Friday animals: Tired bird rests on head, sugar glider reaches for the skies

May 12, 2017 • 2:30 pm

All I know of this short video is what’s in it: the boat is 16 miles offshore. I don’t know the species of the bird (readers?) nor whether it was migrating. But I’m glad it found a head to rest on.

And here’s a video that’s been made into a great tw**t. This is surely a sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps), a marsupial found in Australia and New Guinea.

https://twitter.com/catesish/status/862730600981168128

h/t: Grania

Everyday Feminism advocates violence in the cause of social justice

May 12, 2017 • 12:34 pm

The site Everyday Feminism is devoted to two things: 1. Making listicles, and 2. Telling you why you’re oppressive. It’s good for a few chuckles, but its propensity for shaming everyone also exemplifies the identity politics that are ruining the Left. Go have a look at the front page and see how many ways you’re part of the problem.

When I saw the headline below on the Everyday Feminism site (click on screenshot to go to article), I had a pretty good idea what I’d be reading.

I thought I’d be reading a call for more violence in protests. I wasn’t wrong. But it’s a deeply confused piece, as none of the reasons it gives for the conclusion below lead to that conclusion,  Here’s the conclusion first:

But we all need to be more critical about how we define violence, because we’re seeing a lot more marching, protesting, and direct action than has previously been covered in mainstream news media.

And while it might make us uncomfortable to acknowledge, violence is often a necessary tool of resistance. The sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can end oppression.

Well, it was only a matter of time. . .

Now the author, Kim Tran, doesn’t really specify what kind of violence is a “necessary tool of resistance”, but one gets the sense, especially from her discussion of MiloGate, that it’s okay to riot, break windows, loot, and maybe even shoot people.  Here are her “reasons” (quotes indented, emphasis the author’s):

1). Non-Violent Action Has Always Been Violent 

In other words, the Civil Rights Movement that you think of as nonviolent actually included many actions that you might consider violent.

Moreover, it’s important to note that the super nonviolent act of existing as a person of color has historically been in and of itself enough to get you killed.

Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and Black people have been continuously killed for minor – if any – offenses.

. . . It’s time to recognize that not all violence is created equal. Part of nonviolent protest has always been violent, and in fact, some of what we call “violence” might not be violence at all.

People do have the right of self defense if they’re being threatened by other people (not, however, police), but this argument fails to show why demonstrators should initiate violence.

2).  What’s Legal Isn’t Always What’s Right

A lot of people are encouraging activists to stay within the limits of the law when it comes to direct actions resisting their oppression.

If you agree with these people, you might claim that the US has mechanisms in place for state-sanctioned protests. You tell us, “don’t break windows, don’t disrupt the peace, don’t assemble without a permit,” and so on.

In other words, don’t stray from the boundaries of what the government has decided is legally permissible.

But allow me to remind people that the law has never been race neutral and often, it hasn’t been fair.

Absolutely true! Much civil disobedience during the 1960s in the service of civil rights involved illegal actions against unjust laws. But those were peaceful protests, the heart of civil disobedience. And it was the peaceful nature of those protests, and those of the Indians resisting British occupation, that helped forward their causes. Again, Tran doesn’t make a connection between illegal peaceful protest and her perceived need for illegal violent protest.

3). Civil disobedience Needs to Be Disruptive

Civil disobedience requires that we resist what looks, feels and frequently functions like the same old system we’ve grown accustomed to our entire lives.

It means we decide en mass [sic] to walk out of work or school, to strike and boycott our favorite restaurants or rideshare apps because we must interrupt the ways economic, political, and physical violence has became routine.

Well, civil disobedience needn’t always be disruptive of people’s activities, simply of their sentiments, as in lunch counter sit-ins. Regardless, though, the actions that Tran mentions here are not violent, but peaceful. That is, unless she redefines violence, which of course is what the Regressive Left wants to do so they can ban speech they don’t like.

4). Ask who Is the Least Safe–and Why

During Yiannopoulos’s talk at the University of Milwaukee, a trans student’s picture was broadcast to the crowd and mocked. Afterward, in an open letter to the administration, the student wrote: “I am done getting repeatedly abused and shit on, and expected to just take it and not be angry.”

When we spend all of our time protecting the rights to “free speech” (harassment isn’t free speech, by the way) we’re protecting the rights of racists, transphobes, and pedophile apologists at the cost of the marginalized people who actually matter in this equation.

We need to ask, who is the most unsafe here? Is it the millionaire white person with a fetish for dating Black men, or is it the trans, undocumented student whose life will be made a living hell when they’re outed to a room of 900 white supremacists?

. . . What I’m calling for isn’t a form of the oppression olympics in which we rate everyone’s level of marginalization.

I’m asking that we consider how some people at any given moment will bear the brunt of a racism, transphobia, and heteropatriarchy unevenly and that those of us with the relative ability to do so must show up to be in solidarity with them as needed.

So here we get to free speech, which appears to be “hate speech” that Tran doesn’t like.  And yes, I criticized Milo for publicizing a trans student in one of his college talks. That was reprehensible, but it was not violence, and it didn’t justify violence at Berkeley. Real violence involves physical damage to people and/or property, and there’s no excuse to commit it.  Sitting down at lunch counters isn’t violence. Chaining yourself to a tree about to be logged isn’t violence. Blocking entrances to nuclear weapons sites isn’t violence.Hitting someone or damaging property is violence, and is best abjured if you seek justice.

None of the four points made by Tran go even a millimeter to justify her conclusion, “violence is often a necessary tool of resistance.”  But I can’t help but feel she thinks it does, and the “violence” she’s calling for is real violence, not hate speech.

Regressive Left blames Israel for American police shooting blacks

May 12, 2017 • 10:15 am

Yes, the source of this article, Legal Insurrection, seems to be largely a right-wing site, but who else calls out the Regressive Left these days? Check the facts rather than dismissing them based on the source.

William Jacobson, a professor at Cornell Law School, has new piece on the site (he’s its main author, I think): “New campus blood libel: Israel responsible for U.S. police shootings of blacks.” It’s based on a weird new form of “anti-intersectionality,” in which Israel (ergo Jews) are held responsible for the killing of blacks by American police because some American police chiefs go to Israel to be trained. The argument (see below) implies that these chiefs then go back to America and somehow train their beat cops in techniques of torture and killing used to target blacks.

This is palpable nonsense. As Jacobson notes, some US police chiefs and detectives (by no means thousands of them!) go to Israel every year, and they’re trained in anti-terrorism techniques and crowd control, something that actually might be useful to know in the U.S. And I don’t see blacks as particularly prone to terrorism, so the connection between this training and the murder of blacks by U.S. police—which does happen, though I’m not convinced of endemic racism in most U.S. police departments—is pure fantasy. Seriously, is this training meant to oppress black people?

Here’s some of the training they receive:

In 2002, Los Angeles Police Department detective Ralph Morten visited Israel to recieve training and advice on preparing security arrangements for large public gatherings.  From lessons learned on his trip, Det. Morten prepared a new Homicide Bomber Prevention Protocol and was better able to secure the Academy Awards presentation.

In January 2003, thirty-three senior U.S. law enforcement officials – from Washington, Chicago, Kansas City, Boston and Philadelphia – traveled to Israel to attend a meeting on “Law Enforcement in the Era of Global Terror.”  The workshops helped build skills in identifying terrorist cells, enlisting public support for the fight against terrorism and coping with the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

“We went to the country that’s been dealing with the issue for 30 years,” Boston Police Commissioner Paul F. Evans said. “The police are the front line in the battle against terrorism. We were there to learn from them – their response, their efforts to deter it. They touched all the bases.”

“I think it’s invaluable,” said Washington, DC Police Chief Charles Ramsey about the instruction he received in Israel. “They have so much more experience in dealing with this than we do in the United States.”

If you’re going to blame that training on the cases in which cops have unjustly murdered blacks, you have to make a better connection than that!

Jacobson’s piece, which has links so you can check his assertions, gives several examples of this tortured and false connection between Israel and police murder. Here’s a tw**t but the notorious loon C. J. W*rl*m*an, who is apparently still making a living from anti-Semitism and apologetics for Islam, blames Israel for the death of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge (Louisiana) police:

Second, the organization “Jewish Voice for Peace”(JVP), a left-wing organization that is basically anti-Israel, has a new project, launched at a conference in Chicago, that targets these exchange programs, saying this;

We introduce our campaign: Deadly Exchange: Ending US-Israel Police Exchanges, Reclaiming Safety One of the most dangerous places where the far-right regimes of Trump and Netanyahu converge are in exchange programs that bring together police, ICE, border patrol, and FBI from the US with soldiers, police, and border agents from Israel. In these programs, worst practices are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing in both countries including extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention, and attacks on human rights defenders.

The Forward reports on a JVP meeting in Chicago:

Over the weekend’s discussions and workshops, JVP members tried to figure out what they, personally, could do to support the Palestinian cause from their American base. Deadly Exchange, one of JVP’s newest projects, will target the exchange programs between American police forces and the IDF where they two groups, in the words of JVP deputy director Stefanie Fox, share “worst practices.”

“They practice torture, surveillance and spying,” she said, “which is all brought to bear against Palestinians and people of color.”

Finally, as Jacobson reports, the student government of the University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus at Madison passed a divestment resolution (during Passover, so that Jewish students wouldn’t come) which said this:

That last sentence, in particular, is completely unsupported by evidence.

Here we see an attempt to use the Black Lives Matter movement (a movement that has some worthy motivations) to demonize Israel, thus linking two Leftist sentiments. It’s a pity, because Jews have been among the strongest supporters of civil rights in America. It’s also a shame that these Leftists overlook the fact that Palestine’s laws are anti-woman, anti-Jewish, and anti-atheist, and the practices are anti-gay. If any state is an apartheid state, it’s Palestine. But I’ll say it again: because Muslims (and not Jews) are considered People of Color, these regressive traits are ignored when Israel is demonized.

Trump threatens Comey on Twitter

May 12, 2017 • 9:45 am

It’s so sad watching a demented clown ruin whatever reputation the U.S. ever had by emitting threats and other idiocy on Twitter. He’s already mimicking Nixon by firing FBI director James Comey in a “Saturday Night Massacre“-like act. This morning he carried the parallel with Nixon further:

And then threats to cancel press briefings:

Yeah, that will keep U.S. citizens better informed!

Stephen Fry on Trump and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

May 12, 2017 • 8:30 am

Now here’s a 7-minute video featuring two intriguing people: one smart and funny, and the other the incompetent victim of the former’s sarcasm. I speak, of course, of Stephen Fry and Donald Trump,  respectively, with Fry discussing whether Trump illustrates the Dunning-Kruger Effect: the observation that individuals of low ability tend to overestimate their competence more than do individuals of higher abilities. Lest this all depress you, note that Fry ends with a positive message.

The video, narrated by Fry, was put together by Pindex, and the YouTube notes are below.

For grins, here’s a screenshot showing Trump’s proposed budget changes:

Strange illusions shape Trumps views. In trying to protect America, he may unleash a killer that already claims 200,000 lives each year.

Voiced by Stephen Fry
Music by Hugh Mitchell: https://audiojungle.net/user/hughmitc…

Pindex.com is a pinboard for learning. If you’re a teacher, there are many engaging Science, History and English boards ready to assign, with quizzes and rewards.

Cognitive biases:
Salience bias (1.01): https://youtu.be/rW9R6jgE7SQ?t=60
The mere exposure effect (2.36): https://youtu.be/rW9R6jgE7SQ?t=156

Health and economic benefits of reduced air pollution (the EPA Clean Air Act):
https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-ove…

Readers’ wildlife photos

May 12, 2017 • 7:30 am

Ants are more than a picnic pest, but have their own beauty. Reader Tony Eales shows us some lovely pismires from Australia. His notes are indented:

Ants. I don’t personally know a lot about ants but I do find them fascinating, if challenging, photographic subjects. Because of my arthritis all these species are typically found running up and down the trunks of trees (except for the Rhytidoponera). The one nearly every child in my area knows about are the Rhytidoponera metallica as they are very common in grassy parks where children play and sit and they deliver a memorable sting. My favourites are the golden and silver Polyrhachis which are large, fairly common and not very aggressive. The group is in dire need of a re-classification and the experts will usually just say Polyrhachis sp. Rather than commit to a species name.

Myrmecia nigrocincta:

[JAC: read the link to see why this is called the “jumper ant”.]

Podomyrma gratiosa:

Polyrhachis (Hagiomyrma) sp1:

Polyrhachis (Hagiomyrma) sp2:

Polyrhachis (Hagiomyrma) sp3:

Rhytidoponera metallica [green-head ant]:

Rhytidonoponera sp.:

Tetraponera sp. [“slender ants”]:

Friday: Hili dialogue

May 12, 2017 • 6:30 am

Good morning: it’s Friday, May 12, 2017. How did the week go by so fast? (I have a theory, which is mine, that time seems to pass faster when you’re older, as we may judge time relative to the span you’ve lived.Test: ask people of various ages to judge when a minute has gone by, without counting.) It’s National Nutty Fudge Day (I prefer mine nutless), and, it’s also International Nurses Day, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth in 1820.

On this day in 1784, the Treaty of Paris (signed the previous year) took effect, formally ending the Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Great Britain. In 1932, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh was found dead ten weeks after having been kidnapped; it was the biggest news story of the year in America,and Bruno Hauptmann was executed for the kidnapping and murder. And on May 12, 2002, ex-President Jimmy Carter went to Cuba for a five-day visit with Castro: the first U.S. President, active or former, to go to Cuba since the Revolution in 1959.

Notables born on this day include Edward Lear (1812), Katharine Hepburn (1907) and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910). When Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize in 1964 for her work in X-ray crystallography, some of the headlines looked like these:

Wife!  Would they say “husband” if a man won the Prize back then? Thank Ceiling Cat we’ve moved on. Also born on May 12 were Julius Rosenberg (1918), Yogi Berra (1925), Burt Bacharach (1928, still with us). George Carlin (1937), and Steve Winwood (1948). Those who died on this day include J. E. B. Stuart (1864), Amy Lowell (1925), Saul Steinberg (1999), and Perry Como (2001). Steinberg, who worked mainly for the New Yorker, loved to draw cats; here’s one of his cartoons and a photo of him with a tabby kitten:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is just being a cat, turning every discussion into food:

Hili: The smell of lilac reminds me of something.
A: And what is that?
Hili: That we have another can of turkey pate in the pantry.
In Polish:
Hili: Zapach tych bzów coś mi przypomina.
Ja: Co takiego?
Hili: Że w spiżarni mamy jeszcze jedną puszkę pasztetu z indyka.

And out in Winnipeg, Gus’s staff sends word of his new toy—and a video of him playing with it:

A friend brought Gus a new toy today, a peacock feather! What a great cat toy it is, but it won’t last long. 🙂

Finally, moar cat stuffz: Here’s a cool tee-shirt, and if you buy it some of the proceeds go to feed shelter cats:

Should research funded by the public be patented?

May 11, 2017 • 2:00 pm

It is now legal for scientists who have created new biotechnology products or methods based on research funded by the public to patent what they’ve devised, and to start companies selling their method/product—enriching themselves (and their universities) immensely. This is a relatively new thing to do with publicly-funded work (see below), but it seems unethical. If you charge the public for, say, a cancer therapy devised using National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, aren’t taxpayers who use it paying twice?

Now,  of course, private companies have the right to patent their biotech creations, as those are funded by investors. But it seems manifestly unfair for scientists to enrich themselves from what they’ve created by dining at the public trough. One result of this is the nasty fight between UC Berkeley and the Broad Institute (affiliated with Harvard and MIT) about who gets the patent rights to the CRISP/Cas9 method for editing genes. (For now the Broad has won, but Berkeley is contesting that decision.)

Not all scientists try to enrich themselves this way. Jonas Salk famously refused to patent the polio vaccine, saying, “Could you patent the sun?”  That famous statement, however, may not reflect complete altruism, as it appears that the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (funded by public contributions like the “March of Dimes”) investigated patents and decided the vaccine wasn’t patentable.  But Salk himself, who tested the vaccine on his own family, may also have nixed that effort. A clearer example is the software for the World Wide Web, which CERN put into the public domain with an open license, allowing widespread use. They could have sold it.

I have no objection to scientists enriching themselves if their discoveries were made with private funding and didn’t impede any official University duties (when you get an NIH grant, for instance, you pledge to spend X% of your personal time on the work it funds). But CRISPR/Cas9, like the polio vaccine, was financed in the U.S. largely by U.S. taxpayers.

In the end, I agree with Berkeley biologist Michael Eisen, who argues that “Patents are destroying the soul of academic science“. Here are his reasons, given in a post on his website:

The academic quest for patents is no longer the side story. Where once technology licensing staff rushed to secure intellectual property before scientists blab about their work, patents now, in many quarters, dominate the game. Experiments are done to stake out claims, new discoveries are held in secrecy and talks and publication are delayed so as not to interfere with patent claims. This is bad enough. But the most worrying trend has been the willingness of some researchers and research institutions to distort history, demean their colleagues and misrepresent the scientific process to support these efforts.

. . . Academic science is, after all, largely funded by the public. By all rights discoveries made on with public funds should belong to the public. And not too long ago they did. But legislation passed in 1980 – the Bayh-Dole Act – gave universities the right to claim patents on inventions made by their researchers on the public dime. Prior to 1980 these patents belonged to the federal government and many languished unused. The logic of Bayh-Dole was that, if they owned patents in their work, universities and other grantees would be incentivized to have their inventions turned into products, thereby benefiting the public.

But this is not how things worked out. Encouraged by a small number of patents that made huge sums, universities developed massive infrastructure to profit from their researchers. Not only do they spend millions on patents, they’ve turned every interaction scientists have with each other into an intellectual property transaction. Everything I get from or send to a colleague at another academic institution involves a complex legal agreement whose purpose is not to promote science but to protect the university’s ability to profit from hypothetical inventions that might arise from scientists doing what we’re supposed to do – share our work with each other.

And the idea that this system promotes the transformation of inventions made with public funding into products is laughable. CRISPR is a perfect case in point. The patent battle between UC and The Broad is likely to last for years. Meanwhile companies interested in actually developing CRISPR into new products are stymied by a combination of a lack of clarity about with whom to negotiate, and universities being difficult negotiating partners.

It would be so much easier if the US government simply placed all work arising from federal dollars into the public domain. We have a robust science and technology industry ready to exploit new ideas, and entrepreneurs and venture capitalists eager to fill in where existing companies are uninterested. Taxpayers would benefit by allowing the market, and not university licensing offices, to decide whose ideas and products make the best use of publicly funded inventions.

And most importantly we all would benefit returning academic science to its roots in basic discovery oriented research. We see with CRISPR the toxic effects of turning academic institutions into money hungry hawkers of intellectual property. Pursuit of patent riches has transformed The Broad Institute, which houses some of the most talented scientists working today, into a prominent purveyor of calumny.

Of course I’m asking readers here if they agree. I do.