Philosophy in comic form

I was fairly amused by this installment of Existential Comics.

Actually, the previous installment was good too.   Perhaps I need to spend a while at that site...

Weather comment

So, we are now clearly in an El Nino, and one that is quite likely to continue strengthening.

I can't remember what the winter in Brisbane was like during the last strong one, but my impression of this current one is that the nightly temperatures have been unusually cold/cool for quite a protracted time, by local standards.

Yet down South, as far as I know, it has been cold but with relatively little snow.  But a very large system of snow bearing weather is about to hit, apparently.  At IPA headquarters, the cabal will be rubbing their hands with glee.  

The true effect of this El Nino won't really be apparent until our summer.   The likelihood of terrible drought in Western Queensland (and New South Wales) becoming ever worse seems pretty high, though.

An issue with maturity

It has to be said:  what with David Leyonhjelm's continual sweary ripostes on twitter; his 70's era attempt at humour about how to trick a woman into letting her breasts be fondled; and Helen Dale's spectacularly high regard for her own abilities (yesterday's example from Facebook:  "Since I have probably forgotten more about how to write well than most people will ever know, any and all literary advice is received with due consideration and a grain of salt")  I can't help but conclude that there is a glaring problem with immaturity in the Australian libertarian scene...

As for Jeff Sparrow's lengthy re-visit of the Demidenko affair:  it seems quite an accurate account that aligns with my understanding, although I do think the connection with the wind turbine enquiry is a bit of stretch.  

Helen Dale actually deserves a backhanded compliment for letting the cat out of the bag about her and her boss being mainly interested in infrasound sickness as a means to an ideologically motivated economic policy end.  In that social media episode, her problem was being too honest, not dishonesty.

Bad timing for Tony

I would bet my last dollar that someone in Tony Abbott's office, if not Abbott himself, has said in the last 24 hours "*$&#...why did Heydon have to let Shorten appear on State of Origin final day?"

Shorten's appearance is being desperately oversold as a matter of interest by political journalists - especially if they write for The Australian - but I strongly suspect the public's interest is fairly limited.  Here's Grattan's less hyperventilating take on it, anyway.

The things scientists go looking for...

Nerves found to exist in male spider genitalia: A trio of researchers working in Germany has discovered that male spiders do indeed have nerves in their genitalia, overturning prior research that has suggested otherwise.

Carbon economic modelling uncertainty and its real mis-use

This post is inspired by a couple of tweets by Jason Soon, who links to a short article by Mark Lawson in the AFR citing Robert Pindyck's recent paper arguing that the Integrated Assessment Models used to predict economic costs of action (or non action) on climate are actually so full of uncertainty they are useless.

A few observations:

*  I started quoting other sources for pretty much the same argument a year or two ago.

*  It's pretty clear that Lawson, who wrote a book with the title "Climate Change Lunacy" which was launched by Ian Plimer (who shares the same publisher), wants to rely on this uncertainty argument to suggest no government action is warranted because no one can be sure of the economic benefit.   But in fact, Pindyck has been arguing for some years now that the best response is to price carbon and adjust the price as needed.   He wrote in a Cato publication in October 2013:

I have argued that we simply don’t know the SCC and won’t be able to determine it from the set of IAMs currently available. If we focus on “most likely” scenarios for which temperature increases are moderate and effects are small, the SCC is probably in the $10 to $40 range, justifying only a small tax on carbon emissions. But the “most likely” scenarios are not the ones that should be of major concern. We should focus more on the unlikely but devastating scenarios, i.e., the possibility of a climate catastrophe. Depending on the probability, potential effect, and timing, that might lead to an SCC as high as $200 per ton (although I have not tried to actually estimate the number).
That leaves us with two policy priorities: First, we should take the $20 Interagency Working Group estimate as a rough andpolitically acceptable lower bound and impose a carbon tax (or equivalent policy) of that amount. Of course, climate change is a global problem and we should pressure other countries to adopt a similar abatement policy. There will always be “free riders” (China, for example), but that is not a reason to delay action.

Would anyone reading Lawson's article quoting Pindyck get the impression that this is what Pindyck actually advocates?   I think not.

*  While the Cato Institute has been giving room for some to argue the case for carbon pricing, this is the line up of its "experts" on energy and environment part of their website:

  I don't recognize every name, of those I do, they are a rogues gallery of discredited climate science "experts" all determined to convince that government should take no action.

*  With a line up like that, and in Australia the likes of Sinclair Davidson, and the Senator who, by his own staffer's admission on twitter, is interested in infrasound mainly as a backdoor way of attacking an economic policy he doesn't like, the libertarian wing of the Right be it in the States or here remains a determined enemy of good policy response to climate change.

Fish and a certain river

Last weekend, people would have heard the odd but sad story of a 5 year girl killed by a jumping sturgeon on the Suwannee River in Florida.

Overlooking the human sadness element of this, Googling about it has led to a few improvements to my general knowledge:

1.  I never knew sturgeon, a weird looking fish I first became aware of as a child because a giant one features in an Uncle Scrooge story, had such a wide range.   Although, now that I look back on it, the Uncle Scrooge story in question was actually set in North America.   Sorry, it must be my later reading about Russian sturgeon and the caviar business that must have made me imagine that were mainly on another continent.

2.  Is the Suwannee (or Suwanee) River the same as the Swanee River of politically incorrect song fame?   Yes, turns out it is, and according to Wikipedia, Stephen Foster never saw it, and it doesn't even make much sense as the setting for the song.   (It's also the river the subject of the Al Jolson "Swanee" song, with music by Gershwin.)     Other sources say that Foster in fact first wrote the song using the name of a different river (the Pedee - which seems to now be called the Pee Dee - Americans seem to have trouble with consistency in river names)  and that river, being located in the Carolinas, makes a bit more sense for the song's story.

3.  Googling the Swanee song led me to this Youtube of Hugh Laurie doing a version of it.  I knew he sang, but he really is quite the jazz pianist:

But all cheese is magic...

Frenchwoman behind Chile 'magic cheese' scam jailed for three years | World news | The Guardian

Michelle Grattan on this weird government

Q&A affair has become theatre of the absurd: Has Q&A put some spell of madness over the government and their media mates?

I would like to point out that I was making references to mental illness on this issue before Michelle. 

No questions asked

The current revolution in the West in terms of both private and State treatment of homosexuality is, as I have argued for years, based on an assumed certainty of human psychology that reflects more of a social zeitgeist than a solid scientific understanding.

There are two things on the net recently which I think back me up on this.

One is the outpouring of Facebook support for a young male of indeterminate age looking sad and making the statement that he's homosexual and is worried that people won't like him.

I find it remarkable that (as far as I can see) no media outlet dealing with it has questioned the delicate matter of the age of the boy.   The reason is pretty obviously because it has become terribly, terribly politically incorrect to question whether a person is clearly understanding their own sexuality, regardless of their age.  (And sure, there are some people in threads following reports on this who are questioning whether the kid is "jumping the gun" here, but my point is that journalists seem loathe to raise the matter.)

Some media reports put him as a "young teen", which many would say is an age at which the sexuality self identification may very well be established.  Apparently, the Facebook site he appears on never reveals age, so it is all a guessing game.  (It's very hard to be sure, but I would say he is pre-teen.)   To some commenting about him, he could be as young as 7 or 8, and the issue of at what age kids clearly understand their sexuality simply doesn't matter to them.  

I know this for sure as I was listening to a discussion of the Facebook post on local ABC radio yesterday, where the two people specifically thought he looked all of 7 or 8, and the matter of whether he fully understood self identification as homosexual at that age was simply not an issue to them at all.

So, at what age do most adult gay people say they realised they were gay?  I've heard it said in a couple of places lately (one was Julia Zamiro - a dislike of whom I find impossible to fathom - talking to British comedian - who I don't find very funny - Matt Lucas, who came across as much more likeable than I expected) that it was a case of waiting for an expected attraction to the opposite sex to develop as a teen, but it never arrived.   I think this makes some sense, and appears confirmed by some survey evidence:

A national survey of 1,752 college students found:

48% of self-identified gay and bisexual college students became aware of their sexual preference in high school while 26% found their true sexuality in college

20% of self-identified gay and bisexual men knew that they were gay or bisexual in junior high school, and 17% said they knew in grade school

6% of self-identified gay or bisexual women knew that they were gay or bisexual in junior high school, and 11% knew in grade school."

Allowing for the fact that there may well be a bit of retrospective revision going on here (where what at the time of grade school was an understanding that they were different, with a later identification that it was homosexuality)  I think it seems pretty safe to say that a clear self identification as homosexual at the age of 7 or 8 is quite unusual.  Dare I say, but it may not even be entirely reliable. 

So why do people not factor that in to their response to this story?    It's clearly a case of an over-reaction to previous conservative shaming or even criminalization of homosexuality, but can't people see an over-reaction when it's in front of them?  


The second story is the terribly interesting one about the attack a decade ago on J Michael Bailey, who questioned whether all transexuals' self understanding was really accurate.   This is dealt with in a recent book which is mentioned on Greg Laden's blog, but I first read about this via a link earlier this year from Jason Soon to some (I think, conservative?) site that had a lengthy interview with Bailey.   Bailey's theory, as explained by him, sounded quite plausible to me, and I meant to link to it at the time but forgot to.

I see that Bailey is probably continuing to upset the transgender activists by weighing in on the "Caitlyn Jenner" kerfuffle, where, again, it is viewed as completely improper to question the self reporting of transexuals as to how they got there, so to speak.  Here's Bailey talking about it:

WT: Do you believe that Caitlyn Jenner is autogynephilic? If so, why?
MB: I believe it is very likely that Caitlyn Jenner’s transition was motivated by intense autogynephilia. I believe this because the best science suggests there are two completely different reasons why natal males become women: because they are feminine androphiles (lovers of men) or because they are autogynephilic. Jenner’s history shows none of the former and is very consistent with the latter. I refer specifically to his previous heterosexual marriages and secretive crossdressing.
WT. She says she always had gender dysphoria and that there was no erotic component. Would she say this if she were autogynephilic? Why?
MB: Autogynephilic individuals experience gender dysphoria, typically beginning in adolescence, when their intense erotic longing for female characteristics almost always begins. There is evidence (John Bancroft published an article long ago) showing that after changing sex, some show memory distortion. They begin to assert that their gender dysphoria began in early childhood and was far more overt than they had alleged before. They also deemphasize the erotic component, even if they admitted it before. I think they do this for at least two reasons: shame (because: sex is involved) and the desire to believe they really have the brains of women (as Jenner suggests she does–um, how does she know that?). I think also that Jenner (and others in the spotlight) likely enjoys the media spotlight, and the mainstream media loves the “was always a woman trapped in a man’s body” story and can’t deal with the “experienced intense sexual arousal when crossdressing or imagining I had a woman’s body” story.
WT: If Jenner doesn’t want people to think her transition was due to autogynephilia, why shouldn’t we just go along? 
MB: This inaccurate denial of autogynephilia is not for the good, because being honest could help lots of males struggling with their autogynephilia. (And there are lots who are.) It might help them understand themselves. It might help them accept themselves. It would at least say “Autogynephilia is nothing to be ashamed of.” I would say that people who admit and deal with their autogynephilia are even admirable.
Falsely misrepresenting one’s gender issues is also bad for science. It’s not good for people to believe false things merely because journalists don’t want to go certain places. Even among scientists, too many don’t bother to learn about the relevant literature and just listen to transgender people’s explanations (“I have the brain of a woman.”). This leads to bad scientific studies and ideas.

Well, that'll upset the transgender support movement, which appears to be reaching some sort of zenith at the moment in the West.

Update:   Some survey results from 2013 in the US (although not with all that many participants) indicates that relatively few adult gays find their sexuality is a "negative" factor.

Terrible tax plans from the Right

Lessons On How Not To Run Your State Government

Funny how you don't hear the IPA or the group of "we hate Keynes" columnists at The Australian talking about the Laffer inspired budget disasters going on in some American States over the last few years, with Kansas as the prime example.  But I see that Bobby Jindal has been doing silly things as well.

As the writer of this column says:

First, no leader should promise never to raise taxes because, frankly, there are times when it is necessary.

It's a statement of common sense under which David Leyonhjelm fails at the first hurdle.   

Polling talk

Last week I was waiting for a Newspoll that never arrived, but now it has, along with a Fairfax poll.

In news to cheer the soul, I see that despite what was supposed to be a good recent run for the Abbott government, it is still stuck on 52/48, or worse. 

Even the Essential Report of last week, which for some reason is the slowest changing poll, seems to confirm the Greens are improving slightly under their new, less sour looking, leader, which is leaking to improved TPP vote for Labor.  

The main hope for the Coalition would seem to be that it is doing well in New South Wales, which I half expect is due to the boyish charms of their Premier who, I gather,  has managed to balance budgets due to the huge amount of stamp duty from the Sydney market falling into his Treasury.  

I have been intending to do a post about the extraordinary talking up of security crisis with last week's "Border Force" press conference, but I've been a bit busy. 

Indebted to pond scum

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150701-the-origin-of-the-air-we-breathe

Gee blogging with a tablet is still harder than it should be. I'll try the link again, and fix it latter from the laptop if it doesn't work.

Life and movies

After a recent spate of shark attacks along one part of the American East Coast, some people were quoted as saying it was rather reminiscent of "Jaws".

It seems we might have a similar thing developing around parts of the Australian coast, at least if this morning's story is true after yesterday's shark attack just down the road at Ballina.

Some action required...

...not about the ABC or Q&A, but the extraordinary, are-they-quite-right-in-the-head obsession that (The Australian editor) Chris Mitchell/Tony Abbott/ whoever-the-heck-is-behind-all-this have about Q&A and the ABC.

It's getting so bad I'm starting to wish something actually bad would happen at the head office of The Oz so as to give them justification for the tens of thousands of fevered words being written about the ABC and its role in the Muslim threat, amongst other tabloid obsessions.

I'm daydreaming along these lines:  Tony Jones' secret ice addiction finally sends him into a psychotic episode in which he dresses up as a Muslim terrorist, breaks into the Oz's offices and holds Mitchell and his editorial team hostage with a semi automatic he found under the seat on the ABC bus they use for Q&A audience runs from Western Sydney.    If only Tony Abbott was visiting the office at the time it would be even better.  

No, wait:  if only Jones could also threaten the room with a rabid dog that Jonny Depp secretly didn't return to the US, we would have the Most Perfect Murdoch Tabloid Story ever conceived. 

Thank you.

Oh great...

ISIL warns Hamas in video message - Al Jazeera English

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has threatened
the Palestinian armed group Hamas, vowing to end the faction's rule in
the territory.

In a 16-minute long video shared by social media accounts sympathetic
to ISIL on Wednesday, fighters based in Syria's Aleppo province
condemned Hamas for its crackdown on Salafist groups in the Gaza Strip,
and its failure to implement a rigid enough interpretation of Islamic
law. ..
"The road to liberate Palestine goes through Iraq and we (ISIL) are
getting closer, day by day ... while they (Hamas) are moving away from
that goal."

Another fighter condemned the Palestinian faction for referring to
ISIL and its supporters as "khawarij", a term used to refer to a group
of Muslims in early Islamic history, meaning "those who have
transgressed".

The fighter later refers to ISIL's seizure of parts of the Yarmouk
refugee camp in the Syrian capital of Damascus after clashes with
Palestinian groups, including a faction associated with Hamas.

"What is happening today in Syria, especially in the Yarmouk camp, we swear by God, will happen in Gaza," the fighter said.

Hamas has clamped down on alleged supporters of ISIL in recent
months, in a campaign to snuff out purported attempts by the group,
which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq, to establish a foothold in
Gaza.

Planets approaching

A nice view could be had from Brisbane tonight of the close approach of Venus and Jupiter in the evening sky.  It's not a great or carefully planned photo, but it gives you the idea:

As if written by the IPA

Palm oil: scourge of the earth, or wonder crop?

Actually, the headline of this article written by a Professor described in part as an "independent researcher" (a term I'm more familiar with as being applied to climate skeptics, I have to say,)  and an adviser to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, should just have been "Palm Oil:  Wonder Crop".

It's a piece that is so obviously PR spin that it automatically engenders skepticism.  

Just following the Saudi lead

Isis militants behead two Syrian women for witchcraft | World news | The Guardian: Islamic State militants have beheaded two women in a province in eastern Syria after accusing them of witchcraft, the first time such an execution has been carried out under the rule of the self-proclaimed caliphate, activists said.

This is terrible, of course.  But I would have thought it could have been mentioned in the article that Saudi Arabia still executes people (including women) for witchcraft and sorcery too.

To go a bit science fiction-y for a moment, this horrible playing out of a centuries long religious war between the two arms of Islam is something that 20th century science fiction writers  might have resolved by using advanced technology to send a peace message that people would perceive as supernatural.  (I dunno - giant holograms in the sky, or something like that.)  I would presume that there is a team in PsyOps in the US who has been thinking about this; certainly they have a target audience primed to believe in the supernatural.   I wish they would try something:  it could hardly hurt.

Why staffers shouldn't use social media

That Jason Wilson in The Guardian wrote at length about how Lefties can't trust libertarians (rather obvious, really), but he did do us a service by linking to a site showing a twitter exchange which shows Helen Dale being upfront about the cynical use of "wind turbine sickness" by her boss to attack the wind energy sector.

Here is part of the relevant sequence:

Of course, everyone sensible knew that this is the motivating factor behind Leyonhjelm and his adviser's interest in wind turbines and infrasound.

But it's funny to see his staffer confirming it....