Not great news

Global rate of new HIV infections hasn't fallen in a decade : Nature News & Comment

Mind control

Why did Iran destroy 100,000 satellite dishes? - CSMonitor.com

Some surprising information here about the Iranian government's determination to control television content.

Transplant gamble

‘I Can Do Absolutely Nothing.’ The First American With a Double Hand Transplant Wants Them Removed | TIME

Whether a hand transplant will give you a usable hand seems a very big gamble:

The surgeon who led the transplant in 2009, Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, is currently at Johns Hopkins where he’s preparing to perform penis transplants for American veterans. Lee says the need for removal is uncommon and has occurred in six out of 100 similar transplants in the U.S. and Europe.

“Mr. Kepner’s transplanted hands do not function as well as those of other hand transplant recipients,” said Lee in an email to TIME. “Our team has performed bilateral hand/arm
transplants in four patients to date, including Mr. Kepner. The other three patients have had significant functional return in their hands and have been able to resume completely independent living, including driving, working, and going to school.”

“Complex surgery such as hand transplant do not produce uniform results in everyone,” Lee adds, “but we have been encouraged by the functional return in the great majority
of our recipients whose lives have been transformed by the procedure.”

I suspect medical science is better off pursuing robot hands.  

Putting a face to the voice

'Ghost' Soprano Marni Nixon, Who Voiced Blockbuster Musicals, Dies At 86 : The Two-Way : NPR

I've probably seen her face before, but I don't recall it.

Well, actually, I definitely had, just that I didn't know it:

After My Fair Lady was released in 1964, Nixon appeared onscreen in only one movie — The Sound of Music — as Sister Sophia, one of the nuns who sing "How Do You Solve a
Problem like Maria?" The film's star — Julie Andrews — didn't need any help in the singing department.

Yet more "Don't Panic" from yours truly

Trump versus Clinton polls: why the next 2 weeks of them will be basically meaningless - Vox

Interesting, though, that Julian Assange is on a revenge mission over Clinton.

Does he really expect that he, America, and the world, would do better under Trump?   Prone to fantasy, that boy.

Trump update

I am rather surprised that some on the Left are running around like headless chickens worrying that Trump's acceptance speech was evil but effective.   I'm not the first to notice, but the giant, angry, head of Trump put me more in mind of this, rather than anything else:

and the dark tone is surely recognized by a very large slab of Americans as an exaggeration, and a cynical one at that.

The Democrat email leaks don't even have me particularly worried - internal party politics can be very dirty, so why should anyone be surprised?  And Clinton has chosen a respected Democrat politician who speaks Spanish, and is Catholic but respects Roe v Wade - ticking quite a few boxes there for voter turnout.  (Speaking of Catholics - surely there are few Catholic bishops in the States comfortable with the idea of a Trump Presidency?)

I remain entirely confident that Trump will not become President.

Shell shock via rabbit

Rabbit Death at Manassas - Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

A mostly amusing story involving a rabbit, which despite the title, does not die.

How toys evolve

The History of Dollhouses - The Atlantic:

In the beginning, dollhouses had only two purposes: display and pedagogy. First built in the 17th century in northern Europe, primarily in Germany, Holland, and England, dollhouses were designed for adults. They were closely associated with wealth and served as markers of social class and status. As Faith Eaton explains in The Ultimate Dolls House Book, the German word dockenhaus meant not dollhouse but “miniature house.” And a miniature house was not a house to play with. In Holland, these exhibits of wealth were called “cabinet houses.” The front of the house opens like a china cabinet on hinges that can be closed and locked. Inside cabinet houses, people could both show off and conceal their collections of expensive miniature objects.

Beginning in the 17th century, “Nuremberg kitchens” might contain a hearth, cooking pots, a straw broom. These all-metal houses were designed without ornament, for purely utilitarian purposes. Used as teaching tools for girls, Nuremberg kitchens allowed mothers to show daughters how to set up and control a house. All about learning rules, a Nuremberg kitchen was the opposite of a dollhouse as a dream world of fantasy. It was a place where girls learned to manage not only the objects of the house but also its servants, where girls would learn to become the lady of the house.

By 18th-century England, the “Baby House” emerged. The Baby House was an exact copy of the owner’s home, a replica designed to showcase the owner’s wealth—a small, “baby” version of a real-life house. Unlike the Dutch Cabinet House, which might have miniature furniture but tended to be full of expensive or rare objects, the Baby House was full of
furniture in tiny versions of the owner’s rooms.

Changing definitions of childhood in the beginning of the 19th century shifted ideas about play. But it took the industrial revolution and the increase in mass-produced objects to make dollhouses and miniatures begin to be construed as toys. And it took until after World War II, when the U.S. stopped importing goods from Europe, for dollhouses to become mass-produced and affordable. Miniatures began to take on a second, different life.

More on Bolt

He's muttering about (I presume) defamation against Fairfax for Elizabeth Farrelly's recent column comparing him to Enoch Powell, and he's recently complained about The Australian's Paul Kelly and Chip Le Grand's concern about him, over the same issue.

Today he's defending Pauline Hanson against Chris Mitchell (!).

Gee, at some point, maybe Bolt will realise the problem is his complete alignment with the dog whistle (is that the right term when it's actually direct shouting and fearmongering?) politics of Hanson?

And further:   what is this complete entanglement with the IPA for the hyping of his book (containing just old columns)  all about?   I presume his son still works there, and I presume Roskam and Sinclair Davidson still consider him a "mate", but is that enough to tie the IPA so closely into promoting someone who has gone so Hanson right wing on immigration?  Isn't Davidson embarrassed by his blog entries?  Why does he say nothing?   Why is Bolt himself seemingly so desperate to promote the book?  

I find this all rather weird.

High temperatures noted

Heat and rainfall making headlines around the world | Official blog of the Met Office news team: 

Across parts of Iraq, western Iran, Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia, extremely high temperatures have been recorded over recent days. On Thursday Basrah Airport, Iraq reached 53.4C, while Mitribah in northern Kuwait recorded 54.0C. Both of these temperatures, subject to confirmation, are new national records and the 54.0C recorded at Mitribah is among the highest temperatures ever recorded in Asia.

The highest ever temperature recorded globally was 56.7C at Death Valley, California, USA on 10 July 1913.

The high temperatures will continue today (Friday) with 53.6C recorded at 1200 GMT at Basrah Airport, Iraq, but the weekend should see a break from the heat as northwesterly winds bring cooler air to the region.

While it was worthwhile the article noting the all time global high, the significant difference is that no one has built cities, towns and airports in Death Valley, have they?

The Bolt descent continues

Maybe Bolt considers himself in the running to head Fox News?  He'd fit right in with his increasingly shrill and dumb posts which seem to now be in competition with the style of nutty and stupid exaggeration by the execrable Gateway Pundit. 

Look at this post about Obama - for a video that is supposed to be "bizarre" and "chilling" (all because Obama briefly cracks a smile when he realises he shouldn't personalise it too much)  - how come it's the Press in the audience that actually laugh at the fleeting incident?

Message to Bolt:  the media does not generally laugh at "chilling" comments made by a President. 

Also: he seems unable to contemplate the possibility that a report that the Munich teen killer was shouting "Allahu Akbar" was wrong.   The claim seems to be based on one witness? 

What a weirdo

Scott Adams continues his self branding as a Trumpkin who claims he isn't at his blog.  Or is he just doing it for publicity?  Who cares?

Recommended viewing

I very much enjoyed the BBC doco last night on the futuristic looking Halley Research station in Antarctica on SBS.

It can be watched on SBS on Demand for the next couple of weeks.

The (possible) wonders of aspirin

Could an aspirin a day keep depression away?

The Thiel speech

I suppose one would not expect Gawker to give a glowing review of Peter Thiel's speech yesterday, but yes, they were underwhelmed.  (Something I noticed was that the Convention floor barely seemed to be paying attention for the first 2 or 3 minutes of a 6 minute speech.  He also is pretty terrible at teleprompter delivery.)

The Gawker article notes that Thiel makes for a peculiar libertarian, in that he longs for the days of some ultra big government projects such as Apollo.  But I see today that  he has said before that he's not ideological on the matter of size of government.  I suppose that should make me think he's at least an independent thinker, but actually it makes me think more that he's just a purely opportunistic, self interested one - he's a fan of space exploration generally, but because he has that odd idea that space colonies will, of course, establish a techno based libertarian utopia.  It probably comes from taking Heinlein too seriously, and I think it was a theme in Kim Stanley Robertson's Mars trilogy too?  (I only read the first book, though - I don't think he's that entertaining as a writer.)

Anyway, I just can't take Thiel seriously in light of his 2009 essay at Cato Unbound, where he dissed democracy, and regretted women got the vote because they're generally too pragmatic to be libertarian. (Well, you tell me what he meant if you think I'm being unfair.)  And in his postscript to that article, he wrote this, the first three sentences of which makes a joke of his support of a candidate who (with the one exception of not caring much about LGBT issues) is as intensely and deliberately divisive as possible:

I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian.

He's also a fence sitter on climate change, although because nuclear power is all Gee Whiz technology, he still advocates for its massive expansion anyway.

I see that The Atlantic has a good article explaining his nonsensical positions, especially his Trump support.  Perhaps I should have just linked to that...

Update:   Vox criticised Thiel's speech and position, too, and included this paragraph:

It’s not just that Trump has a long string of business failures, from Atlantic City casinos to Trump steaks. Thiel himself described Trump as "symptomatic of everything that is wrong with New York City" just two years ago — he’s under no illusions that Trump is a great businessman.

Sounds about right

The Republicans waged a 3-decade war on government. They got Trump. - Vox

Paul Krugman noted this article, but points out that he called it much earlier on the Republicans, and cites the start of their intellectual downfall as being with the adoption of supply side economics.  

She writes well

I’m With The Banned — Welcome to the Scream Room — Medium

I don't know of Laurie Penny, and as a "queer feminist" I am I certain I would disagree with many of her views.

But this description of her meeting with Milo and assorted Republican hangers-on at the convention is very wittily written, and I strongly suspect explains him correctly.

Dream analysis not required

I certainly hope that dreams don't actually often mean that much, because last night I seemed to have a long one which involved getting a small tattoo from Pauline Hanson (!)   (It was actually to convert a large birthmark on my side - which does not exist in real life, btw - into a volcano.  But I did stop her after a short time, deciding it was a bad idea after all, and she wasn't very competent at it.  And please be assured, there was no erotic aspect - at all.)

And you thought an old white guy arguing with an empty chair was an embarrassing look for the Republicans...

Of course, there were many delusional Right wingers who thought Clint Eastwood's performance was a brilliant bit of biting Obama takedown, instead of the peculiar embarrassment that it was.  I wonder how many of that group think that this election's Republican convention is a success?   Surely even that group (with the catchy motto "United by Hate we Stand") has some within it that can see that this convention looks like a never ending disaster?

For goodness sake, even Charles Krauthammer thought the Christie led chants of "burn the witch" "lock her up" was a bad look.

As for Cruz:  one might almost say his position was principled, except no one seems sure whether it involved him lying about what he would say; and besides, it seems he genuinely is despised by about  95% of people who have had to work with him, which would suggest that his call that people should vote according to conscience means they would be right not to vote for him either.

Rich libertarian weirdo/eccentric* Thiel hasn't spoken yet, but I heard it speculated on the radio that he was going to call for the Party to get on board with gay rights?   I'm curious to see how that goes over...

Anyway, the Party is in the worst intellectual and moral position it has ever been, I reckon.  (Have a look at these bits of misogyny noted at Slate, as well as their story about the trainwreck that Trump is on foreign policy).  The Party blowing itself up like this might be a good thing, eventually...

*  aren't they all? - rich libertarians - or even just "libertarians", I mean

Okunoshima - my part in its downfall (not really)

Just after I finish my posts about Okunoshima, I see that someone has done a study of some kind arguing that the rabbits are being loved to death.  Population explosion!  No vegetation left!  Bloating them with cabbage!

“There are now about 1,000 rabbits on this two-mile island,” DeMello said. “They’ve destroyed the ecosystem.” As a result of the lack of vegetation and the inappropriate food that tourists provide for the animals, the rabbits suffer from a variety of health problems and now have a life expectancy of just two years, DeMello and her fellow researchers found.
The findings were presented on Wednesday at the World Lagomorph Conference in Turlock, California.

Well, I didn't know the word "lagomorph" before - so that's something useful.

Look, not that I can claim expertise on rabbit health, but my recent day and night on the island just makes me skeptical of these claims:

On Rabbit Island, DeMello and her fellow researchers found that the rabbits are fighting over even the least nutritious food provided by tourists. “Of the 728 rabbits that we counted on the island, 28 percent had visible injuries or illnesses,” she reported. The percentage grew to 50 percent in the areas of the island closest to humans. “The more humans interfered, the sicker and more injured the rabbits appeared to be,” she said.

In fact, I had been prepared to see a fair few rabbits with obvious illnesses - some other blogging visitors sometimes commented on seeing sick looking ones - but as I noted here, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the generally healthy appearance of the great majority of the furry inhabitants.  Compared to what we occasionally see jumping across the road in Australia, the Okunoshima ones seemed particularly fine examples of rabbit-hood.

As for "destroying the ecosystem" - another pleasant surprise was to see that the island looks so well vegetated despite supporting hundreds of rabbits.  Perhaps it's because in Australia wild rabbits have such a environment destroying reputation that I would not have been too surprised if the island featured baron sections chock full of holes, with mangy, starving rabbits lolling about desperate for a feed.   Well, OK, sometimes they are very keen on a feed, but while there are a rabbit divots on the lawn in front of the hotel, it's not the scene of rabbit devastation an Australian might expect, at all.

And did I kill any by feeding them cabbage?:

The tourists, she said, often come bearing cabbage, one of the cheapest vegetables in Japan and a big part of the Japanese diet. Cabbage is a bad food choice for rabbits, as it causes dangerous and potentially deadly bloat. It is also low in fiber, something rabbits require for what DeMello called their “very particular digestive system.”

Hmm.  It's odd, then that there seem to be a few million websites on Google - including from vets - saying that pet rabbits can be fed cabbage, some (but not all) mentioning that some rabbits might get bloat and be a bit cautious in introducing it.

There may well be an element of truth in this report - I wouldn't be surprised if increased tourists numbers has led to a slight population increase - but even then, I know that on a weekday in July, the island was hardly teaming with humans.  (Access being available only by a ferry, there will always be a natural limit on the number of people there each day.) 

Overall, this report just smacks too much of environmental doomsaying from a well intentioned, but exaggerating, animal welfare advocate.  A bit like the American pro-koala advocate years ago who I heard (or read) saying that Australians were hearing the wailing of treeless, dying koalas at night.

The situation for the rabbits and the island may not be ideal, but it doesn't look to me to be as bad as these people claim.

Update:  I see from this website that most wild rabbits actually live less than a year (!), although pet ones can last 8 to 10.   If the Okunoshima ones live for 2, they're doing better than average, although I would have guessed they would get closer to the pet rabbit age.   There's lots of interesting wild rabbit facts on that website, incidentally.