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Showing posts from October, 2014

A hot summer coming?

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The  seasonal climate outlook  released by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology suggests warmer than normal November to January days are more likely for Australia, except for far western areas of WA. Strongest odds are across northern and eastern parts of the country. Likewise, warmer than normal nights are more likely for most of the continent, except for far western parts of WA, and the northern Queensland coast. Climate influences include warmer than normal temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean and near normal tropical Indian Ocean temperatures. Maximum temperature accuracy is moderate to high over most of Australia, except for a region just south of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Minimum temperature accuracy is generally moderate to high over most of Australia. When it comes to rainfall the Bureau suggests a drier than normal November to January is more likely over the northern and eastern Kimberley region of WA, the NT, Queensland, northeast SA, NSW, and most of Victoria. El

The ways of lobbyists seeking favorable deals

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Lobbyists, Bearing Gifts, Pursue Attorneys General  – “Attorneys general have become the object of pursuit by lobbyists who use campaign contributions, personal appeals and other means to sway investigations or negotiate favorable deals, an investigation by The New York Times has found.” Singapore upholds law that criminalizes gay sex  – “Singapore’s highest court ruled on Wednesday that a law that criminalizes sex between men is in line with the city-state’s constitution, rejecting two separate appeals by three men that the measure infringed their human rights. The judgment comes as gay rights have become an increasingly thorny issue in Singapore’s traditionally conservative society.” Is economic growth permanently lower?  – “The assumption that the mean growth rate is one of the great economic constants in advanced economies is simply wrong. … The slowdown in long run growth in the developed economies therefore seems to have become a permanent fact of life, rather than a tem

The Office of Forbidding Midday Alcohol Consumption

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And you thought the nanny state was bad enough in Australia. Well the city of Shangqiu in Henan province has gone a step further. In 2007 it set up the Office of Forbidding Midday Alcohol Consumption to reduce alcohol consumption at government-funded lunches. No nipping out for a quiet glass at your own expense either. Officials were forbidden from consuming alcohol during the day. Staff members of the Office of Forbidding Midday Alcohol Consumption wait at the doors of restaurants, randomly inspect offices, and talk with officials to see if anyone has disobeyed the rule. Details of this and other interesting aspects of China’s massive bureaucracy are given in the latest Tea Leaf Nation report  “Foot Spas, Steamed Buns, and Midday Drinking” . Those steamed buns, it seems, are a matter of vital concern. The proliferation of steamed bun offices has been causing trouble since at least 2001, when a local paper reported that in Zhengzhou alone, there were a total of six steamed bun of

Democracy is for infidels and other news and views for Wednesday 29 October

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Interview with an Islamic State Recruiter: 'Democracy Is For Infidels' - "How does Islamic State think? How do its followers see the world? SPIEGEL ONLINE met up with an Islamic State recruiter in Turkey to hear about the extremist group's vision for the future." We are following Allah's word. We believe that humanity's only duty is to honor Allah and his prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We are implementing what is written in the Koran. If we manage to do so, then of course it will be a success. ... A Muslim is a person who follows Allah's laws without question. Sharia is our law. No interpretation is needed, nor are laws made by men. Allah is the only lawmaker. We have determined that there are plenty of people, in Germany too, who perceive the emptiness of the modern world and who yearn for values of the kind embodied by Islam. Those who are opposed to Sharia are not Muslims. We talk to the people who come to us and evaluate on the basi

Some new old Bob Dylan while Neil Young saves the earth along with other news and views for Tuesday 28 October

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First Listen: Bob Dylan, ‘The Basement Tapes Complete: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11′  – “Recorded during a period of seclusion after Dylan’s 1966 motorcycle accident, The Basement Tapes present the already-iconic figure as he intentionally departs from the confrontational invective and tightly wound wordplay of the triumphs in his recent past — among them the single “Like A Rolling Stone” and the album Blonde On Blonde. Driven by what sounds like a desire to simplify his art, he begins by diving deeply into traditional American gospel (“My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It”) and modern offshoots (a tremendous version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”), folk (“Po’Lazurus”) and country (Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and “Folsom Prison Blues”). The Band’s Robbie Robertson has said that during this early phase, Dylan was “educating” his collaborators on folk and other styles they’d only recently encountered; they’d been primarily an R&B band before the Dylan tour. From there, Dylan wrote at

Antony Green shows us just how much less than 50% Labor needs to win in Victoria

That wonderful one-man resource Antony Green has another of his helpful  seat calculators  on the Victorian state election. It helps immensely in interpreting what the opinion polls might mean in terms of seats won if repeated on polling day. Take that Labor 52% two party share shown today by Galaxy. With that uniform swing of 3.6 percentage points Labor would end up with 50 seats to the Coalition’s 38. To get a tied result of 44 seats all, Labor only needs a vote of 48.8%. The pollsters are going to be very off the mark if Labor does not get to that level. See details of the latest polls at  The opinion polls are aligned and pointing strongly to a Victorian Labor victory .

The opinion polls are aligned and pointing strongly to a Victorian Labor victory

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Two new opinion polls on the Victorian state election out today and they confirm the regular Newspoll in having Labor comfortably in the lead. Galaxy puts the two party vote at Labor 52% with the Coalition 48%; Morgan has Labor 52.5%, Coalition 47.5%; Newspoll is at Labor 55% and the Coalition 45%. The new  Galaxy result : This afternoon’s   “special” SMS Morgan Poll  on State voting intention in Victoria conducted over the last few days (October 24-27, 2014) with a representative cross-section of 1,860 Victorian electors shows the ALP (52.5%, down 1.5% since September 2014) with an election-winning lead over the L-NP (47.5%, up 1.5%) on a two-party preferred basis. On primary voting intention the L-NP (37.5%, unchanged) still leads the ALP (34%, unchanged). The ALP’s two-party preferred lead is because the high primary vote for the Greens (18.5%, up 0.5%) is boosting the ALP two-party preferred vote into the lead. Other minor parties include the Palmer United Party (PUP), 2.5

Fairfax’s Adele Ferguson exposes a government looking after its financier friends

Call on CommBank Royal Commission disappointing and shallow  – “The decision by the federal government to reject a bipartisan call for a royal commission into the Commonwealth Bank was always on the cards, but its reasoning was both disappointing and shallow. Its response to a landmark Senate inquiry into the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, outlined in a press release on Friday, essentially says CBA’s revised compensation scheme, a so-called “open advice review”, is enough. This glib response fails to take into account the Senate’s original call for a royal commission; that it was “unable to get answers from the regulator or the bank”. “We tried and failed and decided it is important that this is cleared up,” it said. What it did was take a dissenting report by one of its own, Liberal senator David Bushy, and embrace it.” National armies for global health?  – From an editorial in  The Lancet:  “… the security of one nation’s citizens is inextricab

Enough to bring tears to an old sub’s eyes

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From the media section of  The Australian  this morning:

Following the neighbours and green envy

Forget about politically trendy liberals being influenced by their green credentials. The the single most important factor driving whether people instal solar is peer influence. That, at least, is what two researchers at Yale and the University of Connecticut have discovered. Their recently published paper  Spatial patterns of solar photovoltaic system adoption: the influence of neighbors and the built environment   says empirical estimation demonstrates a strong relationship between solar adoption and the number of nearby previously installed systems as well as built environment and policy variables. “People have called it green envy before, where you want to be green so that you can show off your greenness effectively,”  says Yale’s Kenneth Gillingham , a professor at the School of Forestry and one of the study authors. From an interview with the  Washington Post: In addition to initiatives like the Solarize program, Gillingham says the research suggests that it can be very imp

Rare honesty – what money buys from an Australian politician

It’s not often to hear a politician talk openly and honestly about what is given in return for campaign donations. Full marks then to the former Northern Territory Deputy Chief Minister David Tollner for declaring donations would open his door “if you ever need to talk to me about something”. Speaking on 105.7 ABC Darwin on Friday Mr Tollner said people who did not donate faced “a line-up at the door”, explaining “you have to start prioritising”. The ABC website reports: Mr Tollner said it was “extraordinarily difficult” for political parties to raise funds for campaigning. He said it was “incredibly important” for the democratic system that parties and candidates have the funds to run what he said was a “legitimate campaign”. “But there will always be a question in people’s minds… what is someone donating for?” Mr Tollner said. “When I have talked to people about donating money and the like, the best you can say is ‘your donation will open my door if you ever need to talk

How physical appearance influences who wins elections and other news and views for Thursday 23 October

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It Is a Beauty Contest  – “It’s shameful, of course, that physical appearance should affect something as important as who gets elected president. But the reasons for that are pretty obvious, and they pre-date democracy by several million years. That doesn’t make them right or wise or inevitable, but it does make them hard to avoid.” Capitalism’s Suffocating Music  – “I kept thinking of another writer, David Foster Wallace. His novel “Infinite Jest,” published in 1996, imagines a tomorrow in which time itself is auctioned off to the highest bidder and the calendar becomes a billboard. There’s the “Year of the Whopper,” the “Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster” and even the “Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad” — a 12-month paean to posterior discomfort, 52 weeks in honor of hemorrhoids. Is that future so far off? While recording devices have liberated many of us from commercials on television, the rest of our lives are awash in ads. They’re now nestled among the trailers at movi

Castrating hogs on an Iowa farm – my favourite political ad for this season

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“I’m Joni Ernst. I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm. So when I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork.” It is certainly an ad you are likely to remember. NPR features some o ther memorable moments  from this year’s Congressional campaigns.

World in 2014 still heading towards a record hot year

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The relative plateauing of world temperatures since the late 1990s has become the major argument of those who argue that global warming is nonsense. But I wonder what they will say if 2014 turn out to be a new record high point? Personally I’m looking forward to Andrew Bolt’s explanation. And an explanation is looking more and more likely. I reported  earlier this month  how, according to NASA, September just gone was the warmest September globally since records began being kept in 1880. Now the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reached a similar conclusion and  has speculated  as well with a couple of graphics on what the whole year will end up like. The graphics compare the year-to-date temperature anomalies for 2014 (black line) to what were ultimately the five warmest years on record: 2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, and 2013. Each month along each trace represents the year-to-date average temperature. In other words, the January value is the January average temper