News Scientist seems to be having a coffee propaganda month, or perhaps they’ve just clued on to the fact that most of their readers are geeks who spend Monday to Friday in front of the computer guzzling caffeinated beverages and then engage in what they think is a social life in a flurry of alcohol consumption on the weekend. Telling people exactly what they want to hear is the oldest marketting trick in the book.

In “Could coffee protect your liver against alcohol?” they report that a team at Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Programme in Oakland, California has carried out a study that answers that question with an emphatic “yes”. The study apparently tracked over 125,000 people who had enrolled on a private health care plan in northern California between 1978 and 1985 to see who developed cirrhosis. This number was 330, out of which 199 had alcohol cirrhosis. And the results:

People drinking one cup of coffee per day were, on average, 20% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40%, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80%.

Tea was not found to have the same benefit.

Earlier this month New Scientist appeased coffee drinkers with more news that just sounded too good to be true, in the story “Drinking coffee makes you more open minded”. This research was done at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia:
Previous studies have show that consuming caffeine can improve one’s attention and enhance cognitive performance, with 200 milligrams (equivalent to two cups of coffee) being the optimal dose.

..

In 2005, [the University of Queensland] team published a paper suggesting that the compound primes people to agree with statements that go against their typical views because it improves their ability to understand the reasoning behind the statements.

These revelations follow hot on the heels of this story, on the 17th of May: “Caffeine boosts breathing in premature babies”:

For decades doctors have prescribed caffeine to premature babies because it appears to protect against apnoea, a condition in which breathing stops for more than 15 seconds. But physicians have wondered about the other effects of the caffeine.

A study at the University of Toronto, Canada monitored how more long 2000 premature babies required assistance from ventilators and the health of the infants’ lungs. They found that:

Babies who received no caffeine had a 47% risk of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, an illness characterised by inflammation and scarring in the lungs. Premature babies are at greater risk of this condition because of the air pressure placed on their lungs from medical ventilators.

But the premature infants given caffeine were found to have just a 36% risk of brochopulmonary dysplasia. Ohlsson says this may be partly because babies receiving caffeine were taken off ventilator systems about a week earlier than those that did not receive the stimulant, on average.

Makes me smarter. Check.

Lets me drink as much beer as I want without killing my liver. Check.

Saves the children. Check.

So why is valuable pipe space still being wasted pumping mere water into our homes?

UPDATE (16/6): I read this this morning and my first thought was “Whoah, how much coffee did they feed that sucker during the screening?”

THE US President, George Bush, is to create the world’s largest marine sanctuary, 363,000 square kilometres of Pacific Ocean surrounding a necklace of islands and atolls stretching from the main Hawaiian islands to Midway Atoll and beyond.

..

It is a sharp departure for an Administration that has campaigned to privatise some federal lands and designated less wilderness than most presidents over the past 40 years. A turning point came in April, when Mr Bush sat through a White House screening of Voyage to Kure, a documentary that unveiled the beauty of, and perils facing, the archipelago.

The film caught Mr Bush’s imagination, say US officials. The President jumped up after the screening, congratulated the maker of the documentary, Jean-Michel Cousteau, and urged White House staff to get moving on protecting the archipelago’s waters.

Step 1 to a better Australia: free coffee on tap in Parliament House. And from there, on to the rest of the world.

Last week the Mayor of Shoalhaven City Council, Greg Watson, and 4 councillors travelled to China to meet with representatives of the Shaolin Temple. On Saturday the deal was signed for the development of the new temple complex on the 1,200 hectare property, called Camberton Grange, south of Nowra. The original Ch’an Buddhist monastery (its main gate is pictured below) is located in the Henan province in China and has a 1500 years history. It is considered the birthplace of Ch’an (Japanese: Zen) Buddhism and Kung Fu.

According to the Mayor, speaking on the ABC’s AM program on Saturday, from China, the development is to include “a three-tier temple complex, with two pagodas, 500-room hotel, a 500-place kung fu academy”. He then continued: “There’ll be some residential subdivision, a 27-hole golf course, herbal medicine, herbal gardens, acupuncture, special massage, and that’s about it.”

Sounds like the primary purpose of the new temple is to function as the centerpiece of a tourist resort. The 500-place kung fu academy however is exciting news for Australian martial arts. The planned hotel is going to be four-star and sounds like it is aimed at the tourists, so perhaps the academy will have separate accomodation for the kung-fu students on top of that? Unless they either think Nowra is much bigger than it is or they are targetting very rich students.
Competition for the site apparently came from Victoria and Italy, with the Italian Government putting forward a deal to the Shaolin abbot. Perhaps the proximity of the Ch’an Buddhist Nan Tien Temple at Wollongong played a part the decision.

Late last year, when the proposal was first brought before the Council, some controversy arose around the development, following comments from local Pastor Trevor Aspin and opposition from some residents. Pastor Aspin said the development would be “bringing evil into the Shoalhaven”. According to the South Coast Register, reporting in November 2005, “ The spark was lit by Pastor Aspin, chairman of the [Shoalhaven] Ministers Association, who sent a memo to fellow ministers saying he believed God had directed him to call a war of prayer to stop the Shaolin temple being developed.”

This earlier report in the same paper has his comments in full:

“I believe the Holy Spirit has instructed me to call the army of God and go to war against this principality,” Pastor Aspin wrote in a letter to members of the Shoalhaven Ministers Association.

“Dear people, it is not worth inviting evil into our city for any amount of money - I’m sure you will agree.”

Although I disagree with the notion that the development is inviting evil into the city, the Pastor’s concerns are understandable, as much as his ostentatious militancy is amusing (if only he had said “Crusade” instead of “war”!). After all Buddhism is Australia’s fastest growing religion, while the number of Anglicans in Australia has declined in the last 3 census’. In the 2001 census 370,345 people were Buddhist, with a 79% increase from the previous one in 1996, accounting for 1.9% of the population. The vast majority are Asian migrants, but tens of thousands are also converts. It will be interesting to see the new numbers in this year’s census.
Predictably ugly was the response from the Shoalhaven City Council. Cl Watson :

“”As a Christian I hang my head in shame at the intolerance which is apparent in this whole exercise,” he said.
“This whole matter is totally misguided, and demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the fundamentals of Buddhism.”

and

“The abbot’s not going to be enamoured towards what’s going to appear to him to be racial bigotry,” Cr Watson said.

Racial bigotry? Where was race mentioned? This deserves the first ever TOD “Bullshit” Award. It is the right of a Christian Pastor to defend what he believes is Australia’s already battered Christian identity. I personally disagree with him, but his concern is perfectly understandable. But I am also thankful that we are a secular nation and his concerns are not government policy. And the Pastor’s “army of God” does not also happen to be the Australian army. Interestingly, one of the Shoalhaven City Council Councilors is a Buddhist - Cr John Anderson. From the same article:

As a follower of Buddhist teachings, Cr John Anderson said the arguments were just religious intolerance disguised as planning concerns - something he described as “an utter disgrace”.

After Pastor Aspin the torch was then taken up by the Anglican minister Peter Robinson of St Stephens Church in Bomaderry. The ABC reported in March 2006:

“In a letter to the federal government, Anglican minister Peter Robinson of St Stephens Church in Bomaderry, raised concerns that the Shaolin temple planned for Comberton Grange, south of Nowra, could threaten the security of the naval base, HMAS Albatross.”

Then it was the turn of the Wollongong’s Anglican Bishop, Reg Piper. From the same ABC article: “For my part, I think I’d be arguing about the difficulty of the Buddhist religion. I think it’s a soul destroying religion rather than a life giving one and so for my part that would be my line.”

Ironically the Camberton Grange development gave rise to far more opposition than a 500-bed prison that was also proposed for the area.

Despite the opposition the Council announced in early March it will officially offer the property to the Shaolin Buddhist Order.
But the controversy did not stop there, as the Council went ahead and planned the trip to China to sign the deal before actually getting State government approval.   The  NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor wrote to the Mayor to inquire about this decision. According to this ABC report the “Planning Department has earmarked the area as of state significance” and did not want permanent housing on the site. The permanant housing is the dwellings of the monks, as the hotel is not actually “permanant housing” and is perfectly ok, apparently.

At this stage the NSW government is yet to approve the deal, but, according to the Council, no opposition is expected, considering the great economic value the site will bring. The aforemention Cr Watson stated that the complex will add an extra 1.5 million international visitors a year to the Shoahaven region, on top of the current 200,000. It is expected to have 10 times the economic impact of the Nan Tien Temple, which currently generates $16 million a year for the Illawarra economy and attacts between 250,000 and 300,000 day visitors each year.

Lets hope negotiations run to a smooth end.

The Camberton Grange property is located on the NSW south Coast, just south of Nowra and is about a 2 and half hour drive from Sydney CBD.

A heads up for anyone heading down to the NSW snow fields.

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service are raising the winter surcharge on vehicle entry into the National Park.

Annual pass fee: 2004: $88, 2005: $145, 2006: $190

Day pass: 2005: $16, 2006: $22, 2007: rising again to $27

From the BBC Sport online:

“Tim Cahill’s equaliser was Australia’s first ever World Cup goal. Cahill is the fourth player next to Miroslav Klose (Germany), Omar Bravo (Mexico) and Paulo Wanchope (Costa Rica) to score twice at the 2006 World Cup.

Australia is the first team at this tournament, to come back after being 1-0 down, and Cahill (twice) and John Aloisi became the second and third substitute to score at the 2006 World Cup. No other team has scored three goals in the last seven minutes in World Cup history.

Japan, who put out their oldest ever starting line-up at a World Cup, are yet to win their opening match of the tournament. In 1998 they were beaten (1-0) by Argentina. Four years later they were held to a 2-2 draw by Belgium.“

The trivia was tacked on to their commentary on the Australia vs Japan game, with linked video footage, here.
Their photos from the game are here.

And here’s the official Football Federation Australia website.

Mark Steyn, reflecting on a week in news (death of al-Zarqawi, foiled terror plots in Toronto and London, Islamist take-over of Mogadishu), in his weekly Chicago Sun-Times column:

This week the jihad lost its top field general [al-Zarqawi], but in Somalia it may have gained a nation — a new state base after the loss of Afghanistan. And in Toronto and London the picture isn’t so clear: The forensic and surveillance successes were almost instantly undercut by the usual multicultural dissembling of the authorities. If you think the idea of some kook beheading [Canadian] prime ministers on video is nutty, maybe you’re looking at things back to front. What’s nutty is that, half a decade on from Sept. 11, the Saudis are still allowed to bankroll schools and mosques and think tanks and fast-track imam chaplaincy programs in prisons and armed forces around the world. Oil isn’t the principal Saudi export, ideology is; petroleum merely bankrolls it. In Britain, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and elsewhere, second- and third-generation Muslims recognize the vapidity of the modern multicultural state for what it is — a nullity, a national non-identity — and so, for their own identity, they look elsewhere. To carry on letting Islamism fill it is to invite the re-primitivization of the world.

Full article here.

Top field general? Perhaps just the most media-savvy. With a little help from friend and foe. The rest is sharp as ever. The world-wide propoganda machine of the Saudi Arabian cradle of Wahhabism is recruiting young Muslims to their aggressive form of Islam in droves, all over the world. Of course, we must not forget that they are a “pro-US” regime. Pro-US. Just anti-Western civilisation. I suspect they are going to get progressively more “pro-US” as the Iranians’ sabre rattling intensifies, while continueing to “keep it real”, in the background. Iran may be barking loudest about Israel, because that gets ears pricked up in in the all the right places, but its surely got one eye fixed on its resource rich and ideologically/religiously opposing neghbour across the Persian Gulf. And the way things are going in the southern provinces of Iraq, perhaps soon, for all “practical” purposes, its southern neighbour.

What a way to finish! Tim Cahill scores both the first and the second goals ever for Australia in a World Cup. And in its first ever World Cup victory, Australia, ranked 42nd, beat the 18th ranked Japan, 3-1. I’ll leave the comments and criticism to those in the know. Well done to the Aussies! See the SMH site for Australian coverage of the World Cup. Check out this Japanese site for a photo special on the game.

UPDATE:

Football combines the two worst features of American life.
It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.
— George F. Will, “Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball”

Yeah, I know he is referring to another kind of football. Just thought I’d throw that one in.

Have been making rapid progress on the site over the past week. After spending many hours looking through themes in search of a good 3 column one the choice has been narrowed down to a few worthy contenders. Also working on smoothing out some conficts between some of the plugins that have been installed. Regular posting to follow later this week, when the visual aspects have been finalised.

I will post a list of the plugins used and any conflicts found, at some stage. One plugin that doesn’t seem to play well with others is WYSIWYG . Have not tracked down what it is conficting with - there are multiple conflicts. An obvious one was the Tiger Style Administration plugin, but even without TSA the enhanced editor continued misbehaving.

No holds barred news and views, from geopolitics and religion to health and the martial arts. Written out of Sydney, Australia.

“Even a 1,000 mile journey starts with a single step”
Lao Tzu

“Lets get it on!”
Referee John Mcarthy, Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC)