Things that are making you crabbit! [2]

hhmm! Norc I dont want to sound like a boring old fart but you should really not go hiking with a bad cold. Its better to stay where its warm and dry, and let your body recover a bit first. You might get a bad cough, and you will tire easily. If I was you I would stay in bed and read and talk to us nitwits for a day or two.

haha, yes, but I thought "sod it, how much worse can I get? I want to see this canyon!"
so I gota terrible cough, a throat that hurts and a fever and then, with all that, I stayed up all night. Now I am finally home and I can focus on recovery

lot of the barnacles and other sea life represent a threat of invasive species.- Eldo

Not if you eat them I shouldn't think.

but hey, I'm not crabbit- Norc

Then you are on the wrong thread young Norc!
And I agree with Mrs Figg- what you need is a few days rest/ I suggest you watch Genesis of the Daleks (on the classic Who thread), followed by my edits of LotR's and finish off with a Sherlock marathon.
You'll soon forget you feel ill.

already watched the blind banker, LOL, but what I need is sleep (btw, I'm crabbit for the weather it was on the camp and the fact that when I came home it was slightly better, though I have to stay inside now)

Well so long as your crabbit about something Norc thats ok then.
Several days of torrential rain here- its lovely.

get better soon Norc, take a spoonful of honey, thats always good for a sore throat. actually New Zealand honey is the very best, Manuka honey, its got magic properties, I get mine off Amazon.

Eldorion wrote:Possibly excessive but I understand why they're worried.

Exactly. The effort to clean the dock was completely pointless when you consider that it wasn't even 1/1000 of 1% of the debris.

Imagine tearing down a couple large cities, putting them into a huge rubbish grinder and spreading then along 1000 miles of coastline, with every tiny piece covered with sea life. You could feed the population of a small country off the barnacles just on our 10 miles of beach, and there they sit, dying, rotting and stinking. If any of these Japanese beasties wants to live in America there's no human effort that can stop them now.

OK, on that thought I'm starting to get a bit crabbit. Thank you Petty!

Here to help spread the crabbit Dave.

And I'm not so sure about all this environmental hand wringing- oh foreign beasties are taking over from our local ones!- tough titty thats life - if they are more successful, out compete the natives thats how it goes.
This mad idea we can hold everythng in check and freeze the planet at a moment in time and keep everything where it is and as it is seems mad to me. Thats not how things work. Never has. Species we think of as native to our own countries quite often got here from somewhere else long ago, be it driftwood, frozen seas or whatever.
The world kept turning depite the lack of greenies lamenting the new arrivals impact.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Here to help spread the crabbit Dave.

And I'm not so sure about all this environmental hand wringing- oh foreign beasties are taking over from our local ones!- tough titty thats life - if they are more successful, out compete the natives thats how it goes.
This mad idea we can hold everythng in check and freeze the planet at a moment in time and keep everything where it is and as it is seems mad to me. Thats not how things work. Never has. Species we think of as native to our own countries quite often got here from somewhere else long ago, be it driftwood, frozen seas or whatever.
The world kept turning depite the lack of greenies lamenting the new arrivals impact.

I mostly agree that it's futile in the long run, but you can't blame people from trying. Pandemics are a classic example. Smallpox, bubonic plaque, 1918 flu (100 million killed!), AIDS, it's all just nature's little beasties trying to explore the world.

Much as I hate to say it, as I dont particularly want to die of a horrible disease or anyone I know to die that way, a good plague is probably good for the species every so often.
Those who survive are usually more resistant or immune reducing the risk of the same happening agan in the future with that strain of disease and lets face it the human race is not going to curb its own population growth so nature in the end will.

I think we were probably barnacles from Mars.

I understand the point about eco systems though, its one thing stuff floating over from natural phenomona like an earthquake or tsunami, that stuff has always happened and is part of our genetic soup, and its another man putting his oar in and destroying whole systems like rabbits on the Galapagas Islands, and cats in the Australian outback, some things should be put right.

If cats had got to australia on driftwood why would that be any different?

but for millions of years there were no cats and suddenly they are killing the flightless birds, it should have happened slowly given the birds time to adapt, its our fault so we should sort it out. the fauna on Australia is unique, marsupials are unique, do you really want us to be responsible for destroying what thousands of years of isolation has made? I really think we have done enough damage.

Same would be true if they had got their by other means.
Scotland had no cats, now it has a Scottish Wildcat, considered our native cat, they have ben here approx 8000 years (domestic cats are only about 2000 years ago, Romans vbrought them)- long enough for the wild cat to be considered native- but they werent native when they arrived. And no doubt they impacted on stuff that had got here before them. They may even have wiped some specieds out.
Now we protect them. Its mad.
No doubt in a couple hundred years the Oz's will be protecting their indignous OZwidcats too.

much as I love kitties they have to go. Its different if the indigenous species at least has a fighting chance some kind of defence, but the fauna in Australia is helpless against predators like cats. It will be like the Dodo.

I agree about plagues, its horrible but we must control the population somehow before we become like parasites on a dying animal, its already too late I reckon.

I dont know enough about the Oz situation to say how defenclesss they are- if some survive presumably they are the ones best at not getting eaten by cats, so their offspring will be too and so on.
If the cats get them all first well hey, you still have cats.

And sadly I agree nature will probably be the thing which balances human population, if its not through disease it will be starvation and thirst, not sure which is worse.
Mmm wonder if anyones interested in debating the matter of birth control on a world population scale on the BBST? Maybe we should all adopt a Chinese policy on family size.
It might not be perfect and have some very unfortunate consequences but at least they are trying to address the problem.

It's all about perspective. From a bear's perspective, humans are a nasty invasive species. From a cat's perspective, a numbat is a really cool toy!

True Dave, very true. Very farmy response that!

Well insomnia continues to try to kill me, or make me insane, or something. 3.26 am- this is not fun!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:And I'm not so sure about all this environmental hand wringing- oh foreign beasties are taking over from our local ones!- tough titty thats life - if they are more successful, out compete the natives thats how it goes.

If you ever visit the Southern United States and see kudzu everywhere you might look at it a bit differently.


(That used to be a house.)

Looks like the plants out competed the humans! 1-0 plants.
We have chinese knot weed and rodedendrons here which are invaders that choke out all the other plants, my friends job is destroying them - so keeps him in gainful employment if nothing else.

I just hope my house doesn't end up covered in Japanese barnacles like that!

At least barnacles move slow and you could always eat your way out.

when talking about birds and cats. When NZ was being populated and so on a man discovered a new species of bird. He was really excited because it was only found on the island where he lived. Unfortunately, when the new species was approved his cat had eaten them all on the island, as they couldn fly very much because they had no natural enemies.

exactly I think man is unique in the speed and carelessness in which he destroys delicate systems that have evolved over many thousands of years. Any species that goes extinct because of us is a crying shame.

Yes but you speak of man like we are some sort of foreign inposition- we are just another of these anmlas trying to outcompete the rest.
Besides if numbers are anything to go by then this planet is here as the home of beatles. The rest of us are just window dressing on Beatle World.