the morrow after today

Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream

The powerful ocean current that bathes Britain and northern Europe in warm waters from the tropics has weakened dramatically in recent years, a consequence of global warming that could trigger more severe winters and cooler summers across the region, scientists warn today.Researchers on a scientific expedition in the Atlantic Ocean measured the strength of the current between Africa and the east coast of America and found that the circulation has slowed by 30% since a previous expedition 12 years ago.

The current, which drives the Gulf Stream, delivers the equivalent of 1m power stations-worth of energy to northern Europe, propping up temperatures by 10C in some regions. The researchers found that the circulation has weakened by 6m tonnes of water a second. Previous expeditions to check the current flow in 1957, 1981 and 1992 found only minor changes in its strength, although a slowing was picked up in a further expedition in 1998. The decline prompted the scientists to set up a 4.8m network of moored instruments in the Atlantic to monitor changes in the current continuously.

Yikes. I'll just have to shut my eyes really tightly, clench my fists and incant: 'Global warming has no economic impact" six times quickly.

somebody tell the Man of Steel and the shadow attorney-general

Constitutional Court of South Africa

The exclusion of same-sex couples from the benefits and responsibilities of marriage was not a small and tangential inconvenience resulting from a few surviving relics of societal prejudice destined to evaporate like the morning dew. It represented a harsh if oblique statement by the law that same-sex couples are outsiders, and that their need for affirmation and protection of their intimate relations as human beings is somehow less than that of heterosexual couples. It signifies that their capacity for love, commitment and accepting responsibility is by definition less worthy of regard than that of heterosexual couples. The intangible damage to same-sex couples is as severe as the material deprivation. They are not entitled to celebrate their commitment to each other in a joyous public event recognised by the law. They are obliged to live in a state of legal blankness in which their unions remain unmarked by the showering of presents and the commemoration of anniversaries so celebrated in our culture.

If heterosexual couples have the option of deciding whether to marry or not, the judgment continued, so should same-sex couples have the choice as to whether to seek to achieve a status and a set of entitlements and responsibilities on a par with those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. By both drawing on and reinforcing discriminatory social practices, the law has failed to secure for same-sex coupes the dignity, status, benefits and responsibilities that it accords to heterosexual couples. Although considerable progress has been made in specific cases through constitutional interpretation and by means of legislative intervention, the default position of gays and lesbians is still one of exclusion and marginalisation.
Sachs J stated that Judges would be placed in an intolerable situation if they were called upon to construe religious texts and take sides on issues which have caused deep schisms within religious bodies. In the open and democratic society contemplated by the Constitution there must be mutually respectful co-existence between the secular and the sacred. The function of the Court is to recognise the sphere which each inhabits, not to force the one into the sphere of the other. The objective of the Constitution is to allow different concepts about the nature of human existence to inhabit the same public realm, and to do so in a manner that is not mutually destructive and that at the same time enables government to function in a way that shows equal concern and respect for all.

Acknowledgement by the state of the right of same-sex couples to enjoy the same status, entitlements and responsibilities as marriage law accords to heterosexual couples, is in no way inconsistent with the rights of religious organisations to continue to refuse to celebrate same-sex marriages. The two sets of interests involved do not collide, they co-exist in a constitutional realm based on accommodation of diversity. Granting access to same-sex couples would in no way attenuate the capacity of heterosexual couples to marry in the form they wished and according to the tenets of their religion.

The silent obliteration of same-sex couples from the reach of the law, together with the utilisation of gender-specific language in the marriage vow, presupposes that only heterosexual couples were contemplated. The common law and section 30(1) of the Marriage Act are accordingly inconsistent with sections 9(1) and 9(3) [equality] and 10 [dignity] of the Constitution to the extent that they make no provision for same-sex couples to enjoy the status, entitlements and responsibilities they accord to heterosexual couples.

The full judgment (large PDF) is available as well. The sections of the South African Bill of Rights the Court speaks about are:

Equality

9. (1) Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.

(2) Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms. To promote the achievement of equality, legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination may be taken.

(3) The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.

(4) No person may unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds in terms of subsection (3). National legislation must be enacted to prevent or prohibit unfair discrimination.

(5) Discrimination on one or more of the grounds listed in subsection (3) is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair.

Human dignity

10. Everyone has inherent dignity and the right to have their dignity respected and protected.

It's obviously a dangerous business, putting equality and dignity into the law.

death in Singapore

Nguyen hanged in Singapore

Masses have been held in cities around the country to mark the execution.

In Melbourne, the bell tolled 25 times at St Ignatius Catholic Church in Richmond - once for each year of Nguyen's life.

Members of Victoria's Criminal Bar Association gathered outside the County Court in Melbourne to observe a minute's silence for Nguyen.

Stephen Shirrefs, the vice-chairman of the association, says they support the fight against the mandatory death penalty.

'We are here to demonstrate our opposition to capital punishment, as a mark of respect to the family of Van Nguyen and as a mark of solidarity for two of our members who in the fine tradition of the Victorian Bar have acted pro bono and for the last three years fought to save the life of Van Nguyen,' he said.

At Martin Place in Sydney, a Vietnamese gong also sounded 25 times.

A crowd gathered and maintained a silent vigil.

Churchgoers in Brisbane have also prayed for Nguyen and expressed hopes the events of today are not taken for granted.

Fr Peter Dillon led the congregation at St Stephen's Cathedral in a prayer calling for an end to executions.

Fr Dillon says he fears today's execution will have little impact on the drug trade.

'I sadly think, unfortunately, and this is the insidiousness of the drug culture, I think it's just another dead body for the drug world. And there's thousands of them everyday, so I don't think they're going to be moved by all this,' he said.

This is desperately sad for the country as well as Van Nguyen's immediate family. That the most Singapore can bring itself to allow is for Nguyen's mother to touch him through a wire grill speaks volumes about the degree of compassion they have exhibited.

Singapore is entitled to its own laws. So is Australia. In future dealing with them, especially on criminal matters, the Australian government should remember that Singapore maintains this repugnant law. Capital punishment is wrong in itself. Capital punishment as a mandatory sentence should shock the conscience of everyone. Singapore has not ratified the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.

ICCPR Article 6

1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court.

3. When deprivation of life constitutes the crime of genocide, it is understood that nothing in this article shall authorize any State Party to the present Covenant to derogate in any way from any obligation assumed under the provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

4. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases.

5. Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.

6. Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant.

The federal parliament should make laws to prohibit police assistance where capital punishment is a possibility or where the other country has not signed and ratified the ICCPR. Article 6 is now the minimum standard in any decent nation. Article 6 should be the only standard on which we will extend criminal assistance to other nations and Section 8 of the Mutual Assistance In Criminal Matters Act 1987 should be amended accordingly. Anyone using Optus or Singapore Airlines should find another company that is not owned by executioners.

12 other Australians face the possibility of execution in Bali, Vietnam and Kuwait.

pass the methane

Scientists cook up cure for cow flatulence

Cows belching and breaking wind cause methane pollution but British scientists say they have developed a diet to make pastures smell like roses, almost.

"In some experiments we get a 70 per cent decrease (in methane emissions), which is quite staggering," biochemist Dr John Wallace told Reuters.

Dr Wallace, the leader of the microbial biochemistry group at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, says the secret to sweeter-smelling cows is a food additive based on fumaric acid, a naturally occurring chemical essential to respiration of animal and vegetable tissues.

A 12-month commercial and scientific evaluation of the additive has just begun, but he says if it proves successful it could be a boon to cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions.

"In total around 14 per cent of global methane comes from the guts of farm animals - it is worth doing something about," he said.

Other big sources of methane are landfills, coalmines, rice paddies and bogs.

Scientists in Australia and New Zealand have also been working to develop similar products amid growing concern about greenhouse gas emissions from cattle and sheep.

In New Zealand the Government in 2003 proposed a flatulence tax, with methane emitted by farm animals responsible for more than half the country's greenhouse gases.

I always wondered how NZ tax inspectors planned to sniff out evasion of that tax.

a taste of paradise for a penny a slice

Passing the pineapple

In his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, John Locke asserts the impossibility of knowing the taste of pineapple before you have actually tasted it. This is not just a throwaway remark; he returns to the point in several drafts and in several places. In 1671, Locke wrote that the man who has never had pineapple, that “delicate” fruit, “in his mouth” cannot have a true or “new” idea of it. He can only have an amalgam of “old” ideas based on the descriptions of travellers. Later, he wrote that “we see nobody gets the relish of a pineapple, till he goes to the Indies, where it is, and tastes it”. To think that you could relish a pineapple without really experiencing it was like imagining you could see colours in the dark. The person who “from his childhood, never tasted an oyster, or a pineapple” does not know the particular taste of these things. And again: “let him try if any words can give him the taste of the Pine-Apple, and make him have the true idea of the Relish of that celebrated delicious Fruit”. For Locke, who had never tasted a pineapple himself, this was impossible. Only first-hand sensory experience could give knowledge of the taste – the quiddity – of pineapple.

Locke’s choice of the pineapple to make his point was not random. In a sense, the structure of his argument would have worked just as well had he chosen apples instead of pineapples. But who in England in the 1670s was not acquainted with the particular “relish” of an apple? The pineapple, by contrast, was the ultimate in inaccessible luxury fruit. Unless you were close to royalty, or a traveller to the West Indies, you were very unlikely to have been anywhere near one. Moreover, those who had tasted its yellow flesh, described it as peculiarly complex and elusive. Richard Ligon, in a history of the Caribbean, claimed that “nothing of rare taste can be thought on that is not there”. Some thought it musky. Others thought it combined all that is “most delicate in the Peach, the Strawberry, the Muscadine Grape and the Pippin”. John Evelyn, the courtier and salad expert, disagreed. When he tasted chunks of pineapple cut up by the King himself in 1668, he felt the flavour fell short of the “ravishing” descriptions he had read, having a “grateful acidity” but tasting more of “the Quince and the Melon” than anything more delicious. This illustrates Locke’s argument. The earliest European tasters of pineapple could only describe it by reference to other fruits. They could not summon up its full flavour either in words, or in the mouths of others.

The taste of pineapple, however, is only a part of its charm, as Fran Beauman’s engaging “biography” of the fruit amply shows (for once, the application of “biography” to an inanimate object seems justified). As soon as they saw it, men were wowed by the pineapple’s looks, its mathematically perfect golden shell and its outrageous green spikes. In 1535 the Spanish writer Oviedo confessed, “I do not suppose there is in the whole world any other [fruit] of so exquisite and lovely appearance”. In 1702, a Portuguese Franciscan compared the skin of the pineapple to a “brocade of pinecones” and the green top to a “royal crown”. The appearance of the pineapple, so bizarre it seemed to many observers as if it was artificial, would in turn inspire human artifice and architecture, notably the wonderfully absurd jutting stone pineapple at Dunmore Park in Stirlingshire, constructed some time after 1761, which this splendidly illustrated book contains a photograph of. From Georgian times onwards, there were pineapple gateposts and pineapple follies; pineapple mirrors and pineapple beds. Wedgwood made pineappleware, cream-coloured earthenware, knobbly like the body of a pineapple and glazed in green and yellow.

After this, I may never threaten anyone with the rough end of the pineapple again.

the Canadian dissensus 1

According to Elections Canada:

The number of electoral districts is based on the formula described in the amended section 51 of the Constitution Act, 1867. This formula assigns seats to provinces in proportion to their population, assuring them the minimum number of electoral districts they had prior to March 6, 1986. In addition, each of the territories is entitled to one electoral district.

The results are:

• Canada 308
  
• Newfoundland and Labrador 7
  
• Prince Edward Island 4,
  
• Nova Scotia 11
  
• New Brunswick 10
  
• Quebec 75
  
• Ontario 106
  
• Manitoba 14
  
• Saskatchewan 14
  
• Alberta 28
  
• British Columbia 36
  
• Yukon 1
  
• Northwest Territories 1
  
• Nunavut 1
  

Eastern and Western Canada divide at the Ontario/Manitoba border. The Northern region comprises Yukon, the Northwest territories and Nunavut. There are also significant differences within Eastern Canada which is usually divided into 3 more regions – Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes/Atlantic Canada. The best way to measure the importance of regions is to look at seats won by the two major parties in Eastern and Western Canada.

• Total 213 Eastern ridings, 92 Western ridings, 3 Northern ridings
  
• Liberal 118 Eastern ridings, 14 Western ridings, 3 Northern ridings
  
• Conservatives 31 Eastern ridings, 68 Western ridings
  

There are 4 parties in parliament:

• Liberal 135 seats, 36.7% popular vote
  
• Conservative 99 seats, 29.6% popular vote
  
• Bloc Québécois 54 seats, 12.4% popular vote
  
• New Democratic Party 19 seats, 15.7% popular vote
  
• Other 1 seat, 1.3% popular vote
  

The voting system is single member plurality. This forces tactical voting and explains why the Bloc can get less votes than the NDP and win more seats. The Bloc only contests seats in Quebec while the NDP is spread across the country. NDP voters have to choose between voting NDP and perhaps allowing the Conservatives into power, or voting Liberal and keeping the Conservatives out.

The Senate (which I describe only out of a deep-seated pedantry) is appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. Senators serve until 75. The composition at least shows how long the Liberals have dominated the federal government. The province of Alberta once held an election for an Albertan senate vacancy but the federal government refused to appoint the elected candidate.

• Liberal 67
  
• Conservative Party 23
  
• Progressive Conservative Party 5
  
• New Democratic Party 1
  
• Independent 5
  
• Vacant 4
  
• Total 105
  

If Paul Keating was ready to call the Australian Senate 'unrepresentative swill' and 'proof of life after death' one shudders to think what he would have said about the Canadian Senate.

Tomorrow I should have a pendulum done and I'll talk about the parties and issues.

Canada to polls

The Canadian Liberal government lost a no confidence vote 171/133 about an hour ago. Outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin told his caucus to get fitted out for snowshoes before launching a fairly blistering (by Canadian standards) attack on the Conservatives and New Democrats.

Election day will be fixed by the governor-general when Martin sees her tomorrow. All 308 ridings (electorates) in the House of Commons are up for grabs. I'll go into a little more detail tomorrow when I've worked my way through the lay of the land when it comes to which seats are at risk. Relatively few ridings are expected to change hands. That would explain why 70% of Canadians believe the most likely outcome is another Liberal minority government.

The last time an Australian government resigned after losing a no confidence vote was 1941. Malcolm Fraser lost a no confidence vote in 1975 but refused to resign. The CBC has a useful backgrounder on How to bring down a government which, given the numbers, would work in Australia.

a cold election in hell

Harper unveils no-confidence motion

The binding motion appeared on the House of Commons order paper on Wednesday.

It's to be tabled Thursday by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

The House of Commons is expected to vote on the motion on Nov. 28. It is expected to pass because it has the support of all opposition parties.

That would mean Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal government would fall, triggering an election call on Nov. 29 and a campaign during the holiday season.

The motion reads: 'The House condemns the government for its arrogance in refusing to compromise with the opposition parties over the timing of the next general election and for its 'culture of entitlement,' corruption, scandal and gross abuse of public funds for political purposes and, consequently, the government no longer has the confidence of the House.' The motion stems from a plan to oust the Liberals that came out of talks between Harper, NDP Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe on Nov. 13.

This one will be interesting. The Canadian Liberals have been in power since 1993. It strikes me that a winter election in Canada will not necessarily make the opposition parties all that popular.

semiglobal warming

News in Science - Global warming models 'biased' - 17/11/2005

What's wrong?
The largest global climate models today, called Earth system simulators (ESS), are so big they can only run on supercomputers.

The first UK-based simulator showed, for example, that as warming of the atmosphere dries the Amazon, vegetation dies off and carbon is released from the trees into the atmosphere.

How will the southern hemisphere cope if ocean currents, shown here, are disrupted? Scientists say we don't have enough good data to tell (Image: NOAA)Love says the Amazon has global effects on climate that are akin to 'getting hit between the eyes with a mallet', which is why climate scientists in the northern hemisphere have included it in their models.

But, he says, the Amazon is the only area in the southern hemisphere that the current models have detailed information on.The impact on climate of vegetation changes in Australia have not been modelled in detail, he says.

'Unless the vegetation change in Australia will change the climate in the UK then they are not interested,' says Love.This means current simulators are of limited use in modelling what happens at a regional level in Australia.

What about warm currents?
The scientists hope their new model will also shed more light on thermohaline circulation, which helps to deliver warm water from the south to parts of the northern hemisphere.

Current models warn that if this system collapses, due to an injection of cold water from the melting Greenland ice sheet, this could plunge places like Western Europe into a mini ice-age, like the one in the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

But, says Love, we don't know what impact such a collapse would have on the Pacific Ocean because current models lack good data on circulation in the Southern Ocean that connects the Pacific and Atlantic.

The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology promise a southern hemisphere model in 2 years time. Maybe by then we will have a government that takes these things seriously.

happy happy! joy joy!

Harriet has another claim to fame

KERRY O'BRIEN: Imagine being born in 1830 and still being around to celebrate your birthday. Next week, the Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast will celebrate the 175th birthday of the world's oldest known living animal, a Galapagos tortoise named Harriet that weighs almost 150 kilograms. But Harriet has an extra claim to fame. According to folklore, Charles Darwin adopted her as a personal pet during the historic voyage of HMS Beagle and studied her while working on his theory of evolution. Peter McCutcheon reports.

ROBIN STEWART, AUTHOR, 'DARWIN'S TORTOISE': She's an amazing creature. You've got to see her to get this incredible sort of presence from her.

PETER McCUTCHEON: This giant Galapagos tortoise known as Harriet, has been on the move for nearly 175 years. But being recognised in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest living animal, isn't Harriet's only claim to fame. Many believe this reptile was once the personal pet of the man who pioneered the theory of evolution.

ROBIN STEWART: I believe that Harriet was Darwin's tortoise and that the story is true.

KELSEY MOSTYN, CURATOR, AUSTRALIA ZOO: She's certainly in the right age bracket to fit the story of meeting Darwin, definitely.

PETER McCUTCHEON: But not everyone is convinced. NOEL HALL, HISTORIAN: Personally, I never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

PETER McCUTCHEON: What is known for sure is that British naturalist Charles Darwin took several young Galapagos tortoises with him back to London in 1835 after his famous voyage on the Beagle. Also on that voyage was a young naval officer, John Clements Wickham, who later took up a post as police magistrate in what is now the city of Brisbane. So the story goes, Darwin gave the tortoises to Wickham.

Before anyone tries to revoke my citizenship for celebrating Harriet's birthday, instead of something else, I actually cried when Aloisi's goal hit the net. And jumped up and down a lot. But then, Harriet was born before there was a World Cup.

things to make your toes curl

Grand Canyon West

The Hualapai Tribe is sharing their private land with visitors from around the world, so guests can join them in experiencing its uniqueness and untouched beauty. As owners and protectors of one million acres of land throughout the Grand Canyon's western rim, the Hualapai's main goal is to keep a balance between form, function and nature, while protecting the tribe's culture and values, which are deeply engraved in the canyon walls.

The Skywalk will be the featured attraction once it opens to the public in January 2006. Visitors will be able to walk around the first-ever cantilever shaped glass bridge that will be suspended more than 4,000 feet above the Colorado River and extend over the edge of the Grand Canyon. Located adjacent to The Skywalk visitor's center at Eagle Point, The Skywalk Café will feature outdoor patio seating on the edge of the canyon. The visitor's center will also offer private indoor meeting facilities.

'The Hualapai Tribe is looking to protect and care for its future generations,' said Sheri Yellowhawk, CEO of Grand Canyon Resort Corp. 'The Skywalk will be an attraction unlike any other in the world, but to get a true experience of the Hualapai legacy, visitors must encounter the entire destination.'

The floor will be glass. No doubt George Bush will want one of his own as soon as possible.

Man of Steel or drama queen?

Sooner or later the government will run out of new ideas for laws against terrorism. The latest will in due course be endorsed by the opposition leader, but only if there's an amendment empowering the shooting on sight of all persons thought to be showing anything other than a small target. At the rate the government is inventing dire threats and direr laws I expect to read about the opposition leader endorsing summary execution for MPs suspended from parliament by about next Thursday. As is customary, the opposition will insist on not seeing the laws before agreeing to pass them. Clearly, these laws have no purpose except testing the opposition's ticker to see if they'll ever actually oppose any restriction of liberty.

I would've thought a Man of Steel would have better things to do than stampede the country into abolishing traditional liberties that have endured for some hundreds of years. Australia faced considerably more serious threats during the Second World War. No-one then proposed the nation would fall unless it passed a Reichstagsbrandverordnung forthwith. It's instructive to recall the text of that decree:

1. Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom (habeas corpus), freedom of opinion, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Fortunately for the significant danger of falling into a Howard=Hitler argument, there is no bll of rights for Howard to suspend. Austraia's case is worse.

As Justice Nicholls writes

In considering this proposed legislation, it is important to remember that in Australia there is no effective human rights framework surrounding the new anti-terrorism legislation. Unlike other western democracies, we have no Bill of Rights and therefore no check upon extreme legislation of this type other than what can be found in the Constitution.

Similarly, unlike European countries including the UK, we are not party to any binding international instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights and its five protocols, which enable European citizens to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights if domestic legislation or law is thought to be in breach of that Convention.

Additionally, the UK has passed human rights legislation of its own as have Canada, in the form of a constitutional Charter and New Zealand. The US has its own 18th century Bill of Rights, which nevertheless continues to provide real protection against governmental excesses.

There are differing models to be found of this type of legislation but the better models enable the court to read down legislation so as to be compatible with human rights requirements, or if this cannot be done, strike down the legislation.

Given a choice between a bill of rights and the sterling defence of Australian freedom by an opposition noted only for simultaneously being strident and supine, I think I'd take a bill of rights any day.

What do bears and Republicans do n the woods?

A breathless New York Times tells us that the White House is testing talking points to smear the special prosecutor if the grand jury indicts Rove and Libby. No doubt the subtle plan is to leak the prosecutor's wife to the media. In other news, the NYT also reports the astounding fact that bears sometimes shit in the woods.

decline and fish of the Roman empire

I'll have the fish, thanks

US restaurant menu prices back 150 years, for instance, chart sometimes inexplicable swings in tastes and prices of seafood including swordfish, lobster, abalone, oysters, halibut, haddock and sole.

'Back in the 1860s no one wanted to eat lobster,' says Professor Glenn Jones, a researcher at Texas A&M University at Galveston, who leads the menu project. Giant lobsters weighing 9 kilograms were common in New England.

Considered a trash food in colonial times, a lobster meal cost about US$5 in the 1880s before surging to about US$25 in the 1920s, roughly matching 2005 levels, after it became a delicacy and stocks suffered.

Food was so scarce for the Pilgrim Fathers in the 1620s that they lamented they sometimes had to feed the spiny crustacean to guests. Servants in colonial times negotiated contracts to limit lobster meals to two a week.

And the size and number of huge vats used by the ancient Romans to make a popular fish soup indicate that they were overfishing many Mediterranean species 2000 years ago, even though human populations were a fraction of 21st century levels.

'The Romans ate fish in vast quantities,' Holm says. 'Overfishing in medieval Europe was a very real problem in the days of William the Conqueror and Leonardo da Vinci.

'The impacts of early fisheries on pristine stocks can be quite severe,' he says.

Concentrations of small fish bones found in some Medieval rubbish dumps by the North Sea indicate that the big fish had already been caught and stocks were suffering.

Is it really rocket science that over-fishing causes depletion?

Catalyst on ID theory

Catalyst did a reasonable job on Intelligent Design last night. I say reasonable because they got caught up in the antiphonal debate theory where you doing good journalism if you let both sides have a say, even if one side is actually badly wrong.

There's a poll crying out for you to go and vote. Brendan Nelson's support for the teaching of ID theory in science classes raises a lot of questions. Why do Australian conservatives pick up the latest silliness from the US right as if it were (ahem) Gospel truth? How does a medical practitioner reconcile his knowledge of life science with endorsing ID theory as scientific? And was the world really designed by an intelligent Flying Spaghetti Monster?

game, set, match

Bush whacked Rove on CIA leak

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.

'He made his displeasure known to Karl,' a presidential counselor told The News. 'He made his life miserable about this.'

Bush has nevertheless remained doggedly loyal to Rove, who friends and even political adversaries acknowledge is the architect of the President's rise from baseball owner to leader of the free world. As special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald nears a decision, perhaps as early as today, on whether to issue indictments in his two-year probe, Bush has already circled the wagons around Rove, whose departure would be a grievous blow to an already shell-shocked White House staff and a President in deep political trouble.

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: 'I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly.'

George W. Bush 30 September 2003

QUESTION: Yesterday we were told that Karl Rove had no role in it. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you talked to Karl and do you have confidence in him . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

It's an extremely good thing that Bush did not have oral sex with Rove at the same time, because of course lying about sex with an aide is an impeachable offence. Fortunately, it appears that Bush only lied about knowing Rove had disclosed the identity of a CIA WMD specialist.

Update
I think updating blog items is evil, but on the other hand, via Steve Gilliard...

Patrick Fitzgerald Bio

Fitzgerald is certainly an interesting investigator for this case. A little background:
The full damage caused by the leak isn't yet knowable (at least without the clearance). But Valerie Wilson's CIA front, Brewster-Jennings, was reportedly tasked with tracking the smuggling of explosive materials in the Middle East, so that crap like the 1993 WTC attack, the embassy bombings in Africa, and 9-11 wouldn't be even worse next time. (That's the operation apparently shit-canned by this White House for their own political gain. So you can see why the CIA lifers pushed the case for criminal investigation, and why people are throwing the word 'treason' around so much.) The 1993 WTC attack was prosecuted by... Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald was then assigned to prosecute, yes, the Al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Fitzgerald was building a case against Osama Bin Laden five years before 9-11.

This job, one concludes, involved a certain appreciation for intelligence people studying the illicit movement of explosives by terrorists.

If there's a single prosecutor in America who fully understands what the Plame case is about -- a reckless compromise of national security for political interest -- it's this guy. If there's a prosecutor in this country who groks the background and context of the specific operations destroyed by this crime, it's this guy. And if there's a single prosecutor capable of pursuing a conspiracy case no matter where it reaches, it sure seems like it's this guy.

Given a choice between being chased by Patrick Fitzgerald and a pack of hungry zombies... I'm guessing the zombies would look pretty good right about now.

Then read The Blog | James Moore: The Most Important Criminal Case in American History

Patrick Fitzgerald has before him the most important criminal case in American history. Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence. The investigator's prosecutorial authority in this present case is not constrained by any regulation. If he finds a thread connecting the leak to something greater, Fitzgerald has the legal power to follow it to the web in search of the spider. It seems unlikely, then, that he would simply go after the leakers and the people who sought to cover up the leak when it was merely a secondary consequence of the much greater crime of forging evidence to foment war. Fitzgerald did not earn his reputation as an Irish alligator by going after the little guy. Presumably, he is trying to find evidence that Karl Rove launched a covert operation to create the forged documents and then conspired to out Valerie Plame when he learned the fraud was being uncovered by Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As much as this sounds like the plot of a John le Carre novel, it also comports with the profile of the Karl Rove I have known, watched, traveled with and written about for the past 25 years.

The ball's in play. I doubt this one is going back over the net.

rigging the vote I

Georgia's Voter Identification Law Barred

A federal judge Tuesday blocked Georgia from enforcing a new state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls.

In issuing the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy said the law amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax because the state is not doing enough to make ID cards available to those who cannot afford them.

The requirement "is most likely to prevent Georgia's elderly, poor and African-American voters from voting," Murphy wrote. "For those citizens, the character and magnitude of their injury - the loss of their right to vote - is undeniably demoralizing and extreme."

So far, the law has been used only for local elections. The injunction could prevent its use during municipal elections Nov. 8.

Voter and civil rights groups sued over the new law, which eliminates the use of other forms of voter identification, such as Social Security cards, birth certificates or utility bills. Supporters, including Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue, argued that the measure would help prevent fraud.

Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2004 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto

Recommendation 25
The Committee recommends that, at the next Federal Election, those wishing to cast a provisional vote should produce photographic identification.

Voters unable to do so at the polling booth on election day would be permitted to vote, but their ballots would not be included in the count unless they provide the necessary documentation to the DRO by close of business on the Friday following election day. Where it was impracticable for an elector to attend a DRO’s office, a photocopy of the identification, either faxed or mailed to the DRO, would be acceptable. Those who do not possess photographic identification should present one of the other forms of identification acceptable to the AEC for enrolment.

Recommendation 29
The Committee does not support the introduction of proof of identity requirements for general voters on polling day at the next election.

Instead, the Committee recommends that the AEC report to the JSCEM on the operation of proof of identity arrangements internationally, and on how such systems might operate on polling day in Australia.

Recommendation 30
The Committee recommends that, at the next Federal Election, the AEC encourage voters to voluntarily present photographic identification in the form of a driver’s licence to assist in marking off the electoral roll.

This is just an extra obstacle that will fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, and the marginalised - people unlikely to vote for the Coalition. The committee produces no evidence to show that fraud has effected voting.

The sad truth is that the JSCEM report is really not much more than a Coalition attempt to introduce US Republican party techniques for suppressing the vote. Australia has the fairest enrolment and voting system in the world. It follows, as simple logic, that the Coalition now wants to import the worst features of the US electoral system, features that, without exception, favour the Coalition.

The report contains a number of other recommendations that attack the right to vote. I'll deal with them over the next few days.

Australia is the only remaining democracy without a bill of rights. The right to vote is entirely in the gift of the federal parliament. There is no way for an Australian court to protect the people in the way the US court has done.

depressive economics

Future failings

This finding was recently replicated, in some respects, suggesting there is something to it. However, there remains a major reason for scepticism. If genes are so important when combined with adverse environments, why are there huge fluctuations in the prevalence of most emotional problems, like depression and violence? Since it takes millennia for genetic change to occur in a population, genes could not be the cause of these variations. In Britain, violence against the person has increased 45-fold since 1950. Equally, there can be dramatic drops in the amount of violence that can have nothing to do with genes: rates of homicide in America have almost halved since 1993.

'Bit of both', nature-nurture exponents would argue that it just goes to show that dodgy genes only get expressed if environments activate them. But that could not explain such huge changes. Far more probable is that genetic vulnerability explains none of a 45-fold change in such a short period - that an awful lot of people with no genetic susceptibility are made, rather than born, violent or non-violent, depending on their society.

Even if it emerges that genes are always involved to some degree, one of the most striking implications of such studies is that emotionally benign environments are crucial: if you want the minimum of depression or violence, they make an overwhelming case for having a minimum of poor people and abusive parents, rather than societies making tiny minorities super-rich.

One wonders how socially benign Australia is these days between the mountain of personal debt and the impending industrial law changes. One also wonders how the Bush administration train wreck is going to rebound on the Man of Steel's drive to make us all feel relaxed and comfortable.

tear gassing Rove

Protest at Rove Prison ends with tear gas Somehow I misread this as a story about US politics...

Neolithic noodles

Slurping first: China invented noodles

A decades-long wrangle as to which culture gave birth to the noodle has finally been settled - the winner is China.

Italians, through the explorer Marco Polo, and Arabs had been the other claimants to a culinary staple that has been around for at least 2,000 years.

But a team of archaeologists, reporting in the British journal Nature, say there is now incontrovertible proof that China was faster to the pasta.

They discovered 4,000-year-old long, boiled strands of noodles protected by an upside-down bowl, embedded in a fine, brownish-yellow clay on a terrace of the Yellow River at Lajia, north-western China.

The site, on a flood plain whose sediments are three metres thick, has been under careful excavation since 1999.

The age of the find comes from carbon dating of the sediments in its lay.

The Neolithic noodles show no trace of the durum wheat, bread wheat or barley that usually make up today's pasta.

Instead, they are made from millet, one of the first grass plants to be farmed in the semi-arid plateau of north-western China.

I don't actually think this is incontrovertible proof at all. Noodles do not have to get invented only once and all this proves is the antiquity of noodles in East Asia. It tells us nothing about the great question of whther noodles were diffused or infused in other regions.