The Off Topic Topic

[The Brain]

Gandalf was wading in pussy.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

This should be the Languish mascot

https://mugdom.com/products/limited-edition-please-do-not-confuse-your-google-search-with-my-law-degree-11oz-mug

Also available as a shirt, it seems.

[jimmy olsen]

Apparently in the 2nd half of the 19th century the British forgot how to cure scurvy. 

http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

I swear I read a languish thread where it was claimed that some modern day US residents are suffering from scurvy.  Pretty amazing because it doesn't take much vitamin C intake to prevent contracting the disease.

Yeah, I posted that article. Doctors were amazed for just that reason, it takes only tiny amounts of Vitamin C to prevent it.

[LaCroix]

Fun Japanese word of the day: 魔法使い.
It means a wizard.
Back in the day purported wizards were scary people, outcasts from society. So the term in modern use means...a man who is still a virgin at 30.
If they make it to 45 without losing their virginity then they become a  妖精. A fairy.
The more you know.

[Savonarola]

While I know Calvin being a stand-in for Trump has become an internet thing (baby!); Lucy could be a stand in for him as well.

[lustindarkness]

Not enough spray tan orange.

[Savonarola]

Not enough spray tan orange.

The Oompa Loompas sang a song about how bad people like Trump are (the Veruca Salt song) and, if I'm not mistaken, so did Secretary Kerry; so there is no perfect match.   

[Sheilbh]

Humpback whales are waging some sort of altruistic global whale war against Orca

Humpback whales around the globe are mysteriously rescuing animals from orcas
Scientists are baffled at this seemingly altruistic behavior, which seems to be a concerted global effort to foil killer whale hunts.

BRYAN NELSON
July 30, 2016, 11:42 p.m.

Humans might not be the only creatures that care about the welfare of other animals. Scientists are beginning to recognize a pattern in humpback whale behavior around the world, a seemingly intentional effort to rescue animals that are being hunted by killer whales.

Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009, while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal.

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale's side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

Another event, involving a pair of humpback whales attempting to save a gray whale calf from a hunting pod of orcas after it had become separated from its mother, was captured by BBC filmmakers. You can watch the dramatic footage here:



Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this behavior is that it's not just a few isolated incidents. Humpback whale rescue teams have been witnessed foiling killer whale hunts from Antarctica to the North Pacific. It's as if humpback whales everywhere are saying to killer whales: pick on someone your own size! It seems to be a global effort; an inherent feature of humpback whale behavior.

After witnessing one of these events himself back in 2009, Pitman was compelled to investigate further. He began collecting accounts of humpback whales interacting with orcas, and found nothing short of 115 documented interactions, reported by 54 different observers between 1951 and 2012. The details of this surprising survey can be found in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

In 89 percent of the recorded incidents, the humpbacks seemed to intervene only as the killer whales began their hunt, or when they were already engaged in a hunt. It seems clear from the data that the humpback whales are choosing to interact with the orcas specifically to interrupt their hunts. Among the animals that have been observed being rescued by humpback whales were California sea lions, ocean sunfish, harbor seals, and gray whales.

So the question is: Why are humpback whales doing this? Since the humpbacks seem to be risking their own well being to save animals of completely different species, it's hard to deny that this behavior seems altruistic.

There is also some reason to believe that the behavior isn't entirely selfless. Mature humpback whales are too large and too formidable to be hunted by orcas themselves, but their calves are vulnerable. Orcas have been witnessed hunting humpback whale calves in much the same way that they hunt gray whale calves. So, by proactively foiling orca hunts, perhaps the humpbacks are hoping to make them think twice about messing with their own calves.

Then again, maybe it's just as simple as revenge. Even if it has more to do with revenge than altruism, though, the behavior would represent evidence of an intense and complicated emotional life among humpbacks that is unprecedented in the animal world, outside of primates.

One common feature among many humpback whale rescue efforts is that the humpbacks often work in pairs. Scientists will need to do more research into this behavior, though, to truly understand the significance of it.

Until then, these beautiful animals, which are perhaps best known for their majestic songs, have certainly earned some additional respect. They might just be the ocean's most ferocious and selfless first-responders.

[HVC]

They're becoming too smart. We must stop them now while we still can!

[Malthus]

Humpback whales are waging some sort of altruistic global whale war against Orca

Those Humpback whales are just working a scam with the orca, shaking down the seals for krill. 

[Sheilbh]

They're becoming too smart. We must stop them now while we still can!

Agreed. Time to nuke the whales from orbit

[Sheilbh]

100th anniversary of the execution of Sir Roger Casement, perhaps the most interesting of those killed for their parts in the Easter Rising.

British Consul in the Congo he was one of the first to expose the scale of the horrors there. He was then sent by Anti-Slavery International to the Putamayo region of Peru to expose similar treatment of the indigenous workers by a rubber company registered, based and owned in Britain. He became the first man (that I know of) to use the words 'human rights' in Parliament giving evidence on the fact the indigenous were treated as wild animals to be exploited or hunted. For his work in the Congo he was knighted.

He returned to Ireland a committed anti-imperialist and had the least involvement with the Rising. His involvement was limited to trying (and failing) to procure arms from Germany that could be delivered to County Cork for the impending national rising that never came, or petered out. But unlike the other Irishmen and women who were killed (including of course prominent Republican pacifists), Casement was a traitor. A Protestant who'd betrayed the country that had sent him to the Congo and rewarded him with an honour.

He was also a bit of a sexual traitor as the British publication of his black diaries (in Sao Paolo: "Breathed & quick enormous push. Loved mightily. To Hilt Deep X." in Buenos Aires: "Splendid erections. Ramon 7$000 \ 10" at least. X In.") and in his subsequent distance from the other Irish heroes. The judge was advised to make 'judicious' use of his diaries in preventing Casement from attaining martyrdom and he did. Dev kept his distance whenever the subject flared as it did throughout his time in office. Lemass wanted all originals brought to Ireland, not for verification but for safe-keeping. In 2002 they were finally confirmed as his.

He was hanged (not shot like a soldier as the others were) on 3 August 1916 the last knight to be executed and the last of the uprising to be executed.

After he was hanged, Colm Toibin's excellent essay notes one final detail:

Casement's involvement in the 1916 Rebellion was disastrous and quixotic. Slowly, in the months after the Rising, the British realised that executing Irish nationalists was counter-productive. But they still wanted to hang Casement. After they hanged him, they had a doctor examine him, who said that he had "found unmistakable evidence of the practices to which it was alleged the prisoner in question had been addicted".

In all the images we have of Anglo-Irish relations over the centuries, perhaps this one is the saddest and the most stark: a prison doctor examining Casement's arsehole a short time after he had been hanged, on the orders of the British Government.

[mongers]

I'd not heard of the 'Cable cutting movement' until today. 

[CountDeMoney]

Imagine that.

[Tonitrus]

Today I learned that the Swedish word for a turtle breaks out to "shielded frog".