Which martial art are you?

John Quiggin30 Comments

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

John Quiggin38 Comments

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

John Quiggin31 Comments

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

John Quiggin42 Comments

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

John Quiggin7 Comments

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

John Quiggin44 Comments

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

John Quiggin59 Comments

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

John Quiggin20 Comments

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.

Election Day (crossposted at CT)

John Quiggin20 Comments

If I’m not confused by timezone differences, today is election day in Britain and the outcome seems pretty much a foregone conclusion (I haven’t checked the omniscient betting markets, I must admit). So, I’ll look at a more trivial question. If the British government wants to increase voter turnout, why don’t they hold elections on Saturdays instead of Thursdays?

I looked into this question in the case of the US, and there’s a complicated historical explanation, but the central point that, at the time Tuesday was chosen as a polling day, the standard working week was six days, and Sunday was excluded for religious reasons. So it didn’t really matter which day was chosen.

But in an economy where, even with a 24-7 service sector, Saturday is a day off for most people, it seems like a much more convenient choice. For a bunch of reasons, I can’t see the US ever making a change like this[1]. But in Britain it would be easy, and presumably modestly beneficial to Labour, which could therefore push such a change through Parliament any time it wanted.

fn1. First, the US is very conservative in relation to traditions of this kind. Second, the Republican party routinely opposes measures to increase voter turnout.

Costello’s options

John Quiggin36 Comments

I was discussing Costello’s prospects of making it into the Lodge last night, and it struck me that they were not very good. The only way Howard is going to falter badly enough to be sackable is if the economy goes sour, but then Costello will share the blame.

The optimal strategy, and also the standard one, does not seem to have been discussed as an option (feel free to correct me). If he wants the top job, Costello should resign from Cabinet, head for the backbench, and deliver a dignified speech about Howard’s shortcomings. In this scenario, a downturn in the economy hits the trifecta for Costello: his reputation as a masterful economic manager would be enhanced, whichever of his rivals took on the Treasury portfolio would be discredited and Howard would get the blame for alienating the only man who could run the economy properly[1].

If you look at Australia’s political history over the past 25 years, this approach has been pursued with success quite a few times: Peacock, Keating, Latham and Beazley all retired to the backbench to await the call, and none did so in vain, though only Keating (so far) has gone all the way to the Lodge.

fn1. I don’t think the correlation between economic performance and the competence of the Treasurer is all that great, but my opinions on this matter aren’t really relevant.