Monday, May 07, 2012

Tab Clearing...

17 comments:

  1. No surprise on the conservation front. I spend most of my research time working on reptiles and amphibians. As a result, I'm pretty familiar with the lack of conservation effort for "icky" things.

    Honestly, the solution is a simpler one, if you want to save the planet, get rid of the thing killing the planet more quickly than a Chicxulub bolide, that damn primate species that is everywhere.

    -Rob

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  2. They do get into quite an uproar over the less than photogenic Delta Smelt.

    However, that doesn't invalidate your point, just expands it to indicate that lots of greenies think the smelts are cuter than humans.

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  3. When reading the real life of Julia, by that true Genius Iowahawk, I nearly choked on my green tea. Yes, I drink green tea, so that I can grow old and remain healthy. On the other hand, why do I want to live longer and put up with this socialist BS any longer?

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  4. Do it to Julia!

    As for Pandas and Tigers ... if we allowed betting in the US on Panda-Tiger pit fights, neither species would ever be in danger of going extinct.

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  5. Perhaps I'm not in on the joke here. I thought the point about agitating for endangered species was that they were endangered -- i.e.: the population of the species is so low that there is risk they might go extinct. This is no such shortage of either anopheles or any variety of hagfish.

    Hence the anti-CAGW giving prominence to the Polar Bear surveys showing that the population is bigger than thought. Big population = no problem.

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  6. Doubleplusungood crimethinker gvi unbellyfeels blackwhite and Ingsoc.

    I swear I must be the only one who thinks "Julia" must have been written by an extremely clever mole within the DNC.

    gvi

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  7. "nobody wants to save the...shortheaded hagfish"

    That depends; is the shortheaded hagfish good eating?

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  8. Save us Pygmy Rattlers!
    Sure, we might give ya a little love bite if you look before ya grab that potted azalea in tha Walmart garden dept.; but it ain't gonna kill ya.
    There are fewer Pygmy Rattlers every year here in Florida, and I for one, am not gonna slither away any more! I insist we are cute, good looking even. Google us if ya got opposable thumbs.
    Hey, gotta slither; so, see ya on the palmettos at the state park.

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  9. "Delta smelt, are you wearing a hat of felt/could it be from bays gone by?/And did I hear you say/they were fishin' out here today/to take you to that chumbucket in the sky?

    "Oh, there's 41 million of 'em and they keep on havin' babies/all the folks out here are goin' crazy...." (etc.) (To the tune of "Delta Dawn")

    Personally, I worry about the shortheaded hagfish. Poor thing. A name like that is not a good start.

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  10. Dunno 'bout that: they are spending oodles of publicly subsidized man-hours and Lord only knows how many tax-dollars directly and indirectly saving the butt-ugly Salt Creek Tiger beetle over in Lancaster County (Home of The Berkely of the Formerly Tallgrass Prairie)..... mehbee 'cause no privately funded conservation organization could gain any sympathy dollars for a bug that spends it's youth as a grub hunting worms living in mudflats and its adult life as a stinky beetle hunting anything on the same mud flats.....

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  11. Global Village Idiot:

    Replace Ingsoc with Amsoc. It's more appropriate to the location.

    Of course, you're thinking of the wrong book. There will be telescreens, but they'll mainly be used to update us about marginally useful trinkets, or the latest update on the superficial gladiatoral combat we call politics. "Ending is better than mending" is Keynesian economics taken to its logical conclusion, and I don't think it's too far off from actually being policy. I mean-

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/planned-parenthood-opens-8-billion-abortionplex,20476/

    - yes, it's from the Onion, but I had to check a few times to make sure. Canada doesn't have any abortion laws, AT ALL, and I seriously think some enterprising feminist could make a small killing setting up an abortion theme park in Montreal. O brave new world.

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  12. But this post is chock full of snarky goodness, and I LOLed at Roberta's comment about the hagfish.

    Knowing what I know about r-type versus k-type breeding, I would venture the comment that it's a hell of a lot harder to persuade pandas and whales to have lots of babies versus persuading the hagfish. Of course, given that lots of biologists are like the Lord High Bishops of the climate change mystique, their idea of preserving biodiversity is extremely anti-industrial. "Well, we can't risk exterminating invertebrates that might not exist, so just on the safe side you can't build in the fragile ecosystem of this godforsaken desert!"

    Meanwhile, between spreading malaria and being worse bloodsuckers than Elizabeth Warren, you'll only see me at the Save the Anopheles rally when I'm holding a sign reading "KILL. THEM. ALL." Which is probably why Tam brought them up in the first place. Jeezis, do I need better things to do with my Monday nights.

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  13. Trevalyn: There is no amsoc. There is only Oceania.

    And Engsoc. Which has ALWAYS been our ally. Except when it isn't.

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  14. I didn't realize the anopheles mosquito was at risk.

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  15. If Anopheles is wiped out, another species is waiting in the wings for its niche:

    Blood sucking moths ...

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  16. Then there's that striped mosquito that spreads Yellow Fever, too.
    And did I say that no one in the United States is inoculated against it, so the only reason there is no Yellow Fever is because the striped mosquito is endangered in the US?
    Quick, alert the appropriate endangered species protection agency!

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