Science news roundup: Dian Fossey, shark and rhino geography, more

Reading the non-fictionalized story of her life and death in Rwanda, Dian Fossey, who died 40 years ago today, comes off as a racist in many ways, in addition to generally being clueless about anything of sociology or social psychology that might have helped her deal with the locals in her research 

==

Sharks on the mountaintops? Well, if they're undersea mountain "constellations," you bet. Seamounts support high oceanic biodiversity in general, so that's where the sharks head.

==

Rhinos in the Arctic tens of millions of years ago do more than show the mobility, and evolutionary mobility, of mammals.

They also show the possible future of climate change. Unfortunately, that wasn't discussed. The reality is that, if we hit 5°C by the end of this century, you'll have rhinos wanting to move into Europe and northern Asia out of Africa and southern Asia, at least. Of course, due to human population and larger habitat destruction, that won't be easy. Nonetheless, NPR had an opportunity to talk here.

Tis the most craptacular time of the year for Metroplex radio

I've written about this before on my aesthetics and critical thinking site, but want to expand on it over here.

WRR, Dallas-Fort Worth's classical music station, plays a solid month straight, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, of Christmas music. Beyond obvious classical music like Bach's "Magnificat" or Vivaldi's "Gloria," it's modern Christmas carols — and not just religious ones like "Silent Night" given a quasi-classical treatment, but secular Christmas songs. (They actually slipped in "Clair de Lune" in early December; somebody must have screwed up.) They do this with everything other than their syndicated programming and their Monday night two hours of Metroplex-based musical offerings.

Despite the Metromess having a fair-sized Jewish population, they make no special programming effort for Hanukkah. Nor do they make a special programming effort for festive-type religious holidays of other faith traditions. For example, despite a relatively large Indian-American population, they do nothing for Diwali.

That said, to be fair, Beethoven's birthday did see Beethoven trump Christmas, or at a minimum, play even to it. And, outside of that, not all the religious music has been explicitly religious. Dec. 18, for example, when I randomly dropped in, they were playing the Sanctus from Bach's B minor.

That said? It's still not good. 

It's made worse while I'm driving. The laser on my CD player has gone out (not planning on replacing the system), so my reasonable FM alternatives are: A 1960s-90s classic rock station; two post-classic rock stations, ie, 1980s-today, or KERA, the NPR station.

And, that's part of why I'm writing — a compendium of some of the stupider news items on there.

Dec. 1, on what was actually one of the Beeb's news programs that NPR stations often rebroadcast? Secretary of State Marco Rubio was cited for Russia losing 7,000 casualties a week. And we trust Marco Rubio's numbers why? You didn't ask a place like Responsible Statecraft why? 

Dec. 19 or 20: I heard some stupidity from the Beeb I don't even remember.

Don't forget that the Beeb in general has as much problem with Zionism and NAFO Nazism as Merikkkan mainstream media. 

Dec. 22: From NPR's "On Point," some dude claiming the Western part of the US is "underchurched." No backstory from anybody else, like how the western states have long been the most secular, and definitely the least Christian, part of the US. No mention of how the Pacific Rim states far and away, by percentage of population, lead the US in East Asians from the other side of that Rim, people generally non-Christian. Ditto on not mentioning its South Asian population. No Hindu or Buddhist comment. No modern white None, even.  In short, a Kuffner-like program.

Ignoring the possible roots of Hanukkah, throwing secularists under the bus

Shock me that the "pergressuve" Texas Observer would do this, but it gave TCU prof David Brockman the space to do exactly that.

At the Observer, Brockman talks about how the religious of Texas can take comfort in "sparks of light" to battle the current political darkness.

With Judaism,  he ignores that Jews of Maccabean times got lucky (and weren't all that up to that point, as Yonathan Adler attests on purity, on festivals and Sabbaths, and more, including the actual targets of Antiochus Epiphanes), and also ignores the likelihood that Hanukkah came from the Persian, Zoroastrian, Yalda Night, also known as Chelle Night. Both former Iranian Jews and Syriac Christians (shades of Saturnalia?) have dipped into it, and we of course know the many other Achaemenid influences on emerging proto-Judaism. We don't know if it was first celebrated for eight days; that was derived from Sukkot. The story is from the "deuterocanonical" 1 and 2 Maccabees; the "miracle of the oil," which was seven days, not eight, is pure myth and comes from the Talmud, several centuries later.

Diwali? Not even a winter festival. Brockman is kissing the butt of vague religious pluralism. Also, Sikhs and Jains observe it, not just Hindus.

With a purely lunar calendar, Muslims don't have a solstice event. And, since he also kisses the butt of the Neoplatonist/Gnostic Kabbalah, one wonders if Brockman is a Zionist.

As for this:

One need not subscribe to any religion to recognize and draw strength from this insight. The idea for this essay came to me during a visit this fall to Houston’s Rothko Chapel, which transcends religious boundaries and embraces people of all religions and none. Avowedly multifaith and ecumenical, it stands in stubborn protest against the divisiveness and hatred metastasizing across our nation.

Multifaith and ecumenical is not secularist. Besides, I can get insight about the daylight portion of days lengthening again while hiking and birding.

Finally, a reminder that Laplace is "the reason for the season." 

Texas progressives talk Epstein, politics, more

Off the Kuff looked at the Congressional campaign situation in Texas, where betting the under on that five-seat gain Republicans lusted for makes some sense.

SocraticGadfly looked at Julian Assange trying to thrust himself back into the limelight, and scoffed.

Jamie Raskin and other Democrats posturing on the redactions, etc. on the Epstein files? Are you really that stupid, or is this more posturing? You already knew the bill said classified files only; redactions are done by the same people who do classifications. And it ain't Congress. All the above applies to Massie, Trevor Lawrence aka Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc.

So, did Kenny Boy always really want the now-unsealed divorce proceedings records unsealed, or is it just posturing? In either case, when Angela looks even worse in the court of public opinion, it ain't good for her. 

Can Kerr County be ready on the Guadalupe for next summer's possible floods by next summer? 

AI data centers sucking up water? Gee, and the constitutional amendment springing from Charles Perry's Senate Bill 4 will surely aid and abet this. (But, you do you, Suzanne Bellsnyder, and keep overpumping the Ogallala while you're at it.)

Neil at Houston Democracy Project said use energy gained from recent admonishment of John Whitmire, to hold newly-elected Councilmember Alejandra Salinas to account on her promises to strongly address HPD working with ICE.  

Franklin Strong doesn't like the new School Library Advisory Committee law, but he found an example of how to do it in a thoughtful manner.  

The Eyewall reminds us that water does not vare about our geopolitical borders. 

The Texas Signal finds the twinkliest town in Texas.  

Deceleration talks with an activist envisioning a post-plastics world.  

CultureMap warns about porch pirates.

The bullshit of the TikTok "selloff"

So, ZioNazi Larry Ellison gets the lead public stake of TikTok in the US, shadowy private equity Silver Lake gets a cut, every Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ favorite petrostate, Abu Dhabi, gets a cut, and China still has a fair degree of backdoor control? What a piece of shit. But, it didn't start with Trump.

Also, this seems to ignore that three years ago, during the Biden administration, it was already announced that Oracle was overseeing TikTok’s algorithms and data protection. It’s kinda weird that everyone seems to have forgotten that. This is all, more or less, what was already agreed to years ago. Just shifting around the ownership structure to give Trump and his friends a “win.”

 There you go.

Give the full piece a read for the stench of Trump, notes about the lesser stench of Biden, the stench of current Democraps supporting this deal, notes about Larry Ellison's long history of stench on privacy and security issues and more.

TikTok will actually be worse on privacy issues than before, China will love it, Ellison and private equity will combine to enshittify it, and a decade later, the Chinese will move on to bigger and better things. Trump's family and friends will continue to grift, and Democrats will split on a mix of silence, claiming they opposed it when they the individual protesting Democrats didn't, and a minority actually protesting.

Answers?

First, don't use TikTok.

Second, duopoly exit. 

"In the Pink" about spinning Christian holiday legends

  In The Pink Texas finds the true meaning of Christmas badly misspins the story behind the Lukan nativity myth to present an interesting, and politically supportable story about the Trump administration and religions right wingnuts, and an interesting sidebar, with no follow-up, about American Catholic political issues.

I am referring in specific to the second half of the piece.

First, of course, it never happened.

Second, within the story, Jesus and Mary weren't refugees; they were following a lawful political order. (This didn't happen this way in actual Roman censuses, so even if the broader outlines of the story were true, this is not.) 

I should add that this is far from the first time I've seen this claim, so let's look at the appropriate verses from Luke 2 (vv 1-3):

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered.

See? Not refugees. 

Third, it (natch) goes on to blend Matthew's story (which also, of course, didn't happen) with Luke's. 

And, they're not refugees in Matthew, either, because Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem the whole time up to this point. Now, AFTER Jesus' birth, they have to flee Herod in Matthew's story, and so are refugees — fleeing from a Roman client kingdom into direct Roman control. The best modern analogy would be fleeing Puerto Rico for the United States itself. (Of course, the Matthean birth narrative didn't happen either.) 

As for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemnation of ICE earlier this year? 

Yes, that happened. But, it didn't invoke the Lukan nativity.

It also ruled on a bunch of other things that librulz and leftists don't like, and that also illustrated issues of religious-political matters in US Catholicism. More on that here.

The big issue for this secularist is that he doesn't like misappropriation of religious traditions for political reasons at all.

And of course I commented there.