Peter Hartcher also thinks that Costello’s best option for becoming PM is to go to the backbench (thanks to Jack Strocchi for the link).
What I like about cultural studies
Nick Caldwell, who kindly helped me out yet again with the site design has asked me to write a post on what I like about cultural studies, following up similar posts on John Howard and postmodernism.
Which martial art are you?
Being focused on martial arts at the moment, I’ve run across quite a few references to boxing, an activity which continues to mystify me. My big question about is: whose idea was it to give boxers gloves? It seems like a recipe for protecting the fists (the bit that hurts most, in my experience) while maximising the potential for brain damage, thereby being simultaneously wimpy and deadly.
I also saw in the UQ News a story about the exclusion of women from boxing, which made the obligatory reference to Million Dollar Baby, a film I haven’t seen yet, though I plan to. It struck me that, of the sports I’ve had any involvement with [not that many, I admit] karate is easily the most gender-integrated. Women and men routinely train together, and, in my experience around 30 per cent of the participants in the average tournament would be women.
I’m not suggesting that non-Western martial arts are some sort of gender-neutral utopia, but the contrast with boxing is still pretty striking.
Monday message board
I’ve been away at the annual Seiyushin karate camp, and have returned to find my broadband connection not working, and my fallback dialup options plagued with difficulties. So you’ll have to provide the content yourselves, just for the moment.
You are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. I’m still planning a May Day post on labour issues, but I’d be interested in your thoughts. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Good news on geothermal energy
Geothermal energy is one of those alternative sources that always seems to be waiting in the wings. The basic idea is to exploit the heat (derived from radioactive decay) of granite rocks about 4k below the earth’s surface to superheat water which can then be used to drive a turbine at ground level. It’s a closed cycle so the water can be used over and over. Sounds good, but so have lots of other alternatives to carbon-based fuels that have so far failed to deliver on a large scale.
But now, it seems to be a lot closer The test run by Geodynamics produced 10MW of power and they are talking about a 250 MW plant, with orders already in place from Origin Energy. The Cooper Basin appears to have gigawatts of potential capacity, and large areas of the country are unexplored.
Of course, the big issue is cost. It’s hoped that power can be delivered at 4c/KwH, but it seems likely there will be some overruns. Nevertheless, if the cost of C02 emissions is taken into account, geothermal will very probably be a winner. Once again, it’s evident that, unless we ratify Kyoto now, we are in danger of missing the boat. Australia has a huge endowment of this resource, and a good start on the technology, but no doubt it can be found elsewhere and will be.
Weekend reflections
This regular feature is back again. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.
Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.
Getting back to normal
I’ve been working to restore normal service under WordPress 1.5. Both “recently commented on” and “Live preview” are back.
Meanwhile the good news (touch silicon) is that comment and trackback spam seems to have stopped altogether. The “nofollow” attribute in WordPress makes it pointless, since URLs in comments are not used by Google.
I’m still planning some cosmetic changes, and am happy to take suggestions for plugins.
Meanwhile, I’ve upgraded my Mac to OS 10.4 (Tiger) and am having fun with the new features, and I’ve also done a complete backup, so I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself, at least as far as computing is going.
Update People seem to be having trouble commenting (though it works fine for me), so I’ve turned Live Preview back off for the moment.
More losers than winners
The British people have spoken (or at least voted) and I don’t imagine too many members of the political class are happy with the results. The Labour government got back in, but with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote and a lot more vigour among opponents than supporters, it’s not a great result. In particular, given the weakness of the Opposition, the result is a pretty clear rejection of Tony Blair and his approach to politics.
For the Tories, the outcome is even worse. They only got 33 per cent of the vote, against a combined 60 per cent for Labour and the Lib Dems, parties which have broadly similar centre-left views. Barring a cataclysmic change in the electoral landscape, there’s no serious prospect that they can win in five years time.
The Lib Dems did better than most expected, but still failed to break out of third party status, even with the Iraq issue going for them. Their best hope is that Labour’s position will weaken to the point where they are forced into democratic reform of the electoral system, either PR or preferential voting.
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Wellbeing manifesto
Clive Hamilton has set up a new website advocating a wellbeing manifesto. The general argument, as you’d expect from Clive, is that we should focus less on material wealth and use the benefits of economic growth (which I’d interpret in this context as technological progress rather than increased output) to deliver more desirable benefits, such as increases in leisure, better education and improvements in the environment. You can endorse the manifesto if you want and quite a few prominent people have done so .
I’m in general agreement with the ideas set out in the manifesto, though I’m taking my time to think about it before I decide whether to sign. On a quick reading the manifesto seems to capture a lot of points on which Clive and I agree, and omit some of those on which we’ve disagreed (we agree more than we disagree, but not on everything).
Some good news
The arrest by Pakistan of Abu Faraj al-Libbi is the first significant piece of good news we’ve had for a while in the struggle against Al Qaeda. Suspicious soul that I am, I checked on the possibility that his importance was being overstated, but there are plenty of sources (presumably predating his capture, since they go back to 2004), describing him as the Al Qaeda 3rd in command.
As the European struggle with terrorist groups in the 1970s and 1980s showed, terrorists can be beaten. Despite the fact that most of the policies our own leaders have pursued in the last few years have been either bothced (the failure to pursue bin Laden properly in Afghanistan) or actively counterproductive (Iraq), Al Qaeda is still losing ground on most fronts.
The only serious danger is that AQ will get its hands on nuclear weapons, and the most likely sources of such weapons are Pakistan and North Korea . The kid-glove treatment that’s been given to the Musharraf government is understandable in the light of this threat, and the network of jihadist sympathisers inside the Pakistani military and intelligence systems. On the other hand, dealings with North Korea have been botched horribly. Still, I think the odds are in our favour on this.
John Quiggin 