Bovid cognoscenti

 

WTF. Multi-purpose tool use among...wait for it...cows? You know, bovids. Bovidae. What-the-heck. 

Destroy Shambo

 

A somewhat shambolic controversy back in 2007 involving the religious sect I mentioned earlier, Community of the Many Names of God and its Welsh ashram Skanda Vale. The ashram wanted to save one of its bulls, Shambo, from being slaughtered after the animal tested positive for TB. Note the ethno-politicking involved in the case! From Wikipedia, but seems to be fully sourced. 

Shambo

Villebråd

 

Miljöpartiet vill tydligen introducera visent och skogsvildren i Sverige. Inte mig emot. Kommer ändå inte att rösta på dem. Eftersom de antagligen även vill introducera grottbjörn, sabeltandad tiger och pungvarg. Helst nära mänsklig bebyggelse. Företrädesvis daghem. Så nehejdu.

Och ja, jag vet att bilden härovan inte föreställer en skogsvildren utan snarare en fjällren i skogen, men Bing AI håller inte så noga reda på hjortdjurens taxonomi!  

A cat among the ermines

 

To use a Swedish proverb. Is *this* the world atheists want, I wonder? LOL. 

Large Language Model

 

The first video (about Ozzy Osbourne) is extremely infuriating. The second one is about a new trend among charismatic Christians: to speak in tongues and then ask ChatGPT to "translate" it?! Yes, really. Gives an entirely new meaning to the term "Large Language Model"! Ironically, both presenters sound AI-like so there´s that... 

I won´t even tell you what the third video is about. But yeah, chances are that´s just another AI end times deception...

Update

 

What´s up with the red heifer situation? This update is from early August. Have the Jewish fundamentalists backed down? Or did animal rights activists rescue their poor cows? 

Israelis practice red heifer ritual in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque

The methane miracle

 

Arla (the Scandinavian dairy company) is threatened by a boycott in the UK due to cows getting a mysterious new feed which makes them fart less and hence "produce" less methane, which is a green house gass. The feed is associated with Bill Gates, who is prominently featured in various conspiracy theories... and off we go. Arla, for their part, blame "disinformation". 

Personally, I wonder if the people who want to boycott Arla over this think that modern milk is entirely "organic" to begin with? Why do they buy their dairy products from Arla rather than from some semi-illegal biodynamic farm run by Anthroposophists? Duh!   

Arla says boycott calls over methane-cutting feed additive based on "misinformation"

The Goblin Shark feat. Marvin

 

"The best cryptid evidence" doesn´t strike me as very "cryptid". Note that the Patterson-Gimlin film of Bigfoot fame isn´t included in this survey. All animals featured (except maybe Marvin) seem to belong to known and currently extant taxa. So-called cryptozoologists don´t really care - they want to find a giant ape-man, a surviving dinosaur, or something to that effect. 

So it seems the Patterson-Gimlin film is unique, being the only good footage of an *actual* cryptid (i.e. a monster). But it´s precisely it´s singular character that makes it so hard to believe...   

Dracula´s hidden kingdom

 

Credit: Charles J Sharp 

¨

“Dracula´s Hidden Kingdom” is the dramatic title of a fairly regular nature documentary about Transylvania in Romania. As far as I understand, Transylvania wasn´t even 15^th century warlord Vlad Dracula´s actual principality! It was probably British writer Bram Stoker (19^th century) who made the association and…well, here we are.

To give the docu some (tourist) “local color”, some scary castles, ruins and graveyards have been included, and something I take to be Gypsy music plays in the background while the narrator speaks. Most of the time, however, we get to see all the usual players: lynxes, wolves, red foxes, deer, beavers and European bison – OK, maybe the latter is new to most viewers! Birds shown include white storks, bee-eaters and the hoopoe. We also learn that there are 200 species of butterflies in Transylvania and 27 species of bats. I admit I had no idea so many species of these particular critters even existed in Europe! Sources?

Apparently, Homo sapiens have lived in Transylvania for 40,000 years (a Stone Age cave painting of a bison is shown) and throughout most of its history, the area was teeming with wildlife, including enormous herds of the just mentioned bison. Even today, at least the bear population seems to be thriving, while many other animals have diminishing populations. The bison were actually extirpated in the wild at one point, but have been reintroduced. Plans to establish a new national park in the Carpathians are mentioned. 

Personally, I have to admit that East European rural backwaters give me claustrophobia, but sure, maybe they are good for non-humane Animalia? Perhaps somewhere in that vast mountain wilderness, some lonely vampire is still stalking the hills… 

The island of Doctor Moreau

 

This will never happen and is probably just another scam to part rich people and governments with their money. But nice try! 

"Closer than people think": De-extinction 

Unblemished

 

I´ve heard about the red heifers before (cuz of course I have). However, I assumed that the Hamas-heifer connection was a conspiracy theory of the kookier kind. Now, click on the link below. Yes, it´s from CBS News. So I presume Hamas really did mention the red cows from Texas in one of their "official" statements.

Holy moly. Or should I say: holy cow?

On one point, I suspect CBS might be wrong. They don´t mention that Christian fundamentalists have been breeding red heifers in Texas to "aid" the Jewish ditto in their attempts to rebuild the Temple. But surely that´s where the "pet cows" come from?  

What these red cows from Texas have to do with war and peace in the Middle East

See also here:

Jerusalem Madness

Pointing-out instruction

 

Bing AI´s take on "Brahman". OK, so I assume there is a cattle breed called Brahman? Still, since Brahman is supposed to be Everything, I suppose I can´t really complain! 

Fire, ice and ugly bovids

Who´s calling me ugly, boy?
Credit: Charles J Sharp

"Wild Scandinavia (Fire and Ice)" is a 2023 BBC documentary about wildlife in Norway, Iceland and Svalbard. The two latter aren´t part of Scandinavia as the term is usually understood...at least in Scandinavia! In Swedish, the docu has been titled "Det arktiska Skandinavien" but that too is wrong, since Dovrefjell in Norway isn´t Arctic...

But sure, the wildlife shown is so cool that casual viewers probably don´t care about the geographical naming conventions (or even locations). 

Muskoxen (the bovids at Dovrefjell), arctic foxes and polar bears are featured. So are peculiar birds such as ruffs and little auks. We also get to meet a wolf spider which hunts flies at the outskrits of a hot spring on Iceland! I admit that the muskoxen were my favorites - these large beasts are even uglier than I expected, LOL. For some reason, they don´t show killer whales.

Could be of some interest if you are a nature documentary aficionado, but don´t expect any deeper philosophical insights... 

Banteng breed

 

Is there no end to the sheer craziness of Australian fauna?! Come and meet (or bow hunt) the scrub bulls! 

Apparently, some "bantengs" (the name of this particular bovine species) were introduced to Australia in 1849 by the British Army. One year later, the 20 or so specimens were abandoned and went feral. Today, there are 10,000 of them! 

Bow hunting an aggressive scrub bull sounds nuts, but the matie in the clip above does it just fine. Maybe he´s a killer koala at heart, who knows? :D 

Darwin Awards

 

I can already see Professor Edward Dutton fuming over this. "She scores high in narcissism, low in conscientiousness, low in agreeableness". The bison, on the other hand, seems serene as a buddha...

What mutant will win out in the end, remains to be seen. Although it sounds rather counter-intuitive, my money (inflated Swedish kronor) are at the bison!

 

Welcome to Russia!

 

I admit that this is quite funny, despite the anti-Ukrainian angle. Now, the dastardly kholokhols must respond in kind! By wrestling down a wisent, perhaps? 

Jerusalem madness

 

Yes, it´s the red heifers. See time stamps 9:46 - 13:35.

And in case you don´t get it, apparently a *perfect* red heifer was necessary for sacrifices in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. That is, a heifer with absolutely no white or black hairs. This kind of heifer supposedly don´t exist anymore, which means that to all intents and purposes, the Temple can´t be rebuilt!

Years ago, I read about a Christian fundamentalist rancher in Texas who tried to breed all-red heifers. This is connected to an idea among certain Christian groups that a new Jewish temple must be built before the Second Advent of Christ. Judging by the broadcast above, this kind of Protestant fundamentalists (who await the return of *Jesus*, remember?) have struck an unholy alliance with Jewish fundamentalists, who also want to rebuild the Temple and hence also need the red heifers.

The problem seems to be that the red heifers currently in existence always grow at least *some* white or black hairs, making them unfit to “purify” the Temple priests. If the particular cattle featured in this TV broadcast will usher in the millennium won´t become clear until next year, when they turn two years old (the age specified in the Torah for said bovids to be acceptable sacrifice).

Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that the works of the Almighty can be thwarted – or forced – by ranchers in Texas manipulating cow DNA, but I suppose the Lord might indeed work in mysterious ways…

Cows disprove Xianity

 

"So what if I can´t live forever,
I´m contented now, you Xian bastard.
Besides, the slaughterhouse is mythological anyway!"
Credit: Kim Hansen

Of course atheist materialists can live meaningful and fulfilling lives. 

So can cows destined for the slaughterhouse. Well, at least before they are brutally butchered under ritualistic forms... 

So what´s the problem, really? Check mate, Xians! 

Or no?

Realm of Mother Volga

"Realm of the Volga" is a two-part German nature documentary, produced by Altay Films. It takes the viewer on a journey from the taiga of northern European Russia all the way down to the steppes surrounding the Caspian Sea. Most of the time, the documentary follows the Volga, the largest river in Europe. With the exception of Astrakhan close to the delta, the cities in the Volga basin are mostly not shown, the most notorious of these being Volgograd (Stalingrad). Instead, we get to see the Russian wilds (and a few Orthodox churches) in mostly pristine condition. 

Many of the animals shown are instantly familiar to a Swedish viewer like myself: moose, beaver, red fox, boar, capercaillie, mallard, tawny owl, black woodpecker, great tit... I even recognized the wisents, since we have them at the Skansen zoo in Stockholm! 

Further south, the fauna becomes more exotic. Large flocks of saiga antelopes roam the desolate landscape and drink the brackish water, while trying to stay clear of the steppe wolfe. Meanwhile, steppe eagles build their nests on the ground, and demoiselle cranes carry out their mating rituals. Corsac foxes, rosy starlings and hoopoes are other characteristic species found around Volga´s southern portions. In the Caspian Sea, cormorants and white-tailed eagles live onboard eerie abandoned ships, while enormous colonies of seals gather at the islands of this peculiar inland sea. And yet, even this feels familiar somehow, obviously because all these animals are included in field guides to European mammals or birds, the geographical border of "Europe" being situated even further east than the Volga river.

It´s a fascinating trip, to be sure, almost aesthetical. And yet, by not showing the great cities, the oil industry and the environmental degradation, I still get the impression that perhaps somehow we are being served the wrong picture here! I can´t help thinking that perhaps Mother Volga has fallen on hard times...   

And Arctic night came to be

"A Perfect Planet" is a BBC One series, narrated in the original by David Attenborough. Here in Sweden, our very own Henrik Ekman is the mysterious voice in the background. I recently watched the second episode, titled "The Sun". Ostensibly about the impact of sunlight on Earth´s wildlife, it´s really a nature photographer´s extravaganza, showing spectacular images from all over the world. This time, the production team takes us to Southeast Asia, Ellesmere Island during the Arctic night, mainland Canada, the Sahara desert, New Zealand, Alaska, and a few other places besides. We get to see the bizarre life cycle of the fig wasp (which has co-evolved perfectly with the fig trees), the weird mating rituals of the garter snake, hibernating frogs, snow geese fighting it out with Arctic foxes, silver ants in the Sahara, gibbons, and the sooty sharewater (a bird that migrates between New Zealand and Alaska, thereby experiencing "an eternal summer"). 

But the most astounding and frankly scary footage comes from Ellesmere Island north of Greenland. You would think an island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean would be devoid of "higher" wildlife. You would be wrong. Even during the coldest and darkest time of the year (the Arctic night lasts four months here), the island is the scene of an eternal struggle between hords of muskoxen and packs of Arctic wolves. It frankly looks like another planet. In the documentary, the wolves actually fail to kill a muskox, and are forced to chase enormous swarm-like flock of Arctic hares instead! It looks almost comic. Last time I watched a documentary about Ellesmere Island, I waxed philosophical. Somehow, the fate of the animals at this God-forsaken place, being forced to act out their pre-programmed behavioral patterns over and over, made me more appreciative of being born a human...

Finally, two complaints. At least in the Swedish version, the narrator quotes the Bible but garbles its meaning. No, citizen, the Bible doesn´t simply say "And light came to be". It says very explicitly that *God* created the light. But nice try, atheista. Also, the observation that one hour of sunlight contains all the energy humanity needs is irrelevant, since there is no way to harness that large amount of solar power. Funny how the little sound bites tells us more about the Zeitgeist than the big picture...

If Our Lord also created Ellesmere Island after hounding the wolves out of Eden is, alas, less clear!

Still, recommended. Especially in conjunction with the first episode, reviewed by me elsewhere on this blog.