The fire last time

 

For some reason, I feel like linking to this old blog post from 2021. I must be the only person who starts reflecting on Shiva while watching a boring documentary about some fossils in Colorado!  

Our tribe

And then they came for the gays

 

One thing is certain: if the Democrats win the federal elections, it won´t be because of their politics... 

Transgender activists slam gay nudist event for male-only policy

Investigation into "USA Fencing" for trans inclusion policy

Trans fencer leaves college team following controversy

Colorado push through radical transgender bill

Trump´s press secretary refuses to engage with pro-trans reporters

Do Your Own Research

 

 

 

So I did my own armchair research a propos the previous blog post "Emerson´s Dogman". I admit I was...stunned.

In New Jersey, a black bear nicknamed Pedals could actually walk permanently on its hind legs, and quite fast too! It was an adaptation to the fact that one of its front paws had been damaged and rendered non-functional. There are also dogs who learned to walk bipedally for similar reasons. They, too, were quite fast. 

Bears walking on their hind legs for longer or shorter distances are (surprise) the main suspects in many purported Bigfoot observations. One clip above shows two normal bears in a South Korean safari park standing and even walking bipedally a short distance. But if bears and dogs can walk upright under certain conditions, what about wolves? While there is no scientific evidence for factultative bipedalism among wolves, who´s to say that it´s intrinsically impossible?

Note that there isn´t any particular contradiction between this and the notion that most (perhaps 99%) of Dogman sightings are misidentifications, hallucinations or hoaxes. Obviously, unusual observations of animals will be sensationalized and later mythologized. And in the Internet age, people will end up "seeing" them pretty much everywhere. 

The same logic applied to Bigfoot could yield some interesting results. Or speculations...    

Immaculate Constellation

 

- Whoa, you took your time, dude.
The humans are already gone,
avian dinosaurs are in charge now!

While you were sleeping. Or electioneering? This was probably underreported due to the POTUS elections, but now it´s doing the rounds on social media and even in The Guardian (see link below). 

It´s another hearing on UFOs or "UAPs" in the US Congress, with people claiming to be ex-military and such disclosing sensational information about "UFO retrieval programs" and even UFO attacks?! Note Lauren Boebert´s involvement in the hearings. Note also Nick Pope´s hope that maybe Donald Trump will declassify alien-related documents, 

For as the skeptical Guardian points out, no *actual* evidence for these startling claims were presented at the hearing. The fact that nobody has been arrested can be interpreted in two ways: either the claims are true, or it´s another psy-op trying to cover up drones, hypersonic missiles, and stuff. 

It seems we just have to wait and see...again!

Startling claims made at UFO hearing in Congress

Operation Aurora

 

Credit: USAF

Let me get this straight. Trump goes to Aurora. He announces Operation Aurora. Then, auroras happen all over the lower 48. 

WTF?! 

*Is* he the God-Emperor? Or has his faction just taken over HAARP?  

Gathering at Zion?

 

The Mormon Church (or its hierarchy) is for open borders. 

Utah in uproar as Mormon Church pulls in thousands of migrants

Pending decisions

 

Joe Biden has de facto limited exports of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe, an absurd decision given the EU sanctions on Russian oil and gas. And if LNG exports from the United States go down, the most likely nation to replace them is Qatar, not exactly a US-EU ally (although not exactly an enemy either). 

So not exactly a bright decision from Biden´s handlers, if you ask me. There are different ideas among Republicans about why Biden made this move. To punish Texas for their attempts to control the Mexican border without federal interference? To placate "climate extremists" during an election year? 

Of course, the whole thing might simply be a cynical ploy from the White House. A "temporary pause on pending decisions" isn´t the same thing as an outright ban, obviously. So maybe the LNG will start flowing again after a Biden victory in November, who knows... 

"Border showdown": Biden stops approval of LNG exports

GOP Rep Weber: Biden giving a gift to Putin with LNG export pause

Dem Senator: I don´t support Biden´s decision limiting exports of LNG

A historic day in Colorado

 

Is there some kind of bizarre symbolism in this? 

THE GUBBÄNGEN MONSTER IS REAL!!! BREAKING NOW!!!

 

Just kidding...

The above footage recently went viral for a couple of days, since it looked like sensational new evidence for the existence of Bigfoot or Sasquatch, the elusive ape-man of North America (and, I suppose, the Navidad). 

Unfortunately, the whole thing is probably a prank, or perhaps some kind of weird misidentification. The squatch, alas, turned out to be a perfectly regular Homo sapiens in a funny outfit. Apparently, some kind of Bigfoot re-enactment group! 

Am I surprised? LOL. No, not really, although it would be fun if Bigfoot had been real...or, nah, maybe not, considering the number of insane big game hunters who would descend upon the North American woods in such a case. Imagine bow hunting the Sasquatch...

Still awaiting conclusive proof that the Gubbängen troll is real. 

Kundalini madness

 

Hmmm...

How is this not demonic or something?

War on Christmas?

Credits: El Paso Sheriff´s Office

He needs one, I´m sure... 

Santa Claus gets concealed carry permit in Colorado

Our tribe

"Rise of the Mammals" is a 2019 NOVA documentary about some recent fossil discoveries in Colorado. It´s somewhat boring (despite all the special effects of meteorites impacting and killing screaming dinosaurs), so you probably have to be a hardcore science nerd to really appreciate it. 

66 million years ago, Earth was hit by a meteorite which killed off 90% of all living organisms, most famously all non-avian dinosaurs. Immidiately afterwards, fungi were the dominant life form on land, almost literally feasting on the rotting remains of animals and plants. Later, ferns staged a comeback, and then palm trees and insects (no surprise there). The disapperance of the non-avian dinosaurs permitted mammals to radiate and fill various ecological niches previously occupied by the oversized reptilians (or whatever dinos may have been, cladistically speaking). Until recently, however, there was an extremely annoying break in the mammalian fossil record of about one million years after the meteorite impact. 

The documentary follows Tyler Lyson, a fossil-hunting Wunderkind from North Dakota (OK, he´s a grown up paleontologist now) as he tries to find a way out of the impasse. Eventually, a filed away fossil in Colorado, discovered by a very nice old lady, gives him a clue. The elusive mammal remains may be inside a type of stones known as concretions. Sure enough, Team Tyler soon find loads of early post-apocalyptic mammal fossil at a place called Corral Bluffs. I admit that I didn´t find the discoveries to be *that* spectacular. So mammals went from small generalists to larger specialists, well, of course they did! Colorado looked more like southern Florida when nature had rebounced one million years after the mass extinction. We´re talking hot and humid jungles where only desert exists today. 

I reflected on three things when watching this NOVA production. One was the ridiculous anthropocentric or mammalo-centric perspective (admittedly found everywhere else, too). Mammals are said to "dominate the world". This after the dinosaurs - the former rulers - went down in flames 66 million years ago. By implication, *we* rule the world. LOL! The recent COVID pandemic shows that we don´t rule horse crap, and neither does any other Mammalia. This rock is still in thrall to bacteria, viruses, fungi and assorted protozoans. The claim that "our tribe" is "smarter" than other animals is also extremely funny, since dinosaurs "ruled" the world for 150 million years and still exist (as birds). 

This brings me to the second reflection: it´s difficult for a human to fathom deep time. At least it was for me, until recently. That the meteorite impact that "overthrew" the non-avian dinosaurs was 66 million years ago sounds like something that happened the day before yesterday, since everybody constantly talks about it, and it really feels like the beginning of "the last chapter", when humans evolve out of some prosimian-like ancestor and (presto) inaugurates...American suburbia and the moon-landing. In reality, 66 million years is an *insanely long time* and so is one million years. Note that the paleontologists had difficulty finding any mammal fossils at all from a one-million year time period! But sure, we´re smart and important since we can...I don´t know...eventually find those damn bones? Unless our tribal chiefs tell us to lock down due to some retrovirus... 

My third reflection is that nature couldn´t care less about "biodiversity" or climate. Life survives almost anything. And if it isn´t "diverse", so what? The need for biodiversity is a human construct, and while climate change can of course impact all life on the planet (so can a meteorite), it´s difficult to see a situation in which all life is extinguished. As I wrote in another post: "Imagine a world with no winter and no ice, with water levels 135 meters higher than today, with water temperatures around 35 degrees centigrade, with the atmosphere having a carbon dioxide level four times that of today. Welcome to the mid-Cretaceous 90 million years ago." 

Life will find a way. And Shiva´s dance will continue.  

In the hybrid zone

Imagine the kind of BS bird-watchers are fighting over. Is Bullock´s Oriole really the same species as the Baltimore Oriole, or are they distinct? The American Ornithological Union lumped them together in 1983, but split them apart again in 1995. 

Recent research (2020 - what else?) shows that the splitters (and hence the bird-watchers, who never liked AOU´s 1983 decision) were right. The "hybrid zone" between the two blackbirds (of course it´s blackbirds) has been shrinking since the 1950´s, presumably because the hybridization is a dead-end for these particular populations. 

Of course, if you define "species" in some different way (see: bovid research), I´m sure you can split the orioles into an additional 10 species, but who cares? The rest of the world wants to know what Joe Biden proposes to do about the ice cream situation (not to mention Beijing´s hybrid warfare), not some icterid hybridization conundrum in Nebraska...

 Oriole bird hybridization is a dead end

2021 ökar

Vad ska man ens säga om det här?

Död sektledare hittades klädd i julgransbelysning

Om "Love Has Won" på Wikipedia

A divisive episode

"Snowbeast Slaughter" is an episode of History Channel's very own monster series "MonsterQuest". The team around producer Doug Hajicek roams the world, investigating everything from legitimate cryptids á la Bigfoot or Nessie to urban legends about alligators in the sewers of New York City (yes, that really is a legend). This time, Hajicek and friends make a landfall in Colorado, searching for the ever-elusive Bigfoot a.k.a. Sasquatch.

Unfortunately, the "serious" and "scientific" slant of the series makes it incredibly boring, and this episode is no exception. Considering its sensational contents, that's quite a feat! Slaughtered elk, scared dogs, mysterious tracks, stumped officials...all the ingredients are there, but "Snowbeast Slaughter" never really takes off. But sure, some of the facts presented are intriguing. Thus, it seems most Bigfoot observations in the Colorado Rockies are made during the winter, when the bear population is busy hibernating. At the very least, that rules out misidentification of bears as a possible explanation.

Ironically, "Snowbeast Slaughter" is also one of the most divisive episodes of this series. Angry sceptics have accused History Channel of perpetrating a gigantic hoax. Part of the episode is taped around Pikes Peak, a popular tourist resort in the Colorado Rockies. Why didn't the team just take a bus, the sceptics wonder? Or the local railway, which goes all the way up to the summit? Why all the fuzz with helicopters dramatically staying clear of blizzards in seeming no-mans land? Further, the name "Snowbeast" is actually the title of a horror flick from 1977, set in...surprise....a Colorado ski resort.

Of course, "MonsterQuest" could easily have silenced the critics by renaming the episode, or concentrate on another peak. Or, I suppose, point out that not all parts of Pike National Forest are accessibly by lush chartered buses from Colorado Springs...

That being said, I will nevertheless only award this production two stars. Imagine "Destination Truth" investigating the same thing. They would show both the ski resorts *and* take a dramatic hike on a chopper! :D

Fortean honey trap

"Ice Age Death Trap" is a very respectable PBS-National Geographic documentary and part of the NOVA science series. It follows a group of excavators at Snowmass in Colorado, as they are unearthing ancient mammal fossils from the bottom of an old lake. Most of the stuff shown is pretty conventional. If you're first love is mastodon bones, brace yourself for a treat.

The program is topped off by a sensational find: a mammoth carcass which seems to have been anchored to the bottom of the lake by boulders. This was standard practice among Paleo-Indians, but there is one problem: the mammoth remains are believed to be over 40,000 years old. However, according to conventional wisdom, humans didn't reach the Americas until about 15,000 years ago. Weirdly, this find is not discussed at the official site of the dig, the Snowmastodon Project. Too hot?

Since mastodons frankly aren't my cup of tea (or first love), I found "Ice Age Death Trap" pretty boring, until the pre-Clovis discovery. Fortean honey traps can show up in the most unexpected of places. Even at Snowmass, Colorado.

Squatchy horror collection

I don't own this particular DVD, but I've seen the three films it contains: "The Snow Creature" (1954), "Snowbeast" (1977) and "Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot" (also 1977). If you like low budget productions featuring monsters - not always convincing ones - this DVD must be a veritable crunch meal. People who for some reason don't like Bigfoot-related B-movies better stay away!

"The Snow Creature" strikes me as very low budget even for a 50's movie. The plot revolves around a murderous and seriously out-of-place Yeti. In "Snowbeast", filmed on location in Colorado, the villain is a Bigfoot with a taste for human flesh. The creature terrorizes a ski resort while the local authorities try to keep the matter under wraps so the tourist industry won't get bankrupt. Sounds familiar? "Snowbeast" is lousy, but the concept could have worked with better actors and, I suppose, a better monkey-suit. Incidentally, the Snowbeast moniker was recently used in an episode of "MonsterQuest" to describe Bigfoot reports from Colorado.

"Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot" is the most interesting of three films. Ostensibly a documentary or docudrama, it's really a fiction account of an expedition to "the Peckatoe River" in British Columbia. The river doesn't exist, and the whole thing is actually filmed in the Cascades in Oregon. The fictional element becomes obvious when the expedition is attacked by a crazy cougar on a low special effects budget. Still, "Sasquatch" is well worth watching. This is presumably how many people during the 1970's *wanted* a Bigfoot chase to look like. I was particularly struck by the strange mixture of rough cowboys and hippie love summer, complete with nature romanticism. The only thing missing is Ralph Waldo Emerson showing up, cracking a poem. The more trigger-happy Zeb Macahan isn't far away either. Eventually, the heroes reach the mysterious "valley of the Sasquatch", only to find out that the squatches really don't like strangers... As if we expected anything else!

As already said, this is really a review of the three films included, rather than this DVD itself. Judging by the other reviews, however, it seems to be really squatchy. Therefore...five stars.