M Courtney,
I've not seen Brannagh's Death on the Nile, but his Orient Express didn't strike me as a new beacon.

It seems unlikely that the Chinese view the USA as truly culturally superior, but they probably do see peril in its attractions for younger generations; yet they allow a fair number of their nationals to attend US universities. Complicated.

Would not be at all surprised to learn that cold war activities these days include stoking the trans-women are women campaign (and other such), but narrowing it down to "Get Branagh's team" strikes me as, itself, being a bit Hollywood.

Yesterday, Jo Nova had an item on reduced Net Zero committment in Europe. In researching a comment I made there, I was surprised to learn that Sweden's annual CO2 output is accounted as under 45 MT: less than 10% of Australia's output. All the same, the activists are huffing and puffing about Sweden "dramatically" increasing its emissions. Wrong word. Given that China is getting up near 15,000 MT per annum, it should be "melodramatically".

Mailman,
Yes, it is very strange. I'd be tempted to think it was a diversion to take our attention off some other unsavoury thing, except there's so much nonsense going on. Oh look: a squirrel can work, but it isn't very effective when the field of view already takes in dragons, unicorns and giants...

A fair grumpy-old-man rant from Alan Jones on the Aboriginal "voice" to parliament. The key points are in the first two minutes or so, but the rest was listenable enough.

This carry on about RusselB is somewhat odd as it kind of came out of no where. Because it came out of no where I kinda had to ask myself the question of why? Why are they attacking him now? Its not like any of his past is a secret was it?

And then these women who felt soooooo violated couldn't go to the police to report him for rape BUT somehow found it within themselves to go crying to the media? It doesnt add up, not one bit.

The adjective Orwellian has been getting a good workout in recent years, but seeing the "coverage" of Russel Brand makes me think we need another adjective: Carrollian. I've never seen a more brazen application of Sentence first, verdict afterwards; it's straight out of Alice in Wonderland. ABC TV News had lengthy coverage early in the programs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening. Way OTT for someone half a world away. I have some hope that it's the start of the last hurrah for cancel culture.

Was looking for an old entry in my ever-growing "todo" file and happened on this short video which didn't ring a bell. It is pretty amusing and I may well have posted it here back then (around Feb 2018). The video itself would be from the '80s. That was about as close as they got to sentence first, verdict afterwards back then. Bit more civilised.

.,
At first I thought that article was just name-calling, but it turns out that Cluster B *is* a term used by psychiatrists. Looking at that page: yes, Cluster B behaviour is widespread, but so is Cluster A (odd thinking/behavior) and Cluster C (anxious thinking/behaviour). Categories seem a little woolly. We can probably settle on the mad society. At various times barking might belong in there too.

Sydney's run of beautiful spring weather is taking a breather. During the lead-up to the warm spell the ABC's weatherman was telling us the predicted 4-day run of 30+ days would be a new September record for Sydney. After the fact, when one of the days only reached 29.7 (or whatever), he wasn't fazed; he cast the net a little wider and found that this was the only time on record that had four days over 30 in the first twenty in September (or something like that). It's like the bizarre statistics cricket commentators trot out trying to find something interesting to say. Or, in Monty Python terms:

I must say this is amazing. This is the first time at the Festival Hall that I have seen a violinist of Gilbert's calibre poked with a stick.

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1704521862888444022

The Cluster B Society

tomo,
It looks like you had it first. UK one appears to be somewhat shadow-banned — took a little hunting to find its home page.

Odd format for online reading. Not bad on a desktop; maybe they have another format for smartphone users. Content seems neither particularly offensive nor particularly inspiring to me. Pretty run-of-the-mill agitprop.

Listening to the news last night there was some talk of updates to our anti-bribery laws. Strikes me, if you really wanted to stamp out bribery, rather than equal punishment to briber and bribee, you would reward the briber and punish the bribee. The relationship then turns to distrust through fear of entrapment. Today, with both facing punishment, the incentive is for them to collude.

Ross Lea,
It is a good article and not too difficult to follow, but then I think of one of my "believing" friends and, if I were to send it to him, I don't think he'd feel motivated enough to try. I think he's more receptive to my pointing out that Australia decommissioning one large coal-fired power station was a spit in the ocean compared to China's commissioning 250 new large coal-fired stations in the next couple of years.

In the Kininmonth article was this:

Earth's average surface temperature is not constant; it has an annual range exceeding 2.5°C.

I suppose what it really reflects is how temperature doesn't tell you all that much about energy. We get this mean surface temperature by measuring temperatures all over the surface and taking the average, but a temperature over the ocean is much harder to change than a temperature over dry land. The rays of the sun might deliver the same energy, but temperatures will change by varying amounts depending on what they hit.

I'll cut it there rather than return to my customary sermon on averages.

We've been having delightful spring weather in Sydney these last few days, so naturally the merchants of doom are out and about. Jo Nova is onto them. She mentions in passing an organisation that has to be getting past parody: Sweltering Cities.