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Khobragade: Observing the niceties – for an idiotic episode

January 10, 2014

UPDATE 2!! The plot thickens. It seems more and more like a ploy by the maid and her family to get visas for the US with US consular officials in Delhi conniving with the New York prosecutor. According to the HT, 

the diplomat given “little more than 48 hours” to leave India is Wayne May, a counsellor instrumental in granting visa and helping Richard’s husband and two children’s “evacuation” to the US. … Another US diplomat, who purchased the tickets for the Richards availing tax exemption, could be in trouble next.

 

UPDATE!! Continuing the diplomatic niceties, India has asked the US to withdraw a diplomat from the US Embassy in New Delhi. The diplomat (consular official) is of similar rank to the expelled Indian diplomat and is thought to be the US official who connived with the maid’s father-in-law (an employee at the US Embassy) in causing the whole ruckus.

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Nobody comes out of this nonsense very well except perhaps the maid trying to stay permanently in the US.

But niceties have been observed and the incident will be soon forgotten. Devyani Khobragade was indicted, then granted full diplomatic immunity (starting after the indictment to save face for the prosecutor) and then allowed to leave the US. If she had immunity – even if it was only officially granted on January 8th – her diplomatic status was no different at the time she was arrested and – horror of horrors – strip searched (shades of Draupadi). The sensitivities and the sensibilities of the entire Indian male establishment (who as we all know revere women) were hurt. The Indian female establishment were torn between supporting the exploitative – but female – diplomat and the conniving – but female – maid and her family. 

But the New York prosecutor with political ambitions could not be seen to be a puppet duped by the maid and her family. So he was allowed to indict her before the immunity came into effect. So Khobragade can never now return to the US without the threat of being arrested.

To invoke the analogy with the  Mahābhārata, the prosecutor is Duryodhana to the Shakuni of the maid and her family. But then Khobragade has to take a composite role between Yudhishthira the reckless gambler and the “pure” but insulted Draupadi.

If I have to rank the players in order of culpability it would be:

  1. Preet Bharara, the US prosecutor in the Southern District of New York
  2. Sangeeta Richard (the opportunistic maid) and her family
  3. Devyani Khobragade,  Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of India in New York
  4. US State Department (John Kerry)
  5. Indian Ministry of External Affairs

Sangeeta Richard and her family will now get leave to live permanently in the US and come out of this best. They will probably get much financial assistance from the US prosecution authorities and various “Human Rights” groups.

Bharara has done himself no great harm even though he has been skillfully manipulated by Sangeeta Richard her husband and her father-in-law (who seems to be the Svengali in this tale). All publicity – even that which makes him out to be rather silly – is good publicity for Bharara’s political aspirations. From his record he will not be the flavour of the month with the Republicans. But he could find a place as a champion of liberal causes with the new image of New York as the bastion of liberal Democrats.

Khobragade ought to have a major reprimand in her personal file. If not for visa fraud then at least for being too gullible and having allowed herself to be caught in such a trap. Her next posting – if she stays with the Indian Foreign Service – could be to a diplomatic Siberia – perhaps Kazakhstan or Somalia. But if she wants to make use of the sympathy wave, her best bet is to go into politics. She is far too tainted to be acceptable to the Aam Admi Party or to the Indian feminist movement. She could do a lot worse than allying herself with Narendra Modi and the BJP. After all Modi has his own issues with US Visas but he will likely become the next Prime Minister of India. And when he does the US State Department will find some way to grant him a Visa and there could well be some collateral benefit for her to be following in his wake.

An incident which should never have happened.

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Posted in Behaviour, India, Politics, US | Comments Off on Khobragade: Observing the niceties – for an idiotic episode

Google funded study implies that Google Trends is a valid and rigorous behavioural indicator

January 8, 2014

I find that this disclaimer at the end of this study effectively invalidates the method of the study and its results.

This project was supported by a Google.org grant from 2012, although Google.org played no role in designing or conducting this study.

The results of the study (that more people searched for health issues on Google during the recession) are trivial and – with the best will in the world – of little value except for providing a plug for Google Search and Google Trends. Of course a Google Trend means something but to imply – as this study does – that a Google Trend for selected search items  is a rigorous and valid representation of a human behavioural pattern is more than a little fanciful.

Benjamin M. Althouse et al, Population Health Concerns During the United States’ Great Recession, Am J Prev Med 2014;46(2):166–170

Press Release: 

The group examined Americans’ Google search patterns and discovered that during the recent Great Recession, people searched considerably more frequently for information about health ailments. The kinds of problems indicated by the queries weren’t life threatening, but they could keep someone in the bed a few days, like ulcers, headaches, and back pain. 

In total, the team found there were more than 200 million excess queries of this kind during the Great Recession than expected.

“While it’s impossible to uncover the motives for increased searches, they likely indicate a person being ill, and ill enough to seek out online information or remedies,” Ayers said. The same group previously published a report showing that queries for anxiety and depression also increased substantially during the Great Recession.

The authors themselves write:

google search

Without first a study on whether the usage of Google search is actually representative of any part of the population, and whether a trend in such usage permits conclusions regarding the motives for such usage, this study is little more than an advertisement for Google Search and Google Trends.

Just as with Facebook surveys and profound conclusions, I am not at all sure that this “study” can even be considered science  – let alone good science. It is published  – believe it or not – in a journal of preventive medicine,  but it has little to do with medicine and more to do with PR and  Google’s image.

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Asimov’s 1964 predictions for 2014

January 6, 2014

Isaac Asimov‘s expectations back in 1964 for how the world would change in 50 years do not need much commentary. In general the IT revolution has gone much further than he thought possible but styles of living and the gadgetry around us have not changed as much as he thought they would. His population estimates were not far wrong but the necessity for population control he envisaged is not necessary. Fertility rates are dropping much faster than he imagined possible. Unemployment is surely one of the greatest challenges of the day but not – as Asimov implied – due to a surfeit of leisure. All in all, pretty close!

From the New York Times of 16th August 1964:

Isaac.Asimov01.jpg

Asimov in 1965 (wikipedia)

Visit to the World’s Fair of 2014

By ISAAC ASIMOV

The New York World’s Fair of 1964 is dedicated to “Peace Through Understanding.” Its glimpses of the world of tomorrow rule out thermonuclear warfare. And why not? If a thermonuclear war takes place, the future will not be worth discussing. So let the missiles slumber eternally on their pads and let us observe what may come in the nonatomized world of the future.

What is to come, through the fair’s eyes at least, is wonderful. The direction in which man is traveling is viewed with buoyant hope, nowhere more so than at the General Electric pavilion. There the audience whirls through four scenes, each populated by cheerful, lifelike dummies that move and talk with a facility that, inside of a minute and a half, convinces you they are alive.

The scenes, set in or about 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960, show the advances of electrical appliances and the changes they are bringing to living. I enjoyed it hugely and only regretted that they had not carried the scenes into the future. What will life be like, say, in 2014 A.D., 50 years from now? What will the World’s Fair of 2014 be like?

I don’t know, but I can guess.

One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch, and even when present will be polarized to block out the harsh sunlight. The degree of opacity of the glass may even be made to alter automatically in accordance with the intensity of the light falling upon it.

There is an underground house at the fair which is a sign of the future. if its windows are not polarized, they can nevertheless alter the “scenery” by changes in lighting. Suburban houses underground, with easily controlled temperature, free from the vicissitudes of weather, with air cleaned and light controlled, should be fairly common. At the New York World’s Fair of 2014, General Motors’ “Futurama” may well display vistas of underground cities complete with light- forced vegetable gardens. The surface, G.M. will argue, will be given over to large-scale agriculture, grazing and parklands, with less space wasted on actual human occupancy.

Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare “automeals,” heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. Breakfasts will be “ordered” the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. Complete lunches and dinners, with the food semiprepared, will be stored in the freezer until ready for processing. I suspect, though, that even in 2014 it will still be advisable to have a small corner in the kitchen unit where the more individual meals can be prepared by hand, especially when company is coming.

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the “brains” of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World’s Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into “throw away” and “set aside.” (Robots for gardening work will also have made their appearance.)

General Electric at the 2014 World’s Fair will be showing 3-D movies of its “Robot of the Future,” neat and streamlined, its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasks briskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change.)

The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. The isotopes will not be expensive for they will be by- products of the fission-power plants which, by 2014, will be supplying well over half the power needs of humanity. But once the isotype batteries are used up they will be disposed of only through authorized agents of the manufacturer. ….

…. In 2014, there is every likelihood that the world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000. Boston-to-Washington, the most crowded area of its size on the earth, will have become a single city with a population of over 40,000,000.

….

Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.

Indeed, the most somber speculation I can make about A.D. 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!

Read the whole article.

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Posted in Behaviour, Evolution | 1 Comment »

Best “Bad science” stories of 2013

January 6, 2014

Business Insider carries its top 10 “dumb”/false/bulls**t science stories of 2013.

(Turney and his Ship of Fools easily qualify for such a list but will have to wait for next year).

(in reverse order)

10. A scientist claimed vaccines make you gay

9.  A TIME Magazine cover “cured cancer”

8. PETA claimed chicken wings can shrink a baby’s penis

7. A chiropractor broke a baby’s neck

6. A scientist used math to “prove” gay marriage is wrong

5. Portland rejected water fluoridation

4. Anti-Vaxxer Jenny McCarthy joined The View

3.  Bigfoot DNA sequenced

2. The return of Cold Fusion

1. Terrible nature “documentaries”

My particular favourite is of the Nigerian “Chibuihem Amalaha, an award winning student at the University of Lagos, is claiming that he’s “disproved” gay marriage through science — and he used the power of magnets to do so. His “groundbreaking” work is backed by the university”.

050913F.scientifically-prov.jpg - 050913F.scientifically-prov.jpg

Scientifically proved that gay marriage is wrong (image thisdaylive.com)

But that’s not all. Amalaha, who says he’ll win a Nobel prize one day, has also used chemistry, biology, and mathematics to disprove gay marriage.

His mathematics of gay marriage is particularly illuminating. In an interview with This Day Live he says:

In mathematics which is another core area of science, I used what is called the principle of commutativity and idepotency. Commutativity in mathematics is simply the arrangement of numbers or arrangement of letters in which the way you arrange them don’t matter. For example, if you say A + B in mathematics you are going to have B + A. For example, if I say two plus three it will give five. If I start from three, I say three plus two it also give you five showing that two plus three and three plus two are commutative because they gave the same results. That shows that A + B will give you B + A, you see that there is a change. In A + B, A started the journey while in B + A, B started the journey. If we use A as a man and use B as a woman we are going to have B + A that is woman and man showing that there is a reaction. A + B reacted, they interchanged and gave us B + A showing that commutativity obeys that a man should not marry a man and a woman should not marry a woman. If you use idempotency, it’s a reaction in mathematics where A + A = A. Actually in abstract algebra, A + A =2A but we are less concerned with the numerical value two. We are more less concerned with the symbols A, you find out that A + A will give you A showing that the whole thing goes unchanged. It didn’t change unlike commutativity A + B give B + A there is a change. A started the journey in commutativity and A + B gave us B + A and B started the journey after the equality sign. But in the case of idempotency A + A will give you A showing that it goes unreacted. You started with A and you meet A ,the final result is A. Showing that a man meeting a man A + A will produce a man there is no reaction, it goes unreacted and in chemical engineering you have to send the material back to the reactor for the action to be carried out again showing that it goes unreacted. That is how mathematics has shown that gay marriage is wrong because commutativity proves that gay marriage is wrong. Idempotency also proves that gay marriage is wrong. So these are the principles I have used to prove gay marriage wrong in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and by the grace of God I am the only one that has proved this in the whole world.

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Posted in Behaviour, Science, Scientific Fraud, scientific misconduct | Comments Off on Best “Bad science” stories of 2013

Human evolution as a braided stream rather than a branching tree

January 4, 2014
An interspecies love child? from Nature (Christoph P.E. Zollikofer)

An interspecies love child? from Nature (Christoph P.E. Zollikofer)

The genetic history of modern humans is creating a vast jigsaw puzzle. Genetic evidence is mounting that most people today carry some Neanderthal genes, that some carry what have been labelled “Denisovan” genes, that Denosivans and Neanderthals not only had a common ancestor but that there also was admixture between some Denisovans and some Neanderthals and that there was at least one other as yet unnamed archaic honim which interbred with the Denisovans. It now becomes clear that viewing all these various archaic humans as different species could be wrong. They could all well be the same species.

Chris Finlayson reviews the  paleoanthropology advances during 2013:

The conclusion of the Dmanisi study was that the variation in skull shape and morphology observed in this small sample, derived from a single population of Homo erectus, matched the entire variation observed among African fossils ascribed to three species – H. erectus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis.

The five highly variable Dmanisi fossils belonged to a single population of H. erectus, so how could we argue any longer that similar variation among spatially and temporally widely distributed fossils in Africa reflected differences between species? They all had to be the same species. 

I have been advocating that the morphological differences observed within fossils typically ascribed to Homo sapiens (the so-called modern humans) and the Neanderthals fall within the variation observable in a single species.

It was not surprising to find that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, a clear expectation of the biological species concept. …. If the fossils of 1.8 or so million years ago and those of the more recent Neanderthal-modern human era were all part of a single, morphologically diverse, species with a wide geographical range, what is there to suggest that it would have been any different in the intervening periods?

Probably not so different if we take the latest finds from the Altai Mountains in Siberia into account. Denisova Cave has produced yet another surprise, revealing that, not only was there gene flow between Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans, but that a fourth player was also involved in the gene-exchange game.

The identity of the fourth player remains unknown but it was an ancient lineage that had been separate for probably over a million years. H. erectus seems a likely candidate. Whatever the name we choose to give this mystery lineage, what these results show is that gene flow was possible not just among contemporaries but also between ancient and more modern lineages.

Just to show how little we really know of the human story, another genetic surprise has confounded palaeoanthropologists. Scientists succeeded in extracting the most ancient mitochondrial DNA so far, from the Sima de los Huesos site in Atapuerca, Spain.

The morphology of these well-known Middle Pleistocene (approximately 400,000 years old) fossils have long been thought to represent a lineage leading to the Neanderthals.

When the results came in they were actually closer to the 40,000 year-old Denisovans from Siberia. We can speculate on the result but others have offered enough alternatives for me to not to have to add to them. The conclusion that I derive takes me back to Dmanisi: We have built a picture of our evolution based on the morphology of fossils and it was wrong.

Some time ago we replaced a linear view of our evolution by one represented by a branching tree. It is now time to replace it with that of an interwoven plexus of genetic lineages that branch out and fuse once again with the passage of time

A braided stream rather than the branches of a tree is the better analogy where  – as John Hawkes describes it:

The “braided stream” analogy captures different information about human origins than the usual branching tree. The branches of a tree do not reconnect with each other above the point where they initially separate. A tree will never admit to exchanging sap between its branches, and there are no little xylem hyphae between branches to carry sap anyway. Our evolution was truly a network in which multiple populations existed and contributed to our process of adaptation.

But the braided stream is not quite satisfactory for the picture that is emerging:

promiscuity in the pleistocene

John Hawkes again:

I admit that the braided stream is not a perfect analogy. Diverging rivulets within a valley almost always come together again, forming a complicated network as they form sandbars and islets. None of them flow into a cul-de-sac. Some human populations of the past did become extinct, they did not inexorably flow back into the mainstream of our evolutionary history. Some of them may have flowed back into the mainstream only through very small channels of genetic exchange. When we go far enough back, some populations really did branch off into their own direction. It’s just not clear yet which populations those were. Maybe an evolutionary swamp would be a better analogy, full of algae-covered bayous.

I like the braided stream, and it’s clear that its time has come. Ancient DNA has begun to show the process of genetic exchange was not a minor player in our evolution. All human populations today evidence some mixture of ancient populations that existed well before the “origin of modern humans”. Genetic exchanges between different populations were dominant in the formation of some human adaptations. Some ancient populations can be understood only as the mixed descendants of other, yet more ancient ones. It’s mixing all the way back.

braided-stream-leone

A braided river from http://cloudman23.wordpress.com/ Image – Yann Arthus-Bertrand

The story will most likely become much more complex – as further pieces of the jigsaw are revealed – before the whole picture can be seen But it is already becoming apparent that the origin of modern humans includes genetic exchange with many “species” supposed to have predated AMH and this exchange was not insignificant.

Perhaps the concept of “Anatomically Modern Humans” has to be expanded and pushed back in time. Rather than an origin some 200,000 years ago the start of “modern humans” could need to be pushed back to about 500,000 years ago and has to somehow bring Neanderthals and Denisovans (and some others) back into the fold.

And maybe our ancestors of 20,000 generations ago were just as shocked at a Denisovan-Neanderthal marriage as some in India are today at an “inter-caste” marriage!

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Posted in Anthropology, Behaviour, Evolution, Genetics, History, Humans | 2 Comments »

Giraffe and flamingo on the menu at Pompeii

January 3, 2014

The Romans were not averse to dining on the meat of exotic animals – when they could get hold of them. Mackinnon (2006) Supplying Exotic Animals for the Roman Amphitheatre Games, suggests that the exotic animals imported and killed in the Roman games were distributed for consumption.

From Mackinnon 2006

From Mackinnon 2006

Now evidence is emerging from Pompeii where it seems leg of giraffe could have been on the menu. Past Horizons has the story:

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are making discoveries in Pompeii that are changing traditional perceptions of how the inhabitants dined; the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel.

UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried under a volcano in 79 AD. The excavations are uncovering the earlier use of buildings that would have dated back to the 6th century BC. ….

… The area covers 10 separate building plots and a total of 20 shop fronts, most of which served food and drink. The waste that was examined included collections from drains as well as 10 latrines and cesspits, which yielded mineralized and charred food waste coming from kitchens and excrement. Ellis says among the discoveries in the drains was an abundance of the remains of fully-processed foods, especially grains.

“The material from the drains revealed a range and quantity of materials to suggest a rather clear socio-economic distinction between the activities and consumption habits of each property, which were otherwise indistinguishable hospitality businesses,” says Ellis. Findings revealed foods that would have been inexpensive and widely available, such as grains, fruits, nuts, olives, lentils, local fish and chicken eggs, as well as minimal cuts of more expensive meat and salted fish from Spain. Waste from nearby drains would also turn up less of a variety of foods, revealing a socio-economic distinction between neighbours. …..

….. A drain from a central property revealed a richer variety of foods as well as imports from outside Italy, such as shellfish, sea urchin and even delicacies including the butchered leg joint of a giraffe. “That the bone represents the height of exotic food is underscored by the fact that this is thought to be the only giraffe bone ever recorded from an archaeological excavation in Roman Italy,” says Ellis. “How part of the animal, butchered, came to be a kitchen scrap in a seemingly standard Pompeian restaurant not only speaks to long-distance trade in exotic and wild animals, but also something of the richness, variety and range of a non-elite diet.”

Deposits also included exotic and imported spices, some from as far away as Indonesia.

Ellis adds that one of the deposits dates as far back as the 4th century BC which he says is a particularly valuable discovery, since few other ritual deposits survived from that early stage in the development of Pompeii. …… 

Steven Ellis will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago.

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Cats and physics

January 1, 2014

It’s pretty obvious which kitten is going to grow up to be a physicist.

 

It’s only a matter of time and evolution.

From Luboš Motl’s The Reference Frame

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2013 report card – the year some alarmist bubbles burst

December 31, 2013
  • The global warming fantasy is falling apart
  • Fossil fuels have no significant part to play in climate
  • There is no over-population crisis as fertility rates decrease globally (but there may be a population decline by 2100)
  • There is no food crisis 
  • Poverty levels have decreased globally and are continuing to decrease
  • Infant mortality rates have decreased globally and are continuing to decrease
  • Nuclear power policy is beginning to recognise that fears about safety (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima not withstanding) are grossly exaggerated
  • Shale gas and methane hydrates have delayed any energy crisis by about 1,000 years
  • Fossil fuels and nuclear power are recognised as being critical in withstanding a Little Ice Age or a new glaciation
  • There is no resource crisis (whether for fuels or rare earths or trace metals), and finding new sources or alternatives responds to need and demand
  • There is no crisis of culture as Occidental decadence and Oriental thrift are combining to rejuvenate a global culture
  • Longevity is increasing
  • The crisis of religious fanaticism continues and will remain till religion becomes obsolete
  • The days of the nation states and their tensions are not yet over
  • The conflict between individuals and authoritarian societies continues (irrespective of type of political system they exist in)
  • Parents are increasingly abdicating their responsibilities for their children and passing them on to society
  • “Fact” is being increasingly determined by majority opinion
  • “Consensus” of belief rather than evidence is being taken as proof of scientific hypotheses
  • Aging is increasing but the elderly are underused
  • Democracies are getting less democratic
  • “Democracy” is over-rated

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Australian icebreaker abandons first attempt to reach the global warming pilgrims

December 30, 2013

This was a pilgrimage to the gods of global warming and led by a high priest of the Order of the Melting Poles. But they forgot to placate Uller and seem to have angered the ice-gods.

Ull, sometimes called Uller, ….  was the god of ice and snow, as well as hunters and archery. His following seems to have been overshadowed only by Thor and Odin, as all he had to offer his followers was blizzards and cold. Still, the Norse lived in a subarctic climate, so they tried to placate him instead of follow him. 

The Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis has abandoned its first attempt to reach the tourists on the Akademik Shokalskiy. The 2m+ ice was too thick and threatened to close in behind them and they had to turn back towards open water. The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long was also retreating to open water.

A French icebreaker abandoned its rescue mission on Saturday when it became clear that the ship wouldn’t get any closer than the Chinese boat had. The two remaining icebreakers with one helicopter between them have now to devise a strategy to rescue these irresponsible tourists/pilgrims/idiots led by Chris Turney. The cost according to the SMH is likey to be in the “multi-millions” and according to the Law of the Sea ought to be charged to the operators of this “pleasure” cruise.

pillory

But Turney needs to bear his share. As do the BBC, the Guardian and other media tourists. There is a case to be made for a certain amount of pillorying – maybe by reintroducing the stocks just for Chris Turney. The cover-story of this being a privately funded “scientific expedition” is a travesty. Douglas Mawson must be spinning in his grave at these tourists invoking his name and comparing their luxury cruise with his battles for survival.

From the SMH:

  • The Aurora Australis has abandoned its first attempt to cut through the ice surrounding the stranded Akademik Shokalskiy in Antarctica after moving just two nautical miles. 
  • About 6am, the Aurora’s captain, Murray Doyle, began to manoeuvre the icebreaker through thick wedges of consolidated sea ice. But by 9am [midday Sydney time], the master made the call to turn the ship around and move back into open water. “The ice became too thick for us to penetrate. Some of the floes are up to two metres of ice with a metre of snow on top and very compact. There was just nowhere for us to go.” 
  • Captain Doyle also feared that the 55-kilometre south-easterly wind running up the ship’s stern would blow ice in and around the back of the vessel. “It was pushing those same types of floes in behind us,” he said. “If we got into that compact stuff it would have sealed us in, we would have lost our manoeuvreability and we wouldn’t have been much use to anybody. 
  • A low-hanging fog also hampered rescue efforts. “We had no visibility so we couldn’t really see if there was a way through.” 
  • Captain Doyle had informed the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Canberra of the situation. 
  • The passengers on the stranded Shokalskiy would likely be evacuated to the Aurora or Chinese icebreaker the Xue Long, which was also in the area. 
  • “It’s now up to us three ships [the Shokalskiy, the Aurora and the Xue Long] to agree on a [rescue] strategy,” Captain Doyle said. While the Xue Long had a helicopter onboard, it was too heavy for the Aurora’s helideck. “We also can’t use the helicopter at the moment because there is no visibility,” he said. “The helicopter wouldn’t be able to differentiate the horizon from the ice.” 
  • The captain planned to wait until the weather cleared before deciding whether to cut another path through the ice. The icebreak was designed to cut through ice floes of about 1.35 metres, not the thick ice built up in Watt Bay, some of which has grown over several years. “It wasn’t all multi-year ice, there was some first-year ice, which can be thick, especially if it’s old first-year ice,” he said. 
  • The Xue Long, which has been waiting near the Mertz Glacier since Boxing Day, was also making its way back to open water. “They’re trying to make it back into open water so they’re not trapped as well,” Captain Doyle said.

That this is no scientific expedition becomes obvious  from the Guardian report that Janet Rice, the Green party senator-elect for Victoria, Australia, who has been on board the ship since it left New Zealand, said: “I understand why people might be concerned, but the feeling today on board the ship is like a summer holiday when the weather is bad, when you’re stuck inside reading books and playing Scrabble. We’ve been assured that we’re in no danger and it’s just a matter of waiting.”

I wonder if the Green party is covering her costs?

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When gender equality denies gender difference – limericks (6)

December 28, 2013

1. Sometimes, the “fight” for gender equality gets more than a little ridiculous when it denies gender difference. 

“Gender Equality” is the battle-cry that’s heard,

But just what that means can be a little bit blurred.

Must each and every known profession,

Comprise equally of men and women?

But fathers giving birth is just a little bit absurd.

2. In Sweden, “hen” is proposed by the politically-correct, gender-equalisers as a neutral form between “han” (him) and “hon” (her).

A politically correct young lady from Sweden,

Insisted on being referred to as a “hen”,

She objected strenuously to “she”,

and quite violently to “he”,

Which caused consternation among her young men.

3. Still in Sweden, poor Zlatan Ibrahimovic got into hot water for stating the blindingly obvious that it was more than a little idiotic to compare his game with that of a lady footballer. But – and especially in Sweden – political correctness has become a matter of faith and is often quite unconcerned with reality.

Zlatan the Viking footballer,

Took umbrage when an idiot reporter,

Compared him to a “hen”,

Who kicked a ball now and then,

And Ibrahim-ovic refused to idolise her.

4. In the UK, Thomas the tank engine is under attack from Mary Creagh. She seems rather a silly person – but she was probably only after the publicity.

A cross Labour MP of feminist gender,

More female train drivers would engender,

She demanded the State’s intervention,

To curb the masculinity of Thomas the tank engine,

And required that the “him” be changed into a “her”!

5. At Wimbledon, women now have the same prize money as the men, but they work far fewer hours and play even less. The ladies champion now has an hourly rate about 60% higher than the men’s champion.

Gender equality at Wimbledon has gone a little bit funny,

The men and the women get the same prize money,

But being of the much weaker sex,

The women play just the best of 3 sets,

And the men will be unable to reverse this calumny

6. And all over the world “quotas” for women/minorities/scheduled castes/disabled in various professions are proposed. But fighting discrimination with discrimination only legitimises discrimination.

Oppressing minorities is unacceptable persecution,

But discrimination to fight discrimination is still discrimination.

And if percentage of the population,

Is to be mirrored in every profession,

Competence must be ignored to follow some blind equation.

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Posted in Behaviour, Humans | Comments Off on When gender equality denies gender difference – limericks (6)

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