the theory went, would reintroduce beneficial bacteria into an unhealthy digestive tract and restore proper function.

Well, isn't it an odd thing that these days, doctors may well have tried a "fecal transplant" on Hitler using the poo of a healthy Bulgarian peasant, and it might have worked!  In fact, the Mutaflor idea was actually way ahead of its time, with just the delivery method being the problem. 

My conclusion:  we are lucky Hitler lived when he did and did not get a modern treatment that could have enhanced his health.  But on the other hand, would Hitler been the crazy man he was if he didn't have a regular painful gut?

I can see a science fiction movie in this - time travellers who seek to change the course of history via a surreptitiously delivered fecal transplant on Hitler.   (Of course, the highlight being the scene where some top Nazis investigate the noises coming from the bedroom, only to find a few men - our heroes from the future - attempting to insert the tube into the backside of an unconscious Adolf.  Can anyone suggest an appropriate line of dialogue for that scene, after the initial stunned silence?)    

[Update:  regardless of whether anyone has ever considered whether lead was in any of the medicines or diet of Hitler, I think I can be confident that no one in the world has previously had the idea in the last paragraph.  Isn't anyone going to give credit for originality? :) ]

Either from the edge of the universe, or the microwave in the staff common room

Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst – Phenomena

(I'm not serious about the microwave being the problem, but the way.)

I don't remember reading about these extremely brief bursts of radio waves (apparently) from the far flung corners of the universe before, so it's an interesting read.  I see that one had been caught at Parkes radio telescope, too.  Why didn't they tell me that when I was visiting there at Christmas?

I would not have thought it possible

Teen stowaway survives flight from California to Hawaii in aircraft wheel well

Update:  a BBC article notes that most people who try this die, but there have been more survivors (and some over quite long flights) than I expected.

Having a good run

John Quiggin has a string of particularly good posts at the moment.  One on why he thinks small modular nuclear is going no where fast (you really have to wonder why, given vast experience with small nuclear reactors for ships and submarines);  the end of manufacturing in Australia (wherein he notes what I questioned as soon as I read Gittin's column last week - do we really call food manufacturing "manufacturing"?); and finally, a post against the tribalist Right and its tu quoque argument.

All really good reading, with many intelligent comments following.

Update:   By way of contrast, I wonder what I can learn from comments at that Right wing powerhouse of a blog, Catallaxy, today:

Update 2: More wisdom [sarc] from Catallaxy, this time from regular contributor Steven Kates, the Say's Law obsessive, from RMIT:

No one is uninterested in “the environment” and everyone wants to preserve the planet whatever that might mean. But global warming is so inane and so lacking in evidence that it separates those who have common sense from some kind of herd of conformity.

Butterflies have furry necks and hairy legs

So, I'm playing with the new, still pretty cheap, digital camera my wife brought back.  As I have said before, one of the best things about digital cameras is their ability to easily take macro - not to a professional standard, but to give good enough results for your average backyard photographer.

A butterfly just handily arrived as I was near the daisies:

This is from the version resized and sharpened on my computer.

I'll try uploading the unresized one to blogger and see what happens:

Not sure I can see much difference once Blogger has done its processing...

Anyway, here's a cropped shot from the unresized image (and added as "original size", even if it won't all fit in the column width.  Not bad what you get with 16 megapixels: