See grey whale migration in California, USA

Posted on March 7, 2007 by petrel41

This video is called Jean-Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures “Gray Whale”.

From eNature in the USA:

It’s Whale Migration Time

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay area, put the cable cars and Golden Gate Bridge on hold for a day.

Get up to Point Reyes National Seashore now — that’s where the action is!

Point Reyes peninsula, just 25 miles north of San Francisco, juts out farther into the Pacific Ocean than any land for hundreds of miles to the north or south.

When you stand in the shadow of the lighthouse at the end of Point Reyes, you are essentially miles out in the ocean, and that is why this is the quintessential place to see Gray Whales on their migrations.

January is the peak time to see the whales moving southward; during March and April, on their return northward, the whales come closer to shore and may sometimes be seen in the surf. …

While the whale migration is happening at sea, Northern Elephant Seals are taking over the beach.

Colombia, world’s most deadly place for trade unionists

Posted on March 7, 2007 by petrel41

Colombia Associated Press reports:

BOGOTA, Colombia — More than 800 trade unionists have been killed in Colombia over the past six years, by government count, yet the number of those slayings solved can be counted on one hand.

Union organizing can be a deadly activity anywhere but is particularly dangerous in Colombia, where decades of political violence and lawlessness compel some unscrupulous employers to hire assassins.

“There’s almost total impunity,” says Flavio Arias, vice president of the CUT labor umbrella organization, which represents Colombia’s 530,000 unionized workers.

Now Colombia’s reputation as the deadliest place in the world to be a labor organizer threatens to sink one of President Alvaro Uribe’s proudest achievements: a free-trade agreement with President Bush, who is expected to use his visit to Colombia on Sunday to press for congressional approval.

The union-friendly Democrats who now control the U.S. Congress are so concerned about the unsolved labor killings that they are threatening to derail the trade pact entirely unless Uribe makes clear progress.

Rightist Uribe is Bush’s favourite Latin American president, even though he is on a Pentagon list of biggest drug dealers; and has links to extreme Right death squads.

Labour laws broken in El Salvador: here.

French philosopher Baudrillard dies

Posted on March 7, 2007 by petrel41

From Al Jazeera:

Consumerism critic Baudrillard dies

Jean Baudrillard, the French sociologist and philosopher and critic of globalisation and consumerism, has died in Paris at the age of 77.

Baudrillard died on Tuesday at his home in Paris after a long illness, said Michel Delorme, of the Galilee publishing house.

Baudrillard was a prolific writer and renowned photographer who first attracted worldwide attention in 1991 with the deliberately provocative claim that the Gulf War “did not take place”.

He was one of Europe’s leading postmodernist thinkers known for his provocative commentaries on consumerism.

Postmodernism does not always mean the same thing to all people.

Postmodernism and art: here.

As a general remark, this tendency in philosophy in general, and Baudrillard in particular, can be criticized for its “idealist” views on material reality and history.

Althusser: here.

Portland State University (PSU) professor Peter Boghossian, co-author of the “Grievance Studies” hoax, is under imminent threat of losing his job in an act of apparent retaliation by the university administration. On October 2, 2018, Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay published an article titled, “Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship,” exposing the anti-scientific and right-wing character of identity politics and postmodernist philosophy. The article reviewed how the hoax’s authors succeeded in publishing intentionally absurd articles in a number of postmodernist academic journals, with editors and peer reviewers heaping praise on the faux-studies: here.

Indian large-billed reed warbler, lost for 139 years, found again in Thailand and Britain

Posted on March 7, 2007 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

Blyth’s Reed Warbler

Winchelsea Beach, East Sussex 18th June 2016

From BirdLife:

Indian warbler “lost” for 139 years makes spectacular return—in Thailand and the UK

07-03-2007

Ornithologists across the world are celebrating with the news that a wetland bird that has eluded scientists ever since its discovery in India in 1867 has been refound. Twice.

The Large-billed Reed-warbler is the world’s least known bird.

A single bird was collected in the Sutlej Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, in 1867, but many had questioned whether it was indeed represented a true species and wasn’t just an aberrant individual of a common species.

But on 27 March 2006, ornithologist Philip Round, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology, Mahidol University, was bird ringing (banding) at a wastewater treatment centre (the royally initiated Laem Phak Bia Environmental Research and Development Project) near Bangkok, Thailand.

“Although reed-warblers are generally drab and look very similar, one of the birds I caught that morning struck me as very odd, something about it didn’t quite add up; it had a long beak and short wings,” said Round.

“Then, it dawned on me—I was probably holding a Large-billed Reed-warbler. I was dumbstruck, it felt as if I was holding a living dodo.”

“I knew it was essential to get cast-iron proof of its identity. I took many photographs, and carefully collected two feathers for DNA analysis, so as not to harm the bird.” …

“This remarkable discovery gives Indian ornithologists an added incentive to continue our search for the Large-billed Reed-warbler in India,” said Dr Asad Rahmani, Director of the Bombay Natural History Society.

“Like the discovery of Bugun Liocichla last year in Arunachal Pradesh, it shows us just how much we still have to learn about our remarkable avifauna.” …

But, in a further twist to this remarkable tale, six months after the rediscovery, another Large-billed Reed-warbler specimen was discovered in the collection of the Natural History Museum at Tring, in a drawer of Blyth’s Reed-warblers (Acrocephalus dumetorum) collected in India during the 19th Century.

Once again, Professor Staffan Bensch confirmed the identification using DNA.

“Finding one Large-billed Reed-warbler after 139 years was remarkable, finding a second—right under ornithologists’ noses for that length of time—is nothing short of a miracle,” said Butchart.

The second specimen is from a different part of India and is bound to fuel debate as to the whereabouts of more Large-billed Reed-warblers.

Birdwatching in India: here.

Researchers for the Wildlife Conservation Society have discovered for the first time the breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler—dubbed in 2007 as “the world’s least known bird species”—in the remote and rugged Wakhan Corridor of the Pamir Mountains of north-eastern Afghanistan: here.