Halloween’s over, time to renew the War on Christmas

And here comes the heavy artillery: a new children’s book, Santa’s Husband, features a Santa Claus who is not only black, but is also gay, with a white husband — miscegenation! I’d like to imagine the religious right would just shrug and find joy in the fact that it’s about happy, loving people celebrating their religious holiday, but I don’t think it’ll happen — anyone remember Megyn Kelly’s insistence that Santa had to be white?

What next? Santa is a lesbian Asian woman? Would it make it OK if she was played by Cate Blanchett?

You know, I’m going all the way to Squid Santa.

Or maybe Cthulhu Claus.

Warning: They’re also polyamorous, two-spirit, progressive-anarchist socialists.

YouTube experts, explain something to me

I’ve set myself the objective of making one YouTube video per week, for a couple of reasons. One is to add one drop of something positive to the ocean of shitlords and dreck — I’ve complained enough about the toxic nature of YouTube, I figure that if I should be making a nominal effort to correct it. And another is to challenge myself to learn something new, and video skills are difficult for a non-photogenic and at least initially talentless videographer like me. So I’m tinkering. I hope they get better week by week.

Then, as I was exploring various features of the video editor, I learned that some things are not enabled until you switch on monetization. I’m not into making money off this endeavor (although it would be nice), so I turned that on, and then it took 5 or 6 days for the powers-that-be to decide I’m legit, and one video was activated for ads.

Except — and this is what I’m asking about — it was immediately declared “Not suitable for most advertisers”. I was mildly offended! What’s “not suitable” about this video? Is it my lack of style? My laid-back speaking manner? The old-man bags under my eyes? The occasional flash of spiders? Does being boring disqualify one for monetization? That might be it, since it can’t be the content — I see lots of racist/sexist crap on YouTube, which must be acceptable in a way that a geezer talking about genes can’t be.

On the bright side, though, I still get access to all the shiny video editing features, but they aren’t stuffing ads in. I guess that’s good. I’d like to know why — if it’s just a glimpse of my face that repels advertising, I’ll have to make sure to stick a portrait into every one.

While I’m asking, does anyone have a good tutorial to recommend on using various YouTube features?

Bail!

The Guardian has a feature on what will happen to several major cities when (not “if”, it’s going to happen) we get a 3°C rise in global temperatures by 2100. Osaka, Shanghai, Alexandria, Rio…just gone. Miami, also, but the response there is simply comical.

A sense of urgency is evident at city hall, where commissioners are asking voters to approve a “Miami Forever” bond in the November ballot that includes $192m for upgrading pump stations, improving drainage and raising sea walls.

The “drainage” suggestion is tragically hilarious. Where are they going to drain the water to?

Even at 2C, forecasts show almost the entire bottom third of Florida – the area south of Lake Okeechobee currently home to more than 7 million people – submerged, with grim projections for the rest of the state in a little more than half a century.

Almost the entire peninsula is going to be underwater. They think they can build a big wall around the city, and run pumps to bail it out. In a region with catastrophic hurricanes…hurricanes that are expected to get more severe.

Miami is a lovely, lively city. But it’s under a death sentence, and some people need to wake up to reality. This is probably the last century that you’ll be able to visit Miami, or the Keys, or the Everglades.

Whole genome duplication in the house spider

Let’s talk about the evolution, development, and genomics of the common house spider. Yeah, it’s another YouTube video from yours truly.

Schwager EE, Sharma PP, and others (2017) The house spider genome reveals an ancient whole-genome duplication during arachnid evolution. BMC Biol 15(1):62. doi: 10.1186/s12915-017-0399-x.

Hilbrant M, Damen WG, McGregor AP (2012) Evolutionary crossroads in developmental biology: the spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Development 139(15):2655-62. doi: 10.1242/dev.078204.

His lawyers must hate him

All you have to do is wind him up and watch him go. Michael Shermer won’t shut up even when he’s threatening someone with lawsuits. Phil Torres received a nastygram from him, and paraphrased him in a public post.

What makes it especially amusing is that Shermer then joins in the comments, repeats his bluster at length, and goes on and on about how awful he finds Torres.

Anyone remember this ‘interview’ by Ian Murphy with Shermer? He is so predictable.

He lost me at “electoral appeal”. I just don’t get it.

Boris Johnson gets disemboweled on the pages of the New Statesman.

Boris Johnson is a singular and unorthodox politician whose electoral appeal transcends traditional party lines. He is charismatic and funny, cultured and erudite, yet blessed with the common touch. He is a wonderful wordsmith, even if he often uses words to deceive and dissemble.

Those talents served him admirably in his role as merrymaker-in-chief while he was mayor of London, but they do not remotely qualify him to govern the UK during a gathering national crisis that he did so much to engender. Nor do I accept the contention that “Boris is Boris” and should therefore be exempted from all the customary rules of personal and political conduct.

Strip away the bluster and bonhomie, and you are left with a chaotic, mendacious, philandering, egotistical, disloyal and thoroughly untrustworthy charlatan driven by ambition and self-interest. Or, as the BBC broadcaster Eddie Mair once put it, “a nasty piece of work”.

You could say the same thing about the American president, except that you don’t even have to strip away any “charismatic and funny, cultured and erudite” aspects of his character, since they aren’t there. But now I have to wonder…how do buffoons like this get elected to high office?

There’s going to be an international incident, isn’t there?

Our Prezdent is off on a grand tour of Asia, scoping out golf courses and meeting with his boss, Putin. We can get a taste of his diplomacy from comments he made last year after North Korea launched a few missiles.

Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.

The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said.

He’s probably wondering right now why he wasn’t greeted by geisha girls and kabuki performers in Tokyo.

We’re all going to die, aren’t we?