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.
Reader Stephen Barnard in Idaho has sent two photos, one of which (first below) is among his best pictures so far: a tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor):
These are difficult to capture in flight. Conditions have be to ideal: good light and stiff headwind.
Diana MacPherson has sent another chipmunk picture. Sadly, this one appears to have mange, and I don’t know if that affliction, cause by mites) ever goes away. But it’s a cute photo nonetheless, as the beast has a cheek full of seeds.
I put several cups of seeds out for the chipmunks today & agricola chipmunk made many trips to stash them somewhere. I noticed the loss of hair on the nose before but wondered if it was just matted from being wet. You can see it is some bald spots. Also, the tail is all bereft of the fluffy fur of a regular chipmunk tail. I suspect this is a mom chipmunk. Still cute though, despite the mange.
In honor of the world’s usage, for the next month I’ll use “football” as the term for the sport being played at the World Cup. And, as reader Steve tells us, football is apparently played by the Saviour, at least in Austria:
I’m not fond of online gambling firms, but one of them in Austria has taken advantage of this World Cup’s location to launch a tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign. This was spotted by a neighbour, also an atheist, who says that he doesn’t like it. Personally, I find it amusing.
Any atheist who doesn’t find the ad funny is a sourpuss—or an accommodationist. But it’s only a matter of time before the Catholic League complains about this as well.
Here’s Rio’s Christ the Redeemer about to score a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!And for who don’t know German, the phrase under the firm’s name means “Life is a game!”
It surprises me that this ad appears in a pretty religious country. But, in Europe, footie trumps all.
Now, off to watch England v. Italy. Who should I root for?
After you watch the 18-minute video below, or read the article about it in the Guardian, you may stop eating shrimp and prawns—at least those sold at places like Walmart, Carrefour, Costco and Tesco, and the supermarkets Morrisons, the Co-operative, Aldi, and Iceland. Those are some of the places that, after a six-month investigation by the paper, are implicating in human trafficking by buying shrimp fed on slave-produced fishmeal.
We all know about sweatshops producing computers and clothing in Southeast Asia, but this is worse, for it’s true slavery. Immigrants to Thailand, often from Burma, are dumped on trawlers to work off the costs of their migration, and often don’t see land again for over a year. On the boats they’re treated horribly: they get a plate or so of rice a day, have to work more than 20 hours catching “trash fish” for the fishmeal, and are beaten—or worse:
Life on a 15-metre trawler is brutal, violent and unpredictable. Many of the slaves interviewed by the Guardian recalled being fed just a plate of rice a day. Men would take fitful naps in sleeping quarters so cramped they would crawl to enter them, before being summoned back out to trawl fish at any hour. Those who were too ill to work were thrown overboard, some interviewees reported, while others said they were beaten if they so much as took a lavatory break.
Many of these slave ships stay out at sea for years at a time, trading slaves from one boat to another and being serviced by cargo boats, which travel out from Thai ports towards international borders to pick up the slave boats’ catch and drop off supplies.
. . . Of the 15 current and former slaves the Guardian interviewed during the investigation, 10 had witnessed a fellow fisherman murdered by his boat captain or net master.
Ei Ei Lwin, the Burmese fisherman, claims he saw “18 to 20 people killed in front of me”.
“Some were shot, others were tied up with stones and thrown into the sea, and one was ripped apart,” he says. “He hated his captain and tried to beat him to death. But the captain escaped by jumping into the sea. The other captains came and pinned [the fisherman] down. Then they tied up his hands and legs to four separate boats and pulled him apart.”
The whole system is riddled with corruption: the Thai government knows about it yet does nothing about it, and likewise with the Western food firms that purvey the product. It’s deeply disturbing.
It’s all documented in the article linked above, but if you’re the visual type, watch this video, which you can see by clicking on the screenshot below (note, some of the stuff depicted in this documentary is pretty horrible):
If you want to complain, just click on the links below to go to the customer service site; all these firms are, according to the Guardian, involved in supporting slavery:
Working away this afternoon, I was disturbed by the sounds of thumping and scuttling from the windowsill outside my office. When I cracked the blinds (I keep them closed to keep sun glare off my computer), I saw several baby squirrels at play. There were two, then three—almost certainly from one brood.
I opened the blinds fully and took a video with my camera (apologies for the window reflections). They weren’t disturbed by my presence, because they are used to me: I feed them seeds and nuts every day.
Clearly, what I thought was a single juvenile named Tufty E. is actually three squirrels who look the same. Given that I can’t tell them apart, I’ll just call them The Tuftys.
And here’s part of the delightful interlude I saw:
They’re in good nick, aren’t they? I love their clean white tummies.
The Iraq War has been America’s longest: it’s been eleven years since we invaded, based on trumped-up accusations, in 2003. Iraq Body Countestimates the number of violent deaths, including those of combatants, at 188,000. It’s only June 14, and already 758 civilians have been killed. Official estimates of American military casualties are 4,489 killed and 32,021 wounded.
Have all those deaths, and all the misery attending them, accomplished anything? It would be hard to say anything but “no”. The militant Muslim group ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), so extreme that it’s been disowned by al Qaeda, has captured Mosul, and is moving rapidly on Baghdad. And what happened in Mosul—the immediate imposition of sharia law, including the veiling of all women, and the prohibition of all religions save Islam—will happen everywhere. In the end, the country will become a Muslim theocracy, unstable, impoverished, and a launching pad for worldwide terrorism.
Right now Obama is pondering military action: not the incursion of new troops, but drone strikes. There’s even talk of a US alliance with Iran, which would threaten another disastrous clash between Iran and Iraq.
Nothing can be accomplished by further American military action in Iraq. Drones won’t stop ISIS, nor will the unmotivated troops and police of al-Maliki’s government. Iraq will become a medieval religious state, there will be more battles between Sunnis and Shiites, and women will go back into veiled oppression.
It’s time for us to leave—for good. Let us leave that country to its own destruction—something for which we’re partly responsible. We’ve lost nearly 5,000 citizens (and killed many Iraqi civilians) in a cause as futile as that of Vietnam. It’s time to declare victory and get out. If you have a better solution, by all means suggest it.
I’ve seen two Vietnams in my lifetime, and that’s enough.
From I Love Meow, we have a Saturday heartwarmer: a cat lost in the wild gets rescued by climbers:
A tiny abandoned kitten strayed into the hearts of a group of climbers. “Meet Red, a stray we found in a gravel parking lot at Muir Valley, Red River Gorge, Kentucky. He adopted us by following us for half a mile through the woods,” said Eric C.
“He followed us the whole way from the parking lot at Muir down the trail to Tectonic Wall, and stayed at the crag with us all day. We couldn’t leave him,” Jennifer S. said.
(Photos courtesy of Jennifer S. and Eric C.)
Red is quite a hiker. He tagged along with his human friends he just met when they were hiking up the hill. When the kitty didn’t feel like walking, he wasn’t shy to ask for assistance. “He rode on my shoulders or backpack, but insisted I hunch over. He’d sleep in my helmet, but didn’t like being carried in it as much. What worked best was letting him sleep in our jackets, with a strap around the bottom so he wouldn’t fall out,” Eric added.
When Red wanted some rest, he wasn’t shy to ask for assistance. “He rode on my shoulders or backpack, but insisted I hunch over.”Red snuggled into Eric’s jacket, ready for a nap.He discovered their helmet. It’s a perfect fit!
They fell in love with the little unexpected furry friend. When they were leaving that day, they went home with a new addition. “I may have adopted a kitten or a kitten may have adopted me,” Eric wrote.
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From the Vancouver Sun, we hear about a fat Canadian cat (too many Tim Hortons?) who has taken to stealing work gloves. We’ve had several posts about cats who purloin other peoples’ stuff, but never one who specialized in one item. Who can fathom the felid mind?
Burnaby’s Dawn Palmer has a mystery on her hands.
A few months back, she started noticing workmen’s gloves showing up on the floor of her home. Nylon ones, fabric ones, never in a matched pair, just singles – and they were found in the dining room, the back balcony and around the front door of her South Slope home.
Assuming they belonged to her son, Palmer simply left them in his room and thought little of it.
“Then I thought, ‘Wait a minute, there’s too many of them,’ ” Palmer told a reporter.
Her son decided to count the gloves, and dumped a bag of them on the living room floor – that’s when the family realized there was something strange happening. There were just too many gloves.
“I kept thinking this doesn’t make sense,” Palmer said, suspecting their family dog was up to something.
It wasn’t until a day or two later that the Palmers finally figured out who was leaving the gloves. Sienna, the family cat, had a history of bringing home “presents” for her owners and would announce their delivery with attention-demanding meows.
. . . Sienna is aging and has put on a few pounds, so Palmer suspects the gloves are easy “prey” for the calico.
“Seriously, I think because she’s too fat now and can’t catch anything, she’s picked up this glove thing,” Palmer says, laughing. “I’m just so happy it’s not mice and birds anymore. … I would hate it when she brought them home.”
But catching Sienna in the act only solved half of the mystery. Where the gloves are coming from is unknown, and Sienna keeps bringing more home.
Palmer feels bad, because somewhere out there, someone is missing a whole lot of gloves, and her cat is to blame.
. . . Palmer estimates Sienna has brought in more than 50 gloves in total and counting.
“She’s still doing it! Every two days now, I find another one. Now I just throw them in the bag,” she says. “One day, I had the gloves in the bag, and I was holding the bag, and she’s meowing at me, as if to say: ‘Those are mine.’ It’s too funny.”
All times are Chicago time. Which game will you watch? England and Italy for me, played in steamy Manaus (I’m allowed only one per day.) Remember, they’re streamed live (and in pretty high quality) by Univison. Go here to watch.
Here are highlights of yesterday’s Spain vs. Netherlands game. Watch it quickly, as the stupid FIFA doesn’t let these things stay up long. And say what you will about the refereeing, but the Dutch played wonderfully.
