In the past several days I've had the opportunity to attend a few political events. The first was a rock-standard ALP branch meeting in Albert Park where there was a quality and respectful debate over advance medical directives for voluntary euthanasia. With some direct experience of this catch-22 loophole in existing legislation, it was good to see the motion passed with overwhelming support. The second event was hosted by The Australia Institute was Tasmanian Liberal MHR Bridget Archer speaking on integrity in politics; Archer is a leader of the handful of small-l liberals in that party and has crossed the floor for a national anti-corruption commission, for protecting transgender students, to support carbon emissions reduction legislation, and even and to censure former prime minister Scott Morrison over his secret appointment to other ministries. With several hundred people attending, I was satisfied with her qualified answer ("Yes, in principle, but the details are important") to my question on whether she would support "truth in political advertising" legislation, a matter that I have written about in the past.

The third event was an absolutely woeful presentation by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Richard Marles with Pat Conroy, Minister for Defence Industry, defending the AUKUS agreement and the expenditure of an eye-watering $368bn, another matter that I have written about in the past. Unlike the Archer meeting where comments and questions were visible, these were prevented in the Marles-Conroy show, an old trick that allows one to be selective in their choices and prevent audience recognition of the depth of opposition. Marles' attempt to defend the expenditure as being "only" 0.7% of GDP per annum was deeply unconvincing as any analysis of opportunity costs would show, and Conroy's suggestion that these attack-class and fleet-support submarines are a deterrent in a global arms race was horrifical comical. If you want a deterrent you choose defensive weapons, not offensive weapons. These assault submarines are actually a major contribution to the arms race. Both offered the ludicrous bait that the project will provide 20,000 jobs - I'll leave it to others to calculate what good value for money 20,000 jobs are for a $368bn expenditure and perhaps to suggest alternatives.

The issue will, of course, be subject to some debate at the upcoming ALP National Conference in Brisbance this week, which I am attending as an observer, and thankfully there are those within the Party who recognise that this is a "mad, bad, and dangerous". At this stage, I suspect the "war faction" will get what they want for the time being, but this is far from over. In any case, I am looking forward to a few days in BrisVegas, as I haven't been for around a decade or so, and I have arranged a catch-up linner picnic with a few friends next Sunday after the conference in Roma Park.

It has been a diverse week of the scientific nature for me which, unusually, covered not just work and study events but social events as well. Last night I was pleased to meet one Juliette W., with whom we share an interest in science fiction and fluid dynamics. We have mutual friends, but a surprising connection was with Robert McLay of the Texas Advanced Computing Centre - I attended his final pre-retirement presentation on LMod a few evenings prior (at 1 am in the morning, Melbourne time). LMod really has transformed the management of applications in the high-performance computing space over the past several years, so I hope Rob receives some recognition for his contribution.

Another event that crossed the scientific and the social occurred the night before when I caught up with a former workmate, Martin P., to see Oppenheimer at iMAX to a packed audience. It's a great topic and the representation of the science wasn't terrible even if the history was not quite right and it managed to omit the fallout effects. It must be said the performance by all and sundry was of excellent quality, and the story delved deeply into the persecution and troubled individual psychology of the protagonist. Ultimately, however, I was rather underwhelmed by it all - the movie was too long and it really didn't gain anything by being on a big screen. Still, small mercies that it wasn't a travesty of an action film.

In more typical activities, earlier in the week I had the pleasing opportunity to chair a work forum where we were addressed by two excellent researchers (Dr. Shanaka Kristombu Baduge and Dr. Sadeep Thilakarathna) who have usd our kit (cloud and HPC) to develop AI robots for plastic waste selection. In regards to the more typical study project, in the final lecture of the week on paleoclimatology and current events I drew attention to recent warnings of a very probable collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and raised whether it was possible to have a collapse in North Atlantic ocean temperatures whilst having simultaneously a significant increase in atmospheric temperatures. It seemed plausible and but I was hoping Professor Rewi Newnham would answer in the negative; he didn't. Fun time ahead, eh?

The final Darwin Fringe event that Lara and I witnessed was "I'm on prescription drugs" by Thomas Midena which explored the trope of persistent hallucinations in the style of Kafka to Dick. Sunday stepped into Part II of the Adventures with a "jumping crocodiles" ("fishing for crocodiles") on the Adelaide River on the edge of the Djukbinj National Park. Taking a fairly small and flat boat and seeing up to 5.5m saltwater crocodiles in an up-close manner was certainly worthwhile. Following this, there was a journey and overnight stay through the impressive thick savannah woodland of Litchfield National Park, with its waterfalls and pools. Something that is not heavily advertised is how the parkland includes the historic environmental disaster of Australia's first uranium mine at Rum Jungle River. My mind also wandered into consideration of what the effect of a few degrees of warming would do to the woodlands; a longer wet season with greater humidity, more tropical foliage, etc., would be likely. There is a good argument for greater care of this ecosystem.

Here's a pro tip, which most people would already be quite aware of; when taking a day's leave don't get sick. Ignoring this advice has meant that I've been pretty well laid out for the past two days with a rather frustrating head cold. I've been capable of being roughly human for a few hours a day (including checking out some local real estate), but the combination of rest and standard medications has led to what appears to be a reasonable recovery, just in time for HPC workshops tomorrow and Friday. Thus ends the Darwin adventure; it is always quite wonderful to spend some time with my dear friend Lara, who apart from having a heart of gold, is certainly one of the most glamourous women of Darwin (and her red Ford Focus convertible is one of the most glamourous cars), it was delightful to catch up with Jac and Raj, to meet quality new housemate Mia, to spend an evening with new friends such as Vick and Mon, and, of course, to see and hear the Fringe Festival performance of Leah P and Gravy. I rather suspect that it will be less than a year before my next trip to Australia's top end; it seems that I have found some very good people there.

On Sunday I gave an address to the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship on "The Pursuit of Happiness" which followed the phrase from the US Declaration of Independence, and outlined the three main approaches; hedonistic, Epicurean, and Stoic along with some empirical backing from the modern science of well-being and societal-level measures. As I mentioned in the presentation, I have discusssed this matter at some length in the past with "The Continuum of Needs and Wants", to the Melbourne Agnostics, on November 14, 2020, "From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism" to The Sea of Faith in Australia, on April 21st 2022, and "We Are We Do: Emotions, Trauma, and Happiness" the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, on May 15, 2022. I neglected to mention, because I plain forgot, that I also gave a presentation to The Philosophy Forum on August 7, 2011, also entitled "The Pursuit of Happiness". Across all these presentations there is a running theme where I note that there are different stages of happiness that correlate with Hannah Arendt's categories of being and the satisfaction of each stage can lead to an indulgence which brings unhappiness - and the empirical evidence backs this up. Thus there is an evolution from sensual hedonism, to the contentment of Epicureanism, to the moral virtue and social engagement exemplified by the Stoics.

On the matter of hedonistic and epicurean approaches, the winter phase in Melbourne is an opportunity for me to engage in various forms of soups and stodgy fare of which various dining companions are given the opportunity to put on a kilo or two in my company. As promised in the last entry, I have a small mountain of recipes to update of this nature, so here's the new additions: Coq au vin, Vichyssoise, Soupe au Pistou, Hungarian Mushroom Soup and Langos, and Irish Colcannon. This last weekend also witnessed "German night" which is a challenge when you're cooking for vegetarians. Although in the past I have made Kaese Spaetzle (the German version of "mac and cheese"), this time I tried my hand at Eier in Senfsoße (eggs in mustard sauce) with a side of sauerkraut, Thuringian Klöße mit Bratkartofflen (potato dumplings and fried potatoes), with Schmorkohl (Braised Cabbage), and Frankfurter grie soβ (green sauce - mine was not nearly green enough), before finishing with a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Blackforest Cake). Apart from the cake, there was a pretty serious amount of cabbage, potato, and onion and whilst it all wasn't bad at all, my friends of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg regions may forgive my preferences of the more colourful foods of the Campagne française.

Last Monday was the hottest global average day according to estimates against the instrument record. Until Tuesday, which was hotter still. Wednesday decided to match Tuesday's value, and Thursday decided it could do even better. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday temperatures dipped slightly and increased again on Monday. But all have been above last Monday's record-breaking value. One can follow the trajectory at the University of Maine's "Climate Reanalyzer", which does area-weighted daily means from the surface, radiosonde, and satellite observations. This sudden increase has been pushed upwards by the natural warming phase of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), but of course, occurs on top of decades of greenhouse gas emissions and resulting temperature increases. Whilst I am extremely wary of making correlations between local temperature changes and global averages the mildness of Melbourne's winter this year led me to check the temperature record at BOM just as a quick comparison to last year; nine of the eleven days this year have had a higher maximum, and the minimums have been much higher - almost as high as last year's maximums.

Turn the clock back almost forty years to 1986 - I learn about the greenhouse effect for the first time and, by beautiful coincidence, I am living next door to a Perth punk band of the same name in Pakenham Street, Mount Lawley. Several years later, as I'm finishing my undergraduate degree, I would read in Habermas' 1971 social theory book "Legitimation Crisis" which stated that the environment's capacity to absorb heat from energy consumption was an absolute limit on industrial growth. More years pass and one day, on aus.politics on USENET, I encounter my first climate change denier. I am perplexed by their attempt to politicise a question that seemed obviously a matter of science. Of course, it's the practical policy implications that are of concern, not the truth. Shortly afterward I comment: "There will be a year when winter doesn't happen. That will be when people will finally believe that global warming is happening and by then, it will be too late". It is, after all, only in the past two decades that we've truly learned that carbon dioxide, once emitted, remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Now, as I increasingly dedicate my life to this concern, I rather suspect that my comment of some twenty years ago was optimistic. Locally, I rather suspect we've pretty much seen the end of winter already. Globally, we're in for some real scorchers over the next few years. I'd like to be wrong - I suspect I won't be.

My final assessment has come in for Environmental and Planning Law and, quelle surprise, I smashed it with my essay review of thirty years of New Zealand's Resource Management Act and the new Natural and Built Environment Bill; "excellent research", "in-depth knowledge demonstrated", "excellent clarity", "original analysis", "excellent attention", an A+ for the essay, A for the course overall, making it four straight As for all units in the first trimester. This rather pleasing result has also concurred with a major software upgrade project that has been put under my aegis for the university's supercomputer - a three-week sprint with around 460 applications to install from source with dependencies. I initially thought it would be almost impossible. But now, in just over a week, we've completed over 90% of the target. Of course, the last 10% will be the hardest, a project management point well-known in this profession ("last mile problems").

Another essay I've returned to (following the Isocracy AGM) has been on rental affordability, mortgage stress, interest rates and the like. Whilst the focus is Australia, there are also similar issues in most of the developed world and, unsurprisingly, with similar causes - and that's primarily supply (there are many vectors, but this is the main one). There is a bit of an ongoing debate between the Greens and Labor here, where the Greens have joined forces with the Coalition and blocked Labor's Housing Future Fund, whilst at the same time advocating a rental freeze. Whilst this could provide some short-term security of tenure, it is "mostly wrong" as the evidence is utterly overwhelming that it will cause a longer-term fall in supply and housing quality. It leaves me a little surprised because the Greens aren't usually this bad on policy.

With the final grades received for the final course (with a solid B), I am now a GradDipAppPsych, I just have to wait for the stiff piece of cardboard. I rather wished it had delved more into neurology rather than organisational, developmental, and social psychology, but that's fine. Results are also coming in for the first trimester of my Master's in Climate Change Science and Policy and thus far I received two "A" grades for the final assignments in Climate Pricing and Political Ecology and also (based on my calculations) for the courses overall, with Environmental Law and Physical Basis for Climate Change still pending. It's somewhat amusing to think that I've finally found my life's calling this late in life, but I should have a few decades left and will hopefully make a difference.

With these results and with no essential study to carry out, I've spent the past few days engaging in some aesthetic pleasures because I do love beauty for its own sake. It a sense this little adventure started about two weeks ago when I ventured to see the Rembrandt exhibition with Alison B; I am not overly-enamoured by Rembrandt's style or technique in painting but do recognise his truly impressive contribution to etching technologies. Whilst we were present we caught a presentation on "Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi", which led to a visit last night with Liana F. whose intimism transitioned from impressionist to modern styles. Mention must be made of Mahdavi's excellent design for the extensive exhibition.

Betwist of these events, I also had a visit from Lara D., who is visiting Melbourne for family reasons. "I knew to see you for cultural events", she opined. On her suggestion, we went to the "Shadow Spirit" First Nations art exhibition at the beautifully dilapidated old Flinder's St Station ballroom, which was truly evocative through mixed media. After that we ventured to "Lightscape" at the Botanical Gardens, which was a lovely walk in the park, coupled with wonderment and, it must be noted, attention to detail by the designers. Finally, on Thursday night I was taken by Maggie S., to Graham Geddes Antiques in the sprawling showroom for their recent Italian shipment, which was rather like a well-catered and visually impressive gallery opening (as the invite said, "bevande i divertamento pur tutti"). Plus, I suspect we made two new friends there.

I have previously written ("A Subservient Decision") about the Federal government's plan to purchase up to eight nuclear-powered submarines as part of AUKUS, forecast to cost up to an eye-watering $368bn between now and the mid-2050s. It's an extraordinarily excessive sum of money that adds nothing to productivity, takes money away from expenditure that could genuinely help people's lives, a very poor choice of defense technology, and only exists because of an utterly surreal notion that China is actually a military threat in the extremely vague area of Indo-Pacific. With Labor Party luminaries across the factions such as Paul Keating, Doug Cameron, Kim Carr, Bob Carr and Gareth Evans all coming out against the deal, one wonders who is actually supporting it.

Of course, the reality is that politicians fall into line behind their leader (until they don't) and that within a political party, the lobbying and policy competition is carried out mostly (but not exclusively) from within. That is why initiating policy change contrary to the leadership has to come from the rank-and-file members. There are certainly plenty of lessons I learned during the six years I was founding convenor of Labor for Refugees, which eventually led to policy change on the national level due to dogged activism within the Party. The same sort of approach is now been taken with the formation of Labor Coalition Against the Submarines ("LaCAtS") just two days ago, for which I encourage Labor Party members to join (I know a few of you are reading this). It will take years, I have no doubt. From members, and branch motions, to State Conferences, alliances across the states and territories, to National Conferences, and then government policy, the change will happen; in the interests of prosperity, security, and peace - we will sink these subs.

On Sunday I visited St Michael's Uniting Church in the city for a special commemoration service for Dr Francis McNab, who had died a few weeks earlier. As a very irregular attendee of the congregation, I nevertheless had been given the opportunity to meet Rev McNab on several occasions in the past and had a number of opportunities to discuss his attempt to combine theology with psychotherapy, a keystone of his "New Faith" which dispensed with the dogmatic notions of traditional Christianity. A liberal and caring intellectual McNab's lasting legacy - as founder and executive director for over forty years - will probably be the Cairnmillar Institute, now one of Australia's largest training centres for counsellors, psychologists etc. It was, as one could expect, very well-attended and with a stream of high-profile speakers from the legal, religious, and therapeutic communities (as well as family, of course).

With McNab's departure from the earthly plane, he joins two notable Catholic priests of Australian origin who died this year; Cardinal George Pell and, more recently, Father Bob Maguire. You possibly couldn't find two more different figures within that intrinsically hierarchical organisation, nor two very different pathways. Pell was a man of the establishment who worked his way up the hierarchy to become the person in charge of the Vatican's finances as the third most important person in the Church. A traditionalist in so many areas, antisecular (i.e., he believed Church doctrine should be law), he nevertheless became most famous for the establishment of "the Melbourne Response" protocols to authorise payments and covering up accusations of child sexual assault, and his own convictions which would quashed on appeal.

At the other end of the spectrum was Bob Maguire of South Melbourne, an utterly tireless advocate for social justice and welfare for not just the poorest but the most difficult members of society. People would go to Father Bob's charities when they had absolutely nowhere else to go and, it was with great honour and pleasure, I helped organise a fundraiser for his foundation at the Melbourne Unitarian Church July 2012. As he was being forcibly retired from his parish at that point, I recall making a pointed remark that he was a priest without a church and we were a church without a priest. Alas, the subtle hint was not taken up by the committee of management, although I'm pretty sure he knew what I was getting at. He was a person who deeply understood the principles of secularism and was quite prepared to conduct same-sex civil unions and advocated within the church for women's ordination.

I honestly don't think any of the aforementioned figures believed in the traditional, personal, interventionist God. All were intelligent enough to know that the idea is untenable. As the former Reverend of Knox Church in Dunedin (yes, I'm a member of that congregation, too), Sarah Mitchell once said about atheists "Tell me about the God you don’t believe in - I doubt that I believe in 'him' either". For Pell theology was mainly about loyalty to the institution, traditionalism, and hierarchy, to Maguire it was the ability to see the intrinsic worth in all human beings, to have forgiveness of their failings, and sympathy for their circumstances. For McNab a cerebral and empathic quest to understand the motivations of the human mind and our interpersonal space. I think one can easily see the correlations between these people and the traditional trinity; Pell the Father, Maguire the Son, and McNab the Spirit.

The past week and for the week coming I've been quite hermit-like, dedicating almost all my time to work and study. Of course, with the end-of-trimester looming for the latter, it is not surprising; final exams, major essays, and the like are the norm for any student even at my age and level this is no different. Current plans in the coming days include a presentation for carbon pricing on the "Scandinavian Carbon Taxes with the European ETS" which I must say is showing positive results, and a major essay for political economy on the cheery subject of the Anthropocene Extinction Event. In addition to these extra-vocational activities and on the other side of the lectern, over the next two days I"ll be running training workshops for "Regular Expressions with Linux" and "High Performance and Parallel Python" with the suggestion that this is not entirely a contradiction in terms.

I haven't entirely been hermit-like however, and did venture out into the great world of social connection on Saturday with the Isocracy Annual General Meeting which was held both in-person and remote attendees. The topic of discussion was Australia's rental crisis, along with the matters of demographic changes, land tax, interest rates, inflation, mortgage stress, rent-caps, and the Housing Australia Future Fund with a handy video presentation from the Grattan Institute spurring discussion. To be honest, there are no simple solutions to this, and whoever says there is hasn't thought it all through. Later that day I ventured out to a green-wedge outer suburb for a celebratory (and superbly catered!) gathering at Alison B.'s. I was in a rather exuberant mood, having saved up several days of the spirit and found myself engaging in all manner of quality conversations whilst downing two bottles of sparkling until settling into a nice game of chess at 2.30am and somehow managed to rise before noon the following day without feeling much worse for it: "My only regret is that I have not drunk more champagne in my life."