News

on Thursday (not SFEMF)

I was hurrying home to San Francisco after 7PM yesterday to catch the first night of SFEMF. The radio programming was interrupted with an news update of a large fire in San Bruno, a town just south of San Francisco, near the airport. Specifically, it was near Skyline Blvd (CA 35) and not far from I-280, the highway on which I was traveling. Instantly, I thought it was wildfire out of control on a hillside. It is California, after all. The report then said that there were “several blocks in flames” and people hearing a large explosion and injured people being brought to local hospitals. This was something different. And I was on 280 heading north directly towards it. The smoke was visible above the ridge from miles away. As I approached the ramp from 280 to highway 35, it was closed off and covered with emergency vehicles. Beyond it was the column of smoke and the fire itself in the hills off to the left. The smell of the smoke and burning was intense, even inside the mostly enclosed car. A steady stream of cars jamming the streets down from the hills.

I know the area along Skyline Blvd moderately well. It is a high ridge between the Pacific Ocean and the suburban towns south of San Francisco, dotted with wooded hillsides, ocean views and surprisingly dense suburban developments, many of which had that iconic 1950s and 1960s look. I had explored the area when looking for a new home 2007 and I would sometimes escape into the hills along highways 35 and 1 as breaks when I worked in the area. I wondered if the houses and neighborhoods I had seen were among those now in flames.

After the concert, I came back online to get more information. I checked both our local newspaper online, where I found out it was caused by a huge gas line explosion, saw a map of the neighborhood affected, and saw horrific photos and videos. I simultaneously checked #sanbruno on Twitter. The location not a neighborhood I knew, but it could have been. 40 homes and 4 deaths officially. My thoughts are with those who lost their homes or loved ones.

And in the aftermath some attention turns to lost and missing pets as well. I read both about animals being rescued and about people who knew their pets were lost. In the immediate aftermath, a local PetCo accepted pets that were found during the emergency phase. The Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA have been involved, helping residents find lost pets, taking in animals that survived and were found. You can visit their site to find out more, and also how you can contribute. I did see one of their trucks when dropping off emergency donations on the way to work on Friday…once again driving on 280.

Finally, a few small bits of good news, including a man who able to go back and rescue his cat.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Endangered Wild Cats

Every year on or around earth day (or “erf day”), we at CatSynth dedicate our Weekend Cat Blogging to some of the world’s endangered wild cat species. We look to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as our primary source for species that are “endangered” or “vulnerable”. There are several cat species on this list from many parts of the world, and we present a few of them here.

This year, we focus on South America (for reasons beyond the scope of this article). The Andean region is home to some rather intriguing cats that we have discussed in the past. Perhaps the most intriguing and most endangered remains the gato andino, or Andean Mountain Cat. The Andean mountain cat lives in rocky areas at high elevations of the Andean region of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Perú. It is quite small, but has a very distinctive large tail. There is now an organization dedicated to studying and protecting the Andean cat, Alianza Gato Andino. There you can find more about the cat, see photos and also see more of the Andean landscape it inhabits. I am drawn to the starkly beautiful dry landscape, and perhaps will have a chance to visit someday.

In reading about the Andean cat, I also learned about the Pampas Cat. The Pampas cat also lives in western South America, but is not considered nearly as threatened a species. As one can see from this photograph, it bears a resemblance to domestic cats, though with perhaps more squat body shape.

The Guiña, or Kodkod, is a wildcat native to Chile (and parts of Argentina). It is also relatively small, with a thick fur coat and spotted markings.

It is currently listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and until recently little was known about it. A project was undertaken in Chile to learn more about these cats.

We round out our South American cats with the Oncilla. It looks quite like a domestic cat with wild the coat and markings of a wild cat. In addition to habitat pressures, it has been trapped in the past for the fur trade.

We next go to southeast Asia where several of the worlds most endangered cats live. The very unusual looking Borneo Bay Cat lives only on the island of Borneo. It is quite rare, and little is known about this cat, but it was classified as “endangered” in 2005 primarily due to habitat loss.

The Flat Headed Cat, also from Indonesia, is not one I would immediately recognize as a cat. It lives in the forests of Indonesia on multiple islands, usually near water. Sightings of this car are rare, and it is classified as “endangered.”

Another endangered cat of southeast Asia (and India) is the Fishing Cat. It has an interesting face with a distinctive flat nose and small ears. As the name suggests, it is quite adapted to hunting and eating fish. As such, it is dependent on wetlands and fishing stocks, and is now also classified by IUCN as “endangered.”

Perhaps the most endangered species of cat remains the Iberian Lynx. It is listed as “critically endangered”, with an IUCN survey suggesting between 84 and 143 adults left in two breeding populations in Spain. Conservation efforts are currently focused on supporting these breeding populations. You can read more about the Iberian Lynx in our first “Earth Day Weekend Cat Blogging” article.

If we include large cats as well, there is the even rarer Amur Leopard of northeastern Asia. A census in 2007 counted only about 20 adults remaining. We conclude with this video of the Amur Leopard:

Weekend Cat Blogging #254 is being hosted by Salome at Paulchens FoodBlog?!

The Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at When Cats Attack.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Fun with stats: The Year in Hate and Extremism

I heard this report last night on Fresh Air, and then went to read the original article at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Here are some not-so-fun statistics:

  • The number of hate groups in the U.S. has been going up for years, rising 54% between 2000 and 2008. The number of groups rose again slightly in 2009 — from 926 in 2008 to 932 last year — despite the demise of a key neo-Nazi group.
  • Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009.
  • An astonishing 363 new Patriot groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups (including 42 militias) to 512 (127 of them militias) — a 244% jump. (If you’re not familiar with what a “Patriot group” is, you can read more here.)
  • A new poll from Harris interactive finds that 40 percent of American adults think that Obama is a socialist; 25 percent believe that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not eligible to be president; 20 percent say Obama is doing many of the things that Hitler did; 14 percent say Obama “may be the Antichrist.”
  • According the SLPC’s map of extremist and hate groups, the state with the second largest number of groups, after Texas, is California.

It’s easy to forget sometimes, but your friends here at CatSynth could be targets for such groups. Far less of a danger than an auto accident, statistically speaking, but still…

Fun with highways: Bay Bridge construction

The Bay Bridge has been closed over the Labor Day weekend for a major engineering feat. As part of the replacement of the eastern span, engineers actually cut out a small section near Yerba Buena Island, and actually wheeled in a new section of bridge. This allows the old doomed bridge to be used while the new one is connected up to the island.

Looking towards Oakland from Yerba Buena island, this is what things looked like before the cut- and-replace operation:

You can see a lot more time-lapsed photos and different angles at the official website for the project. They also posted some photos that better illustrate the move itself at Twitter:

New bridge section awaits its moment of glory on Twitpic Bridge move almost complete! on Twitpic 3,600 tons of steel slowly moving into place on Twitpic
[Click on the images above for full-size versions at TwitPic]

Note that this does not really affect the western half of the bridge near on the San Francisco side, which is what we usually show in our Bay Bridge posts and photos at CatSynth. Except of course that it is closed.

And it looks like the closure could be a little bit longer than excepted. There was a serious crack found in one of the metal supports, so now they are working to repair that before opening. It’s just another reminder of why we want to replace the whole eastern span, hopefully before the next big earthquake. Fortunately, the closure doesn’t affect us at CatSynth all that much.

ShanghaiPRIDE

This weekend is marks Pride 2009 here in San Francisco, and while the parade and other events here were huge (and occasionally over the top) as always, I found myself thinking of the much smaller, but nonetheless significant event I saw during Pride week in Shanghai on June 8.

I had the chance to attend the opening night event, which took place at a large bar in the French Concession district of Shanghai. There was a good mixture of both native Chinese and expats; of course, the attendance was a couple hundred rather than hundreds of thousands. But one must think about the significance of having an event like this in China, which is still a relatively conservative country and where gatherings of any sort can be complicated.

The open night featured screenings of two documentaries. The first was a film from Singapore entitled “Autopsy” which follows the filmmaker Loo Ziham’s dialogue with his mother about his sexuality. Following that was a documentary “Queer China”, a rather stylized look at the history of homosexuality and LGBT issues in China. The film interspersed images from traditional Chinese art and literature with historical footage from early years of the Peoples Republic, but focused primarily on relatively contemporary interviews. Those interviewed ranged from a young man who nearly committed suicide over his sexual orientation to an older man (I think he was in his 80s) discussing sexuality in rather open terms. Because of the way the room was set up, it was sometimes difficult to see the English subtitles, so I did miss some of what people were saying. One thing I was able to gather from the film was that much of the progress in terms of recognition and getting groups organized and sanctioned came under the heading of AIDS prevention – the one young woman interviewed noted the irony that AIDS was not a big issue for everyone.

In any case, it was quite interesting to see such an event in another country. And I leave wondering if Chinese can go out and take the cultural risk of participating in such an event, why does it have to remain “hidden” for people here in certain ethnic groups?

Weekend Cat Blogging #203: Endangered Wild Cats #3

We at CatSynth continue our Earth Day (or “erf day”) tradition of reporting on endangered wildcats from around the world.

We are always interested to learn about new cats, such as the Kodkod or huiña. Huiñas are relatively small (often 5lbs or less), and quite furry, and far found primarily in Chile and parts of western Argentina. It is also considered among the most endangered wild cats in South America, though very little is known about it. The Cat Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union conducted a study of the huiña in 2006.

The huiña may be related to the more common Geoffroy’s Cat, which found in the hills and plains of Argentina. Although not officially endangered, it classified as near threatened. The CSG worked on a separate project to study the Geoffroy’s Cat in 2007.

As such studies suggest, our knowledge of wildlife is always changing and growing. The Bornean Clouded Leopard has been known for a long time, but with few sightings and very little information. In 2006, it was officially recognized as a separate species, and immediately listed as a Vulnerable species.

With our recent interest in China, we thought we would feature one of China’s endangered cat species, the Chinese Mountain Cat. Like other wild cats, it is quite elusive. National Geographic presents a series of rare photos from 2007. The Chinese Mountain Cat is listed as a Vulnerable species, and currently does not have much protection in China (the only country where it is found):

Sanderson is hoping that the new images will reveal some of the secretive habits that have kept the creature a mystery to scientists for nearly a century.

“Pandas go for a million [U.S.] dollars a year to rent and are very well protected by Chinese law, but there is virtually no protection for this cat,” he told National Geographic News.

“There’s no interest in its conservation because it’s poorly known, but now perhaps this will change.”


We next visit the endangered cats here in the United States. The National Wildlife Federation maintains a report on Endangered Cats of North America, which lists several well-known species. The Florida Panther continues to be critically endangered. Current estimates suggest that there are fewer than 200 remaining, primarily in the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge and portions of the Everglades National Park. The main threats to the panther have been habit loss and scarcity of prey, though other issues such as inbreeding in such a small population can potentially be a large problem as well.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist proclaimed March 21, 2009 as “Save the Floriday Panther Day”, and the species remains a major focus of conservation efforts.

Another critically endangered wild cat in the United States is the Texas subspecies of the ocelot. Although still relatively plentiful in Central America, the Environmental Defense Fund suggests that as few as 100 may be left. Although they face the same threats as other cats, including habitat loss, pressures from human development and inbreeding of small populations, the Texas ocelot is caught up in the nasty political pressures involving immigration and border protection. From the National Wildlife Federation Report:

Increased efforts by the U.S. Border Patrol to stop illegal immigration into Texas from Mexico has degraded native habitat along the border. Some experts fear that the use of high-pow-ered “stadium” lights, brush clearing, fencing and road paving by Border Patrol operations in border areas has been detrimental to both the ocelot and its prey and threatens to inhibit ocelot and jaguarundi dispersalprotection. By the same token, additional research is needed on the historic and present-day distribution of small border cats and on the most pressing factors contributing to their decline. Reaching out to local communities through educational initiatives may be the most effective way to generate grassroots support and to bolster resources for ocelot and jaguarundi.

We have previously discussed how border politics, including a proposed border fence, threatened these cats.

On a positive note, the EDF cites several groups on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border working together to help protect these wild cats.

In additional exploring the cats themselves, we have the opportunity to learn about organizations that are working to promote and protect feline species. Most of the large wildlife conservation organizations, including those listed above (World Conservation Union, National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund), have projects related to cats. Additionally there are organizations such as the Feline Conservation Federation, which was a valuable source of information about cat species.

Although we list both small and large cats, we have been most interested in following small cat species, which receive less public attention than the large and celebrated big cats, like lions and tigers. I came across this rather extensive list of small cat species at the site The Messy Beast.

Weekend Cat Blogging #203 is hosted by Salome at Paulchens Food Blog?!

The Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos (for us, the “wild cats festival of chaos”) will be hosted by Mr. Tigger and M-Cats Club.

The Carnival of the Cats will be up on Sunday at Mind of Mog.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Pi Day 3.14159…

[For Weekend Cat Blogging, please scroll down or click here.]

We at CatSynth once again, celebrate Pi Day on its three-digit approximation, March 14 (3-14).

We start with some interesting facts about the digits of pi. We presented statistics about the distribution in our 2007 Pi Day post. From super-computing.org, we present some interesting patterns:

01234567890 first occurs at the 53,217,681,704-th digit of pi.
09876543210 first occurs at the 42,321,758,803-th digit of pi.
777777777777 first occurs at the 368,299,898,266-th digit of pi.
666666666666 first occurs at the 1,221,587,715,177-th digit of pi.
271828182845 first occurs at the 1,016,065,419,627-th of digit pi. (that’s e for those who haven’t memorized it)
314159265358 first occurs at the 1,142,905,318,634-th digit of pi.

Last year, we showed the relationship to the Gamma function, and of course to Euler’s identity, which links pi surprisingly closely to the imaginary constant i and the number e. But it is also surprisingly easy to generate pi from simple sequences of integers. Consider the Madhava-Leibniz formula for pi:

Thus one can generate pi from odd integers and simple arithmetic. Another formula only involving perfect squares of integers comes from the Basel problem (named for the town of Basel in Switzerland):

In recognition of Pi Day, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution this week:

And thus the sad history of pi in politics as exemplified by the Indiana Pi Bill of 1897 is put to rest. Now onto erasing the sad history of science and politics in general of the past eight years…

Weekend Cat Blogging #194

We at CatSynth welcome everyone to Weekend Cat Blogging #194! We’re excited to be hosting again, and have been busy getting prepared.

To participate, please leave you link in the comments, and we will include you in the big roundup on Sunday.

We are dedicating this edition to Socks Clinton, the former “First Cat”, who passed away this week at the venerable age of 20.

(February 20, 2009) Word tonight that Socks Clinton, the one-time Arkansas stray adopted by the Clintons who rose to international prominence and literary fame as sole feline inhabitant of the White House, died today.

Butch, Jules, and Vincent use their Weekend Cat Blogging to pay their respect to Socks.

 

Meowza shows some leg this fine Caturday. Meanwhile, Cece feigns innocence at iInfidel.


LB and Breadchick Mary have been lazy this weekend. But not really, as time away from work for ourselves is important. LB enjoys relaxing by the sofa and subwoofer. And we at CatSynth really like the header for the The Sour Dough.


Most of us are eagerly anticipating the transition from winter to spring, and for Smudge of sidewalk shoes, that means patiently waiting for the catnip.


Maruschka poses elegantly (and sleepily) at Rosa’s Yummy Yums, with an accompanying quote on being a cat.

Babeth presents Happy Hour, a tale of cats’ sleeping habits, at House of Chaos.


We go from sleeping habits to playing habits at Gattina’s, where Rosie has adopted a toy turtle as her new doll.

Samantha and Tigger are basking in the sunshine at Life from a Cat’s Perspective. Together with Granddaughterbean, they are a quite a trio, enjoying the warmth. We could use a bit of warmth here in the midst of our cold rainstorms – but we do need the rain in California.

Kashim, Othello and Salome are feeling a bit neglected this weekend, as their mama has been out celebrating her birthday as well as other human social activities. Clearly, those are lower priority than spending time with kitty cats. On a happy note, Kashim’s paws have nicely after his unfortunate accident a couple of weeks ago.

Tillie is being lazy in the sun over at Mickey’s Musings. Meanwhile, Mickey and Georgia are being lazy somewhere else, and their mom is “laziest of all”, as she hardly helped the cats blog all weekend. However, she did help them participate in WCB, and we’re glad to have our friends from Nova Scotia join us!

That concludes this Weekend Cat Blogging for now. Thanks to everyone who participated, and we will continue to post entries through Monday as we receive them.

This weekend, you can also visit the Carnival of the Cats at When Cats Attack, and the Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos with Samantha and Tigger at Life from a Cat’s Perspective. And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.