Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Science in the sea

Way overdue on a science post.  So let's look at science in the sea or science on the sea. Elizabeth Weise (USA TODAY) reports:

As Americans flock to the beach this summer, they're often greeted with disconcerting news: Their destination might be smelly with dead fish or rotting seaweed, − and danger often lurks from rip currents or even shark attacks.

In a warming world, those problems are set to get worse, experts say.

"The climate is changing and it's changing drastically," said Todd Crowl, director of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University in Miami. "It is measurable and happening."

No single ruined beach day should be directly attributed to a warming globe. But the rise in atmospheric and ocean temperatures is rapidly altering the stretches of coastline where land and water meet.

The most obvious effect is rising sea levels that over years will erode beaches, threaten coastal homes and swamp stretches of coastline. But some climate change consequences are less obvious and are beginning to unfold right now.

This year could portend even more extreme, seashore-ruining events. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday that global ocean temperatures hit a record high in May, the second consecutive month in which ocean temperatures broke a record, the NOAA said.


That's bad enough.  But BUSINESS INSIDER reports:


A rare pod of orcas washed up dead late last year. It's the first mass stranding of these killer whales in 67 years and only the second event of its kind in recorded history, according to LiveScience. 

The orcas are of a rare subgroup called Type D, and are different from other killer whales due to their rounded head, distinctly smaller white eye patches, and curved dorsal fins.

Moreover, these orcas are not to be mistaken for the pod that is ramming boats, ripping off rudders, and sometimes sinking vessels, near the Strait of Gibraltar off the coast of south Spain — different locations, different types of killer whales.

Type D orcas were first discovered in 1955 when a group of 17 washed ashore off the coast of New Zealand. A similar event occurred late last year, where a total of nine Type D orcas washed ashore on the other side of the South Pacific Ocean on a beach in Chile. 

"I have to admit, I never thought I would hear about another stranding of Type D killer whales in my lifetime," Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University who has been studying Type D orcas for years, told LiveScience.





Sickened marine mammals poisoned by an algal bloom in Southern California waters are overwhelming a local rescue organization.

Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute responds to beached sea lions and other sick mammals, evaluates their condition and, if needed, attempts to nurse the animals back to health.

But a recent algal bloom off the coast of Southern California is leading to more and more marine mammals getting sickened by a type of poison that is growing ever more prevalent: domoic acid toxicity.

Known colloquially as the “Red Tide,” domoic acid is a naturally occuring neurotoxin that is produced by blooming algae in California waters. The blooms tend to happen more regularly in spring and autumn when nutrients from the deep are brought to the surface and exposed to sunlight.


Fish and other animals low on the food chain eat the toxic algae without much issue, but marine mammals and birds that eat those animals aren’t so lucky.

Through a process called “biomagnification,” seals, sea lions and other predators ingest large amounts of the poison by eating a large amount of small prey.




Back to the orcas, this from INTO made me laugh:


We’re firmly on the side of the killer whales, even if some Atlantic writer finds it silly.

But you know what would really get us on their side? If they started attacking TERF author JK Rowling’s $19 million yacht.

Rowling—who, as a reminder, lives in a literal castle—has continued to pick her battles poorly this year. Rebranding herself as a defender of cis women’s rights (lol) she recently set up a trans-exclusionary therapy service and took Johns Hopkins University’s new set of LGBTQ+ care guidelines to task for…being gender-inclusive. She continues to paint herself as the victim, despite, again, living in a castle and owning a 20 million dollar yacht.


TERF logic: it’s not built on the strongest foundations.

So yes, I think it’s time to bring in the orcas, don’t you?

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, June 20, 2023.  THE GUARDIAN looks at the who's funding the war on LGBTQ+, a delegate in the US Congress calls for Donald Trump to be shot, some people seem confused over the difference between what Hillary Clinton was accused of doing and what Donald Trump's accused of doing, and much more.



I really had no interest in weighing on the indictment and charges against former US President Donald Trump.  But yesterday on USEFUL IDIOTS (watching only to see if they will note the war on LGBTQ+ people -- as I noted in "Transphobe Matt Taibbi," if you're not noting it, you don't belong on this site), it was stated that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump did basically the same thing -- her e-mail scandal, his stealing of classified documents.

No, they did not.

I would have been more than happy had Hillary been charged and tried for what she did.  Check the archives.  But what she did and what Donald did are not the same -- or what they were both accused of is not the same.

Hillary used multiple devices -- including devices that were not secure.  She argues she did what she did to make work more simple.  I'd argue if you're not up to protecting classified information, you're not up to being Secretary of State.  She was accused of mishandling classified information as a result of using multiple electronic devices.  She and/or her team did destroy evidence.  

I'm not seeing how that is the same as Donald.

Donald left the White House (reluctantly) and took classified documents with him.  As for his ability to declassify them as president, supposedly he's on tape stating that he didn't declassify them.  He took documents -- physical documents -- from the White House on his way out the door.  He was asked to return them.  He refused.  The FBI had to carry out a raid in order to get the documents back.

That is not what Hillary is accused of having done.

Hillary fans can argue she was just careless.  Donald shows clear intent to remove the documents from the White House and take possession of them and then refused to return them.    

It is not the same thing, not at all.  Either you don't understand the law or you're pretending.


As Jeffrey St. Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) points out, "If Trump had given his trove of documents to say Wikileaks (or even Tucker Carlson), he might have a credible claim as a whistleblower. Instead he kept them for his own vanity, flashed them to visitors and had his Justice Department file charges against Julian Assange for violating … the Espionage Act."

On the current case,  John Gallagher (LGBTQ NATION) notes:

Donald Trump’s behavior has already made it clear that he and his followers have no respect for the rule of law. Now they are making it clear that they have no respect for the institutions either.

In a dramatic escalation of rhetoric, Republicans are attacking the very structure of federal law enforcement, with the goal of not only discrediting it but destroying it altogether. They want the Department of Justice and the FBI to respond to the demands of the president, rather than maintain their current independence and integrity. Should the GOP succeed, it would have dire consequences for LGBTQ+ rights in the country. 

[. . .]

The proponents of this radical change dress it up as justifiable homicide. They argue that any federal agency is essentially under the president’s direct control and should act as such.

“Conservatives are waking up to the fact that federal law enforcement is weaponized against them and as a result are embracing paradigm-shifting policies to reverse that trend,” Russell Vought, who served Trump as director of the Office of Management and Budget, told The New York Times.

In short, the way to fight the alleged weaponization of the government is to really weaponize it.

Of course, not to be outdone, Trump’s rival Ron DeSantis goes one step further. He would dismantle the FBI and Department of Justice.

“We’re not going to let all this power accumulate in Washington, we’re going to break up these agencies,” DeSantis said during a private strategy session, according to a tape obtained by Real Clear Politics. He said that if he was elected, “some of the problematic components of the DOJ” would be “shipped to other parts of the country.”

This fits into a broader plan to stack the civil service with partisan hacks who will carry out the will of the president without regard to law or regulation. 


Since we're mentioning Donald, let's note an e-mail that came in last night.  US Delegate Stacey Plaskett declared Sunday on MSNBC that Donald needed "to be shot"  She then corrected it to "stopped."  An e-mailer to the public account insists that I won't call her out.  Of course, I will.  She said a stupid thing.  Not surprising because she's an idiot.  I called her out for bullying a witness.  I've called her out for being the head of a Committee since she can't vote in Congress.  I've called her out for, having failed in New York, moving  to the Virgin Islands so that she could become a delegate (stealing the job from someone who grew up there and could represent it better), I've even called out her cheap weave.  She can correct it all she wants, she said what she said and she meant it.  Things are at a high pitch already without members of Congress using such violent rhetoric.  It was wrong of her, it was stupid of her and she needs to apologize.  She also needs to be stripped of her post as Ranking Member on the House Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government.  

When you've called for someone to be shot, I think you've more than weaponized the federal government.  

Equally true, as a non-voting member (a delegate) she shouldn't be in a ranking member or chair of a committee or subcommittee.  



I had no problem calling out Stacey.



Staying with stupid, Hudson Crozier has an idiotic column at THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER (which may be redundant).  He's in a tizzy because a federal judge found that Middleborough Public Schools was right to send Liam Morrison home for wearing a shirt that declared "There Are Only Two Genders."  By the way, I haven't seen the shirt but I think it's very unlikely that's what was across the t-shirt.  Typically, it would be all caps: "THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS."  Maybe the way Hudson rendered it is just another example of his gross stupidity.  And that's not a reflection on his university -- I love UNT.  Love the new student union they finished about seven years ago.  And any time I speak there, I make sure to go to the square downtown and pop into Recycled Books -- one of the best stores in the country.  

I doubt Hudson likes Recycled Books -- it's so well stocked it's practically a learning institution (do not fail to go through their vinyl record section).  Hudson writes:

 

Judge Indira Talwani agreed with the school that, actually, it was Morrison who “invaded the rights” of students through his factual, nonviolent statement. She cited the school’s unproven claim that offending a gender-dysphoric child’s sense of identity in any way puts them at risk of suicide. Even some doctors who support transitioning children agree that this narrative is “exaggerated and hysterical,” and there is no solid data to back it up, but Talwani treats it as an undisputed fact.

“School administrators were well within their discretion to conclude that the statement 'THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS' may communicate that only two gender identities … are valid, and any others are invalid or nonexistent,” Talwani wrote, “and to conclude that students who identify differently, whether they do so openly or not, have a right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities.”

It would be impossible to argue that the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution with the intent of protecting "gender nonconforming" children from any statement that might invalidate their feelings, a right given to no other group in society. But the leftist legal movement abandoned all notions of judicial integrity on politically charged legal matters long ago. Even so, Talwani's mental gymnastics are breathtaking.


See, the judge got it.  In the judge's quoted statement, the message on the t-shirt was in all caps.  When he's not quoting the judge Baby Dumb F**k Hudson keeps rendering it as "There Are Only Two Genders."  Again, that's not how a slogan on t-shirt usually reads.  The judge gets it, Hudson just gets to shove his thumb up is ass.

I don't believe anyone said the Constitution.  I do believe that Native Americans owned this country and it was stolen from them.  I do know that Native Americans did not believe in only two genders.  



One thing these new laws do not take into account is that the 12 federally recognized tribes in Montana have historically recognized multiple gender identities, including transgender identities. Most Indigenous peoples recognize multiple gender identities that are believed to be the result of supernatural intervention.

In this regard, Montana state Rep. Donavon Hawk, a Democrat from Butte who is Crow and Lakota, said, “It surprises me that this country is only a couple hundred years old, and we are not able to function with LGBTQ people in our communities.” Indigenous communities have incorporated LGBTQ+ peoples within their societies for centuries.

As an Indigenous scholar who studies the history and religion of Indigenous peoples, I am troubled by how these new anti-transgender laws might affect religious expression and the rights of Indigenous communities, not just in Montana but across the nation.

Indigenous ideas about gender

Indigenous peoples have been in North America for at least 30,000 years. As their societies developed over time, hundreds of different ethnicities, languages, religious practices, gender expressions and identities emerged.

Transgender individuals, an umbrella term for individuals whose gender identity is not linked to the sex they were assigned at birth, have existed throughout history, including within Indigenous communities.

I learned from my maternal grandparents about Blackfeet religion and history. The Blackfeet acknowledged and accepted individual gender expression and identity because it was granted by the divine. Personal gender identity was rarely questioned, because it was tantamount to questioning the divine.

I first learned about Blackfeet ideas about transgender individuals as a young person from hearing oral history stories about famous Blackfeet religious leaders, warriors and adventurers who were transgender. They were viewed as having a direct connection to the divine. People often sought out these individuals for blessings, prayer or spiritual guidance.

Indeed, anthropologists and historians have studied Blackfeet gender expression and learned that the Blackfeet recognized multiple gender identities, including what is defined today in Western societies as transgender.


Where's their freedom of religion?  Before it was stolen, this was all the country.  


I do get Hudson's anxiety.  If I were as ugly as he is, I'd be threatened by Elliot Page as well -- Elliot's a very cute looking man.  

I'd also point out that the right-wing hate merchants like Tulsi Gabbard keep saying "don't sexualize our kids!"  Seems like a t-shirt proclaiming any number of genders would be 'sexualizing' them.  You know, like when you preach opposite sex coupling in school, you're 'sexualizing' them.

The right-wing hate merchants are happy to scream 'sexualizing' when they disagree but are more than happy to sexualize and socialize if it meets their own desires.  They're hypocrites and they're idiots.  

UNT, Hudson does not speak well for you.  And I'm surprised by how many attacks he's published on the college since March.  



He's clearly a bitter little boy -- scared to trot by to Texas with that tiny little thing tucked between his legs. .  And if you were scrawny and ugly like him, I guess you would be too.  He didn't emerge triumphant from the genetic pool.


The war on the LGBTQ+ community if very real.  Those who are remaining silent?  They've chosen a side.  They're with the hate merchants.  By not speaking out, they've chosen a side.  At THE NATION, Karen Krajcer explains how this war impacts her life:

First, you find a folder.
It doesn’t have to be anything special—just something large enough to hold documentation of your love and care for your child. One of those cheery, primary-colored folders will do, like the one the kindergarten teacher slid into your daughter’s first backpack—the crisp, clean fabric doming over her shoulders like a turtle shell.

Into this folder, place the following:

A letter from your child’s pediatrician, confirming your child’s gender identity. Provide evidence of annual wellness checks and thorough vaccination records.

A letter from your child’s pediatric neurologist, detailing the negative impact of gender dysphoria on your child’s mental health. Ask them to please explain in layman’s terms how dysphoria—a feeling of unease or hatred of one’s body—is not necessarily inherent to being transgender but does result from having people (e.g., family, classmates, teachers, strangers, etc.) refuse to accept your gender identity. Ask them to explain that the disparity between the way society demands we behave and the way we see ourselves causes intense stress that often leads to depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

A seemingly harmless comment on the first day of kindergarten—_________ is wearing a dress!—can plague a child’s sense of self. ________ is wearing a dress! is the line she repeated to you when you tucked the covers around her tiny shoulders and she asked if she had to go to school tomorrow—only then the pronoun was he because you hadn’t yet understood what your child meant when she told you she is a girl. You’d set down your phone and, with the most self-satisfied look a parent can give, told your child that she didn’t have to be a girl to like girl things, that there was no such thing as girl or boy things.

[. . .]

You might do this because, one day, the CPS agent could knock on your door, and you would want the essential documents to be visible right away.

Have a plan for what you would do if the CPS agent does come. Accept that your life has now come to require these sorts of contingencies. Know exactly how you want to handle it if you hear the knock. We’re going to answer questions calmly. We’re going to help our children pack their essential items. We’re going to calm the neighbors. We’re going to keep our lawyer’s number in our favorites so that we can call right away.

Then we are going to stop. We’re going to look our babies in the eyes. We are not going to cry. We’re going to tell them that this is wrong and that we’ll see them soon. Then we will turn to the agent. We will tell them that they might not understand this now, but they could. That if they stop and really think about what’s happening, they’ll know this is wrong.

Do you understand now?

CPS did not open an investigation against our family, but the threat is real enough that my children and I are in Oregon now.

My daughter asking, Am I going to die? is when it felt most real. School employees calling CPS in tears, I don’t want to report this family, but I can’t lose this job. That is real. That is happening in our lifetime.

It doesn’t matter that we weren’t reported. Tragedy shouldn’t have to come knocking for you for it to matter to you. 


The hate merchants want to destroy democracy and freedom and all that is good in this country.  Adam Gabbat (GUARDIAN) reports:

With the US besieged by a rightwing culture war campaign that aims to strip away rights from LGBTQ+ people and others, blame tends to be focused on Republican politicians and conservative media figures.

But lurking behind efforts to roll back abortion rights, to demonize trans people, and to peel back the protections afforded to gay and queer Americans is a shadowy, well-funded rightwing legal organization, experts say.

Since it was formed in 1994, Alliance Defending Freedom has been at the center of a nationwide effort to limit the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, all in the name of Christianity. The Southern Poverty Law Center has termed it an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” that has extended its tentacles into nearly every area of the culture wars.

In the process, it has won the ear of some of the most influential people in the US, and become “a danger to every American who values their freedoms”, according to Glaad, the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization.

Through “model legislation” and lawsuits filed across the country, ADF aims to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total ban on abortion, and strip away the already minimal rights that trans people are afforded in the US.

Under the Trump administration, the group found its way into the highest echelons of power, advising Jeff Sessions, the then attorney general, before he announced sweeping guidance to protect “religious liberty” which chipped away at LGBTQ+ protections.

The organization counts among its sometime associates Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court justice who the Washington Post reported spoke five times at an ADF training program established to push a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law”.

ADF is engaged in “a very strong campaign to put a certain type of religious view at the center of American life”, said Rabia Muqaddam, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“[The ADF campaign] extends to abortion, it extends to LGBTQ folks, to immigration, to what kind of religion we think is America, what kind of people we think are American,” Muqaddam said.



A 2,800-year-old stone tablet has gone on display in Iraq after being returned by Italy following nearly four decades.

The artefact is inscribed with complete cuneiform text - a system of writing on clay in an ancient Babylonian alphabet.

Italian authorities handed it over to Iraq's President Abdul Latif Rashid in the city of Bologna last week.

It is not clear how the tablet was found - or how it made its way to Italy where it was seized by police in the 1980s.

Iraqi Culture Minister Ahmed Badrani said that it might have been found during archaeological excavations of the Mosul dam, which was built around that time.


ALMAYADEEN notes, "The Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations, to which humanity owes writing and the first cities, originated in the land of modern-day Iraq."

 



Suffer not Your neighbor's affliction
Suffer not Your neighbor's paralysis
But extend your hand Extend your hand
Lest you vanish in the city And be but a trace
Just a vanished ghost And your legacy
All the things you knew Science, mathematics, thought
Severely weakened Like irrigation systems
In the tired veins forming From the Tigris and Euphrates
In the realm of peace All the world revolved
All the world revolved Around a perfect circle
City of Baghdad City of scholars
Empirical humble Center of the world
City in ashes City of Baghdad
City of Baghdad Abrasive aloof
Oh, in Mesopotamia Aloofness ran deep
Deep in the veins of the great rivers
That form the base Of Eden
And the tree The tree of knowledge
Held up its arms To the sky
All the branches of knowledge All the branches of knowledge
Cradling Cradling
Civilization In the realm of peace
All the world revolved Around a perfect circle
Oh Baghdad Center of the world
City of ashes With its great mosques
Erupting from the mouth of god Rising from the ashes like
a speckled bird Splayed against the mosaic sky
Oh, clouds around We created the zero
But we mean nothing to you You would believe
That we are just some mystical tale We are just a swollen belly
That gave birth to Sinbad, Scheherazade We gave birth
Oh, oh, to the zero The perfect number
We invented the zero And we mean nothing to you
Our children run through the streets
And you sent your flames Your shooting stars
Shock and awe Shock and awe
Like some, some Imagined warrior production
Twenty-first century No chivalry involved
No Bushido
-- "Radio Baghdad" written by Patti Smith and Oliver Ray, first appears on Patti's TRAMPIN' 


Patti's touring overseas right now.  She returns for performances in the US in August (and September before going to Germany in October).

Of the nearly 3,000 year old stone tablet, AFP notes, "The tablet -- whose text is written in cuneiform, the Babylonian alphabet -- bears the insignia of Shalmaneser III, the Assyrian king who ruled the region of Nimrod, in present-day northern Iraq, from 858 to 823 BC."  




 




In May, New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg announced the return of two ancient sculptures to Iraq: a limestone Mesopotamian elephant and an alabaster Sumerian bull from the old city of Uruk.
The figurines, stolen during the Gulf War, were smuggled into New York in the late 1990s, according to the prosecutor’s office.
The bull was part of the private collection of Shelby White, a billionaire philanthropist and Met trustee.

Earlier this year, CBS SUNDAY MORNING did a report on looting and theft.




New content at THIRD:



The following sites updated:





Posted by at