Bison To Become First National Mammal Of The US (washingtonpost.com) 168
mdsolar quotes a report from Washington Post: North America used to be teeming with bison. But in one century, their numbers plummeted from tens of millions to just a few dozen in the wild after hunters nearly wiped out the continent's largest mammals. Now, the bison is about to become the first national mammal of the United States. The National Bison Legacy Act, which designates the bison as the official mammal of the United States, passed the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Thursday. The legislation now heads to President Obama's desk to be signed into law. At a time of political gridlock and partisan bickering, lawmakers agree on an official national mammal. The bison, which will join the bald eagle as a national symbol, represents the country's first successful foray into wildlife conservation. Lobbying for the official mammal designation was a coalition of conservationists; ranchers, for whom bison are business; and tribal groups, such as the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which wants to "restore bison to Indian nations in a manner that is compatible with their spiritual and cultural beliefs and practices."
Sounds right (Score:2, Insightful)
For a bull to be the national animal of a bully state.
This is really important! (Score:3)
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The thing is -- this bill really doesn't do anything new. Bison have appeared on American currency a number of times, perhaps most famously on the "buffalo nickel" but also on the well-known 1901 $10 bill.
I can't think of another animal other than the eagle that has been granted such a prominent place in American symbolism. So, it's already been the de facto "national mammal," even without this bill. In principle, I don't see the big deal one way or another in passing something like this.
My larger co
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How could we live without?
1. It shows that Congress can work together.
2. More importantly, it takes their time away from fucking up something important.
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This is great news (Score:1)
I have a bi son. I'm so proud of him :).
Bison bison bison (Score:2)
I assume by "American Bison" they specifically mean Bison bison bison, as the other species of "American Bison", Bison bison athabascae now only exists in Canada (with some modern transplants from Canada also living in Russia).
Yaz
Re:Bison bison bison (Score:4, Informative)
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Oh, some on, you can't expect a pedant to know what a species is when complaining about the designation, can you?
Doesn't he get bonus points for saying "they specifically mean" while not knowing what a specific epithet is?
Can someone please explain this fetish? (Score:2)
And by fetish I mean the obsession in the US to name a national this or national that. or a state this or a state that.
For example there is this list: List of state dances [wikipedia.org] Why do you need a state dance? And why does NC have an official folk dance as well as an official popular dance?
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You mean like every other country? Every country has a national bird/flower/etc.
Not to the extent that I have seen it in the US.
A better question is why is this on Slashdot?
Who knows. I would have nixed it in the firehose if I had seen it. But still .. it's better than bennett (well anything is better than bennett)
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We Belgians can use your national mammal with our national dish, carbonade flamande [wikipedia.org].
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Bah! You don't fool us! http://zapatopi.net/belgium/ [zapatopi.net]
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And by fetish I mean the obsession in the US to name a national this or national that. or a state this or a state that.
They're just padding the numbers. They get the opportunity to say they got a bill passed, or whatever, so they're clearly doing work. The boss is coming! Look busy!
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...And why are so many of them "Square Dance"?
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In the 1970s a lot of US States adopted the Square Dance as the Official State Dance to try to convince people that hippies are destroying "American culture," and did not simply represent the current state of culture.
It sounds like a really stupid theory I made up myself, but there are numerous examples. It isn't just about dancing. Blaming hippies for the "death of America" is an actual thing, as stupid as it sounds.
Other categories (Score:2)
Since the Bison is the national mammal, presumably they need to have a national reptile, amphibian and of course, fish..
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From Does the United States have a national insect? [entsoc.org]
No, the United States does not have a designated national insect. However, Congress did consider the Monarch butterfly as the national insect, but the legislation did not pass. Some U.S. states have "state insects," which are usually noted on state government web sites.
And List of U.S. state insects [wikipedia.org]. Interestingly I recently head an entomologist talking about state insects on NPR. Apparently there had been cases where specific insects were nominated, but they actually weren't native species.
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How interesting.
I would have thought the blackfly or mosquito would have made an appearance in Maine or New Hampshire, but they seem to have chosen otherwise.
Re:Other categories (Score:4, Funny)
From Does the United States have a national insect? [entsoc.org]
No, the United States does not have a designated national insect. However, Congress did consider the Monarch butterfly as the national insect, but the legislation did not pass. Some U.S. states have "state insects," which are usually noted on state government web sites.
And List of U.S. state insects [wikipedia.org]. Interestingly I recently head an entomologist talking about state insects on NPR. Apparently there had been cases where specific insects were nominated, but they actually weren't native species.
Monarch Butterflies fly back to Mexico every year, so no wonder they never got the bill passed. Don't tell Trump, or the wall will have to get taller.
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Cline Maps show that for every trait there is a different geographic distribution. The traits differences don't group into the races. Even skin color, a single trait, doesn't map onto the concept. It is not a genetic difference at all, it is an artificial social construct.
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Melanin is a social construct? I don't understand.
Anyways, the thought popped into my head, that when wolves started morphing to dogs, they started changing their colors. And, from there, the different breeds have their own unique "melanin".
I should probably make it pop out again.
Re:Other categories (Score:4, Funny)
I thought that since politicians were reptiles that the president was the national reptile by default.
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Well according to some* the world leaders are all reptilians so maybe Obama could be the state reptile?
(* Really, really, REALLY crazy people. But at least they don't go around killing other people so I guess they are better than Daesh at least)
What about flex? (Score:2)
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A bison without a lexical analyser is pretty much useless! Wow would it recognize the tokens being thrown at it?
*yak*
Next up: bathroom laws (Score:4, Insightful)
When the Republicans took over Congress, you knew they'd tackle the really important issues. I guess naming the national mammal is at least a step up from the 60 (yes, that's a six and a zero) symbolic votes to repeal Obamacare or another 72 weeks of investigations into "what really happened in Benghazi".
This is why they're too busy to even have hearings regarding trivial items like filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
"What do you say, shall we try to get something done?"
http://img.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
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That's not fair! The Republicans did consider the problem of filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court and said that they weren't going to do anything about until the next president was elected.
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What?! It's clear that this plays out that Cruz gets the Republican nomination in a contested election, Hillary gets the Democrat one and Trump/Sanders wins the general in a massive independent campaign landslide. :-P
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Bathrooms are for prayer and virtuous behavior of other sorts. And most of all, bathrooms are for our kind.
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Historically, when a vacancy came up during the last year in Office, such opening have often been deliberately left open, and filling the position is usually done with the next president; so this doesn't speak negatively of congress at all ---- There is a disagreement on which people are suitable for the position, therefore, there is no nominee which can be successful: if anyone that reflects badly on the president failing to pick a satisfactory candidate; this is not an issue for congress to addre
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Yeah, about that:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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...for varying definitions of "have often".
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"When I'm National Reptile, I'm going to make Squamata so great again it'll make your head spin!"
http://www.conservativepushcoa... [conservati...lition.com]
Very highly discriminatory (Score:2, Funny)
Let the nay sayers decry this as politic
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Er, so, Birders of the World, Unite?
How ridiculous! (Score:2)
Not the naming of a national mammal (while strange itself) but this: "... hunters nearly wiped out the continent's largest mammals".
Really?!? How can humans have such an impact on nature, the world is so large and humans so weak - the whole idea is genuinely ridiculous!
Personally I think is was the sunspots who did it, never trusted that glowing thing...
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Damned immigrants.
A perfect symbol of American hypocrisy (Score:2, Insightful)
We killed the bison, almost to extinction, to shit on the natives.
We put up fences everywhere to prevent the bison from ranging, so that we could raise cows. They're easier to control, and thus more economically viable.
The only reason we even have bison now is that they became commercially interesting, because there is a niche market for their meat.
Ben Franklin wanted the national animal to be the turkey. The Bison is a much better symbol. Hunted near extinction, prevented from living its normal life... and
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"The only reason we even have bison now is that they became commercially interesting, because there is a niche market for their meat."
This is what I remember...
"have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves" ...it seems only in the past, what, 5-10 years where I've seen it here and there.
Delicious and nutritious. Tastes just like chicken.
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It'd be great to see a campaign on "make America great again" that involved restoring the bison, the forests, etc to how they were ~pre-1640.
It would be a really fantastic use for the midwest. Population densities there are already roughly nil, so it seems workable. Unfortunately, it will take centuries to restore the forests, because old growth does more photosynthesis (and all that implies) than new growth. There are some species which are exceptions, but on average, it's the case.
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"a gas station attendant, burger flipper, etc every 30 miles or so each direction"
And prison guards. Welfare for rural folk.
Finally! (Score:2)
At least congress is finally spending its time usefully engaging on the meaningful issues that face the country.
That's progress, I guess.
How do they taste? (Score:2)
I've had bison meat and wasn't that enthralled by it. Seemed a little tough, if I recall.
But that was a while ago, and maybe my memory isn't the best. Do people like it? Enough to have them go extinct over it?
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I've had bison meat and wasn't that enthralled by it. Seemed a little tough, if I recall.
But that was a while ago, and maybe my memory isn't the best. Do people like it? Enough to have them go extinct over it?
Bison tastes a lot like beef, but a lot leaner. I personally prefer beefalo [wikipedia.org] (bison - cow hybrid).
Give them back their habitat (Score:2)
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and it can be desert rather than current cropland.
But now you are taking the habitat of the endangered desert tortoise.
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Oh, and Bob Marley (Score:2)
One century? Not even one decade. (Score:2)
I recently read the memoirs of an officer from the first troop of the RCMP (then NWMP) to go out to the West to quell the abuses of the whiskey trade. (Cecil Denny.) Sitting Bull was encamped across the Canadian border, safe for the moment from the US Army after Little Big Horn.
Just four years later, he was starved out. The Canadians wouldn't let the Americans across the border, but they also wouldn't feed him...and he could no longer feed his people. The bison disappeared THAT fast.
Really, really weird
What bickering (Score:2)
At a time of political gridlock and partisan bickering, lawmakers agree on an official national mammal.
bicker - v. argue about petty and trivial matters.
What bickering. By agreeing on a national mammal it seems they demonstrate they are perfectly capable of agreeing on petty and trivial matters. It's the big stuff - whether the budget should grow a little to fast or way to fast, whether our freedoms should be nearly eliminated or merely greatly reduced, whether we should become like Mexico through native stupidity or by importing large numbers of Mexicans (and later giving them the vote) etc. that they
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Aww c'mon! For once that bullshit could have been on topic and you ruin it!
That's why we can't have nice memes.
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X: Xenophobe.
More taxes, spying, and problem-causing. B Clinton (Score:5, Funny)
Of the last 25 years, arguably the best president was Bill Clinton. Why, what did he do? Not much, he pretty much stayed busy getting laid and dealing with the consequences of getting laid. He didn't have a lot of time to screw things up.
Jacking around voting a "national mammal " may be the best thing for our politicians to do.
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Of the last 25 years, arguably the best president was Bill Clinton. Why, what did he do? Not much, he pretty much stayed busy getting laid and dealing with the consequences of getting laid. He didn't have a lot of time to screw things up.
Jacking around voting a "national mammal " may be the best thing for our politicians to do.
There is some wisdom to that. While his opponents wasted a lot of our tax dollars in a stupid chase trying to find somethinganything to pin on him, he just managed to keep the train on the rails.
A blowjob! Think about it. The fixation on a normal act, something that people seem to do pretty regularly, and badgering him about it until he slipped, perhaps ignited a storm of stupid that continues to this day, and unlikely reportage comes from characters like Larry Flynt now on the transgressions of people w
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A blowjob! Think about it.
I think about it everytime I look at my 401K, and remember that it went up 400% will Bill Clinton was president. Unemployment was low, the economy was booming, the country was (mostly) at peace, and the budget was balanced. Congress was too busy focusing on oral sex, and didn't have time to screw up the economy. Thank you Monica!
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While his opponents wasted a lot of our tax dollars in a stupid chase trying to find somethinganything to pin on him, he just managed to keep the train on the rails.
They didn't waste near as much as would have been wasted had a few more bills been passed. It's probably a good thing they used their time on investigations rather than on legislating or worse yet - compromising.
A compromise in DC is when the Tax and Spend crowd gets together with the Don't Tax and Don't Spend crowd and they agree to Don't Tax but Spend Anyway. I would rather have no compromise than that compromise.
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A compromise in DC is when the Tax and Spend crowd gets together with the Don't Tax and Don't Spend crowd and they agree to Don't Tax but Spend Anyway. I would rather have no compromise than that compromise.
That is a tactic called "Starving the Beast, and it is a time honored operation of those who would call themselves conservatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
And its a train wreck of a philosophy, because those who would call themselves conservatives are engaging in deliberate sabatoge. As well, since they have shown that they are at least as incapable of fiscal restraint as the "tax and spend" crowd they castigate, they have given rise to mutant offspring like the tea party, with it's hilarious "Ke
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At one time "Starve the Beast" (don't provide money for the government to spend and thus force it to shrink) was a theory one could argue was worth trying. However over the years liberals have responded with "Starve the Children" (take the money from our children by borrowing it so that our children will have to pay off the debt). As such Starve the Beast is a failed technique and should be abandoned because it cannot work in the face of Starve the Children.
Sorry, but your futile attempt at trying to turn the argument arund so that these librerals that you hate so much is that Republicans, when they are in power, spend liike drunken sailors, and hey, isn't that emergency appropriations technique awesome? They spend it differently, but just as well.
And I'm so glad you brought up "Strve teh Children". The abstract concept that high spending liberal assholesl are taking the food out of future children's mouths pales in comparison the easily researchable proof
Re: More taxes, spying, and problem-causing. B Cli (Score:2)
That and bombing Iraq and Serbia.
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Why, what did he do?
He changed the banking laws, bringing on the housing bubble. We all know how well that turned out.
Actually Clinton was terrible (Score:5, Interesting)
He rolled back mountains of vital securities and investment legistaltion. Most importantly Glass-Steagall which kept risky Wallstreet banking separate from safe mortgage, car and student loans. You can thank the 2008 melt down on him. He destroyed the social safety net but got away with it because the
About the only thing good I can say about him is he gave us the Notorious RBG. That and at least he didn't ignore disasters and get us into an oil war in Afghanistan like his successor did.
Re:More taxes, spying, and problem-causing. B Clin (Score:5, Funny)
One can't forget what isn't real.
It was Bush that removed the only obstacle for the North Koreans to make nuclear weapons though, one very stupid move that will cause great costs to the US for a long time.
Or explained in a simple manner: Clinton: "How about nuclear power and other stuff if you don't make nuclear weapons?" Kim: "Sure, that's a deal" Bush: "We will make no deals with the great eeeevil!!" Kim: "Well fuck you then! I'll go build some nukes, with blackjack and hookers!"
Only if they look scary (Score:2)
> redefining an assault weapon to be a semiautomatic rifle
Only the scary-looking black ones. :)
His second amendment policies were all kinds of stupid, but didn't really do that much harm. Precisely the same weapon, with exactly the same capabilities is legal with different aesthetics.
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NAFTA has certainly hurt us.
Canadians and Mexicans would disagree. They think America benefited and they got screwed. Most economists would also disagree, except they believe that all three countries benefited.
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Huh. Must be a fair deal if everyone thinks they got screwed.
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Why the fuck is this on Slashdot?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Why the fuck is this submission on the front page of Slashdot?!
It has absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant here. It's not about computing, or science, or technology, or math. Hell, it's even more irrelevant than many of the other political submissions we've been inundated with lately.
It's completely inane and pointless!
Don't the editors realize that Slashdot was successful back in the day when it stuck to its computing/science/tech/math niche?! As it has deviated away from that, first under Dice
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Nerds are about more than 'computing, science, technology and math.' In fact, nerds are interested in most of everything.
One of the ways that Slashdot has gone downhill in the 15 years I've been reading it and participating in discussions on it, is the rise of an 'IT people' mentality. This is NOT an IT site, if you want sites with only discussions of the latest Javascript variant and the latest trends in carts to roll around with toner cartridges and paper on them (the whole point of IT) find another sit
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You're arguing for more stories on the cultural impact of science and technology, which would be great. This one is not an example.
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In fact, nerds are interested in most of everything.
With the exception of the absolutely meaningless and inconsequential labeling of a goddamn animal species as the 'national mammal' of some country. What the fuck is next? Updates on the life of Whothefuckcares Kardashian?
Honestly, even if India would have declared that cows are no longer 'holy' in their country it wouldn't belong on Slashdot (even though it would be a much, much bigger deal than this bullshit).
No. this is noise that distracts everybody from what does matter, nothing more.
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Better Home Through Chemistry (Score:2)
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Slashdot editors: lose the politics, lose the dumb-as-fuck submissions like this one, and put some stories about science, math, computing and technology on the Slashdot front page! That's the key to success!
What makes you think they care about "success?"
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I'll call and raise you...
"Two of the major problems that bison face today are the genetic bottleneck and lack of genetic diversity that has been caused by the very small number of bison that survived their near extinction event. A third genetic problem is the entry of genes from domestic cattle into the bison population, through hybridization."
Questions? Ideas? Solutions? More bitching about it?
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I'll call and raise you...
"Two of the major problems that bison face today are the genetic bottleneck and lack of genetic diversity that has been caused by the very small number of bison that survived their near extinction event. A third genetic problem is the entry of genes from domestic cattle into the bison population, through hybridization."
Questions? Ideas? Solutions? More bitching about it?
Breed them with nukes from space. It's the only way to be sure.
Other than that I got nothin'.
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Well with the current situation, anything meaningful will not be passed.
The Senate has a Republican Majority of 4 additional
The House of Representatives has Republican Majority of 59
The Supreme Court of the United States is currently evenly split
The Executive Branch is Democrat.
The republicans big thing right now is limited government so they will not be passing any laws of consequence. Especially sense the president takes reward of any positive changes, and they want to control the Executive branch so they
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I would have preferred it if humans had been selected as the national mammal of the US.
+5 beat me to it.
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Nope. Because then we can't shoot them.
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That's just a matter of personal taste.
- Aloha mai e
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So is that where they get poke mon?
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While large, they aren't particularly fatty. Beyond that obesity is a relative measure, so even though a whale might have an 18 inch thick layer of blubber it isn't obese.
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The national product being bullshit this does not surprise me.
"If you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
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homo sapiens is the first official mammal of USA,no?
Shhh! Not the homo part.