Through the filter of time … a repost that may still be interesting to you from two years ago.

Scene: Berkeley, California, April 1986. A bar. Five conference attendees, myself included, grabbing a hamburger and a beer in a fern-bar on or near Telegraph.

All eyes are on the TV’s mounted over the bar, where we watch footage of an air strike against Libya. This is the retribution by Ronald Reagan against Insane African Leader Muammar al-Kadafi. The White House was issuing statements about al-Kadafi’s involvement in bombings in Europe, the OPEC oil ministry kidnapping, linkage to the infamous Jackal, and so on. Nikki, a friend and colleague, said something, and I remember asking her to repeat it. Nikki is a low-talkier. You’ve got to lean in really close. So I leaned in and heard her say, “Libya is the only country in Africa where the people get to share in the national wealth. They love Kadafi. Others should take a lesson from him.”
Continue reading Flight 103 from Frankfurt →

“The ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report sheds light on the faces of modern-day slavery and on new facets of this global problem. The human trafficking phenomenon affects virtually every country, including the United States. In acknowledging America’s own struggle with modern-day slavery and slavery-related practices, we offer partnership. We call on every government to join us in working to build consensus and leverage resources to eliminate all forms of human trafficking.”
–Secretary Clinton, June 16, 2009

Highlights:

• There were over 5000 prosecuted cases of trafficking globally last year.
• Good news: That is a decrease from previous years.
• The categories of trafficking identified in the report include: forced labor, bonded labor, debt bondage among migrant laborers, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, child soldiers, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking and related abuses

More information and the report itself is available here.

The only place I’ve ever seen Great White Sharks in the wild (I’m not a SCUBA diver!) is in South Africa, where you can see them from cliffs, swimming back and forth looking for penguins (and seals?). I’ve heard there were some recent attacks near Cape Town (False Bay) by great whites, but I think they generally don’t eat too many people there. That is probably because most South Africans either stay out of the water entirely or go all the way … in SCUBA gear, or otherwise just keep a careful eye out. I mean, these are BIG fish and hard to miss.

I’m reminded of my first time to the coast with a colleague, to whom I’ll refer as “G” (because his name has a G in it). G and I were staying with a dozen others in a place along the Garden Route, and one morning we decided to walk down to the ocean. G is local, and he knew that I would enjoy seeing this beach.

On the way down the hill, we walked through and around many back yards, on a winding path used mainly by the local kids. There was a particularly large and dangerous looking dog at one point held in by a weak fence that tried to get at us. Later, when we were down on the beach, the dog broke free of the fence and came running at us at high speed. So, I picked up a big piece of kelp-stem, waved it around, and tossed it into the huge, rolling and breaking surf, in which we could see breeding whales (and presumably the great whites roamed).

The dog immediately lost interest in us, headed for the ocean, dove into the surf to get the “stick” … and was not seen again.

…
Continue reading Great White Sharks →

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

First, let’s suppose that Jehovah God is real. Good News for the religious, right? Then, let’s twist it a bit and see what happens should Jehovah die. This would cause a major problem for at least the Abrahamic religions. After all, how could we hope for eternal life if the Provider Himself is subject to mortality? The guarantee of eternal life in His Presence would at that time become null and void. Steps must be taken and a coverup must be carried out. Hiding bodies is difficult enough, but when the body of Jehovah falls from Heaven and turns out to be two miles long, complications multiply. The beauty of novels is that they allow absurdities to shed light on reality, and James Morrow uses the device of the dead god to illuminate our notions on religion and philosophy. Scott Lohman, President of the Humanists of Minnesota, will interview Morrow on our show.

“Atheists Talk” is produced by The Minnesota Atheists Mike Haubrich is the host and director for today’s show.

Details here.

… than previously reported. The word from his assistant, interviewed earlier today with the report coming out in the last ten minutes or so, indicate that Cronkite is going to be fine. Really old and stuff, but fine.

“he is aging. He’s suffering the challenges of age, but he’s not gravely ill. Only God knows when life will end and for Walter, it’s not imminent.” said Marlene Adler, Cronkite’s assistant.

Through the filter of time … a repost that may still be interesting to you from two years ago.

This is brilliant. A bunch of Orca, incorrectly known as Killer Whales because, well, they would never kill anything, right? Anyway, a bunch of Orca either trying to eat a baby seal or playing with a baby seal. Or is the baby seal playing with them?

Thanks to Richard Conner.

Through the filter of time … a repost that may still be interesting to you from two years ago.

In an essentially Christian society, we expect governmental or other social organizations to disrespect non-Christian belief systems. An example of this is the widespread positioning of official holidays on Christian holidays, but never unless by coincidence on, say, Jewish or Muslim holidays. The birth of Christ day is usually a day off. Spring break is often positioned along side Easter Sunday. and so on. A non-Christian religious person could get annoyed.

It is also the case that an atheist might be annoyed by any kind of deference to any kind of religious observance. An atheist might well say something like “We all deal with personal conflicts in life … one has to pick between observing whatever your religion happens to require and other aspects of secular society. If you need a day off, take a personal day.”

I find it interesting when these two perspectives come together into one obscure and difficult to interpret conflict. My old friend Laurie sends along this story from Alaska:

Jewish holiday request denied

The state organization that oversees school sports has refused the Anchorage School District’s request to move a … cross-country meet to the Sunday after Yom Kippur to avoid clashing with that Jewish high holy day.

…

At the time, Superintendent Carol Comeau voiced displeasure with Anchorage coaches’ joint decision to hold the tournament that day, saying the city is now a multi-ethnic community and cultural values should be respected. A spokesman for the coaches replied that kids have to learn how to make tough choices in life, including between their religion and their sport.

The article goes into great detail about moving this meet to Sunday, or to Friday, what to do in general about this sort of policy, and so on.

What is not mentioned in the article is that the meet cannot be held on Sunday unless everyone who goes to the meet is put to death for violating the Sabboth. Unless, of course, the Sabbath actually starts on Friday evening, in which case if the meet is moved to Friday, anyone who stays late on that Friday will have to be put to death for violating the Sabbath.

But what the heck, there will probably be a certain number of menstruating women at the event, going around and touching stuff, making everyone and everything unclean. No one will have to be put to death for that, but a lot … and I mean a lot … of bulls will have to be sacrificed. It could get messy.

Unless,of course, the rodeo is in town, then maybe they can work something out…

Through the filter of time … a repost that may still be interesting to you from two years ago.

The NYT is running a piece discussing the domestication of the cat.

I love watching wild cats. It is fairly easy to see them in the Kalahari, where the population of cats is almost certainly untouched by genetics of any domesticated form. Despite the kitty-osity shown in the photograph provided with the NYT article, the actual wild cats show themselves to be very different than the domesticated ones. They don’t look the same, they don’t act the same, they don’t have the same overall pattern of affect we see in domestic cats.

You look at them, they look at you, and you think “holy crap, if that cat was the size of a large dog, I’d be dead right now…”
Continue reading Cat Origins →

The Four Stone Hearth Anthropology Blog Carnival is up at Wanna Be an Anthropologist. Please visit the carnival, click on all the links, digg up and stumble all the entries, etc.

June 16th is Captain Picard Day!

Hat Tip Miss Cellania

Help out Chad with his latest data collection effort:

Of course, I can’t very well ask people to leave comments about how messed-up the comments are, so I’ve been forced to resort to something higher-tech…

Cloud Appreciation Society agrees. Scientists skeptical, but considering the possibilities ….

As Bill Nye says, it could all be a matter of perspective …