Junking infomania?

I foud my way to Does email really reduce IQ ? via Larvatus Proteo, where the New Scientist report on email gets damned as corporate spin.

I'm not sure the critique is persuasuaive. The Stroop effect has been known since 1935. Scientific American Mind carried a report on The limits of multitasking (subscription requird) that seems to agree with the infomania thesis. I'd write more, but some email came in.

The benediction of peace

The Significance of Pope Benedict XV

I'm puzzled that so little is being said in the media about the historical significance of Cardinal Ratzinger's choice of Benedict XVI as his papal name. As a German, I think we can be fairly sure he is trying to remind the world of the tragic story of his predecessor, and how close he came to bringing World War I to an early conclusion. The story has specical significance for Americans.

In the spring of 1917, Pope Benedict XV called on the warring governments to make a peace of mutual forgiveness and forbearance. As a starting point, the Pontiff proposed the restoration of Belgium, disarmament, arbitration machinery to prevent future wars, and freedom of the seas for all nations.

To the Americans, the timing of the Pope's message seemed almost devilishly unpropitious. In Stockholm, international socialists had convened a peace conference to appeal over the heads of the warring rulers to the workers of the world. In Petrograd, the Bolshevik wing of the Russian revolution had already called for peace on the basis of no annexations and self determination for all peoples, and bullied the so called Provisional Government of Russia into going along with them.

The Germans and the Austro-Hungarians promptly accepted the Pope's proposal, although Berlin avoided specific commitments. The provisional Russian government also welcomed the papal mediation. The leaders of France and Italy, with largely Catholic, extremely war weary populations, were transfixed with alarm. They wanted a fight to the finish but they hesitated to take issue with the Pope. The English, even more determined to go for what Prime Minister Lloyd George called 'a knockout blow,' decided to let Wilson answer for all of them.

At first the president was inclined to say nothing. He seemed angry at the Pope's intrusion into the war. However, as the impact of the pontiff's appeal grew larger, Wilson decided he had to reply. The Pope was saying many of the same things Wilson had said before he opted for war. Now, as British ambassador Cecil Spring-Rice wryly pointed out, the president was doing 'his utmost to kindle a warlike spirit throughout [the] states and to combat pacifists.' No wonder the pope's appeal gave him indigestion.1

Colonel House strongly seconded this presidential decision -- and warned Wilson not to dismiss the Pope's proposals out of hand in his reply. The new Russian ambassador in Washington had informed House that alarming splits were appearing in the revolutionary government, with the call for immediate peace one of the chief issues. A dismissal could lead to the overthrow of Russia's moderate leader, Alexander Kerensky.

House also revealed that the Pope's proposal had evoked a sympathetic response in him. The colonel wondered if it would be a good thing in the long run if 'Germany was beaten to her knees.' That might leave a vacuum in central Europe which the Russians would be eager to fill. Before the declaration of war, Wilson had agreed with this balance of power viewpoint. It was the idea behind his appeal for a peace without victory.2

'Beating Germany to its knees' was not a good thing in the long run. Versailles proved a disaster. The peace plan of Benedict XV came to nothing. Sadly, it took until 1945 to work out that Quixotic idealism is often a lot more realistic than the gibberish spouted by alleged realists.

Now if only Benedict XVI remembers to apply the same principles in his governance of the church...

Except in the universe of discourse

Black holes 'do not exist -- These mysterious objects are dark-energy stars, physicist claims.

Black holes are staples of science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in space-time do not and indeed cannot exist.

Over the past few years, observations of the motions of galaxies have shown that some 70% the Universe seems to be composed of a strange 'dark energy' that is driving the Universe's accelerating expansion.

George Chapline thinks that the collapse of the massive stars, which was long believed to generate black holes, actually leads to the formation of stars that contain dark energy. 'It's a near certainty that black holes don't exist,' he claims.

Black holes are one of the most celebrated predictions of Einstein's general theory of relativity, which explains gravity as the warping of space-time caused by massive objects. The theory suggests that a sufficiently massive star, when it dies, will collapse under its own gravity to a single point.

But Einstein didn't believe in black holes, Chapline argues. 'Unfortunately', he adds, 'he couldn't articulate why.' At the root of the problem is the other revolutionary theory of twentieth-century physics, which Einstein also helped to formulate: quantum mechanics.

Evidently neither Chapline nor Einstein had ever encounted a an absolutely rock solid, ironclad commitment. And I'd better fight the urge to make dark energy into a second pun.

Gorbachev and wet economics

Water Treaty

Mikhail Gorbachev
Chairman of the Board
Green Cross international

To the People of the World

In spite of numerous conferences, statements and declarations made by various institutions, including the UN Millennium Declaration, words have failed to produce the much-needed water For the 1.1 billion people who cannot reach or afford safe drinking water, for the 2.4 billion who lack access to basic sanitation, this is an everyday reality.

The UN Millennium Development Goals set the target of halving the number of people without access to water services by 2015. There is a danger that this objective will not be met unless drastic changes concerning the way this issue is dealt with occur.

Access to water is literally a question of life and death. I first learned this through my experience as Secretary for Agriculture for the former USSR, when I inherited a crisis caused by the decision to divert the rivers which fed the Aral Sea. Decades later, this decision continues to destroy lives and has left an environmental wasteland. On the other hand, changing water policies for the better can have a positive effect on the environment, public health and education, and give people jobs and the chance to lead fulfilling lives. The world is at a crossroads. This is the moment of truth.

Faced with this reality, Green Cross International urges the international community to take initiative, to assume responsibility and to play their part in the mission enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals.

WATER IS NOT A PRIVILEGE, IT'S A RIGHT! This is the slogan we have chosen for the campaign and I am sure that nobody in their right mind would deny the essence of it.

And yet, the situation is far from simple. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to contribute to halting the water crisis that reduces the daily lives of millions of people to misery, and is fraught with large-scale conflict and instability. We must aim for universal access to water and basic sanitation - anything less is a violation of our civilization, our human rights, and our morality. ...

Mikhail Gorbachev

I think it'd be a lot better to add a right to water to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Constitution of South Africa speaks about the right to water:

27. Everyone has the right to:

(a) health care services, including reproductive health care;

(b) sufficient food and water; and

(c) social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependants, appropriate social assistance.

(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.

(3) No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.

Go sign the petition.

There's food in the pot and pot in the email

'Info-mania' dents IQ more than marijuana

The relentless influx of emails, cellphone calls and instant messages received by modern workers can reduce their IQ by more than smoking marijuana, suggests UK research.

Far from boosting productivity, the constant flow of messages and information can seriously reduce a person's ability to focus on tasks, the study of office workers found.

Eighty volunteers were asked to carry out problem solving tasks, firstly in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with new emails and phone calls. Although they were told not to respond to any messages, researchers found that their attention was significantly disturbed.

Alarmingly, the average IQ was reduced by 10 points - double the amount seen in studies involving cannabis users. But not everyone was affected by to the same extent - men were twice as distracted as women.

'If left unchecked, 'info-mania' will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness,' says Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at the University of London, UK, who carried out the study, sponsored by Hewlett-Packard. 'This is a very real and widespread phenomenon.'

Slow Food Manifesto

Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model.

Slow Food

Long before demonstrators and police battled it out on the streets of Genoa during the G-8 summit, a potentially more influential attempt to guide the direction of globalization was slowly evolving about two hours' drive away in the countryside of the neighboring region of Piedmont in the foothills of the Italian Alps. In the small market town of Bra, in an area known for its red wines and white truffles, is the headquarters of a movement called Slow Food, dedicated to preserving and supporting traditional ways of growing, producing and preparing food. If the French attitude toward globalization is symbolized by farm activist José Bové driving a tractor into a McDonald's, Italy's subtler and more peaceful attitude is embodied in this quirky and intelligent movement, which has taken up the defense of the purple asparagus of Albenga, the black celery of Trevi, the Vesuvian apricot, the long-tailed sheep of Laticauda, a succulent Sienese pig renowned in the courts of medieval Tuscany and a host of endangered handmade cheeses and salamis known now only to a handful of old farmers.

Founded in 1986, in direct response to the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Rome's famous Piazza di Spagna, the Slow Food Manifesto declares that:

A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.

In its first years Slow Food, which has adopted the snail as its official symbol, was heavily concentrated on food and wine, and produced what is considered to be Italy's best guides to wine, restaurants and food stores. But in the mid-1990s Slow Food developed a new political dimension, called eco-gastronomy. "We want to extend the kind of attention that environmentalism has dedicated to the panda and the tiger to domesticated plants and animals," says Carlo Petrini, the movement's founder, a tall, handsome bearded man of 54. "A hundred years ago, people ate between one hundred and a hundred and twenty different species of food. Now our diet is made up of at most ten or twelve species."

Worrying about the fate of the Paduan hen might have seemed a quixotic and elitist concern a few years ago, but with the lingering panic over mad cow disease, the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and the debate over genetically modified food, Slow Food--with its emphasis on natural, organic methods--has suddenly acquired a political importance and popularity that has surprised even its own leaders. Since 1995, when it began to defend endangered foods, the organization has grown from 20,000 to 65,000 members in forty-two countries. To press its political concerns, Slow Food has recently opened offices in Brussels, where it lobbies the European Union on agriculture and trade policy, as well as in New York, where it organizes trade fairs and tries to find markets for traditional food producers.

No more dog-eat-dog

The depoliticisation of work must be the most profound and enduring legacy of Thatcherism. She handed business the "right to manage", unaccountable to all but its shareholders. The strategy was to pit everyone against everyone else: competition between companies but also within companies, within departments, within teams. The message was clear: unless you personally and your company are competitive, you are history. Competition was the spur to productivity.

Parts of this legacy simply haven't worked. Our productivity is notoriously poor compared to that in Germany or Scandanavia, countries where (and it may be more than coincidence) the quality of working life has always been high on the political agenda, and governments - in alliance with employers and trade unions - have sponsored experimentation in work organisation and helped spread best practice. Other parts of the Thatcherite legacy were never more than myth and urgently need debunking, such as performance-related pay, which the research shows is based on a false premise - you can't measure an individual's output because it is always dependent on colleagues - and actually damages motivation.

Can you reasonably blog the virtues of the slow life?

How the church was won

Universi Domenici Gregis

75. If the balloting does not result in an election, even after the provisions of No. 74 have been fulfilled, the Cardinal electors shall be invited by the Camerlengo to express an opinion about the manner of proceeding. The election will then proceed in accordance with what the absolute majority of the electors decides.

Nevertheless, there can be no waiving of the requirement that a valid election takes place only by an absolute majority of the votes or else by voting only on the two names which in the ballot immediately preceding have received the greatest number of votes; also in this second case only an absolute majority is required.

76. Should the election take place in a way other than that prescribed in the present Constitution, or should the conditions laid down here not be observed, the election is for this very reason null and void, without any need for a declaration on the matter; consequently, it confers no right on the one elected.

Politics, piety mix during convention-like conclave

The late Father Walter Imbiorski, a man with family roots deep in Chicago ethnic politics, once remarked that 'Dick Daley could wire a conclave in 48 hours.' 'That long?' I replied in feigned surprise. He meant the first Mayor Daley. Not that the current Mayor Daley could not figure out the politics of a conclave that quickly. The conclave, you see, is a political event, arguably the political event par excellence.

Some will think that such a comment approaches the edges of blasphemy. In fact, politics, the art of governing, is according to Aristotle (who ought to know!) the second most honorable art, ranking only after poetry. Politicians are masters of the art not of the perfect but of the possible, of supporting the candidate who can win, and not the best possible candidate, of the broadest possible collation rather than the most admirable. It is through them the Holy Spirit works.
If one is looking for a model to which to compare a conclave, one might choose American political conventions in the old days (as depicted brilliantly by the late Steve Neal in his Happy Days Are Here Again), though in the case of a conclave all the campaigning is done indirectly, behind the scenes, and by subtle hints and conversations, winks, slight nods of the head, and pregnant silences that are typical of both the Roman style and the Irish smoke-filled room.

Liberal cardinals bite bullet and join in show of unity

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of English and Welsh Catholics and a sympathiser with the progressive camp, also gave his firm support to Benedict, but appeared to undermine his case with a slip of the tongue.

Asked why the cardinals picked Cardinal Ratzinger to succeed John Paul II, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor initially said "they chose this man" before correcting himself by saying "we chose this man".

In what some felt was equivocal praise, he said: "We have a good man who will be a good Pope." He argued that Benedict was an intelligent and courteous man who would listen to all points of view and could come up with "a few surprises".

"When Cardinal Ratzinger was the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had a particular task to do. Now that he is Pope it is entirely different. Now he is Peter for the whole church.

"I feel very content," Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said.

Ratzinger was always the man to beat

Marco Politi, writing in La Repubblica, suggested that support had been coalescing around Cardinal Ratzinger as early as Christmas, given the realisation that John Paul's health was seriously declining.

Going into the conclave, Cardinal Ratzinger had active help in mustering votes from powerful cardinals of the Roman curia in charge of important departments, including Dario Castrillon Hoyos, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, and Julian Herranz, a priest member of the conservative lay group Opus Dei. Giovanni Battista Re, Crescenzio Sepe and Angelo Sodano were also mentioned as his backers, perhaps in the second round.

The tipping point came, Politi wrote, when two crucial Italian cardinals - Camillo Ruini, John Paul's longtime vicar for Rome, and Angelo Scola, the Patriarch of Venice, also mentioned as a candidate - threw their support behind the German.

The prospect of a drawn-out battle - and the message it would send about church unity - scared off the liberal opposition, and their leader, Carlo Maria Martini, sent his votes to Cardinal Ratzinger, Politi suggested. Cardinal Martini may have had an inkling of what might be ahead. A priest who had seen him the previous weekend said in an interview that the Milan cardinal appeared distressed.

Some time late on Tuesday afternoon Cardinal Ratzinger reached the 77 votes needed for election. The cardinals gasped, and then clapped, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor recounted.

"He couldn't have been unaware," Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor said, "that this was quite likely to happen."

And almost before the electors knew it, the grave atmosphere of the conclave was over, and they were singing Latin songs, eating chicken cordon bleu and toasting the new Pope with spumante.

Groundswell Swept Ratzinger Into Office

The Latin Americans' conquest of turf in Vatican City also meant that many had little interest in decentralization, a priority of U.S. and Central European moderates, he said.

The remnants of resistance to Ratzinger faded during the two ballots Tuesday morning. Glemp, the Polish cardinal, said the consensus resulted from patient discussion.

"Calmly, calmly, without propaganda, we talked and two-thirds thought he was the best," Glemp said.

The shift in allegiance to Ratzinger included prominent members of the reformist camp aligned with Martini, according to several accounts. Marco Politi, the Vatican correspondent for the Rome daily La Repubblica, reported that Martini sealed the outcome when he acquiesced.

At midday Tuesday, "Ratzinger's position had become so strong that it was up to the other electors — if they did not want to give an impression of great disarray, disastrous for the church's international image — to take a step to give their votes to the most prestigious, and finally most unifying, candidate," Politi wrote. "That's what happened with the blessing of Martini."

After the decisive ballot Tuesday afternoon, the cardinals applauded Ratzinger. Sodano, the secretary of state, then asked the ritualistic question: "Do you accept your canonical election as supreme pontiff?"

"Yes, I accept," Ratzinger responded.

Ratzinger then told Sodano he had chosen the name Benedict XVI. Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Germany said the new pope looked "a little forlorn" as he headed into the chapel's Room of Tears, a name that refers to popes who have wept as they donned white vestments.

Pervasive 'non-campaign' fractured rules of secrecy

'Marco finally got it right'
When John Paul began to fail, members of some of the "new movements" began to spread the same ideas to anyone who would listen, providing interpretations for media personnel that contributed to the atmosphere that Ratzinger was both the right candidate and a sure winner when the cardinal electors assembled in Rome.

I emphasize that there was nothing wrong with the behavior. Rather, it was intelligent politics -- and as I have insisted in this series of columns, a conclave is an exercise in politics, the art of government. Only after the pope's funeral and the cardinals' imposition of silence on themselves did the murky business of counting votes begin.

Each day of that week, the Italian media began to publish remarkably detailed lists of electors who had been lined up for the Bavarian cardinal. In the past, such lists had proved wrong. This time, they turned out to be accurate. As someone pointed out to me, "This time, Marco [Marco Poleti, Italy's most famous Vaticanologist] finally got it right."

At this point, two questions must be asked about the "non-campaign." Were cardinals violating the rules of silence they had imposed on themselves and the conclave rules that the late pope had legislated and canvassing for votes? Were cardinals or their aides passing these tallies to local journalists?

If they were, and whatever the ethics of such behavior, the pretense of secrecy had become porous. Behind the scenes, precinct politics were taking place, which, if they did not shape Ratzinger's plurality, certainly publicized it. His candidacy obtained what in American election we call the "big mo" -- momentum. One hears today that after the first (of four ballots), there was almost no doubt about the outcome.

Was it necessary?
In the pragmatics of electioneering, there can be no objection to the canvass of votes, the selection of a winner and even the proclamation of that winner before the voting begins. The rules of secrecy and silence were, however, fractured. I conclude that the rules are a mockery and cannot be sustained in a communications society, the like of which exists in the contemporary world.

We do not know exactly who voted for whom on the first ballot and who contributed to the emerging Ratzinger two-thirds majority -- though the names published in the press could provide excellent hints. Nor do we know who were the campaign managers who orchestrated the events of the final week. The first issue is not especially relevant. The second is important, and perhaps someone will find the answers.

Finally, two more questions: Was the "non-campaign" necessary, and secondly was the Holy Spirit behind the outcome?

Given the absence of an organization and a clear candidate among the progressives and the conservative tilt of the Sacred College, the "non-campaign" may have been exhilarating but unessential.

As to the Holy Spirit -- at the risk of being told by hate mail that I do not deserve to be a priest -- I submit that to claim God's spirit for one's own cause comes dangerously close to idolatry. The spirit blows whither he will. No one can claim his patronage.

As Ratzinger has said, it is wrong to assert that the spirit is responsible for the outcome of a papal election because there have been popes the spirit could not have chosen. Yet we can always pray to the spirit to help and protect Benedict XVI.

None of this, of course, proves that Curia and the new movements succeeded in imposing a candidate on the conclave or makes the result illegitimate. Nor does it say much about what kind of pontiff Pope Benedict XVI will be. There have been too many Gorbachevs, and for that matter too many Nixons in China, to read all that much into the future pontificate from the pope's past record. Nevertheless, it is fairly clear that the new rule allowing election by 1/2+1 after 30 ballots has fundamentally changed the way the conclave works. A determined candidate who can hold his votes together can offer simply to wait until the lower majority kicks in.

We have yet to see how Benedict XVI will answer the challenges facing the church. It will not b enough to assume that challenges like the scandal of clergy abuse are restricted to the 'dying' churches of Europe and North America. Nor will it be enough to assume the shortage of priests only effects the northern churches. Honduras has 5 million people and 400 priests. The Philippines is short by 25000 priests. A sacramental church that cannot administer the sacraments is in trouble whether that happens in the global north or the global south.

Next there'll be an Apostolic Blog

New pope keeps old guard for the moment

For the new pope, a new e-mail address
Got a prayer or a problem for the new pope? Now you can e-mail him.

Showing that Pope Benedict XVI intends to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II's multimedia ministry, the Vatican on Thursday modified its Web site so that users who click on an icon on the home page automatically activate an e-mail composer with his address.

In English, the address is benedictxvi@vatican.va.

Maybe universidomenicigrex.blogspot.com?

What's in a name?

Pope Benedict XV

His pontificate was dominated by the war, which he termed 'the suicide of Europe', and its turbulent aftermath. His early call for a Christmas truce in 1914 was ignored, and though he organised significant humanitarian efforts (establishing a Vatican bureau, for instance, to help prisoners of war from all nations contact their families) and made many unsuccessful attempts to negotiate peace, his effectiveness even in Italy was undermined by his pacifist stance. The best known was the seven-point Papal Peace proposal of August 1917, demanding a cessation of hostilities, a reduction of armaments, guaranteed freedom of the seas, and international arbitration. Only Woodrow Wilson responded directly, declaring that a declaration of peace was premature; in Europe each side saw him as biased in favour of the other and were unwilling to accept the terms he proposed. This resentment resulted in the exclusion of the Vatican from the Paris peace conference of 1919; despite this, he wrote an encyclical pleading for international reconciliation, Pacem Dei munus.

In the post-war period Benedict was involved in developing the Church administration to deal with the new international system that had emerged.

In internal Church affairs, Benedict calmed the excesses of the campaign against 'modernist' scholars within the Church that had characterised the reign of Pius X, though his first encyclical condemned errors in modern philosophical systems and no excommunicated scholars were returned to the faith.

Benedict also promulgated a new Code of Canon Law in 1917 and attempted to improve relations with the anticlerical Republican government of France by canonising the French national heroine Joan of Arc. In the mission territories of the Third World, he emphasised the necessity of training native priests to replace the European missionaries as soon as possible, and established a Coptic college in the Vatican.

In his private spiritual life, Benedict was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the modern Popes was the most fervent in propagating the wearing of the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, endorsing the claim that wearing it piously brings 'the singular privilege of protection after death' from eternal damnation, and giving an indulgence for every time it was kissed.

Benedict, 'blessed', is a really interesting choice of name. I'd expected Pope Benedict XVI to name himself John Paul III if elected. The new pope has a grim reputation, but perhaps he is telling us something by taking the name of a pope who moderated the rigours of the pope before him. Hope, I guess, springs eternal.

I'll never say: 'Who goes in a pope, comes out a cardinal' again. (Well, at least until the next conclave)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Yellowstone

Anyone watching Supervolcano tonight probably went happily to sleep thinking to themselves that Yellowstone is a long way from Australia. Welcome to Lake Toba

According to the Toba catastrophe theory, modern human evolution was affected by a recent large volcanic event. It was proposed by Stanley H. Ambrose[1] (http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/ambrose/), of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Knowledge of human prehistory is largely theoretical, but based in fossil, archaeological, and genetic evidence.

Within the last three to five million years, after human and ape lineages diverged from the hominid stem-line, the human line produced a variety of human species. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, a massive volcanic eruption changed the course of human history by severely reducing the human population (called a 'bottleneck'). Around 75,000 years ago the Toba caldera in Indonesia erupted with a force three thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens.

According to Ambrose, this led to a decrease in the average global temperatures by as much as 15°C. This massive environmental change is believed to have created population bottlenecks in the various human species that existed at the time; this in turn accelerated differentiation of the isolated human populations, eventually leading to the end of all the other human species except for the branch that became modern humans (see volcanic winter).

Some geological evidence and computed models support the plausibility of the Toba catastrophe theory, and genetic evidence suggests that all humans alive today, despite their apparent variety, are descended from a very small population (see mitochondrial Eve). Using the average rates of genetic mutation, some geneticists have estimated that this population lived at a time coinciding with the Toba event.

And just to ensure we all sleep sleep soundly at night...

Sleeping giants present the biggest threat of all

Ray Cas, from Monash University's School of Geosciences, said Lake Toba's next blast could be big enough to disrupt the world's climate and send a tsunami surging towards Australia.

Professor Cas said none of the world's 100 or so active super volcanoes had erupted in modern times. However, if one did, it would be 100 to 1000 times more powerful than Krakatoa's 1883 eruption.

He feared the threat was being overlooked, just as the danger posed by Indian Ocean tsunami had been ignored.

"The Boxing Day tsunami was going to happen sooner or later, but there were no warning systems. A super volcano will happen sooner or later, and there are limited warning systems," he said. "We certainly need to be improving our monitoring of super volcanoes. If any of these were to erupt we would see disaster on a magnitude greater than we have ever experienced."

When Lake Toba erupted 73,000 years ago the world's climate was balanced on the edge of an ice age, Professor Cas said.

"The eruption released 1000 cubic kilometres of ash and rock debris into the atmosphere, much of it as fine ash which blocked out solar radiation, kicking the world back into an ice age."

In addition to cooling the world, with devastating results for global agriculture, Lake Toba's next eruption would probably send a pyroclastic flow - a rush of superheated gas and ash - crashing into the sea with enough force to trigger a tsunami.

The volcano was definitely still active, influenced by the same movement of tectonics plates that triggered the December 26 and March 28 earthquakes.

Another super volcano overdue for eruption was Taupo, on New Zealand's North Island. "It has a big eruption every 2000 years and it last erupted about 2000 years ago".

The Lake Toba super eruption measured 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Scale. Tambora in 1815 measured 7 and Krakatoa in in 1883 was a 6. The 1980 Mt St Helens eruption was a 5.

We will be called...

Why Il Papa's name is a key

Vatican watchers suggest that if the next Pope chose John, that would invoke memories of John XXIII, the reformer who launched the Second Vatican Council in 1962. But Pius - the name that has dominated the past two centuries, with seven Piuses reigning for 125 of the past 183 years - would suggest extreme conservatism, because all have been reactionaries.

Over the centuries, John has been the most popular name, followed by Gregory (16), Benedict (15), Clement (14) and Leo and Innocent (both 13).

Mercurius was the first Pope to take a new name, because he didn't want the pagan associations of his given name to sully his pontificate. Soon it became a tradition. Melbourne theologian William Johnston pointed out in the April issue of the literary magazine Quadrant that no Pope has taken a new name since Lando in 913. Exploring the merits of various names - and the reason why no Pope is likely to follow Pelagius (a heretic), Boniface (arrogance leading to schism in the church) or Julius (overwhelming ego) - Johnston suggests Vatican watchers could be misled. For example, a pope might take John Paul to placate conservatives while planning in fact to be entirely different.

He says that Martin, Urban, Leo or Felix would be both short and memorable, whereas Alexander, Sylvester and Celestine are unlikely. Johnston's own favourite would be Ambrose, after Ambrose of Milan, who died in 397 having "excelled equally as pastor, liturgist, administrator, writer and thinker... An Ambrose in the papacy might summon the courage to begin to apply to the workings of the Catholic Church at every level and in every locale precepts of Christian ethics.

Johnston is critical of John Paul II:

William Johnston: Yes, well here I think the Austrian example is very appropriate. This is where the Austrian bureaucrats would talk one party line and their Jewish critics would point out the hollowness of it, and I wish there were more Jewish critics of this papacy who could satirise this kind of thing, that it’s hollow, and very sad that the authorities can continue to talk about human potential being fulfilled and blossoming through the leadership of this Pope, which is to give one example. Most people contemplating old age today ion the democracies, talk about it as a widening, a broadening, an opening of horizons. This Pontiff modelled exactly the opposite; he narrowed, he constrained himself, he’s the exact opposite of a humanistic process of ageing, and yet we’re being told to celebrate him as a model of the opposite.

If I might, I’d like to read two verses from a poem by the great Australian poet, A.D. Hope, which he wrote on the death of Pius XII in 1958.

Stephen Crittenden: It’s a great poem.

William Johnston: And there are two verses, where having talked about the fire in the trees in New England autumn when the death occurred, he had heard that this Pontiff in his last years, Pius XII in his last years, had been spiritualised.

If to some lives at least, comes a stage

When all the active man now left behind,

They enter on the treasure of old age,

This autumn of the mind.

Then while the heart stands still

Beyond desire,

The dying animal knows a strange serene.

Emerging in its ecstasy of fire,

The burning soul is seen.

Will anyone say that of the last days of John Paul II? Because the ageing of this Pontiff was not about a burning soul going inward and being spiritualised, it was about a control freak exerting power over the leaders of his organisation, he’s, if you will, a bureaucrat to the end. It’s a cruel thing to say but that’s how I see it.

Stephen Crittenden: Will Johnston, thank you very much for being on the program.

William Johnston: Thank you, I enjoyed it.

Stephen Crittenden: Apparently, he was appointing bishops and accepting resignations literally on his deathbed.. William M. Johnston was Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts from 1965 to 1999 and he now teaches at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne. His book ‘The Austrian Mind’ is published by University of California Press, and he has an article on the names chosen by the Popes in Quadrant this week.

Johnston appeared on the ABC (no transcript yet) and actually called for a new name, pointing out that 913 was the last time a new name was used. He suggested Paschal for the Easter mystery or Francis for obvious reasons. Before the last conclave it was said the new pope would take a name expressing his regard for all three of his predecessors and be called John John Paul Paul, but fortunately wiser counsel prevailed. I like Paschal and Francis. Patrick would be fine. John XXIV would be wonderful. John Paul III would b a disaster.

BC-STV or preferences across the sea

Australian senator stumps for STV

Any kind of proportional representation is far superior to the single member electorate system, according to Australian Senator Bob Brown.

'Every system has its faults, but no system is as faulty as single member electorate,' said Brown during a speech in Powell River on April 5. 'Any change toward proportional representation is better. But from my point of view, STV (single transferable vote) is a wonderful system.'

Brown, famous for booing United States President George W. Bush when he addressed the Australian Parliament in 2003, was on a three-city tour in BC in support of Green Party leader and candidate in the Powell River-Sunshine Coasting riding Adriane Carr. About 140 attended his speech in the Evergreen Theatre at the Powell River Recreation Complex.

Brown was a family doctor in Australia when he became involved in a campaign to stop the construction of a dam on the Franklin River. That work led to his arrest, along with other protestors, and a decision to run as a Green Party candidate in Tasmania.

He was elected as the first, and only, Green Party MLA in Australia. He has been elected twice to the Tasmanian state House of Assembly and twice to the national Senate.

BC voters have an opportunity to vote on STV in the May 17 provincial election. It is the system recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

British Columbia Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform

The Citizens Assembly was created by the Government of British Columbia with the unanimous support of the B.C. Legislature. It was an independent, non-partisan assembly of citizens who examined the province's electoral system - that is, how our votes determine who gets elected to sit in the provincial Legislature.

The Citizens Assembly had 160 members, one man and one woman from each of B.C's 79 provincial electoral districts (constituencies) plus two Aboriginal members. They were representative of the province as a whole, and worked for all British Columbians. Members were picked by random draw from a pool that reflected the gender, age and geographical make-up of British Columbia. Assembly chair Jack Blaney was also an additional member, the 161st.

The initiative was unique. Nowhere else in the world had such power been handed to randomly selected citizens.

The people of British Columbia will vote in a referendum on 17 May. The province has a history of disastrously one-sided election results (including governemnts winning landslide legislative majorities with a minority of the popular vote) that BC-STV is designed to cure.

Australia has a similar problem, the republic. A citizens assembly elected by random draw would probbaly be an excellent way to unblock the logjam on the issue. We use random juries for serious questions. British Columbia has used it for electoral reformmbly. South Australia recently used it for a constitutional convention. Why not the republic?

Red faces would be a lot better than tight lips

Beazley tight-lipped on McGuire approach

Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has refused to comment on claims that Labor has approached some high profile media and sporting personalities to help it win the next election.

Several media outlets are reporting that Labor has asked the president of the Collingwood Football Club, Eddie McGuire, to stand at the next election.

Labor officials are also reported to have approached AFL boss Andrew Demetriou, Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews and Essendon's Kevin Sheedy.

The last political movement to place Eddie McGuire in a prominent position was the Australian Republican Movement. They went on to well-deserved defeat in the 1999 republic referendum. It's bad enough that Labor may be chasing celebrities instead of persuasive policies. But Eddie McGuire? Really...

We will decide who goes to New Zealand and under what circumstances! So there!

No Right Turn reports the imminent collapse of New Zealand civilisation into chaos, anarchy and not being relaxed and comfortable.

how to find a millstone

Gospel of Luke

17:1 He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come! 17:2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Cardinal, Ousted in Scandal, to Preside at Funeral

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who became a focal point of the Roman Catholic Church's sexual-abuse scandal in the United States, won a coveted role Thursday to preside at one of a handful of funeral Masses for Pope John Paul II.

The appointment, announced by Archbishop Piero Marini, master of liturgical celebrations, appeared to catch other U.S. cardinals by surprise. It stunned sexual-abuse victims' advocates.

One church source close to developments, said here Thursday that cardinals were not consulted about Law's participation. He said the cardinals were simply handed the list of assignments. "It was already printed," he said on condition of anonymity.

Law, who was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after nearly 20 years in that post, will preside at one of eight funeral Masses beginning Saturday following Friday's main farewell and Funeral Mass for the supreme pontiff at St. Peter's Basilica.

The Vatican said Law and the others were chosen because it was an "ancient custom" to entrust one of eight subsequent funeral Masses to a particular group with close ties to the pope. For example, the Saturday Mass is to be said on behalf of the "faithful of Vatican City." Law, in his new role here as archpriest of the Patriarchal Basilica of St. Mary Major, is scheduled to preside Monday on behalf of the four basilicas in Rome.

Law, 73, was appointed last year to the mainly administrative position. Law remains a cardinal and is eligible to vote for a new pope.

Statement by David Clohessy SNAP National Director

Cardinal Law is correct when he says this is the time to "focus" on Pope John Paul II. Thousands of caring Catholic and wounded victims, however, find it hard to keep that focus when Law is apparently exploiting this sad moment for his own hurtful rehabilitation attempt. Out of sensitivity and respect for those families who continue to suffer because of his cover ups, and in a spirit of genuine contrition, Law should avoid the public limelight.

If he genuinely wants to honor the Pope, he should avoid causing distractions to the solemn ceremonies and recuse himself from any other public role in the days and weeks again.

But there are other responsible parties here.

Vatican officials should prevail upon Law to stop rubbing salt into the already deep wounds of the American church and the hundreds of men and women whose faith has been stolen and whose pain still cripples them because of Law's abusive clerics.

Bishops and cardinals across the globe, especially in America, should forcefully speak out now on behalf of the wounded, and insist that Law put the memory of John Paul II and the needs of clergy abuse victims above his own self-aggrandizement.

The code of silence with which church officials shelter even the most egregious among themselves must be broken. Bishops and cardinals must find the strength and courage, as so many of us have found, to confront wrongdoing.

Sadly, this encapsulates the great weakness of this pontificate, an emphasis on form over content and neglect in governing the church in favour of presenting almost a rockstar spectacle. It is unthinkable and repugnant that Cardinal Law should want or be given such a role.

Update
I was going to call this post 'Who's churching the old whore now?' and decided that was a tad extreme. Steve Gillard's post Hey, it was just a few raped kids, what's the fuss? is named more forthrightly.

Don't tell the Neocons

Universe is full of Earths

Potential homes for life could be everywhere. Half of the known planetary systems identified beyond the kingdom of the sun could have their own 'Earths,' according to new research.

Barrie Jones of the Open University at Milton Keynes told the national meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Birmingham that 130 giant planets orbiting close to their parent stars had been discovered so far. Even though small, rocky planets that could support liquid water and dense atmospheres have not been detected, they could nevertheless survive close to the Jupiter-sized objects.

The reasoning, by three researchers at the Open University, is published in this month's Astrophysical Journal, and confirms other studies that suggest that the conditions for life extend not just among the 100 billion stars of the Milky Way galaxy, but perhaps through the estimated 100 million or more galaxies in the observable universe.

They'll have George the Unready decked out in silver underwear faster than you can say: 'Ming the Merciless'.

The man who would be Pope I

The blogosphere seems to be sprouting amateur Vaticanistas in all directions. The first thing o remember about a conclave is that they are almost completely unpredictable. The only predicted election last century when Cardinal Montini of Milan (reigned as Paul VI was elected. Even that was wrong, because the smart money had said he'd get it at the previous conclave. I think any prediction that includes a curialist like Ratzinger or Sodano is wrong. Here's why:

Twenty-eight of the cardinals under 80 come from the Roman Curia, representing roughly 24 percent of the total. This means that 76 of the electors are from outside Rome, and many of them believe the election of a pope is an important opportunity to introduce another, non-Roman perspective into the governance of the church. This reality makes the prospect of electing a pope directly from the Curia fairly remote.

One other statistic, both revealing and potentially misleading, is that Pope John Paul II has named all but three of the 117 men who will elect his successor (the three under-eighty cardinals named  by Paul VI are Baum, Ratzinger, and Cardinal Jaime Sin of the Philippines). That fact testifies to the length of John Paul’s reign, almost 27 years, and his impact on shaping the leadership of the church.

Yet it does not mean that John Paul has “stacked the deck” and pre-determined that his successor will be a man very much like him. Historically speaking,  Colleges of Cardinals appointed by one pope do not simply duplicate that man in the election of his successor. Instead, they are trying in part to remedy what they perceive to the weaknesses and limitations of the former regime, as well as build on its strengths. That sort of electoral psychology is always a prescription for change.

Historians call this the “pendulum dynamic,” that papal approaches tend to oscillate from one perspective to the other rather than staying put. The Italians, as they always do, have a better phrase for it. They say, “You always follow a fat pope with a thin one.”

This conclave, in other words, will certainly bring surprise. The question is, a surprise of what kind?

I think part of the surprise is that the cardinals are unlikely to elect someone young enough to threaten another long reign and I agree with Allen they are unlikely to elect a curialist. John Paul II was the world's first Stalinist pope. Stalinism was what he grew up with and his addiction to tight central controls and bureaucratic interference was inherently Stalinist. S was his tendency to ignore managerial problems, like the shortage of priests, in favour of evangelising and proclaiming the church's unchangeable mission.

The Independent's list reads:

Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi (Italy)
The favourite. As Milan's archbishop, he runs the largest archdiocese in the world, and is a traditionalist on doctrine. His promotion by the Pope three years ago was "tantamount to an investiture" as the likely successor, according to La Repubblica.

Cardinal Francis Arinze (Nigeria)
Head of the influential Congregation for Divine Worship, he would be the first modern black pope and would be able to improve the Church's often-delicate relations with Islam. He helped to arrange the Pope's first visit to a mosque.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Mardiaga (Honduras)
Frequently mentioned due to his mix of connections in the Vatican and support for the underprivileged. He is a media-friendly member of the Salesian Order, who argues it is time the Third World was represented on St Peter's Throne.

Cardinal Angela Scola (Italy)
The 63-year-old Patriarch of Venice is close to the Communion and Liberation movement. He is seen as a rising star within the Church. His nomination to be the "relator" at an Italian bishops' conference was seen as a sign of his having papal favour.

National Catholic Reporter gives a list of 20. If you were going to build a serious form guide I'd look for someone on the Reporter's list who is not a curialist and not so young as o threaten a repeat of John Paul II's lengthy pontificate.

I'd exclude Arinze as curialist with the same problems as Ratzinger. I'd also exclude Scola, who is linked closely to Communione e liberazione, a Catholic lay movement whose most famous member is Rocco Buttiglione, the European commissioner-designate rejected by the European parliament last year. Opus Dei and Communione e Liberazione are both closely related to curial intervention in local dioceses and being linked to them is not, I suggest, going to be a good thing for anyone fishing for election to the fisher's ring.

I'll look at the more unconventional, and therefore more likely, papabili in part II.

fere sede vacante

Universi Dominici Gregis

61. Finally, in order that the Cardinal electors may be protected from the indiscretion of others and from possible threats to their independence of judgment and freedom of decision, I absolutely forbid the introduction into the place of the election, under whatsoever pretext, or the use, should they have been introduced, of technical instruments of any kind for the recording, reproducing or transmitting of sound, visual images or writing.

Chapter V: The Election Procedure
62. Since the forms of election known as per acclamationem seu inspirationem and per compromissum are abolished, the form of electing the Roman Pontiff shall henceforth be per scrutinium alone.

I therefore decree that for the valid election of the Roman Pontiff two thirds of the votes are required, calculated on the basis of the total number of electors present.

Should it be impossible to divide the number of Cardinals present into three equal parts, for the validity of the election of the Supreme Pontiff one additional vote is required.

Article 61 is evidently directed against the dangers of a blogclave. I'll put together a list of papabile some time today. Broadly, fat popes are succeeded by thin popes and whoever enters the conclave a pope comes out a cardinal. I don't think I'll surprise anyone by saying I think this pope was wrong on women priests, on gays, on abortion and contraception. He was blind in some ways when it came to the Third World. His inaction on clerical sexual abuse was a scandal. On human rights, peace, social justice and the environment he was almost always right and as harsh a critic of unbridled capitalism and war as he was of communism.

UN Rights Expert Charges US Using Food Access as Military Tactic

UN Rights Expert Charges US Using Food Access as Military Tactic

A UN human rights expert sharply condemned the invasion of Iraq and the global anti-terror drive, accusing the US-led coalition of using food deprivation as a military tactic and of sapping efforts to fight hunger in the world.

Jean Ziegler sharply condemned the invasion of Iraq and the global anti-terror drive, accusing the US-led coalition of using food deprivation as a military tactic in a report to the UN human rights commission. (AFP/Orlando Sierra)

'The situation of the right to food in Iraq is of serious concern,' the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said in a report to the UN human rights commission.

The report also highlighted 'widespread concerns about the continued lack of access to clean drinking water' and allegations by British campaigners that water sources were deliberately cut off by coalition forces.

'Those are the allegations, but what is proven is that at Fallujah, denial, the blockade imposed on food and the destruction of water reservoirs was used as weapon of war,' Ziegler told journalists.

He insisted that the practice was a 'clear violation' of the Geneva Conventions and delivered a firm condemnation of any attempt to deny food or water supplies.

The UN expert insisted he was not judging the legitimacy of the invasion or the tactics used by military forces.

'I am simply maintaining a firm condemnation, very firm, of the humanitarian consequences of this strategy and the military tactics applied since March 2003 by the occupying forces,' he said.

Citing previous studies reported last year, the report said that 'acute malnutrition amongst Iraqi children under the age of five has almost doubled from four percent to 7.7 percent,' since Saddam Hussein was toppled.

Perhaps if they were on feeding tubes...

Amanda plays a straight bat

Doctors denied visas for gay partners

Two overseas-trained doctors have been prevented from taking positions at Campbelltown and Liverpool hospitals because the immigration department will not issue their same-sex partners with a family visa.

Frustrated health officials and the Australian Democrats have appealed to the Minister for Immigration, Amanda Vanstone, saying the decision exacerbated the chronic shortage of psychiatrists in public hospitals.

Both jobs were classed as 'area of need' positions as there were not enough doctors willing or able to fill them.

'Given this situation ... discriminatory barriers, such as the non-recognition of same-gender relationships as de facto relationships for the purpose of granting a visa are inappropriate,' a NSW health official said in a letter to the department.

The clinical director of Liverpool Hospital's mental health unit, Roger Gurr, said it was a major blow for south-western Sydney to lose both overseas-trained psychiatrists.

'Now the situation is drastic ... NSW needs 41 trainee psychiatrists to enter the system every year to provide the services - last year only 22 people were accepted into training. This year there was only 19. So there is an enormous backlog of vacancies.'

Len Holt, the national president of the Migration Institute of Australia, said that unlike married or de facto heterosexual couples who were granted a four-year residency visa as a family, only the doctor being offered an area-of-need position was granted a long-term visa. Their same-sex partner could apply for a 12-month visitor's visa that must be renewed overseas and did not allow them to work while in Australia.

'The same-sex partners do not meet the definition of spouse, which in this day and age doesn't make a whole lot of sense,' Mr Holt said.

Really doesn't merit much of a comment, does it? Perhaps the minister was frightened by a pink shrink as a small child?

Ancient Music

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Ezra Pound