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So Eden sank to grief
Sep. 20th, 2012 12:21 am
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 12. High today: 15. Lowest high since at least June 1 (when it got up to 15.3; the next candidate would be May 5, at 14.5); with a low this morning of 7, we'll also end up with the lowest mean since May 17. And, on cue, the juncos appeared in the backyard today. I'd love to know where they spend the summer.
Speaking of backyard birds: I've decided I have to quit feeding the birds regularly, largely prompted by this at the cottage:
I first saw a black squirrel up there two years ago. I've seen them a few times at the feeders this year, or at least I've seen one: leaner, with longer legs, warier than you find them around here. (But even within Toronto there are striking variations. The ones in High Park are huge, or they were when I was spending some time there, more than a decade ago. The ones at Queen's Park are often streaked with brown.) While my cottage feeders may or may not in the long run aid in the house sparrows' program of ethnic cleansing, they are certainly helping with that of the Eastern grey squirrel. So, enough is enough of that ... at least, as I say, regularly. My main concern is not to create colonies, as I certainly was doing this summer with the house sparrows in the backyard.
One kind of depressing thing I learned poking around the internet to see what people have to say about feeding birds: house finches, which I would've taken to be one of the species squeezed out by house sparrows, are not indigenous to eastern North America. They first appeared in great numbers--fed by feeders--in the early '90s, when they were the main bird eating the sunflower seeds at my familial abode. Shortly after that, their numbers crashed due to an epidemic of conjunctivitis--spread by feeders.
The problem of mucking around with local ecosystems always makes me think of Joe Brenner mentioning back on a.g. that his partner had released a turtle in a creek near where they live, someone pitching a fit about it, his responding that this creek is in no way a "natural" ecosystem anyway ... and our eventually happening upon this creek and seeing that, yeah, it's about as "natural" a creek as you might find at Disneyland.
And this also makes me think of D.D.'s theory that the basis of morality is that it's wrong to do anything. (Do you still look in here ever, D.D., I wonder?)
Anyway, for some reason, the chipmunks at the cottage just in the last few weeks have no longer been satisfied with vacuuming up the fallen seeds on the deck, and have taken to sucking them straight out of the feeder--
--which would put an end to my regular bird-feeding up there in short order, anyway.
( Here are my favourite pictures of chipmunks at, and then not at, the feeder. )
And now, time for some fun with polls!
The gap between Obama and Romney on realclearpolitics.com's poll aggregator from Monday--the day the "47%" story broke--to today: 3%, 2.8%, 2.9%. (ETA: a day later, the RCP aggregator has the gap at 3.3%, due to a new Rasmussen poll that has swung to Obama. On the other hand, here's Obama's lead over Romney in the Gallup tracking poll, starting on Monday: 3, 1, 1, 0.)
A poll from Gallup yesterday shows that support steadily tilts from Obama to Romney as income rises from less than $24K to $24K-$36K to $36K-$48K to $48K-$60K (which is the first bracket that supports Romney over Obama). Then it remains exactly the same in the $60K-$90K bracket, and lurches back to Obama in the $90K-$120K bracket (where Obama has a small lead again), then back to Romney at $120K-$180K, and then only slightly more to Romney at $180K+.
According to Gallup's tracking polls this summer, respondents who are "highly religious" and married have supported Romney over Obama by 64% to 28%; respondents who are "highly religious" and not married have supported Obama over Romney by 49% to 43%. Overall, married respondents lean toward Romney by 54% to 39%; unmarried respondents lean toward Obama by 56% to 35%.
72% of Canadians polled by Angus-Reid approve of Canada's suspending diplomatic relations with Iran, including majorities of respondents who voted for each of the five parties with MPs in the House of Commons in the last election. 16% disapprove, while 30% say that "engaging Iran in direct diplomatic negotiations" is the best way "for the international community to deal with Iran at this time" (including 27% in Alberta, where 6% disapprove of suspending diplomatic relations). Surprisingly, at the same time, the poll finds that more Canadians have an unfavourable opinion of Israel than have a favourable opinion (41% to 34%, and I'd really like to see the party-preference breakdown on that).
According to another Angus-Reid poll, the number of men who endorse the statement "human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years" rather than the statement "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years" exceeds the number of women who endorse the former statement by at least ten percentage points in all three of Canada, the US, and the UK. Of the three age groups identified in the poll results--18-34, 35-54, and 55+--the group in the UK with the highest percentage of respondents who endorse the statement that human beings were created by God in their present form is 18-34. (Endorsement of creation increases with age in Canada and the US.) The region of the UK where respondents are least likely to endorse evolution and most likely to endorse creation is London. (Another Angus-Reid poll shows London as the region in which respondents are by far most likely (at 21%) to endorse the statement "Same-sex couples should not have any kind of legal recognition".) The only region of the UK in which less than 10% of respondents say they are "not sure" whether to endorse creation or evolution is Scotland. In Alberta (unsurprisingly the Canadian region most inclined toward creation), the number of respondents endorsing evolution is 13 percentage points higher than the number endorsing creation. In the US Northeast (unsurprisingly the American region most inclined toward evolution), the number of respondents endorsing creation is 11 percentage points higher than the number endorsing evolution.
ETA: Comments disabled 26/10/12 due to persistent spam-bombing of this one post for some reason....
Speaking of backyard birds: I've decided I have to quit feeding the birds regularly, largely prompted by this at the cottage:
I first saw a black squirrel up there two years ago. I've seen them a few times at the feeders this year, or at least I've seen one: leaner, with longer legs, warier than you find them around here. (But even within Toronto there are striking variations. The ones in High Park are huge, or they were when I was spending some time there, more than a decade ago. The ones at Queen's Park are often streaked with brown.) While my cottage feeders may or may not in the long run aid in the house sparrows' program of ethnic cleansing, they are certainly helping with that of the Eastern grey squirrel. So, enough is enough of that ... at least, as I say, regularly. My main concern is not to create colonies, as I certainly was doing this summer with the house sparrows in the backyard.
One kind of depressing thing I learned poking around the internet to see what people have to say about feeding birds: house finches, which I would've taken to be one of the species squeezed out by house sparrows, are not indigenous to eastern North America. They first appeared in great numbers--fed by feeders--in the early '90s, when they were the main bird eating the sunflower seeds at my familial abode. Shortly after that, their numbers crashed due to an epidemic of conjunctivitis--spread by feeders.
The problem of mucking around with local ecosystems always makes me think of Joe Brenner mentioning back on a.g. that his partner had released a turtle in a creek near where they live, someone pitching a fit about it, his responding that this creek is in no way a "natural" ecosystem anyway ... and our eventually happening upon this creek and seeing that, yeah, it's about as "natural" a creek as you might find at Disneyland.
And this also makes me think of D.D.'s theory that the basis of morality is that it's wrong to do anything. (Do you still look in here ever, D.D., I wonder?)
Anyway, for some reason, the chipmunks at the cottage just in the last few weeks have no longer been satisfied with vacuuming up the fallen seeds on the deck, and have taken to sucking them straight out of the feeder--
--which would put an end to my regular bird-feeding up there in short order, anyway.
( Here are my favourite pictures of chipmunks at, and then not at, the feeder. )
And now, time for some fun with polls!
The gap between Obama and Romney on realclearpolitics.com's poll aggregator from Monday--the day the "47%" story broke--to today: 3%, 2.8%, 2.9%. (ETA: a day later, the RCP aggregator has the gap at 3.3%, due to a new Rasmussen poll that has swung to Obama. On the other hand, here's Obama's lead over Romney in the Gallup tracking poll, starting on Monday: 3, 1, 1, 0.)
A poll from Gallup yesterday shows that support steadily tilts from Obama to Romney as income rises from less than $24K to $24K-$36K to $36K-$48K to $48K-$60K (which is the first bracket that supports Romney over Obama). Then it remains exactly the same in the $60K-$90K bracket, and lurches back to Obama in the $90K-$120K bracket (where Obama has a small lead again), then back to Romney at $120K-$180K, and then only slightly more to Romney at $180K+.
According to Gallup's tracking polls this summer, respondents who are "highly religious" and married have supported Romney over Obama by 64% to 28%; respondents who are "highly religious" and not married have supported Obama over Romney by 49% to 43%. Overall, married respondents lean toward Romney by 54% to 39%; unmarried respondents lean toward Obama by 56% to 35%.
72% of Canadians polled by Angus-Reid approve of Canada's suspending diplomatic relations with Iran, including majorities of respondents who voted for each of the five parties with MPs in the House of Commons in the last election. 16% disapprove, while 30% say that "engaging Iran in direct diplomatic negotiations" is the best way "for the international community to deal with Iran at this time" (including 27% in Alberta, where 6% disapprove of suspending diplomatic relations). Surprisingly, at the same time, the poll finds that more Canadians have an unfavourable opinion of Israel than have a favourable opinion (41% to 34%, and I'd really like to see the party-preference breakdown on that).
According to another Angus-Reid poll, the number of men who endorse the statement "human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years" rather than the statement "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years" exceeds the number of women who endorse the former statement by at least ten percentage points in all three of Canada, the US, and the UK. Of the three age groups identified in the poll results--18-34, 35-54, and 55+--the group in the UK with the highest percentage of respondents who endorse the statement that human beings were created by God in their present form is 18-34. (Endorsement of creation increases with age in Canada and the US.) The region of the UK where respondents are least likely to endorse evolution and most likely to endorse creation is London. (Another Angus-Reid poll shows London as the region in which respondents are by far most likely (at 21%) to endorse the statement "Same-sex couples should not have any kind of legal recognition".) The only region of the UK in which less than 10% of respondents say they are "not sure" whether to endorse creation or evolution is Scotland. In Alberta (unsurprisingly the Canadian region most inclined toward creation), the number of respondents endorsing evolution is 13 percentage points higher than the number endorsing creation. In the US Northeast (unsurprisingly the American region most inclined toward evolution), the number of respondents endorsing creation is 11 percentage points higher than the number endorsing evolution.
ETA: Comments disabled 26/10/12 due to persistent spam-bombing of this one post for some reason....
