Lemming Friday

[Alan Wheeler]

Folks, lets insert a friendly reminder here. Please read the "Off Topic Forum" rules again. Off Topics should still remain losely related to boating. I see no relation to boating in this thread apart from the two comments made by Seafox and Keegan. forgive me if I missed anyone else. But please leave politics etc out of this Forum. We are about boats.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

Folks, lets insert a friendly reminder here. Please read the "Off Topic Forum" rules again. Off Topics should still remain losely related to boating. I see no relation to boating in this thread apart from the two comments made by Seafox and Keegan. forgive me if I missed anyone else. But please leave politics etc out of this Forum. We are about boats.

All my talk about stocks and money is only because short of the lottery it is the only way I will be able to get a boat to go sailing.

If someone who is cruising along nicely and has been for a while could just toss me a line..............

[Alan Wheeler]

Yes I do appreciate that and it is one of the main reasons why I have not pulled or closed the thread. It is a topic that if kept on track can remain related to the CF. But due to the passion that All of use have when it comes to Political discussion, it can easily slide off track. If we allow these discussions to get into the Political policy issues that they also ligitimatly align too, it can open a flood gate of usless diatribe. We have to constantly remember that this is a World Wide Forum. I realise and understand the passion the Americans have about their country and political policy issues and how it does affect the world, but many others of us here, outside of the US, may, can and do see somethings very differently. Plus many of us roll our eyes and say, "here we go again". And so the possibility of a "discussion" ;-) on what we all think breaks out and it all ends in tears. We can all go on about the country we live in and all the Political and Policy issues we each live with everyday (and trust me, I have a few) and the board gets inundated with "noise". So the best path, for the health of the board that is, is to keep a lid on this type of discussion. It may not be the best policy form personal point of view, but I believe it is the best from the point of view of the Health of the Board.

[Therapy]

You are correct.
I was being smart.
Sorry.

[never monday]

Originally Posted by Alan Wheeler

but many others of us here, outside of the US, may, can and do see somethings very differently. Plus many of us roll our eyes and say, "here we go again".

and some of us inside the US too...

A good discussion on how that 20 Billion that was spent would filter down to jobs and growth could be educational.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by never monday

and some of us inside the US too...

A good discussion on how that 20 Billion that was spent would filter down to jobs and growth could be educational.

It was probably the only 3 rich guys left in America buying a few European boats with their weakened dollars.

Hell if the dollar was stronger it probably would have been more like 15 billion after turkey day - LOL

Alan - point well taken.

[charley]

Misconceptions about lemmings go back many centuries. In the 1530s, the geographer Zeigler of Strasbourg proposed the theory that the creatures fell out of the sky during stormy weather (also featured in the folklore of the Inupiat/Yupik at Norton Sound), and then died suddenly when the grass grew in spring.[4] This was refuted by the natural historian Ole Worm, who first published dissections of a lemming, and showed that lemmings are anatomically similar to most other rodents.
While many people believe that lemmings commit mass suicide when they migrate, this is not the case. Driven by strong biological urges, they will migrate in large groups when population density becomes too great. Lemmings can and do swim and may choose to cross a body of water in search of a new habitat[5]. On occasion, and particularly in the case of the Norway lemmings in Scandinavia, large migrating groups will reach a cliff overlooking the ocean. They will stop until the urge to press on causes them to jump off the cliff and start swimming, sometimes to exhaustion and death. Lemmings are also often pushed into the sea as more and more lemmings arrive at the shore. [6]
The myth of lemming mass suicide is long-standing and has been popularized by a number of factors. In 1955, Carl Barks drew a Uncle Scrooge adventure comic with the title: The Lemming with the Locket. This comic, which was inspired by a 1954 National Geographic article, showed massive numbers of lemmings jumping across the Norwegian cliffs.[7]. The suicide myth was further propagated by Walt Disney documentary White Wilderness in 1958 which includes footage of lemmings migrating and running head-long over a ledge. An investigation in 1983 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Brian Vallee, showed that the Disney film makers faked the entire sequence using imported lemmings (bought from Inuit children), a snow covered turntable on which a few dozen lemmings were forced to run, and literally throwing lemmings into the sea to show the alleged suicides. [8] This myth is also witnessed in a German film-- Der Kleine Eisbär (lars, the polar bear)--in which a group of despondent lemmings are frequently jumping off various ledges.[8]
Due to their association with this odd behaviour, lemming suicide is a frequently-used metaphor in reference to people who go along unquestioningly with popular opinion, with potentially dangerous or fatal consequences. This is the theme of the video game Lemmings, where the player attempts to save the mindlessly marching rodents from walking to their deaths.

[Therapy]

Well, I'll be danged!
Thanks for that.

[TaoJones]

Thanks, charley, for your informative post. Not, mind you, for clarifying lemming mythology (although that is much appreciated), but for bringing to the attention of the readers of this Forum natural historian Ole Worm.

Originally Posted by charley

This was refuted by the natural historian Ole Worm, who first published dissections of a lemming, and showed that lemmings are anatomically similar to most other rodents.

What a great name! Really, you can't make this stuff up!

TaoJones

[seafox]

What sort of boats do the Leemings buy?

[Alan Wheeler]

Or should the question be....what sort of boats do Lemmings leap off of.

[seafox]

or leap into.

[seafox]

Posting your copy of the dvd "pirates of the Cook Strait" to you tomorrow. Might even put the scene where we meet up with the "World famous Alan Wheeler" on you tube.