Violet-green swallow

One of the things I like about this picture is the interplay of various angles and textures.

An excitingvisitor to the garden; fortunately it sat still a couple of times. Don't have a good picture of it in flight.

Do Civil Forfeiture Laws Trample Our Rights?

This question, which I've slightly revised, was asked by Victoria’s Time-Colonist newspaper on Thursday, May 19th . This is my reply, which the T-C published today.

Of course they do. Minister Bond’s claim that, “This isn’t about circumventing rights, or the court process.” is nonsense.
The creeping expansion of civil forfeiture laws at the provincial and federal level is another symptom of that metastasizing legislative malignancy in the body politic ‘the war on drugs’. Because of this disease our rights are increasingly eroded with each such legislative encroachment.

Real justice—the courts and due process—is not a profit centre; ersatz or ‘administrative’ justice is. As a result, impaired drivers go untried while police act as judge, jury and enforcer at the roadside, or in one’s home, with almost no right of appeal.

We do not need to sacrifice our civil rights to fight organized crime. The single most effective blow against it is to end the war on drugs, thereby dismantling the black market, and its enormous profits. Seizing a few goods, however immediately lucrative for governments, will do nothing to stem the cash flow generated by drug prohibition.

Unfortunately, we are now saddled with a government which prefers to impose its private moral views instead of improving our security, from both criminal gangs and greedy governments, by ending the war on drugs, and rescinding other unconstitutional legislation such as the province’s civil forfeiture laws.

A male chipping sparrow.

Life-Style Choices & Discrimination

There’s a great to-do about leader-designate of the B.C. Conservative Party, John Cummin’s position that being gay is a life-style choice, and therefore should not be a protected category under human rights legislation. The underlying implication is that if one’s behaviour is a matter of choice, others do have a right to discriminate against you on that ground.

I accept that being gay is not a life-style choice. What I don’t accept is that whether being gay is a choice or innate, creates a moral or legal difference regarding discrimination. If someone ‘chooses’ to be gay does that make it acceptable to beat them up for it? No. Or to deny them housing on that basis? No. Because someone has chosen to live in a certain way does not mean that others have a right to inflict harm on them for doing so. And because gays are beaten up and othjerwise discriminated against simply because they're gay, they should be protected by human rights legislation, whether one thinks they’re gay innately, or by choice.

If behaviour associated with a life-style choice—playing loud music, let’s say—does inflict harm on others, that’s a different matter, but then we should address the specific harmful behaviour, not the life-style choice per se.

Becher Bay Collage

Becher Bay doesn't actually look like this, but it feels the way this looks, at least to me.

Eaglets Again

When I started watching the eaglets this afternoon, all three were sleeping. Then George woke up (he’s almost invariably the first to become active after a nap) and flopped over to the Little One which was back in its usual place, hunkered down, head lowered. But when it raised its head, George attacked it. His beak is big but it doesn’t look like he actually inflicted any wounds. And there does seem to be a submission posture, as when the Little One hunkered down again, George desisted after a final bite or two. Later, George adopted the same hunkered down posture when Hugh went after him—although Hugh doesn’t seem to be into attacking the others all that much. On the whole, Hugh is too well-fed to want to do more than sleep. Occasionally Hugh and George sort of confront each other, beak to beak in what looks more like a feeding posture than a combat one, with the sideways twist of the head the adult uses when feeding them (but who do they thinking is feeding whom?).

One of the adults was sitting on a branch of the same tree overhead head, and eventually flew down and fed them. I think it was the male, as the profile seemed flat, but it wasn’t at a good angle to see. At one point when George was getting stuffed, and Hugh was not, Hugh made a half-hearted lunge in George’s direction, and then turned and bit at Little One (couldn’t see if he connected, or not).

A couple of times George and Hugh had their little bums pointing at the camera as they went through the humping motion that usually precedes defecation. “No, no,” I cried, waving the cursor over the screen—which worked! Or at least, they turned their bums away, but I put it down to coincidence, and have no expectations of future success. Last year, I missed all of the fledging of the one chick there was that year (a raven stole the other egg), because the lens had become opaque from being covered with feces. The year before, when there were three eaglets, I don’t recall the lens being dirty at all.

I’ve decided to rename the Little One, Lucy. Of course, I’m using very stereotypical names, based on their size and vigour. Hugh, in fact, may be Hilda, and Lucy could be Luke. Among eagles, I believe, females tend to be larger than males, but in this case I think the size difference is due to the fact that Hugh hatched first, and has always been bigger than the other two. Also, I don’t know when the difference in size shows up, perhaps not until they’re adults, or close to being; which is around four or five years of age, when they first mate.

Eaglets

I’ve been watching the three eaglets in the nest in Sidney on the camera that the David Hancock Foundation has set up. They’re growing incredibly quickly, and are now big enough to hit the camera if they defecate in that direction (the single chick last year finally totally covered the lens) so who knows how long I’ll be able to follow their progress. Presumably, the camera is in the best place, and couldn’t be placed anywhere else, but a foot or two higher would take it out of range.

The three chicks come in three different sizes. The largest is about twice the size of the smallest, with the third in between. I’ve ended up giving them names just to keep straight which one I’m writing about. The big one is Hugh, the middle one George (I don’t know why; I don’t like the name but somehow it attached itself to this chick which is the most active of the three, much more alert and always grooming itself which makes me wonder if it has lice or fleas, or both. Or perhaps it’s the new feathers coming in, much of the down has gone along the side of the neck), while the smallest is Little One. George attacked Little One quite viciously, and I wondered if it had been wounded, or even killed, but apparently not.

Hugh was sleeping near the front of the nest, and when it finally stood up I was amazed at how much bigger it was than the other two. I assume it’s the first-born. Hugh made a half-hearted attack on George, who successfully resisted. Will all three survive each other?

Then the female turned up with something fairly large in her talons. She stood on the carcass for a few minutes, constantly screaming and looking all around, very upright and alert. George headed for her the minute she touched down, Hugh looked up with interest, and Little One raised its head, but all the chicks hunkered down for a bit, when the female began to scream. But before long, they began to get restless, and she finally stopped screaming, and set about feeding them.

I think the prey was probably a rabbit, as she plucked off clumps of some kind of fluffy stuff and threw them about—looked much more like fur than feathers (the resolution is not all that sharp). She fed Hugh first, actually positioning herself closer in order to stuff the food down its throat. George waited a bit, although watching intently, and then butted in to get his share. In the meantime, Little One finally struggled up behind the female, and rather feebly tried to get in on the food. The female did eventually turn around, and fed it as well, so it’s not only an open beak which prompts her to feed them, she seems to feed each one in turn, even if they're not directly in front of her, begging.

At one point the male arrived, but didn’t stay long. Didn’t feed anyone, briefly rooted about with his beak in the nest cup, and then flew off.

When I left the site, the eaglets were once again settling down to sleep.

Courting Spiders

And now for something entirely different from politics--or maybe not.

I Weep for Canada

Too many of my fellow Canadians have seen fit to deliver us into the hands of a man without scruples; a man who is a liar, a coward and a bully, a man who will reduce the Federal Government to a ghost of itself; a man who will squander billions on jets we don't need; squander more billions on prisons we need even less, and put more addicts and mentally ill people in them; and generally make life worse for the already unfortunate.

And to ensure their hegemony will continue, the Harper Coservatives will strip public funding from political parties so that the Conservatives, backed by those who can afford to donate up to the limit (and the Harper Conservatives may cyncially raise that limit, if they don't open up donations to corporations again) will in the next election, have a war chest that may very likely buy them another term.

We are in for many long, dreary, anti-democratic, and despotic years under the most dangerous government this country has ever elected.

I despise Harper; he is a man without political morals, a man who should never be entrusted with the power of a majority, as he has already demonstrated how he will abuse it, allowing no dissent, refusing to tell us how he plans to spend our money; turning the PMO into a fortress of silence and control, imposing his narrow, vicious ideology on all of us. I predict that within six months there will be a private Conservative member's bill eliminating a woman's right to choose, along with another abolishing gay marriage.

This is my wish for Stephen Harper. May the power he's striven for so long turn out to be the worst thing that ever happened to him. May his victory turn sour in his belly, and crumble in his hands; may he drag his party down into the political gutter where it belongs, and may the downward slide to oblivion start for Stephen Harper tonight.

I Voted for Real Change--Will Canada?

Tomorrow we’ll find out how much real change is possible. I’m suspended somewhere between dread and glee—dread that the Harper Conservatives will prevail; glee at the prospect of the NDP becoming, if not government, then the Loyal Opposition, followed in due course, by the Harper Conservativ’s most feared outcome—an NDP-led coalition.

Anyhow, this time tomorrow, all should be clear—or clearer—there may be some close contests still undecided.