Cowbird—‘Nuff Said

Posted by JRM on January 28, 2006, 05:58 PM | #

It has come to the attention of the authorities that you have been making implicit analogies between the behavior of humans and the behavior of animals.  This pathology of generalizing behavior across realms must stop.  Theories of resource competition and parasitism DO NOT apply to humans because humans are EXEMPT from selection.  That’s why we all get along with one another.

Posted by Søren Renner on January 28, 2006, 06:05 PM | #

Ooh, brood parisitism. Good, good post.

Posted by Søren Renner on January 28, 2006, 06:14 PM | #

parasitism, that is

Posted by James Bowery on January 28, 2006, 06:23 PM | #

JRM, I now see the error of my ways.  I am obviously a sick sick man who is theorizing a vast conspiracy of cowbirds is out to get the wrens.  This is of course insane.  Cowbirds don’t run around organizing in secret cabals to “get” the wrens.  In fact, Cowbirds are GOOD for wrens and are simply attempting to brighten their day with their colorful throats and the cute cuddliness of their appearance.

There have been known to be wrens who ejected the eggs of Cowbirds from their nests, and I think it is high time that we put a stop to this insanely self-destructive behavior on the part of wrens since it can only lead to one thing:  Mass Zyklon-B poisoning of Cowbirds by wrens filled with virulent xenophobic hatred.

Posted by JRM on January 28, 2006, 06:59 PM | #

James,

You have not shown sufficient contrition.  The error of your ways is far more serious than you dare admit.  Your error is one of mental process and procedure rather than this specific incidence.  Your mental processes are deficient because you seek to build out generalizations from specific observations.  You see and observe, then you come out with a general theory.  This is wrong because it leads to the wrong theory.  We, the authorities, already know what the correct theory is.  The correct theory is what is provided to you.  You then show that it works.  If you want to advance the cause and understanding of science, then you must use the theory to explain facts.  This is how the world works:  general theory leads to specific facts and incidences.  Any other way might to lead to error and must carefully be avoided. 

You have been warned.

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on January 28, 2006, 07:40 PM | #

LOL.

We need a good humor-poster here.  I’m not good at it; maybe we could get Chuck Pearson on some meds and get him to return to blogging, here at MR?  He was always good for a laff.

There’s SOOOOOO much good material waiting.

Posted by James Bowery on January 29, 2006, 04:01 AM | #

To do penance in compliance with JRM’s warning, I hereby declare the following article to be explicable by the consequences of US imperialism, racism, xenophobia and nativism rather than any laughable protocols of the elders of cowbirds or other psychotic symptoms of a poor toilet training:

“Immigrant” Tragedies on the Uptick?
[Brenda Walker] @ 6:48 pm [Email author] [Email This Article] [Print This Article]

Is it just me, or are illegal alien sob stories increasing in frequency and emotional insistence the last little while?

We wouldn’t expect the MSM to slack off in its open-borders propaganda with the House-Senate showdown coming up. After all, editors apparently like cheap household help as much as Wall Streeters. So the recent output of two-hanky “immigrant” tragedies has been prolific.

Here are a few recent morsels, designed to soften up us hard-hearted Americans.

•  The 300,000 foreigners living here under Temporary Protected Status because of natural disasters at home don’t want to leave now that “temporary” is over. It would be “unfair” to make them leave now that they are all comfy and have cable TV, according to the usual hired mouthpieces.

•  An HIV-positive Colombian wants asylum because the military will kill him in his home country for his homosexuality, or so he says. (Hmmm, aren’t those military fellows already pretty busy with protecting cocaine production and such?)

•  “Friends, legislator fight to keep Merced man in U.S.” because he is so well-liked and has such a nice smile! This is the high-school approach to immigration admissions, in which being popular is the most important quality.

•  “Fears, hopes fill immigrant’s life” is a standard-issue sobster about an illegal with three jackpot babies who’s just gotta stay, for his expensive bone-cancer treatment, if nothing else.

  “It used to be you had to kill somebody or do drugs to be deported,” Igbanugo said. “Now if you shoplift twice, you’re gone.”

Oh, the humanity!