Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

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Fate? destiny? Drunken snowplow driver causes death of Total CEO

October 21, 2014

Following on from my previous post about the season of birth having some effect on temperament, this news item got me to wonder about how much of our lives is – or can be – “fixed” by our genes, our place of birth or our time of birth. How much “free will” and freedom of behaviour and freedom of action do we actually have?

Vnukovo plane crash: Snowplow driver drunk in collision with Total CEO’s aircraft

It was determined in the course of the investigation into the Moscow plane crash that killed the CEO of French oil giant Total that the driver of the snowplow which likely caused the crash was drunk.

“It has been determined that the driver of the snowplow was under the influence of alcohol,” head of Russia’s Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin told the reporters on Tuesday.

Markin added that “there is a possibility that a number of airport staff will be suspended from carrying out their duties pending criminal investigation.”

During the taxiing before take-off, at around 0:10 am Moscow time on Tuesday, the Falcon 50 business jet hit a snow-clearing machine. Although previous reports indicated otherwise, the plane did not leave ground following the collision. The CEO of France’s oil and gas giant Total, Christophe de Margerie, was the only passenger in the jet, while three crew members who were also French citizens perished as well.

Psychologists seem to find that more and more of our behaviour is due to our genes. This seems to be used increasingly often as a mitigating factor – if not as an excuse – in court cases where socially unacceptable behaviour and actions are judged. Our sexual preferences and our positions on the bi-modal gender scale are also increasingly put down to genes rather than upbringing – nature rather than nurture. Intelligence is thought to be at least 50% due to genetic factors. Our adult heights are said to be 80% genetic and 20% due to nurture. Mental and physical abilities and disabilities are increasingly said to be due to our genes. Our moods and our temperaments are said to affected by when we were born.

I have little doubt that – at some macro level – it is our genes that define the envelope of our possible behaviours. It is clearly predetermined by our genes that we cannot – however much we wanted to – behave like a whale or a bird. Our genes constrain us to behave within the narrow envelope of behaviour open to humans. To that extent we are surely “fated” or “destined” to behave within the envelope of possibilities open to us as determined by our individual genetic make-up at birth as humans. Even aspects of nurture can said to be pre-determined. The parents we are born to – pre-determined – in turn determine the education we get, our nutrition and the religions we follow. To that extent our decisions through life which we believe are a consequence of our individual characteristics and who we are and our exercise of our “free will” are already constrained and channeled by parameters fixed at birth.

If two individuals having predetermined behaviour interact, then the envelope of possible results of that interaction are also “fated” or “destined”. It may be an intractable problem with our current state of knowledge to predict the results of such interactions, but that does not mean that the “result” is any less pre-determined. The butterfly problem is also intractable but that does not mean that it may not exist. Extending that thought leads to the conclusion that all the possible results of all our interactions – between humans and with other species and with our surrounding environment – are already largely constrained and predetermined.

I would like to think I have free will and everything is not determined in advance — but it also seems self-evident that everything that happens is caused by what happened immediately before. If not we would have to be able to explain how some event does not have to be dependent upon the preceding events. And that would require that we redefine the nature of time. What comes afterwards cannot escape what came before.

So was the death of Christophe de Margerie a random, unfortunate and “unlucky” accident, or was it fate? A “fate” already determined with his birth and the birth of the drunken snowplow driver?

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Study shows that season of birth affects personality – sounds like astrology

October 20, 2014

A new study to be presented at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) suggests that there may be something in astrology after all. The study is being presented at the ECNP Congress in Berlin. The researchers from Hungary find statistically significant links between season of birth and mood disorders.

astrology

I have always thought of astrology being ridiculously fanciful and horoscopes just so much hokum. But a tiny little part of my brain is always a touch uncertain. Clearly the seasons are controlled by the Earth’s relative position and its motion around the Sun. If the season of birth can affect personality then the effects of the Sun and other celestial bodies become real. That the moon may have effects on the results of cardiac surgery is apparently not just rubbish. The lunar nodal cycle does seem to correlate with happenings on Earth. The mechanisms leading to most lunar effects on tides and sedimentation and geologic accumulations and tidal flows and sea surface temperatures and climate can be put down to some interplay of gravitational forces. It is not such a long stretch to think that the gravitational effects of the larger planets may have some quite unlooked for effects on life on Earth.

Back in the days of psychedelia and Hair, we used to think that strange things would take place as the age of Aquarius dawned,  “When the moon is in the seventh house, And Jupiter aligns with Mars”.

Neuropsychopharmacology however is something quite new for me and sounds almost as arcane as astrology.

 Neuropsychopharmacology, is an interdisciplinary science related to psychopharmacology (how drugs affect the mind) and fundamental neuroscience, and is the study of the neural mechanisms that drugs act upon to influence behavior.

Professor Xenia Gonda is a clinical psychologist and pharmacist currently working as assistant professor at the Department of Clinical and Theoretical Mental Health at Semmelweis University, Budapest.

AlphaGalileo: According to lead researcher, Assistant Professor Xenia Gonda 

“Biochemical studies have shown that the season in which you are born has an influence on certain monoamine neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, which is detectable even in adult life. This led us to believe that birth season may have a longer-lasting effect. Our work looked at over 400 subjects and matched their birth season to personality types in later life. Basically, it seems that when you are born may increase or decrease your chance of developing certain mood disorders”.

“We can’t yet say anything about the mechanisms involved. What we are now looking at is to see if there are genetic markers which are related to season of birth and mood disorder”.

The group found the following statistically significant trends:

  • cyclothymic temperament (characterized by rapid, frequent swings between sad and cheerful moods), is significantly higher in those born in the summer, in comparison with those born in the winter.
  • Hyperthymic temperament – a tendency to be excessively positive –  were significantly higher in those born in spring and summer
  • Those born in the winter were significantly less prone to irritable temperament than those born at other times of the year.
  • Those born in autumn show a significantly lower tendency to depressive temperament than those born in winter.

 Commenting for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Professor Eduard Vieta (Barcelona) XY said:

“Seasons affect our mood and behavior. Even the season at our birth may influence our subsequent risk for developing certain medical conditions, including some mental disorders. What’s new from this group of researchers is the influence of season at birth and temperament. Temperaments are not disorders but biologically-driven behavioral and emotional trends. Although both genetic and environmental factors are involved in one’s temperament, now we know that the season at birth plays a role too. And the finding of “high mood” tendency (hyperthymic temperament) for those born in summer is quite intriguing.”

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Posted in Behaviour, Medicine, Science | 2 Comments »

Turkey is “against” Kurdish separatism much more than it is “against” ISIS

October 14, 2014

I remain of the opinion that Turkish government policy is dominated by being against any Kurdish unity or separatism even if it means that their actions may assist ISIS. A Greater Kurdistan with access to oil wealth is a much greater fear than any new Caliphate. Two reports today only serve to strengthen my perception of Turkey walking the tightrope between NATO membership and an application to join the EU on the one hand, and their reluctance to intervene against ISIS if it helps the Kurds to consolidate their territory and attacks on PKK on Turkish territory on the other.

BBC: Turkish jets bomb Kurdish PKK rebels near Iraq

Turkish F-16 and F-4 warplanes have bombed Kurdish PKK rebel targets near the Iraqi border, as their ceasefire comes under increasing strain. The air strikes on Daglica were in response to PKK shelling of a military outpost, the armed forces said.

Both sides have been observing a truce and it is the first major air raid on the PKK since March 2013.

Kurds are furious at Turkey’s inaction as Islamic State (IS) militants attack the Syrian border town of Kobane. Fighters from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) have been aiding Kurdish YPG militia in Kobane and Turkey has refused to help supply its long-standing enemy with weapons or allow Kurdish fighters to enter Syria.

NYT: Turkey Denies Reports of Deal for Use of Its Bases in Fight Against Islamic State

A day after American officials said Turkey had agreed to allow its air bases to be used for operations against the Islamic State, which they described as a deal that represented a breakthrough in tense negotiations, Turkish officials said on Monday that there was no deal yet, and that talks were still underway.

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Juxtaposition: Call for health care strikes in Liberia and in the UK

October 13, 2014

There was a time when societies accepted that certain professions and essential activities and vocations were considered to transcend the right to strike. But even today there are strikes and there are strikes.

There are many heroes in West Africa who in spite of low pay, delayed salaries and a shortage of protective equipment continue to treat the many Ebola patients around them. Ninety-five health workers have so far died from the virus in Liberia.

I am sure that the calls to strike in both Liberia and the UK have their own justifications. It is just that they both come today and it is the juxtaposition of the two strike calls which I find interesting.

Liberia

BBC: Nurses and medical assistants fighting the Ebola outbreak in Liberia have largely ignored a call to strike over danger money and conditions. Most health workers were working as normal on Monday, the BBC’s Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia said. A union official said the government had coerced workers to ignore the strike – but the government said it had simply asked them to be reasonable.

Liberia is the country hit hardest by the deadliest ever Ebola outbreak. Health workers are among those most at risk of catching the disease. Ninety-five have died from the virus in Liberia.

The latest outbreak has killed more than 4,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria since it was identified in March. …….. Liberia’s National Health Workers Association, a union, had called the strike to demand an increase in the monthly risk fee paid to those treating Ebola cases.

It wants workers to be paid a risk fee of $700 (£434) a month. The fee is currently less than $500 a month, on top of basic salaries of between $200 and $300. The association also wants more protective equipment and insurance for workers, and has accused the government of not providing enough protection from the virus.

UK

The Guardian: NHS staff are to take further industrial action next month unless ministers agree to give them a 1% pay rise.

Unions whose members are taking part in the first walkout by NHS staff over pay since 1982 will undertake further action in November if the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, does not meet them for talks and offer more money.

“We are already planning, and will definitely be taking, further industrial action if the government doesn’t put more money on the table and doesn’t talk to us,” said Rachael Maskell, head of health at the Unite union. “There will definitely be more industrial action by NHS staff if Jeremy Hunt doesn’t sit down and talk and make more money available. It’s clear that the government are going to have to find money [to settle] this [dispute].”

The seven unions taking part in Monday’s action were discussing three options for the next stage of their attempts to force the coalition to pay all NHS staff the 1% rise recommended last year by the NHS Pay Review Body but rejected by Hunt.

Union sources said one option could be a repeat of the four-hour walkout by midwives, paramedics, porters and other non-medical staff. Another option would be to escalate that into a full-day stoppage. Or they may opt for different groups of workers taking action at different times over the course of a day.

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Diederik Stapel markets himself (anonymously) on Retraction Watch

October 13, 2014

Diedrick Stapel

In June last year it disturbed me that the New York Times was complicit in helping Diedrik Stapel market his “diary” about his transgressions. There is something very unsatisfactory and distasteful when we allow wrong-doers to cash in on their wrong-doing or their notoriety. I had a similar sense of distaste when I read that the Fontys Academy for Creative Industries offered him a job to teach social psychology – almost as a reward for being a failed, but notorius, social psychologist.

Retraction Watch carried a post about the new job. And Diedrik Stapel was shameless enough to show up in the comments (first anonymously) but finally under his own name when he was exposed by Retraction Watch. The comments were all gratuitously self-serving. Perhaps he was carrying out a social experiment?

But this was noticed also by Professor Janet Stemwedel writing in the Scientific American:

You’re not rehabilitated if you keep deceiving

…… But I think a non-negotiable prerequisite for rehabilitation is demonstrating that you really understand how what you did was wrong. This understanding needs to be more than simply recognizing that what you did was technically against the rules. Rather, you need to grasp the harms that your actions did, the harms that may continue as a result of those actions, the harms that may not be quickly or easily repaired. You need to acknowledge those harms, not minimize them or make excuses for your actions that caused the harms. ….

….. Now, there’s no prima facie reason Diederik Stapel might not be able to make a productive contribution to a discussion about Diederik Stapel. However, Diederik Stapel was posting his comments not as Diederik Stapel but as “Paul”.

I hope it is obvious why posting comments that are supportive of yourself while making it appear that this support is coming from someone else is deceptive. Moreover, the comments seem to suggest that Stapel is not really fully responsible for the frauds he committed.

“Paul” writes:

Help! Let’s not change anything. Science is a flawless institution. Yes. And only the past two days I read about medical scientists who tampered with data to please the firm that sponsored their work and about the start of a new investigation into the work of a psychologist who produced data “too good to be true.” Mistakes abound. On a daily basis. Sure, there is nothing to reform here. Science works just fine. I think it is time for the “Men in Black” to move in to start an outside-invesigation of science and academia. The Stapel case and other, similar cases teach us that scientists themselves are able to clean-up their act.

Later, he writes (sic throughout):

Stapel was punished, he did his community service (as he writes in his latest book), he is not on welfare, he is trying to make money with being a writer, a cab driver, a motivational speaker, but not very successfully, and .. it is totally unclear whether he gets paid for his teaching (no research) an extra-curricular hobby course (2 hours a week, not more, not less) and if he gets paid, how much.

Moreover and more importantly, we do not know WHAT he teaches exactly, we have not seen his syllabus. How can people write things like “this will only inspire kids to not get caught”, without knowing what the guy is teaching his students? Will he reach his students how to become fraudsters? Really? When you have read the two books he wrote after his demise, you cannot be conclude that this is very unlikely? Will he teach his students about all the other fakes and frauds and terrible things that happen in science? Perhaps. Is that bad? Perhaps. I think it is better to postpone our judgment about the CONTENT of all this as long as we do not know WHAT he is actually teaching. That would be a Popper-like, open-minded, rationalistic, democratic, scientific attitude. Suppose a terrible criminal comes up with a great insight, an interesting analysis, a new perspective, an amazing discovery, suppose (think Genet, think Gramsci, think Feyerabend).

Is it smart to look away from potentially interesting information, because the messenger of that information stinks?

Perhaps, God forbid, Stapel is able to teach his students valuable lessons and insights no one else is willing to teach them for a 2-hour-a-week temporary, adjunct position that probably doesn’t pay much and perhaps doesn’t pay at all. The man is a failure, yes, but he is one of the few people out there who admitted to his fraud, who helped the investigation into his fraud (no computer crashes…., no questionnaires that suddenly disappeared, no data files that were “lost while moving office”, see Sanna, Smeesters, and …. Foerster). Nowhere it is written that failures cannot be great teachers. Perhaps he points his students to other frauds, failures, and ridiculous mistakes in psychological science we do not know of yet. That would be cool (and not unlikely).

Is it possible? Is it possible that Stapel has something interesting to say, to teach, to comment on?

To my eye, these comments read as saying that Stapel has paid his debt to society and thus ought not to be subject to heightened scrutiny. They seem to assert that Stapel is reformable. …. …… behind the scenes, the Retraction Watch editors accumulated clues that “Paul” was not an uninvolved party but rather Diederik Stapel portraying himself as an uninvolved party. After they contacted him to let him know that such behavior did not comport with their comment policy, Diederik Stapel posted under his real name:

Hello, my name is Diederik Stapel. I thought that in an internet environment where many people are writing about me (a real person) using nicknames it is okay to also write about me (a real person) using a nickname. ! have learned that apparently that was —in this particular case— a misjudgment. I think did not dare to use my real name (and I still wonder why). I feel that when it concerns person-to-person communication, the “in vivo” format is to be preferred over and above a blog where some people use their real name and some do not. In the future, I will use my real name. I have learned that and I understand that I –for one– am not somebody who can use a nickname where others can. Sincerely, Diederik Stapel.

He portrays this as a misunderstanding about how online communication works — other people are posting without using their real names, so I thought it was OK for me to do the same. However, to my eye it conveys that he also misunderstands how rebuilding trust works. Posting to support the person at the center of the discussion without first acknowledging that you are that person is deceptive. Arguing that that person ought to be granted more trust while dishonestly portraying yourself as someone other than that person is a really bad strategy. When you’re caught doing it, those arguments for more trust are undermined by the fact that they are themselves further instances of the deceptive behavior that broke trust in the first place.

Stapel will surely become a case study for future social psychologists. If he truly wishes rehabilitation he needs to move into a different field. Self-serving, anonymous comments in his own favour will not provide the new trust with his peers and his surroundings that he needs to build up. Just as his diary is “tainted goods”, anything he now does in the field of social psychology starts by being tainted with the onus of proof on him to show that it is not.

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Safety protocols for Ebola treatment are not fool-proof

October 12, 2014

A hospital worker in Texas who helped treat Thomas Duncan, the Liberian Ebola patient who died last Wednesday, has now tested positive (to be confirmed) for the disease. He had used a full protective suit and all the safety protocols of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were apparently followed. If confirmed, it would be the first known case of the disease being contracted or transmitted in the U.S. The infected health worker apparently has a pet which is now being tested. A Spanish nurse in Madrid who treated a priest who had contracted Ebola was the first person infected outside West Africa. Her dog Excalibur was put down as a precaution.

One other person is in isolation at the hospital,  the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, which is no longer accepting emergency patients.

There is some serious speculation that the Ebola virus could become air-borne and the disease would not only be subject to transmission by contact with body fluids. Even if the case in Texas was due to some breach of safety protocols, these procedures are clearly not fool-proof. And they would be obsolete and quite ineffective if the virus is already mutating on its way to going air-borne.

It also brings into sharp focus the risks being run by health workers treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

Washington Post:

…. The worker is in isolation and in stable condition, the hospital system said.

Daniel Varga, chief clinical officer for Texas Health Resources, which operates Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, said the worker had been under self-monitoring in recent days, which includes taking a temperature twice daily. When the health worker showed signs of a fever, the person notified the hospital, went directly there and immediately was admitted to an isolation room. Varga said the entire sequence of events took less than 90 minutes. 

The CDC did not consider person to be “high risk,” Varga said. The person treated Duncan, the Ebola patient, after his second visit to the ER, on Sept. 28. The health worker was “following full CDC precautions,” including wearing a gown, gloves, a mask and a protective face shield.

“We’re very concerned,” Varga said, though he added that the hospital is “confident that the precautions that we have in place are protecting our health-care workers.”

The hospital has put its emergency room on “diversion,” which means that ambulances are not currently bringing patients to the ER, though patients already in the hospital are still being cared for.

“The system of monitoring, quarantine and isolation was established to protect those who cared for Mr. Duncan as well as the community at large by identifying any potential Ebola cases as early as possible and getting those individuals into treatment immediately,” Varga said.

Dallas officials deployed hazmat teams to decontaminate the entrance and common areas of an apartment complex in the 3700 block of Marquita Avenue where the health worker presumptively lives and the vehicle that the person used to travel to the hospital.

This Ebola epidemic has now claimed over 4,000 lives in West Africa predominantly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. If the disease does become air-borne it would probably happen first where the virus is present in abundance and that would probably be in West Africa.

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New red/green Swedish government attacks the elderly who would dare to work

October 12, 2014

Traditional socialists it seems would prefer that the elderly not work for longer. They should should leave the work-place, sit-out their days in an old-age home and die out quietly without making too much fuss. “Self-employed” has always been a dirty word in the socialist lexicon and the new Swedish government is training its sights especially on the elderly self-employed.

As it is, the age discrimination that is endemic in Sweden makes it virtually impossible for the elderly (>65 years old) to get employment. About the only real possibility for the elderly to work is to employ themselves and to be self-employed. The new government in Sweden wants to make it even harder for the elderly to be employed (by others) and to milk them for extra taxes when they do. The special payroll tax is to be increased by 8.5%. Employers must pay the extra and if the elderly are self-employed then they will have to pay the extra themselves. When the discrimination is built into the tax code then it must count as institutionalised age-discrimination.

It seems such a waste of experience and knowledge. The evidence shows, and common sense says, that it is not the elderly who take jobs away from the young. The elderly – when they are employed – are usually employed for the depth of their experience which is not an area of competition with the young. The previous government had managed to increase the employment of the over-65s by 1.5 percentage points. But the new government clearly wants to change that.

Of course the key point is that when over-65s lose their jobs, they do not – statistically – swell the ranks of the unemployed. And the new socialist government wants to milk whatever taxes it can from the elderly – especially if they are self-employed.

But in the long term the demographics dictate that with increasing longevity, society will have to encourage that people remain gainfully employed – on average – much beyond the age of 65. By 2050, this will need to be at least 70 years. The left will have to lose their antipathy for the elderly.

From Swedish Radio:

The red-green government is making it more expensive to hire seniors. From next year, the fee paid by employers for workers over 65 will be raised. Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson says that the government needs the money.

The government wants to increase national revenues by 18 billion kronor next year. More than two billion will come from the increase in the fee paid by the employer to employ people over 65 years, the so-called special payroll tax. 

It thus becomes more expensive for firms to hire the over-65s from 1st January 2015.

The previous Alliance government had lowered the special payroll tax in 2007, and given the over-65s higher earned income tax credit. This resulted in more over-65s working according to a study by the Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation, IFAU.

“These reforms led to an increase in employment by 1.5 percentage points”. says researcher Lisa Laun at IFAU. The study could not determine what impacedt employment most; the lower payroll tax or the higher tax credit. But both reforms together gave more jobs for the over-65s.

Lars Calmfors is a Swedish economist and Professor of international economics at the Institute for International Economic Studies at Stockholm University. He spoke to Swedish TV:

“It does not seem wise, if one wants to get older people to stay and work. We know that we have large departures in many professions, not least in health care and the teaching profession. One is keen to keep people at work here so the measure is probably ill advised”.  So said Professor Lars Calmfors  after the government proposed that the payroll tax for the elderly over 65 years will increase by 8.5 percent from the year-end. It is a tax paid by the employer for each employee. The self-employed must pay the tax themselves. 

Lars Calmfors sees two reasons why the payroll tax is now being raised for the elderly; first that the government needs more tax revenue, and second, that the government might think that fewer older people will take away jobs from the young – something that is not at all supported by research. 

“There’s very little support for the theory that higher employment of the elderly leads to lower employment among young people. Most indications are that in countries that have high levels of employment for the elderly there are also high levels of employment for young people. They don’t seem to compete against each other” said Lars Calmfors to SVT.

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Another Australian couple abandon an unwanted surrogate twin behind

October 10, 2014

Barbarism takes many forms and it is not only the beheading of innocent victims. It is also an Australian couple who had commissioned a surrogate birth in India, which resulted in twins, and who then abandoned one because it was the wrong gender. It was not so long ago that we learned of the Australian couple (where the father was a convicted sex-offender) who abandoned a surrogate twin in Thailand because it had Down’s syndrome.

Having an abortion because of the coming child’s gender is not unknown in India but it is illegal and there are efforts underway to try and curb the practice. Abandoning girl children is also not unknown in many parts of the world. But commissioning a birth and then abandoning an unwanted twin  of the wrong “gender” sinks to the level of barbarism. It makes it no better that the Australian High Commission permitted the parents to apply for citizenship of only one of the twins – knowing full well that the other twin existed.

Both surrogacy and abortion prioritise the desires of the would-be or would-not-be parents and any thoughts about what is best for the child are entirely subordinated to the convenience of the parents.

Given a choice I wonder if the child /foetus to be aborted or to be “acquired” or abandoned would have chosen to be born – or not? Would any surrogate child choose to have that particular commissioning couple as parents? Or would any surrogate child choose to have two mothers or two fathers? But no child – after all – has any choice in its parents

The Hindu:

An Australian couple, who had biological twins from an Indian surrogate mother two years ago, abandoned one of the children and returned home with the other. The case came to light on Wednesday after the Australian family court chief Justice Diana Bryant announced that she was informed by an Australian High Commission official in New Delhi that the couple had left one child behind.

Justice Bryant has reported that the High Commission in New Delhi had delayed giving the parents a visa and tried to convince them to take both children home, but the parents did not relent. The couple’s decision to leave the child behind was based on their preference for a specific gender.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on behalf of Australian government on Thursday admitted that the couple had left the baby behind and since this case; the Indian government has tightened controls on commercial surrogacy arrangements in India.

When asked whether the High Commission could have prevented the parents from leaving the child behind, the spokesperson told The Hindu: “The parents in this case decided to apply for citizenship for only one of the twins. The involvement of the Australian High Commission in New Delhi was limited to assessing the application by the Australian couple for citizenship, and subsequently a passport, for the one child. The High Commission had no grounds to refuse the citizenship application and a passport for the one twin for whom application was made — the child met the criteria for citizenship and an Australian passport”.

It was pointed out that India became responsible for the welfare of the other child and adoption arrangements became a matter for its legal system. “The Australian government does not regulate overseas surrogacy arrangements; this is a matter for the countries in which these arrangements are made. Within Australia, the regulation of surrogacy is a matter for states and territories,” the spokesperson added.

It seems some political /financial pressure was brought to bear on the Australian High Commission to accept the abandonment of one twin. There are reports that the boy-twin was abandoned.

SMH:

Chief Justice Bryant said the Australian High Commission in New Delhi delayed giving the Australian parents a visa to try and convince them to take both children home. 

The ABC investigation suggested that pressure had been applied to the High Commission to grant the visas by a senior political figure. 

“Yes, there definitely was some pressure being placed to expedite the process to ensure they could return to Australia,” said Chief Justice Bryant.

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US, UK and Turkey give up on Kobani

October 9, 2014

Neither the US or the UK see Kobani or its Kurds as having strategic importance. The US admits that air strikes alone cannot save Kobani. Turkey sees greater strategic value in not supporting the Kurds than in confronting ISIS.

As I thought, Turkey sees ISIS and their vision of a Caliphate as being a lesser evil than any future Kurdistan. Their reluctance to assist with ground troops to confront ISIS in Kobani has probably helped the US to stay out as well. John Kerry has confirmed what I suspected that helping the Kurds in Kobani is not a strategic objective (though one does wonder whether Obama and Kerry have any strategic objectives at all beyond public relations) for the US. The UK is content to follow where the US leads (or stays still).

ISIS must be quite encouraged by the US / UK idea of “a buffer zone for the influx of refugees crossing the border from Syria”. It suggests that the US and the UK have already given up on Kobani. They will effectively write off Kobani and put all the refugees into a miserable limbo. But it will help their ally Turkey from being invaded by more Kurds and in general a weakening Kurdish position. But they have no intention of protecting any such “buffer zone” from a rampaging ISIS. It will be nothing but a refugee camp with no exits.

Meanwhile the US-led air attacks against ISIS is giving Assad more room to attack his other opponents in Syria.

Deutsche Welle:

At a press conference on Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that saving the besieged Syrian town of Kobani from the terror of the “Islamic State” (IS) was not a strategic military objective for the United States.

Joined by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond to address the press, Kerry also said the idea of a buffer zone proposed by Turkey should be thoroughly studied.

“As horrific as it is to watch in real time what is happening in Kobani … you have to step back and understand the strategic objective,” Kerry said.

“Notwithstanding the crisis in Kobani, the original targets of our efforts have been the command and control centers, the infrastructure,” he said. “We are trying to deprive the (Islamic State) of the overall ability to wage this, not just in Kobani but throughout Syria and into Iraq.”

He said the US and the UK were considering a buffer zone for the influx of refugees crossing the border from Syria – an issue Turkey should not have to deal with alone.

The advance of IS into the Kurdish town of Kobani, which can be seen from the Turkish border, has prompted 180,000 residents to flee to Turkey.

Turkey continues to watch.

BBC:

Turkey’s foreign minister says it cannot be expected to lead a ground operation against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria on its own.

Mevlut Cavusoglu also called for the creation of a no-fly zone over its border with Syria after talks in Ankara with new Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg. …… Activists say IS now controls about a third of Kobane after fierce fighting. Monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting “reliable sources”, said IS was advancing towards the centre of the town from eastern districts. Earlier, a Kurdish leader in Kobane said IS had entered two more districts overnight, bringing in heavy weapons.

Mr Cavusoglu was holding talks with Mr Stoltenberg and US envoys on possible Turkish action against IS. “It is not realistic to expect Turkey to conduct a ground operation on its own,” he told a news conference. “We are holding talks. Once there is a common decision, Turkey will not hold back from playing its part.”

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Posted in Behaviour, Politics, Turkey, UK, US | 1 Comment »

Jennifer Lawrence, nude selfies and glass houses

October 9, 2014

I have been amazed at the media coverage and clamour around the stealing and dissemination of nude selfies of celebrities. A boon for their publicists tasked with keeping them in the public eye. But, I find Jennifer Lawrences’s indignation and outrage quite unconvincing. She believes that those who look at her naked pictures are committing a “sex-crime”. She claims that she uploaded nude pictures of herself to the internet for private viewing by her boyfriend as an alternative to the pornography that he might otherwise have resorted to. But whether or not her selfies were in themselves some type of pornography (albeit for private viewing) does not really interest me.

The point is that she – and all the other celebrities – now displaying righteous indignation, chose the material to be stored and chose the medium of storage themselves.

Anybody who believes that the internet and especially the cloud is some secure, opaque, impregnable storage container is just plain stupid.

Hacking or leaking or stealing of nude pictures is just as – but not more or less – reprehensible than the hacking or leaking or stealing of any private material stored in the cloud. For that the internet or cloud storage provider must take responsibility – especially if they have claimed a greater level of security than they can actually provide. If a crime has been committed the nature of the material hacked or leaked or stolen does not make the crime any more or less heinous. But the type of material stored and the choice of storage provider is the responsibility of the individual.

Any householder would bear some responsibility for his house being burgled if he left the windows open and the doors unlocked. He would also bear some responsibility if sensitive or valuable material he stupidly chose to keep in an unsafe storage place was stolen.  And so with nude selfies stored in the cloud. The apparently narcissistic individuals who chose to upload the “alternative-to-pornography” pictures of themselves, and also chose the storage place for the material cannot avoid some share of responsibility for the subsequent theft and dissemination of the pictures.

The “right” to privacy of an individual cannot apply if that individual releases  – or by carelessness facilitates  the release –  of material into the public domain. And whether hacked or not, the cloud is a pretty public place. Not only is it a public storage place it is a container with glass walls.

Suppose you built a house of glass where the glass manufacturer claimed that it was one way glass and nobody could see in. Suppose further that the glass was in fact transparent and somebody took pictures of you as you danced naked inside. You might have a claim against the glass manufacturer, but you would have no claim against the peeping Tom. Only if the voyeur had broken the glass to look in would you have a claim against him but not against the crowd that gathered to gawp at you cavorting naked within your glass house with a broken window.

Stupidity does not excuse the crime but the “victims” here are not without some culpability

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Posted in Behaviour | 1 Comment »

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