site
contact
newsArnold Schwarzenegger calls for unity
I have a policy on this blog to stay away from political and
religious commentary. I will comment on topics spanning ethics, culture,
morality, integrity and spirituality, as I consider those to be
independent of political affiliation and religious persuasion.
Sometimes though, I am itching to post something, resisting with
great effort. The debacle in the USA is one example. Maybe I should
allow myself an "annual political commentary", at start of the New Year.
All right, a short post though. If I start typing about what is wrong
with the USA, I would be at it for hours. Or the current trouble
Australia is having with China -- we have an idiot Prime Minister, who
put that last straw on the camel. Ha, ha, got to back off on that one
also.
It is great that Arnie has the integrity and guts to speak the truth:
Americans, are you aware how the rest of the world sees you, and your
President? This editorial in the Friday January 8, 2021 issue of the
"West Australian" newspaper sums it up:
Here are some one-liners to contemplate:
We do have to ask how he got elected in the first place, why half the population of the USA voted for him.
Why do so many Americans believe unfounded conspiracy theories? It is almost a national pastime.
Why do some TV networks spread misinformation? -- hint, follow the money, look who is funding them.
Awhile back, I was reading something written by an academic in the
USA, can't recall who, who said that the US political system is a
"parody of democracy".
The US no longer has the "high moral
ground", and arguably hasn't since WWII.
There was a journalist who wrote in a newspaper here in Australia,
that he thought the US is heading toward civil war. But I think that the
people of the US are better than that, even the IQ-challenged who adhere to various conspiracy theories.
Tags: ethos
Roly 86 and brother 88 still powering on
I recall many years ago watching a documentary on TV about people in a
remote mountain village in South America, who live to very old ages. As
I recall, infant mortality was quite high, but past that, they just
kept going. There were these old people 100+ still getting up early and
working all day in the fields and gardens, despite having all sorts of
things wrong with them. And that's the thing, they weren't stopped by
pains and so on, just kept working. They were also very peaceful.
I was reminded of that documentary recently, when I watched a rerun
of an episode of Landline, that first screened in 2018, about two
brothers, farmers, aged 86 and 88. Roly had this to say about other
elderly farmers who he knew, who had retired:
"They get sick and tired of fishing, they come home, sit on the lounge
chair watching the idiot box and they only last a few months and they're
dead and six foot under,"
Roly and his brother haven't even got a computer or smart phone.
I have seen elderly family members become less mobile, and their
muscles atrophy, so they become even less mobile, and spend more time in
bed. So they use electric wheelchairs to get around, or give up.
Another one I know, slouched all day, sitting watching TV, year after
year, until her back became very curved.
I was thinking about this today, when I was swimming at a local
beach. Beautiful sunshine, sparkling ocean, paths meandering through the
sand dunes and limestone cliffs -- peaceful and getting plenty of
exercise. Later on, did some work in the garden.
This is something that everyone can do, get exercise, and practice
something mental to attain peacefulness, regardless where you live. We
don't have to go into a decline as we get into late 70s and beyond.
Changing the subject, I have appended to the post about building a water diversion into my new 720 litre tank:
https://bkhome.org/news/202012/simple-water-inlet-design-for-a-courtyard-tank.html
EDIT 2021-01-06:
David W. sent me a link to an old chap who retired at age 102:
The essential point here, is that Bob was very active, as they said, not a desk job!
Tags: ethos
The weather is changing in South West Australia
Here in Western Australia, in the lower South West portion of the
State, we have traditionally had long hot dry summers. However, they
have gradually been becoming wetter. Not over the entire year though,
averaged over the year, the weather has been becoming drier.
Today, December 8, 2020, is the first really hot day, 39 degC, here
in Perth. However, the heat has been very much delayed. Right through
November, it was mostly cold and wet.
I was wondering, are we going to skip summer this year? Wouldn't be
surprised, given other events of 2020. Vast bushfires early in 2020, the
pandemic, and on the political front being punished economically by
China, for what the Chinese see as insults from our Prime Minister.
Oh dear, I don't want to go that way... I generally try to avoid political and religious commentary, despite being very tempted sometimes. So, staying with the weather...
Yes, it turns out that November has been the wettest on record, since records started 140 years ago, and the coldest since 12 years ago:
So, is this part of a long-term natural cycle, or a symptom of our messing up the environment.
Oh, another thing. I have enjoyed the pristine beaches of the South
Coast of WA, very isolated, plenty of buffer zones of national forest,
only Antarctica to the south. However, it turns out not quite so
pristine as I thought:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-08/new-research-disturbing-truth-wa-south-coast-beaches/12958690
There was a ship near South Africa that lost its entire load of
nurdles, but apparently the ones found mostly on the South Coast are not
those.
Quite depressing, whenever I read this stuff. Perhaps Mother Nature
needs to come up with something better than Coronavirus to cull the
human population.
Tags: ethos
Viruses can also be the good guys
Today I read "The Andromeda Strain", by Michael Crichton, first
published in 1969, a science fiction classic. There was a movie made
based on the book, and a TV mini-series -- the movie followed the plot
of the book fairly closely, but the TV mini-series was very different.
The book is appropriate to read during the current pandemic. Quoting:
Most people, when they thought of bacteria, thought of diseases.
Yet the fact was that only 3 percent of bacteria caused disease; the
rest were either harmless or beneficial. In the human gut, for instance,
there were a variety of bacteria that were helpful to the digestive
process. Man needed them and relied upon them.
In fact, man lived in a sea of bacteria. They were everywhere --
on his skin, in his ears and mouth, down his lungs, in his stomach.
Everything he owned, anything he touched, every breath he breathed, was
drenched in bacteria. ....
And there was a reason. Both man and bacteria had gotten used to
each other, had developed a kind of mutual immunity. Each adapted to the
other.
And this, in turn, for a very good reason. It was a principle of
biology that evolution was directed toward increased reproductive
potential. A man easily killed by bacteria was poorly adapted; he didn't
live long enough to reproduce.
A bacteria that killed its host was also poorly adapted. Because
any parasite that kills its host is a failure. It must die when the host
dies. The successful parasites were those that could live off the host
without killing him.
And the most successful hosts were those that could tolerate the
parasite, or even turn it to advantage, to make it work for the host.
Interesting that Mr Crichton wrote passages like that in the past
tense. Also, the use of the word "man" is not so politically correct
these days.
Reading this reminded me of a top health official in the Australian
Government, advising us that when the Covid-19 crisis is over, we must
retain the habit of frequent washing of the hands with an antiseptic
hand cleaner.
This is paranoia. Actually, we need to be exposed to bacteria, and
viruses, to keep our immune systems active. Perhaps also, there are
other health benefits from constant exposure to bacteria and viruses.
Mr Crichton did not mention viruses, but we also have zillions of
them on and in our person. From a brief look online, it seems that not
much is known about their benefits, except for a few. Here is one
interesting read:
https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2018/why-viruses-deserve-better-reputation
I recall reading somewhere that children who are kept "too clean"
will grow up to have health problems, that children left to run wild in
the environment will not have. Those problems include allergies and
auto-immune responses.
Let's see, there is lots of info on the Internet about this, such as:
https://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/study-explores-link-between-dishwashers-and-kids-allergy-risk/
Quoting:
The “hygiene hypothesis” is based on the idea that allergies are
on the rise because we keep our houses—and our kids—too clean. Children
need exposure to bacteria early in life to strengthen and boost their
immune systems. Other recent studies have found that using antibacterial
soap can increase the chance of developing allergies, while having
pets, living on a farm and even spit-washing your baby’s pacifier can
decrease the risk.
Just some thoughts, so that we don't get too paranoid and negative about these little guys.
EDIT 2020-05-08:
GCMartin sent me an email with a link to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=X29lF43mUlo
Reminds me of my childhood. I grew up in the
countryside and ran wild. We used to swim in a nearby dam, that was
murky soup -- sometimes there were dead sheep in it. And we drank water
from streams and rainwater tanks. We relied on rainwater tanks for
drinking, cooking and bathing -- one day dad discovered a dead possum in
our water tank -- he commented, "that's why our water has such a nice
sweet taste!". But we did take basic precautions, such as
vaccinations, and I got a tetanus shot a couple of times, when I cut my
head when hit something in that dam, and stepped on a nail.
Tags: ethos
Covid-19 droplets hang around in air for 3 hours
Yesterday a scientist was interviewed about research they had
done on how long Covid-19 can last on surfaces and in the air. He said
on surfaces up to72 hours, but on some surfaces, such as cardboard, only
about 12 hours. There is earlier research on other coronaviruses
indicating up to 9 days.
What caught my attention though, was he commented about droplets in
the air. He said that if someone with Covid-19 coughs, they will expel
tiny droplets that will float in the air, and he stated that those droplets can hang around in the air for up to 3 hours.
Oh wow, it only takes one droplet breathed in, to become infected.
I posted on March 20, when I went into the city by train, and two people coughed in the carriage in which I was travelling:
https://bkhome.org/news/202003/why-the-panic-about-coronavirus.html
That was my last train journey! A couple of days ago, I visited my
local Coles supermarket. In the row next to me, someone coughed, so I
made sure that I walked in the widest possible path around them.
Health officials are advising anyone who coughs in public, to do so into a tissue, or into the cloth of their elbow.
But I have to ask, why do people cough in public? Is it an
irresistible urge? If so, shouldn't they not be allowed in public?
Coughing into a tissue or elbow is unlikely to stop droplets being
sprayed out into the air, so why are health authorities giving that the
OK? What to do about people who don't even bother to cover their mouth
when coughing?
EDIT 2020-04-04:
I received an email from Paul, requesting that I not post sensationalist
information without backup reference. He was referring to the "droplets
can hang around in the air for up to 3 hours".
I don't recall what TV program that was,
however, the same information was repeated on a program called "The
Virus" on ABC News channel 24, Australia, at 4.44.pm, repeated at
10.15pm (WA time), yesterday, Friday 3rd April. The program started
yesterday and is expected to be a series every Friday:
Here are some references:
The WHO is downplaying the possibility of Covid-19 spreading through the air, a position that various experts are questioning.
Tags: ethos
Why the panic about coronavirus?
It is just about the only thing on the news, countries isolated,
today the Prime Minister has told us that we must always be 2 metres
away from other people. There is no toilet paper in the supermarkets, as
soon as some comes in, people rush into the shop when it opens and it
is gone in minutes.
I understand that we need to take precautions, so as to limit the
spread, so that hospital emergency departments don't get overwhelmed.
However, we also need to have some perspective.
In 2019, almost 60 million people died
Yep, that many. In fairly peaceful countries, about 90% of those die
from old age. We are mortal, just on this planet for a tiny time span:
https://ourworldindata.org/births-and-deaths
Many elderly people die from complications from the flue. Death from flue complications is estimated to be as high as 650,000 per year:
https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/how-many-people-die-of-the-flu-every-year
So, what about coronavirus, covid-19? 10,400 deaths so far:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
So keep some perspective. The elderly are dropping dead all around
us, mostly out of sight unless it is a relative, so we are not aware of
the scale. The coronavirus has just bumped the tally up a bit.
EDIT 2020-03-21:
Correction, the Prime Minister (of Australia) announced that we need to
keep a space of 4 metres squared around us, that is 2x2 metres.
Rereading the above blog post, I may have
created the wrong impression. The covid-19 outbreak is serious, and we
need to be responding appropriately. But soberly, not panicking.
We all need to be pulling together.
Unfortunately, we have narcissistic people who don't care about others.
We are advised to stay home if have any cold or flue-like symptoms. It
is not the law, only a recommendation, in Australia. Today I travelled
by train into the city, to go to one of my favourite restaurants. On the
train, someone coughed. After a short time, he coughed again, quite
vigorously. I stood up and moved to the other end of the carriage,
"upwind". Ha ha, I was sitting there at the top-end of carriage, and
some else near me coughed!
Everybody else was just stoically ignoring them. Which is very Aussie, I think.
Sitting in the train on the way home, I was
thinking, no wonder that covid-19 is spreading. What would happen to
someone in China, if they coughed in public?
Anyway, back onto the statistics. We do need to
be alert. The 10,400 deaths is now 11,826, and the curve is
accelerating. So although it is minor compared with overall deaths, it
may become more of a major player before we have the vaccine.
Tags: ethos
How green are electric vehicles
I was reminded of this question last year, in May 2019, just before the Australian Federal elections. The leader (Bill Shorten) of the Labour Party (a slightly left-wing party), which all polls showed as sure to win the election, gave a final speech, which was a long list of promises, one of which was a massive push to electrify vehicles in Australia.
There were so many promises made, that were going to be very expensive, which really made me recoil. I am kind of mild right-wing/conservative, but I have voted for the labour party many years past. However, on this occasion, the speech reminded me of the Whitlam era, when it was spend, spend, spend. There is a story, I don't know if it is true, where the treasurer asked Whitlam how are we going to afford all of this (free university education, plus heaps more) and Whitlam replied "We will just print more money". Yeah, result was inflation went through the roof.
What happened in 2019 was the polls got it completely wrong, and the Liberal party (conservative, slightly right-wing party) won by a huge margin.
I usually avoid political commentary, so the above is enough, onto the topic of this post, electric vehicles...
The point that I want to get onto is that so many "greenie" agitators
and politicians keep saying that we need to deploy electric vehicles in
Australia on a massive scale. We even have people demonstrating in the
streets in support of this. In this blog post, I want to question this, are they justified?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_zdtaJeYmw
...so, in terms of "dirtiness", or damage to the environment, the
break-even point is 116,000km in Germany. That ADAC report quoted in the video, has been criticised as being based on
5-year-old data, when Germany had more coal-fired power generation.
However, EVs with premium battery designs seem to be much better.
Apparently, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz guarantee the battery to have 80%
capacity after 160,000km.
The Hyundai Kona is guaranteeing "a 5 year unlimited mileage
warranty, a high voltage battery warranty for 8 years or 200,000 kms."
So, the Kona EV will pull ahead of an ICE car after 116,000km. It
will still be more expensive to run though, due to the high purchase
cost and depreciation.
Ah yes, depreciation. There are cheap second-hand EVs on the market,
5+ years old. This is the point where the owner realised how expensive a
replacement battery will be, and decided to sell instead.
After your EV has done 200,000km (let's be generous and believe Hyundai), the battery will have degenerated to such a point where you will need to buy a new one. Which takes your EV back to the starting point.
That is from the environmental point of view -- actually before the starting point, as you have dumped a battery that may become landfill -- recycling is still a work-in-progress in most countries.
There is also the financial point of view -- the cost of the new
battery. The $33,000 mentioned in the above video is a peculiarity of
that model of the Nissan Leaf. I did a bit of a search, and for a modern
EV it will be $8,000 - $10,000 in Australia. But, you need to be wary
of
cost figures for EVs, as some governments are subsidizing them, both to
purchase, and, I think, replacement battery in some countries. I did a
search for Australia, and the ACT and Victoria have some subsidies.
Regarding purchase price, the cheapest EV in Australia is the Hyundai Ionic Electric Elite, at $45,000.
In summary: Environmentally, the EV will pull ahead of the ICE from
116,000 to 200,000km, then you are back at before square one.
Financially, well, you lose big time with the EV.
A small ICE will set you back about $16,000 here in Australia, and if
you are careful with it, expect a life of the engine of about 250,000 -
300,00km. After which, you can recondition it for say around $4,000, or
buy a new engine.
In summary, the ICE vehicle loses out environmentally from 116,000 to 200,000km (or less than 116,000km if electricity generation is greener -- as low as 50,000km if generated from renewables). But far cheaper -- not just based on purchase price, but also looking at total-cost-of-ownership -- for example this report -- and that report does not consider battery replacement cost.
Allright, so over half of it's lifetime, the EV is ahead
environmentally. Financially, bad news. And, it should be noted not a
practical proposition for long distances in rural Australia.
So, is there any other real advantage of an EV? Yes, it moves the pollution out of the cities, to wherever lithium batteries are being manufactured, and to the rural locations of coal-fired power stations.
I could keep rambling on, with more online links. In fact, the
first version of this blog post was longer. I had links to many sites
with conflicting information. It does seem that those on a particular
bandwagon, be it greeny or the opposite, put a spin on the facts, mostly
by ignoring some facts, and twisting others.
It seems to me that the problems we should be tackling first, is
not moving to electric vehicles, but making electricity generation and
lithium battery manufacturing greener. Two things. Electricity
generation in Australia is still very dirty, and we even export coal to
the rest of the world.
We should also be looking at the supply chain for battery raw materials, such as the child slave labour in Africa to mine cobalt.
We should have facilities to recycle batteries. Apparently,
degraded EV batteries can be used in home storage, which will delay the
inevitable for a few more years. Unfortunately, Australia has not even
managed to process nuclear waste -- it sits in drums in warehouses,
gradually accumulating.
I apologise if you find any inaccuracy in this post. I am not an
expert in this field, have just done some reading here and there, and
attempted to produce an unbiased summary, without the spin found
elsewhere.
Tags: ethos
Young couple cycling around the world
I borrowed a book from the local library, "The road that has no
end", by Tim Travis, which details the first leg of their journey, from
the USA to Panama. I have not read the second book, which covers the
segment from Panama to Argentina. fascinating, they took seven years to
get that far, really getting to know each place they went through.
A lot of danger too, and in some places the locals hate Americans,
due to US military support of dictactorships, and the young couple
pretended they were Canadian.
A few days ago, I borrowed the third book. I would like to have read
the second, but will do so when it becomes available. After Argentina,
the young couple, well, not quite so young after seven years, now in
approx late 30s, flew back to stay with family in the USA, then decided
to change their original plan, flew to Thailand, with the intention of
cycling through Cambodia, Vietnam, up to China.
Their experiences in Vietnam have brought back sad memories for me. I
was in my 12th year of school when conscription was introduced here in
Australia. Call-up was by a ballot system, and fortunately I missed out.
Anyway, those going onto higher education would have had their call-up
deferred. Some members of my class joined the "home guard", forget what
it was called, a part-time military service, being a member of was a way
of avoiding the military call-up and being sent to Vietnam. The war
began in 1965, not sure when compulsory conscription was introduced, but
it was in place in 1968 when I reached the 12th year of school.
Quoting Tim from his book:
The Vietnam war lasted eight years and killed 57,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese. It all but destroyed Vietnam, and came pretty close to wreaking America as well, with anti-war protests splitting the country in two. In 1975, two years after the war ended, Communists took over South Vietnam anyway, making the entire ill-conceived adventure for naught.
In Australia, we watched the horror of those millions getting killed, as the US carpet-bombed the North, as well as neighbouring Cambodia. Then there was the spraying of Agent Orange over vast areas. Tim wrote:
Agent Orange, the defoliant used by Americans to clear away Vietnam's lush greenery to prevent the VC [Viet Cong, the enemy combatants) from hiding. Even today, decades after the war, children are being born with no limbs, curved backs or other disfigurements due to the dioxin in Agent Orange.
And again:
It's hard to be proud of America's so-called high moral ground after riding through village after village with deformed and crippled children due to their parent's exposure to something paid for by American taxpayers.
Tim also made a very sobering comment on what he learned in school about the Vietnam war:
Growing up in America, studying history in public schools, and watching television, it was never clear to me exactly how the war came to an end. I tried to remember what I was taught about the Vietnam war, but it seemed fuzzy; possibly a tie.
...
Not only did the USA lose, we lost using some pretty underhanded tactics -- another thing that schools do not teach.
It is all very sad. More recently, we have the war in Iraq, where the
US trumped up a story about "weapons of mass destruction", as they
needed an excuse to invade Iraq. More massive bombing. I could go on.
But, enough, it is all too depressing.
On a bright note, Tim and his wife found the people of Vietnam to be
very friendly. Of course, they asked people about their feelings toward
Americans, and the general response was of forgiveness.
The authors have a website:
EDIT 2019-04-23:
It was "Tricky Dicky" (Richard Nixon) who authorized the carpet bombing,
and John F. Kennedy who authorized the use of Agent orange. This
website documents the Agent Orange horror story:
https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange-1
Did they know in advance that the dioxin in Agent Orange and other
herbicides (known as Operation Ranch Hand) was very dangerous? Yes, they
did, and guess who manufactured it: mostly Monsanto, also Dow
Chemicals. Quoting:
In 1988, Dr. James Clary, an Air Force researcher associated with Operation Ranch Hand, wrote to Senator Tom Daschle, “When we initiated the herbicide program in the 1960s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. However, because the material was to be used on the enemy, none of us were overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide.”
US servicemen mounted a class action, and were awarded compensation
by the chemical companies, but when a group of Vietnamese people mounted
a class action, it was rejected by US judges. Quoting:
Fred A. Wilcox, author of Scorched Earth: Legacies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam, told the Vietnamese news source VN Express International, “The U.S. government refuses to compensate Vietnamese victims of chemical warfare because to do so would mean admitting that the U.S. committed war crimes in Vietnam. This would open the door to lawsuits that would cost the government billions of dollars.”
Which reminds me, there was a class action mounted against Tony
Blair, Prime Minister of the UK, for war crimes in Iraq, based on the
trumped up "weapons of mass destruction", but it was rejected by judges.
George W. Bush seems to have been immune from such action. Both men
were religious zealots, making "faith based" decisions rather than
logical, and not minding using "spin" (often considered to be euphemism
for a lie) to achieve their goal of Western-style democracy in the
Middle East. Then there was John Howard, our Prime Minister in
Australia; I conclude that he was a weak man, who sucked up to Bush and
Blair.
You might think from reading the above, that I am left-wing. But no, I
have always been very conservative, and have tended to vote for the
right-of-centre political parties. However, as I became more mature,
understood more, I gradually came to understand just how sick the US is,
in certain respects, not all.
I am not exonerating other countries such as China or Russia either.
I know that Americans are patriotic, and that patriotism is for the
principles established by the Founding Fathers. They are very noble.
But, many things have gone wrong. Partly, I think, it is individuals and
corporations having too much power, as per that old saying "Power
corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".
This started out as a blog post about a young couple cycling around
the world, but the book sparked old memories. Enough. Unlikely that I
will
post anything more about these wars, as there is enough already out
there on the Internet. So, signing off, getting back to blogs about
Linux, solar power and camping!
Tags: ethos