Open thread 3/8/22
It’s pretty close, isn’t it?
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
The video interchanges views of a cheetah and a leopard while the narrator speaks only of a leopard.
Anyway, if not for the video , no one would believe the story.
There are other instances of members of the Felidae family forming unusual cross-species friendships: here’s one involving a domestic cat and a barn owl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-V9sIPDnBc&ab_channel=YouShouldKnow%3F
From the comments: “Cat: ‘Ohhh, so you eat mice too! Finally, someone who understands me!'”
Biden announces the US ban on importing Russian oil. And blows an obfuscation smoke screen to go with it.
He said, the US petroleum production today is greater than in Trump’s first year (or first day?) in office. Of, you mean to compared to the state of the energy market that Obama handed off to Trump? Some pundit claimed that production is down 1.6 Mbbls/day relative to when Trump left office.
Biden blathered on about the 9K active drilling leases on federal land. And how many of those are useless for continued drilling? No new leases, remember Joe?
Yes, just saw that. Biden blaming the Oil/NG industry for not drilling enough. And touting going all EV’s and other “Green” options. Someone is making the Green from all this.
I think the Elon should donate a Tesla to replace “The Beast”.
Biden is seeking a deal with Venezuela, whose dictator, Maduro, announced his support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This is of no consequence to Biden and his people.
And Iran is blaming the USA (geez, what a surprise; who would have thunk it?) for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This is of no consequence to Biden, as he has Russian negotiators “helping” the USA reach a deal with Iran.
When you look in the aggregate at all of Biden’s policies, IMHO, they are tantamount to treason. Putin and Biden have in common that they both seek to destroy / diminish the USA.
The policies of Biden are so anti-USA , one must conclude they are intentional and purposeful.
Putin, if he had the ability, could not have chosen a better candidate than Biden , to be the president.
And as usual, no matter how corrupt, insane, harmful a “leader’s polices are, they have no problem recruiting as many folks as needed to do their dirty work, to carry the torch; think Psaki, Pelosi, Schmer, Butticheeks, et. al.
One of the only redeeming features of Twitter is stuff like this:
“Clint Ehrlich
@ClintEhrlich
·
19h
It’s easy to laugh at “brainwashed Russians” and mock the country as the new North Korea.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that’s true:
Should the U.S. be proud of a foreign policy that has created a “new North Korea” with 6,000 nukes?”
Mike
Should the U.S. be proud of a foreign policy that has created a “new North Korea” with 6,000 nukes?”
Our foreign policy did not create Russia’s political culture, nor did it manufacture Russia’s political class.
Kala.
Well, I finally woke up from my torpor and ordered a book on the history of Ukraine.
Brief citation: Plokhy, Serhii. 2021. The gates of Europe: a history of Ukraine.
As far as I can tell, this is a serious work, but written for the non-specialist. The book should arrive in about a week, so I’ll soon see how it goes.
Could Hubert, as an ex-bibliographer of Slavic materials, suggest a brief reading list for those who care to improve their grasp of Ukrainian and Russian history? Thanks.
I confirm JohnTylers comment of a cheetah and a leopard.
I’m under the impression that cheetahs only live in Africa.
IN GENERAL, most animals, upon encountering the unprotected offspring of another species, will eliminate that offspring. This includes herbivores as well as carnivores.
The species survival benefit is clear why even herbivores do it: If the species is that of another herbivore, it may well be competition for food. If it’s a carnivore, the herbivores may become its prey.
The silly video cites the Mowgli (similarly, there is the “Lucan/Lycan” meme, as well as “Tarzan”) as an example that such things happen, suggesting they happen often, instead of remarkably rarely. In actual fact, what makes the Mowgli/Lucan/Tarzan meme so notable is how RARE it happens. Given humanity has now had about 500k years to have such events happen, there are three such memes, out of how many millions of people born? Even when you pare that down to “lost child-orphans”, it’s probably still in the millions of lost children. And all of three examples exist in our lore.
Oh, yeah, they’re happening alllllll the time, ain’t they?
This: https://nypost.com/2022/03/06/how-a-dad-became-teachers-enemy-1-to-teachers-in-loudoun-county/
is unbelievable! It’s not a long news article, but it’s a “read the entire thing” piece. Excerpting any part of it would not give credence to the sheer duplicitousness and unreasonableness of the teachers this dad encountered, nor what they tried to do to him.
OBloody Hell:
Good points, taken.
However, being a fan of long shots, I stand up for their existence and potential significance. It’s a long shot for predator and prey to lay down together, but it can happen — not often, but still. Life allows for some randomness and novelty.
As it happens, I’ve been reading about the evolution of the more advanced eukaryotic cells (that includes us!). Keeping it simple, the strongest theory is that eukaryotic cells emerged from the more primitive prokaryotic cells. One such cell absorbed and merged with another cell which became our mitochondria today.
This is much weirder than a leopard laying down with a cow. However, mitochondria supply chemical energy to the cell, and without mitochondria earth life wouldn’t have gotten past pond scum.
Some argue that the unlikelihood of the eukaryotic cell advance explains the Fermi Paradox, the question of where is alien life, if it is out there.
We humans and our eukaryotic cousins may be much rarer than we think.
@ Huxley: Some argue that the unlikelihood of the eukaryotic cell advance …
Given many millions of years, and trillions upon trillions of opportunities for bacteria A to absorb bacteria B, what is the basis for the assertion of low probability of occurrence?
Perhaps a more difficult question is how said absorption leads to genetic replication benefit for bacteria A, although energy production from the absorbed entity might be beneficial for survival. [Maybe I just answered my own question?]
Glad you are reading and commenting about this, as I have already forgotten too much of what I had previously read about it.
Given many millions of years, and trillions upon trillions of opportunities for bacteria A to absorb bacteria B, what is the basis for the assertion of low probability of occurrence?
R2L:
I don’t consider it estimable, much less knowable. We largely go on intuition when it comes to such probabilities and intuition is a notoriously poor guide to probability.
I still can’t justify the Monty Hall Problem to myself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
However, when I encounter bland “who knows what could happen out of trillions and trillions and millions of years” claims, I’m immediately skeptical. A trillion is really not a big number and neither is a million. My sense (intuitive and unreliable) is the odds are by far on the other side.