Perri Nelson's Website

For those we lost, We will not forget 09/11/2001

“I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds.”
— Barack Obama, July 27, 2008 (emphasis added)

“Barack Obama is an arrogant, racist, Marxist ass!”
— Perri Nelson, July 30, 2008

No waterspouts

Published Fri, Nov 2 2007 10:55 AM

There wasn't a waterspout in sight for this spider to crawl up. I still thought it was a fascinating creature. Usually these spiders are pretty small, less than a half an inch from the tip of the rear legs to the tip of the front ones. The size you see it here in the thumbnail image is pretty close to the actual size of this particular spider.

I saw this spider at the nursery where we bought our pumpkins last weekend.

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Biology and politics

Published Fri, Nov 2 2007 8:18 AM

Suppose you have two animals. They can breed with one another and produce viable offspring which, if they survive, will be able to breed and also produce viable offspring. These animals are both externally indistinguishable from one another except for their sex and a minor injury to one of them. In fact, both animals are descended at some point in their past from common ancestors. Further, if they are not forcibly separated by man, they will interbreed willingly and their offspring will be indistinguishable from other offspring of similar kind.

Are they different species?

Suppose you have two different animals. One was born and raised in captivity and put on display behind bars for young primates to view. The other was born in the wild. These two animals can breed and produce viable offspring. Their young, assuming they survive long enough, can breed with other animals that are similar in appearance and structure and produce viable offspring.

Are they different species?

Suppose you have a bird. That bird and a few others (all males) are the last recognized members of its species, however there is another bird species that is closely related, closely related enough that a member of its species can be chosen and bred with these "last surviving members" of the other species. The descendants of that union can be bred with the other "last surviving members". Eventually there are many individuals descended from those "final members" of the one species.

Were the "last recognized members" of that species actually a different species from the ones they were bred with? Or were they merely a rare variant? Did biologists actually rescue the species from oblivion, or are they merely patting themselves on the back?

These are not hypothetical questions.

The story of the birds is real. I don't recall the species in question. I think it was condors or some such animal, but it may have been a rare songbird too. It happened a few years back, but I recall the tale. There are no "pure" members of that rare species left, yet there are many, many descendants.

The tale of the animal in the zoo is generic. This is often how "endangered" animals are "brought back from the brink" of extinction. Some advocates for these animals recommend capturing as many wild individuals as possible to encourage breeding in captivity so that the species numbers can be replenished and the species re-introduced into the wild.

Our other case seems a bit clearer now, or does it?

I'm talking here about salmon. Wild salmon and hatchery salmon. According to some recent court decisions, hatchery salmon are to be excluded when considering whether a species, or rather sub-species of salmon is "endangered".

How can you identify the difference between a hatchery salmon and a wild salmon? Why it's simple. One of the hatchery salmon's fins is removed before it is released into the wild. That's the ONLY way to distinguish them.

Hatchery salmon can and do interbreed with wild salmon. It's a fair bet that anglers and commercial fishermen don't catch them all. If their offspring survive to return to the rivers after maturity, they will be indistinguishable from other salmon, and considered "wild" salmon. In fact, if two hatchery salmon escape the anglers and the commercial fishermen, survive the dangers at sea and the hardships of traveling upstream to spawn, and those two hatchery salmon breed, their offspring will be considered "wild" salmon.

How are they any different from animals raised in zoos and bred with animals from the wild? If that's a legitimate way to "save" an endangered species, why is it that a Judge thinks it's not legitimate when we're talking about salmon?

How arrogant it is to assume that two animals are of different species simply because one was bred in captivity and one was not.

Tell me that the Endangered Species Act isn't being interpreted according to the political whims of our judges. Go ahead. Those fish know their own species. They can breed and produce viable offspring, and those offspring aren't sterile.

They're smarter than people that way. Some humans can't even recognize their own species. After all, we're finding that we have to enact laws to prevent them from attempting to mate with horses, sheep, dogs and other non-human creatures.

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Blue Star Chronicles trackbacked with "What People are Talking About Today"

The lesser of two evils.

Published Fri, Nov 2 2007 2:25 AM
Technorati Tags: Politics

Some things just can't be hidden. A house on a hilltop is one of them.

When you live in a house on a hill, your life isn't easily hidden either. Maybe the inside is, but the outside is there for all to see, especially when there aren't a lot of trees to block the view.

How much do appearances matter? In politics I guess it's quite a bit. What's inside doesn't seem to matter that much in the political arena. There it's all what's on the surface that matters, at least as days like next Tuesday get closer.

This afternoon I heard Michael Medved say that he doesn't like the expression "the lesser of two evils" as it's applied to politics. He would prefer the term "the greater of two imperfects" (or did he say "the better", I don't remember his exact words).

Looked at that way, it seems to make it possible to vote "for" someone in our elections rather than "against" someone. It's still hard for me to see it that way though.

I'd prefer it if our politicians cleaned up the hill. Right now there's a lot of junk and trash on the political hillside. I'd like to see a politician that fights corruption by exposing it to the light of day.

I'd like to see a politician that considers whether a bill is "permissible" rather than "popular". I'd like to see my representatives go a bit further than that though and consider whether a bill is "necessary" rather than merely "permissible".

We have too many laws as it is. Altogether too many of those laws are neither necessary, nor permissible when you get down to it.

Our Constitution says that Congress shall make no law restricting the freedom of speech. Yet our Congress has made laws that prevent ordinary citizens from speaking out against a particular politician or candidate in the sixty days leading up to the election. Our president has signed them. Our Supreme Court has upheld them.

We can't choose the Justices on our Courts. We can choose our President and our Representatives and Senators. But we can't say anything about them just before an election unless we say it without the benefit of media to transmit our message.

It's legal for politicians to lie to us. It's illegal for us to expose those lies. Not one of our Presidential candidates will do anything about that.

This is just one of the things our politicians do, and will continue to do that violates our rights and violates the spirit of the Constitution. Next year, on Election Day, we will be voting for new federal officers. Unless one of them promises to uphold the Constitution and to work to restore the limitations on our federal government we won't have a choice of "the better of two imperfects". Instead our choice will be the "lesser of two evils".

Even if we found a politician that would make the promise, how long would it be before it was broken?

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