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As of April 10th, 2012 LP has ceased to publish new posts.

Larvatus Prodeo’s Last Post

By Mark Bahnisch on April 10, 2012

As of today, Larvatus Prodeo will cease publishing.

After a couple of test posts, the blog began to wend its way through the online world on March 17, 2005, so it’s a very old beast in internet years.

We collectively feel seven years is enough.

I think LP played a significant role in stimulating political debate over the course of its life, and acted as something of a catalyst for a lot of good things in the spaces of new media and public discourse.

To large degree, though, the caravan has moved on.

There’s no longer the same need for a hub for political discussion, as lively debate has migrated to social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and as the space for opinion and analysis around the shop has widened. The fact that the ‘blogosphere’ in Australia is no longer a term that makes much sense is an indicator of that change.

To a large degree, LP was a victim of its own success, adopting a role as a sort of ‘blog of record’ where the daily political news could be analysed and dissected. I think this was an important thing for some time, particularly during the last of the Howard years. However, LP bloggers, I think, became increasingly uneasy about this focus, wondering whether we weren’t inadvertently feeding the media cycle beast.

I am convinced there’s a role for a more curated and conciously counter-cultural focus on policy, shifts in the lived experience of our public culture, and serious examination of flashpoints in the battle between reason and untruth.

Some of us tried something in that vein with our recent collaboration between FAQ Research and Crikey, Coal Seam Gas: Behind the Seams. I think we’ve also contributed meaningfully to the achievement of those goals through our coverage and analysis of climate science and climate policy here.

We have come to the conclusion that while we’d like to reorient our perspective as writers and analysts, LP is not the place to do it. The blog has its own momentum (and its own inertia), and it’s not an easy thing to turn around.

Several LP bloggers will be striking out in new directions, some as yet in the process of coalescing. If you’re interested, and I hope you will be, in following and participating in our individual and collective efforts with others, I’d encourage you to ‘like’ our Facebook page, where we’ll direct people to other things we decide to do.

Anyone interested in what I might do media-wise might also like to sign up to the FAQ Research e-newsletter, and ‘like‘ us on Facebook. I think there’ll be a new media project down the track, combining research articles, multi-media and blogging and social media, but, again, spadework needs doing. I think it’s important to focus on some very profound issues of science, change, policy and risk, and the massive impacts on our society and culture they shape. I also think a sharper focus on the dissemination and production of social scientific and cultural knowledges is key.

Should you wish to make a donation to support such an endeavour, there’s an IndieGoGo fundraising page here. Any serious media effort requires funding, covering hosting fees, design, and most importantly, some small compensation for the time of the contributors. You may also wish to express your thanks for our work over the years since 2005.

In the meantime, when I have the impulse to write, I’ll be updating my personal blog, Sed Probates Spiritus, and other LP bloggers who start up new projects may update this post while comments are open. If you’re looking for other places for independent Australian political commentary, you can’t go past John Quiggin and Club Troppo (where my own blogging trajectory began) and Crikey and New Matilda. And of course, there’s the excellent Hoyden About Town.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to the history and spirit of this blog to just keep it ticking over while our energies are directed elsewhere (and it does take a lot of energy to do this sort of work).

Many, I suspect, will feel sad at this blog’s closure, but it simply isn’t and can’t be the vehicle for what the times demand now, and into the future.

It remains for me to thank, from my heart, all those who’ve shared the journey: bloggers, guest writers, commenters, all. Your enthusiasm and talents have been, and are, wonderful and the archive of this site, as well as your future endeavours in working towards a much better standard of public discourse in this nation, are their own tribute.

It would be wrong to thank people by name, but you know how grateful I am. This blog has been a large part of my life for a very long time, and it’s hard to say goodbye, but new beginnings are also an important thing in life.

Comments will remain open for a short time, but then be closed permanently.

Peace be with you all!

Update: Robert Merkel has a new blog at A Bent Ghost.

Update: [by Kim] The Pirate Queen’s Panopticon is moderating your interwebz here. I’m also hoping to be part of the new media venture Mark refers to in this farewell post.

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How the Wivenhoe engineers fell foul of the Floods Commission

By Brian on April 8, 2012

Courier Mail banner headline

As I outlined in the first post, in February this year the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry reconvened as a result of reporting in The Australian by Hedley Thomas which suggested there had been a major breach of the flood manual for the operation of the Wivenhoe and Somerset Dams (7th revision) and that there had been a cover-up to disguise the fact.

We saw in the subsequent post that the non-compliance found by the Commission was not particularly consequential, so the question remains as to what upset the Commission so much that they referred flood engineers, Robert Ayre, Terry Malone and John Tibaldi to the Crime and Misconduct Commission to see whether offences had been committed against the Criminal Code and the Crime and Misconduct Act, 2001.

When Tibaldi, the author of the Flood Event Report (download from the bottom of the screen) took the stand it was a brutal attack with a senior barrister lunging for the jugular and in the screaming headline “WE”VE BEEN DUPED” in the Courier Mail.

In my opinion, being attacked in that manner by an organ of the state is as bad or worse than being taken out the back and beaten up. Justice Holmes should not have allowed it and people suffering such attacks should be able to sue for damages. Inquisitorial questioning of that kind is not designed to discover the truth. Rather it’s purpose is to bully and trick the presumed guilty into incriminating themselves. That methodology actually downgrades the quality of some of the evidence assembled in the Final Report, having been extorted under duress.

Moreover, the Commission showed little appreciation of what working long hours under extreme stress does to cognitive ability and memory. Nor did they seem to understand that memory is imperfect and suggestible even without stress. They had no concept of days merging into each other under stress.

After that spray, I have to say that I agree with some but not all of the Commission’s conclusions, for example, the need for an improved review process. And there was indeed a legitimate issue about how the engineers represented their decision-making processes in the Report. But the Commission, I think, overestimated the seriousness of what happened and completely misinterpreted the issue of motive. Continue reading “How the Wivenhoe engineers fell foul of the Floods Commission”

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Saturday Salon

By Mark Bahnisch on April 7, 2012

An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like*.

*we expect this basic courtesy towards other participants: allow the Salon to be a space for something different to be discussed. i.e. do not threadjack the Salon with comments that better belong on other active threads.

Try our roundtables index for recent lively discussions or browse our archives for topics of interest.

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Could the Wivenhoe flood engineers have done better?

By Brian on April 6, 2012

As I mentioned in the other post, which is necessary reading for background, the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry in its Final Report did suggest that the engineers could have done better – a little, perhaps – but were sufficiently upset with Robert Ayre, Terry Malone and John Tibaldi to refer them to the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

In this post I’ll address the question of whether the engineers could have done better, or to use the Commission’s terms, examine whether any non-compliance with the manual was consequential.

As I reported in the earlier post, the Commission found that the dam had been operated in strategy W1 in non-compliance with the manual for about 36 hours from 8am on Saturday, 8 January. The dam crossed the 68.5m threshold at 8am on the Saturday. Three hours earlier, at 4.50am, John Ruffini had authorised increased outflows of about 1,200 cumecs, as against 351 at 5am. Inflows at 3am were 1,300 cumecs.

1,200 was achieved by 2pm with inflows about 1,800. By 10pm outflows exceeded inflows, 1,242 to 1,091. This situation pertained until 10am on Sunday, when inflows became 1536 as against outflows of 1,332. One of the difficulties for the engineers is that releases of less than 1,900 are compatible with strategy W1. This threshold was not crossed until 8pm on Sunday. It should be noted that there is no minimum release rate specified for W3, or indeed for W1 and W2.

The engineers claim that Ruffini’s decision at 4.50am constituted a move out of W1 as it was designed to deal with the dam level rising above 68.5m threshold. Which it did, and the dam level fell for 12 hours from 11pm Saturday. The Commission was uncharitable about this because the Ruffini’s releases were based on modelling done on Friday by Malone, when the lake level was not projected to go above 68.5. However, Malone’s release rates were not implemented. Ruffini chose to do so in the light of the new situation, modifying them slightly. The Commission obsessed with the fact that Ayre, who came on duty at 7am, changed nothing at 8pm, the time the level past 68.5 and the time nominated by the Flood Event Report as transitioning to W3.

Much of the problem here is that the engineers did not have the global “W” strategies front of mind, but operated at the next level of detail. In particular they didn’t discriminate at all between W2 and W3, where the broad parameters are almost identical, and forgot about the fine print, where the differences are quite stark. However, anything you can do under W2 you can also do under W3, so in a sense it is redundant. Their practice was to work the dam and fill in the fine detail at the reporting stage.

The Commission’s view was that engineers are likely to make better decisions if the have the global situation in mind as represented specifically by the “W” strategies of the manual. This is questionable, as they had some external expert advice to the effect that it didn’t matter. In addition, their independent hydrologist, Mark Babister was comfortable with manual compliance, given the ambiguities of the manual. What is relevant here is that if the engineers had consciously chosen W2 on Saturday they would have been obliged to reduce the outflows from Wivenhoe to less than the 550 cumecs, which was the assessed natural flow at Lowood, sourced mainly from Lockyer Creek, excluding Wivenhoe releases.

Now take a look at the graph depicting the inflow and release summary for the dam from the Flood Event Report of March 2011:

Figure 1: Wivenhoe Dam flood profile

Hedley Thomas’s contention that the dam was mismanaged is based on the notion that a more aggressive release of water from 8am on Saturday could have ramped up the light blue line more steeply. This would have lowered the dam level enabling a smaller peak in the light blue line later, which determined the subsequent height of the flood. Continue reading “Could the Wivenhoe flood engineers have done better?”

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Weekly Whimsy

By tigtog on April 5, 2012

This week’s belated whimsy is brought to you by my favourite April Fool’s Day prank from this year: the mediaeval roast unicorn recipe.

an illustration in the style of an illuminated manuscript showing a unicorn roasting over a fire

Detail of a unicorn on the grill in Geoffrey Fule's cookbook, England, mid-14th century (London, British Library, MS Additional 142012, f. 137r).

Experts believe that the cookbook was compiled by Geoffrey Fule, who worked in the kitchens of Philippa of Hainault, Queen of England (1328-1369). Geoffrey had a reputation for blending unusual flavours – one scholar has called him “the Heston Blumenthal of his day” – and everything points to his hand being behind the compilation.

Please share any bits and pieces you have come across recently that have surprised, delighted, intrigued or otherwise positively engaged you.

NB: the weekly whimsy thread is a stoush-free zone

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Amazing rain, and what the flood engineers did about it

By Brian on April 4, 2012

Most people had the impression that the four flood engineers, Robert Ayre, John Ruffini, John Tibaldi and Terry Malone, had done pretty well during the Brisbane 2011 flood event, which began on 6 January when the Wivenhoe Dam first exceeded full storage capacity of 67m bringing the flood compartment into play. The gates were finally closed ending the event on 19 January. Later some argued that on the Saturday and Sunday 8-9 Jan there could have been more aggressive releases, flooding the remaining rural bridges below the dam at Fernvale and Mt Crosby Weir, thus lessening the later Brisbane flood peak. Against that, it was argued that the weather forecasts didn’t justify such action, that the effect would have been minimal and that some low level flooding may have resulted from that act alone. What’s more, the forecast rain may not have eventuated.

In February the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry reconvened as a result of reporting in The Australian by Hedley Thomas which suggested there had been a major breach of the flood manual for the operation of the Wivenhoe and Somerset Dams (7th revision) and that there had been a cover-up to disguise the fact. The Commission’s Interim Report of August 2011 had been thorough and sympathetic. The Commission noted such things as non-compliance in relation to weather forecasts (the forecasts were so erratic the engineers ignored them in determining gate settings, contra the manual). They also noted deficiencies in recording decisions and actions in real time. They made a host of recommendations about improvements (see Recommendations relating to Chapter 2) but the impression was of a job well done. Chapter 2 (Section 2.7) remains perhaps the best blow by blow account of how the flood was managed.

Chapter 16 of the Final Report does in fact find that the manual was breached from 8am on Saturday 8 Jan for about 36 hours until the evening of Sunday 9 January. It found that the engineers were operating in strategy W1 rather than W3 as claimed in the Flood Event Report of 2 March 2011 (downloads at bottom of screen). It also found that three of the engineers knowingly misled the Government and the Commission about the “W” strategies. It recommended that Ayre, Tibaldi and Malone be investigated by the Crime and Misconduct Commission in relation to the brief to the Minister of 17 January 2011, the Flood Event Report of 2 March and other documents, as well as in testimony to the Commission to see whether offences had been committed against the Criminal Code and the Crime and Misconduct Act, 2001. Continue reading “Amazing rain, and what the flood engineers did about it”

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Framing the drug law debate

By Robert Merkel on April 4, 2012

For anyone who’s paid any attention whatsoever to expert opinion on the issue, the Australia 21 report on illicit drug policy is profoundly unsurprising. As Ben Eltham notes, the evidence is as compelling, if not more, than on climate change. Prohibition has failed, and imposes massive human and financial costs on all of us.

But witness the instant reaction of law-and-order conservatives like Victorian Deputy Premier (and Police Minister) Peter Ryan:

“I mean hell will freeze over before I agree to do this,” he said.

“I think it’s more important that we concentrate as much effort and resource as we possibly can in relation to the policing and enforcement of it, although I appreciate there are criticisms about that approach.”

The imperviousness to expert opinion and painstakingly collected evidence should be an embarrassment to political conservatives – or, perhaps more accurately, the contemporary political right, whose connection with ‘conservatism’ is increasingly tenuous. But the fact that most of the political right is implacably opposed to reforming drug policy is the unpalatable reality. Furthermore, some members of the ALP genuinely share this view; others fear the electoral consequences of anything that could be painted by their political opponents as going “soft on drugs”.

Underlying this is the belief, repeatedly if briefly alluded to in the report, that the electoral consequences of a more rational drugs policy are likely to be severe, largely based on the fears of parents that a less punitive approach will encourage their children to partake.

The challenge for the advocates of sensible drugs policy is now political. The evidence is clear – but how do they get to a better policy given the implacable opposition of the likes of Peter Ryan, and the fear factor in sections of the community?

The arguments surrounding harm reduction are not new, and to date they have failed to achieve the goal of shifting policy. The evidence, sadly, isn’t enough. What’s required is a new way to frame the argument in terms that overcomes the fear of the wavering parents, to the point where Labor feels comfortable enough to pursue reform, because we’re clearly not going to get anything resembling sane drug policy from the right.

What that reframing is, I don’t know. My somewhat cynical guess is that anything that involves the well-being of addicts themselves will fall on deaf ears out in the waverer community. But what the winning message actually is, I don’t know.

But I’m pretty confident that the current presentation of the arguments won’t work, however compelling it is to anybody who looks at the issue in any depth.

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The coming death of the “high street” – and does it matter?

By Guy on April 4, 2012

Embarrassingly, it was only when I initially lived in London in 2007 that the concept of “the high street” really twigged; growing up in Penrith, New South Wales, the fact that our main street happened to be called “High Street” was until that point meaningless. In the UK of course, amongst London’s varied boroughs and municipal areas and certainly further afield across the countryside, “the high street” really does mean something to people. In fact, it means a lot. It means so much to heartland British voters that the Cameron Government commissioned celebrity retail consultant Mary Portas to conduct a review of the state of “the high street” and report back, which she duly did in December 2011. Since then, the government has not exactly leapt to implement the recommendations offered up by the so-called “Queen of Shops”, but to be fair, it has had some other rather pressing fiscal and political matters on its hands so far in 2012.

The picture painted by Portas, needless to say, is not a rosy one. The charm of the traditional high street, with its local, independent shops and offerings is disappearing, and with it, the whole concept’s raison d’être. High streets across Britain are increasingly being peppered with failing or vacant stores, their essential uniqueness incrementally crushed by the omnipresence of large retail companies and supermarkets. If you are going to do your weekly grocery run at the local supermarket, why not go to the local satellite mega-market with its colossal car park, rather than struggle through the car-parking nightmare of a traffic-clogged main street? Better yet, why not do your shopping online and save on petrol and indeed energy? Increasingly in the UK this is proving an attractive option, as major supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and e-businesses like Ocado and Amazon offer lower prices and a bigger range that any local bricks and mortar store can manage; often with free delivery to boot. Thanks to the latter, nobody much is buying music, books or even computer games from their local any more: iconic chains HMV, GAME and Waterstones are all struggling for their corporate lives. A recent Deloitte report suggests that up to an astonishing 40% of shops on the “high street” could close in the next five years.

The local retail experience has in fact been more dramatic and more pronounced than in Britain; in most Australian metropolitan suburbs there is no “high street” to speak of, at least in the British sense of the term. The domination of the grocery sector by Woolworths and Coles and malls in the American style have reduced many of our main streets to depressing wastelands of “$2 shops”, chain stores, take-aways and struggling restaurants. The only “pop-up” shops (a London trend spruiked optimistically by Wayne Hennessy in the Guardian) that tend to appear in Australia can be described as such because they tend to disappear from the scene just as quickly as they arrive.

So is the “high street” really worth saving through direct local and state government investment, or is it a concept that, in reality, is past its used-by-date? I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of providing some incentive or subsidy to local, independent businesses trying to make a start in the centre of town, but it also feels a bit like government would be a small fry pushing against the tidal wave of the retail market.

It would be particularly interesting to hear of people’s personal experiences with their own local “high street”. Is it alive? Has a local mall taken over? Does it really matter if the malls win?

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Spotlight the Spin

By tigtog on April 2, 2012

Our weekly (mostly) look at media spin tactics: let’s dissect the PR and propaganda that aims to blow one’s own horn, bury one’s errors, resurrect the shambling zombie corpses of well-flogged deceased equines and take them for yet another trot around the same old track, and ooh look! A Big Distracting Thing! What did they hope to bury in Friday’s news-dump? Cui bono? What’s really going on?

Please note – this thread’s just for the analysis of media manoeuvres and their intended effects – discussion of other aspects of issues of interest belongs elsewhere. e.g. browse the archives | roundtables | open thread

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Lazy Sunday

By Mark Bahnisch on April 1, 2012

Since we don’t live by politics alone (I sincerely hope), what else did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!

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What does it take to justify murder?

By Helen on April 1, 2012

Photograph of Trayvon Martin in a red T shirt

The recent chin-stroking by various people regarding Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of a vigilante crank is shameful. I was reminded of Maia’s commentary on the victim-blaming attending the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. (In an astonishing coincidence, both Martin and DSK’s victim, Nafissatou Diallo, were black.)

Here’s Maia:

Women with boyfriends in jail can be raped.
Women with multiple cell phones can be raped.
Women who need money can be raped.
Women who can’t read or write the language of the country they are in can be raped.
Sex workers can be raped.
Women who lie on their tax forms can be raped.
Women who’ve lied about rape in the past can be raped.
Women who launder money can be raped.
Women who have [been] told that their actual oppression is not enough to get them asylum, and so have to learn a story that will can be raped.
Women who have many truths they cannot tell to authorities can be raped.

Let’s use Maia’s post as a template to follow the chin-stroking commenters’ logic to its logical conclusion:

Teenagers who wear hoodies can be killed.
Teenagers who fight back against creepy stalkers can be killed. (Zimmerman’s claim that Martin was on top of him and had bashed him are looking dubious.)
Teenagers who have been suspended from school can be killed.
Teenagers who have used marijuana can be killed. (Martin was found with an empty baggie which may have once contained marijuana. (Be very afraid, Melbourne elite grammar school children!)
Teenagers who walk through a gated community, “just looking at houses”, can be killed.

Disclaimer: Trayvon Martin is not necessarily “guilty” of any of the above – actions, anyway, which would earn a minor warning for a white boy from the upper middle class. These are from a smear campaign which has been mounted against Trayvon by right wing bloggers, allegedly helped along by leaks from the Sanford PD, under scrutiny for their non-handling of the case. More here (Via).

Renee Martin of Womanist Musings writes about the challenges faced by the mother of an African-American son. All parents worry that some accident or tragedy will befall their children. It’s obscene that some mothers have the bonus worry of wondering if or when their child will be randomly targeted by a killer or by law enforcement because of their skin colour. Here’s a wry commentary on a “safe” dress code for black teenagers.

We can’t sit back smugly and tell ourselves this just a US issue. This is very much an Australian issue, too.
 
 
 
Crossposted at the Cast Iron Balcony

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