Slog Comments
Speaking of Duck Vaginas
5
I wonder if ducks have a way of shutting that whole thing down? We should report this to the republicans.
8
I watched about 20 seconds of it, then just decided it wasn't worth my time. It looked like a bunch of ducks chasing one duck down, and then one of the pursuers mounting her while the camera person laughed.
Good times, good times.
Good times, good times.
9
I witnessed this happen when I was like 14! It was really upsetting. I just listened to a RadioLab which talks about how female ducks evolved crazy corkscrew shaped vaginas with false extra branches that lead sperm off to dead ends. CRAZY.
11
It doesn't actually end with the duck's death. They'll keep going. And they aren't that picky about gender. Basically every duck ever is Ed Gein.
12
SLOG is so rapey of late.
It probably doesn't "often" result in death, or there wouldn't be any ducks left.
It probably doesn't "often" result in death, or there wouldn't be any ducks left.
13
I don't speak duck, what does "no" sound like? I had assumed it was flying away and landing in a body of water.
14
Oy.. this is horrible, but just wait: it's this type of crap that will have the GOP soon writing into their platform that "Rape is natural and women need to get over it"
After all, their platform now says that "God and nature give us our rights - not the US Government."
If they are not liars, then this video proves that it's only a matter of time before rape becomes a lesser crime.
This video and the current GOP should scare the living SHIT out of every rational and sane individual on the planet.
After all, their platform now says that "God and nature give us our rights - not the US Government."
If they are not liars, then this video proves that it's only a matter of time before rape becomes a lesser crime.
This video and the current GOP should scare the living SHIT out of every rational and sane individual on the planet.
15
Chickens do the same thing. I have one hen who is the target for all the roosters. Out of 15 hens the roosters only gang up on her which, if you ask Todd Akin, must mean she's asking for it in some way. One of her eggs hatched recently so it obviously wasn't a legitimate rape. In any case, I felt bad so she lives with the rabbit now and seems much happier.
16
Wow I saw this happening years ago, by the pond in front of Weyerhaeuser headquarters of all places, and yes it was pretty violent.
17
Anarchists and Libertarians like to talk about how unjust laws are, how beautiful it would be if we lived in harmony with our true natures.
For the majority of our history and probably for all our pre-history, our existence has been nasty, brutish and short. Human nature, much like the nature of all animals, is quite horrible. The reason why we have laws is because our existence was so harsh for so long. Its a very recent event, and only in a small part of this world, that we have achieved a system which inhibits our more horrible instincts by establishing social norms of right and wrong. We give the state a monopoly on violence because without that monopoly we would tear each other to pieces. The state is an imperfect guardian, as it too is run by humans and is just as prone to humanity's less humane nature. The state as expression of the popular will does occasionally go mad when the populus suffers a mass psychosis. Mass psychosis is more horrible but less common than individual psychosis, and for this reason the state acts to inhibit individuals from behaving monstrously.
Other species which lack the brain structures needed to create a social order behave exactly as we have for most of our existence. Were it not for a prefrontal cortex and structures responsible for language and communication of abstract ideas, we would never have escaped the unrestrained nastiness that dominates the animal kingdom.
For this reason I do not abhor the state, in all its imperfection. Its better to have some kind of stopgap holding us back from the brink than to run wildly over the cliff as these ducks do
For the majority of our history and probably for all our pre-history, our existence has been nasty, brutish and short. Human nature, much like the nature of all animals, is quite horrible. The reason why we have laws is because our existence was so harsh for so long. Its a very recent event, and only in a small part of this world, that we have achieved a system which inhibits our more horrible instincts by establishing social norms of right and wrong. We give the state a monopoly on violence because without that monopoly we would tear each other to pieces. The state is an imperfect guardian, as it too is run by humans and is just as prone to humanity's less humane nature. The state as expression of the popular will does occasionally go mad when the populus suffers a mass psychosis. Mass psychosis is more horrible but less common than individual psychosis, and for this reason the state acts to inhibit individuals from behaving monstrously.
Other species which lack the brain structures needed to create a social order behave exactly as we have for most of our existence. Were it not for a prefrontal cortex and structures responsible for language and communication of abstract ideas, we would never have escaped the unrestrained nastiness that dominates the animal kingdom.
For this reason I do not abhor the state, in all its imperfection. Its better to have some kind of stopgap holding us back from the brink than to run wildly over the cliff as these ducks do
19
it does not "often" end in death. mallard rape happens a lot, and the female very often walks, paddles or flies away from it.
21
and 12 has a very good evolutionary point. it is not in the female duck's best interest to resist even to the point of death; if she dies she passes on zero of her genes. and it is not in the male duck's best interest to rape until the female dies; that way they don't pass on any genes either.
but it DOES pay off for both sexes to fight rather hard about it.
but it DOES pay off for both sexes to fight rather hard about it.
22
@17. The Book 'Sex at Dawn' which Dan Savage has promoted frequently has a very different perspective to yours, and talks about the wishful thinking behind our tendency to paint history as more ugly and brutal than the present, in order to help us feel life is getting better.
It also talks about how we share equal DNA with the Bonobo and the Chimpanzee, but most of history only talks about teh Chimp, not the Bonobo, but the Chimp is violent and the males rape, but the Bonobo doesn't rape. We focus on the brutal.
p.s. most anarchists have read Mutual Aid, which uses animals (mostly birds) to demonstrate countless examples of peaceful cooperation and caring amongst animals.
Plus, check out this heart warming story:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=…
It also talks about how we share equal DNA with the Bonobo and the Chimpanzee, but most of history only talks about teh Chimp, not the Bonobo, but the Chimp is violent and the males rape, but the Bonobo doesn't rape. We focus on the brutal.
p.s. most anarchists have read Mutual Aid, which uses animals (mostly birds) to demonstrate countless examples of peaceful cooperation and caring amongst animals.
Plus, check out this heart warming story:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=…
23
History does not move along a steady slope toward the better. For example, the Greco-Roman civilization was considerably more advanced than the Medieval European era that followed it. So I take your point about the tendency to portray the past as worse just to make us feel that we are getting better.
By all measures our current civilization in this narrow sliver of the world that we inhabit is far better than our predecessors. War is less common than it used to be. Our life span is triple what it was at the dawn of civilization. Infant mortality and illiteracy are far lower than we have any prior record of. We no longer even have to think about many of the infectious diseases that were common features of everyday life not that long ago, and still are in many of the less fortunate parts of this world.
Further, I want you to note that I am limiting my commentary to a small geographic locale. We are indeed fortunate not to have to consider cholera before consuming a glass of water, which is something the majority of the world cannot claim. There are no warlords menacing Wallingford, no pitched naval battles for the control of Shoreline. As awful as the SPD are and were during the Occupy protests, they did not send tanks into Westlake Plaza the way they did Tienanmen Square. Monsters like Gary Ridgeway and Ted Bundy are features of history textbooks rather than daily newspaper reports.
We are exceptionally fortunate, you and I. For the overwhelming majority of human history, across almost all the inhabited places on this Earth, life has been truly awful. Yet here, in this brief moment and in this small haven of ours, we enjoy an existence the multitude would do anything to achieve.
By all measures our current civilization in this narrow sliver of the world that we inhabit is far better than our predecessors. War is less common than it used to be. Our life span is triple what it was at the dawn of civilization. Infant mortality and illiteracy are far lower than we have any prior record of. We no longer even have to think about many of the infectious diseases that were common features of everyday life not that long ago, and still are in many of the less fortunate parts of this world.
Further, I want you to note that I am limiting my commentary to a small geographic locale. We are indeed fortunate not to have to consider cholera before consuming a glass of water, which is something the majority of the world cannot claim. There are no warlords menacing Wallingford, no pitched naval battles for the control of Shoreline. As awful as the SPD are and were during the Occupy protests, they did not send tanks into Westlake Plaza the way they did Tienanmen Square. Monsters like Gary Ridgeway and Ted Bundy are features of history textbooks rather than daily newspaper reports.
We are exceptionally fortunate, you and I. For the overwhelming majority of human history, across almost all the inhabited places on this Earth, life has been truly awful. Yet here, in this brief moment and in this small haven of ours, we enjoy an existence the multitude would do anything to achieve.
24
The female duck shouldn't have had her feathers in such a sexy slutty fashion. She was clearly asking for it....the slut.
Now let's have some pressed duck with Julia Child!!
http://www.amazon.com/The-French-Chef-Pr…
Now let's have some pressed duck with Julia Child!!
http://www.amazon.com/The-French-Chef-Pr…
27
25,
So long as the number of ducks hatched exceeds the number of ducks killed, the total number of ducks will increase.
this is sort of how the GOP platform works. The reason why they oppose birth control and abortion is because this allows them to continue to support war and the death penalty, lethal force used by police officers and assassination, denying the poor access to healthcare and food stamps.
If women are reduced to baby-making machines, then the net population will increase no mater how many people the GOP kills. In this way, they can call themselves "pro-life" since the total number of humans alive as a result of their policies increases, even if the quality of their lives decrease.
So long as the number of ducks hatched exceeds the number of ducks killed, the total number of ducks will increase.
this is sort of how the GOP platform works. The reason why they oppose birth control and abortion is because this allows them to continue to support war and the death penalty, lethal force used by police officers and assassination, denying the poor access to healthcare and food stamps.
If women are reduced to baby-making machines, then the net population will increase no mater how many people the GOP kills. In this way, they can call themselves "pro-life" since the total number of humans alive as a result of their policies increases, even if the quality of their lives decrease.
28
@23 The war and disease you describe is limited to a more recent history. There is no solid proof that the indigenous hunter gatherer tribes of pre-history (pre guns, pre germs, pre steel) in many parts of the world didn't live to 100. We don't know.
29
28,
The definition of history is a period of time for which we have written record of. When we speak of things being pre-historic, we refer to a time before a civilization acquired literacy. Some currently extant societies are per-literate, and therefore pre-historic, even though the societies all around them are literate and therefore have history. For example, hunter-gatherer tribal bands in the Brazilian rainforest or on the island of Papua, which have not been contacted by the outside world.
Now, literacy is a recent invention. The first alphabets appeared sometime around the fourth millennium BCE, even though our species has existed since around 2.6 million years BCE. So as you can see, the vast majority fo tiem we have spent on Earth has been without any written record.
So, you are correct in the literal sense that we do not have written record of the life span of pre-historic tribes, int he sense that by definition we don
The definition of history is a period of time for which we have written record of. When we speak of things being pre-historic, we refer to a time before a civilization acquired literacy. Some currently extant societies are per-literate, and therefore pre-historic, even though the societies all around them are literate and therefore have history. For example, hunter-gatherer tribal bands in the Brazilian rainforest or on the island of Papua, which have not been contacted by the outside world.
Now, literacy is a recent invention. The first alphabets appeared sometime around the fourth millennium BCE, even though our species has existed since around 2.6 million years BCE. So as you can see, the vast majority fo tiem we have spent on Earth has been without any written record.
So, you are correct in the literal sense that we do not have written record of the life span of pre-historic tribes, int he sense that by definition we don
30
28,
The definition of history is a period of time for which we have written record of. When we speak of things being pre-historic, we refer to a time before a civilization acquired literacy. Some currently extant societies are per-literate, and therefore pre-historic, even though the societies all around them are literate and therefore have history. For example, hunter-gatherer tribal bands in the Brazilian rainforest or on the island of Papua, which have not been contacted by the outside world.
Now, literacy is a recent invention. The first alphabets appeared sometime around the fourth millennium BCE, even though our species has existed since around 2.6 million years BCE. So as you can see, the vast majority fo tiem we have spent on Earth has been without any written record.
So, you are correct in the literal sense that we do not have written record of the life span of pre-historic tribes, int he sense that by definition we don't have written record of anything pre-historic, since writing requires an alphabet and pre-historic societies by definition do not have alphabets. Its a bit like saying that we have no recordings of mute people speaking or of blind people seeing or of deaf people hearing. In other words, no shit, Sherlock.
But what we do know is that modern day humans in recently contacted societies, those studied int he field by anthropologists who first encounter such tribes, do not live very long. We also know that you can determine a person's age from the condition of their bones, even a person long dead. And the fossil record seems to indicate that early modern humans lived to about the age of 30 on average.
Here in the Greater Seattle area, the average life expectancy was 83 for both genders (women tend to live longer than men on average, so this number represents the combined genders' average). That's nearly three times what the fossil record indicates a human being at the dawn of civilization could have hoped to live to.
So we do not require written records to determine the average increase in life expectancy.
More...
The definition of history is a period of time for which we have written record of. When we speak of things being pre-historic, we refer to a time before a civilization acquired literacy. Some currently extant societies are per-literate, and therefore pre-historic, even though the societies all around them are literate and therefore have history. For example, hunter-gatherer tribal bands in the Brazilian rainforest or on the island of Papua, which have not been contacted by the outside world.
Now, literacy is a recent invention. The first alphabets appeared sometime around the fourth millennium BCE, even though our species has existed since around 2.6 million years BCE. So as you can see, the vast majority fo tiem we have spent on Earth has been without any written record.
So, you are correct in the literal sense that we do not have written record of the life span of pre-historic tribes, int he sense that by definition we don't have written record of anything pre-historic, since writing requires an alphabet and pre-historic societies by definition do not have alphabets. Its a bit like saying that we have no recordings of mute people speaking or of blind people seeing or of deaf people hearing. In other words, no shit, Sherlock.
But what we do know is that modern day humans in recently contacted societies, those studied int he field by anthropologists who first encounter such tribes, do not live very long. We also know that you can determine a person's age from the condition of their bones, even a person long dead. And the fossil record seems to indicate that early modern humans lived to about the age of 30 on average.
Here in the Greater Seattle area, the average life expectancy was 83 for both genders (women tend to live longer than men on average, so this number represents the combined genders' average). That's nearly three times what the fossil record indicates a human being at the dawn of civilization could have hoped to live to.
So we do not require written records to determine the average increase in life expectancy.
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