I only dropped off the net because my wifi access was so spotty…and now I’m at the airport and about to vanish even more thoroughly, not to emerge until I land on the other side of the Atlantic, at 8am tomorrow. You’ll just have to talk among yourselves, or visit all those other FtB sites.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m glad to hear you’re OK. I thought the haggis had done you in.
ekwhite:
They can be quite fierce when cornered, and many a hunter has the scars to prove it, but once killed and cooked they’re perfectly safe.
I have obtained exclusive video of you doing battle with your breakfast. I love the part where your colon shouts “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”
Fly safely, PZ.
@ ekwhite:
As you no doubt are aware the haggis, Scotland’s national bird, is a carnivorous tripod of the order isoscelesae comprising two species, Haggis sinistris and Haggis dexter. In form it is uniquely developed for its habitat on the steep sides of the rolling mountains of the Highlands of Scotland, in that two of its legs are considerably shorter than the third or downhill leg*. This facilitates rapid and stable progress around its chosen mountain. Haggis sinistris proceeds clockwise and Haggis dexter of course anticlockwise. This, by the way, explains their speciation as there is very little intercourse between the two directions.
Thus in the contentment of perfect adaptation the Haggises progress throughout the year, summer and winter, clockwise and anticlockwise, until the day of the haggis hunt. Early in haggis-morn, after a frugal breakfast of parritch and salt the guidman cuts himself a stout stick and, leaving his wee wifie and the wains (well supplied with coarse hempen sacks) at the foot of the ancestral hill, he ascends into the mist, his kilt weighted down with small rocks like an Australian’s hat as a precaution against the rogue or jumping haggis. After a vigorous climb he reaches the haggis-line (well above the tree line, not that there are many trees in evidence here) and begins his search. Here it is that stealth, or in fact down-right sneakiness are at a premium, as are good eysight, heather scented aftershave and plenty of patience.
At last oor guidman glimpses a vague hummock through the mist—the excitement begins, and you should note that it is now that the real skill of the experienced hunter comes into play, for he must decide in an instant whether he is dealing with a clockwise haggis or its counter rotationary antiparticle. His course chosen he quietly sneaks up on his quarry from behind (this is where he parts company with the English hunter who could never be so unsporting—which is why the English have never really accepted the haggis). The guidman then taps his quarry smartly on the shoulder and here you’ll at once realise that the essence of a great haggis hunter is that he does this on the shoulder on its downhill side. This act has the immediate effect of rousing the curiosity of the haggis, and as you might expect, it turns round to see who on earth it is, unavoidably being forced to pivot on its long leg. This in turn places the beast in the position of having its short legs on the down side of the slope. And this is of course an eventually untenable position, which it can sustain but for a moment before rolling down the mountain to the feet of the waiting wifie and wains. These quickly stuff the dazed and dizzy haggis into their sacks.
And we can retire from the scene assured that the family will now have food for the Burns’ Nicht feast and all the makings of bagpipes.
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* One of the most cogent arguments against Intelligent Design is this arrangement of the Haggis’s legs since an Intelligent Designer would have realised that having two long legs on the downhill side is considerably more stable**. This is, interestingly, a strong argument against Darwinian evolution too, since this instability should result in strong selective pressure against the observed jambenation.
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** This does not, we hasten to add, add up to an argument against Really-Stupid Design nor indeed Rather-Weird-Sense-of-Humour Design.
No, no, you’re only going through the motions of surviving breakfast. The Haggis virus is subtle but quick-acting, and only of the early signs it has eaten your brain is claiming you survived eating it.
In later stages of the disease, you will have an inexplicable desire to strip naked, blue yerself blue, and charge at anyone with a whacking great broadsword whilst yelling incomprehensibly in an incomprehensible language. Then you will leave the pub and be arrested for pissing in the street.
@ richardelguru – Cute…….Somebody has been reading Dr. Suess.
I’m impressed at how the whisky has pickled RIcharddelguru’s brain, because the haggis is not a bird, it is a ground dwelling mammal, although more study is required to say whether it is closer related to the sheep or the cow.
blue yerself blue ? Rather later correction, but I meant “paint yerself blue”.