The First Gay President, who, someday in his third or fourth term, after helping to run the global economy into the sewer through massive US debt and hyperinflation, will get around to rolling back the oceans and solve global warming, now has a really dead lizard named “Obamadon”, to honor him.
This is in from Cosmic Logic of NBC:
Ancient lizard that died out with the dinosaurs named after Obama
The mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago also did in lots of lizards — including a newly identified creature that’s been named Obamadon gracilis in honor of President Barack Obama. [“Graceful Obama-toothed”. No… really.]
Obama already has a type of fish (Ethiostoma obama) [perhaps dog eating… not sure… no, that can’t be right… “etheo” + “stoma” would be “strainer-mouthed”] and lichen (Caloplaca obamae) [hmmm “beautiful” + … what… “scales”?] named after him, and now the recently re-elected leader of the free world can add a foot-long, slender-toothed casualty of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction to the list.
Yale paleontologist Nicholas Longrich, the lead author of a paper announcing the find in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told me that the name arose from a conversation he had with a friend in late 2008, when folks were wondering how Obama’s election would change the political scene.
“I said, yeah, we should name a dinosaur after him,” Longrich said. “It was sort of a smart-ass comment.” [And yet, so serious.]
But the idea stuck. After all, this is the guy who named a different fossil “Mojoceratops.”
“It was catchy, and it seemed like a fun thing to do,” he said.
There’s a serious point behind the paper, of course: Longrich and his colleagues analyzed at fossils representing 30 different types of snakes and lizards, previously collected from locales in western North America ranging from New Mexico to Alberta. [From Canada to the southern USA? Not unlike an extinct oil-pipe line. A pipe-line that might have carried within it even the remains of Obamadontes! The irony is like rich, freshly frakked, crude.] Nine of the species, including Obamadon, were previously unrecognized.
“Lizards and snakes rivaled the dinosaurs in terms of diversity, [And thus worthy of a special White House un-elected czar!] making it just as much an ‘Age of Lizards’ as an ‘Age of Dinosaurs,'” Longrich said in a Yale news release.
Previous studies had suggested that some snake and lizard species went extinct, along with the dinosaurs and many types of mammals, birds, insects and plants. The extinction was presumably due to a catastrophic asteroid strike on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. [Which is now being depopulated and is increasing the voter base of a certain party to the north.]
The new survey suggests that snakes and lizards were hit much harder than previously thought. Longrich and his colleagues estimate that up to 83 percent of all snake and lizard species were killed off. The bigger the creature, the more likely it was to become extinct: [sigh] The researchers concluded that no species weighing more than a pound survived.
Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts, [Something having to do with teeth with more than one point. You humans, for example, have “bi-cuspids”, which make you “polyglyphandonts”. Therefore, if you voted for Obama, you are probably small extinct lizards.] which accounted for up to 40 percent of the lizards living in North America before the extinction. Obama’s namesake was identified on the basis of jaw fossils from Montana’s Hell Creek Formation, with “tall, slender teeth with large central cusps separated from small accessory cusps by lingual grooves.”
The lizard was less than a foot long and probably caught insects in its teeth, Longrich said. [But did they play lots of golf?]
The discovery of Obamadon just goes to show how new discoveries can come from old specimens — including fossils that were collected years ago, by paleontologists who were focusing dinosaurs or early mammals rather than snakes or lizards. “There hasn’t been a heck of a lot of interest in these specimens,” Longrich said. [Say it ain’t so!] “Here we have all this data that’s there, waiting to be studied.”
Two of the newly recognized fossil species don’t yet have scientific names, [I can see the combox now… oh my… I’ll flip a coin… Leave the combox open, heads, closed, tails…] but when it comes time for the naming, rest assured that Longrich won’t come up with anything too wild and crazy.
“We decided not to do the Hitlerosaurus,” he said.
Which it’s not as interesting as Testudo aubreii, that noble reptile.
I, for one, will not well-come our third-term lichen-covered, mouth-straining, lizard-like overlords.
Perhaps I am just jealous that there is no lethal virus or perhaps hitherto unknown chickadee named after me.
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Something having to do with teeth with more than one point. You humans, for example, have “bi-cuspids”, which make you “polyglyphandonts”. Therefore, if you voted for Obama, you are probably small extinct lizards.
Here, I’ll save Fr. Jim the effort: I dunno, Fr. Z. I’m trying to recreate the syllogism, but it’s a little tough. heh, heh, heh
“And thus worthy of a special White House un-elected czar!”
Don’t give them any ideas… we’ll end up with a Czar for Mesozoic Diversity making $110,000 per annum, issuing silly directives about ensuring that each barrel of oil contain a representative sample of each major dinosaur genus, with substantial fines for each barrel that under-represents any genus by more than 2.74%. The 2.74% being proof positive that a committee was involved at some point.
I would rather have a new moon of Jupiter or a star named after me, or a star cluster:
Supertradmum Messier 342
Those names are awful, and I hope his peers refuse to use them. I believe element-naming is subject to review. I wonder if the same is true for organisms.
Perhaps an astronomer somewhere could find the most massive black hole in the universe and name it Ego Obamae.
That lizard thingie is, well, extinct…..
“Obamadon was part of a group of creatures known as polyglyphanodonts”
Or does “polyg” refer to the fact that Obamadons were not monogamous heterosexual creatures? Hence, their extinction.
Well at least its long dead. Had it known in who’s honor it was named, the poor little things might have drowned themselves in the primordial goop they crawled out of.
but if we take said lizards and put human prosthetics on them and have then fly in a giant saucer to earth….
oh..wait.. that was the movie ‘V’ from 1983
“Perhaps I am just jealous that there is no lethal virus or perhaps hitherto unknown chickadee named after me.”
Something prickly and hard to eradicate?
WaywardSailor says: Something prickly and hard to eradicate?
Like some sort of … Bush.
That was fast
: )
Shalom
God bless
the Reptilian class
As much as I love the repartee here, I’m just not feeling the love re: this thread.
Meanwhile there is a battery glaucoma tests in January that have me somewhat upset.
[Given the etymological slant of the above, were I inclined to be facetious, I might suggest looking for the silver-lining in the cloud. Since I am am not inclined to be facetious, I am sure the readers here will with me pray that you do not have glaucoma.]
Obama is more a snake than a lizard
Fr Jim: May you pass your glaucoma exam. Pray that I have successful laser retina surgery on 7Jan. I am attempting to type with a major bleed behind my left retina and everything is red-tinged and fuzzy. Eyesight is not a subject open to jest. You are in my prayers.
Fr Jim: I am very sorry for being disrespectful towards you after the election. Please forgive me. It upset me very much to see you cursing, and as I have had to lay off employees due to business downturn, it reminded me of some heartbreakingly difficult days of my own.
I should have simply said so instead of becoming angry and upset.
Fr Jim, in Colorado and Washington you don’t need to have glaucoma anymore.
MWindsor –
Scientists haven’t even found one black hole and they never will. It’s just an imaginary thing that exists in abstract mathematics they made up to avoid admitting the Church and Bible were right about the cosmos.
Much like the mythical tale of evolution and millions of years, they imagine Barack Obama in as a simiilar mythical legend as the new savior of the world; rather than the reality for who he really is… Secular scientists can’t conduct any actual science, they’ve lost the ability to distinguish between facts and the fictions they want to exist. Not surprised this also affects their politics…
Father Zuhlsdorf, doesn’t gracilis mean something nearer to “slender” than “graceful”? “Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa . . . .” Sort of like “frail” but in a healthy way?
Thanks to all and prayers to those requesting same.
If I was born 200 years ago I would have been blind at 14, so I am not going to complain. I thank God for crazy good hearing. If I had to choose, that is the way it would be.
Father
You may be amused to learn that the name Barack Obama has passed into rhyming slang in the UK
barack obamas = pyjamas
As in ‘my wife bought me a new pair of baracks for Christmas’ or ‘my baracks turned everything else blue in the wash’
Prayers for all with eye problems–I have great empathy since I have an eye condition also.
“Obama is more a snake than a lizard”
Great point, EXCHIEF.
If you were the sort of Christians who believe that Satan buried the dinosaur bones 5,000 years ago, think of the fun you could have!
In any event, Queen Victoria already took the best animals and plants and place names, I think. I wonder if anything was scientifically named for the Bushes or Clintons?
From “The Hitch-hiker’s guide to Democracy:
“No,” said Ford, “nothing so simple. On its world, the people are people and the leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
…
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse.
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”
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Fr. Jim and Paul Lemmen: prayers and best wishes for you.
frjim4321, I’m praying for you too.
@jaykay: In Minnesota in 2008, the election for US Senator between comedian Al Franken and incumbent Norm Coleman went to a mandatory re-count because the margin of (initial) victory for Norm was only 225 votes. Had it not been for the re-count, we would have never known about the ballot cast by some well-intended Minnesotan who wrote in, for every office, “Lizzard People.” Now I understand why — thank you!
Fr. Jim, we will of course pray for you and your needs!
Thank you for posting here!
frjim, I shall add my prayers for you, as well.
Mark Knopfler of the band Dire Straits had a dinosaur named after him
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masiakasaurus
And there is a subspecies of the North American elk (wapiti) named for Pres Theodore Roosevelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_elk
He is a snake. I chanced upon a tv broadcast of his reaction to the massacre in CT. He sheds the most fake tears. The abortion politician who even voted against protecting poor babies who survive their abortion fakes compassion in a sickening way. He is lower than any reptile. I need much strength to pray for his conversion and that of his followers.