Apex Predater

Lately I have been boring people with talk about apex predators and what that concept means. An apex predator is a species that hunts other animals but is not hunted itself. But why is a species apex, and what does "apex" really mean?   

1. I started out thinking that by definition there could be only one apex species in a given area. I was wrong. In California 800 years ago there were golden bears, wolves and cougars, all of them apex. Swimming off the coast, orcas (killer whales) were apex. 

2.  There must be many factors that can  contribute to being apex. The two that interested me most were intelligence and commitment to coordinated family teams, as illustrated by orcas and wolves. And humans. 

3. I stumbled into what biologists call "the species problem." To my surprise, around ten subspecies of orcas exist (orcas are, like pilot whales, porpoises). Some subspecies may be different species--the orca groupings differ a lot. What constitutes a separate species is not entirely clear. 

4. What happens when two apex species meet by chance in the wild? Most of the time, I think nothing happens unless a very young predator gets attacked.  I did once see a wolf--part of my family-- come across, for the first time, a bear. The wolf nearly exploded with rage. His reaction seemed built-in. 

This is where a commitment to family values might make a difference. A wolf team (or an orca family) hunts in a coordinated way. Bears hunt alone. Six or seven wolves would surround a deer or a bear. The bear would stand up to fight. But at all times the bear would have several wolves jumping around behind it. 

The bear might decide to go away. 

 

  

The Headless Government

Somehow we have to get through the next 3.5 years in which our national government is malevolent and brainless. It's a headless torso lurching backwards, incapable of rational thought, driven by emotions like hatred and lust. 

That is where we are. 

This is a test. Can we survive as a republic with a headless president? Is the constitution that sturdy? 

c

Military Service

Will the President ban Jews from the military? The Supreme Court has granted him the power to ban groups without evaluation. My wife is a Jew. Why should people like her fight and die in a foreign desert for no reason? I'd like to ban that.

I joined the army once. I learned how to field-strip a cigarette and drink from a buttcan and so on. That was back in the old black shoe army--or was it brown shoe? 

  

 

q

How To Live In A Fascist Country

Today the question MSNBC asks is, "Are we on the verge of a Constitutional crisis?" 

As  Jack de Selby has said, "That crisis came in November." 

In November we thoughtlessly elected a Fascist president, much as Germany once elected Hitler, Russia elected Putin and Italy elected Mussolini.  It's still early, though. Maybe the 2026 election will matter. 

We can make it matter.

Donny Two-Dolls is using Putin and Viktor Orban of Hungary as change models. Orban got elected, then softly reset the vital institutions of his nation. Soon he owned them all. That silenced criticism, which made Orban even more popular. 

For example, Orban went after the most elite Hungarian university. He drove the faculty and staff out of Hungary.  The university relocated to another nation.

Two-Dolls is after Harvard and universities in general. Part of the Fascist plan is to reshape academic analyses. 

MAGA wants its new order to last. It plans to bring universities (and other institutions like the courts) to heel. 

In Hungary the people did not jump up to defend elite professors, and most Americans are not going to defend Harvard. 

So how do ordinary people live in a nation where Fascists win elections? 

Consider the billions who have no choice. They get up in the morning and go to work. They raise their children. They enjoy sunsets and music.  They try not to think.  They eat out once a month. Life goes by, much as it did under Ashurbanipal. 

Target June 14`

Donny Two-Dolls will be celebrating his MAGA birthday on June 14 with a gigantic parade of military vehicles in Washington. Indivisible and other organizations will be counter-protesting in large numbers. I'm reserving time to protest on June 14.

Meanwhile Two-Dolls has, as you know, renamed the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf;  he intends to rebrand our planet on government documents as Trumpvilla I. Mars will be Trumpvilla II. Venus remains unnamed for now, but, according to JD Vance,  its new name will be that of a white, male Christian, probably "Charlton." 

Home

Trump intends to restore Alcatraz as a super-max prison. Or a retirement home? 

On Cowardice

David Frum, an insightful conservative commentator, recently pointed out that the Trump regime consists of cowards, crackpots and crooks.  

The crooks grub for wealth, wasting time that could be spent on long desert hikes. 

The crackpots joyously deny food and medicine to dying children. Their social function is to embody evil. 

Many Trump functionaries are just like us but more timid, better dressed and taller. Height and cowardice are huge factors in political success. In Presidential elections, the taller person wins.  

In a regime dedicated to social Darwinism, it's the taller cowards who get promoted and reproduce.  These tall cowards plan to outlive Trump, which should be easy. 

Keep in mind, Trump isn't all that tall himself. He claims he is three inches taller than Joe Biden, but when they stand together, the two men are the same height. And Biden is nearly six feet tall, having shrunk a little with age. I think Fatso is kidding himself. 

 

s