a warm day in Siberia

Climate warning as Siberia melts

The world's largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region.

The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

The news of the dramatic transformation of one of the world's least visited landscapes comes from Sergei Kirpotin, a botanist at Tomsk State University, Russia, and Judith Marquand at the University of Oxford.

Kirpotin describes an 'ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming'. He says that the entire western Siberian sub-Arctic region has begun to melt, and this 'has all happened in the last three or four years'.

What was until recently a featureless expanse of frozen peat is turning into a watery landscape of lakes, some more than a kilometre across. Kirpotin suspects that some unknown critical threshold has been crossed, triggering the melting.

Western Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet, with an increase in average temperatures of some 3 degrees C in the last 40 years. The warming is believed to be a combination of man-made climate change, a cyclical change in atmospheric circulation known as the Arctic oscillation, plus feedbacks caused by melting ice, which exposes bare ground and ocean. These absorb more solar heat than white ice and snow.

Similar warming has also been taking place in Alaska: earlier this summer Jon Pelletier of the University of Arizona in Tucson reported a major expansion of lakes on the North Slope fringing the Arctic Ocean.

The Climate of Man

Traditionally, the men in Shishmaref hunted for seals by driving out over the sea ice with dogsleds or, more recently, on snowmobiles. After they hauled the seals back to the village, the women would skin and cure them, a process that takes several weeks. In the early nineteen-nineties, the hunters began to notice that the sea ice was changing. (Although the claim that the Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow is an exaggeration, the Inupiat make distinctions among many different types of ice, including sikuliaq, 'young ice,' sarri, 'pack ice,' and tuvaq, 'landlocked ice.') The ice was starting to form later in the fall, and also to break up earlier in the spring. Once, it had been possible to drive out twenty miles; now, by the time the seals arrived, the ice was mushy half that distance from shore. Weyiouanna described it as having the consistency of a 'slush puppy.' When you encounter it, he said, 'your hair starts sticking up. Your eyes are wide open. You can't even blink.' It became too dangerous to hunt using snowmobiles, and the men switched to boats.

Soon, the changes in the sea ice brought other problems. At its highest point, Shishmaref is only twenty-two feet above sea level, and the houses, many built by the U.S. government, are small, boxy, and not particularly sturdy-looking. When the Chukchi Sea froze early, the layer of ice protected the village, the way a tarp prevents a swimming pool from getting roiled by the wind. When the sea started to freeze later, Shishmaref became more vulnerable to storm surges. A storm in October, 1997, scoured away a hundred-and-twenty-five-foot-wide strip from the town's northern edge; several houses were destroyed, and more than a dozen had to be relocated. During another storm, in October, 2001, the village was threatened by twelve-foot waves. In the summer of 2002, residents of Shishmaref voted, a hundred and sixty-one to twenty, to move the entire village to the mainland. Last year, the federal government completed a survey of possible sites for a new village. Most of the spots that are being considered are in areas nearly as remote as Sarichef, with no roads or nearby cities, or even settlements. It is estimated that a full relocation will cost at least a hundred and eighty million dollars.

People I spoke to in Shishmaref expressed divided emotions about the proposed move. Some worried that, by leaving the tiny island, they would give up their connection to the sea and become lost. 'It makes me feel lonely,' one woman said. Others seemed excited by the prospect of gaining certain conveniences, like running water, that Shishmaref lacks. Everyone seemed to agree, though, that the village's situation, already dire, was likely only to get worse.

US: climate deal complements Kyoto

US today insisted that its surprise announcement last night of a new pact over clean energy technologies with other five countries was not a threat to the Kyoto emissions treaty.

A deal between the US, Australia, China, India, South Korea and Japan was announced late yesterday in a statement by the US president, George Bush. The news prompted widespread surprise - not least in Downing Street.

Details of what the pact involves were still sketchy today but its explicit aim was to promote the invention and sale of technologies ranging from "clean coal" and wind power to next-generation nuclear fission with the aim of reducing pollution and addressing climate concerns.

The announcement of the New Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate received a mixed reaction, alarming many environmentalists. Critics noted that the partnership, which apparently comes after a year of secret talks, is not binding and sets no targets for reducing pollution.

By contrast the Kyoto protocol, signed by 140 countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, which experts believe contribute to global warming, is legally binding.

Some time, hopefully quite soon, alleged conservatives, whose real position is that the market rules everything by magic, are going to have to confront real tipping points, not the shibboleths they keep announcing as sure signs of victory in the Iraq side-show. The balance sheets are going to look fairly grim as these positive feedbacks, which the UN Clmate Change Panel has not yet incorporated into its models, start kicking in. The going rate on a wrecked planet is fairly steep. The Bush administration is extremely good at announcing these US-led initiatives. Actually doing something is less their style.

cosmic beatup

Charles Sturt University has a video feed of the Deep Impact Nasa/ESA mission. The plan is to bang a heavy projectile into a comet and force it to give up the secrets of its interior.

Ask not for whom the turd blossoms...

MSNBC Analyst Says 2nd Source Confirms Karl Rove as Plame Leaker

'I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's e-mails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury.

'McLaughlin is seen in some markets on Friday night, so some websites have picked it up, including Drudge, but I don't expect it to have much impact because McLaughlin is not considered a news show and it will be pre-empted in the big markets on Sunday because of tennis.

'Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an 'It's Rove!' story and will probably break it tomorrow.'

If it gets confirmed this is going to generate a blogquake. Karl Rove, also known as Bush's Brain, is the second most powerful figure (after Dick Cheney) in the US administration. His loss is going to be a crippling political blow. I expect RSS feeds to melt down within the next 11 seconds or so.

The Martians are us

The War of the Worlds: Book 1, Chapter 1, The Eve of the War

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such
apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

Somewhere between the ads and the final credits, it's probably worth remembering that the Tasmanian genocide provided one of the models for HG Wells' Martians.

more perfect unions

Spanish MPs legalise gay marriage

The Spanish parliament voted yesterday to legalise gay marriage despite protests by Roman Catholic clergy and conservative groups. Spain is now one of only four countries in the world that grant gay couples the same status as heterosexuals, and is the only traditionally Catholic country to do so. It joins the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada, which approved gay marriage on Wednesday. 'Today Spain is a more decent country, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members,' the prime minister, Jos�Luis Zapatero, told parliament after the 187-147 vote, which was followed by loud applause, hugs and tears of joy by gay activists.

'This law will not engender evil,' he continued, referring to church opposition, 'it will save human suffering'.

Canada approves gay marriage

Canada last night became the third country in the world to approve gay marriages when MPs passed a historic bill granting same-sex couples equal rights to those in traditional marriages.

The bill was passed by the Canadian House of Commons despite strong opposition from religious leaders and conservative MPs.

Gay marriage is already legal in seven provinces in Canada, but the new legislation grants same-sex couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples nationwide. The Netherlands and Belgium are the only other countries to allow gay marriages.

The bill - drafted by the minority Liberal party government of the Canadian prime minister, Paul Martin - has been hailed as a step forward for human rights.

"We are a nation of minorities," Mr Martin said. "And in a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right, and that is what this vote tonight is all about."

The legislation split the Liberal party, with 158 MPs voting to pass the bill and 133 against. The junior cabinet minister Joe Comuzzi, responsible for development in northern Ontario, resigned on Tuesday rather than voting on the issue.

Hasta mañana

It is possible for major political parties in western democracies to enact equality on their own intiative without suffering a loss of public confidence.

This may sound obvious, but there remain hundreds of Australian politicians who do not understand it.

And why?

Because the leadership of Australia’s LGBT community has failed in its duty to educate decision-makers and the public about the merits of reform, and about how it can be achieved.

I say “failed” because recent polling in the LGBT community in Victoria shows overwhelming support for marriage equality, greater even than for de facto relationship equality.

An LGBT leader who does not represent this aspiration to their fellow Australians is not doing their job.

In 2004 Australia joined the US in moving in the other direction. Last year's marriage inequality bill would not have become law without the votes of Labor senators. It is a grave pity that Mark Latham did not discover the need for Labor to stand for something until after he had assisted the Man of Steel to enact 'No Poofters!' into law.

the I-word

Zogby poll

President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.

The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

Just one week ago, President Bush’s job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President’s address, and the results show no discernible “bump” in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.

I hope the US Congress has the courage to include the Nuremburg offences of crimes against peace and war crimes.

Tip via Left Coaster.

By Sappho, out of Oxyrhynchus

Weekly book reviews and literary criticism from the Times Literary Supplement

Parts of three of her poems are represented. As usual, all are in a fragmentary state. But the second one, it turned out, had been partially known since 1922 from an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of the third century ad, and by combining the two texts we now obtain an almost complete poem.

When we had only the Oxyrhynchus portion, we had only line-ends, preceded and followed by line-ends of other poems, and it was not clear where one poem ended and the next began; the left-hand margin, where this would have been signalled, was missing. That question is now settled. We have a poem of twelve lines, made up of six two-line stanzas. The last eight lines are virtually complete. The first four are still lacking two or three words each at their beginnings. But we can make out the sentence structure and restore the sense of what is lost, if not the exact words. Here is the poem in my own restoration and translation. The words in square brackets are supplied by conjecture.

'[You for] the fragrant-blossomed Muses' lovely gifts
[be zealous,] girls, [and the] clear melodious lyre:

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized;] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark;

my heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I oft bemoan; but what's to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn,
love-smitten, carried off to the world's end, handsome and young then, yet in time grey age
o''ertook him, husband of immortal wife.'

Meanwhile, it seems that Narcissus actually came t a fairly sticky end.

The ugly end of Narcissus

Narcissus was so beautiful that vast numbers of men (not Echo and other females, in the newly discovered poem) fell in love with him. However, such was his egocentricity that he spurned them all, leaving a trail of heartbreak behind him. Finally, a rejected suitor persuaded one of the gods to deal with him. Narcissus was made to stare for ever at his own image, reflected in a pool of water. The more he stared, the more desperately he fell in love with himself.

According to Ovid, Narcissus - pining from a broken heart - wasted away and died, whereupon he turned into the world's very first narcissus flower. However the earlier version has now revealed that the original myth probably had a less peaceful, more violent denouement, ending in bloody suicide.

The papyrus fragment is one of tens of thousands that were found in the late 19th and early 20th century in ancient rubbish dumps at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. These dumps, now fully excavated, are the world's largest source of ancient writings, accounting for 70 per cent of all known literary papyri. Many are kept at Oxford but the majority have still not been fully transcribed and translated. It was during work on these remaining manuscripts that the Narcissus fragment was found.

Dr Henry thinks it likely that its author was Parthenius of Nicaea, a Greek from what is now western Turkey. He appears to have been born sometime around 100 to 90 BC and was taken prisoner by the Romans during a war in Anatolia in around 73 BC. He ended up in Italy, where he became the Roman poet Virgil's tutor.

Narcissus either worked for the Bush administration or wrote an ancient blog.

The Onion 2056

The Onion 2056

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA Following months of terror at the hands of hot-rod-piloting punks, Australian Prime Minister Kellen O'Neill handed power to Lord Humongous, nominal warlord of the leather-clad marauding barbarian horde Monday. 'Just walk away!' said Humongous, the official 'Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Roll-ah,' speaking through his vehicle's PA system from the smoking ruins of the city center. 'I will spare those of you who surrender your possessions and your precious juice. Just walk away, and live.' Humongous is expected to share at least a portion of his dominion over Australia with midget genius The Master, who several sources said 'runs Bartertown.'

I'm confused. I thought Lord Humongous seized Canberra in 1996.

partying on the seventh continent

Antarctica party atmosphere heats up

In what has become a tradition, Australians living on Antarctica will spend tonight celebrating with a mid-winter party on this, the shortest day of the year.

Festivities include digging a hole in the ice for those brave or foolhardy enough to take a very chilly dip.

At Australia's Mawson Station, Dr Geoff Bennett says the party atmosphere is already taking hold.

'The swimming hole's dug, the ice rink is poured, the lobsters are defrosting, people are pretty relaxed, there's a few beers in the fridge,' he said.

'The weather's a bit blowy - it's 44 knots, but only minus four, which is pretty warm for down here.

'We've been normally around minus 20, so if the wind calms down we'll go for a bit of a swim.'

Dr Bennett says he is among those planning to take the plunge, in one of the more light-hearted traditions of Australia's Antarctic involvement.

On a more serious note, Dr Bennett says the effects of the long, dark days can take their toll.

'You sort of start withdrawing into yourself to a degree - it's almost intrusive when you've got to actually socialise and do other things, so it's funny sort of withdraw into yourself,' he said.

Medical circles talk about a so-called seasonal effected disorder, where people actually go to the point of depression simply through lack of sunlight.

Mawson Station has a webcam that lets you take in all the excitements of Antarctic culture without having to brave the current temperature, -8.0c. And I just know you always wanted to hear an Emperor penguin sneezing.

Kiwi Carnival

If the New Zealnd blogosphere can manage a Philosophy, et cetera: Kiwi Carnival, we should mount one as well.

Does Nicola Roxon believe divorce is the disunion of one man and one woman?

B.C.'s first gay divorce granted

Two women who got married in Parksville two years ago have been granted a divorce by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in Nanaimo.

Gay and lesbians in B.C. won the legal right to marry in 2003, sparking a wedding boom.

Among the gays and lesbians who decided to get married was a woman who can only be identified — by court order — by her initials, J.S.

But the marriage didn't work out. And J.S. filed for divorce last year.

But she says she was shocked to discover that while her same-sex marriage was legal, she wasn't allowed to divorce — because the Divorce Act only allowed a man and a woman to part. That's what led her to the Nanaimo courthouse on Wednesday to change the law.

Madame Justice Laura Gerow agreed the divorce law discriminated against gays and lesbians.

And with the stroke of a pen, she granted the divorce — and changed the law to define a married couple as any two persons.

'I just floated out of the courthouse,' says J.S. 'I'm ecstatic.'

Well, the Martin government survived its confidence votes so the Canadian marriage thing will roll on for a while longer. More British Columbians in same sex marriages will get divorced. At some point it will become part of the landscape and most of us will be asking ourselves what the fuss was about.

Canada headed for general election?

MP O'Brien throws wrench into night of confidence votes

London-Fanshawe MP Pat O'Brien has issued an ultimatum, saying he and an unnamed Liberal MP will vote against the minority Liberal government in a series of confidence votes Tuesday night unless the same-sex marriage bill is delayed.

If they carry out the threat, Paul Martin's government could fall, pushing the country into a summer election campaign.
O'Brien, who left the Liberal caucus this month to sit as an Independent over the gay-marriage issue, told CBC News that he will continue negotiating with Liberal officials in the hours before the voting begins at 10 p.m. EDT.

He wants a promise, in writing, that the passage of the same-sex marriage bill will not happen until after Parliament resumes in the fall.

Canada's Martin Probably Will Survive Votes Tonight

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, who is relying on the support of political opponents to govern, probably will survive a series of votes tonight aimed at letting Parliament adjourn on time for summer recess.

Balloting on 18 measures, including amendments to this year's budget, will begin about 10 p.m. Ottawa time and last for two hours, said Al Toulin, a spokesman for Liberal House Leader Tony Valeri. Martin can count on enough backing to keep power, said Michael Behiels, an expert on Canadian politics at the University of Ottawa.

``We can all rest for the summer,'' Behiels said in a telephone interview. ``If the government falls it's going to be by accident.''

Martin's Liberal Party has had the support since April of the socialist New Democratic Party on budget bills, helping to stave off efforts by other opposition parties to topple his minority government. The two parties combine for 151 seats in the 308-seat parliament. There are four independent members of parliament, three of whom are former Liberal Party members.

Most of the votes today are deemed matters ``of confidence,'' meaning a loss in any of them could trigger the collapse of the government.

Last month, Martin overcame by one vote an attempt by the opposition Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Quebecois to topple his government. Support for the Conservatives has since waned, lessening the likelihood they'll press for elections, said Peter McCormick, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta.

Gay marriage may seem, to sober what's-in-it-for-me Australians, a weird issue on which to fight a general election. The Martin government's readiness to do just that speaks volumes about the importance the two nations give human rights.

the secret way to predeployment

The Secret Way to War

In the United States, on the other hand, the Downing Street memorandum has attracted little attention. As I write, no American newspaper has published it and few writers have bothered to comment on it. The war continues, and Americans have grown weary of it; few seem much interested now in discussing how it began, and why their country came to fight a war in the cause of destroying weapons that turned out not to exist. For those who want answers, the Bush administration has followed a simple and heretofore largely successful policy: blame the intelligence agencies. Since 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' as early as July 2002 (as 'C,' the head of British intelligence, reported upon his return from Washington), it seems a matter of remarkable hubris, even for this administration, that its officials now explain their misjudgments in going to war by blaming them on 'intelligence failures' — that is, on the intelligence that they themselves politicized. Still, for the most part, Congress has cooperated. Though the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated the failures of the CIA and other agencies before the war, a promised second report that was to take up the administration's political use of intelligence — which is, after all, the critical issue — was postponed until after the 2004 elections, then quietly abandoned.

Meanwhile, the Downng Street memo has led in Australia to zero, zip, nada questions to the prime minister about the point at which Australia joined this charade or was made aware that the intelligence had been fixed. The Man of Steel did go to all the trouble of inventing the word predeploy to explain why Australian forces were all placed in Iraq ready to go as soon as London and Washington declared that the inspections we now know they hadn't wanted and wouldn't accept had failed.

Is there a gene for bad argument?

Spirituality Explained? Reflections on Dean Hamer’s The God Gene

This climate propelled Dean Hamer’s The God Gene into some measure of prominence (cover of Time, October 25, 2004). Let’s deal with the title right away. Pretty unequivocal, no? The God Gene! Already on page 8, however, Hamer inserts a disclaimer: “There are probably many different genes involved, rather than just one. And environmental influences are just as important as genetics.” Hamer is nothing if not savvy: this measured estimation is too tepid by half for marketing a book (or making Time’s cover).

What are we to make of Hamer’s retreat from the bold confidence of his title? By invoking environmental influences, does he mean to embrace what anthropologists like me call a social constructionist explanation? That is, does he admit the importance of how we are raised and loved and guided, for explaining why humans everywhere tend to embrace some notion of God, gods, or spirits? (I get really riled when any cultural universal is automatically assumed to be an instinct; cultural factors can explain many universal human behaviors.)

Science writer and blogger Carl Zimmer is unsatisfied with Hamer’s page 8 retreat. He suggests a title that more accurately reflects the book’s contents: A Gene That Accounts for Less Than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study.

To fully understand what Zimmer means by his mock title, it’s important to see the distinction Hamer makes between religion and spirituality. Religion is “belief in a particular God, frequency of prayer, or other orthodox religious doctrines or practices.” Hamer isn’t interested in measuring a tendency to be religious, as it turns out: “If our intent had been to measure religiousness rather than spirituality,” he writes, “…[w]e might have explained how often people attended religious services, for example, or whether they took their children to Sunday school.”

In other words, Hamer conflates religion with a narrow set of institutionalized practices. This is problematic for a huge number of reasons I won’t enumerate here, since Hamer’s focus is on spirituality. Spirituality is self-transcendence, the capacity for experiencing the self at one with the world, and can in turn be measured via a fine-tuned questionnaire that focuses on self-forgetfulness, transpersonal identification, and mysticism. All this jargon aside, the key point for Hamer is that once you’ve got the questionnaire answers, all you need next is... DNA!

Are gender differences predetermined?

Female strengths usually include better verbal skills, precision manual dexterity, emotion decoding and "landmark memory," defined as the ability to recall objects and their locations within a confined space. (Yes, there's research backing up the cliche about men staring into the fridge, asking "Honey, where’s the ketchup?")

If you believe that socialization -- the molding power of our environment -- is the main cause of gender differences, consider this: Berenbaum's data on girls with CAH point to the power of sex hormones, particularly those we're exposed to prenatally, in shaping our choices and aptitudes as children.

As a group, the girls in Berenbaum's study tend to prefer toys more typical for boys, show more interests in sports, have better spatial ability, and show less interest in infants and dolls than girls without CAH. Despite the hormone-balancing medication they've received since birth, exposure to high androgen levels during brain development in-utero seems to have a lasting masculinizing effect.

"The question is 'How does that happen?'" asked Berenbaum. "It's very complex. Despite some of my own data, I certainly wouldn't make a direct equation that hormones cause you to like trucks." And, she added, laughing, there's no dishwashing gene.

"Yes, there's evidence that biology does influence behavior that shows sex differences," said Berenbaum. "It's also true that, for all behaviors studied, the distributions for males and females overlap on a continuum. Nevertheless, the differences are observed consistently."

Don't rule out the impact of socialization on gender though, cautioned Berenbaum. "What happens to most people is that we start out with small biological differences which send us off on different environmental trajectories. Socialization then magnifies the differences until they become bigger over time."

"Let's take interest in babies, for instance," she added. "Say as a girl you have a slightly increased predisposition to be interested in babies. So you hang around babies. You get comfortable with babies. You get lots of rewards for hanging around babies -- getting paid and praised for babysitting -- so after a while, a slight preference becomes a strong interest because it's magnified by the experiences you have."

That close dance between nature and nurture may be what "makes it hard to answer this question" as Berenbaum put it. A self-described feminist who believed, as a grad student in the 1970s, that gender differences would be leveled by changing social norms, Berenbaum is quick to point out that genes -- like anatomy -- are not necessarily destiny.

"I think that some people are afraid to think that genes influence behavior because it therefore means we can't change it, but that's not correct. I would argue that if we know the genes that influence a certain behavior, it might be easier to change them with an environmental intervention because we would know what we'd be targeting.

This stuff gets set up for cartoon debates all the time, where social constructionists argue for nurture alone and biological determinists argue for nature alone. Then someone trots out the reductio ad Hitlerum, throws in a liberal dose of the appeal to consequences, and it all ends in tears.

The obvious answer is some combination of the two and the boundary between them is going to move around a lot over the next couple of decades. Hamer's God gene strikes me as extremely silly, and this would not be the first time Hamer has produced research so qualified, uncertain and poorly sampledas to be meaningless. Barenboim's perspectives strike me as considerably more persuasive and certainly more nuanced.

Size does matter, but on the other hand...

I seem to have got sucked into a fairly passionate thread on the nature or nurture of sexual orientation at Larvatus Proteo. In the course of trawling up references I discovered a fun comparison of handedness and sexual orientation. The truly daring seeker of knowledge can pile into Sexual orientation and handedness in men and women: a meta-analysis (large PDF).

There's also some slight evidence from Kinsey that gay men have longer penises, but (before you reach for a ruler) the finding is subject to the following caveat:

These findings are open to criticism because the measurements were made by the subjects themselves at home and not by an independent observer. (Gay men might be more tempted to exaggerate than straight men, or they might be more aroused by the sight of their erect penises, thus causing stronger erections.)� If correct, the result is inconsistent with the simplest form of the prenatal hormone hypothesis, which would predict gay men's penises to be smaller. There are various ways one could make the findings fit the hypothesis, but it may not be worth dwelling on this until a replication study has been done - which could be a while.

Australia votes 'non'

Howard's neighbourhood watch

Australia's relations with Indonesia are fundamentally different to those we have with any other country - not just better or worse, but with deeper and different consequences. It is Australia's only strategically important neighbour. So when things go well with Indonesia, the consequences for Australia can be very good.

While he was prime minister, Paul Keating observed that 'the event of greatest positive strategic significance to Australia in the postwar years was the election of President Soeharto's new-order government. Had it not been for that cohesive event - if the archipelago was breaking up - we would not be spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence, we would be spending 6 or 7 per cent.'

We often count the cost of things going wrong but seldom the benefit when they go right. If Keating was right, that would be the difference between Australia's defence spending of $17.5 billion budgeted for next year and a notional $52.5 billion. The benefit of a strategically benign Indonesia, in his estimation, was $35 billion a year.

But when things go badly with Indonesia, the risk of injury or death to Australians escalates, more so than in any other relationship we have. As when Australian forces entered East Timor to halt the rampaging Indonesian-led anti-independence militias in 1999, or when 23 Australian troops died facing off against Indonesian forces during the Confrontation in 1963-66, problems in Indonesia are more likely to mean that Australians are placed in harm's way.

Sunk by defence team that didn't rise to the challenge

The decision by the Denpasar District Court to sentence Schapelle Corby to 20 years in jail was not surprising, given the evidence against her.

The prosecution established a prima facie case against her relatively easily. There was no dispute that the cannabis was in her bag when it was opened at Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport. Their witness said Corby had admitted it was hers. She denied this - as might be expected, regardless of whether she was guilty or innocent.

The Indonesian system has enshrined the presumption of innocence in legislation as a human right, but once a prima facie case is established - that is, the minimum required to establish the elements of the charge - the burden effectively shifts to the defence to counter the prosecution case. This is true of almost all legal systems, including, in most cases, our own. Corby's main problem was that her defence team did not rise well to the challenge of countering the prima facie prosecution case by proving her baggage-handler hypothesis.

Her lead Indonesian lawyer, Lily Lubis, is young and relatively inexperienced and this was, reportedly, her first drugs case. She seemed frequently out of her depth and broke down in tears in court. The key evidence she presented was given little weight, as would likely be the case in Australia, because it was either not directly related to Corby's circumstances or was unreliable

Indonesian trial for Australia

There are scores of largely anonymous Australians awaiting trial on drug offences in Asian jails, including 11 more in Bali and two on death row in Singapore. On Wednesday, a Sydney man of Vietnamese origin was given the same sentence as Corby in Vietnam for sending heroin back home through the post; the story barely made the evening news.

So why the obsession with Corby?

She is young, beautiful and charismatic. Her cell is dark, foul-smelling and overcrowded, a forbidding place in a land that few Australians understand. The language swirling around her is impenetrable, the judiciary difficult to comprehend. For many it is a simple case of good against evil, of supporting the underdog, the innocent victim of a corrupt and untrustworthy system. It's black and white.

And there is the crunch. Are Australians, with a predominantly European heritage and Western outlook, letting their latent fear of being swamped by populous Asia rule their emotions over what should have been a routine court verdict?

Opinion polls suggest that the main issue is not Corby's guilt but her perceived inability to get a fair trial in a country that is still associated, in the minds of many Australians, with the excesses of the Suharto era, human-rights abuses in East Timor and West Papua, crooked police and banana-state politics.

One survey, conducted over two days by a radio station in Corby's home state of Queensland, found that almost half of the respondents believed the court verdict was an injustice; yet less than a quarter were convinced of her innocence and believed she should be freed.

Okay, it's a long way from voting 'non' to the European constitution to getting hysterical about the Corby verdict and sentence, but both acts are driven by the same cause. The Indonesia relationship is as important as Hartcher's piece says. Our political elite needs to do a better job of communicating that than they have up till now.

si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait...

2050 - and immortality is within our grasp

Pearson, 44, has formed his mind-boggling vision of the future after graduating in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, spending four years working in missile design and the past 20 years working in optical networks, broadband network evolution and cybernetics in BT's laboratories. He admits his prophecies are both 'very exciting' and 'very scary'.

He believes that today's youngsters may never have to die, and points to the rapid advances in computing power demonstrated last week, when Sony released the first details of its PlayStation 3. It is 35 times more powerful than previous games consoles. 'The new PlayStation is 1 per cent as powerful as a human brain,' he said. 'It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain.'

The world's fastest computer, IBM's BlueGene, can perform 70.72 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) and is accelerating all the time. But anyone who believes in the uniqueness of consciousness or the soul will find Pearson's next suggestion hard to swallow. 'We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could possibly become conscious. There are quite a lot of us now who believe it's entirely feasible.

Yikes! A good friend once wrote: 'If yuth knew, if age could...' in French on my birthday cake. I am unsure if I am more alarmed by the idea of decanting the self into a machine or the inevitable alliterative speeches by Peter Costello.

envisioning forgotten cities

The scariest (especially for San Franciscans, is Shadows from another place which maps the bombing of Baghdad onto San Francisco in real time.

A mapping of the first US attack on Baghdad, in March 2003, is superimposed upon San Francisco. The sound heard is from the same event. The longitude and latitude of each bombsite in SF is marked using a GPS device, the same technology used to target site in the Iraki town. These sites are mapped, chronicled and documented with photograph of what's currently at these locations.

In New York they're building a 1609 map of Manhattan Island.

Long before Frank Sinatra sang about making it there, the explorer Henry Hudson did. After three failed attempts to locate the Northwest Passage, in 1609, Hudson became the first European to find New York. And just like most tourists, he was impressed.

"The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of every description," Hudson gushed in a journal entry.

Today, many agree that New York City abounds in at least one thing – development – thus its moniker, the Concrete Jungle. So, what happened to its wildlife between 1609 and 2005? That's a story arc that landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson, of the Wildlife Conservation Society at New York's Bronx Zoo, is tracing in detail in the Mannahatta Project, a 1609 recreation of Manhattan's landscape. "It's amazing what kinds of things were here," Sanderson says. "Wolves, cougars, elk, beavers. You know, beavers are on the Manhattan city seal. Well, they were here in abundance before."

And lastly, at Byzantium 1200 they're building a website that images the city at the last moment of its glory, before the Fourth Crusade decided destroying a Christian city was what crusades were all about, an event some Orthodox remember with only a little less bitterness than the Muslims recall the Crusades in Palestine.

Baburnama

The Memoirs of Babur

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

In the month of Ramzan of the year 899 (June 1494) and in the twelfth year of my age, I became ruler in the country of Fergana.

Fergana is situated in the fifth climate and at the limit of settled habitation. On the east it has Kashghar; on the west, Samarkand; on the south, the mountains of the Badakhshan border; on the north, though in former times there must have been towns such as Almaligh, Almatu and Yangi which in books they write Taraz, at the present time all is desolate, no settled population whatever remaining, because of the Moghuls and the Uzbeks.

Fergana is a small country, abounding in grain and fruits. It is girt round by mountains except on the west, i.e. towards Khujand and Samarkand, and in winter an enemy can enter only on that side.

The Saihun River commonly known as the Water of Khujand, comes into the country from the northeast, flows westward through it and after passing along the north of Khujand and the south of Fanakat, now known as Shahrukhiya, turns directly north and goes to Turkistan. It does not join any sea but sinks into the sands, a considerable distance below [the town of] Turkistan.

Fergana has seven separate townships, five on the south and two on the north of the Saihun.

Fergana has seven separate townships, five on the south and two on the north of the Saihun.

One of those on the south is Andijan, which has a central position and is the capital of the Fergana country. It produces much grain, fruits in abundance, excellent grapes and melons. In the melon season, it is not customary to sell them out at the fields. There are no pears better than those of Andijan. After Samarkand and Kesh, the fort of Andijan is the largest in Mawara'u'n-nahr (Transoxiana). It has three gates. Its citadel (ark) is on its south side. Water flows into it by nine channels, but, oddly, flows out by none. Round the outer edge of the ditch runs a gravelled highway; the width of this highway divides the fort from the suburbs surrounding it.

Andijan has good hunting and fowling; its pheasants grow so surprisingly fat that rumour has it four people could not finish one they were eating with its stew.

Andijanis are all Turks; everyone in town or bazar knows Turki.

The speech of the people resembles the literary language; hence the writings of Mir 'Ali-sher Nawa'i, though he was bred and grew up in Hin (Herat), are one with their dialect. Good looks are common amongst them. The famous musician, Khwaja Yusuf, was an Andijani. The climate is malarious; in autumn people generally get fever.

Babur was descended on his father's side from Timur. His mother came from the direct line of Chingiz Khan. Transoxiana was a welter of competing and colliding states, most ruled by Timurid princes. He took and lost Samarqand , the greatest of the Tranoxianian cities and Timur's capital three times, the last in 1501 to the Uzbek khan The Uzbeks also took Fergana Babur reached the age of 22 in 1504 and established himself in Kabul. An expedition into India turned into conquest. At the battle of Panipat he detroyed the Delhi sultanate and founded the Mughal empire. He never saw Fergana or Samarkand again.

Contemporary events bring us these acnient names like Andijan and we only know them for a few weeks. Fergana was famous for its horses, which were said to sweat blood and be the best in the world. The Chinese traded and conquered along the Silk Road for mounts for their cavalry. Alexander's favourite horse, Boukephalos was tribute from a lord of Fergana and Tang courtiers wrote poems about the golden peaches of Samarkand. Andijan had its own history a long time before the Western media turned their attention there for a week.

The torturers have no clothes

An argument that fails the test of civilised society

The unreliability of torture - and its often quite misleading consequence, with further damage to individual citizens - is a practical condemnation of the practice. That is not the main argument, however.

Respect for other people, respect for rights that unfortunately in today's world are too often abused or set aside, is the hallmark of a decent society. There is a golden rule: 'what you do not wish to be done to yourself, do not do to others'.

The moral argument against torture is overwhelming. The fact that today's bans and prohibitions are too much honoured in the breach is not an argument to legalise any aspect or purpose of torture. It is an argument to apply the ban more fiercely, to let the outrage of ordinary people condemn those that practise it or preach it.

I've tried to stay out of the bloginade on torture, because I thought that others were saying all that I had to say. Then along comes Malcolm Fraser, who was not my favourite prime minister when he was in office, and captures it precisely.

The issue of torture is not complex, intellectual or difficult. Torture is just wrong. Torture has no purpose except as a tactic of impunity to try and terrify the Other into submission. Torture degrades those who execute it and those who command it. Strangely, those who command torture always deny giving the command and that alone is enough to tell us the whole moral quality of torture. Torture is just wrong and we should all say that as often as we have to.