Obsidian Wings

When Tigers step on tigers

by Doctor Science

On Wednesday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz put this up on his official Facebook page:

The post received thousands of comments, most of them very negative, from Republicans as well as Democrats. I personally was particularly appalled because, like Cruz, I also am a Princeton alumn, and we tend to feel pretty protective about tigers. I'm sure the Princeton connection was one reason Cruz wanted the picture, but he really should have known better than to pose with the corpse of an endangered species.

Per the Washington Post:

Cruz’s spokeswoman Catharine Frazier says he was kidding, and had no intention of bringing the tiger pelt back to Washington. He had hosted a fundraiser in his home state for Lee and “they ran across it in Houston and took a picture.”

I notice that she did not say whether he (or Lee) had actually purchased the rug. The photo appears to have been taken in an office, not a shop.

Although Roll Call's gossip blog says the rug is "totally fake", Frazier said “we have no idea” if the rug is a real tiger pelt.

This is kind of important, because (as Examiner reporter Mark Whittington notes, in some of the best reporting on the issue)

The Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora has made trade in tiger skins illegal, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since Cruz, being a lawyer, would know this so it is unlikely that he would pose next to an illegal rug. The item is either an antique, that is to say a rug taken from a tiger before the ban, or it is fake.

In the case of an antique rug, some sort of proof or provenance would have to be included that the item was not taken from a tiger after the ban was imposed, with the USFWS approving the sale in advance.

The Washington Post updated the story:

Frazier, Cruz’s spokeswoman, wrote to us that the office is not defensive of the picture.

“It’s unfortunate the same outrage isn’t displayed by the left when it comes to defending the lives of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies aborted every year,” she said in an email.

I don't know what "not defensive of the picture" means: 'We admit the picture is indefensible, and we're not going to try'? or 'We don't think the picture needs defending'?

The bit about 'the left' and abortion is an egregious deflection. Much of the criticism has come from Republicans and conservatives, not from 'the left'. And why should an act that is both illegal and immoral be excused by one that's legal but, in your opinion, immoral?

I've search online, and I cannot find *any* fake tiger skin rugs for sale in the US (or elsewhere) which have such a realistic head, with the mouth open and teeth exposed. As far as I can tell, this look is exclusively found in real (or mostly real) tiger skins. Absent examination by an expert, I assume that the skin is from a real tiger.

This raises a number of questions that qualified reporters might want to look into:

a) Did either Senator Lee or Senator Cruz buy actually buy the rug? If so, who was the seller? What was the provenance?

b) If the rug didn't change hands but was located in an office the Senators were visiting, who owns it? Presumably the owner is a Republican donor; are they willing to step forward?

I personally think it unlikely that either Senator made an impulse purchase of a tiger skin rug, because they're very valuable and come with a *lot* of paperwork. I imagine that they did, in fact, just happen to see the rug and *wished* that they'd been able to buy it, because tigers are cool.

The fact that tigers are also a seriously endangered species doesn't seem to have crossed their minds. On the contrary, Senator Cruz thinks American small businesses are the "real" endangered species , not, y'know, actual species. But although I think it unlikely that Cruz will ever come to care about endangered species, or be smart enough to act like he does, I'm heartened that so many Republicans do care, whether it's their party's policy or not.

your recently experienced blip open Saturday thread

by liberal japonicus

Clearly, we've been dishing out too much truth so 'the man' tried to shut us down. Or alternatively, Typepad was struck by a DDOS attack. You decide.

If you find us, or another one of your services, down and you want to check, try http://downrightnow.com/.

Other than that, anything else you'd like to talk about, go for it!

Memories and memorials

by liberal japonicus

Whether it is nature or nurture or both, I am achronic. Don't know if that is a word, but within me, there seems no clock or calendar organizing my time, which is why I enjoy the doctor's posts about solstices, and holidays. As my wife and daughters will tell you, my memory of anniversaries and birthdays is pretty hopeless. With memories of losses, rather than bounding the grief in the walls of 24 hours, it seems to color all the rest of the days.

So if you are someone who is tied to memorials as events that take place on a date, apologies, but hilzoy noted that the yellow magnolia she had planted as a memorial to Andy Olmsted was blooming and I asked her to post a picture. Take a look at the links on the right top if you've come since that time (Jan 2008). This happened before I was a front pager, but what I wrote is here.

Gay marriage and Obama

by liberal japonicus

Not quite an open thread, but definitely open thready (something coming up on Saturday, I promise). This NYT piece on the back stage events about Obama and gay marriage is fascinating. It is amazing to me the number of Republican stalwarts (Melhman, Olsen) that appear in this narrative. I suppose that if you didn't like Obama and Biden, this will only solidify your dislike, but for me, the attempt to cope with what they see and how they are (and they think they are) expected to behave is compelling. 

Life is skittles and life is matzah

by Doctor Science

(Obligatory Tom Lehrer reference)

It's that time of year again! Two male cardinals are working out a territory boundary in the back yard, we had windows open all night, daffodils are blooming their bloomin' 'eads off, and I've spent all day in the kitchen:

A page from the Rylands Haggadah. If the Hebrew-literate can read the marginalia, please speak up and let me know what is says.

See that person in the red tunic? That would be me. Fortunately, I don't have to slaughter my own lamb, but I have made Brisket with 36 Cloves of Garlic, Charoset (basic Ashkenazi style, though I used apple pie spice this time because it was right there), chicken broth, vegetables for the soup, and matzo balls (will the matzo balls be "float like a butterfly" this year, or will they "sink like a stone"? we'll see!), and hard-boiled eggs. I've roasted the shank bone and egg, and cut up the potatoes. After I post this, I'll go down and make fresh horseradish -- a pungent experience that will chase the children out of the kitchen (they'll be setting the table).

Our guests will bring poached salmon with dill mayonnaise, asparagus (which we'll roast right before serving), flourless chocolate torte with raspberry puree, and lashings of wine. In one period our oenophilic friend would bring kosher wines for the meal, but he gave up some years ago: it seems more festive to have wines we actually *like*.

In our discussion about who Ken Ham should really debate, swbarnes said:

How can you read the Flood story, Exodus, Numbers, Job, and say "yeah, this is totally a text about Justice and Love"? I'm not talking about isolated verses; the whole premise of the 10 plagues is that God was right to harm and kill innocent people as collective punishment.

I didn't have time to reply back then, but I was startled, because an integral part of the Seder is to read the story of the plagues as a tragedy, not an unalloyed triumph:

During the seder, there is an almost universal custom to "spill" a small drop of wine as each plague is recited. (How the wine is removed varies from family to family: some pour the wine out directly from the cup, while some dip a finger in the wine and remove a drop). Why do we do this?

The Midrash tells us that as the Egyptians were meeting their horrible end in the churning waters of the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea), the angels wished to sing out praise to the Almighty. God rebuked them and said "My creations are drowning in the sea, and you wish to sing praises?!" (Talmud Megillah 10b). The custom of spilling the wine, explained the Abrabanel (a famous medieval Spanish commentator), is because wine is a sign of rejoicing. But one should not rejoice when an enemy falls, because they too are creations of God.

It's all in how you read it, and who you read it with: and if you think it can only be read one way, UR DOIN IT RONG. Chag Sameach, all.

Your friday open thread (courtesy of wj)

by liberal japonicus

Outsourcing at its best. wj suggests

On the general topic, we might profitably have a discussion of whether or not it is even possible for someone to take a wrong position and later change it. Is it possible to have that change accepted as a good-faith change? Especially if one is a public figure or a politician.

And if someone does have a change of position, how much do they have to do to demonstrate that it is something more than a gesture of convenience? Presumably that would depend, in part, on whether they merely agreed publicly with something, or argued for it, or took concrete action in support of it. But how much does one have to do in order for a change, and/or an apology, to be accepted?

Already been aired out a bit from where the comment emerged, with the obligatory Robert Byrd reference, but you are welcome to discuss it a bit more, or take it in another direction. Maybe like what a saint has to do to tarnish his/her rep?

What we do for science open thread

by liberal japonicus

A little early for yet another open thread? Not after you check this one out!

Smith is a graduate student at Cornell University, who studies the behaviour and evolution of honeybees. In this line of work, stings are a common and inevitable hazard. “If you’re wearing shorts and doing bee work, a bee can get up there easily,” he says. “But I was really surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”

That got him thinking: Where’s the worst place on the body to get stung?

link

Discuss what you have done for science lately.

Hopey Changey Open Thread

by Ugh

Not sure if LJ was going to put one up, but talk about whatever.  New unemployment numbers, Final Four, the forthcoming release of a portion Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA torture jamboree, Letterman retiring, doing your taxes, etc.  I guess the new baseball season too, if you must.

Campaign Finance in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission

by Ugh

SCOTUS released its latest Campaign Finance opinion today in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  The opinion can be found here, a short SCOTUS Blog analysis here, and more reportorial report here.  In short, the decision removes the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (as amended) restriction on the overall amount of money donor can give directly to candidates and political action committees (so called "aggregate limits").  It left intact the per-candidate and per-PAC limits (so called "base limit").

I've not read the opinion, but the syllabus begins (citations omitted) 

The right to participate in democracy through political contributions is protected by the First Amendment, but that right is not absolute. Congress may regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption.  It may not, however, regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others.

That all seems sensible enough, although distinguishing between permissible regulation of "the apprearance of corruption" and impermissible regulation of "the amount of money in politics" or relative restrictions seems rather murky and kind of difficult for the Court to do on a one-off basis (it's as if that should be left up to the political branches with the Court stepping in only in obvious cases of Congressional overreach...).

Anyway, the difficulty here, it seems, is that once we've determined that money is essential to effective excerise of 1st Amendment rights (in whatever arena), then where do you draw the line for when the use of money may be regulated?  One answer, and the answer the court seems to be driving to, is that you can't draw such a line, so there should be no line and contributions should be unlimited, as long as they're not explicitly conditioned on some sort of quid pro quo from the candidate.

That would be an interesting world.  I do wonder if uncapping contributions but allowing the federal government to "true up" the candidate who raises less money would be permissible.  That is, if Candidate X raises $8 million and Candidate Y raises $2 million, could the government then give $6 million to Candidate Y?*  Would that implicate the first amendment rights of the two candidates and/or their donors?  If so, how?  (ignoring some of practical issues that would come with this and how it could be gamed) Would it matter if Candidate X raised $8million from 2 people and Candidate Y raised $2 million from 20,000 people?  

Just some random thoughts.  

*I have it in my head that this was tried in one of the several states, but I can't put my finger on it.