[PHOTO] Hsin Kuang lion under neon

The lion guarding the entrance to the Hsin Kuang Centre at Spadina and St. Andrew--westernmost margin of Chinatown, easternmost edge of Kensington Market--glows under the still-lit neon sign.

(I prefer the second one. You?)

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Andrew Barton at Acts of Minor Treason wonders about the next generation of birthers, concerned with "natural-born" presidential candidates: what of the genetically engineered?


• blogTO notes that People's Foods, an iconic diner in The Annex on Dupont Street, is closing down due to rising rents.


• Far Outliers profiles the displacement of classical Chinese as the written language of Vietnam by Latin-script Vietnamese under the French.


• Geocurrents observes that Eurovision's second-place winners, Russia's Buranovskie Babushki, come from the pagan-inflected Finnic republic of Udmurtia.


• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Erik Loomis provides a sympathetic review of the Earth Liberation Front and the documentary If A Tree Falls.


• Language Log notes the controversy in Ukraine regarding the introduction of Russian as an official language.


• Open the Future's Jamais Cascio blogs about his impressions of Kazakstan's new capital Astana--being built practically overnight in the middle of the steppe--and an economic conference being held there that's curiously tone-deaf.


• Torontoist noted that red-paned Toronto skyscraper Scotia Plaza has been sold for a cool $C 1.27 billion.


• Zero Geography's Mark Graham compares English- and French-language geotagged articles on Wikipedia and finds with the exception of France, the Maghreb, and selected points elsewhere, English outnumbers French.

[LINK] "NDP making huge gains as Canada tilts leftward: poll"

Adrian Humphrey's National Post article describing the ongoing shifts in public opinion in Canada is stunning. Who a decade ago could have imagined that the New Democratic Party might be in a position to form a minority government? The suggestion of an ongoing shift to the left, too, is interesting.

The Canadian public is on a distinct tilt to the left, says a new national public opinion poll, suggesting concern over wealth distribution has traction beyond the Occupy tents and protest parades.

The nationwide poll suggests the New Democratic Party would form a minority federal government if this were election day and a strong majority of Canadians believe the country suffers from an income gap, where the rich are getting too rich and the poor are getting too poor.

The wide-ranging Forum Poll for the National Post sought the opinions of a sample of Canadians of voting age and found the NDP was the declared preference of more than one-third, compared to less than one-third who chose the Conservative Party and one-fifth the Liberal Party.

The voting intentions, if actual ballots, would translate into a minority government for the NDP, says Forum Research Inc.’s president Lorne Bozinoff.

The NDP would capture 138 seats in the 308-seat parliament, up from the 103 they currently hold. The Conservatives, who won a majority government last election with 166 seats, would be reduced to 123 seats. The Liberals would take 42 seats, a poor showing but still considerably better than the 34 they took in the last election, the poll suggests.

“A lot of what we see and hear about these days is the ’1%’ versus the ’99%’ and this poll is a perfect reflection of that,” Mr. Bozinoff said.

[. . .]

Tom Mulcair, the NDP leader, also captured the highest approval rating among national party leaders, with 41% of those polled giving him a positive rating. Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, was given a nod of approval by 33%, the same as Liberal leader Bob Rae.

By far the most polarizing leader was Mr. Harper. When the number of respondents who disapproved was subtracted from those who approved, Mr. Harper’s net approval rating stood at a gaping -26, compared to -5 for Mr. Rae and +10 for Mr. Mulcair.

[LINK] "Worlds Without Suns: Nomad Planets Could Number In The Quadrillions"

Universe Today's Jason Major describes the huge number of rogue planets that plausibly populate the universe, unattached to stars or perhaps even not created around stars at all.

Recently, The Kavli Foundation had a discussion with several scientists involved in nomad planet research. Roger D. Blandford, Director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University, Dimitar D. Sasselov, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and Louis E. Strigari, Research Associate at KIPAC and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory talked about their findings and what sort of worlds these nomad planets might be, as well as how they may have formed.

One potential source for nomad planets is forceful ejection from solar systems.

“Most stars form in clusters, and around many stars there are protoplanetary disks of gas and dust in which planets form and then potentially get ejected in various ways,” said Strigari. “If these early-forming solar systems have a large number of planets down to the mass of Pluto, you can imagine that exchanges could be frequent.”

And the possibility of planetary formation outside of stellar disks is not entirely ruled out by the researchers — although they do impose a lower limit to the size of such worlds.

“Theoretical calculations say that probably the lowest-mass nomad planet that can form by that process is something around the mass of Jupiter,” said Strigari. “So we don’t expect that planets smaller than that are going to form independent of a developing solar system.”

“This is the big mystery that surrounds this new paper. How do these smaller nomad planets form?” Sasselov added.

Of course, without a sun of their own to supply heat and energy one might assume such worlds would be cold and inhospitable to life. But, as the researchers point out, that may not always be the case. A nomad planet’s internal heat could supply the necessary energy to fuel the emergence of life… or at least keep it going.

“If you imagine the Earth as it is today becoming a nomad planet… life on Earth is not going to cease,” said Sasselov. “That we know. It’s not even speculation at this point. …scientists already have identified a large number of microbes and even two types of nematodes that survive entirely on the heat that comes from inside the Earth.”

Roger Blandford also suggested that “small nomad planets could retain very dense, high-pressure ‘blankets’ around them. These could conceivably include molecular hydrogen atmospheres or possibly surface ice that would trap a lot of heat. They might be able to keep water liquid, which would be conducive to creating or sustaining life.”

[BRIEF NOTE] On supernova candidate IK Pegasi

I learned via Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog that the nearest candidate for a supernova, the binary star IK Pegasi, is located just 150 light years away. Wikipedia's description of this star system is succinct.

The primary (IK Pegasi A) is a main sequence, A-class star that displays minor pulsations in luminosity. It is categorized as a Delta Scuti variable star and it has a periodic cycle of luminosity variation that repeats itself about 22.9 times per day. Its companion (IK Pegasi B) is a massive white dwarf—a star that has evolved past the main sequence and is no longer generating energy through nuclear fusion. They orbit each other every 21.7 days with an average separation of about 31 million kilometres, or 19 million miles, or 0.21 astronomical units (AU). This is smaller than the orbit of Mercury around the Sun.

What makes it a supernova candidate? Phil Plait explains.

IK Peg A is aging. It’s still fusing hydrogen into helium in its core like the Sun does. But remember, those pulsations are telling us it’s nearing the end of its life too. At some point in the future, probably in a few dozen or hundred million years, it too will swell into a red giant.

When it does, [. . . m]aterial from IK Peg A will flow onto the white dwarf. Separated by a mere 30 million kilometers or so (closer than Mercury is to the Sun), this transfer of mass will flow steadily. As the matter piles up on the surface of the white dwarf it gets fiercely compressed and hot. At some point the temperature gets high enough to flash fuse it into helium. There will be an explosion — big, but not big enough to destroy the star — called a nova. Some of the hydrogen will remain, as will the helium. When things calm down, the material from the red giant will start to pile up again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

But every time it does this, not all the added material blows away. The mass of the dwarf increases. It’s also possible that the matter from the red giant will accumulate slowly enough that it will pile up without a nova explosion. Either way, the mass of the white dwarf increases. And remember, IK Peg B is already pretty massive. It can only gain so much more mass before something very bad happens…

One day, something very bad happens. When the dwarf reaches a mass of about 1.4 times the Sun, the physical forces inside the star can no longer support its own mass. The white dwarf starts to collapse, and the core temperature rockets skyward. A fusion chain reaction is ignited in the dwarf, and the conditions inside it cannot stop it. Within seconds, the chain reaction runs out of control, consuming the bulk of the star, and it explodes.

Right now, IK Pegasi isn't close enough to be a threat to Earth--IK Pegasi would have to be within 75 light years of Earth to have an impact. More, IK Pegasi is moving relative to Earth, the longer the time that IK Pegasi B refrains from going supernova translating to a still greater distance. Commenter Eric Mamajek calculates that none of the known nearby likely candidates for supernova status are likely to enter within the lethal range in the time they have left.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On gay-straight alliances and the Roman Catholic schools of Ontario

Right now, the question of gay-straight alliances in the publicly-funded Ontario Roman Catholic school system has become a major political issue.

Gay-straight alliances originate in the United States, as student organizations in high schools which provide safe spaces for non-heterosexuals and their straight allies. Gay-straight alliances have spread beyond the United States, as people have begun coming out at younger and younger ages around the world, Canada being one place where they've flourished. In the past couple of years, students at many of Ontario's Roman Catholic schools, which receive public funding ultimately as a consequence of provisions in the early Canadian constitution allowing certain religiously-mixed provinces to subsidize schools belonging to denominational minorities, have wanted to form gay-straight alliances in their own schools. The Roman Catholic Church that runs the Ontario schools dissents on theological grounds, with prominent people like Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins denouncing legislation allowing for gay-straight alliances as oppressive; the Ontario provincial government, citing equity legislation and the school system's receipt of public money, and drawing upon broad public support for gay rights, has introduced language into anti-bullying legislation that would prevent any schools receiving public money from banning gay-straight alliances by name or from lumping in organizations concerned with the experiences of gay students with anti-bullying and peer support groups generally.

There is also strong support for gay-straight alliances from students in both public and Catholic schools in Ontario.

In a 2011 survey of over 7,000 students for the Ontario Student Trustees' Association, 88 per cent agreed,"that a student wanting to establish a Gay Straight Alliance club in their school should be allowed to do so."

What's more, surveys in both Canada and the U.S. found bullying of sexual minority students is less common in schools that have an anti-homophobia policy and/or have a gay-straight alliance.

In a May 28 interview with CBC Radio's Matt Galloway, Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten defended her new amendments.

"To many of our students, we know that the term gay-straight alliance has great meaning and that words matter and that if you can't name something, you can't address it," she said.

Philip Squire, chair of the London District Catholic School Board, told CBC Radio's Wei Chen that "no student has come forward and said they want a gay-straight alliance."

The legislation actually accounts for that: If no student requests such a group, a school would not be required to establish a GSA.

I made a couple of posts back in 2011 about this but didn't imagine this.

Is this fair. Let's turn first to what the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church teaches about homosexuality.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition

What is "unjust" discrimination?

The 1986 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons", authored by Joseph Ratzinger in his position as Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, goes into more detail. The document is very hostile towards gay rights. Item 9, for instance, identifies homosexuality as a threat to public safety, indelibly marking the document as product of the great HIV/AIDS crisis.

There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil-statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved.

Item 10 even seems to explain away gaybashing as a predictable, if not quite defensible, consequence of the destabilization of traditional sexual moralty..

It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.

But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.

More, the 1992 "Some Considerations Concerning the Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination on Homosexual Persons", a letter put out by the Congregation (still under Ratzinger), specifies ways in which the 1986 Letter should be interpreted. The 1992 note favours what would probably be termed "just" discrimination against non-heterosexuals, arguing that discrimination in employment (specific careers such as that of teacher or soldier) would be justifiable, as would be discrimination against gays in adoption and foster care, as would be active opposition to any legislation that might grant same-sex couples any recognition or rights, all in the defense of the traiditional family. Sexual orientation, indeed, is not a legitimate characteristic meriting protection: if people are quiet about their sexual orientation they've no grounds to fear discrimination.

The "sexual orientation" of a person is not comparable to race, sex, age, etc. also for another reason than that given above which warrants attention. An individual's sexual orientation is generally not known to others unless he publicly identifies himself as having this orientation or unless some overt behavior manifests it. As a rule, the majority of homosexually oriented persons who seek to lead chaste lives do not publicize their sexual orientation. Hence the problem of discrimination in terms of employment, housing, etc., does not usually arise.

As the extensive Religious Tolerance site notes, this formulation seems to justify discrimination against people who are out, or people who are found out despite themselves.

One common theme in the language used by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Ontario regarding gay-straight alliances and anti-gay bullying is that this type of bullying doesn't need any particular attention, or that highlighting this form of bullying must necessarily--somehow--lead to neglect of other forms of bullying. I don't buy the thesis that attention paid to bullying is necessarily a zero-sum thing. More importantly, I don't buy the thesis that the Roman Catholic Church has the best intentions towards the non-heterosexual children who find themselves in the schools that the Church runs, that by its enunciated doctrine the church sanctions discrimination and bullying against non-heterosexuals. It positively needs to be supervised to ensure that it doesn't do terrible things to the children in its charge.