The Weekly Poll
Results
The "That's Mr. Flipper to you, bub" Edition...
Dolphins have been declared the world's second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as "non-human persons"... The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing...
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' - Times Online
Do you agree with the scientists's assertions?
DRD, first up, writes...
I am of the opinion that the Dolphin, although extremely intelligent is still separated from man just as all other forms of the animal kingdom are. On close examination we find many other examples of animal behavior that are quite stunning to us in their uniqueness! But, the fact remains, they are a part of the animal kingdom and man. as a higher form of creation, has dominion over them all! All creation fits together as a mammoth jig-saw puzzle as each piece of the puzzle must fit into it's assigned position for the complete picture to appear! So I say all animal creation should be equal in stature under authority of man as originally intended!
bebo irreverently suggests...
maybe one of the researchers should ask one of the dolphins if he/she agrees with the scientist's assertions.
rox.aubrey seriously states...
Before we start treating dolphins like humans, we should at least try to treat humans like humans; quit bombing them, torturing them, starving them, and exploiting them and maybe it'll be time to treat dolphins like humans. (I think the dolphins are gonna have to wait a LONG time, then)
Roly avers...
I fully believe they are more intelligent than most of our politicians. (Does that include Harry Reid? haha)
Paul of Seattle agreed and opined about some lower life forms...
Yes, they should be should be treated as "non-human persons", as should whales, gorillas, chimps and orangs, with more to follow. On the other hand, tea baggers, christian fundamentalists, armageddonists, and most repukes, should be treated like mud worms since that is their intellectual status.
(In Maine, they use mud worms as fish bait. How about that, eh? haha)
Adam in NoHo should be an official PETA hero with...
Yes, and it's high time too. Anyone who has spent any time around animals know that all living creatures have intelligence and emotions and personalities, and the way we as the human race have treated other
living creatures and their habitats is shameful. (Thanks, Adam... That was very thoughtful)
SallyP morphs DanD (that's a compliment)
This week, in the article suggested by B2BB, some scientists say that dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons,' who qualify for 'moral standing as individuals.' Furthermore (according to the same article) researchers argue that, "their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks, or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing." "Dolphins should be treated like uppity fish, other scientists say... Well, for starters, are they suggesting that dolphins should be treated like corporations now? (If that's the case, I'd love to see personhood given to dolphins, and the humans removed from corporations.) What criteria are we supposed to use? In the most basic, Darwinian sense, no species is equal to humanity on our planet as we casually sweep aside other groups and species just to build our homes and we wield an incredible amount of collective power in comparison to all of Earth's life combined.
So, we ask, WWFD? (What Would Flipper Do?)
Granted, Dolphins might have the mentality of the average Republican, but that's not saying much...
Being the card-carrying socialist, I say go ahead, give 'em 'Rights," even let 'em vote!~ (Faux News will report it as a way to count aquatic voters...) I do, however, expect that the Right-wing will be livid when they hear about this! They're afraid of the competition. Pretty soon, they will start the hate, saying that Liberals are always trying to minimize the distinctions between man and beast; man and woman; man and God; AWA good and evil. Well, all I can say about that is that dolphins don't spend their lives trying to destroy their homes and victimize other dolphins, such as denying them even basic health care, etc.! (That alone is proof positive of their intelligence!) But, should they really be in the same category as Republicans?
I mean, are we just opening up another big can of worms here? Like, who will oversee the new dolphin governments, schools, communities, and banks? And, when was the last time you heard somebody talking about wanting to, "Swim with the Republicans?" Nah, rather than, "non-human persons" - they might be spiritually superior humans - which immediately eliminates any Right-wing Republican I know!!
PS: Be aware, the, "American Family Institute" already is making plans for the Porpoise/Dolphin marriage ban...
Richard McD. with a warning to the dolphins...
Hey, look how we treat human beings. Maybe we should just leave them alone. Hey, if we treat them like we treat humans they're really fuc&^%. (Yup)
Charlie esoterically wrote...
It is always questionable to argue in terms of intelligence, it being a rather slippery concept, but I'm in favor of letting the dolphins have their own way. But then as Ernst Mayr said when debating SETI with Carl Sagan:
Sagan adopts the principle "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," but life on Earth refutes this claim. Among all the forms of life, neither the prokaryotes nor protists, fungi or plants has evolved smartness, as it should have if it were "better." In the 28 plus phyla of animals, intelligence evolved in only one (chordates) and doubtfully also in the cephalopods. And in the thousands of subdivisions of the chordates, high intelligence developed in only one, the primates, and even there only in one small subdivision. So much for the putative inevitability of the development of high intelligence because "it is better to be smart."
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Zounds, Poll-fans! Such an eclectic collection of replies! Very interesting, I should say...
As for my opinion, I abstain... Hey! If politicians can do it over controversial votes, so can I!... Right?
No, damn'd right!... And that's the name of that tune... Thanks to all, and as always, Yer the Best!
BadToTheBoneBob
New Question
The 'What ever happened to... Where are they now?' Edition
Every now and again, an article appears about what a former 'Celebrity', e.g. an actor/actress, politician, author, musician or sports star, is now doing in their present state of obscurity and where they're doing it.
Is there a former 'Celebrity' that you'd be interested in knowing where they are and what they're doing?
Send your response to
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Learning From Europe (nytimes.com/)
Despite what conservatives claim, Europe has a successful economy and a social democracy that works.
Susan Estrich: The Newest Federalism (creators.com)
In 1981, Ronald Reagan's ideologists pronounced his attack on the welfare state an expression of the "new federalism." It wasn't that they were against helping the poor and the needy, but that the federal government was the wrong branch of government to do it. Even the president talked about it. People, myself included, wrote papers.
Froma Harrop: An Unchained Dodd Rides Into Finance Reform (creators.com)
With polls showing that Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd would probably lose to most everyone running against him, the Democrat's decision not to seek re-election is a relief to all but his Republican opponents. A Senate seat from true-blue Connecticut isn't something Democrats should have to worry about.
RENE ROSECHILD: The World According to Ferron (curvemag.com)
The Canadian folk singer dishes on not being defined by lesbianism and playing house with Bitch.
August Brown: "Pop phenom Ke$ha: 'I saw pretension everywhere and I wanted to fight against it'" (latimes.com)
Ke$ha is the first breakout voice of 2010, and we felt we owed you a longer conversation with her.
George Varga: He's a Guitar Hero Among Guitarists (creators.com)
If the praise of his fellow guitarists could be converted into gold, England's Allan Holdsworth would be a wealthy man. Make that a very wealthy man, since his gushing admirers include John McLaughlin, Eddie Van Halen, Jennifer Batten and nearly every jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitarist of note over the past 30 years.
Jane Lynch: 'I'm just a goof' (guardian.co.uk)
The openly gay star of hit TV show 'Glee,' tells Danielle Berrin about finally making it in Hollywood.
Will Harris: A Chat with Jeri Ryan (bullz-eye.com)
On returning from maternity leave: "I had decided, 'I guess it's time to get back to it,' so I kind of reluctantly got back on my feet to go back to work. 'Cause you have to, you know? Your bank account starts saying, 'Okay, it's time. I think you've taken a long enough maternity leave.'"
Jim Emerson: Robin Wood: He was as good as they say (suntimes.com)
I was in high school when I picked up a hardback copy of the first edition of Robin Wood's "Hitchcock's Films" (1965) from a remainder table at a depressingly small, sterile, fluorescent-lit Crown Books in an old-fashioned, long-gone outdoor mall (called Aurora Village) in North Seattle. That was in the mid-1970s and now I'm writing this and Robin Wood died last week at the age of 78.
roger ebert's journal: Nil by mouth
I mentioned that I can no longer eat or drink. A reader wrote: "That sounds so sad. Do you miss it?" Not so much really. Not anymore.
Cecil Adams: The Straight Dope (straightdope.com)
What's better, farm-raised salmon or wild? Are upscale restaurants serving ugly fish?
Christopher Beam: This Pint of Ben & Jerry's Is Four Servings? (slate.com)
How do food companies determine "serving size"?
Hubert's Poetry Corner
Steroid Age Mutant Baseball Players
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
Ad Prices Fall
Super Bowl
The economic slump has prices for Super Bowl commercial time falling for only the second time in its history, but it is still the most expensive on television.
TNS Media Intelligence said Monday that 30-second commercials during next month's Super Bowl on CBS are selling for between $2.5 million and $2.8 million. That's a drop from last year, when ads averaged $3 million on NBC - a record, according to TNS.
Some big players like Pepsi and General Motors are staying on the sidelines. This leaves holes for smaller companies like Diamond Foods and Dr Pepper Snapple to use the Super Bowl to get their wares in front of 100 million viewers who are practically guaranteed to watch their ads.
It's unclear how much revenue Super Bowl advertising will generate for CBS. As of Friday, only four of the 62 commercial slots remained to be sold. While not conceding that ad rates have slipped, CBS said the pace of sales has been better than it was for NBC a year ago.
Super Bowl
Joins Rupert News
Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, will return to her broadcast roots and take her conservative message to Fox News as a regular commentator, the cable channel announced Monday.
Fox said that according to the multiyear deal, Palin will offer political commentary and analysis on the cable channel, as well as Fox's Web site, radio network and business cable channel.
She also will host occasional episodes of Fox News' "Real American Stories," a series debuting this year that the network said will feature true inspirational stories about Americans who have overcome adversity.
Palin majored in journalism with an emphasis on broadcasting at the University of Idaho and worked part-time as a weekend sportscaster in 1988 for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, using her then-maiden name Heath. The station's sports director, John Carpenter, said the young broadcaster left after a few months because of the low pay.
Sarah Palin
Boulder Film Festival To Honor
Alec Baldwin
Boulder International Film Festival organizers say actor Alec Baldwin will be the featured guest at the sixth annual event.
The festival runs Feb. 11-15, and Baldwin is scheduled to receive the festival's 2010 Award for Excellence in Acting on Feb. 14.
The star of "30 Rock" is co-hosting the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on March 7 with actor Steve Martin.
Alec Baldwin
Family, Sony To Release "New" Album
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix fans will be able to hear around an hour's worth of music from their guitar hero never commercially available before when his family and Sony Commercial Music Group release a "new" album on March 8.
"Valleys of Neptune" features studio recordings dating from 1969, the year before Hendrix died in London aged 27.
The album will include covers of Elmore James' classic "Bleeding Heart" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" and performances of original Hendrix compositions like "Ships Passing Through The Night" and "Lullaby For The Summer."
The record is part of an early wave of re-releases of Hendrix music, with new editions of "Are You Experienced?," "Axis: Bold As Love," "Electric Ladyland" and "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" all out on the same day.
Jimi Hendrix
Leaving `Idol'
Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell, the acerbic Brit who has helped give "American Idol" some of its sharpest - and nastiest - moments, will leave the popular singing show after this season.
The cantankerous judge said that "The X Factor," a show he created and is a hit in Britain, will join Fox's schedule next year. Cowell will be on "The X Factor."
He said it would have been difficult for him to do both shows. While he makes a reported $36 million a year to be on "American Idol," he owns "The X Factor" and could make much more if the show takes off.
Cowell and top Fox executives made the announcement to reporters in Pasadena at a meeting of the Television Critics Association, saying they had reached an agreement only a few hours before.
Simon Cowell
Britain's Tate Unveils Mislaid Etchings
William Blake
Britain's Tate Gallery unveiled Monday eight "powerful" etchings by 18th century writer and artist William Blake, which lay undiscovered for decades before turning up at a second-hand book sale.
The hand-coloured works were inherited by Blake's widow Catherine after his death in 1827, but they later disappeared for decades until they were found tucked inside a railway timetable in a box of books.
"Blake's work is rarely available for purchase, making a recent discovery like this all the more remarkable," said the Tate, announcing it had bought the pictures for 441,000 pounds (710,000 dollars, 490,000 euros).
The works will go on public display at Tate Britain in July, and will travel to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art in Moscow in November 2011 for the exhibition William Blake and British Visionary Art.
William Blake
CA Appeals Court Overturns Award
Michael Jackson
A California appellate court has overturned a $20 million award against a defunct charter jet company accused of secretly videotaping Michael Jackson and his attorneys during a 2003 flight.
The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Monday that XtraJet and its owner Jeffrey Borer shouldn't have to pay the large sum to attorneys Mark Geragos and Pat Harris.
The case was sent back to the trial judge who last March found in favor of Geragos and Harris.
Borer and an associate pleaded guilty to conspiracy two years ago for videotaping Jackson and his lawyers as they flew the pop star to surrender on molestation charges.
Michael Jackson
Prehistoric Building Found
Tel Aviv
Archaeologists have uncovered remains of an 8,000-year-old prehistoric building as well as ancient flint tools in the modern city of Tel Aviv, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Monday. The building is the earliest structure ever found in Tel Aviv and changes what archaeologists previously believed about the area in ancient times.
"This discovery is both important and surprising to researchers of the period," said Ayelet Dayan, the archaeologist who led the excavation. "For the first time we have encountered evidence of a permanent habitation that existed in the Tel Aviv region 8,000 years ago," she said.
The three-room structure is believed to be have been built in the Neolithic period - when humans went from a nomadic existence of hunting and gathering to living in permanent settlements and engaging in agriculture.
Ancient artifacts including flint tools and hippopotamus bones from between 13,000 and 100,000 years ago were found nearby.
Tel Aviv
Pyramids Not Built By Slaves?
Egypt
New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.
Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.
"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.
He said the collection of workers' tombs, some of which were found in the 1990s, were among the most significant finds in the 20th and 21st centuries. They belonged to workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre.
Egypt
Skewed Birth Rate
China
More than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age could find themselves without spouses in 2020, state media reported on Monday, citing a study that blamed sex-specific abortions as a major factor.
The study, by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, named the gender imbalance among newborns as the most serious demographic problem for the country's population of 1.3 billion, the Global Times said.
Researcher Wang Guangzhou said the skewed birth ratio could lead to difficulties for men with lower incomes in finding spouses, as well as a widening age gap between partners, according to the Global Times.
The study said the key contributing factors to the phenomenon included the nation's family-planning policy, which restricts the number of children citizens may have, as well as an insufficient social security system.
China
Southern-Most Royal Kushite Statues
Sudan
Huge granite statues of a pharaoh and other kings have been found in Sudan, a discovery that has shocked archaeologists at how far south the expansive Kushite empire extended, the dig directors said Monday.
The Pharaoh Taharqa, mentioned in the Bible for saving Jerusalem from the Assyrians, was a Kushite from north Sudan but ruled a wide empire through Egypt to the borders of Palestine. The southern borders are unknown. The Kushite civilization survived from 9th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D.
The dig found four royal statues, of Pharaoh Taharqa (690-664 B.C.), kings Senkamanisken (643-623 B.C.) and Aspelta (593-568 B.C.) as well as part of a crown of a fourth royal who they have yet to identify.
The granite life-size statues would weigh 1.5 tons but appeared to have been deliberately broken at the neck, knees and ankles in a ritual, which may have been due to internal dynastic disputes or an Egyptian pharaoh who came south to assert authority.
Sudan
Shorter Lives?
Couch Potatoes
Lounging in front of the tube not only eats up hours in your day, it may also shorten your life, according to a new study.
The study, which looked at the connection between watching TV and death for 8,800 Australian adults, found that each hour of TV-viewing was associated with an 11 percent increased risk of death from any cause, and an 18 percent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease. These findings held true even after the researchers took into account other factors that could raise the risk of dying, such as age, gender, waist circumference and exercise habits.
While the study included only Australians, the findings likely apply to Americans, who spend even more time watching TV, the researchers said. The results could also apply to any sedentary activity - yes including sitting in front of a computer all day - not just TV-watching. And skinny people could be victims as well, the researchers say.
The results showed that those who watched TV for four hours a day or more had a 46 percent increased risk of death from any cause and an 80 percent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease, compared with those who watched TV less than two hours a day. This connection was found to be independent of other risk factors for death and cardiovascular disease, including smoking, high cholesterol, poor diet, high blood pressure and a large waistline.
Couch Potatoes
"Give Blood, Get Beer"
Tacoma
A Washington state blood center is offering donors a deal: Give a pint of blood, get a pint of beer. Cascade Regional Blood Services in Tacoma says its "Give blood, get beer" promotion has worked so well that it's being expanded.
The News Tribune of Tacoma reported Monday that donors who are at least 21 years old are given a coupon for a free pint of beer.
Participating pubs and restaurants must wait at least four hours after the blood drive ends before donors can collect their free pint.
Tacoma
In Memory
Miep Gies
Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary not, has died, the Anne Frank Museum said Tuesday. She was 100.
Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.
After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.
Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager's privacy was sacred. Later, she said if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated the "helpers."
Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Gies gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.
After the diary was published, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. She brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved - as if, she said, she had tried to save all the Jews of occupied Holland.
Born Hermine Santrouschitz on Feb. 15, 1909 in Vienna, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages in Austria. She lived with a host family who gave her the nickname Miep.
In 1933, Gies took a job as an office assistant in the spice business of Otto Frank. After refusing to join a Nazi organization in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.
As the Nazis ramped up their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies in July 1942 to help hide his family in the annex above the company's canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies.
"I answered, 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn," she said years later.
Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees in the firm to sustain the Franks and four other Jews sharing the annex. Jan secured extra food ration cards from the underground resistance. Miep cycled around the city, alternating grocers to ward off suspicions from this highly dangerous activity.
Touched by Anne's precocious intelligence and loneliness, Miep also brought Anne books and newspapers while remembering everybody's birthdays and special days with gifts.
After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952. Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the diary and answering piles of letters with questions from around the world.
After Otto Frank's death in 1980, Gies continued to campaign against Holocaust-deniers and to refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.
Her son Paul Gies said last year she was still receiving "a sizable amount of mail" which she handled with the help of a family friend. She spent her days at the apartment where she lived since 2000 reading two daily newspapers and following television news and talk shows.
Her husband died in 1993. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren.
Miep Gies
In Memory
Eric Rohmer
French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, known for "Claire's Knee" and other films tracing the intricacies of romantic relationships, died on Monday. He was 89.
The director, internationally known for his distinctive personal style, continued to work until recently, with his latest film, "Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon," ("Romance of Astree and Celadon"), appearing in 2007.
In 2001, Rohmer was awarded a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his body of work.
Six of Rohmer's films comprised an influential cycle of "moral tales" that addressed the thorny questions of modern love: whether to compromise your beliefs in the face of passion, for example, or how to maintain a sense of individual freedom in a relationship.
In 1969's "Ma nuit chez Maud" ("My Night at Maud's"), a churchgoing young man played by Jean-Louis Trintignant must choose between a seductive divorcee and a woman who meets his ideals. In 1970's "Le Genou de Claire" ("Claire's Knee"), a diplomat is overwhelmed by his desire to stroke the knee of a teenage girl he meets.
Born in 1920 in the central French city of Tulle, Rohmer was a literature professor and a film critic for the influential Cahiers du Cinema magazine, becoming its editor.
Later, as a director, he became a leading force in France's convention-smashing New Wave cinema, alongside directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut.
Along with his series of moral tales, Rohmer produced a cycle of modern-day relationship fables for each season of the year, and another dubbed the "comedies and proverbs" cycle.
Eric Rohmer
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