"Some of the most iconic photographs of Teddy Roosevelt, one of the first conservationists in American politics, show the president posing companionably with the prizes of his trophy hunts. An elephant felled in Africa in 1909 points its tusks skyward; a Cape buffalo, crowned with horns in the shape of a handlebar mustache, slumps in a Kenyan swamp. In North America, he stalked deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and elk, which he called "lordly game" for their majestic antlers. What's remarkable about these photographs is not that they depict a hunter who was also naturalist John Muir's staunchest political ally. It's that just 100 years after his expeditions, many of the kind of magnificent trophies he routinely captured are becoming rare." - Anna Haro
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Elk still range across parts of North America, but every hunting season brings a greater challenge to find the sought-after bull with a towering spread of antlers. Africa and Asia still have elephants, but Roosevelt would have regarded most of them as freaks, because they don't have tusks. Researchers describe what's happening as none other than the selection process that Darwin made famous: the fittest of a species survive to reproduce and pass along their traits to succeeding generations, while the traits of the unfit gradually disappear. Selective hunting—picking out individuals with the best horns or antlers, or the largest piece of hide—works in reverse: the evolutionary loser is not the small and defenseless, but the biggest and best-equipped to win mates or fend off attackers. - Anna Haro
When hunting is severe enough to outstrip other threats to survival, the unsought, middling individuals make out better than the alpha animals, and the species changes. "Survival of the fittest" is still the rule, but the "fit" begin to look unlike what you might expect. And looks aren't the only things changing: behavior adapts too, from how hunted animals act to how they reproduce. There's nothing wrong with a species getting molded over time by new kinds of risk. But some experts believe problems arise when these changes make no evolutionary sense. - Anna Haro
So true. Predatory animals will hunt the weakest and oldest, leaving the strongest to live. Hunters always kill the best looking animals, screwing up the balance of the population. - Raoul Pop
weakest and oldest prove easiest to catch with minimal chance for self injury. You can see this in marine life too - whales are on a trend that show the average size is shrinking after the largest we hunted out of existence. - alphaxion
"Remember the phrase, “a camel is a horse designed by a committee”?
That’s no doubt what we’re all doing. Looks like nobody except me likes the idea of a “lite” FriendFeed. It’s getting slammed from East Coast to West Coast to Canada and Australia, so far as I can tell.
The FriendFeed team debuted some great features I would not have predicted. That’s what they’re good at. My major concerns, as repeated elsewhere, is that many people tried it, didn’t like it, and haven’t come back. My goal was to find out what pushed them away, and what could be done to pull them back in.
Practically the whole post was about focusing on new users, not the core like you, me and that Robert guy, whatever his name is." - Louis Gray
"You would get your first request if we got “track.” You could also get part of your third request too. But I like your list and your thinking." - Robert Scoble
I will second language filters. Half my postings are in Greek and I know how annoying that can be (and vice versa for Greek speakers) - Sofia Gkiousou
"On the night Barack Obama was elected President, Melissa, Nikki and I went searching for a place to celebrate. We found it in two spontaneous parties in the middle of the street on St. Mark's in New York. Hundreds of happy people singing, dancing, and feeling optimistic for our country's future." - Steve Isaacs
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I love that people have posted these videos. I was in London for the election. Though that was a unique experience for me, I'm a bit bummed that I missed the spontaneous eruption of a people freed from 8 years of misery. - Spidra Webster
does it usually take a while for these videos to be converted and be playable on iPhone? I currently can't play this one on my phone, but all the other videos I can. - Maria
Maria - yes there's a lag. YouTube has to convert each video to an iPhone-ready H.264 QT format. Takes a little longer. - Steve Isaacs
Free speech at its finest ... minus the whole smashed car window thing. It feels good to be proud of my country and proud to be an American again. No more Bush indeed!! - ::Kristen::
My pride and thankfulness at being an American has never been based upon who is President. - Charles LePage
My pride in being an American is certainly affected by how my government behaves both domestically and internationally, regardless of which party is in power. - Spidra Webster
That wasn't the point that I was trying to make, and I knew that someone would go there. But whatever. And for the record, Bush made me damn ashamed to admit that I'm an American and it's about damn time that the country chose the right guy. It took us 8 years, but we finally got here. - ::Kristen::
I've never been ashamed to admit I am an American, no matter who was currently in office. And, quite often, America shows its true beauty and strength in times of crisis, such as when we elect a President so deeply entrenched in political favors and scandals. - Charles LePage
"Soon after the coup against the government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, Chilean graduates of Friedman's economics department, who were soon dubbed the "Chicago Boys," took over the helm of the economy and launched a program of economic transformation with doctrinal vengeance. In light of his much-quoted assertion about political freedom going hand-in-hand with free markets, the irony that in Chile a free market paradise was being imposed with the bayonets of one of Latin America's most bloodstained dictatorships could not have escaped the guru. Yet Friedman visited Chile during the dictatorship, anointing the radical free-market, export-oriented thrust of the regime, praising Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet for his commitment to a "fully free market as a matter of principle," and delivering talks with a title "The Fragility of Freedom" that could only be ironic in the Chilean context. " - Anna Haro
I have designed a personal shelter in the form of a vehicle that can potentially be used by those experiencing homelessness. This vehicle is by no means a cure for homelessness but rather a concept piece that I have created to explore the issue. - alexandrek
"After the alloted cooking time, the crust was beautiful but it was so buttery that there was butter dripping out of the pie plate! The filling wasn't bubbling much, it wasn't overflowing at all and my pies always overflow! I took it out of the oven anyways and waited, and waited while the pie took its sweet time cooling down. It was pure torture! After a few hours, and many a photo later, we finally cut this baby open." - edythe
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