Tag: whales

The Great Chilean Desert Whale Mass Grave.

This is only a mystery if you let it be one.

While working on a highway-widening project in the middle of South America’s Atacama Desert, Chilean workers unearthed an eerie scene that had no business being more than a kilometer away from the ocean: a mass fossil graveyard containing more than 75 ancient whales, reports MSNBC.

(pause)

…Well, that was interesting: I was trying to get a link to that Far Side cartoon where a fish was given Styrofoam shoes and sent to sleep with the humans, only I ended up on TV Tropes somehow.  Yeah, yeah, I knew that it was a mistake, going in.  But you know how it goes.  You think that you can just go in, get what you need, and then leave.  Never works, but you still think that.

Via Instapundit.

 

Drudge sums it up: “JUDGE: Whales not slaves…”

I’m not sure that I’m ready to forgive CBS this opening sentence:

An effort to free whales from SeaWorld by claiming they were enslaved made a splash in the news but flopped in court Wednesday.

It’s just the tiniest bit tedious in its punditry.

Moe Lane

PS: Via Drudge, obviously.

PS: Due to PETA, just as obviously.  I’d go eat some orcas in response, except that I actually like orcas.

Mariachi band vs. Beluga Whale!

…which is to say, the latter was hanging out and grooving to the former. Like they do.

LiveLeak (via the AoSHQ sidebar) can’t figure this one out, but it doesn’t seem too confusing: it’s a whale. Whales dig music. I had MoeLane.com’s scientific/technological advisor* analyze the video, and she says that the whale’s probably hearing something, even past the glass. So it’s, you know, chilling and stuff. Wouldn’t you?

(pause)

What? Am I now not allowed to admit liking mariachi bands?

Moe Lane

*Otherwise known as “Dear.”

How, precisely, does one ‘discover’ a dead whale on your bow?

It seems to be a fairly binary sort of situation, after all. You either have a dead sixty ton marine mammal stuck to the front of your ship, or you don’t. If you do, one would think that the state change would be immediately obvious to even the most incurious observer.

Apparently not.

Whale wedged on cruise ship bow

A rare whale was discovered wedged on to the bow of a cruise ship when it docked in a Canadian port.

The 70ft fin whale, a threatened species in Canada, was found when the Sapphire Princess docked at the Port of Vancouver, the cruise company said.

It said it had “strict whale avoidance” measures and it was unclear where, when or how the whale became stuck.

The truly surreal bit? The article indicates that this is not the first time that this has happened.  Perhaps they should start putting some sort of sensor equipment under the waterline so that the captain can be aware that he’s dragging more than kelp.

Moby Hit: Whale-based anti-piracy manuevers in Gulf.

I suppose that it says something about me that I really would rather live in the Weekly World News‘ world:

WHALES TAKE DOWN SOMALI PIRATES

CAIRO—The Egyptian government is calling on the gentle giants of the sea to take out pirate ships, and the whales are getting the job done.

Somali privateers operating in the Indian Ocean have been robbing trade ships in the region and taking hostages, sometimes with political overtones. Egypt has responded with an elite fighting force of ramming whales trained to neutralize the vessels through headlong collisions.

[snip]

“They’re not human!” wailed a captured Somali pirate, after an engagement that left his ship a wreck and his crew prisoners. “I mean, I know they’re not human, but like…I mean it in the superlative sense, like they’re not bound by human limitations.”

In a very odd way, it’d be a bit more coherent. The weird stuff that happens there have reasons behind them. Or, at least, better ones than “Just because” or “because there was money in it.”