Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Rorqual!

This is a Minke Whale, in life.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be a little harder to see them in life. The Japanese whaling fleet has just returned to base with a lot of carcasses that will be destined for cans and pet food.

Japan’s whaling fleet has returned to base with the carcasses of 333 minke whales, in apparent violation of a ruling by the International Court of Justice.

Reuters quoted a statement by Japan’s Fisheries Agency that said 103 male and 230 female whales were caught during the fleet’s summer expedition to Antarctic waters. Ninety percent of the mature females were pregnant.

Did you know that Japanese whaling was banned by the International Whaling Commission, with one little loophole left for scientific research? They’ve been abusing that loophole for years.

The court said the research program had generated only two peer-reviewed papers that together refer to nine whales.

‘In light of the fact that [Japan’s program] has been going on since 2005 and has involved the killing of about 3,600 minke whales, the scientific output to date appears limited,’ the court wrote in its judgment.

By a 12-4 vote, the court based in The Hague decided Japan must ‘revoke any extant authorization, permit or license granted in relation to’ its whaling program, ‘and refrain from granting any further permits’ related to it.

You had me at your contempt for mowing lawns

The Roaming Ecologist has a few words about lawns.

Lawns – those myopically obsessive (and evil) urban, suburban, and increasingly rural monoculture eyesores that displace native ecosystems at a rate between 5,000 and 385,000 acres per day* in favor of sterile, chemically-filled, artificial environments bloated with a tremendous European influence that provide no benefits over the long term; no food, no clean water, no wildlife habitat, and no foundation for preserving our once rich natural heritage. And there’s the unbearable ubiquitousness of mowing associated with such a useless cultural practice, which creates a ridiculous amount of noise pollution, air and water pollution, and a bustling busyness that destroys many peaceful Saturday mornings. The American lawn is the epitome of unsustainability.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, and attend your weekly meetings protesting grass, rather than mow my lawn. That season is soon upon us.

But then he also shares this excellent illustration of native prairie plants. They’re all roots! Unlike that scrubby shallow Kentucky bluegrass film on the left, that just forms a superficial mat of roots.

Illustration by Heidi Natura, 1995, of Living Habitats. Click on image to see larger version. 80% of a prairie’s biomass is below ground, which is a part of the reason why prairies are the greatest soil carbon factories in the world. Those roots break up compacted soil, and as a portion of those roots die each year, they add organic matter and decompose into carbon, further enriching the soil; all of this is done without deadly pesticides or equally deadly petrochemical fertilizers.

Illustration by Heidi Natura, 1995, of Living Habitats. Click on image to see larger version. 80% of a prairie’s biomass is below ground, which is a part of the reason why prairies are the greatest soil carbon factories in the world. Those roots break up compacted soil, and as a portion of those roots die each year, they add organic matter and decompose into carbon, further enriching the soil; all of this is done without deadly pesticides or equally deadly petrochemical fertilizers.

OK, now what can I do to kill the ground hugging parasites covering my yard and replace them with cool plants like that?

Even our Republicans are better than yours

I’ve been bragging about the progressive Democrats we have here in Minnesota: Dayton, Klobuchar, Franken, for instance. But sometimes even our Republicans surprise me.

Minnesota GOP Chairman Keith Downey is breaking from leading Republican presidential candidates after controversial remarks about Muslims by Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Downey spoke at “Muslim Day at the Capitol” last week after deadly attacks in Brussels by Islamic terrorist group ISIL. The attacks prompted Trump and Cruz to call for closer scrutiny of Muslims to protect the country from dangerous extremists.

The GOP chairman, who spoke at the annual event for the first time, quoted extensively from letters he exchanged with Asad Zaman, executive director of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota and an organizer of the discussion. Downey told the audience that “the political debate occurring in this context unfortunately is severely hampered by a lack of knowledge about Islam and the Muslim community in America.”

I’m still not ever voting for them. But they’re taking steps in the right direction.

(Before 300 million people pack up and move to Minnesota, I’ll remind you all of the downsides. Cold. And mosquitoes. Also, occasional outbursts of accordion music.)

Oh. It’s Easter.

That’s right, today is the most boring and unbelievable of the Christian holidays, when we’re supposed to be all reverent because people claim some dude came back from the dead a long time ago, on a date almost incomprehensibly difficult to calculate because it has something to do with the moon. We celebrate this unlikely event by wearing fancy clothes and going to church and making our children chase eggs, none of which is particularly pleasant or entertaining, or possessing any special appeal to anyone.

Until now.

This day is about some guy resurrecting, and now a lot of loony people want him to resurrect a second time. No one ever seems to ask whether we want some manic charismatic rabbi from the ancient Roman empire to come back and tell us what to do. What we need is some kind of Jesus repellent. Something that would totally repulse some sanctimonious geezer with a purity fetish.

Oglaf has come up with the celebration to drive religious redeemers away (totally not safe for work). As a bonus, it should also work on Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and other such obnoxious proselytizing intruders. It probably wouldn’t work on Ted Cruz, but then no method is perfectly fool-proof.

The struggle never ends

Over the last few days, there have been some ups and downs in crank medicine. The Tribeca Film Festival scheduled Andrew Wakefield’s anti-vaccine documentary to be shown, and Robert DeNiro defended it as a legitimate contribution to the discussion of the causes of autism. It isn’t. It’s rank nonsense from a discredited quack.But then DeNiro changed his mind and yanked it from the schedule. Good for him!

But now, lest you think the problem is solved, let me remind you that there are bad parents medically abusing their children everywhere.

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If I ever get this cranky, just shoot me

crankyclintYou may recall Ted Storck from his greatest hits here in Morris: he’s the guy who donated the chimes that annoyed everyone for years, who wrote bitter letters to the local newspaper when asked to turn them down, who complained when a vandal cut the wires (OK, that was wrong to do, but he also accused me of having done it), who, when the chimes were finally silenced by the city council, whined about how he should never do anything nice for the community, before stomping off to his retirement in Arizona.

I thought we were done with crotchety ol’ Ted — the chimes are gone, he’s moved away — but no! He’s taken to writing cranky letters to the local newspaper, about things that have annoyed him. And the paper is publishing them! Ah, Morris.

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Inshallah

This is a painfully common story: parents give child a deadly weapon as a present, child accidentally kills someone (because CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING WITH GUNS), and everyone shrugs it off because, well, these things just happen. It’s no one’s fault. Nope, no blame anywhere. This is a rifle intended for children, so it was being used properly. Of course, it was used by a five year old boy to accidentally slaughter his two year old sister, but hey, It’s just one of those nightmares, a quick thing that happens when you turn your back, say the police, as if there was no agency involved anywhere in the whole tragic series of events. It just happens.

And then Grandma has to come along and open her mouth.

Riddle said she is devastated, but comforted knowing that her granddaughter is in a better place.

It was God’s will. It was her time to go, I guess, she told WLEX. I just know she’s in heaven right now and I know she’s in good hands with the Lord.

Fuck you, Grandma.

One of these states is not like the others

North Carolina:

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) late Wednesday night signed rushed legislation that, as is widely known, eliminates local governments’ ability to pass anti-discrimination measures to protect gay and transgender individuals. But what received less immediate attention was that the new law guts workplace discrimination protections for virtually everyone.

The bill also pre-empts local employment ordinances governing wages, benefits, employee protections and leave policies. It would prevent schools from allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify.

The law also prohibits local ordinances regarding child labor.

Basically, assholes like businessman Art Pope used anti-LGBT bigotry to pass anti-worker legislation without a lot of people noticing (or caring–some people value their bigotry more than their welfare).

Indiana:

Gov. Mike Pence made Indiana the second state in the nation to ban abortions sought because the fetus has a disability, signing into law Thursday an expansion of the state’s already restrictive abortion laws.

Georgia:

HRC and Georgia Equality, the statewide LGBT advocacy organization, called on House Leadership and Gov. Nathan Deal to put a stop to the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act of Georgia,” H.B. 757. The bill, which just passed the Georgia Senate by a vote of 38 – 14 goes far beyond protecting the right to practice one’s religion and would instead put LGBT people couples, single parents, and unmarried couples at risk for discrimination.

The dangerous legislation goes far beyond protecting the right of free exercise of one’s religion. While falsely framed as prohibiting the state government from making funding or tax status decisions based on an organization’s views on marriage that are driven by religious belief, in reality it threatens to create a breakdown of state government services, opening the door to discrimination against same-sex couples, their families, and those who love them. Taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies could refuse to place children who are in desperate need of loving and caring homes with LGBT couples. State-funded homeless shelters could turn away unwed couples and their families. Government employees could refuse to file tax forms for same-sex couples or provide state benefits to single mothers.

Minnesota:

The battle over transgender rights has flared at the State Capitol as a group of Republican legislators unveiled a proposal Wednesday that would require people to use bathrooms and changing rooms that match their “biological sex.”

…

Gov. Mark Dayton on Wednesday decried the legislation, saying that he was “appalled” and that he would veto it if it were to reach his desk. “This is about pandering to their extreme issue,” Dayton said.

He added: “They just keep bashing people for their own political advantage. … They’re wrong on the issue, and they’re wrong on the morality.”

It’s kind of weird. Dayton is an extremely wealthy businessman, and once upon a time he would have been stereotyped right into the Republican party. But he’s a Democrat, and he’s also got all these liberal, progressive views and doesn’t think his position of power should be used stomp on the poor and give more advantages to his wealthy cronies.