A tiny baby elephant got trapped in a water trough, and lions were closing in — when the most amazing thing happened ?? pic.twitter.com/URK2wfUAlp
— The Dodo (@dodo) July 31, 2017
Open thread!
by Adam L Silverman| 126 Comments
This post is in: Faunasphere, Nature, Open Threads
A tiny baby elephant got trapped in a water trough, and lions were closing in — when the most amazing thing happened ?? pic.twitter.com/URK2wfUAlp
— The Dodo (@dodo) July 31, 2017
Open thread!
Comments are closed.
Mike J
I thought the hed was about the Red Sox game.
Damien
I’m just gonna say, elephants are the best animals.
That is all.
NotMax
Certainly are Native Americans who might take issue with the headline.
Adam L Silverman
@Damien: Better organized and more effective than the White House staff.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: And Germans. And Iraqis. And Afghans. And southerners pining for the Confederacy. And the British. Etc, Etc, Etc.
Jean
I watched that video the other day. It is fascinating how the herd responds. There has been another video of an elephant saving a baby who had fallen into water where alligators threatened. Animals are herd-bound for good reason. Wolves, for example. And horses. A stressed out horse is one who is alone in a field. The horse is forever looking over the horizon and can’t rest. In a herd, they take turns lying down while others guard and watch for danger.
debbie
Where is the herd that will free us from Trump?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Damien: the textbook definition of “majestic”
Also, since this is an open thread: How the hell is R. Kelly’s career so uniquely immune to popular mockery/personal revulsion?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Afghans. Please to fix. You’re the last person here would expect to commit that error.
(Blog was getting overdue for a pedantry interlude, though.)
Adam L Silverman
@debbie:
Major Major Major Major
@debbie: tens of millions tried, but we needed slightly more…
misterpuff
Don’t trough out the baby with the bathwater.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: I need a nap… Good catch.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD):
Wasn’t this question raised last night? Dude is sort of a serial pedophile, isn’t he?
lamh36
Since we’re sharing cute videos…came across this one today and LMAO.
@bbygirlniy
Gaia, NO!
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
In shorthand, white collar crime.
Trying to suss out what falls under the label legal foreign bribery.
lamh36
And….speaking of animals…
Omnes Omnibus
Shouldn’t all the cat people here be rooting for the lions?
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Everyone needs a hobby.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: We covered that earlier.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Will it be on the test? Will there be essays?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: @Adam L Silverman: Nice
ETA:
For my part: a very vague awareness of who he is.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Yes and yes.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
He can’t free us soon enough. Jared’s now saying there’s no way there could have been collusion because the campaign was too disorganized to even attempt it. Bet this becomes the GOP’s new talking point.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I think this one is my favorite:
An expert in flipping witnesses. Sounds perfect for the Trump crime family.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: At the rate Mueller’s going every experienced, top notch prosecutor/investigator is going to work for him, not the DOJ or the FBI. He will then rename the Special Counsels office the DOJ and his investigative shop the FBI. At which point AG Sessions will just make fudge stripes and pecan sandies all day long.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@West of the Rockies (been a while): Yes, but I didn’t get an answer to said question last night. What’s really fucking odd is that the conversation resurfaces about every two years without really inflicting permanent damage. Is it a “dead boy or live girl kind of thing?
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: That’s not how this works. The whole point of the type of HUMINT that was part of the active measures is to find the oddballs and misfits and less than functional folks who are greedy and avaricious. Makes it much easier to flip them. Also tends to make them unreliable.
Laura
That little heffalump just stole my heart.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Not only that, he was Felix Sater’s handler at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of NY.
NotMax
The piece in its entirety is more than depressingly troubling, both for the information disclosed but also for the bending over backwards to softsoap Jared.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: Smart move by the little one to zig zag. With her shorter legs and lower center of gravity she corners much better than Mom.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: As I wrote in the previous post’s comment’s thread:
1)
2)
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: To quote my late husband “Exxxxactly…”
(He passed away in ’99, and if I want to remember his voice, that’s the word.)
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Surprise! The sun is also coming up in the morning, and the tides are going in and out.
NotMax
Is schrodingers_cat around?
jacy
@Adam L Silverman:
I think the Confederate Keebler Elf wouldn’t approve of fudge stripes. Not quite segregated enough.
seaboogie
@Adam L Silverman: Reiterating my gratitude for your analysis here, and that of Cheryl Rofer. Love the comments threads when you two are discussing the issues.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. I’d bet he’s well into dealing with some of the lower level folks. Lots of rumors about people having deals but of course no confirmation until everything’s ready to go.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Looking forward to it, particularly any opinion of Zinni’s tenure holding that portfolio.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: I’ve been loathe to write about the Israeli-Palestinian stuff because I don’t want to have to worry about crossing the line. And I don’t want to have to police myself to the point of writing: “the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Open thread!” I’ll work it out tomorrow.
And thanks for the kind words.
efgoldman
@Yarrow:
If the current WH and the campaign were half as circumspect as Mueller’s shop, there wouldn’t be an investigation. Assholes brought it on themselves.
Fuckem
Kraux Pas
Typical, elephants always gots each others backs while the rest of us are just trying to feed ourselves…
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: While I met Gen. Zinni once when he was CENTCOM Commander, and met his son (at the time a Marine major) a few years ago, the Special Envoy in 2014 was Gen. Allen.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I know. Slow and steady.
Yarrow
@efgoldman: They brought it upon themselves by committing treason (common usage type).
Mike J
Looks like comer November, Seattle will have a woman mayor:
Yarrow
He’s always cheating. At everything. It’s like breathing for him.
Felonius Monk
@Adam L Silverman:
Sorry, we regret to inform you that the KKKeebler Elf and Racist Garden Gnome only works with “white” icing.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Ha! I shared that with my dad and he said “I love it!”
@Mike J: I am choosing to read your typo as a ?, you sexist jerk!
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: Glad I was still within the edit window. Now instead of my fat fingers making me look like a jerk they make you look insane, and nobody will ever catch on.
Oh shit.
Burnspbesq
@NotMax:
Before the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a lot of antics that would have been bribery under U.S. state law, but weren’t criminal under the laws of the recipient’s country, escaped the reach of U.S. law because everything was done offshore.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman: Last graf of the Reuter’s story:
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: If you decide not to do the Israel-Palestine thread, there’s always China.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Could be a 400 pound guy on his bed in New Jersey.
Burnspbesq
@debbie:
Somebody should give Kushner a copy of the crim law Nutshell. Black-letter law: you don’t have to achieve the objectives of a conspiracy in order to get nailed. The agreement is the offense.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I thought Christie was trying to get out more.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Why are you so mean to Chris Christie?
Edit:
@Major Major Major Major:
LOL. Great minds and all.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@NotMax:
I don’t know. It’s pretty damning with fluffing.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Busy
littlelarge beaver, he.lollipopguild
@efgoldman: So I need a Blue Book and a number 2 pencil?
MobiusKlein
@NotMax: The FCPA* has guidelines about what sort of bribes are allowed. Some facilitating payments are ok. The company I work for does not allow them under their watch.
*foreign corrupt practices act. Yes, we just finished ‘compliance’ training.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: Even more specifically, it’s a dispute over water.
But that’s so MEGO to the vermin of the Village.
Just like it’s not kosher to discuss drought and famine as why Syria is an utter mess right now.
bmoak
@Yarrow: ABC. Always Be Cheating.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: @Yarrow: Just to eat stadium nachos in Milwaukee. Who the hell goes to Milwaukee to eat stadium nachos? Like going to a game in Chicago you get sausages and hot dogs in Milwaukee.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Water is a major complicating factor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: PREZACTLY! The tailgating with brats and such is THE reason to go to a baseball game in Milwaukee, aside from the baseball!
Mike E
Al Franken talking about trying to break the ice with Tom Coburn, on Colbert… hilarious
GregB
Trump and his rollicking gang of clowns have all of these plates spinning furiously.
The confluence of world events is about to make them go wobbly and start crashing to the ground very soon.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Or Tel Aviv to scarf down a Sufganiking.
(As we were sort of discussing things Palestinian/Israeli, thought it might be apropos.)
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Do not get between Chris Christie and his nachos.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: Last Cubs game I was at, opening day back in 2011 or 2012, I ate four or five Chicago dogs, three brats, and at least two Italian dogs. One may have been that composite Italian beef sandwich/Italian sausage combo. I did work out before going to the game. But there’s something about stadium food that just doesn’t fill me up.
Had great seats too. Right down along the third base line just about 1/2 way between third base and the foul pole.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
This is where firing longtime prosecutors like Preet Bahara (sp?) comes back to bite Trump in the ass. There are a lot of experienced lawyers with a grudge out there right now.
Emrys
@Adam L Silverman: During his time at CENTCOM Zinni visited Egypt for a Bright Star exercise. At a meeting with the press Zinni responded to a question by saying the region should be free of nuclear weapons. The inevitable question regarding Israel was asked. Without missing a beat, Zinni reponded “Israel isn’t in my AOR.”
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: That’s a shonda.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I don’t intend to get between Chris Christie and anything.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Shonda makes a pretty good shybrid.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
You can’t explain that.
eclare
@Mnemosyne: Yep, love it.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s funny. Didn’t Christie get some surgery to lose that weight. Doesn’t seem to helped him much, judging by that recent video of him trying an intimidate a heckler.
Adam L Silverman
@Emrys: He was absolutely correct. Israeli and the Occupied Territories are in the EUCOM AOR. Different CENTCOM Commanders have handled this differently. GEN Petreaus actually asked Congress to move it into his AOR as he had no authority to do anything about the problem set yet was being held responsible by all the Arab and non-Arab Muslim leaders he dealt with within the CENTCOM AOR.
There are good arguments for keeping it in EUCOM AOR and good arguments for moving it to CENTCOM AOR.
eclare
@Mike E: Watching that too….oh, Mooch, you were gold, pure comedy gold…
Kraux Pas
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
My flat earther sister says magnets. Seems legit.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: It was reported that he either had lap band or gastric bypass surgery. Given that everyone else I’ve known of who have had it and what it did to their body mass either the reports were wrong or he has managed to somehow defeat the surgical intervention through his dietary and exercise habits.
Adam L Silverman
@Kraux Pas: Pulleys.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Who is operating the pulleys?
Repatriated
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Magnates.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Lizard people.
piratedan
@Repatriated: i heard it was cats…
M. Bouffant
@jacy: I s’pect the fudge stripes would be in his B.V.D.s.
Adam L Silverman
@M. Bouffant: Ewww
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: I’d rather not even get near Chris Christie, let along between him and something. He’s just gross.
M. Bouffant
Burning Spear: “I saw the elephants today.”
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: He had the lap band procedure. They don’t always work well, complications develop and sometimes they have to be removed. The patient also has to watch what they eat and they don’t always do that well, so they gain weight back despite the procedure. Christie doesn’t look particularly svelte and it does look like he’s regained some weight, so something hasn’t worked out for him with the procedure.
Darkrose
@Adam L Silverman: Miller Park has decent hot dogs. Their macaroni and cheese bar is awesome, however. Though it is hard to eat at a ballgame.
M. Bouffant
@Adam L Silverman: I blame whoever typed it first.
Also: Why couldn’t Christie leave his nachos at his seat? Afraid someone else would eat them while he was gone? If His Cowardice had come up to me (w/o his thug bodyguard) & gotten in my face while holding them they would have ended up on his shirt or shoved in his face.
RobNYNY
@debbie: We were too stupid to be evil. Not often a winning argument.
RobNYNY
@Yarrow:
Let alone between him and a chili dog.
Darkrose
@Yarrow: I’ve been acquainted with four people who’ve had that done. All of them gained the weight back in less than a year. One of them died. When I have a doctor who suggests that procedure it’s time to find a new doctor.
Yarrow
@Darkrose: Yeah, it seems like a dangerous thing to do. I also feel like the more we learn about the gut and how integral it is to how our bodies function, it may be deemed risky in ways we don’t understand well now.
Adam L Silverman
@Darkrose: Never been. Been to Wrigley several times.
Adam L Silverman
I’m to bed. You all enjoy your discussion of intestinal flora and fauna.
Emrys
@Adam L Silverman: Arguments on both sides. However, not having Israel in the CENTCOM AOR gives the CinC the ability to do what Zinni did – push the idea of a region free of WMD without having to criticize or excuse Israel. It also meant the countries in the AOR didn’t have to worry about the Israelis pushing the CENTCOM CinC for information about them. Not that they don’t assume we tell the Israelis everything anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I got out of the boat to look at this twitter feed to find a tweet threatening Jared in particular (“ten stories”!), but apparently he deleted it
opiejeanne
@Villago Delenda Est: I think Christie’s son works at that stadium.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@M. Bouffant: I would hope I’d have the presence of mind to say, “Could you step back? Your breath smells like trump’s ball sweat”
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Depending on what kind of bariatric surgery he underwent (back when he thought he could be a contendah), Christie may not be capable of digesting sausages or hot dogs, IIRC. Losing big chunks of one’s intestines means making some permanent sacrifices in that regard…
Kraux Pas
@Repatriated: Hehe, I see what you did there.
piratedan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: hey, if they want to drown in an internecine battle of innuendo and snipe, I’m willing to sit on the shore and watch them devour each other. Those RWNJ want to bathe in the purity waters of conservatism and dry themselves on what they believe to hopes and dreams of liberals, and finding out that their side has no cohesion other than to be adherents to Cleek’s law.
fuck ’em
MobiusKlein
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I shudder to think how one could know the pheromones involved in discerning T’s ball sweat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@piratedan: I see his name everywhere, but I don’t know how influential that guy actually is. I guess he has some links to Bannon, which might make things interesting.
Anne Laurie
@Adam L Silverman:
Many people who undergo such surgery do manage to “rebound” — they can’t always eat what they used to, but someone who uses food for emotional support (or just as a way to keep their hands/mouth busy) will find ways to get around that. Someone can nibble stadium nachos non-stop for an entire game, for instance. And since Christie’s motivation was not “I want to be less hefty” but “I want to look like a guy Americans would vote to be their President”, now that he’s not running for President (or anything), he’s got no incentive to keep up the diet/exercise routine that would help him keep the weight off.
Losing weight and keeping it off is a continuous struggle, especially for those of us who’ve always been fat… or who, like Christie, seem to have put on weight steadily since adolescence.
piratedan
Cernovich is part of that cadre of RW true believers and “deep thinkers” that emerged out that Breitbart/Hoft/generic RW hootenanny of guys that are elevated because they sometimes use complete sentences while espousing positions and ideas that are devoid of thought, substance and only have a tenuous link to reality.
eclare
@Darkrose: Wow, that is frightening, a 25% death rate?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Adam L Silverman: He defeated the surgery through his dietary habits. That isn’t actually hard to do. Those surgeries only work if the subject is also prepared to change their behaviors. They make it easier to lose weight through proper diet; they don’t guarantee it.
TriassicSands
@Yarrow:
By the time this is over, Kushner may have a new nickname: Flip or Flipper. I can’t see him risking jail for anyone — he might even bail on what’s her name — Ivanka. He strikes me as the kind of heroic character, like his father-in-law, who would use a small child as a shield if bullets were flying.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought Cernovich was on the Trumpster team. So, is he just a freelance asshole now, firing in every direction?
Does this guy have the capacity to produce any useful information, or is he just gong to throw a bunch of salacious and dubious BS on the wall and see how much money and attention it brings in?
Debbie(aussie)
I had gastric bypass surgery in March 2016. Have lost 35kgs, down to 77 from 112. Had to have a lap band removed that was causing issues and that didn’t work (from 1999). No longer on mets for hypertension or suffering from sleep apnea. Hasn’t helped with my chronic pain, sadly, nor with my depression (did not expect that it would). Surgeon says weight loss generally occurs in first 2 years. I have done exceedingly well, apparently, loosing over 80% of excess weight. In circumstances such as mine it usually averages about 60%. The really big challenge continues to be keeping it off.
Brendancalling
My 13 year old and I drove home from dinner singing Bohemian Rhapsody, in its entirety, in Elmer Fudd’s voice.
I see a widow siwouwetteo of a man/ Scawamooch Scawamooch can you do the fandango/ Fundaboats of whitening vewy vewy fwightning/ Gawiwayo Gawiwayo…
Dad skills.
Mnemosyne
@Debbie(aussie):
All of the evidence I’ve ever seen is that the primary thing that helps keep weight off is exercise, but that’s got to be tough when you have chronic pain issues to boot. I’ve heard that swimming or water aerobics can be good for people with chronic pain since you aren’t putting weight on any of your limbs. And weight training is good, too — even just stretchy bands.
Full disclosure: I used to work for Weight Watchers. The science we were given at the time I still worked for them was that watching your food intake was more important than exercise while you were losing, but that those flipped after you got to your goal and exercise became the primary way to maintain the weight loss while you stayed at the same food intake.
ETA: And I forgot to say — good job! Even with surgery, losing weight is hard work, so you should be proud of yourself.
jl
@Mnemosyne:
” watching your food intake was more important than exercise while you were losing, but that those flipped after you got to your goal and exercise became the primary way to maintain the weight loss while you stayed at the same food intake. ”
That is what I have read as well, and that is also my experience. Exercise itself only works if you can do it, and heavily, all day long every day. When I spent long periods on family farms dong heavy manual labor all day long, I could eat as I damn well pleased and stayed thin. But even on the farm, that only works if you stay away from driving machinery all day, which I tended to do, since that was boring and noisy.
I think the trick is that when you reach the weight you want, since you’be been controlling your weight mostly by diet, you got there with a chronic calorie deficit, and now you want to end the chronic calorie deficit, that is tricky, since you’re metabolism is operating a somewhat slower than it would otherwise. Not as much as people say, since I think research says that you have to be really starving for the ‘starvation effect’ to really kick in. But there is maybe a 10 or 15 percent difference. I think that is why some people really gain weight quickly if they go off their diet quickly and don’t do something about the extra calories on a depressed metabolism. Then they get discouraged, don’t exercise and things get out of hand.
I think this is a real thing, since I am working out and the muscle body fitness people obsess over this topic and have all sorts of personal algorithms for how to control their fat increase when they want to gain muscle or get ready for a race or some such. I don’t have the time or interest to do that kind of thing, but if it wasn’t a problem, these fitness people who are into looking just the ‘right way’ while being able to do the activities they want wouldn’t be talking about it all the time.
I solved the problem by just changing the way I eat permanently. Focus on foods that will fill you up but don’t have enough calories to cause fat gain if you get sloppy (I always will get sloppy). So, lots of fibrous vegetables, then filling but low calorie fruits (the fruit itself no smoothies or juices) , then lean meat, then roots, whole grains and beans. Lots of water and tea. And then exercise.
It’s easy for me, since I grew up on a farm that grew vegetables and fruits. So I was raised to believe that if you don’t eat those at every meal, you are some kind of uncouth savage, who will taking dumps on the floor or eating the dog raw next thing you know.
Edit: another thing is to have a Tunch-style (aka strictly rationed) bedtime snack, which you can look forward to every day. And one or two meals you can eat anything you want to let of steam every week. And also figure out when you tend to lose control, and try to eat your regular meals then. That means, against traditional mommy advice, I eat light early in the day, and save for a fairly big dinner, when I tend to cheat.
Anne Laurie
@piratedan:
Nah, from everything I’ve read, Mike “Gorilla Mind” Cernovich doesn’t even have the dubious distinction of being a ‘RW true believer’. He’s a would-be new-millenium Rush Limbaugh who jumped aboard the Trump Train when his target market (#reddit readers / ‘men’s rights’ activists) were fanboying the candidate who brought Pepe memes into the mainstream, and now he’s stuck with a deflating mis-administration that can’t stop doing mockable stuff. You’d be grouchy too, if you’d gambled everything on a dark horse and the nag broke a leg at the first post!
Debbie(aussie)
Thanks Mnem, I do feel rather proud of myself. Yes, I have physiotherapy visit in my future. I’m thinking strength exercises might be required, lost too much muscle, struggling to eat enough protein. I walk at least 5 times a week. Have to have both hips replaced. The first as soon as our bathroom renovations are finished, about a month. Need to be fit for that.
Want to tell you how wonderful it is to hear about the progress of your novel. Keep up the great work.
Want you all to know how wonderful you are in your fight against the shitgibbon. Know that you have at least one (I’m definitely not alone) Aussie who is rooting for injuries for them and an easy passage back to “normal” for the rest of US citizens.
jl
@Debbie(aussie):
” strength exercises ”
Work magic. Not my favorite way to spend the time, but do so much good for weight control and ability to do more fun exercises and activities, that I make myself keep at them
Shalimar
@jl: Cernovich is on the Bannon racist-as-hell team, and is thus doing his part to disparage rivals for Trump’s attention. As to capacity to provide useful information, he claims he has a contact within the administration, either Bannon or one of the sycophants Bannon brought on board with him. If his claims are true, Cernovich is a conduit for whatever his inside source wants made public.
@Anne Laurie: That is my take too from following Cernovich back to the early GamerGate days when he first got attention. He’s a self-promoting conman latching on to the same causes as his suckers rather than a true believer in anything.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: This has been an ongoing problem for years. Cash crops like sugarcane etc that are water intensive, grown in semi arid regions, exacerbates the problems. Think California’s central valley and nuts.