Kant is hard work

Kant confusion | TLS

This review of another book about Kant's moral philosophy starts out well, pointing out the problems people see with the categorical imperative, but as it gets more and more into the detail of Kant's terminology, the more one remembers what hard work it can be to follow his arguments.

Still, it's worth a read.

And it reminds me - one of my fantasy film scripts or novels was going to be about Kant not being a fussy virgin who never left his home town, but an early James Bond doing secret spy work across 18th Europe during university holidays.   I mean, just look at those bedroom eyes:




This could be the hardest pitch ever to a Hollywood studio - but you have to admit it is original.  (I hope.)

He (and they) really likes the film

Boyhood review – one of the great films of the decade | Peter Bradshaw | Film | The Guardian

 Like the fabled Jesuit, Richard Linklater has taken the boy and given us the man. In so doing, he's created a film that I love more than I can say. And there is hardly a better, or
nobler thing a film can do than inspire love.

It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes too, which is rare.   I will see it.

Relationship problems, Adam?

If anyone has read Adam Creighton's blog entry in The Australian today,  and understands his point, could you kindly drop by and explain it to me?

My quick take is that it's an impenetrable mish mash of a discussion about no fault divorce and economic consequences of divorce and how women now do things differently and that may not be good and maybe we'd all be better off (how exactly is not explained) if there was fault based divorce that still didn't actually require fault.

Highly Radioactive Man

The Tragic Tale Of Atomic Man: Life As A Radioactive Human | Gizmodo Australia

I don't recall reading the story of Harold McClusky before.  It seems remarkable he survived so long...

A Bolt apology

Andrew Bolt the latest to apologise over Tony Abbott's wall punch | Richard Ackland | Comment is free | theguardian.com

It's a pity he only had to make it on radio.  Didn't he suggest the Ramjan incident didn't happen in his blog?  I would have expected so, but can't be bothered looking.

Comedian needs another job

I never thought Jimeoin was particularly funny:  inoffensive though.

But from the parts of SBS's "Full Brazilian" show I have seen: man oh man, does this comedian need to find another line of work, or what?   Or are other, completely burnt out, unfunny writers responsible for the dire lack of successful humour that he tries to deliver on the show? 

It's been awful.

I feel a bit mean saying it, in a way, because his dumb persona is successful to the extent that one imagines he is unemployable for any more challenging task.  And he is still inoffensive.

Lucky no one much reads this blog, then. 

Ice, ice, baby

Cooling protects oxygen-deprived infants : Nature News & Comment

A team led by Denis Azzopardi, a neonatologist at King’s College London, lowered the body temperature of 145 full-term babies who were born after at least 36 weeks of gestation. All were at risk of brain damage because they had been deprived of oxygen during birth — a problem that is often caused by troubles with the placenta or umbilical cord, and affects nearly 750,000 babies a year in the United Kingdom.

The researchers cooled the infants to between 33°C and 34°C for 72 hours, starting within 6 hours of birth. The technique is known to boost the chances that children avoid brain damage until they become toddlers², but any longer-term benefits have remained unclear.

The study finds treated babies had better mental and physical health than untreated infants through to ages 6 or 7: they were 60% more likely to have normal intelligence, hearing and vision. Those who survived to childhood also had fewer disabilities such as difficulty walking and seeing.

Interesting, eh?

The dumb Right celebrates

Andrew Bolt is happy to see himself on the cover of The Spectator, but is cranky that the Senate is not supporting budget measures that were supposed to make up for loss of revenue from the carbon price.

There are two possible ways of looking at this:  the first, that by softening cuts, Palmer (and Labor) actually help Abbott's position with many in the electorate who have stop supporting him since the budget.   Maybe Abbott will happily enough muddle through to the next election.

The second:  that this is really untenable, and a double dissolution is needed to give one side or the other some clear air going forward in terms of long term fiscal and policy approach.

I'm still leaning towards the second view, but want more rope out there for Palmer and his Senate fan club to hang themselves with (metaphorically speaking, of course) before the next election.

I would say a double dissolution by early 2015 would do OK, thanks.

Update:  the ideological driven Right celebrates too, with much excitement over a bald Senator who got there by a combination of deception and luck (don't believe me? - check the LDP vote in every other State, including WA in their rerun) mouthing philosophical platitudes that give them a warm inner glow but reflect next to nothing on the practicalities of running a modern society and government, except in the fantasy Libertarian World that's been overtaken by about 180 years of history. 

Amusingly, the LDP with it abhorrence of taxes (just because they are taxes) is also crushing the Coalitions budget, but not for political gamesmanship of the kind Labor and the Greens are engaging in (carrying on in the same manner that the Coalition did in opposition) but because they really truly believe it - that repairing a budget is best achieved by giving up lots of tax revenue.   (Oh, OK, they would fix that by simply stopping government spending instantly on a multitude of things, overnight.   Leyonhjelm's alternative budget was a stinking pile of poo that outdoes the wrong priorities of Abbott by at least one order of magnitude.)

So what's worse - politicians who block things for the purposes of tactical advantage, or ones who block things because of ideologically driven wrong headedness?   I already know the answer to that - there is no arguing with Leyonhjelm or his ilk because they are purely ideologically driven.  The sooner he is out of the Senate, the better.

Stem cell failures we don't hear (much) about

Stem cell treatment causes nasal growth in woman's back - health - 08 July 2014 - New Scientist

I've always been somewhat skeptical of stem cell therpy, and the enthusiasm with which researchers wanted to mash up embryos to get them.  (I know, the title story of the nose growing on a woman's spine is not involving embryonic cells, but I am still leery of playing around with embryos for any reason.)

So it's interesting to note that there have been spectacular failures in their experimental use, and that we don't seem to ever hear much about them:

There are thought to be more than 1000 ongoing stem cell trials, including two on the US clinical trial register ClinicalTrials.gov, which use olfactory ensheathing cells (see main story, above). However there is an unknown number of people visiting private clinics for unregulated stem cell treatments.

As there is no global register it is unknown how many people have developed additional problems as a result of such therapies, but a few cases have come to light of tumours or excessive tissue growth. One of the first people to receive fetal cells to treat Parkinson's disease was a 50-year-old US citizen in China. Upon his death in 1991, 23 months later, he was found at autopsy to have a teratoma growing in his brain that contained hairs and cartilage (Neurology, doi.org/tjt).


A more highly publicised case was in 2009, when an Israeli teenager developed brain and spinal tumours  after receiving several implants of fetal stem cells in Moscow to treat
a rare degenerative condition. And in 2010, a 46-year-old woman developed multiple tumours in her kidney after having her own bone marrow stem cells injected at a private clinic in an attempt to treat her kidney failure.

There have also been at least three cases of people developing leukaemia after receiving stem cells from umbilical cord blood. However, that is less surprising as ordinary bone marrow
transplants – which are a source of blood stem cells – also carry that risk.

As someone says in the article:

"It is sobering," says George Daley, a stem cell researcher at Harvard Medical School who has helped write guidelines for people considering stem cell treatments. "It speaks directly to how primitive our state of knowledge is about how cells integrate and divide and expand. "

The case shows that even when carried out at mainstream hospitals, experimental stem cell therapies can have unpredictable consequences, says Alexey Bersenev, a stem cell research analyst who blogs at Cell Trials. "We have to realise complications can also happen in a clinical trial," he says.

Meanwhile, in Bahrain

Man arrested for cross-dressing in Bahrain | GulfNews.com

A man was sentenced to one month in prison followed by deportation after he was apprehended for wearing women’s accessories and makeup in Bahrain.

The expatriate Arab was arrested by a police patrol as he was walking “in a feminine way” in the Bahraini capital Manama and attracted the attention of the servicemen.

He said that he worked in a women’s beauty salon and that his profession demanded that he always looked elegant and wore the latest fashion accessories to set a positive example for his clients.

The public prosecution was not convinced by the arguments and charged him with encouraging debauchery. He was subsequently referred to a court that ruled to keep him in jail for one month.

Well, I certainly hope that Arab police are given adequate training at their academies on how to spot questionable "walking in a feminine way".

More generally:

Cross-dressing is banned in Bahrain and in the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states — Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Foreigners who are apprehended for their “unacceptable looks” in public are often jailed for a short period before they are sent home.

Local conservatives have regularly called for tougher measures against cross-dressers and gays, accusing them of spreading vice, particularly among young people.

Sort of good news

Significant step towards blood test for Alzheimer's

Remote writing

Chasing Orwell’s Ghost | Roads & Kingdoms

I happen to think that 1984 is a vastly overrated work, but it is still of interest to read this photo essay about the remote Scottish island location where Orwell went to finish it.    Very bleak, like the novel (although the black and white photography doubtless makes it look as bleak as possible.)

Oats back on the agenda

Winter is breakfast oat season, and I know my readership is fascinated by which brand I am currently enjoying.  (Well, 2012's post on the topic got 5 comments, a veritable torrent of interest!)

This year I have tried three different types, 2 of those being of the fruit flavoured individual serves in sachets.  These sachets are a bit borderline small for my appetite, but I get by with a cup of coffee too.

I don't recommend the Uncle Toby's version of these.  The flavours are weak and the amount of fruit added is tiny.

There is another brand that has nicer fruit mixes, but I can't find it on line at the moment and I actually forget if it is Quakers or another brand. 

However, this morning, I tried this one:

and it was pretty delicious.   On special at Coles for $4.  

From The Guardian

Don't axe the tax: emissions trading supporters make last-ditch plea | Environment | theguardian.com: A costing by the parliamentary budget office has found budget revenues would be $18.1bn higher over the next four years if the carbon price was retained.

The effort to save the current scheme did not have a large enough public profile, if you ask me.

The fact that giving up this revenue meant the government had to cut harder elsewhere was simply not understood by enough people.

But as I have said before, any benefit of a one off reduction in energy bills is not going to be remembered for long as those bills resume their rise for other reasons.

Scathing Quiggin

John Quiggin � With Reformicons like this, no wonder the Reactobots always win

 JQ is amusingly scathing about the attempts of the tiny number of conservatives who are at least making some attempt at getting some intellectual credibility back into the Republicans in the US.

His comments on the IPA,CIS and Quadrant in Australia seem about right to me, too.  (Although, as someone in comments notes, about the only issue the right wing "think tanks" in Australia are more open about than their equivalent in the US is their attitude to homosexuality.)

Speaking of right wingers who keep getting their heads on the ABC, did I hear a snippet of Judith Sloan on Radio National this morning (in an advertisement for a forthcoming show on the issue of the size of government) suggest we could be more like South Korea, which is successful with (apparently) a very small government sector?

I know little about the country, except that I thought its system there was famous for its crony capitalism which presumably horrifies Judith.   I should try to listen to that show, since I presume someone with a less incredibly facile take on economics than hers will be on it...

As suspected

Climate engineering offers little hope of mitigation

The problem is it is thought likely to help some parts of the world at the expense of others.  How can we expect international consensus on doing it large scale, then?

World War 1 discussed

The docu-drama 37 Days, which I mentioned favourably last week, became very compelling in last Friday's episode.   Well worth watching on SBS on Demand if you missed it.

Via Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog, which is always brimming with great links, I caught up with two great pieces on the War over the weekend.  First, this article from the Guardian which I had overlooked, about the extraordinary and tragic circumstances in which many of the soldiers were executed for desertion.  It makes it very easy to understand the psychic scars it must have left on those who did come back from the war.

The other one was from the New Statesman, by Simon Heffer, looks at the history of the historians' attempts to analyse the causes of the war.  A good read.

Lockyer Valley visits

One of the nice things about living where I do in Brisbane is that it's not a far drive to get out to the Lockyer Valley, the large vegetable and fruit growing area between the city and Toowoomba.

Yesterday, we drove out to the Mulgowie Farmer's Market, which is held only on the first Saturday of every month, and even then only from 8 to 11am.   It was the second time we had been there, although we have now had a few trips to the Lockyer Valley in the last 6 months, for various reasons.

There is nothing else to see at Mulgowie - it has a (not very physically impressive) pub and a country hall beside it where the market is run.  That's it.  No shop, no school; but it's a lovely setting, closer to the hills than at many other parts of the so-called Valley.

The reason to go there is that it is genuinely a farmers market - there are several stalls with people who grow the produce they sell, and the freshness of most of what is on offer is really like nothing at any other market I have been too.   Yesterday, we bought beans, lettuce, corn, daikon, potatoes, radicchio, and the osso bucco we had for dinner.  The earth on the potatoes smelt fresh as I peeled them last night; the beans were as crisp as if picked from the yard.  The quality is just great, the price modest, and the stallholders all happy to talk about what they grow. We also had some nice olives, grown almost within sight of the market.

It's not the largest market around, and it feels a bit like a secret that you don't want too many people to know.  But from where we live, it's an easy and pleasant drive of just under an hour (I recommend going through Rosewood, if anyone is coming from Brisbane), but it really doesn't feel far.  I love it.

In fact, maybe I was a farmer in a previous life, because I just generally get a bit of a thrill from driving around fertile farm areas like the Lockyer, and guessing which vegetable or produce is in which field.*  The soil is a fantastically fertile looking black all around the region.  Some of the smaller roadside farm vendors are also worth visiting - yesterday we got some great strawberries from one of them, and the woman was able to point across the field to where they had been grown.

The region was badly hit by the 2011 floods.  Perhaps part of reason it is so fertile is that it is a bit of a flood plain.  But the bigger towns of Laidley and Gatton don't seem to be doing too bad.   We also drove into the Gatton University of Queensland campus yesterday, where they teach veterinary science and other agricultural related things - it has some pretty remarkable old buildings, but I didn't take photos.  Worth a look if you are in the area, though.  

*  some actual comments from me in the car:  "Look:  that's beetroot!...What's that?   Cabbage I think....Hey, we could recreate the cropsprayer scene from North by Northwest in that patch of dead corn stalks! ....Put away the iPod will you and look out the window you two!!"

Chromecast takes over the world

At the cinema today, there was an ad for the Chromecast.  I'm not sure how well it has sold, but I suspect it is really going to put more billions into Google's pockets.  It works well, even if it takes a bit of fiddling to get it to work with sites other than Youtube at the moment.

Tonight, I got Vimeo to work on it (using Chrome with Vidcast added - look it up), and it worked very well indeed.  All Vimeo content seems to be of very clear quality.

Back on Youtube, the recently viral video of a drone flying through fireworks does look great on a a big LCD TV.   Or you can watch it here:

At last - the problems of surrogacy noted

I'm not alone in being against surrogacy after all. The cultural soft left dominance of the media means that problems and ethical doubts about surrogacy are rarely discussed in detail (quite the opposite in fact - surrogacy by rich pop singers and movie or TV stars is positively celebrated with not a doubt in sight), so it is indeed refreshing to see that the New York Times has a lengthy and detailed article which gives some detailed examples of how it can and has gone wrong.

It's well worth reading.  

It's also surprising to see that quite a few comments are against it generally - it seems like a lot of people have been waiting to read something like this.  Here's one comment as an example:

As someone who is both gay and adopted I find it absolutely abhorrent the amount of couples I know who seem to think nothing of raising a child completely separated from one of its biological parents. 
The rallying cry seems to be the outdated notion that only the people who raised you are your parents and the resulting children should remain grateful and naive about the process. Anyone who has been in a similar situation will tell you life is more complicated than that. Simply loving someone doesn't trump their basic biological drive to understand their identity. 
This is much more complex than smiling pictures of babies and happy families implies. And it's an issue I feel like the media and public is largely ignoring because they don't want to trample on anyone's notion of 'gay rights.'