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Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space wrote Friday about political demonstrations in South Korea. Not waiting for Barack Obama to take office as President, these demonstrations (”protests” would be too strong a word) have taken on the simple one-word slogan “Listen,” writing and posting personal messages in public that call on the President-elect to reverse the American military escalation currently underway in Asia and Pacific Islands, with Star Wars missile defense being the showiest of expansions.

The South Koreans are right to speak out now in this regard. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared that “I actually believe that we need missile defense because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or to launch nuclear weapons,” and according to Time Magazine the incipient Obama administration has decided to take an aggressive stance on military expansion in its initial months, lest it look “weak.” Counterpressure to keep Obama just as worried about looking like a “cowboy” is required.

We tend to think of Earth as a people’s planet, but a representative census of life here would pick out jelly animals as more typical. Translucent gelatinous body designs have been so evolutionarily successful that several phyla have developed using the plan.

Consider the salp. It’s a little sack of gelatinous ooziness that swims gently through the sea. The salp isn’t in the same class as jellyfish, or even in the same phylum. It’s in the phylum Urochordata, which ought to tell you something about its relations. We mammals are in the phylum Chordata. Way back when, we and the salps had a common ancestor, and it might have been jelly-ific.

Down in New South Wales, Australia, things are warming up just as they’re cooling down here in the northern hemisphere. In fact, they’re warming up a good deal more than they have in the past, and the salps are loving it. Beaches in New South Wales have been inundated with unusually large numbers of salps, making attempts at sunbathing a bit more sticky than usual. The larger than normal salp bloom is thought to be associated with increasing water temperatures, a manifestation of global climate change.

Salps don’t sting, but there’s a bit of a jelly ruckus going on over some jellies who do. These are classic jellyfish, in a completely different phylum than the salps. They’re called irukandji, and they’re tiny little creatures, about the size of one of the buttons on your cell phone. Being that size makes it easy for irukandji to get through the nets that keep sharks and larger stinging jellyfish away from people at beaches. The irukandji just swim right through, free to zap. Their stings are so toxic that they can kill people. There is not yet any antidote to the stings, and some Australians are saying that the government needs to fund better irukandji research. It seems that the wisdom of the marketplace hasn’t been enough to come up with a solution.

Up in Thailand, a larger, but just as deadly, jellyfish is causing trouble for businesses that rely on beach tourism. In the past, box jellies have been rare in Thai waters, but there are concerns that they are becoming more prevalent. An excellent tip comes from a local story about the problem - washing an area stung by jellyfish with water only increases the pain. Vinegar, on the other hand, is said to calm the sensations.

Vinegar could not have helped with the recent jellyfish problem in California, however. The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s cooling system recently became clogged with jellyfish, forcing the facility to scale back on its electrical generation.

Australia offered three very different stories about whales over the last week.

First, there’s the story of the exuberant whale calf that entertained people by imitating its mother’s breaching near Sydney.

Then, there’s the tear-jerker of another baby whale nearby. This one appears to have lost its mother, and is hanging out near whale-sized boats in search of comfort.

Third, there’s the unexpected brush with death experienced by David Sheridan, who was struck by the tail of a southern right whale as his kiteboard took him directly over the animal, which was just a few feet underneath the water’s surface.

You know, it’s good every once in a while to go to a Republican Party event, because it reminds me why I am not a Republican. Take today’s sparsely-attended rally featuring Mitt Romney at the Franklin County GOP Victory Center in downtown Columbus, Ohio. More like a staff meeting than a rally, with a couple of dozen campaign workers and members of the media showing up, the Romney event was nonetheless instructive. Consider this exchange (my transcription of recorded audio):

Mitt Romney: Barack Obama would take us down the pathway to Europe!

Audience: Boo!

Romney: I knew that wasn’t popular here.

[Audience laughs.]

Way to keep up those diplomatic ties, Governor Romney! Alienation is the best medicine. But really, now, the last thing we’d want to do is emulate our allies, right? Right?

Wrong.

OECD Data on Life Expectancy, 2004 (latest year available) shows the average life expectancy across countries of Western Europe (the Europe Republicans despise) is 79.45. Life expectancy in the United States: 77.8.

OECD Data on Infant Mortality, 2004 (again, the latest year available) shows the average number of infant deaths for every 1,000 births in Western Europe is 3.9. Infant mortality in the United States: 6.8.

Again, according to OECD statistics, the United States has highest rate of obesity of any OECD country.

The level of income inequality in the United States is surpassed only by that in Poland. Every other country in Europe has lower income inequality.

The U.S. rate of imprisoning its own residents is more than four times higher the rate in Europe.

Western Europeans live longer than Americans. Their babies die less often. They aren’t as fat. They have less income inequality, and they aren’t being tossed into prison like Americans.

If Barack Obama is going to “take us down the pathway to Europe,” what’s the problem with that? Other than the fact that Europeans are foreigners, I mean. We already know that Republicans just can’t stomach foreigners.

Why ever would anyone oppose increased offshore drilling for oil?

One reason is brought to mind by an incident in the North Sea today, where a spill estimated to be between 10 and 20 tons of crude oil has taken place at an oil rig near the Shetland Islands.

When you drill baby drill, you’re also going to spill baby spill.

Did George W. Bush order yesterday’s attack across the border of Syria? He should have been the one to do so if he is the actual and not just the nominal commander in chief of the armed forces. A president should be the one to order the military violation of national borders. If he did not, then there is some other group within the Bush administration taking on the authority of the commander in chief… or no one in the White House is in charge.

So which is it: did George W. Bush (or some group of regents) choose to manufacture an international military crisis one week before the 2008 presidential elections… or is the American military out of civilian control?

In an interview today with Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, Sarah Palin starts out by asserting that without God’s hand of protection, all the “Constitutional rights and [having Americans] do those things that I believe will make our country better, greater” won’t be enough:

It’s going to take even more than that. Truly it will take God’s hand of protection to be continually over our land and His wisdom, His grace, His favor I pray for that for our country.

Then Palin comes out and advises other nations that if they want to have the prosperity of Americans, they should start giving props to her God:

I pray for that for other nations also, so that other nations would be safe, would be healthy, that the people who live there, especially the children who are growing up in some of these nations that are certainly not as privileged as we are, would know that there is hope, that there is opportunity if they seek that and if they seek God’s guidance.

Sarah Palin seems to think she’s running to be the Chair of the Wasilla Sunday School Board.

These darn eco-nazis! It’s bad enough that they’re asking people to clean up after themselves, but now they seem to be encouraging animal ecoterrorism!

It seems that in one of those all-too-real impacts of global climate change, attacks by tigers against humans are increasing in India because the tigers are unable to find enough non-human food in their shrinking habitats.

Oh, the humanity… or the felinity!

It seems we’ve got a couple of options: Finish the job, and wipe out wildlife around the world, or stand up and take responsibility for the global mess we’ve created so that wild ecosystems can return a more balanced state.

Guess which possibility is more likely.

You may ask how African pastor Thomas Muthee ended up in Wasilla, Alaska to lay hands on Sarah Palin’s head and pray for Palin to be elected Governor as part of a new plan for American theocracy. The answer lies in a video and in testimonials extolling Muthee’s supernatural power as a witch-hunter. In the video, Muthee himself claims to have figured out that a woman in his town of Kiambu, Kenya named “Mama Jane” was a witch because of traffic accidents near her home. He claims to have run Mama Jane out of town after issuing death threats for her to convert to Christianity or die, and what’s more to have dispelled her witchy power by having her magical witch’s python shot by police. Finally, he claims that — miracle! — since she was chased out of town, there have been no traffic accidents.

Zoe Alsop of WeNews personally traveled to Kiambu, Kenya. What Alsop found was something different than what Muthee claimed:

1. “Mama Jane” Njengu would not have to convert to Christianity, since she is pastor of a competitor Christian church, the African Mission of Holy Ghost Church, which lies down the street from Thomas Muthee’s compound. In the edited scholarly volume The Bible in Africa, Nahashon W. Ndung’u of the University of Nairobi explains the Biblically-centered five-hour-long worship Sabbath-day services of the AMHGC.
2. Njengu is still pastor in Kiambu, not having been run out of town at all.
3. Traffic accidents in Kiambu are down despite “Mama Jane” Njengu not actually being run out of town. The main road has been paved and speed bumps have been installed during that time (presumably not by the power of witchcraft).
4. Njengu doesn’t own and says she has never owned a python.
5. Njengu confirms, however, that Thomas Muthee issued death threats against her, broadcasting demands over a loudspeaker that townspeople pray for her death.

Thanks to the work of Zoe Alsop, Thomas Muthee’s tale of supernatural witch-hunting prowess has been debunked. In its place appears a more mundane tale of intramural competition between two Christian churches involving death threats by Muthee. And “Mama Jane” is still there. Thomas Muthee, who declared in a sermon that “the Violent take it by force,” turns out to be a rather flaccid flim-flam artist.

Ah, the power of faith to bring us all together in the spirit of community… BOOM! A suicide bomber blew himself up outside of a mosque today, just as Ramadan drew to a close. Then another suicide bomb exploded near another mosque. In Diyala, a small bus was shot to pieces. This came just a day after another suicide bombing at yet another mosque, while the people there were praying. 32 people were killed in another suicide bombing on Sunday.

It is said that since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, violence always increases during the month of Ramadan.

In a rational world, Juval Aviv wouldn’t be trusted any more than a hot dog salesman who spits in his mustard.

You may remember that in the summer of 2007, the self-declared “intelligence expert” made the following prediction:

I predict, based primarily on information that is floating in Europe and the Middle East, that an event is imminent and around the corner here in the United States. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could happen in the next few months. Ninety days at the most.

What they’re going to do is hit six, seven or eight cities simultaneously to show sophistication and really hit the public. This time, which is the message of the day, it will not only be big cities. They’re going to try to hit rural America. They want to send a message to rural America: “You’re not protected. If you figured out that if you just move out of New York and move to Montana or to Pittsburgh, you’re not immune. We’re going to get you wherever we can and it’s easier there than in New York.”

The Fox Friends show on Fox News hyped it, conservative blogs went apoplectic over it, and e-mails calling for Holy War shot around cyberspace. Senator Trent Lott wailed on national television about it…

… and as a result the Protect America Act (precursor to the FISA Amendments Act) was passed by a panicked Congress.

All that for terrorist attacks that never came. Juval Aviv was clearly full of it, and in a rational world we wouldn’t trust him any more than a hot dog salesman who spits in his mustard.

This is not a rational world. Having thoroughly eroded his credibility in the United States, Juval Aviv has simply moved on, traveling to Australia to deliver his message that Australians are all going to die, die, die:

CONTROVERSIAL global security analyst Juval Aviv briefed the community on Israel’s security amid growing international tensions over Iran this week.

Israeli-born, New York-based Aviv was the keynote speaker at WIZO Victoria’s gala dinner at the Palladium On Crown in Melbourne on August 27 in honour of Israel’s 60th birthday.

Aviv urged community members to make emergency plans in the event of a major terrorist attack, including arrangements for securing children and keeping back-up records of important documents.

Interviewed by The AJN earlier, Aviv, who runs a private security company in the US, said the world is no safer than it was immediately after the 2001 terrorist bombings in the United States…

Israel is now ready to destroy three or four nuclear sites out of 12 in Iran.

“I believe that Israel is planning to act on these reactors before Bush leaves the White House,” Mr Aviv said. “We’ve got to take a chance … the next president of America may not allow it.”

It’s the same old Juval Aviv schtick:

1. We’re all going to die
2. So we’ve got to go to war
3. Grab your kids, grab a towel, grab bottled water, and
4. Thanks for the honorarium.

Don’t fall for it like we fell for it, Australia.

We can’t know for sure the words of Thomas Muthee in his many sermons to the Wasilla Assemblies of God during the year 2005, other than his laying of hands on Sarah Palin in that year and telling God to make her Governor. We can’t know because the Wasilla Assemblies of God has quickly removed the extensive audio records of Muthee’s sermons, for some of which Palin presumably sat in the audience.

We don’t know the words of Muthee’s sermons to Sarah Palin, but we do know that in Kenya Thomas Muthee chose a woman near whose house there were some car accidents, then labeled her a witch. Muthee and his congregation proceeded to harass and harangue her to the degree that she was threatened with stoning, her house was broken into, her pet was killed and she was thrown in jail with the demand that she convert to Christianity.

We also know the following words of Thomas Muthee, spoken the year before he came to Wasilla, preached his word to Palin’s church, laid his hands on Palin and told God to make Palin Governor. They occur in the context of a sermon you can hear for yourself, given before the Kingsgate Community Church in the United Kingdom (hat tip to Dark Energy). These words are part of a sermon in which Muthee cites the Book of Exodus, calling for Christians to “be armed” and to take what is theirs “by force.” At 23 minutes and 30 seconds into his sermon, Muthee preaches:

The violent take it by force. People that have spiritual backbones are the ones that are going to advance. They are the ones that will move forward.

I thank God for what I see happening in this place. I thank God for the vision, the passion that I can see here. And my word is this: the more violent you become, the more committed you become, the quicker you will see things happen in this region.

Listen for yourself; the words are there as plain as day. After Muthee calls on his audience to get violent, he suggests they demand that their city pay a tithe to the church so that the church can build itself a new “twelve-thousand-seater” facility.

The witch-hunting episode that hounded a woman through jail and out of Muthee’s home town is not an anomaly. Muthee seems to take the “bully” in “bully pulpit” literally.

Back in March, I wrote about the story of Moko, a bottlenosed dolphin living on the shore of New Zealand who became famous because of her friendly way with people and her heroic rescue of two stranded whales.

This winter, and I say winter remembering that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, where July and August are as cold as it can get, Moko has gone wild. With few people to play with on the beaches around Wellington, Moko has sought to get human attention in other ways - such as pushing a kayaker out to sea and playing around with the buoys on fishermen’s nets as if they were toys.

Has Moko gone bad? No, Moko has just gone wild - as she always was. Bottlenosed dolphins are intelligent and sociable, but they’re not part of our human society, even when they interact with us. It’s a mistake to judge Moko by human standards, whether we like what she’s doing or not.

From Charles Gibson’s interview of Sarah Palin on September 11, 2008:

Charles Gibson: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks does the proximity of the state give you?

Sarah Palin: [Pause] They’re our next door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

Charles Gibson: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

Sarah Palin: Well, I’m giving you that perspective into how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relations with all of these countries, especially Russia.