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"The Bullet that Saved the World"
October 26, 2012
Pacey wanders around post-Sandy Lower Manhattan Boston, with its hobos eating hobo beans around trash can fires, and so forth. He siphons some gas from a car that is not his because have you seen those gas lines in Jersey? Pacey heads into a junk store where he and the store owner make some chit chat about clichéd newspaper headlines and that electronic memory game Simon (I was always more fond of the jerky Milton, personally. "AB-SURD."). But Pacey is looking for something else, and before he can tell the shopkeep what, exactly, an Observer pops up behind him, holding a necklace chain, noting that it will look good on the young blonde woman. Also, the Observer asks, what are baseballs? Red Sox? Pacey was thinking of something called baseball, clearly to confuse the Observer, maybe to protect the woman? THE OBSERVER, HE IS ONTO PACEY. Pacey hurriedly hands the shopkeeper a large bill for the chain and rushes out of the store, only to have the Observer follow him outside and yell to the nearby BrownShirts to detain Pacey. HE IS UP TO SHENANIGANS. But Pacey, he whacks the Observer upside the head, flees the BrownShirts and lowers himself into a nearby manhole. The BrownShirts are like, "Oh no. Whatever shall we do. It's too bad we don't have some sort of blast grenade to throw down after him. OH WAIT. WE DO." And so they throw down some little grenadey thing, and it blasts Pacey right out of a nearby storm drain where he is found by a harmonica-playing kid. I don't know, either.
Back at the lab, AsteriskAstrid and Bishop cut another tape out of the amber, when Pacey returns, banged up and shaken at how easily the Obeserver read him. Olivia, Jr. assures him that she's taught others how to protect their thoughts from the Observers, she'll teach them, too, but warns that it does take a long time. Pacey then gives Olivia, Jr. her replacement chain, noting that no good deed goes unpunished.
So what's on Past Bishop's Tape 2?
Welcome to Tape Two of my plan to defeat the Observers. Before we begin, first and foremost, you must accept the reversibility of all phenomena… particles have their speeds reversed, then the changes – – found a measurable effect. Let me be crystal clear – – understanding of these scientific concepts, we will not be fighting in the same field. These are the plans that we must follow to the letter – – imperative that these plans be retrieved.
I have hidden them as I would my most prized possession. Funny story actually. When I was a boy, my mother would take me on what she called Manhattan Mystery Tours. We would catch the first train that came to the station, and then we would venture into the city… … and get off at the first – – I'll never forget – – inspirational.
And for once, Current Bishop knows what Past Bishop is talking about — the plans are hidden in Newark's Penn Station in the subway station wall. Bishop explains that as a child he hid his detective comics there, believing they would be safest from the Communists if stashed underground. And that's all super except for the part where Penn Station, like all access points to Manhattan, are crawling with Observers and BrownShirts, which means that to get inside, they're going to have to create a diversion.
Fortunately, Bishop has just the thing! A basement filled with material from every single Fringe case they ever worked on because, sure, absolutely, the government would have been TOTALLY COOL WITH THAT. Anyway, the long and short of it is, Bishop plans to create their own Fringe event to create a diversion. (USE THE PENS, BISHOP! BLOW THEIR MINDS WITH PENZ.)
Bishop looks longfully towards the Chekov's gun broken universe window, but Pacey discourages such notions, and Bishop is distracted by a 20-year-old donut hole, because Wacky Mad Scientist Hijinks!
At the store, Kahl Himmler meets Col. Abaddon (O YAY, COL. ABADDON!) and shows him the Princess Leia hologram of the Pacey and Observer Necklace Incident, asking Col. Abaddon why Pacey would take such a big risk to buy a cheap trinket. Kahl Himmler believes that Pacey and the other fugitives must be getting help from the inside. And! In fact! Just the other day, one of Col. Abaddon's guys failed a security test, so maybe Col. Abaddon wants to get on questioning him. Hold up, why didn't you tell me about this security failure, asks Col. Abaddon.Well, Kahl Himmler could have asked him the same thing. Col. Abaddon protests that he didn't know about it. THAT'S HIS POINT, COL. ABADDON.
And so, back at BaldHeadquarters, an Observer who bears a curious resemblance to Voldemort questions a BrownShirt while Col. Abaddon watches on from his office. The Observer manages to trip up the BrownShirt on a question about the weather, and begins doing the mind-melty thing and barrages the poor brain-squished BrownShirt with questions: Where is Pacey? What do you know about the fugitives? What did you overhear That One Resistance Guy say? Wait, WAIT, who is this Dove you keep thinking about? The BrownShirt insists that he doesn't know who The Dove is, no one does, and Col. Abaddon stands and looks all nervous-like and cocks his gun because UH DUH.
The Observer reports to Col. Abaddon that the BrownShirt is too low-level to know anything of any real value, but that he did catch something about a lab in the old Harvard University. Col. Abaddon recognizes this lab, right? Didn't Col. Abaddon have a relationship with these fugitives? Col. Abaddon is taken aback that Voldemort here knows about his past, and Voldemort explains that Kahl Himmler told him about this, did Kahl Himmler not askCol. Abaddon about it yet? Yeah, well, it was along time ago, Col. Abaddon explains as Voldemort leaves to go file his report on the Harvard lab.
While AsteriskAstrid works on … something very dangerous and mass-deathy, and Pacey and Bishop fire t-shirt guns over her head for laffs, Olivia and Olivia, Jr. have a bonding over the bullet necklace. Apparently, Olivia, Jr. found it in their old house and realized it must be important for her mother to have stashed it away. Olivia explains that Pacey referred to it as the "bullet that saved the world," because FORESHADOWING. And that's when Olivia Jr. receives a phone call alerting her that the lab has been compromised. ALERT! ALERT! GET OUT! ALERT! BUT RE-AMBER THE LAB FIRST!
And so the Fringies hide in a vent while BrownShirts climb over the reambered lab and report back to BaldHeadquarters that, "Welp! Nothing here! Guess we can go home now!" Back at BaldHeadquarters, Col. Abaddon makes no effort to hide his smirk while Kahl Himmler announces that the reading from the prisoner must have been deceptive — if Olivia Jr. could hide her thoughts from them, perhaps others can too. POINTED STARE.
Load up the station wagon, it's time to wage a hideous guerrilla assault on some BrownShirts! Bishop drives up to the checkpoint at the Newark's Penn Station, and asks for directions to Kennebunkport, Maine. When the Observer on duty demands Bishop's papers, Bishop lowers a gas mask over his face and blasts the Observer and BrownShirts with a bunch of face glue. ACK! FACE GLUE! As the BrownShirts and Observer roll around the ground with their melty, gluey faces, Bishop opens the gate to allow the Fringies to drive through. Once inside,he and Pacey grab some duffel bags from the car and head into the station while the Olivias wait and perform lookout from the car.
Inside the station, Pacey and Bishop head down some stairs and directly to a beam where Bishop had drawn a "Kilroy was here" sketch, marking the spot where he left the plans, and WHADDYA KNOW, here they are. So that was convenient. For once. Some BrownShirts and another Observer discovers the Bishop men; shoot shoot shoot, face glue face glue face glue, and they make it safely back to the car with the plans, leaving a bunch of glue-faced BrownShirts and Observers behind.
The Fringies pull over under a freeway somewhere and examine the plans that they plucked from the subway station. Except! ha ha! The "plans" are incomprehensibly dense physics that Bishop is unable to decipher. Perhaps September gave him the equations? MAYBE. But who really cares where they came from if Bishop can't figure them out. BLARG.
They are about to head back to the lab when Olivia Jr. announces that someone has arrived who wants to see them, and up drives Col. Abaddon. O HAI! I CAN HAZ FRIENDZ? Everyone is happy to see Col. Abaddon and though they tried to pretend that there was some tension and that we should wonder which side Col. Abaddon was on, there was never any question, not really, come on. Col. Abaddon asked Olivia Jr. not to tell them about him, lest they be read, and explains that he saw Olivia Jr. a few years back, and placed her in his division where she recruited him to the resistance and taught him how to block his thoughts — a process that took the better part of a year, they go out of their way to explain, so we know it Must Be Important.
Meanwhile, Kahl Himmler and the BrownShirts examine the pile of melted faces and are like, BUMMER. But then one of the BrownShirt deduces, somehow, that one of the melted faces tagged the Fringies' getaway car, so HOORAY! They'll get those meddling kids after all!
Back at the freeway, Col. Abaddon shows them a stash of weapons he's collected for them, but before they can transfer the pulse rifles and motion detectors and anti-matter batons from one car trunk to another, the Observers begin popping up all over the place. POP! POP POP POP! Olivia Jr. gives Col. Abaddon the inscrutable plans and tells him to protect them at all costs. So he takes off in one direction, and the Bishop family heads in another, and the Observers, they follow the Bishops.
To a warehouse where there is a lot of running around and shooting and Pacey and Olivia find themselves separated from Bishop and Olivia, Jr. who covers her grandfather as he scurries around the warehouse. However, at some point she loses Bishop, and when she tries to find her grandfather, she's caught by Kahl Himmler instead. Strangle strangle, "I do not understand the concept of love," strangle strangle shoot. Wait, WHAT? HE SHOOTS OLIVIA, JR? He shoots Olivia, Jr.! Ack!
Kahl Himmler shoots Olivia, Jr. after strangling her for a while and making her remember that day when she was blowing the dandelions and went missing, and then he just leaves her there, because? Because. Because, plot. Because Pacey and Olivia and Bishop need their moment with the dying Olivia, Jr.. Olivia, Jr. refuses to let them carry her out, worrying that she'll just slow them down, she's a goner anyway, and she shows them that's she's already set off an anti-matter baton. Olivia, understanding that Olivia, Jr. is for serious, tells her daughter one last time that she loves her so much. Olivia, Jr. assures her mother that she knows and hands Olivia the bullet necklace. Pacey, however, is not ready to let go of his daughter, not right after he just found her again, but it's too late because now she's dead, sad.
A few moments later Kahl Himmler along with some other Observers and BrownShirts go back inside to Olivia, Jr. thinking that the other Fringies will go to her, but all they find is an anti-mater baton that goes off in their faces, ka-boom. But then, curiously, Kahl Himmler is outside the building watching it dematerialize, meaning he transported himself out in the nick of time. Pacey and Bishop also watch the building disappear from afar, and Bishop whispers to Pacey that she's gone now. She's gone.
So, they really killed her? Really really? I just did not see that coming. I was expecting death, sure! Col. Abaddon? Absolutely. Bishop somewhere further on down the line? Of course. But I was not expecting the creators to kill off Olivia, Jr., and certainly not in the fourth episode of the final season. That's just craziness!
But kill her they (apparently) have, and we're left to figure out to what end. Clearly, this will give Pacey and Olivia renewed incentive to oust the Observers (not that they were lacking any to begin with), and if spoiler snippets from promos of future episodes are any indication, it looks like Olivia, Jr. literally becomes the face of the Resistance, perhaps inspiring others to join their cause.
Now, that all said, I have to note that I don't believe this is the last we've seen our little Olivia, Jr. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part, but there seemed to be a number of clues in this episode that there might be some hope of a return. For starters, the prevailing symbol of the episode was Olivia's bullet. "The bullet that saved the world." The titular bullet is clearly supposed to have a double meaning: Olivia's bullet, obviously, but also the bullet that kills Olivia, Jr. — as her death will clearly make her a martyr to the cause, and perhaps give it the momentum it needs to finally be successful (which is why Kahl Himmler had to shoot her and not just Darth Vader her to death — for symbolic purposes).
But what's important is what Olivia's bullet represents: by being shot in the head, Olivia lost her abilities, the same abilities that were fueling Dr. Bell's universe-destroying plan. Olivia's gifts were simultaneously constructive and destructive, and she had to die to save two separate worlds. But she didn't die, at least not eternally. Bishop, after killing her, was able to save her and bring her back to life, admittedly ability-less. Does this suggest that Olivia Jr.'s death might, somehow, in some way, be reversible? There is the briefest of hints in the videotape that they retrieve in the beginning of the episode that this might just be the case:
Before we begin, first and foremost, you must accept the reversibility of all phenomena… particles have their speeds reversed, then the changes – – found a measurable effect.
If all phenomena is reversible, that would suggest that Olivia Jr.'s death is reversible, somehow, too. (Or maybe Kahl Himmler wasn't the only one to make it out of that building in the nick of time … )
Furthermore, Olivia Jr.'s death and return would fit neatly into our monomyth, if it were to happen. There is a moment towards the end of the monomyth in which the hero "dies" either physically or spiritually, called the "apotheosis." Soon after this stage, the hero is able to retrieve the boon, the item that they set out on the journey for in the first place, and is able to return and save the day. It's possible that Olivia Jr. herself is the ultimate boon, the item that her parents were looking for this entire time, and that her death is the very thing that will help save the world, full stop. But it's also possible that her apotheosis is merely a period of rest she must undergo before she begins the journey back to the world she hasn't seen since she was a child.
Frankly, I won't be surprised or disappointed if either they have killed her off once and for all, or if Olivia, Jr. returns in some fashion. Her death was heartbreaking, but it also makes sense within the narrative: she had her atonement with her parents, and her death is clearly going to serve a greater purpose.
Speaking of the grand scheme, I'm curious about the parallel between mother and daughter and their "abilities." There is a lot of focus in this episode on Olivia Jr.'s special ability to not only block the Observers from her thoughts, but also her ability to teach others how to do it too. Clearly, this thought-blocking skill will be a part of the overall plan, but it's interesting that Olivia Jr. is killed before she is able to pass this skill along to her own family. It's established that Col. Abaddon has the ability and that he may somehow be able to teach the rest, I suppose. But I think it's interesting that Olivia has to die because of her ability, and Olivia, Jr, dies despite her ability. Or before she is able to pass along her ability. Or something. I'm still hazy on how this parallel is being drawn, honestly.
Finally, we have yet another episode that is filled with descents into the underworld. Bishop stashes both his Fringe samples and the inscrutable plans beneath the ground for safe-keeping. It's yet more katabasis imagery, suggesting that our heroes must continue to pass through death to reach their goal. And this imagery has never been more relevant than in this episode. However, it's worth noting that they continue to have to go down further and further, which worries me more and more.
Easter Eggs
"Kilroy was here" was a bit of graffiti that American GI's would inscribe during World War II, to the point that Hitler believed "Kilroy" was an American spy. Obviously the Nazi/Observer, Allies/Resistance parallels are what are interesting here.
The face melty fringe event was first used by Mr. Jones in "Ability," in which Olivia learns about her Kortexiphan past and her abilities, and Penn Station plays a large role in "Entrada," the second season episode in which Olivia returns from Over There to Over Here. Also, the porcupine man from "The Transformation" and "Nothing As it Seems" made a cameo, which O HAI, PORCUPINE MAN! I'm not sure if these were just coincidences or if these particular episodes were specifically alluded to for a reason, but it's worth noting.
The Glyphs read WOUND.
Fringe airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on Fox.
Therese is also watching Saturday Night Live, The Real Housewives of Miami, and American Horror Story.


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Beside these behind the scene updates, there are still quite afew points you will enjoy in this release!
- Live chat implementation
- Profiles direct links
- New direct links format to make them understand by all browsers
- Top downloaded asset in profiles
- Fixed styling display for user inputs
- Avatar manager to save server ressources
- Fixed pm page header
- Emptying private message when logging out
- Fixed avatars
- Hiding search filter when logging out
- Hide cancel button after successful pm sending
- Fixing asset image replacement when clicking on the magnifier
- Fixed pack liking
This new release is available for download either here on the website or by launching SparkShare
SparkShare 1.3 is, for now, the end of new features. I will maintain this version bugfree and if needed release patches for it, but will not implement new functions.
In hope to bring life to it, I have started to extract interesting assemblies and brains from uploaded world in Project Spark, and released them under a SparkShare account. If you are an Xbox gamer without a way to SparkShare but still want to share your awesome creations with the rest of the world, visit This topic

subset: commoncrawl


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Dartmouth trustee Peter Robinson appears with a Saturday message for Dartmouth alumni over at NRO's Corner:
As you know, voting on a undemocratic new alumni constitution is now taking place. Those who favor the proposed document—that is, those who wish to entrench the College establishment, protecting the status quo from the challenges it would have to face if alumni were permitted genuine democracy—have already spent tens of thousands of dollars on their campaign. Slick mass mailings. Massive emailings. Pre-recorded telephone messages. Washington political consultants. Even a telephone "push-poll" to thousands of Dartmouth women and men.
Yet as of this morning, those of us who oppose the undemocratic new constitution may take heart. Why? Because some unknown David—almost certainly, I think, a current undergradate at the College—has stepped forward, pulled out his sling, and hit Goliath right between the eyes.
Peter doesn't unveil David's sling in his post over at the Corner; he links to it. Thanks to YouTube, however, we proudly present Vox the Vote. Please check it out and vote if you haven't already.


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Vick Mickunas
Host - Book Nook
Vick Mickunas introduced the Book Nook author interview program for WYSO in 1994. Over the years he has produced more than 1500 interviews with writers, musicians, poets, politicians, and celebrities. Listen to the Book Nook with Vick Mickunas for intimate conversations about books with the writers who create them. Vick Mickunas reviews books for the Dayton Daily News and the Springfield News Sun.


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The Philharmonic's six-concert season will be themed "Nature and Music: The Spirit of Boulder."
In addition to playing five classical symphonic concerts and one family concert featuring film music, the Phil will again collaborate with the Boulder Ballet in the annual "Nutcracker" on Thanksgiving weekend.
Butterman said the "nature" theme emerged organically from programs that had already started to come together. It includes collaborations with two non-musical, non-artistic entities that Butterman described as "exciting and very Boulder":
The City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks will lead various outings with musical excerpts to accompany them, among other contributions.
The Boulder-based Geological Society of America, in collaboration with the Phil, will commemorate its 125th anniversary by commissioning a new large work from composer Jeffrey Nytch. Nytch's work, which he calls his First Symphony and is subtitled "Formations," is the centerpiece of the Phil's opening concert on Sept. 7.
Nytch directs the Entrepreneurship Center for Music at the University of Colorado and has a dual major in music and geology. His four-movement work is inspired by the geology of the area.
Butterman said he will pair the Nytch symphony with Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes from the opera "Peter Grimes."
"I thought it would be interesting to pair pieces based on land and sea," Butterman said.
The concert will conclude with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, a beloved work not previously played by the Phil in Butterman's tenure. The orchestra will be joined by acclaimed Israeli pianist Inon Barnatan.
The Phil's second concert, on Nov. 2, is a multi-organization collaboration featuring the CU University Singers, Boulder Ballet and Frequent Flyers Productions in an all-American program. The featured composer is Aaron Copland, whose popular "Appalachian Spring" will be performed with choreography by both dance organizations. The piece, often played as an orchestral tone poem, was originally envisioned as a ballet.
The suite from Copland's opera "The Tender Land" also will be played. It features the choir singing the final movement, "The Promise of Living." The suite is an orchestral version, but the voices will be incorporated from the opera score. The University Singers also will perform in Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms." Continuing the "Appalachian" theme, "Rusty Air in Carolina" by contemporary composer Mason Bates will open the program.
On Jan. 11, beloved violinist Rachel Barton Pine joins the orchestra in a program featuring multiple connections between the works and the season theme. Barton Pine plays the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg, which quotes a chorale tune harmonized by J.S. Bach. The orchestra plays the Brahms Fourth Symphony, which uses another Bach chorale as the basis for its final movement. Butterman opens with an arrangement by Leopold Stokowski of Bach's song "Komm, suesser Tod."
Completing the program is Gustav Mahler's "Blumine," which originally formed part of his First Symphony. The work provides a "nature" connection with its flower imagery. Butterman noted that the Berg concerto was written as a memorial to the daughter of Mahler's widow.
On Feb. 22, the orchestra plays a concert featuring music from Oscar-winning and nominated films, including the climate change documentary "Chasing Ice" by Boulder photographer James Balog. The film was nominated for Best Original Song with "Before My Time." Music by John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, and Elmer Bernstein also will be featured.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein, who entranced Boulder audiences at last summer's Colorado Music Festival, returns with the Phil on March 22. She plays a concerto written for her by Juilliard composer Philip Lasser, along with Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The orchestra plays Debussy's "La Mer" and Minnesota composer Steve Heitzeg's "Ghosts of the Grasslands."
The Phil's final concert, on April 26, includes two of the best-known "nature" works from the classical canon, Smetana's "The Moldau" and Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, No. 6. Balancing these warhorses is a new concerto for mandolin written and performed by Jeff Midkiff. The work was premiered by the Roanoke Symphony in 2011 and is titled "From the Blue Ridge."
"It inspired me with its virtuosity," Butterman said of the piece. "It's kind of like bluegrass meets Copland and very Appalachian."
In Butterman's eighth season with the Phil, subscriptions will range from $55 to $224 and individual tickets from $13 to $70.
Subscriptions for 2013-14 are at an eight-year high, up 70 percent from 2007-08. Numbers are up 13 percent in ticket sales and 20 percent in ticket income, a growth the orchestra credits to Butterman's musical leadership and community engagement.
For information about season subscriptions and single ticket orders, visit boulderphil.org or call 303-449-1343 (ext. 2).


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Israel's tiny voice for peace all but drowned out
Tel Aviv: The Israeli deputy Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister, Moshe Yaalon, was unequivocal.
"Israelis all over the country support this action," he said at press conference this week about the crisis in Gaza.
Most certainly do, but a small minority of Israelis still raise a dissenting voice.
Last Friday in Tel Aviv, about a thousand people gathered to protest against the bombardment of Gaza. "We came here to say that another round of bloodshed is a problem. It is not a solution," the Knesset member and noted peace activist Dov Kenin told the crowd.
"The people demand a ceasefire," they chanted back.
YouTube videos of the event show that on the other side of the street, a smaller but louder group of pro-war demonstrators confronted them. "Go to Gaza with the Muslims," they called. "Let the Israeli army kick arse!"
There was another, tiny, protest in Jerusalem last Friday. About 50 Israelis stood, silently, dressed in black, not far from the residence of the Prime Minster, Benjamin Netanyahu, holding placards that read simply "Stop the Occupation".
It is far from the reported 100,000 who marched on the streets of Tel Aviv demanding peace in 1978, as Menachem Begin left for the talks that led to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.
"Yes, there is a very small group of people who are actively promoting peace in Israel," said Lior Amihai, a member of Peace Now, an NGO that supports a two-state solution to the conflict, which would include Israel withdrawing from most of its settlements on the West Bank.
"Since 2000, more than ever before, this group has been marginalised."
The reasons were complex, he said. The failure of peace talks in the past decade had brought pessimism about an eventual solution. "And there was a campaign that there was no partner for peace on the Palestinian side" after Ehud Barak, now the Defence Minister, "went to Camp David and came back to say it is impossible to negotiate."
Soon after that, the second intifada began.
You have to understand that the other side is like you. Yes, some of them are crazy, on both sides . . . but mostly people are just people.Ronny Israel
"If you are talking about Israeli society, what really distanced them from peace is the suicide bombings and the military operations in the West Bank," Mr Amihai said.
A second factor was that "almost everybody in Israel are soldiers". Everyone does military service, "and either you have a father, a brother, yourself, even your mother in the reserves – everybody is involved in defence, somewhere or other".
The third factor was the situation in Gaza itself, he said. Israel withdrew in September 2005, and "all we received is rockets from the Gaza Strip".
"So when you talk to people about what do you want from the Palestinians, they say 'We withdrew and look what we got.' "
"Everybody is afraid of the other side," said Ronny Israel, a Tel Aviv graphic arts teacher who founded the Facebook page Israel-Loves-Iran eight months ago, when Israelis thought their government would soon take military action over Iran's nuclear enrichment.
The page, with is simple, graphically strong, message "Please Stop the War", still exists and has become a message board for peace activism: this week, Israel said, half a million people had gone to it, and by the end of the week, he expected more then a million would visit it.
"But it's people from all over the world," he said. "There is not enough engagement from Israelis and Palestinians in that issue."
The peace movement in Israel was small, he said, because "it is very complicated to ask for peace". There were too many complexities in the relationship between the two people.
"Because of the violence, everybody is in his own position and unwilling to make a move to the other side. But to me, this is the first step in any peace process. You have to understand that the other side is like you. Yes, some of them are crazy, on both sides . . . but mostly people are just people."
Most Israelis and Palestinians were ready to live in peace, he said, but the extremists had a louder voice in the public debate.
There is only one party in the Knesset openly talking about a two-state solution, ?Meretz, a left-wing alliance with a relatively small support base.
The Netanyahu Government maintains support for the settlements and a hard line on military action against violence.
This week the Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, said: "The goal of the [Pillar of Defence] operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for 40 years."
"Of course it is hard to maintain optimism," Mr Amihai said. "They [Israelis] believe the Government and what it says."
Judith Whelan travelled to Israel to take part in a study tour sponsored by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies. She has remained to cover the escalating conflict.
Judith Whelan is the News Director of The Sydney Morning Herald


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By V. Phani Kumar
Good morning.
When the clock strikes midnight Eastern Time in a few hours, the numerous fiscal-cliff countdown clocks out there will stop. But it's still unclear if a deal will be struck in Washington before 2013 arrives.
It'll certainly rain proposals Monday as GOP and Democratic Party lawmakers practice back-and-forth moves for the last dance of the year. But will they tango in the end? Read more on Sen. Mitch McConnell's invitation for a dance partner.
The Reformed Broker refers to the Sage of Omaha's remarks to make the point that it won't matter either way.
"When all is said and done, off the cliff or on it, you will still get out of bed next year, make the kids breakfast and put them on the school bus. Having some kind of advanced edge on the Fiscal Cliff's outcome will not change that," Joshua Brown writes in the post.
Reuters's Zachary Karabell echoes the thought, saying: "The fiscal cliff, rather than dooming us, may reveal that government as an economic actor is less potent than all sides of the political spectrum assume."
Also, news over the weekend from France, where a decision to tax the rich at a higher rate was overturned by the constitutional watchdog, demands attention.
Still, many, many others are clearly worried.
Zero Hedge's Tyler Durden, for one, recalls S&P's downgrade of U.S. creditworthiness, noting that the impact from that action "stands as an omen to what will befall the U.S. in the event that the fiscal cliff isn't resolved smoothly."
So, again, will lawmakers tango on the edge of the cliff?
Seeking Alpha's Brendan O'Boyle shows how the impasse can be analyzed using mathemetician John Nash's Game Theory, and to determine whether, and indeed, what deal can be reached.
Key market gauges:
U.S. equity futures are indicating a steady start after a five-day losing streak; DJIA futures were last flat, letting early gains slip by, while S&P futures higher by 0.2%. And barring any major surprises, the main indexes should all sail into the new year with neat, if not huge, gains. The DJIA /quotes/zigman/627449 DJIA ended last week with a 5.9% year-to-date advance, while S&P 500 /quotes/zigman/3870025 SPX and Nasdaq Composite /quotes/zigman/12633936 COMP were up 11.5% and 13.6%, respectively.
There's no data on sked worth mentioning, but China's Shanghai Composite /quotes/zigman/1859015 CN:000001 finished the year with a 3.2% gain, recording half of those gains Monday after HSBC's final PMI for December saw a meaningfully large revision to the upside from the preliminary data released earlier in the month. Read more about China PMI.
The buzz: Keep an eye out for the VIX /quotes/zigman/2766221 VIX after Friday's terrific surge, the best in the year to date.
"Investors don't trust Washington to get a resolution any time soon, and are willing to pay a high premium to protect themselves. The risk-on trade is on," Sober Look's Walter Kurtz writes in a Pragmatic Capitalism post.
Duff & Phelps Corp. /quotes/zigman/481476 /quotes/nls/duf DUF might also need watching after it agreed to be acquired by a consortium that includes entities managed by Carlyle Group LP /quotes/zigman/9872907 /quotes/nls/cg CG . Read full story.
And The Motley Fool's John Grgurich writes in this post that perhaps none other has been affected by the bursting of the housing bubble as much as Bank of America Corp. /quotes/zigman/190927 /quotes/nls/bac BAC .
The chart of the day: Facebook Inc.'s /quotes/zigman/9962609 /quotes/nls/fb FB share price may not be anywhere near its IPO level, but here's a chart from Business Insider Intelligence that may please its investors.
Citing data from eMarketer, BI notes that Facebook's mobile display ad revenue for 2012 likely amounted to roughly $340 million, representing an 18.4% jump.
"It's early days yet for Facebook's mobile ads, and there are no guarantees the company's mobile ad formats will continue to succeed indefinitely," BI notes. Even so, "Facebook's surge shows that competitive dynamics can shift very quickly in mobile."
The call of the day: Seeking Alpha contributor Matthew Frankel's call to buy Citigroup Inc. and to sell BAC. Using 2014 earnings estimates as the guide and the sector's average PE multiple of 9.4 times, Frankel arrives at a one-year price target of $43.71 (Vs. Friday's close of $39.01) for Citi and a $9.02 estimate for BAC (Vs. its close at $11.36 on Friday).
Frankel says that those who invested in both stocks five years ago would have lost more money in Citi than in BAC, as the former was more exposed to toxic assets. But that was "in the past," and while Citi's "rebuilding efforts may be starting to bear fruit," he advises caution over the overhang related to the finalization of BAC's two legal settlements.
Also worth a glance, Delian Naydenov's views on Seeking Alpha that MasterCard /quotes/zigman/390906 /quotes/nls/ma MA and Visa /quotes/zigman/502306 /quotes/nls/v V will continue to profit in 2013, and stocks, including Facebook and Apple /quotes/zigman/68270 /quotes/nls/aapl AAPL , entering Sean Udall's buying ranges in this Minyanville post.
Random reads: Before we flip the calendar to a new year, one more article to remind us of the effect of climate change, this one in the U.K.'s Guardian.
For passengers, passers by, or rescuers at crashes involving electric vehicles, here's a CNN report on the possible dangers to be aware of.
Here's a glimpse of Zynga's /quotes/zigman/7720406 /quotes/nls/znga ZNGA cost-cutting effort. The gaming major has shut down, pulled off application stories, or stopped accepting new players to 11 games, including PetVille and Mafia Wars 2, Tech Crunch reports.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Tribune Co. is emerging from bankruptcy four years after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
For a little spark of inspiration, here are 15 rich and famous people, in this Business Insider compilation, who used to be homeless.
And finally, as you look ahead to the day's Fiscal cliff drama, an AP story with people's verdict that "fiscal cliff" be stricken from the English language.
Happy New Year to you all.


text:
A Twitter hashtag named RallyZito that was started by a Giants' fan was trending worldwide on Friday night.
Named after Giants left-hander Barry Zito and started by a fan, it had close to 25,000 tweets by the time Zito departed Game 5 with a 5-0 lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series and had trended as high as No. 2 worldwide.
Zito came through for his supporters, allowing six hits and one walk to help send the series back to San Francisco for Game 6 on Sunday.
The hashtag began on Thursday about midway through the Cardinals' 8-3 victory over the Giants in Game 4. It appeared to really take off about mid-morning Friday and continued to gather steam throughout the day.


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When uploading multiple files via Firefox in some OS, it will freeze Firefox sometimes, then you need to kill the Firefox process. It is a problem between new version Firefox and new version Flash player.
The solution is: Open Firefox, goto the address line, type "about:config", find the item "dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll" and switch it to "false". Then Firefox will work perfectly.


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The UK's first ever Identity Fraud Prevention Week will run from 17 - 23 October. It's actually on ITV News as I type this. Temporary Call centre staff at Banks have been known to steal bank account information so it's not just a case of shredding important documents, it seems no one can be trusted these days which is pretty sad.
Almost 20m UK households are opening themselves up to fraud by failing to take precautions against identity theft, according to new research marking the UK's first-ever National Identity Fraud Prevention Week. Click on the link below for the full article.
Millions of UK households at risk of ID theft


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Frequent Links
Blue whale
The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the baleen whales (Mysticeti).[9] At Script error: No such module "convert".[10] in length and Script error: No such module "convert".[11] or more in weight, it is the largest existing animal and the heaviest that has ever existed.[12]
Long and slender, the blue whale's body can be various shades of bluish-grey dorsally and somewhat lighter underneath.[13] There are at least three distinct subspecies: B. m. musculus of the North Atlantic and North Pacific, B. m. intermedia of the Southern Ocean and B. m. brevicauda (also known as the pygmy blue whale) found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. B. m. indica, found in the Indian Ocean, may be another subspecies. As with other baleen whales, its diet consists almost exclusively of small crustaceans known as krill.[14]
Blue whales were abundant in nearly all the oceans on Earth until the beginning of the twentieth century. For over a century, they were hunted almost to extinction by whalers until protected by the international community in 1966. A 2002 report estimated there were 5,000 to 12,000 blue whales worldwide,[15] located in at least five groups. More recent research into the Pygmy subspecies suggests this may be an underestimate.[16] Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239,000 (range 202,000 to 311,000).[17] There remain only much smaller (around 2,000) concentrations in each of the eastern North Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Ocean groups. There are two more groups in the North Atlantic, and at least two in the Southern Hemisphere. As of 2014, the Californian blue whale population has rebounded to nearly its pre-hunting population.[18]
- 1 Taxonomy
- 2 Description and behaviour
- 3 Population and whaling
- 4 Museums
- 5 Whale-watching
- 6 See also
- 7 Footnotes
- 8 References
- 9 Further reading
- 10 External links
Blue whales are rorquals (family Balaenopteridae), a family that includes the humpback whale, the fin whale, Bryde's whale, the sei whale, and the minke whale.[9] The family Balaenopteridae is believed to have diverged from the other families of the suborder Mysticeti as long ago as the middle Oligocene (28 Ma ago). It is not known when the members of those families diverged from each other.
The blue whale is usually classified as one of eight species in the genus Balaenoptera; one authority places it in a separate monotypic genus, Sibbaldus,[19] but this is not accepted elsewhere.[1] DNA sequencing analysis indicates that the blue whale is phylogenetically closer to the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) and Bryde's whale (Balaenoptera brydei) than to other Balaenoptera species, and closer to the humpback whale (Megaptera) and the gray whale (Eschrichtius) than to the minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata and Balaenoptera bonaerensis).[20][21] If further research confirms these relationships, it will be necessary to reclassify the rorquals.
There have been at least 11 documented cases of blue-fin hybrid adults in the wild. Arnason and Gullberg describe the genetic distance between a blue and a fin as about the same as that between a human and a gorilla.[22] Researchers working off Fiji believe they photographed a hybrid humpback-blue whale[23] including the case of discovery thorough DNA analyzing from a meat sample found on Japanese market.[24][25]
The first published description of the blue whale comes from Robert Sibbald's Phalainologia Nova (1694). In September 1692, Sibbald found a blue whale that had stranded in the Firth of Forth—a male Script error: No such module "convert".-long—which had "black, horny plates" and "two large apertures approaching a pyramid in shape".[26]
The specific name musculus is Latin and could mean "muscle", but it can also be interpreted as "little mouse".[27] Carl Linnaeus, who named the species in his seminal Systema Naturae of 1758,[28] would have known this and may have intended the ironic double meaning.[29] Herman Melville called this species "sulphur-bottom" in his novel Moby-Dick due to an orange-brown or yellow tinge on the underparts from diatom films on the skin. Other common names for the blue whale have included "Sibbald's rorqual" (after Sibbald, who first described the species), the "great blue whale" and the "great northern rorqual". These names have now fallen into disuse. The first known usage of the term "blue whale" was in Melville's Moby-Dick, which only mentions it in passing and does not specifically attribute it to the species in question. The name was really derived from the Norwegian blåhval, coined by Svend Foyn shortly after he had perfected the harpoon gun; the Norwegian scientist G. O. Sars adopted it as the Norwegian common name in 1874.[26]
Authorities classify the species into three or four subspecies: B. m. musculus, the northern blue whale consisting of the North Atlantic and North Pacific populations, B. m. intermedia, the southern blue whale of the Southern Ocean, B. m. brevicauda, the pygmy blue whale found in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific,[30] and the more problematic B. m. indica, the great Indian rorqual, which is also found in the Indian Ocean and, although described earlier, may be the same subspecies as B. m. brevicauda.[1]
Description and behaviour
The blue whale has a long tapering body that appears stretched in comparison with the stockier build of other whales.[31] The head is flat, U-shaped and has a prominent ridge running from the blowhole to the top of the upper lip.[31] The front part of the mouth is thick with baleen plates; around 300 plates (each around one metre (3.2 ft) long)[31] hang from the upper jaw, running Script error: No such module "convert". back into the mouth. Between 70 and 118 grooves (called ventral pleats) run along the throat parallel to the body length. These pleats assist with evacuating water from the mouth after lunge feeding (see feeding below).
The dorsal fin is small,[31] ranging in height from Script error: No such module "convert". (usually Script error: No such module "convert".) and averaging about Script error: No such module "convert"..[32] It is visible only briefly during the dive sequence. Located around three-quarters of the way along the length of the body, it varies in shape from one individual to another; some only have a barely perceptible lump, but others may have prominent and falcate (sickle-shaped) dorsals. When surfacing to breathe, the blue whale raises its shoulder and blowhole out of the water to a greater extent than other large whales, such as the fin or sei whales. Observers can use this trait to differentiate between species at sea. Some blue whales in the North Atlantic and North Pacific raise their tail fluke when diving. When breathing, the whale emits a spectacular vertical single-column spout up to Script error: No such module "convert"., typically Script error: No such module "convert".. Its lung capacity is 5,000 litres (1320 U.S. gallons). Blue whales have twin blowholes shielded by a large splashguard.[31]
The flippers are Script error: No such module "convert". long. The upper sides are grey with a thin white border; the lower sides are white. The head and tail fluke are generally uniformly grey. The whale's upper parts, and sometimes the flippers, are usually mottled. The degree of mottling varies substantially from individual to individual. Some may have a uniform slate-grey color, but others demonstrate a considerable variation of dark blues, greys and blacks, all tightly mottled.[9]
Blue whales can reach speeds of Script error: No such module "convert". over short bursts, usually when interacting with other whales, but Script error: No such module "convert". is a more typical traveling speed.[9] When feeding, they slow down to Script error: No such module "convert"..
Blue whales most commonly live alone or with one other individual. It is not known how long traveling pairs stay together. In locations where there is a high concentration of food, as many as 50 blue whales have been seen scattered over a small area. They do not form the large, close-knit groups seen in other baleen species.
The blue whale is the largest animal ever known to have lived.[33][34] By comparison, one of the largest known dinosaurs of the Mesozoic Era was Argentinosaurus,[35] which is estimated to have weighed up to Script error: No such module "convert"., comparable to the average of blue whale.[36] Amphicoelias fragillimus, at an estimated Script error: No such module "convert". is still lighter than the largest blue whales, despite being Script error: No such module "convert". in length.[37]
Blue whales are difficult to weigh because of their size. As is the case with most large whales targeted by whalers, adult blue whales have never been weighed whole, but cut up into manageable pieces first. This caused an underestimate of the total weight of the whale, due to the loss of blood and other fluids. As a whole, blue whales from the Northern Atlantic and Pacific appear to be smaller on average than those from sub-Antarctic waters. Nevertheless, measurements between Script error: No such module "convert". were recorded of animals up to Script error: No such module "convert". in length. The weight of an individual Script error: No such module "convert". long is believed by the American National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) to be in excess of Script error: No such module "convert".. The largest blue whale accurately weighed by NMML scientists to date was a female that weighed Script error: No such module "convert"..[15]
There is some uncertainty about the biggest blue whale ever found, as most data came from blue whales killed in Antarctic waters during the first half of the twentieth century, which were collected by whalers not well-versed in standard zoological measurement techniques. The heaviest whale ever recorded weighed in at approximately Script error: No such module "convert"..[38] The longest whales ever recorded were two females measuring Script error: No such module "convert"., although in neither of these cases was the piecemeal weight gathered.[39] The longest whale measured by scientists at the NMML was a Script error: No such module "convert".,[15] female caught in the Antarctic by Japanese whalers in 1946–47. Lieut. Quentin R. Walsh, USCG, while acting as whaling inspector of the factory ship Ulysses, verified the measurement of a Script error: No such module "convert". pregnant blue whale caught in the Antarctic in the 1937–38 season.[40] The longest reported in the North Pacific was a Script error: No such module "convert". female taken by Japanese whalers in 1959, and the longest reported in the North Atlantic was a Script error: No such module "convert". female caught in the Davis Strait.[26]
Due to its large size, several organs of the blue whale are the largest in the animal kingdom. A blue whale's tongue weighs around Script error: No such module "convert".[41] and, when fully expanded, its mouth is large enough to hold up to Script error: No such module "convert". of food and water.[14] Despite the size of its mouth, the dimensions of its throat are such that a blue whale cannot swallow an object wider than a beach ball.[42] Its heart weighs Script error: No such module "convert". and is Script error: No such module "convert". wide, with a thoracic aorta estimated to be Script error: No such module "convert". in diameter.[43] During the first seven months of its life, a blue whale calf drinks approximately Script error: No such module "convert". of milk every day. Blue whale calves gain weight quickly, as much as Script error: No such module "convert". every 24 hours. Even at birth, they weigh up to Script error: No such module "convert".—the same as a fully grown hippopotamus.[9] Blue whales have relatively small brains, only about Script error: No such module "convert". , about 0.007% of its body weight.[44] The blue whale penis is the largest penis of any living organism[45] and also set the Guinness World Record as the longest of any animal's.[46] The reported average length varies but is usually mentioned to have an average length of Script error: No such module "convert". to Script error: No such module "convert"..[47]
Blue whales feed almost exclusively on krill, though they also take small numbers of copepods.[33] The species of this zooplankton eaten by blue whales varies from ocean to ocean. In the North Atlantic, Meganyctiphanes norvegica, Thysanoessa raschii, Thysanoessa inermis and Thysanoessa longicaudata are the usual food;[48][49][50] in the North Pacific, Euphausia pacifica, Thysanoessa inermis, Thysanoessa longipes, Thysanoessa spinifera, Nyctiphanes symplex and Nematoscelis megalops;[51][52][53] and in the Southern Hemisphere, Euphausia superba, Euphausia crystallorophias, Euphausia valentini, and Nyctiphanes australis.
An adult blue whale can eat up to 40 million krill in a day.[34] The whales always feed in the areas with the highest concentration of krill, sometimes eating up to Script error: No such module "convert". of krill in a single day.[33] The daily energy requirement of an adult blue whale is in the region of 1.5 million kilocalories.[54] Their feeding habits are seasonal. Blue whales gorge on krill in the rich waters of the Antarctic before migrating to their breeding grounds in the warmer, less-rich waters nearer the equator. The blue whale can take in up to 90 times as much energy as it expends, allowing it to build up considerable energy reserves.[55][56][57]
Because krill move, blue whales typically feed at depths of more than Script error: No such module "convert". during the day and only surface-feed at night. Dive times are typically 10 minutes when feeding, though dives of up to 21 minutes are possible. The whale feeds by lunging forward at groups of krill, taking the animals and a large quantity of water into its mouth. The water is then squeezed out through the baleen plates by pressure from the ventral pouch and tongue. Once the mouth is clear of water, the remaining krill, unable to pass through the plates, are swallowed. The blue whale also incidentally consumes small fish, crustaceans and squid caught up with krill.[58][59]
Life history
Mating starts in late autumn and continues to the end of winter.[60] Little is known about mating behaviour or breeding grounds. Females typically give birth once every two to three years at the start of the winter after a gestation period of 10 to 12 months.[60] The calf weighs about Script error: No such module "convert". and is around Script error: No such module "convert". in length. Blue whale calves drink 380–570 litres (100–150 U.S. gallons) of milk a day. Blue whale milk has an energy content of about 18,300 kJ/kg (4,370 kcal/kg).[61] The calf is weaned after six months, by which time it has doubled in length. Sexual maturity is typically reached at five to ten years of age. In the Northern Hemisphere, whaling records show that males averaged Script error: No such module "convert". and females Script error: No such module "convert". at sexual maturity,[62] while in the Southern Hemisphere it was Script error: No such module "convert"., respectively.[63] In the Northern Hemisphere, as adults, males averaged Script error: No such module "convert". and females Script error: No such module "convert"., while in the Southern Hemisphere males averaged Script error: No such module "convert". and females Script error: No such module "convert"..[62][63] In the eastern North Pacific, photogrammetric studies have shown sexually mature (but not necessarily fully grown) blue whales today average Script error: No such module "convert"., with a maximum of over Script error: No such module "convert".[64] – although a Script error: No such module "convert". female stranded near Pescadero, California in 1979.[65]
Scientists estimate that blue whales can live for at least 80 years,[39][60][66] but since individual records do not date back into the whaling era, this will not be known with certainty for many years. The longest recorded study of a single individual is 34 years, in the eastern North Pacific.[67] The whales' only natural predator is the orca.[68] Studies report that as many as 25% of mature blue whales have scars resulting from orca attacks.[39] The mortality rate of such attacks is unknown.
Blue whale strandings are extremely uncommon, and, because of the species' social structure, mass strandings are unheard of.[69] When strandings do occur, they can become the focus of public interest. In 1920, a blue whale washed up near Bragar on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It had been shot by whalers, but the harpoon had failed to explode. As with other mammals, the fundamental instinct of the whale was to try to carry on breathing at all costs, even though this meant beaching to prevent itself from drowning. Two of the whale's bones were erected just off a main road on Lewis and remain a tourist attraction.[70]
Multimedia relating to the blue whale
Note that the whale calls have been sped up 10x from their original speed.
Recorded in the Atlantic (1)
Recorded in the Atlantic (2)
Recorded in the Atlantic (3)
Recorded in North Eastern Pacific
Recorded in the South Pacific
Recorded in the West Pacific
|Problems playing these files? See media help.
Estimates made by Cummings and Thompson (1971) suggest the source level of sounds made by blue whales are between 155 and 188 decibels when measured relative to a reference pressure of one micropascal at one metre.[71][72] All blue whale groups make calls at a fundamental frequency between 10 and 40 Hz; the lowest frequency sound a human can typically perceive is 20 Hz. Blue whale calls last between ten and thirty seconds. Blue whales off the coast of Sri Lanka have been repeatedly recorded making "songs" of four notes, lasting about two minutes each, reminiscent of the well-known humpback whale songs. As this phenomenon has not been seen in any other populations, researchers believe it may be unique to the B. m. brevicauda (pygmy) subspecies.
The purpose of vocalization is unknown. Richardson et al. (1995) discuss six possible reasons:[73]
- Maintenance of inter-individual distance
- Species and individual recognition
- Contextual information transmission (for example feeding, alarm, courtship)
- Maintenance of social organization (for example contact calls between females and males)
- Location of topographic features
- Location of prey resources
Population and whaling
Hunting era
Blue whales are not easy to catch or kill. Their speed and power meant that they were rarely pursued by early whalers, who instead targeted sperm and right whales.[74] In 1864, the Norwegian Svend Foyn equipped a steamboat with harpoons specifically designed for catching large whales.[9] Although it was initially cumbersome and had a low success rate, Foyn perfected the harpoon gun, and soon several whaling stations were established on the coast of Finnmark in northern Norway. Because of disputes with the local fishermen, the last whaling station in Finnmark was closed down in 1904.
Soon, blue whales were being hunted off Iceland (1883), the Faroe Islands (1894), Newfoundland (1898), and Spitsbergen (1903). In 1904–05 the first blue whales were taken off South Georgia. By 1925, with the advent of the stern slipway in factory ships and the use of steam-driven whale catchers, the catch of blue whales, and baleen whales as a whole, in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic began to increase dramatically. In the 1930–31 season, these ships caught 29,400 blue whales in the Antarctic alone. By the end of World War II, populations had been significantly depleted, and, in 1946, the first quotas restricting international trade in whales were introduced, but they were ineffective because of the lack of differentiation between species. Rare species could be hunted on an equal footing with those found in relative abundance.
Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1962 book Profiles of the Future, was the first prominent intellectual to call attention to the plight of the blue whale. He mentioned its large brain and said, "we do not know the true nature of the entity we are destroying."[75]
All of historical coastal Asian groups were driven into virtual extinctions in very short period by Japanese industrial hunts.[76] Those groups once migrated along western Japan to East China Sea were likely to be wiped out much earlier as the last catches on Amami Oshima was between 1910s and 1930s,[77] and the last of known stranding records on Japanese archipelago excluding Ryukyu Islands were over a half - century ago. Commercial catches were continued until 1965 and whaling stations targeting blues were mainly placed along Hokkaido and Sanriku coasts.[76]
Blue whale hunting was banned in 1966 by the International Whaling Commission,[78][79] and illegal whaling by the Soviet Union finally halted in the 1970s,[80] by which time 330,000 blue whales had been caught in the Antarctic, 33,000 in the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, 8,200 in the North Pacific, and 7,000 in the North Atlantic. The largest original population, in the Antarctic, had been reduced to 0.15% of their initial numbers.[17]
Population and distribution today
Since the introduction of the whaling ban, studies have examined whether the conservation reliant global blue whale population is increasing or remaining stable. In the Antarctic, best estimates show an increase of 7.3% per year since the end of illegal Soviet whaling, but numbers remain at under 1% of their original levels.[17] According to a 2014 study, the Californian Blue Whale population has rebounded to an estimated 97% of its pre-hunting population.[81]
The total world population was estimated to be between 5,000 and 12,000 in 2002, although there are high levels of uncertainty in available estimates for many areas.[15]
The IUCN Red List counts the blue whale as "endangered" as it has since the list's inception. In the United States, the National Marine Fisheries Service lists them as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.[82] The largest known concentration, consisting of about 2,800 individuals, is the northeast Pacific population of the northern blue whale (B. m. musculus) subspecies that ranges from Alaska to Costa Rica, but is most commonly seen from California in summer.[83] Infrequently, this population visits the northwest Pacific between Kamchatka and the northern tip of Japan.
North Atlantic
In the North Atlantic, two stocks of B. m. musculus are recognised. The first is found off Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. This group is estimated to total about 500. The second, more easterly group is spotted from the Azores in spring to Iceland in July and August; it is presumed the whales follow the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between the two volcanic islands. Beyond Iceland, blue whales have been spotted as far north as Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen, though such sightings are rare. Scientists do not know where these whales spend their winters. The total North Atlantic population is estimated to be between 600 and 1,500. Off Ireland, the first ever confirmed sightings were made in 2008,[84] since then Porcupine Seabight has been regarded as a prominent habitat for the species along with Fin Whales.
North Pacific
Of the populations that once existed off coastal Japan, the last recorded confirmed stranding was in the 1950s.[85] Some scientists regard that historical populations off Japan were driven to extinction by whaling activities, mostly from the Kumanonada Sea off Wakayama, in Tosa Bay, and in the Sea of Hyūga. Nowadays, possible vagrants from either eastern or offshore populations are observed on very rare occasions off Kushiro.[86] There were also small, but constant catch records around the Korean Peninsula and in the coastal waters of the Sea of Japan although this species is considered not to enter into marginal seas, such as the Sea of Okhotsk, on usual migrations. Whales were known to migrate further north to eastern Kamchatka, the Gulf of Anadyr and the Commander Islands. Only three sightings were made between 1994 and 2004 in Russia[87] and whales have not been confirmed in Commander Islands for over past 80 years.[88] Historically, wintering grounds existed off the Hawaiian Archipelago, Northern Mariana Islands, Bonin Islands and Ryukyu Islands, Philippines, Taiwan, Zhoushan Archipelago, and South China Sea coasts[89] such as in Daya Bay, Leizhou Peninsula, and Hainan Island, and further south to Paracel Islands.[90] Archaeological records suggest Blue whales once migrated into Sea of Japan coasts of Korean Peninsula and Japanese coasts, and to Yellow and Bohai Sea as well.[91] During cetacean sighting visual surveys in Tsushima Strait conducted by Japanese Coast Guard, several of gigantic whales measuring over 20m in length have been observed in recent years, however their exact identities are unclear.[92] A stranding was recorded in Wanning in 2005.[93] For further status in Chinese and Korean waters, see Wildlife of China.
Southern Hemisphere
In the Southern Hemisphere, there appear to be two distinct subspecies, B. m. intermedia, the Antarctic blue whale, and the little-studied pygmy blue whale, B. m. brevicauda, found in Indian Ocean waters. The most recent surveys (midpoint 1998) provided an estimate of 2,280 blue whales in the Antarctic[94] (of which fewer than 1% are likely to be pygmy blue whales).[95] Estimates from a 1996 survey show that 424 pygmy blue whales were in a small area south of Madagascar alone,[96] thus it is likely that numbers in the entire Indian Ocean are in the thousands. If this is true, the global numbers would be much higher than estimates predict.[16]
Several congregating grounds are recently confirmed in Oceania, such as on Perth Canyon off Rottnest Island, waters of Great Australian Bight off Portland, and in South Taranaki Bight. Both species of Southern Blues and Pygmy Blues use waters off Western Australia, and coastal areas of eastern North Island of New Zealand, from Northland waters such as in the Bay of Islands and Hauraki Gulf in north to Bay of Plenty in the south as breeding and calving grounds by some females, and as migratory colliders (very close to shore in the NZ region[97]). At least for whales off southern and Western Australia and some others are known to migrate into tropic coastal waters in Indonesia,[98] Philippines,[99] and off East Timor [100] (animals in Philippines may or may not originate from North Pacific populations as whales regularly appear off Bohol, north of the Equator[101][102]).
Subspecies' distribution
A fourth subspecies, B. m. indica, was identified by Blyth in 1859 in the northern Indian Ocean, but difficulties in identifying distinguishing features for this subspecies led to it being used as a synonym for B. m. brevicauda, the pygmy blue whale. Records for Soviet catches seem to indicate that the female adult size is closer to that of the Pygmy Blue than B. m. musculus, although the populations of B. m. indica and B. m. brevicauda appear to be discrete, and the breeding seasons differ by almost six months.[103]
Migratory patterns of these subspecies are not well known. For example, pygmy blue whales have been recorded in the northern Indian Ocean (Oman, Maldives and Sri Lanka), where they may form a distinct resident population.[103] In addition, the population of blue whales occurring off Chile and Peru may also be a distinct subspecies. Some Antarctic blue whales approach the eastern South Atlantic coast in winter, and occasionally, their vocalizations are heard off Peru, Western Australia, and in the northern Indian Ocean.[103] In Chile, the Cetacean Conservation Center, with support from the Chilean Navy, is undertaking extensive research and conservation work on a recently discovered feeding aggregation of the species off the coast of Chiloe Island in the Gulf of Corcovado(Chiloé National Park), where 326 blue whales were spotted in 2007.[104] In this regions, it is normal for blue whales to enter Fiords. Whales also reach southern Los Lagos, such as off Caleta Zorra, live along with other rorquals.
Efforts to calculate the blue whale population more accurately are supported by marine mammologists at Duke University, who maintain the Ocean Biogeographic Information System—Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations (OBIS-SEAMAP), a collation of marine mammal sighting data from around 130 sources.[105]
Threats other than hunting
Due to their enormous size, power and speed, adult blue whales have virtually no natural predators. There is one documented case in National Geographic Magazine of a blue whale being attacked by orcas off the Baja California Peninsula; although the orcas were unable to kill the animal outright during their attack, the blue whale sustained serious wounds and probably died as a result of them shortly after the attack.[107] Up to a quarter of the blue whales identified in Baja bear scars from orca attacks.[26]
Blue whales may be wounded, sometimes fatally, after colliding with ocean vessels, as well as becoming trapped or entangled in fishing gear.[108] The ever-increasing amount of ocean noise, including sonar, drowns out the vocalizations produced by whales, which makes it harder for them to communicate.[106][108] Blue whales stop producing foraging D calls once a mid-frequency sonar is activated, even though the sonar frequency range (1–8 kHz) far exceeds their sound production range (25–100 Hz).[106] Human threats to the potential recovery of blue whale populations also include accumulation of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) chemicals within the whale's body.[14]
With global warming causing glaciers and permafrost to melt rapidly and allowing a large amount of fresh water to flow into the oceans, there are concerns that if the amount of fresh water in the oceans reaches a critical point, there will be a disruption in the thermohaline circulation.[109] Considering the blue whale's migratory patterns are based on ocean temperature, a disruption in this circulation, which moves warm and cold water around the world, would be likely to have an effect on their migration.[110] The whales summer in the cool, high latitudes, where they feed in krill-abundant waters; they winter in warmer, low latitudes, where they mate and give birth.[111]
The change in ocean temperature would also affect the blue whale's food supply. The warming trend and decreased salinity levels would cause a significant shift in krill location and abundance.[112]
The Natural History Museum in London contains a famous mounted skeleton and life-size model of a blue whale, which were both the first of their kind in the world, but have since been replicated at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Similarly, the American Museum of Natural History in New York City has a full-size model in its Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life. A juvenile blue whale skeleton is installed at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California features a life-size model of a mother blue whale with her calf suspended from the ceiling of its main hall.[113] The Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia, Canada, houses a display of a blue whale skeleton (skull is cast replica) directly on the main campus boulevard.[114] A real skeleton of a blue whale at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa was also unveiled in May 2010.[115]
The Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg, Sweden contains the only stuffed blue whale in the world. There one can also find the skeleton of the whale mounted beside the whale.
The Melbourne Museum features a skeleton of the pygmy blue whale.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, North Carolina features a mounted skeleton of a blue whale which visitors can view from both the first and second floors.
The South African Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, features a considerable hall devoted to Whales and natural history known as the Whale Well. The centrepiece of the exhibit is a suspended mounted Blue Whale skeleton, gleaned from the carcass of a partially mature specimen which washed ashore in the mid 1980s. The skeleton's jaw bones are mounted on the floor of Whale Well to permit visitors a direct contact with them, and to walk between them so as to appreciate the size of the animal. Other mounted skeletons include that of a Humpback Whale and a Right Whale, together with in-scale composite models of other whales, dolphins and porpoises.
The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park displays a life-sized model of a blue whale in the front. Several other institutions such as Tokai University and Taiji Whale Museum hold skeleton of skeleton model of Pygmy blue whales, while several churches and buildings in western Japan including Nagasaki Prefecture display jawbone of captured animals as a gate.
Blue whales may be encountered (but rarely) on whale-watching cruises in the Gulf of Maine[116] and are the main attractions along the north shore of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and in the Saint Lawrence estuary.[108] Blue whales can also be seen off Southern California, starting as early as March and April, with the peak between July and September.[117] More whales have been observed close to shore along with Fin whales.
In Chile, the Alfaguara project combines conservation measures for the population of blue whales feeding off Chiloé Island with whale watching and other ecotourism activities that bring economic benefits to the local people.[118] Whale-watching, principally blue whales, is also carried out south of Sri Lanka.[119] Whales are widely seen along the coast of Chile and Peru near the coast, occasionally making mixed groups with FIn, Sei, and Bryde's whales. There are also many areas without decent whale watching programs such as around Caleta Zorra.
In Australia, Pygmy Blue and Antarctic Blue whales have been observed from various tours in almost all the coastlines of the continent. Among these, tours with sightings likely the highest rate are on west coast such as in Geographe Bay[120] and in southern bight off Portland. For later, special tours to observe Pygmy blues by helicopters are organized.[121]
In New Zealand, whales have been seen in many areas close to shore, most notably around the Northland coast, in the Hauraki Gulf and the Bay of Plenty,[122] off South Taranaki Bight, in Cook Strait and off Kaikoura with remarkably increasing sighting trends in recent years[123] with some whales started staying in the same area near the shore for several days.[124] Similar approaches with Portland's case to use helicopters was once attempted in South Taranaki Bight, but seemingly been cancelled according to considerations.[125]
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- ^ "Blue Whales arrive in Geographe Bay". Whale watching & Deep sea fishing charters in South West Australia. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ^ HeliExplore. YouTube. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ^ Kim Westerskov. "Blue Whale Feeding Near Shore New Zealand ストックフォト 91275736". Getty Images.
- ^ "Project Jonah Photographer of the Month:... - Project Jonah New Zealand - Facebook".
- ^ "Blue whale sightings excite tourists". Stuff. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
- ^ "No whale watch likely here". Stuff. Retrieved 14 May 2015.
Further reading
- Randall R. Reeves, Brent S. Stewart, Phillip J. Clapham and James A. Powell (2002). National Audubon Society Guide to Marine Mammals of the World. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. ISBN 0375411410. pp. 89–93.
- J. Calambokidis and G. Steiger (1998). Blue Whales. Voyageur Press. ISBN 0-89658-338-4.
- "Blue Whale". American Cetacean Society. Archived from the original on 29 December 2004. Retrieved 7 January 2005.
- "Blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus". MarineBio.org. Retrieved 21 April 2006.
- NOAA Fisheries, Office of Protected Resources Blue whale biology & status
External links
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to Balaenoptera musculus.
|Wikispecies has information related to: Balaenoptera musculus
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- Photographs and movies from ARKive
- Blue whale vocalizations – Cornell Lab of Ornithology—Bioacoustics Research Program
- BBC News – Great whales
- Blue whale video clips and news from the BBC – BBC Wildlife Finder
- Blue whales in Sri Lanka on YouTube
- Balaenoptera musculus
- Voices in the Sea - Sounds of the Blue Whale
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KODA Body Mapping Project Art Exhibit and Events Held throughout November
The Somerset Community College (SCC) Student Government Association is hosting an art exhibit of the Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) Body Mapping Project. The exhibit, held in the East End Gallery located in Stoner Hall on the Somerset Campus, is on display from November 4 through November 21, and features works of art created by recipients of organ donors with life-size portraits that convey the emotion associated with receiving the organ and its impact upon the recipients lives.
Artists were guided by Kenyan-based artist Xavier Verhoest, known for his previous work with patients with AIDS, who came to the project through well-known artist Ruth Hunt Wood of Lexington. Among the artists featured is Carolyn McCall, wife of KCTCS President Michael McCall.
On Thursday, November 14, the exhibit will be accompanied throughout the day by activities to celebrate the project and promoting organ donation. Beginning at 12:30 p.m. in the Citizens National Bank Community Room of the Harold Rogers Student Commons, there will be readings of selected passages of Hide and Watch, by SCC employee and author Jill Lawson, with signed books available for purchase. At 1:00 p.m. the documentary about the project, Body Maps: Transplantation Inside and Out, will be shown, followed by a round table discussion hosted by Charlotte Wong, of KODA. An artists reception and viewing of the exhibit, is planned for 3 p.m. in the Stoner Hall foyer, catered by SCCs Culinary Arts department. All events are free and open to the public.
The documentary is also showing on November 4 at 10:00 a.m. in the community room; and, in the Learning Commons on Wednesday, November 6 at 10:00 a.m., and Wednesday, November 13 at 1:00 p.m.
About Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates
Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates (KODA) is dedicated to saving lives through organ and tissue donation and transplantation. There are now 110 million registered organ donors in the United States, with over 1.3 million who have joined the donor registry in Kentucky. Still, the number of people in need of transplants continues to rise, with over 117,000 waiting for a life-saving organ transplant.
The Kentucky Organ Donor Registry is a safe and secure electronic database where a persons wishes regarding organ donation will be fulfilled. Just one individual donor can provide organs and tissue for nearly 50 people in need. To join the registry, visit www.donatelifeky.org or sign up when you renew your drivers license. The donor registry enables family members to know that you chose to save and enhance lives through donation. Kentuckys First Person Consent laws mean that the wishes of an individual on the registry will be carried out as requested.