Plugged

Visiting Site Meter this morning to check for weird and wonderful search requests, I discovered that Ken Parish, at Troppo Armadillo, has written a serial plug for several of my posts. Apparently I've been blogging up a storm. Just the thing to cheer you up when you're between meds. Trouble is, of course, that when people say good things about your writing it makes you feel obliged to continue so I guess the "Gummo Trotsky is overwhelmed with ennui" announcement might have to be postponed, while I polish up some those "posts in progress" I've got sitting around the place. Like "Great Dickheads of History" which got hung up rather a lot because I couldn't find any dickheads to match, let alone surpass, King John the Blind of Bohemia, whose demise at the Battle of Crécy is recorded in Froissart's Chronicles. But, if anyone has any nominations, feel free to drop me an e-mail or something. Oh, and let's try to avoid the obvious candidates.

Elsewhere, Dave Tiley knows an eejit when he reads one. Here's an exquisite example of the eejit's writing:

We shake hands and I get another surprise. Vonnegut is an average-sized man but he has massive hands. They hang from the sleeves of his ragged coat like the entrails of a freshly slaughtered animal. The veins that crisscross the backs of these monsters are as thick as knitting needles.

The Enchanted Toasting Fork - Episode 4
The Story So Far

Things to Come

Subject - Crab Nebula Transmission Decryption

Alonzo,

Fed that data stream you picked up on the 4.2 cm band into Panjandrum as you asked. It's taken the best part of 72 hours for Panjandrum to crack the protocol but we're pretty confident that we've got it. We're still working through the data but here's what we've got so far:

Greetings from Krzmal

Greetings! We know that this message may impact you with startlement as we not known or met to you but we have belief that you will oblige us with your assistance. We are Krzmal from Zangara Hegemony of Planetary Bodies. Due to recent political upheavals in Zangara Hegemony of Planetary Bodies must take up exile in more favourable part of galaxy. We humbly seek your assistance in relocating our most valuable possession.

We have [untranslatable] in [untranslatable]. We are willing to offer [untranslatable] of this [untranslatable] for your assistance in shifting our [untranslatable] into more secure [untranslatable]. Please we need your assistance to protect what is rightfully ours from seizure by the illegitimate regime that is plundering our once great hegemony. For more information contact us at [untranslatable].

---

She takes it in the [untranslatable]

See it all at [untranslatable]

---

You may want to rethink Monday's press conference; I don't think the world is quite ready for this.

Alan.

Subject - Re: Crab Nebula Transmission Decryption

Alan,

Were there any graphics with that "She takes it in the [untranslatable]" section of the message? If we hack those, they might make a good visual for the press conference.

Alonzo.

(A tug of the forelock to to Nabakov, who lent me the book from which I purloined this idea.)

Some Boy ...

Kevin Andrews isn't impressed by today's protests against the government's proposed reintroduction of the Masters and Servants Act (NSW - 18 something or other):

Kevin Andrews said 95 per cent of workers had stayed on the job. "It's always predictable that people are out on the streets," he said.

Mr Andrews dismissed the union movement's campaign against the legislation as 'hysterical.

Further on, Andrews remarks:

It is totally over the top, equating IR changes with terrorism, saying that this is going to lead eventually to riots in the streets of Australia like we have seen in Paris, to be saying women and children will be killed.

That really set the tenor of the entire approach, the entire campaign that the unions have been running.

Andrews also objects to comparisons between the proposed changes and fascism, as made by NSW Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca at the Senate enquiry into the IR Bill. But I have no idea where Andrews is getting this stuff about terrorism and riots in the streets from.

Frankly, I'm disappointed to learn that someone out there has likened the Government's IR reforms to terrorism. That won't do at all; it's obviously incumbent on whoever's been spreading these hysterical rumours to come clean and admit their error. It's the sort of thing that brings discredit on the whole Left. And while we're at it, maybe the nameless person who made off with my copy of The Communist Manifesto in 1976 might care to lob it back to me in the post. I don't really care who you are; as long as I get it back by the end of the week, there'll be no need to take the matter any further.

World Wide Aneurism

There's an article in the Next supplement of today's Age, syndicated from Wired, where Kevin Kelly gets into a bit of gee-whiz technobabble forecasting:

The web continues to evolve from an entity ruled by mass media and mass audiences to one ruled by messy media and messy participation. How far can this frenzy of creativity go? Encouraged by web-enabled sales, 175,000 books were published and more than 30,000 music albums were released in the US last year. At the same time 14 million blogs were launched worldwide.

All these numbers are escalating. A simple extrapolation suggests that in the near future everyone alive will (on average) [sic] write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. [And now for the money quote] This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that some day everyone would write a letter or take a photograph...

Apparently, by 2015, the Internet as we know it will be gone, replaced by a world-spanning super intelligent networked Machine. I can hardly wait. I'm really looking forward to the day that I try to start my dial-up connection and the PPP-client returns an error message saying "Failed to conect to internet with error 181: Piss off I'm busy."

(According to UNESCO, there were 862 million illiterate people in the world population in 2000 CE. While it's quite possible that some, if not all, of these people have at least taken a photograph, most likely at the behest of a group of First World tourists, none of them would have written any letters.)

How the Irish Tried to Buy Law from Edward I

(and not William the Bastard)

Months ago, I found this story in The Making of Europe; Conquest, Colonisation and Cultural Change 950 - 1350 by Robert Bartlett, a book I found in my local library. I made a mental note of it, in case privatised justice systems ever became a hot topic of debate in the blogosphere. But time passes and libertarianism, and the various absurd proposals that it sometimes produces fell off the agenda and I was left with a really great topic for a post and no excuse to publish it. Sod that. I'm going to tell the story anyway.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the story, it's probably worth looking at how the rule of law was disseminated during the Middle Ages. Basically it worked like this. A young nobleman would borrow enough money from some Jew (who was probably prohibited by law from making a living any other way) to equip himself with armour, sword and a warhorse. Then he would "take the cross" and set out for the Holy Land, looking to win honour, renown, land and loot, perhaps slaughtering a few Jews (to whom he wasn't indebted) and other sundry infidels along the way to practice his swing. When he got to the Holy Land, and got into his first proper battle, the Saracens would shoot his destrier out from under him, well before he had a chance to get in on the pillaging, leaving him up to his ears in debt.

On his return home, our nobleman would be faced with the problem of discharging his debt. One solution, first employed en masse in England in 1290 - also under Edward I as it happens - was to kill the Jew creditor and burn down his house along with all record of the debt. Another was to sell something of value - other than land - to get some ready money. Such as a charter of law, which could be bestowed on a city, town or individual within your fief.

After their subjugation by the English in 1170, the Irish found themselves subject to English rule but not English law. The Irish weren't above English law; they were beneath it. The situation is described in the Remonstrance of 1317 or 1318, a long whiny letter the Irish princes sent to the Pope to explain why they had sided with Robert the Bruce and his rellies against Edward II. Among their complaints was that while an Englishman could sue any Irishman, only Irish prelates were able to sue back and that the law allowed the English to kill the Irish with impunity. Well, more or less: although no criminal penalty applied to killing an Irishman, his lord was entitled to sue the killer for compensation. The going rate of compensation for a dead Irishman eventually settled at 70 shillings. That doesn't sound like a lot, until you consider that it was enough to buy 140 pounds of iron - almost enough to kit out 3 men at arms, once the armourers have finished with it. So killing someone else's Irish was actually a rather expensive proposition.

The situation was obviously unsatisfactory from an Irish point of view; by the fourteenth century even the English (or perhaps we should say some of them) had come to share their view. As Bartlett notes (p 219):

Attempts were also made to extend English Law to the Irish. The initiative sometimes came from the Irish themselves who sought to negotiate the purchase of English rights, either individually or collectively, as in the late 1270s [1277-80], when 'all the Irish' offered the king 10,000 marks 'in order to have the common law which the English have and use in Ireland and to be treated as such Englishmen are treated. Nothing came of these general attempts to enfranchise the Irish ... Until Tudor times Irishmen could only enjoy the rights and protections of English law by individual grant.

Isn't history wonderful? It seems there's no political proposal so daft that it hasn't been tried and found wanting somewhere or other in times past.

Nature Note

I've just been out in the back yard, looking for flies. Not blowies, you understand; they're an ordinary pest that you kill on sight as soon as you see them in the house. Actually, you try to chase them into a confined space - like the laundry or the aluminium frame of the kitchen window - before you hit them with a good dose of Mortein (when you're on a good thing, stick to it), Pea-Beu (when you find a better thing, switch to it, particularly if the endorsement money's better) or Black and Gold Insect Spray (when you find a cheaper thing, to hell with celebrity endorsements).

The flies I've been looking for are about blowie size, but remakably bee like - they've evolved protective mimicry. I've notied them around the place at this time of year in the past but it's only today that it occurred to me that they might actually be interesting (in an ugly, disgusting way). It all hinges on whether the brutes evolved to mimic native bees, or European honey bees.

The latter possibility is quite exciting because the European honey bee didn't arrive on this continent until after white settlement. Which means that maybe, just maybe, here in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne (and maybe elsewhere), there's a new species of fly that's evolved in the past 200 years. Either that or the intelligent designer (or one of the intelligent designers), looked in some time and saw the opportunity to tweak the fly design a little.

That's all highly speculative of course; it's much more likely that these uglies have been around for a long time and it's only recently that I've started to notice them. Incidentally, if you want to see them in your own back yard, plant lots of dandelions. They go for those in a big way.

Frequently Asked Questions

(From www.ctu.gov, the official website of the Counter Terrorism Unit)

I am planning a major terrorist attack on the US. What are my chances of success?

Your plan should take no more than 22 hours to execute. You should make it as complex as possible, and include a lot of diversions, such as smaller terrorist attacks on the US population. In the long run, you will be captured or shot, but you can have an exciting and entertaining time giving our not quite competent agents the run around on your last day of life(or freedom).

I have been asked to participate in a major terrorist attack on the US. I am worried that if captured I may be tortured by CTU agents. How likely is this?

If you are a committed terrrorist or a paid professional mercenary, you have little to worry about; our agents are aware that using torture on you, particularly during an emergency where every second counts, is probably futile. You are more likely to be offered complete immunity from prosecution for all past misdeeds in return for your co-operation. CTU agents mainly use torture on relatives of government officials, other CTU agents, and their girlfriends' ex-husbands.

Remember: CTU will do everything to make your visit to the US an exciting and entertaining experience.

The Nations that Eat Most

Among modern nations the greatest eaters are the English, Germans, French, and the Americans - the ruling people of our civilisation. The diet of the Spaniards and the Italians is notably less substantial than that of the English and Germans, just as their brains are less active and original.

The Americans are, on the average, the greatest eaters in the world. Said Carlyle to Emerson: "The best thing I know of that country is, that in it a man can have meat for his labour."

From Everybody's Pocket Cyclopædia OF THINGS WORTH KNOWING; THINGS DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER; and TABLES OF REFERENCE BY DON LEMON (Madgwick, Houlston & Co, London).

Offensive to Buddhists

After reading Paul Gray in The Oz yesterday, I've decided to have a crack at writing a piece that is guaranteed to be inoffensive to the faith of John Howard's mainstream Australians and equally inoffensive to the non-mainstream minority religions that have everybody in a lather over national security - like those baby-killing Seventh Day Adventists. Just to see if it can be done. Here we go:

Wan-to went to his master one day and asked "Master, how can I achieve enlightenment."

The master stroked his beard while he thought. "You must go up to the mountain and meditate upon this question: how many monks does it take to change a light bulb? When you have the answer come back and tell me, and I will tell you if you have achieved enlightnement."

Wan-to went up to the mountain to meditate on the question. He sat for a long time in the lotus position thinking deeply on how many monks it takes to change a light bulb. So great was his concentration that a pair of swallows built their nest of mud in his left armpit.

Time passed; the swallows raised their chicks and flew away. Wan-to returned to the monastery to see his master.

"Have you the answer to my question?" asked the master.

"Two thousand and one." replied Wan-to. "One to hold the bulb and two thousand to turn the monastery around."

"Foolish monk." said the master and struck Wan-to on the forehead with a bamboo stave. "Return to the mountain and meditate on the question again."

Wan-to returned to the mountain; the swallows returned and build a new nest under his left armpit. Wan-to felt sorrow that the work they had put into building the old nest had been wasted.

Time passed; the swallows raised another brood of chicks and flew away. Once again Wan-to returned to the monastery.

"And what is your answer this time, Wan-to?" asked the master.

"One." replied Wan-to "One to change the bulb, one not to think of the white horse and one to make the sound of one hand clapping."

"Foolish monk." said the master, "That is three monks."

Before the master could take up his bamboo stave, Wanto seized it and struck the master on the forehead.

"Foolish master." said Wan-to. "Go up to the mountain and meditate on this question: why is the Buddha like a bicycle clip?"

Through the many years of his life, Wan-to was known as a monk of great wisdom and enlightenment.

Then/Now

There has always been hostility from some on the left of politics towards America. These are people who believe capitalism is evil and that the US is the place where the evil of capitalism and exploitation is most at home. During the Cold War, Marxists and socialists of various types were ideologically or emotionally drawn to the communist side. Their side lost. This gave them even stronger reason to dislike America.

... if the world is to have a hegemon, the modern US is the kind of hegemon we would like to have: democratic, respectful of human rights, with strong and genuine belief in individual liberty.

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, 22 August 2005.

Treasurer Peter Costello has warned the public service - and the government's backbench - against focusing on their own patch at the expense of the national interest.

Using an address to the Australian Public Service, Mr Costello said he feared for what he termed the Balkanisation of both government departments and politicians.

He said there was evidence in some areas of politicians not considering the wider ramifications of their decisions.

"(They decide) I'm going to do what my region wants me to do, or my state wants me to do," he said.

"I'll just do whatever is in their interest, notwithstanding that it may not be in the interests of the nation as a whole.

"I think policy works best when we have a conception of national interest."

Mr Costello said the budget problems of the United States was in part due to the decision by American lawmakers to attach particular regional projects to major pieces of legislation.

"I would want to resist that, at all costs here in Australia," he said.

Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November 2005.

Only 2 Damn Episodes To Go

It's funny - this morning Jack and Audrey were planning their future together. Since then he's been responsible for the death of her husband and now he'll have to torture her brother.

Tony, musing on life's ironies to Michelle.

Through a Bulb, Dimly

... During a Senate estimates committee examination of ABC funding, [Senator] Santoro slammed the public broadcaster not only for bias in its news and current affairs coverage but also for persistent hostility towards Australians who practise the traditional faith of the West, Christianity.

"Broadcasters continually make derogatory comments about Jesus, the Pope and Christianity in general in a way [that] I believe breaches the ABC's own editorial policies and shows demonstrable bias," he said.

...

Egregious examples of the anti-Christian bias of the ABC derive not only from the broadcaster's news and current affairs department but with greater impact from lifestyle programs such as comedy show The Glass House. The Glass House has given repeated offence to Christians with humour directed at the Pope and Mother Teresa.

It is today an open question as to which is more harmful to Australian intellectual culture: bias in the ABC's news and current affairs coverage or bias in its lifestyle programming. My view is that the latter matters more. As far as imbalance in current affairs is concerned, as exemplified by last week's Lateline coverage, it at least can be argued that few Australians will bother watching. Lateline is essentially of interest to those engaged full time in the business of politics: a small, if strategically important, segment of the population.

By contrast, non-news and current affairs programs, such as comedy and television drama, have the potential to reach and influence a far greater number of adult Australians. If bias exists here - in the form of agendas openly hostile to the values of significant sections of the population - then Australia has a real problem with its national broadcaster. This, I believe, is the existing situation.

Paul Gray, a Hun columnist, taking a shot at the big-time in The Oz (soon to be declared a great Australian cultural icon).

Dummy Spit of the Week

Senator SANTORO—I would appreciate it if you could, from this point onwards, just give actual answers to the questions. I put you and the ABC on notice: I am not going to desist from the way that I go about questioning the ABC. All you are doing is aggravating me and other senators. We will just keep on coming. If I have to go to the government and ask for a special inquiry into bias at the ABC, I will do that. I am not at all impressed by Mr Balding’s absence. I understand his attendance had been previously notified to the committee, and it was withdrawn late last Friday afternoon. You can all sit there and look as sanctimonious, as serious or—like a couple of the officers behind you—as lacking in seriousness as you want to, but I am telling you that I am not at all impressed by the absence of Mr Balding. I have 2½ thousand pages of transcripts, because every time I ask a question he says that he has to check the record, and when he does check the record I get nonsense for an answer in the vast majority of cases.

Some of us actually take our jobs very seriously. There are about 28 people in Australia monitoring what the ABC does. I receive between 15 and 20 tapes a week, and out of that we get transcripts. We are absolutely, deadly serious, some senators—I would suggest most senators—in that we want to go about making the ABC accountable. A simple statement of ‘The ABC is the most accountable media organisation,’ does not wash with me, because we as a parliament have given you about $1.2 billion of public funds. The lack of accountability as a result of Mr Balding’s absence from here today is certainly not appreciated by me.

Santo the Magnificent in the Senate Estimates Committee Hearing into the ABC, 31 October 2005.

The Enchanted Toasting Fork

(Episode 3)
The story so far: Episode 1, Episode 2

Petro half woke to a pleasant drowsiness, scented with jasmine and sandalwood with an undertone of candlewax. Someone had been burning aromatherapy candles last night. So last night had been real; he hadn't gone home alone. He hadn't even gone home; if he had he would be waking to the entirely different aromas of a bachelor's bedroom. Should he open his eyes, or was it better to feign sleep a little longer so that he could gloat over his good fortune?

There was time enough for both, he felt, so he put off opening his eyes while he relived some of last night's most vibrant and exciting moments. He noticed another scent, for a moment overwhelming the jasmine, sandlewood and candlewax. He must remember to give his moustache a good wash before he went out today. He twitched, to ease the feeling of skin stretched a little too tight; it didn't help. At last, he opened his eyes and turned his head to the side.

"About time." Petro thrilled inwardly to the sound of that vibrant voice. "I was beginning to think I should redo the garden with thorn bushes." Ruby, that was her name, Petro remembered. She was still wearing some of her jewellery from yesterday; a small ruby stud on the right side of her nose and another above her left eye. For the first time, Petro noticed that neither of the stones appeared to have a mount; they were cunningly wrought pieces of jewellery indeed.

"Mornin'," he muttered, sliding towards her; they kissed. He stroked her face - a finger brushed across the stone above her eye. "Ow!" she protested, "don't touch that."

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to. It looks pretty; a ruby is it?"

"Garnet." she answered tersely. "The other one's a carnelian. Look, can we get on with this? I've got a wedding to do this afternoon."

"Well ... yeah, right." Petro was a little taken aback by her sudden loss of vibrancy, but he recovered quickly and got on with it. Later, they took a shower together, or rather Petro washed Ruby's hair and back while she stood under the spray of hot water. Occasionally he nudged her to remind her that he was still potent if she was at all interested. He noticed that she also has a few garnet - or carnelian - studs on her buttocks. So many piercings. Weird. Had he given her his phone number yet? If he had, could he afford to have it changed?

At last Ruby yielded her place under the shower head to him; there was just enough time, before the cold water set in in earnest, for him to at least give his face a scrub. When he got out of the shower she had already dried herself and was on her way out the door. "Coffee?" she asked, throwing the question back over her shoulder at him.

"Please." he answered. He dried himself as well as he could with the vibrantly pink but damp towel, then locked the bathroom door. After a minute or so, he was able to use the toilet. He flushed it and left the bathroom.

In the bedroom, as he was dressing, his thoughts turned to the toasting fork. Given the way things had turned out, it struck him that he really ought to get it back, before it caused too much trouble for Claudio and Cossima. But how to do it? The first step, he decided, would be to see if he could find any web-pages on Housebreaking.

Version 0.w.2.718281828459040 - The Flame War

...

I've about had it with this whole universe project. Look at where we're at guys - version 0.w.2.718281828459040 and we're still nowhere near a stable release. It MIGHT HELP if some of you PUTZES would actually follow some of the AGREED SPECS. Like:

Way back at release 0.w.2.71828182800042 we AGREED that hair was more efficient than feathers. But some of you guys wanted creatures that could fly - you insisted we needed feathers so you could have your birds. Hell, we already had the flight thing licked with the insects, but no, that wasn't good enough for you. At release 0.w.2.71828182800151 we cracked flying hairy things with bats. That should have been it for the friggin' birds, IMHO, but no, birds were cute, they had to stay in. What do you guys really want - a universe that's full of cute stuff or one that friggin' WORKS????

Posted by Tetragrammaton

Here we go again. POT/KETTLE/BLACK, Tet! When are you vertebrate guys going to get around to implementing the new eye design we prototyped in the cephalopods? And whose brilliant idea was it to combine intelligence with an opposable thumb? If you're so sick of this project why don't you just F**K OFF!!!! Go screw someone else's pooch.

Posted by Shiva

Please, can we discuss this without getting into that whole "intelligence is fine for cetaceans but bad for apes" debate again? That topic is SOOOO last eternity.

Posted by Yahweh

Hey Tet, is this Yahweh real, or is another one of your sock puppets? Or is it the other way round? Either way, you guys are pathetic. You want intelligent apes - fine, create an experimental branch and work on them there until you iron the bugs out or maybe finally get the idea that the damn things just don't work. Like in release 0.w.2.71828182700013 when you were expecting the little buggers to worship you andinstead they came up with that crazy "Evolution" theory. Still ROFLMAO over that one. And what about that idea of intelligent females who were naturally submissive to the males? Looked really good until they came up with that "feminism" thing.

Your biggest problem is that you think you're the only one on this project with any good ideas. If maybe you'd had the humility to recognise some of the rest of us are capable of good work, this project wouldn't be so F**KED UP. Like maybe if you'd built those praying mantis behaviours I sent you into your beloved Hom sap you'd be able to get the thing to work, mister F**CKING PERFECT.

Posted by Asmodeus

Female androphagy RAWKS!

Posted by Beelzebub

...

21st Century Schizoid Man

On the front page of today's Age, Tom Allard reminds us that Phil Ruddock's "competent authorities" are anything but:

... As family members cowered and complained, an ASIO "technical team" began to film the premises and take photographs.

According to an account of the incident by the then Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Bill Blick, the senior ASIO officer then realised he had made a "serious" error.

He had the wrong address on the search-and-seizure warrant. That should have been patently obvious because ASIO and police had earlier gone to the actual address on the warrant — Mr Daye's father's grocery shop — about 100 metres down the road.

On the opinion pages, Tony Parkinson is having a bit of trouble working out where he stands:

Whatever the challenges of fighting terrorism, the Howard Government would have done better to let the sedition laws lie fallow in Australia, as they have done since the 1940s. For it seems a very old-fashioned, ill-suited legal remedy with which to address security threats to a 21st century democracy.

...

Dangerously, for the Federal Government, the debate over sedition laws is becoming a distraction from the need for practical, effective measures aimed at preventing a terrorist attack on home soil. Frankly, there is more than enough medievalism going around at the moment without an Australian Government introducing its own blast from the past.

...

Some [Muslim militants] happen to live in Western societies. In their determination to protect Islamic doctrine from criticism (or scrutiny) they do not defer to courts or parliaments. They don't seek the acquiescence of Jon Stanhope. They take up a gun, a knife, or a cudgel, and kill those they see as infidels. Simple as that.
...

Open societies are resilient. They accommodate divergent voices — even strident voices. But a line must be drawn when voices advocate killing or maiming other Australians to advance a religious or political cause. For this reason, the bill to be introduced into Federal Parliament next week — or something like it — is a necessary safeguard ...

Actually, there is one point Tony's pretty clear on - he doesn't like John Pilger:

To prosecute and jail Pilger for sedition, whatever his opinions, would be a travesty: a cruel and unwarranted punishment. If nothing else, spare a thought for the other inmates.

Laugh, Damn It - or You're Next

Each year since 2003, I've intended to put up a celebratory, commemoratory or commiseratory post on the general theme of what's changed in the blogosphere since I started. I think, of the three alternatives listed, a commiseratory post would probably be the most appropriate, in view of our complementary misfortunes; I'm stuck with the pernicious, and ultimately narcissistic, habit of blogging, you're stuck with the equally pernicious habit of reading this guff.

There's been a lot of bloggage over the past few days on the derision bloggers have been getting from a couple of op-ed dunces; among other things this has led to some debate over at John Quiggin's blog on the nature of humour. I've so far resisted the temptation to get too involved in it. Although I'm sometimes accused of being a droll writer, I have little confidence that I could tell anyone how to be funny or defend a claim that I'm much funnier than anyone else. Humourists (especially the self-styled ones) don't seem too good at defining what they do. For example, here's an incomplete James Thurber quote on the difference between the humourist, the wit and the satirist:

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself ...

That statement is somewhere between half-right and completely wrong. It certainly doesn't apply very well to Thurber's own writing; he's often very witty and not necessarily through poking fun at other people. When you complete the quotation, it starts to sound more plausible, but it might still be a little inflated:

... but in so doing, he identifies himself with people--that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

Why present the incomplete quotation? Because that's the form in which I first found it on one of those quotes from famous people sites. Which shows a second problem that occurs when humourists get into defining their craft; they get misunderstood and misquoted.

When I started this blog, it was with two motivations. One was the belief that my daft ideas were just as worthy of space on the Internet as all of the other daft ideas I was reading at other people's blogs. The other was to demonstrate that there was at least one lefty in the world with a sense of humour and, what's more, on a good day I could be a damn sight funnier than either Tim Blair or Professor Bunyip. Over time, the writing changed; the humour became a means, rather than an end. Mixed in with the pointed topical humour, I started doing other stuff. Some of that other stuff was to do with exorcising personal demons, like thoughts of brain devouring scrambled eggs and the grey plasticine assassin who stalked my dreams one memorable night or, as in this case, a nasty memory that just keeps coming back, no matter how hard you try to shut it out.

Remember Biafra? I do, for two reasons. It was the first African famine to rate on prime-time TV for one. And the other is that it somehow spawned the worst joke I've ever heard in my life. Some of you may wish to skip the next few italicised paragraphs: there's some pretty offensive stuff in there.

Lunchtime at Greenfields High, in the asphalt section of the schoolyard where the third formers hung out. Slim, the accredited class clown, came up to me and said, "Hey Gummo, you heard the one about the Australian, the Biafran and the Jew?"

"No." I answered; he took that as an invitation to tell the joke.

"Well there's this Australian, this Biafran and this Jew, see, and they're travelling on a train together. This blow-fly comes in through the window and buzzes around the Australian and he waves it away." Here he matched gesture to speech, miming the action of waving away a fly. "It buzzes the Jew, and he waves it away too. Then it flies over to the Biafran and he does this:"

Slim grabbed an imaginary fly out the air, put his hands to his mouth and made gobbling noises.

"Well, the Australian was put off and he looked out the window; so did the Jew. A bit later a moth fies in the window. The Australian waves it away andit flies over to the Jew. The Jew grabs it," Slim grabbed the imaginary moth out of the air, "turns to the Biafran and says 'Oy maate? You vant to buy a moth?"

There was a pause, while I remembered that when the accredited class clown tells you a joke, you're supposed to laugh. But I wasn't quick enough, or hearty enough. He looked at me with a scornful expression and said "What's the matter, Trotsky? Aincha gotta sensayuma?"

It would be pleasing to editorialise this incident as an expression of precocious good taste or political correctness. Any claim I might make to the former would be somewhat compromised by my compendious knowledge of franger jokes and my dubious reputation, among my peers, for having the dirtiest mind in the school. The simple fact is that I didn't laugh because I didn't find Slim's joke particularly funny. Jew jokes didn't bother me that much at that time of my life. Possibly it was tossing in the Biafran that took it out of the realm of genuine humour and into the realm of things you'd damn well better laugh at if you know what's good for you.

Scoop, Exclusive & All That Jazz

This week's Sunday Age reported that:

Police and ASIO could move before Christmas to impose restrictions on terrorist suspects, with the Howard Government urging authorities to take "the first available opportunity" to use the new anti-terror powers.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock [who, let us not forget, owns an Amnesty International Badge] last night told The Sunday Age it was "quite possible" the new control orders would be used as soon as the legislation was passed in December.

Like Michelle Grattan and a few others, I've been wondering what all the rush is for. I spoke to a mate about it, and he got onto someone who knew someone and so on, right up to the someone who had access to the back of a photocopier in Parliament House. I'd say more, but us citizen journalists have to protect our sources, just like the professionals do.

The upshot of it is that I've actually seen a copy of the revised anti-Terrorism Bill which will actually be going to parliament. There are some interesting revisions beyond the removal of the "shoot to kill" power which got all the State Premiers in a flap. For example:

seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes:
(a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt;
(b) to urge disaffection against the following:
(i) the Constitution;
(ii) the Government of the Commonwealth;
(iii) either House of the Parliament;
(c) to urge another person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth;
(d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
(e) to bring a great Australian cultural icon into hatred or contempt.

There's some other sections specifying what a great Australian cultural icon is: basically it's any person or thing that has been declared a great Australian cultural icon by the government of the day. The Bill, if passsed, will give the government the power to declare anyone or anything a great Australian cultural icon by regulation, signed by the Governor in Council and published in the Commonwealth Gazette. There's also a schedule giving an extensive list of the great Australian cultural icons that will be regulated for immediately the bill is passed. They include Aeroplane Jelly, Anzac Biscuits, Arnott's Tim Tams, Sir Donald Bradman, Burkean Conservatism, Ita Buttrose, the Easter Bunny, Four 'n' Twenty Pies, Delta Goodrem, a Hard-Earned Thirst, The Hills Hoist, the Liberal Tradition of John Stuart Mill, Sir R G Menzies, Ramsay Street, Santa Claus, Simpson, Simpson's Donkey, Summer Bay, the Tooth Fairy, Vegemite and, of course, the Victa Motor Mower.

So there it is: if the Government gets the bill through in its revised form, that will put paid to politically correct, Santa-deficient Christmases once and for all.

Insignificant Blackbird

I picked up a new bit of jargon at the pub trivia quiz last night: Base Rate Fallacy. I was wittering on about statistical significance testing and Rob, one of my team-mates remarked "You know it's all based on a fallacy don't you?" Actually, I didn't. I took a bit of convincing too; it wasn't until about 4 o'clock this morning, when I was thinking it through (as a distraction from the raucous "I suppose a root would be out of the question" noises coming from the blackbird that's adopted the gable above my bedroom window as its favourite perch) that I decided there really was something in Rob's remark and the cryptic notes he made on a piece of scrap paper to illustrate the fallacy.

As I understand it, the argument goes something like this. When scientists (psychometricians, for example) employ null hypothesis testing, or significance testing (or whatever they choose to call it), they're employing the following pattern of logical inference:

If H₁ (the experimental hypothesis) is true then the test statistic will have an improbable value.
The test statistic does not have an improbable value.
Therefore H₁ is improbable. [And we write off the experimental results as random variation]

Apparently, this is called Bayesian Modus Tollens, and there's a bit of controversy within statistical circles over whether or not it's valid. It certainly looks dodgy to me but that may be because of the way I've expressed it, translating Rob's formal notation into something a little short of plain English. What got me convinced that there is a fallacy here (while I was trying to ignore that randy blackbird), was working out the pattern of logical inference that's involved in accepting experimental results as significant (as in worth publishing and maybe throwing your hat into the ring for a Nobel prize while you're at it):

If H₁ (the experimental hypothesis) is true then the test statistic will have an improbable value.
The test statistic does have an improbable value.
Therefore H₁ is probable.

Straight up, this is a fallacy; it's not any sort of logical inference at all. A fact that's easily demonstrated with the help of the classic Socrates example:

If Socrates is a man then Socrates is mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore Socrates is a man.

There's more on the subject here (extensive bibliography), here and here (PDF - a philosopher sinks the slipper into Michael Behe). Here's a juicy bit from the last, to whet your appetite:

In addition to rejecting evolutionary explanations, Behe advances the positive thesis that the biochemical systems he describes in loving detail were designed by an intelligent agent (p. 204). However, for these details to favor intelligent design over mindless evolution, we must know how probable those details are under each hypothesis. This is the point of the Law of Likelihood. Behe asserts that these details are very improbable according to evolutionary theory, but how probable are they according to the hypothesis of intelligent design? It is here that we encounter a great silence. Behe and other ID theorists spend a great deal of time criticizing evolutionary theory, but they don t take even the first steps towards formulating an alternative theory of their own that confers probabilities on what we observe. If an intelligent designer built the vertebrate eye ,or the bacterial flagellum, or the biochemical cascade that causes blood to clot, what is the probability that these devices would have the features we observe? The answer is simple - we do not know. We lack knowledge of what this putative designer's intentions would be if he set his mind to constructing structures that perform these functions.

The sad fact about ID theory is that there is no such theory. Behe argues that evolutionary theory entails that adaptive complexity is very improbable, Johnson rails against the dogmatism of scientists who rule out a priori the possibility of supernatural explanation, and Dembski tries to construct an epistemology in which it is possible to gain evidence for the hypothesis of design without ever having to know what, if anything, that hypothesis predicts. A lot goes wrong in each of these efforts, but notice what is not even on the list.