Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
As I noted this morning, Trump, or rather his minion Dana Boente, asked 46 US Attorneys to resign, cleaning house of Obama’s appointees. Those included the well-respected US attorney in Manhattan, Prett Bharara, who had previously had assurance from Trump that he’d stay. Well, Trump lied and asked Bharara to resign.
The thing is, Bharara won’t resign, as noted in this CNN bulletin I just received. This sets the stage for a cool stand-off, and Trump will have to tell him, “You’re fired!”
Bharara, who had been told after a meeting with the President-elect in November that he would stay on, felt blindsided by the move, the sources said.
According to a source familiar with the meeting between Trump and Bharara in November at Trump Tower, the President-elect asked Bharara to stay on the job and they shook hands. Trump directed Bharara to go out to the cameras and tell them, “I asked you to stay.”
The White House has not responded to a request for an official comment on the matter.
What an administration, and good for Bharara! Make the Donald fire him and then let Sean Spicer explain it.
As I’ve written before, there’s a big fracas in Canadian politics about a motion (“M-103”, which is not a law but a recommendation) against religious discrimination, one that singles out “Islamophobia” as deserving special mention. The bill was introduced last December by the Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, a Pakistani-Canadian, and is being discussed now in the House of Commons. Here it is, and I’ve bolded the contentious part:
Systemic racism and religious discrimination
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear; (b) condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it; and (c) request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study on how the government could (i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making, (ii) collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities, and that the Committee should present its findings and recommendations to the House no later than 240 calendar days from the adoption of this motion, provided that in its report, the Committee should make recommendations that the government may use to better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It’s been criticized for singling out Muslims among all religions, for the possibility that it could chill freedom of speech, and for not defining “Islamophobia,” a mistake that could, if the word were loosely construed, be used to deem criticism of Islam as “hate speech.” The Conservatives have objected to this bill on the grounds of the nebulous meaning of “Islamophobia,” and suggested that the term be removed. A liberal, Irwin Kotler (see below) agreed, saying it should be replaced by “anti-Muslim bigotry.”
Well, I agree about the term, but not that one religion should be singled out. That privileges Islam, and I understand that earlier motions have privileged Judaism. That, too, should be rejected, and the motion could simply call for freedom of religion and opposition to discrimination based on religion—much as the U.S.’s First Amendment does. (Well, it used to until the Hobby Lobby decision came along.)
I’m not sure where the term “Islamophobia” originated, but what it really means is “fear of Islam”, not, as most people use it, “bigotry against Muslims,” or “Muslimophobia”. I myself reject any bigotry or discrimination against Muslims, but I have to say that of all religions, I’m most scared of Islam, which has the potential to do incredible damage to the planet—and in fact is doing so now. If that makes me an “Islamophobe,” so be it. But during the Inquisition (and even a bit now), I’d have been a “Catholicphobe” because of the bad effects Catholicism has on the world. I’ve always thought the word “Islamophobia” should be understood by everyone to mean “fear of Islam,” while bigotry against Muslims should be called simply “bigotry against Muslims.” It’s not “racism,” either, for Muslims aren’t a race: they adhere to a religion and come from many different ethnic groups.
All of these points are made by the CBC interviewer in this discussion with Mélanie Joly, Liberal member of the House of Commons and Minister of Canadian Heritage in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet. Joly has previously called the Canadian motion “cynical,” and noted that “Islamophobia is clear. It’s a discrimination against Muslims, people of Muslim faith, and it’s a term we can’t be afraid to use.” She’s clearly confused, and that shows in her interview below, where she dissembles and evades the interviewer’s very reasonable points, which include these (direct quotes):
“It’s not “Muslimophobia’. . . it’s ‘Islamophobia‘, which is a religion: Islam is not a race, it’s not a people—it’s a religion.”
“The argument is about the word ‘Islamophobia,’ which for some people means, literally, what it says: fear of Islam, which is a religion—which is subject to reasonable criticism. Someone may say that I object, strongly, to Islamic ideas like the death to apostates, death to the infidels, death to gays. They may object to those things and those are reasonable objections; and that is fear of Islam. But it’s not discrimination against Muslims. Do you agree that there is a distinction?”
“But you have the power to make that conversation much, much easier with a very simple step suggested by a very distinguished liberal, Irwin Kotler. . . who makes the proposal, ‘Why don’t you just say anti-Muslim bigotry’; then we know we are talking about people, not ideas. Why don’t we do that?”
Joly doesn’t even try to respond to these points; she’s working above her pay grade and is sworn to defend the motion without even thinking about how to respond to counterarguments.
I’d much rather have the interviewer in Parliament than the dissimulating Joly. Reader Diana MacPherson identified him for me:
The interviewer is Terry Milewski and the show is CBC’s “Power and Politics“. Milewski was guest-hosting the show (he’s retired and does some guest stuff sometimes).
I hope the rest of Trudeau’s cabinet is savvier than Joly.
On September 15, the Cassini spacecraft, 13 years after launch and after helping scientists acquire tons of knowledge, will cease its orbiting of Saturn and plunge into the planet’s atmosphere, disintegrating in the process. This suicidal move was deliberate, as scientists didn’t want to contaminate any of Saturn’s moons in case they prove habitable. Just four days ago, though, it took some amazing pictures of one of Saturn’s moon’s, Pan.
Pan. . . is the second-innermost moon of Saturn. It is a small, walnut-shaped moon approximately 35 kilometres across and 23 km wide that orbits within the Encke Gap in Saturn’s A Ring. Pan is a ring shepherd and is responsible for keeping the Encke Gap free of ring particles.
It was discovered by Mark R. Showalter in 1990 from analysis of old Voyager 2 probe photos and received the provisional designation S/1981 S 13 because the discovery images dated back to 1981.
Saturn has 62 moons with confirmed orbits, 53 of which have names and only 13 of which have diameters larger than 50 kilometers, as well as dense rings with complex orbital motions of their own.
Seven Saturnian moons are large enough to be ellipsoidal in shape, though only two of those, Titan and Rhea, are currently in hydrostatic equilibrium. Particularly notable among Saturn’s moons are Titan, the second-largest moon (after Jupiter’s Ganymede) in the Solar System, with a nitrogen-rich Earth-like atmosphere and a landscape including hydrocarbon lakes and dry river networks; and Enceladus, which is seemingly similar in chemical makeup to comets, emits jets of gas and dust and may harbor liquid water under its south pole region.
(NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute)(NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute)
It’s unusual for a moon to be so oddly shaped, but The Atlantic explains:
Pan gets its pasta-like shape from smooth bulges protruding on all sides from its center, known as equatorial ridges. The ridges lie in the same plane as Saturn’s rings. In 2007, researchers suggested that the ridge could be made up of particles from Saturn’s rings that got stuck on Pan when it was just an average moonlet. The same process may have occurred on Atlas, another moon, which orbits beyond the edge of Saturn’s A ring, one of the planet’s thickest bands of rings. Atlas has a distinct smooth ridge, too:
Atlas:
Two views of Atlas, Saturn’s moon (NASA)
Pan resides in a lane of its own making within the A ring. The moon maintains a 200-mile break in the ring, known as the Encke Gap, perpetually pushing on nearby ring particles and preventing them from filling in the space. It creates waves in the ring material as it goes, leading some of it to bunch up in certain spots. Pan is named for the Greek god of the wild and shepherds, a fitting moniker for a moon whose job is to keep the rings on either side of it in line.
Here’s a flyby gif showing Pan, and another gif closer up.
Here’s a new “Simon’s Cat Logic,” featuring information about cats and water, all imparted by the incomparable Nicky Trevarrow of Cats Protection. The information, illustrated with Simon’s animation, is followed (at 3:37) by two water-related episodes of Simon’s Cat. Note Trevarrow’s advice about what kind of water bowl to give your cat, and how far apart to put the food and water bowls.
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From the Minneapolis Star Tribune we have the story of Percy, the beloved companion of trucker Paul Robertson of St. Paul. When Robertson was recovering from food poisoning at a rest stop, Percy stepped on the window’s power switch and escaped. Devastated at the lost of his companion, and after a long search, Robertson drove on, but put a notice about Percy’s loss on his Facebook page:
But then—mirabile dictu—the paper reports:
But then, the unthinkable happened. Shortly after arriving to his destination, Robertson saw a cat emerge from beneath his semi-truck. It was Percy. Robertson detailed the reunion through – what else – a Facebook update.
“This is the feel-good story of 2017,” Robertson said. “If ever a moment felt like a gift from God, it was then.” [JAC: no comment]
Aside from needing a warm bath and a trip to the veterinarian for some medication to heal an eye infection (likely from the dust and salt endured on the long trip), Percy happily reclaimed his co-pilot status after his daring adventure.
And Robertson promptly MacGyvered the window switches so that Percy isn’t tempted to take a joyride again.
Here’s Percy, asleep in the truck and also washing off the road dust:
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Finally, a 13-minute Buzfeed video about the Cat House on the Kings (and its staff), described as “California’s largest no-cage, no-kill, lifetime cat sanctuary and adoption center.” It harbors a thousand cats, many of which run free in the staff’s former house (which she gave up to the cats).
I’m running low on readers’ wildlife photos, and though I have a few dollops left, I’ll save them for tomorrow through Tuesday when people actually read this site. (I leave for New Zealand on Wednesday.) If you have photos, send them by Tuesday, please.
Instead, enjoy this pair of photos submitted by a reader in Canada who, for obvious reasons, will remain anonymous. He teaches at a Catholic school in a province where such schools are publicly funded, and a “prayer corner” was put in the classroom by mandate of the principal and the parents’ council.
Our intrepid reader simply swapped out the Bible for a true book:
Good morning on a very cold Chicago Saturday (20° F, -7° C); it is March 11, 2017, and I’m proud to announce that it is this day, too:
So eat them, as the proclamation assumes that you already have noodles! It’s also Johnny Appleseed Day, which is strange because it corresponds to neither his birthday nor his deathday; but it’s apple planting season. (He was famous for planting apple nurseries all over the eastern U.S., and for loving all of Ceiling Cat’s creatures). If you’re not American and don’t know about Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), read about him here.
The News of the Day is, of course, Trump’s firing (via his minion Dana Boente) of 46 federal prosecutors appointed by Obama. Those included the much admired Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, whom Trump had earlier said he’d retain. That leaves in office exactly zero prosecutors appointed by Obama: a real house-cleaning. While such mass purging is not unprecedented, it leaves the prosecution of important federal cases in the hands of attorneys with less experience. Trump has been in office 50 days, and has done nothing good, but the upside is that he’s also failed to keep many of his campaign promises. His “TrumpCare” medical plan is dead in the water.
So it goes. On this day in 1818. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein waspublished. In 1851, Verdi’s opera Rigoletto premiered in Venice, and in 1867 the same composer opened his opera Don Carlos in Paris. On this day in 1918, the first case of Spanish Flu was reported in Kansas, the start of a pandemic that ultimately killed 50-100 million people: 3-5% of the population of the world. Among the victims was my paternal grandmother, who died when my father was only weeks old. As Wikipedia notes:
The site of the very first confirmed outbreak was at Camp Funston, within Fort Riley in Kansas, USA at a military training facility preparing American troops for involvement in World War I. The first victim diagnosed with the new strain of flu on Monday, March 11, 1918, was mess cook Private Albert Gitchell. Historian Alfred W. Crosby recorded that the flu originated in Kansas and popular writer John Barry echoed Crosby in describing Haskell County, Kansas, as the point of origin.
Gitchell reported to the doctor in the morning; by noon 107 men in his camp had acquired the same illness. Here’s a sign from a naval aircraft factory in Philadelphia, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center:
Finally, on March 11, 1993, Janet Reno was confirmed by the Senate as the first female Attorney General of the U.S.; she was sworn in on March 12.
Notables born on this day include Vannevar Bush (1890), Lawrence Welk (1903), Rupert Murdoch (1931), Antonin Scalia (1936), and Douglas Adams (1952). Those who died on this day include Alexander Fleming (1955), Roy Chapman Andrews (1960; the man who introduced me to fossils through his books), Erle Stanley Gardner (1970), and Slobodan Milošević (2006). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is so desperate to get out that she’ll tolerate a bit of rain:
A: You will get wet.
Hili: Never mind, it’s only a spring rain.
(Photo: Sarah Lawson)
In Polish:
Ja: Zmokniesz tam.
Hili: Nie szkodzi, to jest wiosenny deszcz.
(Foto: Sarah Lawson)
I have special permission from PCC(E) to post this cute video of Duffy, a recuse Irish Terrier, Back in June 2014, Duffy was operated on to cure him of his blindness. This is the scene when he was reunited with the family. Warning: includes lots of human excitability.
Duffy’s owner, Benjamin May, wrote on the original post, which has now been seen over 13,203,038 times:
This is my Irish Terrier Duffy. He’s a rescue dog and he’s had a lot of struggles with his health. He developed diabetes and lost his eyesight. With medication we got his diabetes stable and he qualified for eye surgery to give him back his sight. Here he is seeing my parents for the first time in months.
Also, I should mention that Duffy’s surgery and treatments took place at the Veterinary Referral Center in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Special thanks to Dr. Kevin Kumrow who regulated Duffy’s diabetes so that Dr. Brady Beale could operate on him.
JAC: I wondered what the evidence was, in this video, that the dog can actually see? Readers? And I’ll just add this cute tweet below to finish up the work week on a high note:
Malhar Mali of Areo Magazine interviewed me last weekend, and the transcript of the interview is now posted; you can find it here. Regulars won’t learn anything new, I think, but maybe newbies will.
Thanks to Malhar for both interviewing me and transcribing our Skype talk.
