According to…let’s go with numerous sources…narwhals (those weird whales with the long tusks that are actually teeth which seem to indicate narwhal orthodontia leaves a lot to be desired) have changed their migration patterns in response to climate change which, as the above cartoon points out, officially makes them smarter than humans because we’re obviously going to keep doing the same shit that got us in trouble until Elon Musk has his Mars colony ready for occupation and we all move there and do our best to screw up that planet.
BTW:
For those of you fantasizing about living on Mars or the moon or one of those cool-looking planets you saw in Star Wars, you might want to rethink your options because not only did I read about narwhal teeth, I recently read about the long-term effects of space travel on humans and they are:
1. Increased risk of cancer and degenerative diseases because without the Earth’s atmosphere you’re exposed to more radiation in space.
2. Stress caused by isolation and confinement and if you thought pandemic restrictions were a pain in the ass, try getting sealed in a tin can for a few years.
3. Distance: Mars is on average 140 million miles from Earth and communicating takes up to 20 minutes each way so all those movies where the astronauts ask questions which are answered immediately by Lily from T-Mobile are bullshit and if you have a problem 140 million miles away from home, you’re probably going to have to solve it yourself.
4. Gravity fields that keep changing and when you’re weightless it turns out you lose muscle and bone density because even though we don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about it we’re always fighting gravity whenever we stand up or walk and without gravity your body says hey, we really don’t need all that muscle and bone. And here’s another one: with less gravity, more liquid moves up into your head and puts pressure on your eyes which can cause vison problems.
5. Hostile and enclosed environments where microbes are trapped and can mutate and be easily transferred from person-to-person which may lead to autoimmune issues.
So in reality Luke Skywalker would arrive on some distant planet, jump out of the Millennium Falcon, immediately collapse because he didn’t have enough muscle or bone to stand up straight, wouldn’t be able to see clearly because he’d developed space cataracts, have a nagging cough he couldn’t shake and be talking a mile-a-minute because he was so goddamn glad to see another human, or if no humans were available, an Ewok.
Before you sign up to buy a condo on the 17th hole of that golf course on the moon, you might want to read more about space travel and what it does to humans, so here you go:
https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace
Unlike all those Star Wars movies, planets with the right atmosphere and gravity (and God knows what else is necessary to support human life…but it probably includes good cell phone reception) are few and far between, if by “few and far between” you actually mean we haven’t found one of those yet.
All of which makes me think we’d be smart to follow the narwhal’s example and change our migration patterns because living on some other planet is pretty unlikely, so maybe we ought to take better care of this one.
And speaking of Stupid Human Tricks…
Mauna Loa, a volcano in Hawaii, is erupting and spewing out lava and instead of running for the hills (or in this case, maybe the beach) crowds are expected to flood the national park where the volcano orgasm is taking place because they want to see this “historic event” and you just know some of those people want to take selfies in front of a lava flow which is probably the same urge that led to so many people dying in Pompeii:
“Hey, let’s go watch Vesuvius erupt!”
Every time someone dies doing something stupid like backing up just one more step to get that great shot of themselves standing in front of the Grand Canyon, I know it’s a tragedy for them and their loved ones, but tend to think we didn’t just lose a genius who was going to cure cancer.
I don’t actually have a cartoon on this, mainly because I think I’ve made the same point over and over and yet nobody listens to me so people will still die doing stupid stuff and the Houston Astros will get to keep their World Series rings.
So the Chinese government has what they call a “zero-COVID” policy which includes really strict restrictions on movement and apparently those restrictions made it difficult for a fire department in Urumqi, China to put out a fire in an apartment building so 10 people died and here’s a story about that if you want to read it:
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/26/1139273138/china-protests-covid-lockdown-urumqi-beijing
After that incident, a lot of Chinese citizens had enough and went out in the streets to protest which let’s face it, takes some balls and/or ovaries when you’re protesting against the Chinese government.
Now here’s a story about China’s “zero-COVID” policy and the possible unintended consequences:
Some of the protesters are waving around blank sheets of paper or blank smart phone screens to symbolize the amount of free speech they enjoy (AKA: “none”) which led to the follow cartoon:
According to Yahoo! News (which sounds like News for and by Yahoos) the protesters wear masks not only to help prevent the spread of the virus, but to make it hard for the government to identify them.
I do not attempt to predict the future – I have a hard enough time understanding what happened in the past and the present isn’t all that understandable either – so no idea where all this will wind up, but it does remind me of a news story whose details have been forgotten while its lesson hasn’t.
True story.
Some old guy called up the cops and said they should probably come by his house because he had just killed his wife. (Can’t remember if he shot her or hit her with a frying pan, but whatever the method, the results were fatal.)
So the cops get there and ask what happened and the old guy explains that he has false teeth and can’t chew anything tough and he’d explained that to his wife over and over, but she ignored him for years and cooked him one too many steaks.
The lesson here is that you can maybe get away with something 999 times and think it’s OK to keep doing it, but then you do it that thousandth time and the person you do it to says, “That’s it!” and it’s the T-bone that breaks the camel’s back and you get a frying pan upside your head.
Which is a very mixed metaphor, but you get my point and for these prices I’m not going back to think up a better one.
Anyway…
Maybe you want to be careful about how many steaks you cook or how many restrictions you put on people because you never know for sure which T-bone is going to make the shit hit the fan. (Yet another mixed metaphor and today I seem full of them…or possibly “it.” As always, your call.)
So now we’re being told to expect more COVID problems because people are going inside because it’s cold (it dropped 50 degrees here in one day and assuming there is one, I think God chooses the Midwest weather by picking numbers out of a hat) and people are celebrating the Holidays together because nothing says “I love you” like a big hug from someone who just attended a Metallica concert and has since developed a case of the sniffles.
Here’s the latest weekly review on COVID data from the CDC and it was dated November 18th along with a reminder that they would not be posting data on November 25th because they were taking time off for Thanksgiving and had to pick up those Metallica tickets before showing up to give grandma a hug and a decent chance of catching an infectious disease.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
OK, I clearly made parts of that up and I can’t keep explaining when I’m exaggerating to make a point or to make this stuff funnier, so you’ll just have to decide what parts to believe and what parts to ignore on your own except for that stuff about narwhals, because I’m 100 percent correct about all that…also the stuff about space travel…and God picking numbers out of a hat.
That’s it for today so have a good weekend and you might want to reconsider serving your loved one yet another rib eye.
Well, who can afford rib eye these days, so I think I'm safe :)