[PHOTO] Yellow hibiscus against red

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams considers how the especially intense luminosity of young red dwarf stars compared to their more massive counterparts can complicate issues of long-term habitability. (Some worlds which were in the circumstellar habitable zone of the young star might not be, while other worlds which were closer might have been baked.)


• The Dragon's Gaze notes that in binary star systems, the other stars have to be taken into account in calculating habitability.


• The Dragon's Tales notes China's long-term plan for space, including a manned space station.


• Language Log notes a new Cantonese word for shopping, borrowed from the Mandarin.


• Languages of the World notes how genes and sociolinguistics help explain why Madagascar is dominated by speakers of Austronesian languages.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money features a guest post from Lisa Miller talking about how police racism demonstrates political failure in the United States.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw talks about his own interest in sculpture.


• Towleroad notes how the Chinese gay social app Blued is working with the government to spread HIV/AIDS awareness.


• The Volokh Conspiracy talks about the idea of Sweden having a feminist foreign policy.


• Why I Love Toronto talks about an upcoming holiday event at the Gladstone Hotel (this Saturday) combining beer-tasting and sweater-knitting.


• Window on Eurasia notes the Ukrainian launch of a satellite television station directed at Crimea and Russia proper, and notes continuing threats to non-Russian languages in Russia.

[LINK] Two links on a potential solar power renaissance

Science Daily shared the news that a team of Australian researchers were able to design solar cells which could convert sunlight to electricity at 40% efficiency.

"This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity," UNSW Scientia Professor and Director of the Advanced Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Professor Martin Green said.

"We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry," added Dr Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed the project.

The 40% efficiency milestone is the latest in a long line of achievements by UNSW solar researchers spanning four decades. These include the first photovoltaic system to convert sunlight to electricity with over 20% efficiency in 1989, with the new result doubling this performance.

[. . .]

Power towers are being developed by Australian company, RayGen Resources, which provided design and technical support for the high efficiency prototype. Another partner in the research was Spectrolab, a US-based company that provided some of the cells used in the project.

A key part of the prototype's design is the use of a custom optical bandpass filter to capture sunlight that is normally wasted by commercial solar cells on towers and convert it to electricity at a higher efficiency than the solar cells themselves ever could.

A former solar energy commissioner in Spain, Vicente Lopez-Ibor Mayor, meanwhile, contributed an essay to Al Jazeera arguing that the Middle East, with its energy-export infrastructure and solar energy potential, could profit enormously from the technology.

The rise of shale has posed a rare challenge to Middle Eastern oil, culminating in a global oil price war and moving OPEC members to slash profits to retain market share. But at a time when OPEC's hegemony over the oil markets has been challenged, let us not forget there is another abundant natural energy resource the Middle East possesses - the sun.

The abundance of sunlight (and therefore solar power) offers Middle Eastern energy producers an opportunity to achieve first-move advantage in a market that appears to be the longer-term future of energy. In light of recent instability in oil markets, the importance of alternative renewable energies, particularly solar, has become all the more pronounced. The drop in oil prices has precipitated an efficiency rush in energy production in all producer nations. In the US, oil producers are leaving no stone unturned in the hunt to become as efficient and sustainable as possible.

[. . . T]he possibilities associated with harnessing Middle Eastern solar energy could be a game-changer. Solar is becoming much cheaper to invest in, and now has an established and ever improving infrastructure. Substantial investment in solar will act as a shield for the region's more valued commodity; oil. Saudi Arabia alone for example, could have made $43.8bn in additional oil revenue in 2013 were it not for its spiralling domestic consumption.

The possibilities associated with harnessing Middle Eastern solar energy could be a game-changer. Solar is becoming much cheaper to invest in, and now has an established and ever improving infrastructure.

It also would have acted as a massive stimulus to the country's finances. Earlier this year, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, announced it would be making solar energy investments across the country in an attempt to diversify the country's energy supplies. It is also expected to conserve the country's oil resources primarily for export.

[URBAN NOTE] "Denzil goes to the Waterfront"

Spacing Toronto's John Lorinc looks at the likely role of deputy mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong in John Tory's new administration.

Certainly, Minnan-Wong’s appointment to the Waterfront Toronto board — a position that Rob Ford held and then boycotted – has caused much tensing of muscles, given his conspicuously hostile ad hominem attacks on the agency. The tenor of his nit-picking sounded way more like the Fords (notwithstanding Minnan-Wong’s late-in-the-game repudiation of their conduct) than anything that’s come from the federal Conservatives, represented first by the late Jim Flaherty and now by Joe Oliver.

Indeed, Flaherty was unwavering in his support for Waterfront Toronto (he was one of the architects), and Oliver, as recently as last July, heaped praise on Corktown Common and pledged that waterfront revitalization “will remain a priority” for his government.

Minnan-Wong’s arrival comes at a delicate moment: For one thing, Waterfront Toronto, which is running out of its funding allocation, has sensibly proposed that it be granted borrowing powers for the balance of its statutory term. That seems like a safe bet: the agency, noted the Toronto Star, generated over $2 of direct investment for every $1 it spent since 2001, and has triggered $9.6 billion in spin-off benefits. (Those umbrellas, by the way, show up on all sorts of tourist promotion materials and have punched way above their weight when it comes to place-making, so it’s hard to know why they got so far up Minnan-Wong’s nose.)

Minnan-Wong will, of course, be expected to, um, encourage Waterfront Toronto to spend prudently. But he’ll have to do so without making a complete spectacle of himself. After all, he’ll be sitting on a board with some heavy hitters, including Brookfield director Jack Cockwell, Liberal rainmaker Ross McGregor, and Progressive Conservative stalwart David Johnston. Given that Tory’s mayoralty will be all about backroom deals and proper behaviour, it’s hard to imagine that that crowd — which is Tory’s crowd — will have much patience for this sort of political flatulence.

But I think the real reason Minnan-Wong may emerge as a somewhat more politic presence has to do with the complex and as yet unarticulated relationship between Smart Track, the re-configuration of the Don mouth and the redevelopment of the huge Unilever property, on the east side of the river immediately to the north.

[URBAN NOTE] "Mammoliti wants public to pay his legal fees in fight against council"

NOW Toronto's Ben Spurr notes the remarkable nerve of Giorgio Mammoliti with his request to the city government to be reimbursed his legal costs for challenging city rules on fundraising.

According to a report on the agenda for Thursday's council meeting, Mammoliti has submitted to the city clerk more than $48,000 worth of legal bills that he incurred from a court case he launched against the city and the integrity commissioner this summer

Mammoliti is seeking a judicial review of council's decision to punish him for a May 2013 fundraiser that netted him $80,000. The event included lobbyists and others doing business with the city, and former integrity commissioner Janet Leiper found it was a serious breach of council's Code of Conduct. Council agreed, and in July voted 37-2 to mete out the harshest penalty allowable under the rules: the suspension of three months' pay.

In September, the Toronto Police announced they had initiated a criminal investigation into Mammoliti over the event.

Even though it was the first time council had slapped a member with the maximum allowable punishment, the penalty was criticized as inadequate because 90 days' pay is the equivalent of only $26,000, far less than the $80,000 Mammoliti raised at the 2013 event. Despite the discrepancy, in August he filed an application in an attempt to quash the integrity commissioner's ruling and council's decision.

Councillors are automatically entitled to have the costs of a judicial review related to a Code of Conduct violation covered by the city, but only up to a $20,000 limit. Mammoliti had already submitted invoices totalling $14,831.25, and the city clerk says he recently submitted an additional $33,644.87, bringing the total to $48,476.12.

[URBAN NOTE] "America at the Trump hotel: The food is amazing – but you shouldn’t eat here, ever"

Chris Nuttall-Smith's review in The Globe and Mail of the Trump Hotel's new restaurant America has gone viral, and deservedly so. The man can write.

Greg, at the bar, is complaining about Toronto. You need to make at least a million a year to be comfortable in the city, he announces. Greg is in his upper 40s, by the look of it. He says he’s in finance. He’s brought the new girl from the office with him, a kind young thing named Julie who only recently moved to Toronto, who is maybe half his age. Julie’s drunk, but she isn’t stupid. Julie keeps rolling her eyes.

Greg has an ex and a kid, he says, but he “got off” paying just $200,000 in yearly support. And anyway, Greg adds, à propos of lord knows what, Greg makes $10-million annually. He’s the sort of patron you’d pay that much to never have to sit beside. At America, the tacky, new-money restaurant on the 31st floor of the Trump International Hotel and Tower Toronto, a guy like Greg no doubt feels right at home.

The female bar staff here wear the shortest uniforms I’ve ever seen in a restaurant, anywhere. (The male staff wear regular clothing.) One of them stops every few minutes to yank her skirt bottom down, so it more completely covers her. It’s not sexy. It’s degrading. Her face is blank and white.

America’s management calls its bottle-service staff “our team of stunning ‘America girls.’” Young, leering men and old leering suits pour into America in the evenings. If you build it, creeps will come.

There are bouncers, naturally: bored, wide faces chewing gum aggressively. The bathroom attendant in the men’s room has an old face. He doesn’t seem to speak a lot of English. He crinkles a handful of foil gum packets and palms a cologne bottle. He is competent, at least – he turns the taps on and off like a champion. I give him a five for my guilt, for his empty servitude. He is far more competent than many of the wait staff out in the dining room. There is servitude everywhere at America, but good service is remarkably hard to find.

[LINK] "AIDS campaigners say pandemic has finally reached tipping point"

This Al Jazeera report about the spread of HIV/AIDS in the South of the United States is worrying, and distressing. Now, at the very moment where advances in education and treatment make the control of the epidemic possible, this takes off here?

In the United States, further efforts are needed for people with HIV to keep the virus in check, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the U.S. 70 percent of those living with HIV — or 840,000 out of 1.2 million people — are not consistently taking anti-HIV drugs that keep the virus suppressed at low levels. The trend is especially significant for young adults, where only 13 percent was taking the medication they needed to suppress the virus.

The consistent intake of anti-HIV drugs can lead to near-normal life expectancies of people living with the virus and reduce the risk of transmission with 96 percent, health experts say.

Health experts say U.S. efforts to control the disease have fallen particularly short among the country’s gay and bisexual men of color. In southern states, 68 more black residents are diagnosed with the virus than whites per samples of 100,000 people, according to a Duke University report.

[. . .]

In southern states such as Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, where access to affordable health care is more limited and the supply of medical care providers is insufficient, HIV infections are burgeoning, according to TAG's [Tim] Horn. Nearly half of all new HIV infections are registered in southern states, while the region only accounts for 37 percent of the U.S. population, according to the report.

“We are not a country that is very well acclimated to taking care of our young or poor community members. They simply don’t have access to key services they need,” he said.

[LINK] "Iraqi Kurds Seek Greater Balance between Ankara and Baghdad"

Writing for the Inter Press Service, Mohammed A. Salih looks at the awkward three-way relationship between Turkey, an increasingly independent Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Iraqi central government in Baghdad.

After a period of frostiness, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Turkey seem intent on mending ties, as each of the parties show signs of needing the other.

But the Kurds appear more cautious this time around, apparently leery of moving too close to Ankara lest they alienate the new Iraqi government in Baghdad with which they signed a breakthrough oil deal Tuesday.

It’s clear that despite the recent slide in relations, both sides need each other. As a land-locked territory, Kurds will be looking for an alternative that they can use to counter pressure from the central Iraqi government.

The agreement, which will give Baghdad greater control over oil produced in Kurdistan and Kurdish-occupied Kirkuk in exchange for the KRG’s receipt of a bigger share of the central government’s budget, may signal an effort to reduce Erbil’s heavy reliance on Turkey.

[. . .]

Whereas Turkey is a major player in the Middle East and Eurasia regions, Iraqi Kurdistan is not even an independent state. The imbalance of power between the two parties made their development of a “strategic” relationship particularly remarkable.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the need to remove rage and retribution from our political decisions

The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture is probably a top global news story. Finding absolute proof that the CIA, initially unbeknownst to anyone in authority, had set out brutally torturing dozens of people to no good end is shattering. I'd point curious readers to the CBC's coverage, Vox's listing of "16 absolutely outrageous abuses", and The Guardian's summary and The Telegraph's liveblog.

One morally right analysis I've come across is Jeffrey Goldberg's "'The Case for Rage and Retribution'" at The Atlantic. Goldberg's article takes its name from a Lance Morrow column in Time published immediately after the September 11th terrorist attacks. This was what Americans (and others!) felt at the time, but policy should never have been made on the basis of these two emotions. It makes us all collaborators in the terrible things which might be unleashed.

[T]his fury explains why we should resist the urge to make believe that what the CIA did to some of its detainees, according to the newly released Senate report, reflects poorly on the CIA alone. Lance Morrow was wrong: A policy of focused brutality does, in fact, come easily, even to a self-conscious and self-indulgent country such as ours, if we allow the rage terrorists create in us to shape our behavior.

The lesson is obvious: The next time a group of Islamist terrorists succeeds in killing large numbers of Americans—and such an attack should be expected—it is important for those who are in positions of power (very much including the writers and commentators who shape popular thinking) to keep in mind that the goal of the United States is to neutralize the threat, and not to seek retribution for the sake of retribution. It is a terrible idea, both morally and practically, to allow hatred to shape counterterrorism policy, but that, I think, explains in part what happened at the CIA. In an atmosphere of comprehensive rage and loathing, bad ideas rose to the surface, and found their champions.

As I've said elsewhere, one thing worse than finding out about something terrible is not finding out about here. Here's to hoping that, in fact, progress will be possible.