God must love triangles

Another sad discovery in the lab: another spider, Gilly, has died suspiciously of an exploded abdomen. This has only been happening since I started feeding them waxworms and mealworms, so I suspect gluttony might be the culprit.

Strangely, this has only been happening to my Parasteatoda, while the two species of Steatoda are doing just fine. My colony is currently dominated by Steatoda triangulosa, which is unexpected, since they were relatively rare in our collection sites. I do have about 20 or so juvenile Parasteatoda growing up in smaller containers, though, so the pendulum may swing back in a few weeks when they get promoted to the big breeding cages.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest juvenile (Steatoda triangulosa, of course) that is ready for breeding, I think. The picture catches her at a good angle so you can see both the zig-zag brown stripe down the side of her abdomen, and the sawtooth or triangle pattern you can see dorsally.

You can sort of see a white-flocked Christmas tree on her abdomen, maybe. (NO, IT’S TOO SOON FOR CHRISTMAS REFERENCES!).

The War on Thanksgiving?

I am weary after many years slogging in the trenches, drafted to serve in a war I didn’t want to fight. Every year, in December, we’re called to go over the top and assault the Christmas redoubt in our bloody war on the name — never mind that we never actually do, preferring to sit back and sip our wine and enjoy a feast instead, it’s the thought that we’re expected to clamber over barbed wire to somehow force people to say “Happy Holidays”. It’s tiring. And the truth is, I don’t really give a damn. It’s just the fucking Christians wanting to pretend to be persecuted again.

And now, this silly escalation.

OK, which of my fellow Lefties was asking for this? Was it you? I didn’t hear a word about this until Trump suddenly started whining about how we’re attacking him. Come on, people! We’ve got to be coordinated about these attacks!

Again, I don’t really care. I don’t celebrate a bunch of long-dead Europeans feasting at the onset of their invasion of a new continent, I just like the day off, visiting with my kids, and seeing my students recharging with their friends and families before the conclusion of a semester. If that’s the War on Thanksgiving, I guess I’m a combatant. Once more.

They better not try to declare a War on Halloween, though. We have the witches on our side in that one.

Tony Robbins, super-creep

There’s been a new development in the Tony Robbins case. It ought to be enough that he’s a charlatan with no skills other than a glib line of patter who gets millions of dollars every year for telling people what they want to hear, but he also has a history of harassing young girls. There is, as seems to be common in these cases, a long line of accusers.

Earlier this year, BuzzFeed News published a series of investigations revealing how multiple former staffers and fans have accused Robbins of sexual misconduct over three decades. Ten women have said Robbins groped them, exposed himself, or sexually harassed them while they were at his seminars or working for him, and nine of them said they were upset by his actions. Other records showed that he had berated victims of rape and domestic violence. He has denied every allegation and accused BuzzFeed News of “flat-out lying.”

Afterward, former SuperCampers reached out to BuzzFeed News about the 1985 incident. Reporters then contacted other former campers and staffers — dozens of whom independently recalled hearing about it. Many also remembered a heavily sexualized seminar delivered by Robbins to campers as young as 13. Several said they had been waiting years for a reporter to contact them. This is the first time Robbins has been accused of assaulting a minor — and it is also the first allegation of sexual misconduct by the guru that could be corroborated by eyewitnesses.

Robbins is following the usual play book of these predators — hit-and-run sexual encounters, denial, accusing his victims of trying to get his money, denial, shaming women, denial — but there was one more box he had to fill in on my bingo card. He had to file a lawsuit against anyone who reported his behavior.

Bingo!

Bonus points for filing in Ireland, of all places. It turns out that Ireland has extraordinarily slack defamation laws — the entire burden of proof rests on the defendant, with everything skewed to benefit wealthy people who are offended that someone dislikes them. It’s an interesting twist on the usual strategy of filing a SLAPP suit in states that lack strong anti-SLAPP laws. He has instead gone international in his venue-shopping. He’s rich, he can afford to kick the peons where ever he wants.

Mayor Pete gets a bad burn

Ow. Michael Harriot responds to Buttigieg’s claim that black folk just need more inspiration to succeed.

It proves men like him are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism. Get-along moderates would rather make shit up out of whole cloth than wade into the waters of reality. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want to change anything. He just wants to be something.

Read the whole thing. Especially you, Mr Buttigieg, and after you finish you can just go off and quietly retire from the race.

A remarkable instance of sneaky corruption

Stephen Ruth is a man with a mission: he’s busy painting over the lenses, or cutting the wires, of traffic cameras at intersections. At first, I thought it was petty vandalism, throw the book at him, or some deep obsession with privacy…but no. There’s an ethical reason for it.

Wherever the cameras were installed, the county intentionally shortened the duration of the yellow lights from 5 seconds to 3 seconds, knowing that it would increase the frequency of traffic violations (and traffic accidents).

The shortened duration times at the traffic lights generate $32 million for Suffolk County, which is why the county allows the practice to continue despite their own study showing they lead to an increase in accidents with injuries.

Such a little thing, and it brings in $32,000,000. I would call that an elegant scam, except that it’s killing and injuring people. And surprise — the police are supporting Ruth.

And after he cut the wires, he called the news to cover his act of civil disobedience, which resulted in his arrest after police received pressure from politicians. Ruth said police and sheriff deputies support him, because they’re aware of the shortened yellow lights.

Some may even testify on his behalf if his case goes to trial. When he was in jail for his most recent arrest, a sheriff’s deputy even offered to bail him out.

You want another surprise? The county is in bed with Xerox.

Ruth pointed out some cameras that were put up have been taken down after they fell short of daily contract-quota with Xerox to produce 25 citations, per camera, between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., which costs Suffolk County $2,132 per day, according to the Xerox contract with the county.

Xerox collects $13 from Suffolk County for each ticket, which increases to $33 per ticket when a camera generates more than 90 tickets in a month.

Shouldn’t the goal of law enforcement be to reduce the number of violations? These guys have incentives to increase the number!

I wouldn’t want to be a man this fragile

Look at him. He’s afraid of Mr Rogers.

Somebody needs to inform this guy that Marion Morrison, aka John Wayne, was a posturing draft-dodger, a cheerleader for the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he said this in 1971:

With a lot of blacks, there’s quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.

… I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from the Indians. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

But then, that probably makes him even more attractive to the creatures at the Daily Wire.

I’m not as nice as Mr Rogers, but I’m not as dull and reactionary as John Wayne. I don’t believe in settling conflicts with guns, but I also think we have to resist fascism vigorously. Can I just be who I am, without someone telling me I have to conform to one of two different molds? Men are not all the same. Neither are women.

We win!

Good news, everybody! The Richard Carrier lawsuit is kaput. He finally, after 3 years of this nonsense, approached our lawyer and begged for mercy: he agreed to walk away from the lawsuit with prejudice if we agreed to do likewise and promise not to hurt him anymore. This is a comprehensive surrender, agreeing to quit harassing me, Amy Frank, Lauren Lane, Stephanie Zvan, Skepticon, The Orbit, and Freethoughtblogs with his legal bullshit. Here’s the SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT if you want to savor our victory a little more.

We still have to finish paying off our legal debt, so we’ll still be begging for donations for a while. If you’re one of those terrible people who supported Carrier in his attempt to silence people, I hope you appreciate what a bad investment you made, and excuse me while I dance on your failure, losers. Your champion is crawling away, defeated.

Darn, now I’ve got to watch TV

I have plans for today. I don’t have labs to teach this week because of the looming holiday, and I don’t have to prep for class this morning since I’m giving an exam, so I’m delightfully free, mostly. I am sitting down with students all afternoon to coach them through writing a good lab report, so I do have some obligations.

But this morning is all spider time. I’ve got feeding to do and a swarm of spiderlings to sort out. I don’t know why they don’t pay me to do this 8 hours a day, I’ve got a lot to learn.

Then, this evening, I’m setting aside some time to watch We Believe in Dinosaurs, about the construction of Ken Ham’s Ark Park.

We Believe in Dinosaurs follows the design and construction of a massive $120 million Noah’s Ark replica in rural Kentucky, telling the story of the unsettling and uniquely American conflict between science and religion.

Maybe I’ll do some live-blogging as I watch it. I should probably set aside a few hours afterwards for seething time, too.