Sunday: Hili dialogue

December 9, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Ceiling Cat’s Day: Sunday, December 9, 2018, and 16 days until the beginning of my personal six day holiday, Coynezaa (I have as of today received no presents). It’s National Pastry Day as well as International Anti-Corruption Day.

On this day in 1531, the Virgin of Guadalupe made its first purported appearance to Juan Diego, a Mexican peasant. Three days later, a miraculous image of Mary appeared on Juan Diego’s cloak when he visited the Bishop. The miraculously imaged cloak is now installed in the Minor Basicila of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, a hideous modern church shown below. According to Wikipedia, ” The basilica is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, and the world’s third most-visited sacred site. Pope Leo XIII granted the venerated image a Canonical Coronation on 12 October 1895.”

The image is on the wall behind the altar. You can go behind the altar and see it close up, but there’s a moving sidewalk that whisks you by the virgin very quickly, so it’s hard to get a good look. Here are some photos I took when I visited Mexico City in November 2012—during the Mexican Atheists Meeting.

Below is the new Basicila that replaced the beautiful older one. I suppose they built it to hold more worshipers:

View of the Virgin from the congregation, with bonus preacher:

The icon shot from behind the alter (blurry because of low light and the moving sidewalk):

The moving sidewalk past the Virgin:

On this day in 1872, P. B. S. Pinchback became the first African-American governor of a U.S. State: Louisiana. Here he is: he was mostly white, born to a mixed-race woman and a white planter:


On this day in 1905, the “law concerning the separation of church and state” was passed in France, making it an officially secular state. Exactly 30 years later, the first Heisman Trophy for college football achievement was awarded to a University of Chicago player, halfback Jay Berwanger. (Back then we had a great football team.) According to Wikipedia, his aunt used the trophy as a doorstop, and it supposedly now resides in “the University of Chicago Athletic Hall of Fame”; I have no idea where that is.  On December 9, 1946, the Indian Constituent Assembly met for the first time to begin drafting the Constitution of India. On this day in 1960, the first episode of Coronation Street was broadcast in the UK; it is now the world’s longest-running television soap opera (does anybody follow it?).

On this day in 1979, the complete eradication of the smallpox virus was certified by a commission of scientists, making it the only human disease completely wiped off the face of the Earth. (There is another disease in animals that’s also been eradicated. Do you know what it is?) On this day in 1987, the First Intifada began in the Gaza strip.

On December 9, 1996, Gwen Jacob was acquitted of going topless (“topfree”) on a hot day in Ontario; it’s still legal to do that there, but not in other provinces. Here’s what Wikipedia says about the incident and Jacob’s aquittal:

On July 19, 1991, a very hot and humid day, Gwen Jacob, a University of Guelph student, was arrested, after walking down a street in Guelph, Ontario, while topless after removing her shirt when the temperature was 33 °C (91 °F) and was charged with indecency under Section 173(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. Police stated that they acted following a complaint from a woman who was upset that one of her children had seen Jacob topless.Jacob stated she did it because men were doing it and she wanted to draw attention to the double standard. She was found guilty and fined $75. In her defence she argued that breasts were merely fatty tissue. In finding her guilty, the judge stated that breasts were “part of the female body that is sexually stimulating to men both by sight and touch,” and therefore should not be exposed.

She appealed, but her appeal was dismissed by the Ontario Court (General Division), and she further appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal.In the meantime, protests against Jacob’s arrest and conviction led to further charges against others, in particular R. v. Arnold but in this case McGowan P.C.J. applied the test of community standard of tolerance, following Butler, stating that the action of being topless caused no harm and thus did not exceed community standards of tolerance. She commented, “Undoubtedly, most women would not engage in this conduct for there are many who believe that deportment of this nature is tasteless and does not enhance the cause of women. Equally undoubtedly, there are men today who cannot perceive of woman’s breasts in any context other than sexual. It is important to reaffirm that the Canadian standards of tolerance test does not rely upon these attitudes for its formulation. I have no doubt that, aside from their personal opinions of this behaviour, the majority of Canadians would conclude that it is not beyond their level of tolerance.”Jacob was acquitted on December 9, 1996, by the Ontario Court of Appeal on the basis that the act of being topless is not in itself a sexual act or indecent. The court held that “there was nothing degrading or dehumanizing in what the appellant did. The scope of her activity was limited and was entirely non-commercial. No one who was offended was forced to continue looking at her” and that furthermore “the community standard of tolerance when all of the relevant circumstances are taken into account” was not exceeded. Although Jacob claimed she had a constitutional right, the court did not address this.

Here’s Jacob speaking at a Top Freedom rally in Waterloo three years ago:

Photo by Candace Cobbing

Exactly ten years ago, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested for sundry crimes, which included trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. Blago remains in prison. Finally, exactly one year ago, Australia became the 26th country to legalize same-sex marriage.

Notables born on this day include John Milton (1608), Peter Kropotkin (1842), Fritz Haber (1868; Nobel Laureate), Joseph Pilates (1883, yes, that Pilates), Margaret Hamilton (1902), Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (1909). Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915), Kirk Douglas (1916, and still alive at 102), Judi Dench (1934) and Kirsten “Elect Me; I’m Woke Now” Gillebrand (1966).

Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on December 9 include Edith Sitwell (1964), Branch Rickey (1965), Leon Jaworski (1982), and Mary Leakey (1996).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being a wag. (Look how cute she is, too!)

A: Shouldn’t we make plans for the future?
Hili: I’ve already made a plan.
A: What plan is that?
Hili: Not to make plans.
In Polish:
Ja: Czy nie powinniśmy zrobić planów na przyszłość?
Hili: Już zaplanowałam.
Ja: Co?
Hili: Że nie będę planować.

Tweets from Matthew. First up: ducklings + world’s largest rodent:

I saw these as all right-side-up from the beginning!

This is one frustrated moggie:

https://twitter.com/BoringEnormous/status/1065226665352196096

A surprise for our lady readers? And “THE FIGHTING EDITOR”?

Those 15-shilling books are now worth several hundred thousand dollars each. According to a website calculator, if there are 20 shillings in a pound, then 15 shillings in 1859 (0.75 pounds) was the equivalent of £92.52 now. That seems high! Did I do the calculation wrong?

Tweets from Grania. Is your cat ready for Christmas?

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1070720789941493762

For some reason, videos of ducks eating watermelon always make me smile. Sadly, Honey didn’t like the stuff. . .

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1069134328997666816

Cannibalism!

If cats could talk, this would be an accurate conversation:

And a lovely murmuration of starlings over water:

Oh hell, here’s a video of two mallard hens nomming watermelon:

Beavers go shopping

December 8, 2018 • 3:30 pm

Well, it is getting close to Christmas. Here we see, as the YouTube notes give sketchy details:

A pair of beavers walked into a Cumberland Farms location in Fitchburg in late November. Surveillance footage shared by the company shows two walk into the store. Shortly after, one leaves while the other walks around for more than two minutes before being ushered out by staff.

They should have said, “Sorry, sir, we don’t sell trees here.”

This is Fitchburg Massachusetts. 

Academic mob goes after scholar for simply urging debate on issues of race, genes, and intelligence

December 8, 2018 • 2:00 pm

This is the first piece from Quillette I’ve seen that doesn’t have an author—it’s an editorial written by “Quillette Magazine”. (Could that be Claire Lehmann?) But it doesn’t matter, for the piece describes a genuine academic witch hunt, one of many we’ve seen in the past two years. Click on the screenshot to read the editorial, and note that its title mocks along with the Stalinist nature of these mobs and of the “open letter” denouncng social scientist Noah Carl of the University of Cambridge:

Carl’s interest is “how intelligence and other psychological characteristics affect beliefs and attitudes,” and his Big Sin was to defend the right of academics to study and write about race, genes, and intelligence. As Quillette notes, Carl argues “that stifling debate in these areas is more likely to cause more harm than allowing them to be freely discussed by academics.”  But these topics are some of the Taboo Subjects Not Open to Academic Debate. (Carl, by the way, appears to think that there’s no resolution about the genetic contribution of IQ differences between “races”.)

That doesn’t matter. As Quillette reports:

Three hundred academics from around the world, many of them professors, have signed an open letter denouncing Dr Carl and demanding that the University of Cambridge “immediately conduct an investigation into the appointment process” on the grounds that his work is “ethically suspect” and “methodologically flawed.” The letter states: “we are shocked that a body of work that includes vital errors in data analysis and interpretation appears to have been taken seriously.” Yet the letter contains no vidence of any academic misconduct. It does not include a single reference to any of Dr Carl’s papers, let alone any papers that are “ethically suspect” or “methodologically flawed.”

Drawing on disparate fields of research in psychology, psychometrics and sociology, Dr Carl’s papers have been peer reviewed and published in journals such as Intelligence, Personality & Individual Differences, The American Sociologist, Comparative Sociology, European Union Politics, and The British Journal of Sociology. His papers have been cited 235 times since 2013.

Much of Dr Carl’s research focuses on how intelligence and other psychological characteristics affect beliefs and attitudes. Papers include: Leave and Remain voters’ knowledge of the EU after the referendum of 2016, Cognitive Ability and Political Beliefs in the United States, and his most cited paper, published in Intelligence in 2014, Verbal Intelligence is correlated with socially and economically liberal beliefs.

Which of these, or any of Dr Carl’s other papers, contain “vital errors in data-analysis”? We’re not told. Nevertheless, on the strength of these allegations alone, with no supporting evidence provided, the letter’s authors have invited people to sign the petition—and hundreds have.

Quickly scanning the list of signatories, I found—as is usual in such cases—that nearly all the signatories are in the humanities, with a real dearth of people in the hard sciences (by “hard,” I mean biology, physics, and chemistry). (There are a couple of physicists and, curiously, a larger dollop of mathematicians.) Why is there always this disparity between scientists and humanities scholars?

At any rate, this kind of mindless denunciation of someone without evidence—except for Carl’s attending a meeting at which Even More Demonized People spoke—is typical fare in academia these days. I wonder how many of the people who signed that letter even read a single paper by Dr. Carl.

NYU student union passes anti-Israel divestment resolution—by secret ballot

December 8, 2018 • 12:45 pm

The demonization of Israel by American college students continues apace. This week the student government of New York University (NYU) passed a resolution urging the university to divest its funds from companies that they consider complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. The Washington Square News, NYU’s independent student newspaper, reports on the motion’s passage (click on screenshot below), which was accompanied by dissent from Jewish students.

You can see the entire resolution here, which includes ridiculously ludicrous statements like this extolling the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which aims to eliminate the state of Israel and make Palestine free “from the River to the Sea”. They’ll deny that, but it’s palpably true.

WHEREAS, the goals of the BDS movement are three-fold: ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Separation Wall; recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the inalienable rights of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes and properties from which they were expelled in 1948 as stipulated in UN resolution 194;

WHEREAS, BDS represents an inclusive, anti-racist, and non-violent set of tools to pursue the Palestinian human rights movement that is opposed to all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

The last line is a simple lie: BDS is not inclusive, it’s “racist” in being anti-Semitic, and it’s not opposed to anti-Semitism, even though it pays lip service to it.

After indicting Israel for crime after crime while never mentioning anything bad ever done by Palestinians—like refusing a generous two-state solution several times—the resolution winds up like this:

WHEREAS, during the 2017-2018 academic year, 5 NYU student clubs endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. (See Appendix A)

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that, upon passage of this resolution, NYU will communicate to the aforementioned companies, and any other companies complicit in human rights violations, that it shall not divest if, and only if, those companies warrant that they have put in place policies designed to ensure that none of their products are used by the State of Israel in the violation of human rights.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that if Caterpillar, General Electric, and Lockheed Martin, along with any other companies involved in the violation of Palestinian human rights and human rights globally, fail to ensure the ethical use of their products, NYU will immediately divest all capital investments from said corporations;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NYU includes on its “Prohibited List” all corporations that profit from “the violation of Palestinian human rights, the occupation of Palestine, and the continued spread of settlements declared illegal under international law”;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that NYU enacts a socially responsible investment policy for the university endowment that implements a screen on ethical investments that uphold human rights for all.

The resolution, conceived and introduced by two members of another anti-Semitic organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, passed with 35 student representatives voting yes, 14 voting no, and 14 abstaining.

Well, fine. Like the University of Chicago, NYU’s administration won’t bow to this kind of stuff because they have a policy of not politicizing their investments.  As the Algemeiner reported:

NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the university would not abide by the measure, citing President Andrew Hamilton’s previous rejection of economic and academic boycotts of Israel.

“The University opposes this proposal,” Beckman said in a statement sent to The Algemeiner. “It is at odds with the Trustees’ well understood position that the endowment should not be used for making political statements.”

So be it.  The thing that really ticked me off, though, was that this vote was taken in an unusual way: by secret ballot. This was already worked out by November 4, and was indeed the way it went down. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported at the time:

The “Resolution on the Human Rights of Palestinians” will be voted on by the student senate next month using a secret ballot, the independent student newspaper Washington Square News reported.

The secret ballot is being called a “security precaution,” but opponents of the resolution say it will prevent accountability by the student legislators.

Security precaution my tuchas! What possible reason could there be for security.? It’s not as if those who voted for divestment are in any danger from the Jewish students, nor are those who voted against it in danger of physical attacks from anti-Israel students (I suspect it was the former group that was more in favor of secrecy, while the Jewish students are likely to face more opprobrium). No, there’s only one reason the ballot is secret: to hide the vote because you’re afraid of taking a stand, and you’re probably more afraid if you vote for divestment. In other words, people want to cast an anti-Semitic vote, but they don’t want their names associated with it. It’s pure cowardice, and those who hid their votes behaved shamefully.

I’d love to know who was in favor of making the vote secret, and how it was decided.

–

A flawed Christianity 101: can you spot the mistakes?

December 8, 2018 • 10:45 am

Reader Michael sent this National Geographic video, which, in line with their new and irritating touting of religion (and lack of criticism of its tenets), presents Jesus as as a real being. Reader Michael spotted some errors and distortions in this short clip. As he said:

Some major assumptions, inaccuracies & cock-ups – how many can WEIT readers spot?

I’ll put Michael’s spots below the fold

Read below to see the mistakes and misstatements caught by our reader:

Continue reading “A flawed Christianity 101: can you spot the mistakes?” →

Time to impeach Trump

December 8, 2018 • 9:45 am

The Mueller investigation continues to dig up dirt on members of the Trump administration, and now The Donald seems to have gotten soiled himself. According to today’s New York Times: 

Federal prosecutors said on Friday that President Trump directed illegal payments to ward off a potential sex scandal that threatened his chances of winning the White House in 2016, putting the weight of the Justice Department behind accusations previously made by his former lawyer.

The lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, had said that as the election neared, Mr. Trump directed payments to two women who claimed they had affairs with Mr. Trump. But in a new memo arguing for a prison term for Mr. Cohen, prosecutors in Manhattan said he “acted in coordination and at the direction of” an unnamed individual, clearly referring to Mr. Trump.

In another filing, prosecutors for the special counsel investigating Russia’s 2016 election interference said an unnamed Russian offered Mr. Cohen “government level” synergy between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign in November 2015. That was months earlier than other approaches detailed in indictments secured by prosecutors.

And in a separate case on Friday, the special counsel accused Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, of lying about his contacts with an individual they accuse of ties to Russian intelligence, and about his interactions with Trump administration officials after he was indicted on criminal charges.

Together, the filings laid bare the most direct evidence to date linking Mr. Trump to potentially criminal conduct, and added to an already substantial case that Russia was seeking to sway the 2016 election in his favor.

Mr. Trump sought on Friday to dismiss the news, claiming it “Totally clears the President. Thank you!”

As you may know, impeachment charges are brought by the House of Representatives, which will be majority Democratic in January, but the impeachment must be voted on by the Senate after a hearing in that chamber. A two-thirds Senate majority is required to successfully impeach someone, and of course, the Senate is a majority Republican chamber.

Conviction in the Senate simply removes a President from office, but he—Trump in this case—may also face criminal charges. Those are usually brought after the President is out of office because of the general feeling that there should be no criminal prosecution of a sitting President.

Now Trump’s removal would make Mike Pence President until 2020, not the best outcome. However Pence isn’t a good candidate for President, and if the Democrats can field a good candidate in two years, then we stand a chance of gaining back the White House. (Many names are already being mentioned, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden).

This all, of course, depends on the willingness of the Democrats to bring charges, of the Senate to convict, and, most of all, on the evidence that Robert Mueller has that Trump colluded in the Russia affair, made illegal payments for silence, lied to Mueller, and so on. I’m betting that the evidence is sufficient to bring an impeachment (impeachment, of course, is just the bringing of charges and the trial, not the conviction).

Let’s take two votes, just for fun. You don’t have to answer “yes” to the first one to answer the second one, which is simply your guess about what would happen if Trump is impeached. And, of course, you can weigh in below.

and this one:

 

 

Caturday felid trifecta: Cat and dog adventure buddies, generous bodega cat, and a reader’s Ceiling Cat

December 8, 2018 • 9:00 am

Okay, the story is from Huffpo, which loves stories like “Chrissy Teigen sets off twitter uproar over gummy bears“, but occasionally they have a good cat story. Actually, this is a cat and d*g story: the tale of Henry the d*g and Baloo the cat, interspecies pals who like to go hiking together, and to bring along their staff. The d*g story:

Cynthia Bennett and Andre Sibilsky moved to Colorado five years ago because of their love of the mountains. So when they adopted Henry in 2014, they were excited to discover that the energetic mutt enjoyed hiking as much as they did.

“On Henry’s first hike, he immediately went to find the biggest rock around to stand on top of to get a higher view,” Bennett told HuffPost. “Ever since then, we call him our little mountain goat for not only his climbing skills but for his love of the outdoors.”

The important cat story:

Last year, the couple spent months searching for the right cat to add to their adventurous brood — one that was calm but not too reserved or skittish. They eventually adopted Baloo, a Siamese mix. The two animals have been inseparable since day one and have forged a special bond.

“Henry has separation anxiety and would be stressed the entire time we’d be gone,” Bennett said. “This is one of the reasons we wanted to adopt Henry a friend, and that’s what Baloo has done for him!”

. . .“The first day Baloo met Henry, he snuggled up to him and tried to find a teat. Ever since then, he copies everything Henry does and basically thinks he’s a dog.”

Luckily, Baloo ended up sharing the couple and Henry’s passion for exploring the great outdoors. If Bennett so much as touches Henry’s leash, Baloo starts making noises at the door as if to say, “Hey, don’t forget about me!”

The crew has hiked, camped, snowshoed and stand-up paddleboarded together in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Texas, California, Oregon and beyond. The couple document their travels on the Instagram account @henrythecoloradodog, where they’ve amassed a huge following.

 

Fans often ask how the couple ensures that Henry and Baloo don’t run off while exploring nature. According to Bennett, Baloo wears a reflective leash for safety, though they don’t usually hold on to it because he never strays very far. For longer hikes, Baloo hangs out in one of the humans’ backpacks.

“He jumps out of our pack when he wants to walk and meows at us when he wants a ride,” Bennett said.

The pair of beasts has an Instagram account with many awesome photos.

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I am opposed to lotteries as a tax on the ignorant, but I have to admit that this ad for the New York Lottery, which features a generous cat (an oxymoron), is appealing. But it raises many questions. How did Cyrus get out of the bodega? How did Cyrus know where its staff lived?  And why on earth did Cyrus bring his staff a lottery card for Christmas? That’s like bringing a grocery-store receipt!

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Reader Tim Elsey’s cats were both tapped by Ceiling Cat (fleas be upon him) to act as his representatives on Earth. To wit:

We’re doing some remodeling on our house which has led to some prime Ceiling Cat spottings.  From the images it appears Lucy is the one doing the judging, then she sends Gandalf down through the ceiling to do the smiting.
Gandalf’s leg is shaved because he stole some medicine intended for our 150 pound bernese mountain dog and had to go to the urgent care.
I’ve attached an image of Gandalf and Gryff as lagniappe.  They take walks together sometimes and are even known to share breakfast.  Of course, I have videos of these interactions as well.

h/t: Tom