Finally, the KRudd team takes some action that is undeniably good… and a bummer that Vic Premier Joh Brumby moves in the opposite direction.

Two stories next to each other on p4 of The Age (2008-07-23) illustrate the difference between the Federal (getting better) and Victorian (going from bad to disgusting) Labor governments.

It’s an A-minus for Senator Faulkner on cutting the power of ministers and departments to issue conclusive certificates that arbitrarily hide embarassing information ("Rudd move on transparency" in The Age, the Ministerial Media Release and Ministerial Speech Transcript).

Of course, this can be abused by hiding documents so nobody can request them.

Faulkner could get an A if he actually allows a whole-of-government Google to discover documents, even if the contents are not displayed, and an A-plus if he can force state governments to fall in line with the spirit of his changes.

Meanwhile, Joh Brumby considers basic information (including the list of top pokie venues and political polling) as top-secret… see "Top pokie sites, myki plans deemed top secret" in The Age.

John Taylor, senior freedom of information officer, found not a single page from two years of reports was fit for release because they were "internal working documents".  Mr Brumby’s own department has also this year used the "internal working documents" exemption in declining to release market research and polling.

I’ve sent Sen Faulkner the following message, and recommend that those of you interested in good governance, whatever your political color, give Faulkner a pat on the back:

Dear Senator Faulkner
 
I wish to thank you for your efforts to scrap unilateral power on “conclusive certificates” as outlined in your Freedom of Information reform speech 2008-07-22.
 
In my opinion, this is the most far-reaching action of the Rudd government so far, and will make retrograde steps by future federal governments more difficult - whatever their political color.
 
It’s a pity that the Victorian ALP government seems to be going in exactly the opposite direction.
 
There is no need to respond to this email…. I just wished you to know your efforts are appreciated.

See Also:

• 2020 Gabfest Submission: Topic 9: Australian Governance" (2008-04-05) - look for the subheading "B: Improved utility and availability of government information"
  
• Jacques Chester’s piece about same issue at Club Troppo - "My kilotalk submission" (2008-04-05), which includes
  

  "Google Government" should be a motto going forward.  FOI should be altered to place the emphasis on departments to decide at the point of creation whether a document is sensitive; the default should be full disclosure. All possible government documents and data should be accessible and queryable by any member of the public.

• "Conclusive certificates gone the way of Howard" at VoiceOfTodaysApatheticYouth (2008-07-23)
   
• For more background on Open Source Government, see the relevant category at tokblog (Tree of Knowledge).  I may have occasional quibbles with Tim’s I-love-the-Fed-ALP stance, but on many issues relating to open government, he is spot on.

The prize for non-sequitur (e.g. "Married Bachelors", "Therapies to die for") company names I’ve seen recently goes to … this (the URL itself says it all).

Any others you’ve seen?

Nature’s social networking site … think hosted blogs, forums on all sorts of interesting stuff, LinkedIn, and info-searching, is so upmarket I barely feel qualified to join, even though I’ve got a Nature account, and it’s good for general readers (such as the weirdnesses of the UK citizenship facts-and-figures book detailed over the fold).

The best general-interest blog I’ve come across is from Jennifer Rohn: "Mind the Gap - Adventures in the London sci-lit-art scene…and occasionally beyond" Some of her recent articles are gems… this where she judges at a student science fair, and this on the UK Citizenship Test.

And from her hilarious, weird, and disturbing dot points from the UK Citizenship Guide….

• Blind people still have to pay 50% of the TV license! (I’m sorry, but this strikes me as seriously unfair. Is the dialogue of most British television programs really that sparkling?)
• In England, refusal to have children is grounds for divorce.
• Men are entitled to two weeks of paid paternity leave regardless of how long they have worked for a company, whereas although women are entitled to 26 weeks of maternity leave, they are not entitled by to be paid for any of it! (What’s going on there?)

That last one on parental leave is jaw-dropping!  Mind you, payment wasn’t an issue for me: when my daughter was very young, I was able to work with her in a sling on my chest, and if I did have to take her off, like when going into the machine rooms or the lab area, there were heaps of nurses at work only too happy to have her for a fw minutes.

(I’m joining anyway as http://network.nature.com/profile/dave_bath, but with a near-empty profile).

Had to chortle about the (still open under Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee) "Inquiry into the Effects of Climate Change on Training and Employment Needs"

How about training our politicians?  Or do they recognize the problem and are pleading for help?  Look at the bit I’ve bolded from the info page about the inquiry (and mirrored in the terms of reference).

On 26 June the Senate referred to its Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations an inquiry into the capacity of universities and other research and training institutions to meet current and future demand for climate change professionals, and possible measures to assist understanding of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region, including provision of training and skills assistance.

We have a goose and gander problem here.

What difference does the best advice (from scientists and independent economists alike) have on policy (not just rhetoric) from incumbent governments in Oz?  The literate public and most businesses (apart from the greenhouse mafia) have a better understanding of what is going on than the politicians.

It’s not the supply of climate change professionals that is the problem…. it’s that the important people aren’t listening to them!

Here’s a measure to assist understanding of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region….. reform electoral funding!

No, I’m not talking about any failures in the KRuddy carbon plan green paper, but new papers available gratis from the Nature publishing group (for a short time) on "bugs" (microbes) and the environment via advance online publication.  It’s fairly heavy going because I did industrial micro (including sewerage processing and using bugs for synthesizing compounds) in 1982, but I’ll try to highlight the important sentence or two from the papers.

Even if you have no microbiology background, the message from these two papers is important.  Politicians should read these too, because it’s a matter of funding, and then listening to the recommendations when the results come in.

• doi:10.1038/ismej.2008.61 "Microbes orchestrate life on Earth" calls itself "commentary".
  

  In the past decade, global climate change has come to the forefront of the political and social agenda owing to the growing realization that the Earth’s resources are being used in an unsustainable fashion.  There is an urgent need for changes in policy and human behaviour to tackle this problem, as well as a global initiative to develop a better understanding of global change processes and potential remedies for the future.  ….  Microbial ecology lies at the heart of any discussion on sustainability.  Indeed, from the natural environment to engineered systems, we rely on microorganisms to keep the globe turning and to sustainably maintain it, through the essential involvement of microorganisms in all biogeochemical and elemental cycles of the planet.

• doi: 10.1038/ismej.2008.58 "Microbial contributions to climate change through carbon cycle feedbacks" calls itself a "mini-review"
  

  There is considerable interest in understanding the biological mechanisms that regulate carbon exchanges between the land and atmosphere, and how these exchanges respond to climate change.  An understanding of soil microbial ecology is central to our ability to assess terrestrial carbon cycle–climate feedbacks.  …  Overall, we emphasize the urgent need for greater understanding of how soil microbial ecology contributes to land–atmosphere carbon exchange in the context of climate change, and identify some challenges for the future. In particular, we highlight the need for a multifactor experimental approach to understand how soil microbes and their activities respond to climate change and consequences for carbon cycle feedbacks.

ISME Journal is affiliated with part of the Nature publishing group, with the ise-microbes.org (The International Society for Microbial Ecology) having some "joint ventures" with Nature, including the sustainability focus page on the Nature website here.

The Economist daily newsletter which hit my intray a couple of hours ago has pretty much given a big "thumbs-down" to the KRuddy Carbon Trading Scheme.

Australia plans to launch a carbon trading scheme in 2010. The details out of Canberra suggest that 30% of permits might be given away, and that heavy polluters might receive 90% of their carbon permits for free. The government also plans to offset increases in fuel prices by cutting fuel taxes, largely blunting the emission reducing impact of the scheme.

The Economist is highlighting the same kind of error that Europe made (and The Economist criticized for causing a collapse in the price) when it’s ETS started, and EU attitudes have "overwhelming support for auctioning of 100% of permits" (see LP "Wong All Wrong" 2008-07-16 which has more links comparing Oz and EU schemes and lessons-learned).  Another analysis worth reading is Joshua Gans‘ "Going Green on Trade" at CoreEconomics.

The Financial Times report is either wrong, or has a very low opinion of Australian voters.

Heading off potential voter backlash during the 2010 election year when the scheme launches, the government proposes to offset any resulting rise in fuel prices with cuts in fuel taxes.

The backlash from yours truly will be to push my ALP preference down really low, below any "Moster Raving Loony Parties", and just above the Libs (with Family First and Hansonesque parties below.

If the Oz public had half a collective brain, the backlash would be because the "environmental credentials" of the ALP, a major product differentiator from the Libs at the time of the election, have been blown away.

But then again, the FT probably has the Oz voter sussed out.

Where are the Dems when you need them?

The courts have correctly crossed out the "annoyance" part of the NSW legislation that panders to WCYD, but left in the "inconvenience" bit.  But how is inconvenience measured?

If we consider dollars, I’d imagine the inconvenience of any traffic snarls and restriction of movement caused by WCYD on the majority of normal people engaged in productive economic activity is much worse than the inconvenience to a few tourists.  Are any economists among you able to guesstimate this?

So, would the NSW parliament outlaw the inconvenience to Moslems observing Ramadan, attempting to fast during the day, when their stomachs complain about being hungry as they pass by a food shop and cop a whiff of wonderful-smelling food?  Would the public accept such a law?

What about the inconvenience to me on Saturdays when I want to eat a nice hot latke (a yummy potato pancake) from my local kosher bakery and find it shut?  Or is that merely annoying?

And what about the inconvenience, pain and suffering to normal people that could have been avoided if the millions given away to a religious minority had instead been directed to improving services for the majority (such as improving transport and hospitals)?

What about the inconvenience (if the Pope’s and Pell’s messages are heeded) by overcrowded delivery wards?  Will the RC church throw the extra money required at our health service?

Or are RC pilgrims easily perturbed, even though they are supposed to be more-than-usually tolerant, patient, and giving if following the dictates of their holy books?

Does the NSW government intend to provide objective metrics to define inconvenience thresholds under the law - as they define objective metrics for other offences worth a $5k fine - like they do for offences that are much more important, but attract lower fines (e.g. vehicle speeds and blood alcohol concentrations for drivers)?

Any recommendations to the public about lowering carbon emissions by turning appliances off at the switch will have limited effect until this becomes practical, and there is an easy way to achieve this akin to phasing out incandescent light bulbs, so there is nothing novel in my following suggestion:

Require all appliances to have an easily accessible on/off switch near the front of the device rather than merely a "standby" button.

How many powerpoints are inaccessible because they are low and tucked away behind TV cabinets and/or bookshelves?  Most of them.  This is a good thing, because the most environmentally-aware group in society are children, who should not have ready access to powerpoints.  Can the proverbial little old lady with a bad back or multiple hip replacements get to these powerpoints?  No.

The other child-safety issue is that TVs are the most dangerous items (from frequency of severe injuries) in most households because they are so easy to tip over - something that will only become more common if children are steadying themselves on the TV or cabinet with one hand while reaching around the back with the other to get at the switch.

It’s not as if power to clocks inside TV’s, video recorders and digital set-top boxes cannot be powered (at least for quite a few weeks) by a simple capacitor, and configuration settings stored in flash memory.

It’s not as if power switches on appliances are bleeding-edge technology, expensive, or will meet customer resistance.

It’s not as if governments have any legislative, philosophical or political difficulty banning energy-hungry products… even the Howard government acted on light bulbs, and will require greater efficiency of TV sets (which will promote LCD screens rather than plasma pigs).

It’s not as if such regulations take any time to develop - it’s not difficult to develop the wording.

It’s not as if manufacturers are loath to introduce new features into electronic gadgetry.

The Attorney-General’s department is open for submissions (closing 2008-07-31) about Australia’s eSecurity.

Details at http://www.ag.gov.au/esecurityreview, with email submissions to e-securityreview@ag.gov.au

Some details from the terms of references and my initial hasty thoughts over the fold.

Here are snippets from the discussion paper and terms of reference:

… the review encourages you to consider the role of the following key enablers:

• Supporting policies, procedures and technical standards
• Education, training and awareness raising
• Information sharing, including international cooperation
• Ongoing testing, evaluation and exercises
• Research and development
• Legal and law enforcement
• Physical, administrative and personnel security

You do not need to address all the areas listed above in your submission and you may comment on any other issues that you consider relevant to the terms of reference. The following questions may also assist you in writing your submission:

• What do you see as being Australia’s top three e-security priorities?
• What do you believe are the respective roles and responsibilities of government (including State/Territory and local), industry and home users in addressing e-security issues?
• In what ways could Australia better protect itself against e-security threats and vulnerabilities?
• What do you consider to be your role in e-security in Australia?

My initial thoughts are….

• All tenders for information systems (including paper ones!) must explicitly state DSD-ACSI-33 (and the appropriate level) as a requirement.
   
• DSD to audit requirements documents and be involved in testing for any system nominated as relating to national security, or widely used within government (e.g. databases accessed by more than one agency).
   
• No system interfacing with critical infrastructure or central authorization/authentication systems to go into production unless DSD gives it a big tick (including things like backup/restore procedures and patch management plans).
   
• All third-party systems (e.g. those employment services providers that work on behalf of Centrelink) are audited and reviewed just as much as systems running inside government agencies.
   
• IT security officers within agencies to have the right to veto new systems going into production.

Big hint — keep operating systems and application systems known to have continual security problems out of government… (and this will also improve our trade balance, because of all the money we’ll save by avoiding Microsoft products).

Notes:

• It’s about time that DSD ACSI 33 was updated - it’s supposed to be updated every 6 months, and the last one released was Sep 2007.
• Here is an indication of what can happen with poor patch management … with the worst example I know of being the then three-year-old hole in sendmail that let in Chinese CyberAttacks in 2001 (see "What to do when the chips are down" 2007-05-22 and "Cyberwarfare - The Economist catches up to me" 2007-05-25)
• See "NOIE Reincarnated and Poor Protections of Critical Infrastructure" (2008-02-05) which goes over the flaws in some Howard Governments tisn.gov.au (Trusted Information Sharing Network for Critical Infrastructure Protecture) documents from Mid 2007.  It does look like the ALP is doing more, unless this is another "warm and fuzzy" that they’ll back away from because the increased costs of system deployment (because almost nobody has being paying the costs demanded by security requirements and regulations for years, and almost every system deployed in the last decade will need a major overhaul)… more in a future post.

I welcome Pell’s dangerous comments denying anthropogenic climate change and encouraging dangerous population growth, while at the same time wondering whether they suggest that Pell is a closet racist, as well as a closet Manichee, recapitulating a stance that the Roman Catholic church (and it’s predecessors) has considered the most abominable of heresies.

Pell’s comment are (unsurprisingly) contrary to the vast bulk of scientific opinion, and will doubtless increase human misery, especially if it sways Roman Catholic countries (Italy, Philippines, etc, and especially Brazil which has stewardship of the Amazon rainforest) away from global climate change treaties.  Pell isn’t stupid - he knows that human misery and adherence to authoritarian theistic belief creates a nasty feedback loop.  This is consistent with Pell’s praise of Constantine (an implicit desire for a return to the Dark Ages) that I analyzed some time back.("Pell’s QuadRant essay is sooooo wrong" 2007-09-05).

Hopefully, this will lead those folk who are at least half rational to understand that the Roman Catholic church remains the enemy of humankind, and much more dangerous to us all than any other dogma - including the (erroneous) interpretation of the Q’ran by those Islamists who promote violence.  If a large part of current Roman Catholics recognize this and move to either more progressive Christianity, or preferably further to agnosticism and atheism, then that is a good result … which is why I am glad he made these comments.

We should also note that Pell’s comments are implicitly racist.  He argued that developed nations (predominantly caucasian) have decreased fertility rates, and therefore should increase the number of children per female.  Given the continuing unsustainable rise of the world population, is he arguing that immigration from underdeveloped to developed nations is undesirable, or is he merely a white supremacist, arguing that we need more whiteys?  How is this different from Hitler’s policy of Aryan baby factories?

More interesting from a theological viewpoint is the implied Manichæism (the idea that the real universe was created and still totally under the control of an evil deity, while the benevolent deity is too pre-occupied with omphaloskepsis to worry about what goes on in the real world.)  If he is denying anthropogenic climate change, but not climate change and the inevitable consequence of increased misery through famine, war, pestilence and death, then he thinks the cause is supernatural.  As a benevolent omnipotent deity would certainly not create universal misery, then responsibility must be due to an equipotent malevolent agency.  After all, if you know your Latin, only the "Light bringer" (Lucifer) can be responsible for saying "Let there be light" (Fiat Lux).

With the best scientific information on climate change and the criticality of birth control to female health outcomes indicating the global damage that will result from those who act on Pell’s exhortations, much more damage than Islamist terrorists could ever cause, unless Ratzinger and the rest of the cardinals disown Pell and his comments, the Roman Catholic church should become a proscribed organization, and all it’s assets seized.

Notes/See Also:

• Slimpickens (2008-07-15) noted (nice pickup) that Pell is fighting another doctrinal issue: papal infallibility, given Ratzinger’s warnings on climate change.  Or is Pell being pre-emptively infallible when the Opus Dei folk pick their third Paedifract Maximus in a row?
• LP has an entire category on WYD
• T-shirt Design Competition
• What did the priest say to the youth? Open WYD!
• And the award for not having a big photo of the Pope on the front of the daily newspaper yesterday goes to…. The Geelong Advertiser for having a photo of Cameron Ling (background here).  But then, apart from a few Collingwood-loving heretics, Geelong is a religious monoculture, with Kardinia Park the one true place of worship of God (Ablett), the Son of God (Ablett Jnr) and Buddha (Hocking).  Note the "major categories" of pages in the left-hand side… "Sport", "Geelong Football Club", "Premiers 2007", "Footy Tipping", "Dream Team" - makes "The Sun" look like a journal of footy haters.

The the populist furore over art and p**n, I wonder if images such as this taken in an MRI for legitimate scientific purposes will become prohibited.  (Hat tip Pharyngula)

I also wonder if one of my daughter’s favorite exhibits (when she was pre-school) in the old Melbourne museum (dunno if the exhibit is in the new museum) will become prohibited.  While she liked the live bees in the glass hive, and the unrolled gut with “poo” (and sounds) coming out the end, she also really liked the lifesized naked statues of children, parents (one in a wheelchair) and grandparents, with kids encouraged, as with all other exhibits in the Children’s Museum, to touch and learn.

And what about books to teach children about their bodies and how they change?  Will they be banned, or only able to be sold to librarians.

<sarcasm>Maybe we should simply make all children where the Hijab</sarcasm>.

A recent alert from New Scientist "New legal threat to school science in the US" is jaw dropping.

The Louisiana "The Science Education Act" was passed, giving (in the name of "Academic Freedom"), any teacher to teach anything they like in science classes.

An opponent, Barbara Forrest says:

"It’s very slick.  The religious right has co-opted the terminology of the progressive left… They know that phrase appeals to people."

Next these ignorant Christians and legislators (who will disagree with Aquinas’ statement that "not even God can make the internal angles of a triangle add up to anything but 180 degrees") will start "showing the instruments" to people who dare teach heliocentricity, just like they did to Galileo.

Of course, with this Italian attack on science, science moved to Protestant-controlled Northern Europe, and Italy started going down the gurgler.

I guess in the name of this "academic freedom" it’s ok to teach children that 2+2=5… or at least that pi is three EXACTLY (a round bowl - I forget which book in the bible - was 10 cubits across and had a circumference of 30 cubits).  Actually, as I see it, "financial freedom" doesn’t imply the right to steal, just as academics have absolutely no freedom to indoctrinate children with counterfactuals… that’s what Sunday Schools are for.

Economically, the US is shooting itself in the foot.

See Also/Notes:

• "Pi = 3! Stand by your beliefs dammit!" from the Gospel of Reason, goes through the biblical texts showing that pi=3 (rather than 3.14159…). I want to see fundamentalist christians riding bicycles or cars with wheels that meet that biblical rule!  Maybe that would make them use their cars less!

Imagine the public outcry if Islamic Imams were regularly in the news because of sexual abuse, or covering up sexual abuse, as much as the Roman Catholic church… imagine how demagogues would bang the drum, and what they’d be calling for.

As for Pell’s timing… World Catholic Youth Day… devout kids easily swayed by so-called priests… How many kids will meet a predator in a dog collar that will end up abusing them.  Also, should the RC version of FaceBook be patrolled by the AFP (who have bots that can pretend to be kids to trap deviants) as much as other social networking sites are patrolled for sexual predators.

There are a couple of approaches to carbon-trading that might ease the difficulties as far as domestic politics goes, by making it more attractive to the finance industry, minimize the cost to implement, avoid the arguments about the details, and make Australians feel we are moving to world’s best practice.

Strangely enough, it is also possible that my suggestions are consistent with GATT (which now liberalizes, perhaps too much, cross-border capital flows), which should keep capitalists happy.

The two points I’d suggest are as follows:

• Join the EU carbon trading scheme.
   
• Push the idea of not just carbon trading, but carbon futures and options trading.
   
• Reform Australia’s rules on donations to political parties.

The EU carbon trading scheme is rightfully seen as world’s best practice, even though it is yet to get past all the teething problems.  Being associated with the scheme presents, for the planet, people, Australia, and the political party in government, a number of opportunities:

• We’ll feel good about ourselves (which will make incumbent governments happy).
   
• We can minimize the political debate, and therefore political impact of the individual policy points and timelines, because the government can say
  

  "We’re part of a multi-lateral world’s best practice push: arguing for Australian exemptions from (pick an objection) is like trying to argue that GATT should except Australia from (pick any number of GATT rules, e.g. cross-border cashflows)."

  GATT decreases protection for businesses - but free-marketeers like it because, in capitalist dogma at least, it improves competition and therefore efficiency.
   

• The financial costs of policy development and administration of the sheme (both to government, and the exchanges that run the trading boards) become relatively trivial when we are merely joining an existing and rapidly maturing scheme with the administrative apparatus already in place.  Politicians will love that taxpayers will love that part!
   
• Transnationals (including fuel companies) are already able to operate under the EU scheme… so they’d be happy to have wider use of a consistent system, just like they want to have consistent rules for things across all states in Australia (think of attitudes to state tax differences).
   
• If people from the other side of the planet join the EU scheme, particularly we Australians who must hold our heads in shame as the worst per-capita emitter outside North America, it sets a precedent that pushes other countries to join a mature scheme that becomes the default world standard, rather than create shonkier immature systems: and no Australian can argue that the EU scheme is unfair to developed countries.  That aspect should at least quieten the objections of those who make low per-capita emitters (like China and India) the scapegoats for inaction.
   
• If KRudd goes to the upcoming Copenhagen meeting with this on the table, that international publicity junkie will get a good fix from the European media, which will play even better here than the snippets from Chinese TV a little while ago - the soundbites will probably be in English.  (Cultural cringe version 2: being at all newsworthy overseas is still newsworthy here!)
   
• The sooner we have a carbon trading scheme (and joining an existing scheme is quicker than starting one from scratch), the greater the chances of having a "clean" export industry rather than miss the boat and have yet another class of expensive imports that cruel our national accounts.  (The Northern Europeans are busy cornering markets in all things clean and green.)

While I have strong philosophical objections to derivatives trading generally, the pragmatist in me says that in the case of carbon futures and options, it would be worthwhile: in some ways, because of what I see as flaws in the derivatives system.

• The financiers and speculators will love the chance to play another game, (CDOs and dodgy mortgage backed securities are deservedly on the nose), speculation will bump up futures prices (they should probably have 5 and 10 year ranges, rather than the 12 months of pork-bellies, coffee and grains).
   
• The greater the speculation, the higher the price of carbon, the greater the pressure on people and businesses to decrease emissions.  Oh dear - li’l ol’ lefty me, encouraging speculative markets!  I feel like "The Economist" a few months back arguing reluctantly for nationalization of Northern Rock Bank as the least worst option.
   
• Perhaps we could even have Carbon Default Swaps: much more useful than the disgusing CDS market of today.
   

Sadly, I cannot Australia taking timely and competent action.  We’ll fall into the same errors as the (then) immature EU carbon trading system, and the same errors as our management of Murray-Darling water: too many allocations, too cheap, to satisfy industry groups and sectional interests, that lead to the market collapsing.  The EU market is now improving: since the beginning of the calendar year, EU ETS (the EU carbon version of the AllOrds or DJIA), has grown a healthy 35% (Greenback terms) or 25% (Euro terms), compared to our AllOrds (down 10% in Greenbacks or down 19% in $A).

Some of you will have been wondering why I mentioned reform of political donations.  With all areas, big money from large donors is more persuasive to political parties than logic and data - and unfortunately Australian industries flush with funds have the most to gain by influencing policy.  Again, does anybody notice the way KRudd made initial supportive noises, but it now distancing himself from the push for campaign finance reform which met near unanimous approval at the 2020 summit.  It’s very to KRudd distancing himself from Garnaut.  Join the dots.

Do I want the Tories in again?  Of course not.  Do we need the Dems back, who have always been much better at policy forensics than the Greens?  Of course.  So, all we can hope for is an environmentally-aware cross-bench that holds the balance in the Senate… but that is years away, or the flickering hope that KRudd will stop his apparent neo-denialism and get on track.

There was never any hope about Little Johnny Rat, and very little about any Tory federal government anytime in the next critical decade.

See Also / Notes:

• Malcolm Turnbull’s interview on ABC "Lateline" 2008-07-09 about Tory carbon tax and trading policy was a giggle when he said the China and India were "playing poker", as those nations argue that per-capita emissions are important (theirs are low), and developed nations are responsible for most of the problem.  Unsurprisingly, he didn’t essay the losing battle of trying to rebut such propositions.  It’s a pity he wasn’t pushed in the interview to explain what he saw as any weakness in the Chinese and Indian arguments.
   
• I can’t wait for "The Hollowmen" to do an episode on carbon, although I’d imagine Rob Sitch’s background pushed obesity into the first episode.  It looks like someone at Working Dog saw the photo of KRudd in "The Economist" that showed him having speling truble.
   .
• "EU Carbon Plan Challenges AU and US" (2008-01-30), as they are heading to per-capita country limits.
   
• Some per-capita CO₂ emissions by different criteria are outlined in a summary table and references mentioned in "If only Castro had run the world, not just Cuba." (2007-03-11)

Although KRudd touts as virtuous his keeping of short-term specific pre-election promises, the key promise, more influential on swinging voters and more important for Australia’s future, has been blatantly dumped.

That promise was a change in focus of politicians’ actions from news-cycle and election-cycle politics to a focus on strategic issues.

This is dumb politics - and it is getting too late to repair the damage before the next election campaign (official or not) gets underway in less than two years.  KRudd is making it difficult for himself.

Consider how the government got bogged down in the farce of bowser-price politics.  Consider how the recommendations of the scientific community (and the Garnaut recommendations) are effectively sidelined by KRudd: a hypocrisy worse than Howard’s because Howard was never an evidence-based policy-maker (apart from the evidence of opinion polls).

Both are examples of a tendency towards pacifying the electorate in the short-term using short-term tactics.  The better way of placating the electorate is by educating the electorate about managing the changes imposed by worsening shortages of food, water, land, and traditional energy sources.

This education has not happened, the range of hard choices and outcomes have not been made explicit, and the government is running out of time to start this conversation with the public if it wants a second term - unless of course, it doesn’t care about the long-term issues.

Apart from symbolic statements (like signing Kyoto and giving Penny Wong a ministerial title that sounds environmentally and economically responsible), is there any substantive difference in the real-world policies to deal with the major challenges we will face over the next few decades between KRudd and his predecessor?

Let’s face it, apart from the (largely symbolic) signing of Kyoto, and apart from soundbites, it’s hard to see how KRudd’s policy approach on climate change and the requisite changes to the structure of our economy puts him any closer to the demands from the community of heavyweight scientists and economists than Little Johnny.

If this continues, KRudd will not only be flushing our futures down the toilet, but will shoot himself in the foot.

"The Economist" stated that the 2007 federal election was the first in the world that had climate change as a major factor affecting voter choice.  Those voters will either return to their typical habits as Tory voters (especially if the Tories become as adept at making sweet environmental sounds as the ALP did in 2007) or swing to cross-bench parties that have more progressive agenda on other issues and would create problems for KRudd in the Senate.

A return to a Tory federal government would be more disastrous (because of attitudes to socialized medicine, etc) than KRudd’s neo-denialism continuing, so I’m hoping KRudd starts the difficult conversations with the electorate.

These conversations are not simple - they are more akin to the conversation my neurologist had with me, when he asked "I can prescribe pill A, which will fry your brain in 10 years, or pill B which will fry your liver in 30. Which option do you want?". Unfortunately, the average elector seems to be unwilling to face the necessary pains and inconveniences - rather like people who say they are worried about the incidence of AIDS, want to be promiscous, but don’t want the inconvenience of condoms.  Then again, I might be wrong about the average elector’s hypocrisy… even though KRudd’s tactics suggests he has the same opinion of them.

p.s. I’ll DEFINITELY be watching HollowMen on ABCTV!!

In miscellaneous additions to the HTML5 language since v4, you’ve gotta love the choice of example the standards committee uses (further down the page) for the new dialog element…

The element means (although I abhor the lack of ending tags) that a browser could conceivably "play" a dialog through a voice synthesizer bank, with each "actor" (identified by the dt) being assigned a different voice.

Now… to get Hansard played with through a voice synthesizer bank based on Eccles, Cardinal Fang, Bullwinkle…..(watch me pull a policy out of my…)…

My guess is that "Parrot Sketch" is still under copyright, but this classic sketch isn’t.

The Axis of Evil Emitters (the highest per-capita carbon-producing nations) berate China about carbon emissions, yet China has so far failed to point out that of all nations, China has been taking the necessary hard unpopular decisions on climate change and demand for water and food for decades - to near universal condemnation (apart from the scientific community).

The One-Child Policy is perhaps the most effective weapon against rising carbon emissions.

Just imagine the CO₂ stress on the world would already be suffering if China had not implemented this policy so long -almost a generation - ago.

If I was a Chinese leader, I’d certainly be making a lot of this at any climate talks, and certainly chide countries like Australia that has something like a baby bonus.

So, while European dragons are either green or red, perhaps it’s time to color Chinese dragons green!

Nature online (2008-06-16 doi:10.1038/news.2008.892) reports that atomists have discovered 11 facial muscles that some people have, some don’t, and some people only have on one side.

• Is the presence of most or all of these muscles correlated to success of actors, salespeople and deceivers (including politicians since TV)?
   
• Might this explain great thespian families like Barrymores, Cusacks and Fondas? (In Oz, I don’t think the Donovans qualify, but maybe the Ottos do).
   
• Can anatomical examinations advise children about acting careers, like we do biochemical tests specific for different sports?  Might such tests even help control pushy parents keen on turning their little darlings into film stars?
   
• Might habitual fraudsters be sentenced to having the nerves to these extra muscles cut to bring them back to “normal”?

The hype about the tiny Australian study reporting memory problems for chronic cannabis users is interesting for reasons of what was NOT discussed, including parts from the same paper that show how normal law-abiding citizens can benefit from chronic cannabis use by others.

As usual, the most vocal types never bother to read the fine print or check out other literature.

1. Commentators only spoke of the decrease in memory structures (the hippocampus) discussed in the paper, NOT the decrease in fear/agression centres (e.g. the amygdala) reported in the SAME paper..  We have computers and mobile phones to solve memory problems, which don’t affect anyone else anyway, while we don’t have pocket-sized gizmos to make us more peaceful, and less of a threat to others.  (I’d rather have louts stoned and apathetic in their loungerooms instead of drunk and outside their homes, where they can cause trouble to other people).
    
2. The hype didn’t discuss the conflicting results from the slightly larger US study "Lack of hippocampal volume change in long-term heavy cannabis users" (Am J Addict. 2005 Jan-Feb;14(1):64-72)
    
3. Perhaps "size doesn’t matter - it’s the way that you use it:"  "Spatial working memory in heavy cannabis users: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study" said "cannabis users exhibited increased activation of brain regions typically used for spatial working memory tasks (such as prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate). Users also recruited additional regions not typically used for spatial working memory (such as regions in the basal ganglia)".

It’s also worth noting that similar hippocampal shrinkage is observed with recent onset post-traumatic stress disorder.  No hoo-hah for the same effect, even though it probably involves more people, and people who don’t have a choice in the matter!

Notes:

• My left temporal lobe, the lobe that has the hippocampus, has been affected by epilepsy since birth, so declarative memory is shocking, but my associative memory and the ability to develop "long links" between concepts (necessary for creative thinking) has overdeveloped in compensation.  Maybe we should re-headline the paper "Chronic cannabis use causes the same brain changes that also help top pathology finals and perform robust data modelling"
• It’s also been noted (and useful for those with vision problems), that heavy cannabis intoxication improves night vision (see here).
  

  But their results backed up claims by the Observer columnist Sue Arnold, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa and is officially registered blind. She noticed several years ago that drawing on strong Jamaican skunk suddenly and temporarily enabled her to see things clearly.  But Ms Arnold has since warned of side-effects that could impede night-time navigation.  “Only trouble was,” she said, “I couldn’t stand up.”

  So, when you’re headlights are blown, put the stoner in the driving seat, and when the suburb is hit by a blackout, the stoner will be able to find his keys even if he can’t remember where they are - if he can be bothered, that is.

• There is an artificial hippocampus in the works anyway (see article or picture), which is mooted for use in Alzheimers patients.

The W3.org (THE standards body for the web) has a video element in its HTML5 draft standard 2008-06-10.  A standard way of defining videos will make it easier to write and use web pages that contain videos, allow standards-compliant browsers to give you a consistent interface to videos, as well as encouraging development of add-ons that can integrate such content, including better mash-ups.

You can see draft that is a few days more recent (2008-06-15) here.

Both the specification sites provide a list of other goodies.

It looks like Firefox can already handle the video attribute with the appropriate add-on.

Age Newspoll results showing dropping approval for KRudd because of his handling of petrol prices and the desire for action to lower petrol prices says more about the Oz voter (stupidity or hypocrisy) than it does about the federal government.

There is a response available that is both responsible and politically palatable to the plebs (who talk about the desire for climate action, but don’t want it to affect them), but I wonder if KRudd’s team are smart enough to figure it out.

So I’ll do them a favor, and present a sketch of what such a response might look like:

First, I’d argue that action of petrol prices can only be justified where the fuel is used for economic production, rather than discretionary or recreational use.  Even the ignorant hypocrites in voter-land should be able to accept that valid proposition with minimal spin.

Second, I’d lay down a transparent timeframe for increasing excises and lowering any subsidies, so that forward planning by businesses and individuals is possible.  My initial suggestion would be annual increases in excise - perhaps 2%, and a removal of any temporary "subsidies" within 5 years - but these are just "straw man" figures.

So, petrol/diesel use for production that might deserve some relief would include transport companies, farmers, etc.  That’s obvious.

But what about relief for the average Joe and Jill?

Why not say "transport to/from work, providing you take a passenger to work, more than 6 km as the crow flies, and providing you get them to sign in and out - and a GPS in your car allows less paperwork".

So, cuts down costs of earning an income, promotes car-pooling (and lowers congestion), while avoiding the taxpayer subsidizing recreational and superfluous use - like driving two blocks to the supermarket.

The rebate also should only apply as a percentage of the per-kilometre usage of a relatively energy-efficient car, rather than a per-litre rebate that only rewards revheads and wealthy folk with big-petrol guzzlers.

There might be one or two exceptions… such as allowing rebates for meals-on-wheels folk, paraplegics, and those in remote areas.

OK, allowing for a few tweaks, the above policy outline allows relief for those who deserve it, promotes fuel-efficient vehicles and usage, while allowing businesses (and individuals) to prepare plans for adjustment periods.  This approach would get the issue out of the headlines, and make our politicians focus on more important things.

The only question is whether the KRudd team has the policy and political savvy to do something like this.

See Also:

• Personally, I’d like to see fuel prices increase as much as possible, as soon as possible - as would anyone who believes in market forces (even though I’m not one of them).
   
• "The List: Five Reasons to Love $4 Gas" (Foreign Policy Magazine, June 2008) has a good article, with a reasonable reference list, that has the following teaser:
  

  Sure, it’s ruining the global economy and making everyone miserable, but there’s an underappreciated upside to the high price of oil.

  One of the reasons is to control obesity, with the following note:
  

  A study published in "The Engineering Economist" found that Americans today use nearly a billion additional gallons of gasoline each year, compared with 1960, solely because they weigh more.

From The Economist 2008-06-12 article "The longer arm of the law", you can see a graph of democracies and how long people can be held without charge.  Britain is the worst, followed by Australia.  Countries we might consider to be poorer examples of civil societies are much more devoted to such basic individual freedoms… in Oz, you can be detained without trial twice as long as Turkey, 3 times as long as Russia, and 5 times as long as South Africa.

It’s sobering.  Think about it.

If KRudd and co want a proper civil society based on the liberties held dear in the European tradition since the enlightenment, then this needs to be fixed… fast.

Here is a summary of three reports by Victorian Auditor-General, Mr Des Pearson, that were tabled in the Victorian Parliament this morning.

The reports (quick review of each over the fold) cover youth rehabilitation, progress on the CJEP (Criminal Justice Enhancement Program), and reporting by local governments.

It’s a typical litany of failings of our highly paid managers and consultants, and therefore the politicians they answer to.  For local government, the auditor even had to prepare an instruction manual on how to improve… because they obviously have no idea!

Unsurprisingly, there’s another woefully wrong requirements definition for a large IT system, this time for justice administration (a fairly core function of any civil society).

Ultrashort summary of the auditor’s opinions…. "Not happy, Jan"!

• Services to young offenders. 
  You could summarize the media release as
  • The agencies try hard
  • They cannot demonstrate they make a difference
  • Need some decent management, especially to develop a decent set of "scorecards" for outcomes
  • A whole-of-government approach, not just the criminal justice system, is needed.
• Implementation of the Criminal Justice Enhancement Program (CJEP) 
  You could summarize the media release as …
  • "benefits haven’t been systematically measured… lack of accountability"
  • poor management evidenced by significant scope changes (the original requirements documents were woefully inadequate)
  • over time and over budget (from the managers not being able to define what they actually needed - SNAFU)
• Performance Reporting in Local Government. 
  This comes with a companion document (Local Government Performance Reporting: Turning Principles into Practice) that provides guidance on how to do things better (why did the auditor feel the need to go to all the trouble of preparing such a document… hmmmmm?).  The media statement says (my bolding)
  

  the councils’ performance statements generally fail key tests of usefulness.  They contain information that is largely irrelevant and inappropriate to users’ needs…. difficult for ratepayers and residents to hold their elected representatives fully accountable…. councils have taken a very narrow view of their performance reporting obligations - treating the minimum mandatory legal requirements as the maximum disclosure standard

  It almost seems like the lack of clarity and utility is intentional, but the auditor didn’t put it so bluntly.

More recent reports here.

You’d think women would be up in arms about an occupational health issue that primarily has women as victims, wouldn’t you?  But I don’t hear a peep.

It’s even worse, as the typical woman at risk is of child-bearing age.

… and yes, there is an easy and relatively cheap fix.

We all know that volatile organics are bad (glue-sniffing is a good example).  This is why there are limits in laboratories: basically, if you can smell it strongly for any length of time you do the work in a fume cupboard.

Of course, the receptors in your nose tire out after half an hour for any particular smell, but that’s all the more reason to use fume cupboards.

So… how about a working environment where women are exposed to volatile organics, day in, day out… can you name it?

Perfume sales areas.  They cannot be good for you.  At least the rabbits who get perfumes tested on them aren’t dosed up day after day, year after year.  The women who work there are probably taking more volatile organics than the test subjects in laboratories.

I cannot see why we should be worried about what glue sniffing does to a brain in utero without being worried what constant exposure to so many volatile organics in a perfume shop will do to a brain in utero.

If we require fume cupboards in chemistry laboratories, for much lower levels, if we get pregnant women to leave the house for a couple of days when painting a couple of rooms, then there is no reason to say it’s ok for women to work near perfume counters - especially as they aren’t exactly getting hazard pay.

I’d love to see the levels of volatile organics in these places tested, without notice (so the shopowner can’t jam the doors open), and compared to permissible levels.

While the only complete solution involves stopping demand for perfumes, it wouldn’t be too hard to keep the perfumes up against a wall underneath an extractor fan (not as good as a proper fume cupboard, but it’s a start).

So, if I was a female ethical consumer, I’d only buy perfumes from shops that had appropriate ventilation and the least smell of volatile organics when I walked into the shop.