Sunday Music Blogging

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

The US Department of Labor has affirmed the right of LGBT employees to take family leave:

"No one who loves and nurtures a child day-in and day-out should be unable to care for that child when he or she falls ill," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "No one who steps in to parent a child when that child's biological parents are absent or incapacitated should be denied leave by an employer because he or she is not the legal guardian. No one who intends to raise a child should be denied the opportunity to be present when that child is born simply because the state or an employer fails to recognize his or her relationship with the biological parent. These are just a few of many possible scenarios. The Labor Department's action today sends a clear message to workers and employers alike: All families, including LGBT families, are protected by the FMLA."

New York has passed a bill protecting students from harassment based on sexual orientation:

The Dignity for All Students Act, which would protect LGBT students from bullying and harassment in schools, has passed the New York state senate after years of effort. Gov. David Paterson is expected to sign the bill into law, which would mark the first time gender identity and expression are included in state law.

New York will also allow victims of sex trafficking to clear their criminal records:

The landmark legislation--New York's law is the first in the country--will allow trafficking survivors to start their lives over with a clean slate. As it stands, women who've been abused for years are then forced to disclose their criminal convictions to potential employers.

"Even after [the victims] escape from trafficking, that criminal record blocks them from decent jobs and a chance to rebuild their lives," says Democratic Assemblyman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, the author of the bill. "This bill will give them a desperately needed second chance they deserve.”

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled against fetal personhood:

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a fetus...cannot be treated as a separate legal person.

In the case, Ina Cochran v. Commonwealth of Kentucky (PDF), Cochran was indicted for first-degree wanton endangerment after both she and her newborn child tested positive for cocaine in December 2005. The Kentucky Supreme Court found her charge to be in contradiction to the Maternal Health Act of 1992 and dismissed her indictment.

An FDA advisory panel has approved a French contraceptive pill for use in the United States:

A US health panel Thursday voted unanimously to allow the sale of a controversial French birth control pill, which can prevent pregnancy for up to five days after unprotected sex.

A Texas court has upheld the state education board's rejection of degrees in Creation Science.

The Texas Education Code (Sec. 61.301) authorizes the Board to regulate the use of "academic terminology" in order "to prevent deception of the public resulting from the conferring and use of fraudulent or substandard college and university degrees." The Board denied ICRGS's application because its curriculum which was designed to promote "scientific creationism" and "Biblical creationism" does not adequately cover the breadth of knowledge of the discipline taught. The Board's decision was based on the conclusion by the Commissioner of Higher Education that the school's program "inadequately covers key areas of science and their methodologies and rejects one of the foundational theories of modern science," and thus "cannot be properly designated as either 'science' or 'science education.'"

The court rejected ICRGS' claim that the Board engaged in "viewpoint discrimination", finding no animus toward any religious viewpoint. Applying a "rational basis" standard, the court rejected claims that the Board violated ICRGS' free exercise and free speech rights, as well as claims under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. The court concluded that the Board's "decision is rationally related to the State's legitimate interest in protecting the public by preserving the integrity of educational degrees."

The EPA will review its Bush-era policies regarding the testing of pesticides on humans:

In 2006, during the Bush administration, the EPA imposed a rule that allows experiments in which people are intentionally dosed with pesticides to assess the chemicals' toxicity and allows EPA to use such experiments to set allowable exposure standards....

Under the proposed changes to federal research ethics standards, the EPA would no longer accept such studies. If the EPA stops accepting them, corporations have nothing to gain by conducting them.

Thanks to the efforts of Prof. Simon Lewis, the UK's Sunday Times was forced to retract one of its many articles misrepresenting climate science:

[A]s Lewis notes, the Times “ignored interviews with two other experts, and mis-quoted me, concealing my interview comments to them that the IPCC scientific statement was defensible and backed by peer reviewed science (and concealing I sent them some of the scientific literature).”

The world's first solar-powered blimp will soon cross the English Channel:

The mammoth airship measures 72 feet long and 18 feet wide and has a nylon and polyethylene aluminum frame. It also features semi-flexible solar cells that can generate up to 2.4 kilowatts — enough to keep the blimp moving at 25 mph. The cells power a motor that turns two big red propellers, which in turn are expected to send the ship across the Channel in under an hour.

Sir James Dyson has created a bladeless fan for air conditioning:

The fan works like a jet engine, sucking air into a cyclone accelerator that amplifies it 15 to 18 times before blowing it out over an airfoil-shaped ramp. As that air is blown out, more is sucked in from behind. With no blades, the airstream is smooth and the contraption is easy to clean and more difficult to break one’s finger in (just sayin’). The fan runs on a modest 40-watt motor.

A new study suggests that telepresence is an important means of reducing CO2 emissions:

According to a new study of large companies using telepresence technology, U.S. and U.K. businesses that substitute some business travel with telepresence can cut CO2 emissions by nearly 5.5 million metric tons in total — the greenhouse gas equivalent of removing more than one million passenger vehicles from the road for one year — and achieve total economy-wide financial benefits of almost $19 billion, by 2020.

Scientists have discovered a coral reef hidden in a mangrove forest in the Virgin Islands:

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), as many as 30 different species of coral are living happily among the roots in a "secret garden" of sort. Such a well protected and untouched coral ecosystem is a rare find in the Virgin Islands.

Photo: Caroline Rogers/USGS

Researchers are experimenting with a system that will warn gray whales away from wave energy buoys:

According to researchers, the sound energy (one-eighth of one watt) will be less than 1 percent of the sonar emitted from a fishing boat. Beginning in December, the researchers will observe the reactions of northbound single whales.

Two Hawaiian damselflies have won ESA protections:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today protected two species of Hawaiian damselfly as endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The damselflies are part of a backlog of candidate species that includes 245 species and are the subject of a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups. The two insects have been waiting 26 years for protection.

The Department of Labor is allocating $78 million to the National Farmworker Jobs Program:

The program provides training and employment services to migrant and seasonal farmworkers. It is authorized by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 and is designed to counter the impact of chronic unemployment and underemployment experienced by migrant and seasonal farmworkers who depend primarily on agricultural labor jobs.

"Farmworkers do so much for families and for the nation's economy as a whole. These hard working members of our community deserve our support," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "Today's grants are an opportunity to help these workers as they upgrade their skills to improve their chances of advancement in their current employment or seek opportunities in other industries."

A new study confirms the benefits of immigration:

Immigrants do not reduce native employment rates over the long run (10 years), while increasing productivity and average income for native-born workers. Immigration to the United States over the 1990-2006 period can be credited with a 2.9 percent increase in real wages for the average U.S. worker.

And Robert Creamer argues persuasively that supporting Arizona's racial-profiling law is liable to cause huge problems for the GOP:

According to data released by Public Policy Polling (PPP), Texas Governor Rick Perry has lost his early lead over Democratic challenger Bill White and the race is now tied. The movement from a previous PPP poll in February comes entirely from Hispanic voters.

Detroit's residents increasingly support shrinking the city:

“There’s nothing you can do with a lot of the buildings now but do away with them,” said Mae Reeder, a homeowner of 35 years on the southeast side, where her bungalow is surrounded by blocks that are being reclaimed by nature, complete with pheasants nesting in vacant spaces where people once lived.

Extracted teeth could be an ideal source of stem cells:

Like cells from embryos, the soft living tissue from inside teeth can be induced to become what are known as pluripotent stem cells, which have the potential to form several different cell types.

Unlike embryonic cells, which are extracted from days-old human embryos, generating stem cells from dental pulp is a relatively non-invasive and non-controversial process.

An ancient Egyptian city has been discovered with radar.

The radar imaging showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa.

Dr Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the computer-generated images of the city, which is still buried under the ground, show a very detailed layout of ancient Avaris. Several architectural features including houses, temples, streets, cemeteries and palaces can be seen.

An artist is using a 3D printer to make objects out of human ashes:

Dutch Designer Wieki Somers just might have found the next new renewable building material — human ashes. For the Grand Hornu Images gallery exhibit “In Progress,” she used a 3D printer to turn human ashes into art. Somers created three pieces — a toaster, a mini vacuum cleaner and a scale — for the exhibit that was meant to have the designers rethink the idea of progress.

Animal alphabets. Children's books from the Lindsay Shaw Collection. Food labels from The B. Heller & Co. Collection. Medical graphics from the Richard Travers Collection. Stories from the Torres Strait. How the Yuungnaqpiallerput genuinely live. The Typographia Homepage. Photos by Guy Tillim. And an army of Jizo statues.


Book Use, Book Theory. A survey of the Australian retrofuture, via Frontiers of Science. The Strobotop. Magnificent maps. Materials from the historic corporate archive of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company. Costume designs by B.J. Simmons and Co. The Singular Sufferings of Two Friends, who had lost themselves in an American Forest. The return of the repressed. Butterfly wings in 3D. Rhinoceroses in Romania. And Islands of Four Mountains from Above.


Alluvial porn, and how. Near the Egress, "a multimedia mash-up of b/w film, tintypes, stop-action video and custom soundtrack." Automats and Einfühlung. An exploration of display cabinets. The life of Frances Perkins. The Nineteenth Century in photographs, or vice versa. Journeying around an image. Astronomical snapshots, 1911-1915. Dueling geodata. Photos of New York. And recent acquisitions of the Monash Library.


L'instantanée. Notes towards a Martian Museum of Earth, and the Sands Mechanical Museum (via things). The USB Typewriter, "a new and groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence." Ten things you didn't know about the Lewis Chessman. The Rose of Bohemia, and a map of Starvania. The Printer's Handbook, and Carte Geografiche. Photos by Roger Fenton. Bowerbirds and their bowers. And a collection of early astronomical photographs.


Here's a movie, too.



(Photo at top: "La grande roue du jardin des Tuileries" by Pierre Dubreuil, ca. 1900. Via L'instantanée.)

The Dispossessed

Chris Hedges warns us about the rise of the Christian fascists. They're disenfranchised! They're politically connected! They're angry! And they hate us for our freedom!

To which one might reasonably reply, "What else is new?"

Christian fascists hate Otherness. No, really! Furthermore, they've retreated from a world that humiliates and bullies them, and found solace in religious fantasies that project their lust for petty vengeance onto God. They'll kill us all if they get the chance, and add insult to injury by chanting the Pledge of Allegiance over our bones.

So far, so good. The question is, will they get the chance? As Hedges sees it, one more terrorist attack could allow them to wrest the country from "us" (which translates, I'm guessing, as "people who get mawkishly sentimental about the Enlightenment"). One problem with this line of thinking is that the country isn't actually "ours." It's run for profit, generally speaking, by people whose zealotry is of a somewhat different order than R.J. Rushdoony's, and they seem unlikely to hand it over to the dominionists without a fight.

Beyond that, the idea that the country will simply fall on its knees before cadres of Chistian extremists is a bit too close to the standard right-wing danger narratives about Muslims or gays for my taste. If I don't accept Mark Steyn's vision of Europe groaning under the yoke of sharia in the near term, I'm not sure why I should accept Hedges' vision of Christofascists seizing control of every branch of government.

Building and administering a theocracy is hard work, especially in a country this large and diverse, and I don't think Hedges' "diffuse and fractious" fascists are up to the job. That doesn't mean they won't try, of course, or that people won't get killed as a result. But for most of these "radicals," dominion is a mere daydream. It'd be nice if it happened, especially if someone else did all the work and took all the risks. But by and large, it's simply an escapist fantasy. Although Hedges has a number of worthwhile insights into his subject -- worthwhile in the all-important sense that they agree with mine -- he fails to notice that revolutionary rhetoric often becomes more garish the more passive and defeated its adherents are. (Revolution, as Simone Weil said, is the opium of the people.)

Given how lurid Hedges' fears are, his solutions seem kind of laughable. The Christian fascists hate us, passionately and implacably: we can't negotiate or reason with them, because they "cannot acknowledge the legitimacy of other ways of being and believing."

But are we downhearted? No! Because we can buy off these Holy Warriors with the very same activist social programs that they view as the work of Teh Devil. After all, when you're dealing with a terminally angry cult of masculinity, nothing turns away wrath faster than collectivist platitudes and state-enforced charity:

Let us openly defy the liberal establishment, which will not save us, to demand and fight for economic reparations for our working class. Let us reincorporate these dispossessed into our economy.

Great idea! I wish I'd thought of it.

Granted, there's evidence that people who are prone to fascism are more prone to fascism in tough economic times. But it's hard not to object to Hedges' salvific view of "our economy," especially since he just spent a great deal of time identifying it, quite accurately, with "the culture of death" against which Christian fascism is reacting. Hedges falls into the same trap as a lot of leftish commentators on the Christian Right, in that he simultaneously wants them to be inherently anti-Enlightenment, and amenable to Enlightenment rationality at its most middlebrow and trivial (i.e., economic).

The liberal class has proved useless in combating the largest environmental disaster in our history, ending costly and futile imperial wars or stopping the corporate plundering of the nation. And the gutlessness of the liberal class has left it, and the values it represents, reviled and hated.

This sounds good. But how much of it is actually true? How much of it, for that matter, is coherent? What, exactly, is a "futile imperial war"? Are useful ones preferable? Is the liberal class -- whatever that is -- reviled and hated for failing to live up to its alleged ideals, or for making the occasional timid step in that direction? I'd love to live in an America that doesn't launch imperial wars or despoil the environment, just as I'd love to have a magic hat, but the idea that the liberal class is denying us this utopia through "gutlessness" is a bit hard to swallow.

On a more light-hearted note, Hedges advises us that "the Democrats have refused to repeal the gross violations of international and domestic law codified by the Bush administration." This is terrible, because it means that when the Christian fascists ruthlessly seize absolute power, they'll be able to use Bush's extralegal tactics against us! Otherwise, they'd be forced to sit in the Halls of Power and twiddle their thumbs, since it'd never occur to them to codify their own gross violations of international and domestic law.

The naive attempts to placate a movement bent on our destruction, to prove to it that we too have “values,” only strengthens its legitimacy and weakness our own. If we do not have a right to be, if our very existence is not legitimate in the eyes of God, there can be no dialogue. At this point it is a fight for survival.

OMG our survival is at stake! Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out!

But on second thought, isn't everything our fault, when you come right down to it?

We failed them; we owe them more: This is their response.

Pobrecitos. We must heal their psychic wounds, by reincorporating them into an imaginary pluralist mainstream they've already rejected.

On third thought, fuck that noise. It's time to gird our loins and battle the Hun!

Let us not stand meekly at the open gates of the city waiting passively for the barbarians. They are coming. They are slouching toward Bethlehem.

Oooh, a reference to Yeats' "The Second Coming"! What better proof could there be that Hedges has given this matter Serious Thought?

In summation: the typical behavior of the usual suspects is a shocking new threat to what little remains of Authentic Civilization. This crisis mandates immediate action of some sort, lest the Forces of Darkness mow us down and use our skulls as paperweights.

Like I said, what else is new?

Sunday Music Blogging

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

China has ruled that evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible:

The top judicial and law enforcement bodies in China have issued new guidelines that seek to halt the use of torture in obtaining confessions or witness testimony, especially in death penalty cases.

The rules, announced Sunday, would nullify evidence gathered through violence or intimidation and give defendants the ability to challenge confessions presented during their trials.

In Turkey, a court has imposed severe penalties on officials who authorized torture.

The heavy sentences for nine prison and police officials for torture, leading in one case to death, is a momentous verdict that should signal a renewed effort by the Turkish government to end torture in custody, Human Rights Watch said today. The case is the first in which a Turkish court convicted a senior prison official for torture by guards under his command.

The Obama administration has extended more benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees:

"For far too long, many of our government's hard-working, dedicated [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] employees have been denied equal access to the basic rights and benefits their colleagues enjoy," Obama wrote in a memo to the heads of federal departments and agencies. "This kind of systemic inequality undermines the health, well-being, and security not just of our federal workforce, but also of their families and communities."

The Malawian men who were sentenced to 14 years of hard labor for the grievous crime of homosexuality have been pardoned and released:

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were released late Saturday, hours after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them without condition.

South Carolina has passed a law that reforms state sentencing guidelines:

South Carolina's Republican governor today signed off on a sentencing-reform law that passed the state's Republican-controlled legislature by a wide margin. It reduces sentences for some non-violent offenders while increasing them for certain violent ones and it improves post-release supervision. It also ends the ridiculous sentencing disparity between powdered and rock cocaine, ends mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug possession and lets more inmates participate in work-release programmes. It is also projected to save the state $400m over the next five years—no small potatoes for a state looking at a billion-dollar shortfall.

Believe it or not, overwrought anti-immigrant narratives about violence along the US/Mexico border seem to be inaccurate:

It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer.

It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.

The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.

New York has passed a bill of rights for domestic workers:

The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, just approved by the New York State Senate, gives nannies, housekeepers and other caregivers basic rights and safeguards against employer abuses. The provisions, which could impact some 200,000 workers, include overtime pay, vacation days, medical leave, advance notice of termination, and one precious day off each week.

The California Assembly has voted to ban plastic bags:

The state Assembly has passed legislation prohibiting California pharmacies and grocery, liquor, and convenience stores from using plastic bags. The bill also calls for customers to be charged for using store-issued paper bags.

Lawmakers say the purpose of the bill is to reduce the number of plastic bags headed for the landfill and to get rid of the bags that commonly end up in the ocean or riverways.

Hawaii has banned shark-fin soup:

Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, has signed into law a ban on shark-fin soup beginning July 1st, 2011, according to Reuters. The soup is currently served in a number of Chinese restaurants in Hawaii, but the trade has decimated certain shark species due to overfishing.

Restaurants will be allowed to finish their inventory of shark fin, but after next July fines will run from a low of $5,000for a first offense to a high of $50,000 and up to a year in jail for the third offense.

A legal settlement requires the federal government to finalize ESA protections for seven penguin species:

The court-ordered settlement results from a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN) challenging the Obama administration’s failure to finalize its determination that these penguins warrant Endangered Species Act protection due to threats from climate change and commercial fisheries.

The EPA has set new limits for sulfur dioxide:

USEPA has upgraded an outdated SO2 standard, which involved long term (daily) average concentration limits, to a short-term standard that better protects asthmatics, for example. By early 2013 expect enforcement to begin against a one-hour SO2 health standard of 75 parts per billion (ppb). Full implementation will take place over more than a decade, however.

Efforts to protect the Brazilian rainforest appear to be working:

Protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon are proving highly effective in reducing forest loss in Earth's largest rainforest, reports a new study based on analysis of deforestation trends in and around indigenous territories, parks, military holdings, and sustainable use reserves.

In Germany, unused cigarette machines are being repurposed to sell books:

The nifty machines feature a rotating selection of books of various genres, including graphic novels, travel guides, and poetry collections. Four euros (about $5 American dollars) will fetch you any available work, all written by local writers.

And US Army researchers seem to have found a treatment for the Ebola virus:

One of the world’s deadliest pathogens, which gives its victims a gruesomely bloody exit, might finally be contained. After decades of unsuccessful research, a collaboration based out of the Army’s labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland has devised an experimental injection that cures the Ebola virus by targeting its genetic material.

The injection uses a novel technique, called RNA interference, to stop viral cells from replicating. Scientists packaged RNA snippets into particles that were then injected into four rhesus monkeys, who’d been infected with a dose of Ebola that was 30,000 times more potent than the virus’ most lethal strain, which already has a measly 10 percent survival rate. The snippets latched onto key viral proteins, and cured all four monkeys after a week of daily injections.

Heart and Soul Nebulas in Infrared. The City, seen as an Arboreal Necropolis. A collision with Jupiter. A 600-year-old window. And what may be the world's oldest rock art:


The Sun Shines & The Igloo Melts. Canvassing for suffrage. "A cinema excursion in the great black metropolis of New York," courtesy of British Pathe's Twitter feed, courtesy of The Bioscope. Soviet soft drink labels. And the Digital Archive of Šechtl & Voseček Studios.


Elk rescue in Estonia. Masters of architectural photography. Redesigned BP logos. Vintage computers. Vintage roman policier covers. A field guide to Mimpish Squinnies. Romanticism and landscape design. And Found Functions.


And a movie, obviously.



UPDATE: I decided to replace Len Lye's The Birth of the Robot with the film above, because it occurred to me that most of my readers are probably not in the mood for animated petro-triumphalist propaganda right now, no matter how visually interesting it is.

(Image at top: "Ice and Sea" by Sidney Nolan, 1964.)

Sunday Music Blogging

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

The DoI has suspended Shell Oil's Alaskan drilling permits:

“Suspending Shell’s drilling permit this year is the first thing Ken Salazar has done right in response to the Minerals Management Service scandals,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “We applaud the Secretary’s decision and hope that he permanently ends all new offshore oil drilling in Alaska. Drilling for oil in icy Arctic waters is like playing Russian roulette. There is no way to clean up a spill there and endangered species such as polar bears, whales, walruses, and seals are already under too much stress.”

The journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry has released its complete archive of studies on the Exxon Valdez oil spill for free:

"We are providing these previously released studies for free to help educate decision-makers, the public and the media in the wake of the April 20 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

The House has voted to end the ban on gays in the military:

Congress has taken two big steps toward ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. In quick succession Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee and the full House approved measures to repeal the 1993 law that allows gay people to serve in the armed services only if they hide their sexual orientation.

As Suzie notes:

This is a victory for all women in the military, some of whom suffer sexual abuse or harassment because they are thought to be lesbians or because they "need to prove" they aren't.

The House has also passed the Eshoo Amendment, which allows the GAO to audit intelligence agencies:

This is a great victory for government oversight. POGO thanks Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) for her leadership on this issue, and also thanks the other co-sponsors—Howard Berman (D-CA), Rush Holt (D-WV), Mike Thompson (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and John Tierney (D-MS)—for stepping up to the plate and supporting this important amendment.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has revised its position on female genital mutilation:

The American Academy of Pediatrics has rescinded a controversial policy statement raising the idea that doctors in some communities should be able to substitute demands for female genital cutting with a harmless clitoral "pricking" procedure.

"We retracted the policy because it is important that the world health community understands the AAP is totally opposed to all forms of female genital cutting, both here in the U.S. and anywhere else in the world," said AAP President Judith S. Palfrey.

Kansas governor Mark Parkison has restored state funding for family planning:

The funding, which would be used specifically for contraception and other forms of family planning, rather than abortion services, was reallocated by anti-choice legislators during the budgeting process to go to hospitals and primary care centers, in order to attempt to defund local Planned Parenthoods.

The Obama administration has nominated a conservationist to oversee the Forest Service:

A former timber lobbyist, Mark Rey, held the job in the Bush administration.

In overseeing national forests for most of Bush's presidency, Rey had a hand in controversial policies, faced worsening fire seasons, tussled with environmentalists and was even threatened with jail by a federal judge. Environmentalists saw Rey as a fox guarding the henhouse with forestry issues....

"It's interesting they would nominate someone who doesn't have a huge Forest Service background but who instead has a conservation background. I think it is a very good sign," said Brian Moore, who works on farmland conservation issues for Audubon.

More musicians are boycotting Arizona:

A coalition of music groups has announced that its members will boycott all performances in Arizona to protest a tough new anti-immigration law there, and it has urged fans to sign a petition demanding the revocation of the legislation, which it calls “an assault on the U.S. Constitution.”

France has arrested a doctor accused of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide:

According to officials, Eugene Rwamucyo was arrested on Wednesday in Sannois, northwest of Paris, when he was attending the funeral of a former Rwandan official convicted for war crimes during the genocide.

Rwamucyo's arrest in France was based on an international warrant issued in 2007 by Rwanda, where he was convicted in absentia in and sentenced to life in prison earlier that year.

The world's smallest waterlily has been saved from extinction:

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's top propagation 'code-breaker', horticulturist Carlos Magdalena, has cracked the enigma of growing a rare species of African waterlily – believed to be the smallest waterlily in the world with pads than can be as little as 1cm in diameter – bringing it back from the brink of extinction; a fitting success story to celebrate International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May 2010.

Indonesia has announced a moratorium on logging concessions:

Indonesia announced a two year moratorium on granting new concessions of rainforest and peat forest for clearing in Oslo, Norway, beginning in January 2011, however concessions already granted to companies will not be stopped. The announcement came as Indonesia received 1 billion US dollars from Norway to help the country stop deforestation.

A new bird was discovered in Colombia, and lived to tell the tale:

A thrush-like bird, the new cinnamon and gray species was, according to a press release by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), "captured, banded, measured, photographed, sampled for DNA, and then released alive back into the wild".

This is one of only a few incidences in which a new species has been described without 'collecting' an individual (i.e. killing) to provide a model of the species in a museum.

Fenwick's Antpitta. Photo by: ©Fundacion ProAves

Australia is taking legal action against Japan to end whaling in the Southern Ocean:

Formal proceedings will begin in The Hague next week and would lead to a provisional order for Japan to halt whaling ahead of a full hearing.

There's new evidence that conservation helps the economy:

[T]he researchers found that the presence of parks reduced poverty in Costa Rica and Thailand by 10 percent and 30 percent, respectively.

The new study isn’t the only evidence that conservation is good for the economy. In the current issue of Nature Conservancy magazine, I examined the value of mangrove forests to local communities. Off the Gulf of California in Mexico, for instance, fishermen living near the biggest mangroves reel in the most fish and crab. Specifically, each acre of mangrove brought in about $15,000 per year in seafood, a dollar amount 200 times higher than the forest’s timber value.

An electric car has traveled 623 miles on a single charge:

The little electric car ran technology built around 8,320 Sanyo li-ion cells (totaling about 807lbs) which make up about half the weight of a commercial Mira. The trip took 27 and a half hours and was driven on the Tsukuba circuit in Shimotsuma, Japan — which means they were driving at a grandma’s pace of 23 miles per hour on average.

Filtering water through a sari can substantially reduce the risk of cholera:

University of Maryland microbiologist Rita Colwell and her colleagues reported that teaching women in villages in Bangladesh to filter water through folded sari cloth reduced the incidence of cholera by 48 percent. Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which attaches itself to the gut of a tiny zooplankton that lives in standing freshwater. Untreated, the disease kills 60 to 80 percent of those infected and is especially hard on the elderly and children younger than 5. The sari fabric filters out the zooplankton and reduces exposure to the bacteria.

Death rates are dropping for children under five:

Death rates in children under 5 are dropping in many countries at an accelerated pace, according to a new report in ‘The Lancet’ based on data from 187 countries from 1970 to 2010. Worldwide, 7.7 million children are expected to die this year down from the 1990 figure of 11.9 million.

(h/t: Cheryl.)

A new bicycle-powered water pump is proving useful in Guatemala:

The machine was tested to a range of heights and on flat ground the pump can achieve a 40 litres per minute flow rate - equal to about three normal showers. At 26 meters, a flow rate of 5 liters per minute can be achieved.

National Geographic has launched a Global Action Atlas that "enables you to support efforts across the globe to reduce human suffering, protect natural landscapes, and more." (You can help with the Gulf oil spill by clicking here).

In other news: The water underground. Mysteries of the Chasma Boreale revealed. Dark filaments of the sun. Candid snapshots of a bee. A home-made subway system. Biographical notes on Anna Atkins, Mistress of Blueprint Manor. And via BLDGBLOG, photos by Christoph Morlinghaus.


America speaks out. Paintings of post-Krakatoa sunsets by William Ascroft. The Third Coast Atlas. The Opportunity Rover takes a look backwards as it exits Victoria Crater (the footage is fascinating not least because it already looks antique). Speaking of which, here's a collection of Mardi Gras costume designs from 1873, based on "The Missing Links to Darwin's Origin of Species":


Bioephemera alerts me to what could be the best nonfiction book subtitle ever: Never Pure: Historical Studies of Science as if It Was Produced by People with Bodies, Situated in Time, Space, Culture, and Society, and Struggling for Credibility and Authority. Furthermore: Britain's Mid-Century Female Designers, considered as if they were people with bodies, situated in time, space, culture, and society, and struggling for credibility and authority. The Gigapan Camera (via things). Dreams, scored by Delia Derbyshire. And Vaido's Photoblog, featuring daily photography from Estonia.

Also, the Milky Way over Death Valley.



(Image at top: "Bird over Harbour, Sydney" by Sidney Nolan, 1948.)

Open Season

"It's open season on Arizona," says Maggie Gallagher.

She's right, of course. No sooner did the governor legalize racial profiling, and declare that classes on Latino history and culture are verboten, than the Grievance Industry started whining about "racism."

These bullies also complain that the state has some of the worst jail conditions in the country. And houses inmates outdoors, in summer, in makeshift detention camps, after sending them on forced marches through the city streets for the edification of the public. Why don't they pick on someone their own size for a change?

If you need further proof that Arizona is the Jew of liberal fascism, consider this astonishing example of intolerance, which would be roundly condemned by the Usual Suspects if it were applied to the disease-ridden wetbacks who are trying to thwart the Southwest Territorial Imperative:

A former Phoenix Suns basketball star who is now the mayor of Sacramento put the repulsive logic of the Arizona boycott in shocking clarity. "I still have many friends in Arizona, and know the state is not a land filled with hatred. But sometimes Arizonans need a reminder of their foolishness. If we shun them, maybe they will get it."

Since this logic is repulsive, let's take a gander at the good kind:

Why is the president of the United States and his party acting this way? To jack up the Democratic vote.

If "sixty percent of Americans support Arizona," the notion that "bullying Arizona" will "jack up the Democratic vote" seems counterintuitive.

And so does this:

People who were serious about actually reforming immigration would begin by defusing, not inflaming, the racial issues.

Just like Arizona did when it made skin color legal grounds for demanding proof of citizenship, and curtailed "ethnic studies" in state colleges.

Gallagher "cannot speak for all Americans," but she can say that Americans are "pro-rule-of-law" and "believe racial understanding is a two-way street." For example, if Americans are expected to understand minority concerns, minorities should be equally willing to understand that those concerns are wrongheaded at best. Fair's fair!

This is a generous country. Millions of Latinos are not rushing to our borders because we are such a racist society.

If we were racists, see, we wouldn't have this Very Serious Problem along the Mexican border. Since we do, we can harass nonwhite folks to our heart's content, without being accused of anything more shameful than a völkisch sentimentality about national character.

Serious immigration reform must begin by refusing to play the race card, by attempting to conciliate the legitimate concerns about immigration's sometimes serious local costs.

"Playing the race card" is a typical tactic of lazy, dishonest people who would rather demonize white hardworking Americans than acknowledge the glaring defects of minority cultures. Claiming that Mexicans are invading Arizona and murdering its sheriffs, but are being coddled by a Democrat Party that needs to replenish itself by recruiting minorities — just as gays recruit children to keep their unnatural breed alive — is not playing the race card but expressing "concerns."

You can't blame Mexicans for having dark skin or being born in Mexico. But you can blame them for acting like Mexicans, and shattering a national unity that exists only in our minds, and threatening our health and wellbeing simply by daring to exist, and clinging to alien notions even after their cultural superiors have gone to the trouble of correcting them. That's not racism, though; that's common sense.

Which is not to say that racism doesn't exist. But it's something very far removed from the "normal concerns" of "ordinary Americans." Or, if you prefer, the ordinary concerns of normal Americans. For whom Gallagher can't speak, but must, given what's at stake.

Simply put, you're not a racist unless you accept the title as proudly as a normal American would accept a bowling trophy. Being told that you're making a racist argument, when you're really just fretting over the deadly threat of Mexican drug cartels, is an injustice that dwarfs all others, including racism.

"There is no easy answer," as Gallagher notes. And yet, all these pseudo-American grievance-mongers persist in bullying Arizona, simply because the state has arrived at an easy answer with which all sensible people should be able to agree.

The fact is, we're in terrible danger. Why else would we be defending ourselves?

UPDATE: Gallagher complains that a member of a Mexican drug cartel shot a law-enforcement officer while crossing the border. As it happens, seven police officers were shot by right-wing radicals in the past year. The most recent attack was by Jerry Kane, who murdered two officers because he was angry about "being arrested at what he called a 'Nazi checkpoint' near Carrizozo, N.M."

I always knew a white guy would do something like that.

A Global Laughingstock

Cliff Kincaid says that if we allow gay people to serve openly in the military, we'll have to allow transgendered people to serve openly in the military. Which means that we'll have to allow men to wear frilly little lacy things when they go forth to fight the Hun. Which means the Hun will laugh at us. Which means they'll win, in some obscure but frightening sense, no matter how many thermobaric shells the Barney Frank Brigade lobs into their subterranean lairs.

And that's not all:

While it is tempting to think that the only damage that would be done would be the turning of our once-feared military into a global laughingstock, there are important national security and health implications to the homosexualization of the Armed Forces.

You think men in dresses is funny, soldier? Well, you'll be laughing out the other side of your piehole when you get splashed with faggot blood and catch Teh AIDS.

[A] profusely bleeding gay soldier could threaten those caring for him on the battlefield, ultimately taking the lives of his fellow soldiers....

A position of opening the military to individuals with a documented history of exposure to deadly diseases, when there is no guaranteed way to screen their infected blood out of the blood supply, is obviously reckless and irresponsible.

It's worse than Kincaid lets on. Suppose a sniper's bullet traveled through a gay man's testicles and then lodged in a straight man's lower intestine? That would give him double AIDS, at the very least!

Being as the MSM is owned and operated by gays and gay-fanciers, they're naturally hiding the Awful Truth about "gay blood on the battlefield." Instead, they insist that gays have a right to serve openly, in dresses, despite being infected with the deadly gay plague of homosexual AIDS.

But the thing is, if DADT were repealed, most straight soldiers would immediately quit the military, leaving the gays in charge of everything. That means we'd need a new draft to replenish it, and that means straight soldiers would be forced to serve under queers, if you get my drift. It brings a whole new meaning to the term "recruitment."

They will demand sexual favors to rise in the ranks, creating even more problems down the road. It is a recipe for national suicide.

Indeed. Consider the sad plight of Israel. And Great Britain. And Australia. And all the other countries that allow gay people to serve openly, and are therefore doomed to die of AIDS any day now.

And think on this: How can Obama claim to be against obesity when he wants to give the US military AIDS by mandating risky practices like "bare-backing," which is a deadly and also dangerous form of gay sex in which one gay man gives another AIDS on purpose (assuming he can find one who doesn't already have it)? What's the point of cutting down on junk food if you're just gonna catch AIDS* and die, thanks to "the Hollywood-backed and well-funded homosexual lobby"?

In summation, we mustn't allow gay veterans to pervert the meaning of their own sacrifice by granting them the rights they fought for. For as a wise man once said, "AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS!"

*AIDS!

Mastery Over Nature

One of the rules of pop-science journalism is that one must pay lip service to everyday moral concerns before descending into uncritical technophiliac babble. The point is not to achieve balance, but to deploy an army of strawmen that can then be incinerated with Promethean fire.

Thus, The Economist initially seems troubled by the news that scientists have created a synthetic cell. What now of that "divine spark," that "vital essence," in which we all believe, whether we actually believe in it or not? Don't all the world's religions explicitly tell us, somewhere or other, that it's impossible, or at least wrong, to create artificial life of any kind? Doesn't this milestone confirm that we are gods, with all the power and responsibility -- but especially the power -- that entails?

[Creating life] would prove mankind’s mastery over nature in a way more profound than even the detonation of the first atomic bomb.

I'm more likely to see atomic weapons as proof of our subjection to nature. But there's no sense straining at that gnat when we've got this camel to swallow:

Biology is about nurturing and growth.

If you doubt this, consider the myriad plagues and injuries from which this new discovery might protect us.

This is a golden age, almost. But inevitably, some people will accuse scientists of "tampering" with nature, and causing more problems than they're likely to solve.

Such questions are not misplaced—and should give pause even to those, including this newspaper, who normally embrace advances in science with enthusiasm. The new biological science does have the potential to do great harm, as well as good. “Predator” and “disease” are just as much part of the biological vocabulary as “nurturing” and “growth”.

In other words, it's a great-idea-but-possibly-not-and-I'm-not-being-indecisive!

[F]or good or ill it is here. Creating life is no longer the prerogative of gods.

So let's reason with the worst that may befall:

What if a home-brew synthetic-biology club were accidentally to launch a real virus or bacterium? What if a terrorist were to do the same deliberately?

In that case, decimating humanity with deadly diseases would no longer be the prerogative of gods! We'd be capable of...of...destroying ourselves! Who ever dreamed that things would come to this?

Luckily, there's a solution, and it has to do with Free Markets and the Wisdom of Crowds:

Thoughtful observers of synthetic biology favour a different approach: openness. This avoids shutting out the good in a belated attempt to prevent the bad. Knowledge cannot be unlearned, so the best way to oppose the villains is to have lots of heroes on your side. Then, when a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly.

It's hard to single out the silliest claim in this paragraph, but I'm going to go with the assertion that "knowledge cannot be unlearned." This entire article is a testament to our ability to unlearn, from its prattle about "mankind's mastery over nature," to its cockeyed optimism about the "openness" favored by "thoughtful observers," to its astonishing assumption that "when a problem arises, an answer can be found quickly."

All this philosophical maundering amounts to a means of sounding serious while avoiding any serious discussion of the political and economic contexts in which this research actually takes place. The moral issues here were old news in the sixteenth century, and The Economist simplifies them to the point of banality by focusing almost exclusively on the idea that there's some clear limit beyond which human science must not go (which wasn't self-evident even in more orthodox ages than ours).

The interesting question is not whether synthetic biology amounts to "playing God," but who gets to define terms like "heroes" and "good," which The Economist throws around like confetti on New Year's Eve.

Encourage the good to outwit the bad and, with luck, you keep Nemesis at bay.

"Luck," in this context, shouldn't be confused with mere chance; it's more like the rain that follows the plow. Or a piñata that will shower candy on you if you keep swinging blindly at it with a stick.

What disturbs me isn't the creation of artificial organisms per se, but this article's assumption that "we" can easily distinguish heroes from villains, good uses from bad ones, and unforeseen accidents from predictable disasters. The problem, as always, isn't what we know how to do; it's who we are.

UPDATE: John Horgan addresses other aspects of the hype surrounding this research.

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

I'm very very very busy today, and have no time to compile FHB.

That's where you come in. Please feel free to feel obliged to feel required to post links to positive stories!

Here are some links to get the ball rolling:

Carbon Tax Enacted by Montgomery County, Maryland

Nestle caves to activist pressure on palm oil

Big compromise reached on Canada's Boreal Forest by environmental groups and forestry industry

Amtrak Line Meets Ridership Goals for First Year in 6 Months

Two Thousand Hispanic business leaders urge support for clean energy and climate bill

More new species found in Indonesia's "Lost World"

Frozen waves

California as the world

Man reunited with gorilla

A hidden frog

Also, this:



(Photo by Andrew Moore, from his fine book Detroit Disassembled.)

The New Groups

Elena Kagan is — let's face it — a Jew. Georgie Anne Geyer ponders what this means to you and me and the man in the next street:

[S]hould she be approved, it will mark the first time in history that no Protestant has been a member of the supreme judicial body of the land.

The court would have six Catholics and three Jews, and what a change that would be for the country founded on a "Protestant ethic."

"Protestant" is Geyer's shorthand for "the Eastern Establishment," which is her shorthand for wealthy and well-mannered white people who dwell "in polished and unostentatious enclaves, in New York, Newport and Palm Beach," just as the Founders intended.

See, the Founders believed that "the interest of their class...was the interest of the nation." And they were right, because as the Eastern Establishment flourished, so too did the nation, as evidenced by the flourishing of the Eastern Establishment.

This process culminated in the election of George H.W. Bush, who was the Ben Hancock of our time:

George H.W. Bush was the last president of the Eastern Protestant Establishment, and there is little question that the values that informed him from that heritage led to his becoming such a great, balanced and successful president.

Now we're preparing to shoehorn yet another Jew into the SCOTUS, and the courtly era of Bush the First seems very far away indeed. As Geyer says, "the Americans who gave us affirmative action now may effectively need affirmative action programs for themselves." Pobrecitos!

Soon, one can imagine a new old movie being made of "the Protestants," sort of like an American Western where the song is over but the memory lingers on.

Yes, it's just like whatever that means!

No, wait. On second thought, it's more like whatever this means:

Or, to lift the entire scenario to a far (far!) higher and certainly more elevated level, one might remember Thomas Mann's great novel, "Buddenbrooks," the iconic story of the decline of a Northern German industrial family, which travels the famous literary route from the first family days of the military, to the second of the commercial class, to the final days when the last generation lives only in and for the theater.

Mayhap. On the other hand, there's a part in Treasure Island where Jim hides in a barrel. So who's to say?

Anyhoo, the Protestants have labored mightily to ensure that American society would not be closed and elitist. This was a noble and generous idea, though not, perhaps, an entirely wise one.

It's not that Geyer dislikes Jews, or anyone else. It's just that she tends to prefer the Eastern Protestant Establishment, like all thoughtful people who appreciate Civilization. It's nothing personal, though: Ethnic arrivistes like Kagan may seem vulgar and contentious and ill-bred, "at least compared to the old establishment with its fine manners. But that is simply natural, for the new groups, no matter their talents, have no common faith, principles and duties at their core."

One must be tolerant, within reason, no matter how culturally and spiritually defective one's inferiors may be. This, too, is part of the Protestant legacy.

Speaking of which, the Protestants really are great, aren't they? I mean, seriously. They're just really, really, really...great.

The form that America took from this remarkable group of people is the form that every progressive country in the world must start with, as it tries to develop. This is why communism gave way to social democracy and why Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Tunisia, and even monarchical countries like Oman and Bahrain are essentially involved in the original Protestant thesis.

And what is "the original Protestant thesis," exactly? Oh, you know...good manners, noblesse oblige, sexual discretion, summering in Kennebunkport, the Five solas, hostility to the Welfare State...stuff like that. You know it when you see it, basically.

Be sure to turn in next week, when Geyer laments that baseball has become much (much!) less gracious and civilized since Kenesaw M. Landis died.

UPDATE: I edited this post to remove a couple of jokes that, on reflection, weren't very funny.

De Rerum Natura

The Washington Times hammers yet another final nail into Algore's piano-sized coffin:

The alarmists must imagine that 50 years before the birth of Christ, men like Julius Caesar spent their summers strolling the streets of Rome wearing sweaters to guard against catching a chill - instead of abandoning the sweltering capital in favor of temperate seaside villas. A study published in the March 8 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science casts further doubt on the warmist premise by concluding that the sun beat down more harshly on the Caesars than it did on anyone else in the past 2,000 years.

Not only that, but Lucretius was whining about hot weather centuries ago!

The following easily could be a passage from [Gore's] book "Earth in the Balance" describing the consequence of failure to act on climate change: "Either the scorching sun burns up your fields, or sudden rains or frosts destroy your harvests, or a violent wind carries away all before it." Inconveniently for Mr. Gore, the Roman poet Lucretius expressed those sentiments around 50 B.C. That's because weather back then was just as hot - or hotter - and as extreme as it is today.

See what they did there? The Goracle's movie had the word "inconvenient" in its title, but now it turns out that he's the one who has to face the inconvenient truth that Lucretius' description of extreme weather sounds just like his, but predates it. Which means we can arguably add plagiarism to his list of crimes. Sux2bu, fatty!

Other studies from around the world confirm the existence of Roman and Medieval warming periods, where no source of "greenhouse gases" existed aside from the horses and cows of the time.

I suppose the warmistas think Roman warming was caused by Nero driving an SUV, bwahaha! In fact, the warming was natural, which means that the same natural mechanisms must be at work right now, exclusively, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. And since the term "greenhouse gases" appears in scare quotes, there's no reason to assume that this 100%-natural warming could be exacerbated or accelerated by modern GHG emissions, since the climate is not particularly sensitive, as demonstrated by the fact that it sometimes changes abruptly in ways that can be devastating to human societies.

In short, it's safe to say that the AGW religion has been debunked once and for all by William Patterson et al, regardless of what alarmists like William Patterson may think.