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.
Happy new year! We’ve had a surfeit of felids the last few days, so I’ll proffer a simple video of a Scottish fold kitteh (no, it’s not Maru) chillin’ in a warm bath with his rubber ducky. Lest you think it’s weird, this video is from Japan, land of the soaking tub.
To see other videos of this cat bathing, click on “up next” at the upper right when the video ends.
Oh, and best wishes from Maru, too (perhaps one of our Japanese-speaking readers can translate this card?):
Thanks to all the readers for their tenacity and their comments, and all the best for 2011. As always, I’ll be in the arms of Morpheus when the ball drops in Times Square, but if you’re awake (and haven’t already seen in 2011), hoist one for Darwin.
It’s the holidays, and attempting anything intellectual or analyticial simply isn’t on for me today. But here’s something cool: the American Film Institute’s collection of the 100 best quotes from American movies—in order.
Before you look at the video, try to guess #1.
There are four parts on video; sadly the fifth hasn’t yet been made, so they only go up to number 80, a quote from Rocky. (Note: there’s some repetition in parts 2-4; they’re a bit of a mess.)
You can see the complete list, and the criteria for inclusion, on Wikipedia. Looking them over, I find that I’ve seen all but six of these in the original films (the exceptions are # 8, 47, 62, 69, 83, and 88 from the list). I don’t want to quarrel with the ranking, but the quote I actually use most often (when urging people not to battle a system with its own impenetrable rules) is #74 from Polanski’s wonderful movie: “Forget it Jake—it’s Chinatown.”
I’ll put up the first video and link to the other three.
By some fluke I was elected president of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) for 2011. My tenure begins tomorrow.
Given this position, I want to make clear that, as always, my posts on this site reflect my own personal opinion, and are not to be taken as official positions of the SSE or of any other organization. I will not speak for the SSE on this website—I do that only in official communications from the Society—nor will I mention the Society except, perhaps, to call attention to the annual meeting or to highlight a particularly noteworthy paper in our most excellent journal, Evolution.
Happy New Year (well, for tomorrow)! Here’s a collection of thirty (!) of the most viral cat videos (and photos) of the past year. Some we’ve seen before; most we haven’t.
I’m putting up my three favorites, but don’t miss the others.
1. Squeaking Fear of Intimacy Kitteh:
It’s not so much the fear of intimate contact in and of itself; it is a sort of horror attendant upon the act of self-abnegation required to lose yourself completely in an embrace from the “other”.
2. Hermes: The Cat Who Likes to be Hurled:
3. Cattycake. This is one of the most-viewed cat videos on YouTube:
My three favorite photos. Halloween cat:
And the miracle cats, with divine inscriptions in their fur:
Who can forget Polly, in whose fur the Intelligent Designer, suffering from amnesia, inscribed the name of His creation:
And if this doesn’t sate your ailurophilia, over at the Cheezburger site you can see a precis of their best posts of 2010: The Year in LOLcats. And there’s always The Best Maru Moments of 2010 (videos and photos of our favorite Scottish fold).
All you readers who can’t resist going after Sam Harris—back off a tick. He has a nice new piece on HufPo: “A new year’s resolution for the rich,” which highlights the growing financial inequality between Americans. (That, of course, also means inequality of health care and many other benefits.) Harris calls for a fairer tax code, one in which the wealthy—as they did historically—pay a higher proportion of their incomes, and for wealthier Americans to sacrifice some of their fortunes on education and clean energy.
. . . throughout the 1950’s–a decade for which American conservatives pretend to feel a harrowing sense of nostalgia–the marginal tax rate for the wealthy was over 90 percent. In fact, prior to the 1980’s it never dipped below 70 percent. Since 1982, however, it has come down by half. In the meantime, the average net worth of the richest 1 percent of Americans has doubled (to $18.5 million), while that of the poorest 40 percent has fallen by 63 percent (to $2,200). Thirty years ago, top U.S. executives made about 50 times the salary of their average employees. In 2007, the average worker would have had to toil for 1,100 years to earn what his CEO brought home between Christmas in Aspen and Christmas on St. Barthes. . . . But I can’t imagine that anyone seriously believes that the current level of wealth inequality in the United States is good and worth maintaining, or that our government’s first priority should be to spare a privileged person like myself the slightest hardship as this once great nation falls into ruin. . .
. . . The combined wealth of the men and women on the Forbes 400 list is $1.37 trillion. By some estimates, there are at least another 1,500 billionaires in the United States. Something tells me that anyone with a billion dollars could safely part with 25 percent of his or her wealth–without being forced to sell any boats, planes, vacation homes, or art. As of 2009, there were 980,000 families with a net worth exceeding $5 million (not including their primary residence). Would a one-time donation of 5 percent really be too much to ask to rescue our society from the maw of history?
Lovely sentiments. Given the political climate of our country, none of this will happen, of course. The Republicans couldn’t even sacrifice their goal of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, a huge loss of money for the government whose retention by the wealthy will do nothing for the country. Screw health care for the poor, but let the rich get their tax breaks. This is government, as Francis Fukuyama says below, not only by the wealthy, but for them.
Face it: we’re becoming a plutocracy. Here are some graphs produced by Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez (courtesy of Foad Mardukhi), showing the huge rise in income inequality in America that has taken place since the late 1930s (download his article here). This one shows the proportion of total income shared by the wealthiest 10% of Americans (click to enlarge):
But it’s worse: you can decompose the top 10% into three groups: the share of total income garnered by those making the top 1% (about 21%!), the top 1%-5%, and the top 5%-10%. The topmost bracket has shown the greatest increase since 1980:
The latest issue of The American Interest Online deals with the reality and ramifications of this inequality. From an essay by ex-conservative Francis Fukuyama, “Left Out“:
This is not, however, what this issue of The American Interest means by plutocracy. We mean not just rule by the rich, but rule by and for the rich. We mean, in other words, a state of affairs in which the rich influence government in such a way as to protect and expand their own wealth and influence, often at the expense of others. As the introductory essay to this issue shows, this influence may be exercised in four basic ways: lobbying to shift regulatory costs and other burdens away from corporations and onto the public at large; lobbying to affect the tax code so that the wealthy pay less; lobbying to allow the fullest possible use of corporate money in political campaigns; and, above all, lobbying to enable lobbying to go on with the fewest restrictions. Of these, the second has perhaps the deepest historical legacy.
It’s too sloppy in Chicago today to wear anything fancy, but here’s a pair that can stand up to the elements. Guess the hide.
UPDATE: It’s been guessed: the hide is SHARK. There’s no mistaking this crenulated hide, which is stiff to the touch, and of course very durable. The crenulations allow it to be dyed in nice patterns, as in these boots.
Other December 30 birthdays: Rudyard Kipling (1865), Bo Diddley (1928), Sandy Koufax (1935; the greatest Jewish pitcher of all time, still alive and yet dropped out of sight), Tracy Ullman (1959; watch her hilarious YouTube spoof of Arianna Huffington, which mentions Christopher Hitchens), two Monkees (Michael Nesmith, 1942, and Davy Jones, 1945), Patti Smith (1946), Tiger Woods (1975), and Skeeter Davis (1931).
Here are some of the the winners and finalists of National Geographic’s 2010 photography contest, and there are some stunners. Go have a look, and be sure to look at everything, since some of the runners-up are, to me, as good or better than the winners. Here’s a few snaps (be sure to click on them to enlarge).
This is the grand prize winner (10K$ plus publication in the magazine). Aaron Lim Boon Teck’s “Eruption of Gunung Rinjani,” an eruption he captured on a trek to the crater of another volcano.
Photo by Sean Heavey: a supercell thunderstorm on the Montana plains:
Ki Gompa, a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas. Photo by Natalia Luzuriaga:
Qat market, Yemen; photo by Abubakir Balfaquih. (Qat, or “khat” is a flowering plant, Catha edulis, whose leaves are chewed as a stimulant.)
Surfer “Donavon” holding on like crazy with a big water wall close behind him. Photo by Brian Bielmann:
And we can’t forget the beasties.
Natural selection: a heron catching a squirrel in Los Angeles. Photo by Dung Ma:
A gorgeous photo by Jody MacDonald, captioned “The last of his kind.” The description:
Rajan is the last ocean swimming elephant on earth. Initially trained using very cruel methods to log the Andaman Islands, he was forced to swim hauling massive loads. At 60 years he is the last of the group to survive. Now retired, he spends his time with his caretaker and enjoys swimming and walking through the forests he once logged. He is truly the last of his kind.
Monkey sitting on a termite mound, Jim Corbett National Park, India. Photo by Sanjeev Bhor:
And, of course, teh kittehs. An aged and pensive lion at a wildlife sanctuary in Indonesia. Photo by Stephanie Swartz:
Lion and cub, photo by Rocco Sette. The caption, in imperfect English:
After a big fight, a young lion male scared the leader of a lion praid away. He killed next to this two of three newborn babys they just was born a few hours before. The last one tried the Mother to safe, she walked with the baby in the mauth it and walked with the baby in the mouth far away.
Be sure to see the rest, and notice that there are arrows to the right of many categories that show more entries.
