19th-century weapon found in whale

AP via Yahoo ^ | By ERIN CONROY

[ME-262]

“The Alaskan natives hunt of whales is a tradition. Certain species did not become endangered because of these natives hunting proclivities (thank modern man).”

If I were an Alaskan native I might think you implied that I’m not a modern man but some sort of caveman. I’d have to hop in my Geico insured whaling boat and come down to the 48 to harpoon your butt. You and your damn opposed thumbs!

[null and void]

Call me Ishmael...

[Calvin Locke]

Should this piece of someone's heritage not return to New Bedford instead?

Like you mean, "Lizzie Borden took a bomb lance and gave her mother..."?

Oh, wait. How about "finder's keepers"?

Alas, with the explosive technology, there were fewer and fewer "Nantucket Sleigh Rides". The whale might have a chance, then.

There is at least one grainy b&w film of one. Quite the ride, unlike the fungineers' "We're whalers on the Moon" ride.

[Blood of Tyrants]

All the more reason to ban commercial whaling.

[CholeraJoe]

virtually all mammals live for the same number of heartbeats? Thus, in terms of heartbeats, a shrew lives about as long as an elephant.

I have always subscribed to the "Finite Heartbeat" theory. Ergo - the less one exercises, the longer one will live.

Please also refer to my published works on the "Finite Bowel Movement" and "Finite Ejaculation" theories.

[Savage Beast]

Righto! You get a gold star for the day! Go to the head of the class.

I tell you, Battlegear-- The smartest people on the planet are the Freepers!

“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
~Herman Melville~
Moby Dick
Chapter 1: Loomings

[battlegearboat]

Hooray!

May I be excused?

My stomach is in knots.

[reagan_fanatic]

I had no idea whales lived that long.

Great article!

[Savage Beast]

"Melville went to such great lengths to insure his masterpiece rang true, then Hollywood goes and slaps some cheesy dinosaur teeth on his sperm whale..."

Consider them both, Hollywood and Melville. And do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in your soul there lies a love of truth truth, a search for meaning, a quest for that which has the ring of truth. God keep thee!

[visualops]

You and your damn opposed thumbs!

Well, most people don't have anything against my thumbs, but I could see how a caveman would be jealous because they are opposable. :)

[Savage Beast]

You may be excused, but why is your stomach in knots? And are the knots easily untied, wet or dry, and with one hand, even unseen as when under water?

[Bender2]

This was covered last year in the New York Slimes...

[Oberon]

Sperm whales have teeth, and the ones in the picture are fairly authentic-looking.

[battlegearboat]

"...but why is your stomach in knots?..."

It's because me mother was a mermaid, me father was King Neptune.

I was born on the crest of a wave and rocked in the cradle of the deep.

Seaweed and barnacles is me clothes.

The hair on me head is hemp, every tooth in me head is a marlinspike (which I use to untie knots), every bone in me body is a spar, and when I spits, I spits tar.

That's why matey!

I'm hard I am I is I arggggh!

[Joe 6-pack]

"thar she blows!...Hopefully, not in a Clintonian sense!"

"Seekin' the great white stain, be ye?

[Pharmboy]

The Greenland Whale Fisheries
(trad arr. Back of the Moon, on our 1st album ‘Gillian Frame and Back of the Moon’)

Greenland is a hell of a place
It’s a place that’s seldom green
Where there’s ice and snow, and the Whale fishes blow
And the daylight’s seldom seen brave boys
And the daylight’s seldom seen

In eighteen hundred seen and sixty three
On June the thirteenth day
Our gallant ship her anchor weighed
And for Greenland sailed away brave boys
For Greenland sailed away

Our Captain he stood on the quarter deck
With a spy glass in his hand
There’s a whale, there’s a whale, there’s a bloody great whale
And she blows on every span brave boys
And she blows on every span

We hit that whale and the line paid out
But she made a flunder with her tail
And the boat capsized and ten men were drowned
And we ne’er did catch that whale brave boys
And we ne’er did catch that whale

The loosing of those ten brave men
It grieves my heart full sore
But the loosing of that bloody great whale
It grieves me ten times more brave boys
It grieves me ten times more

When the ship is moored and safe secured
And all tied up on shore
We’ll all raise a glass take a bonny willing lass
And make this ale hoose roar Brave boys
And Make this ale hoose roar

[aruanan]

I have always subscribed to the "Finite Heartbeat" theory. Ergo - the less one exercises, the longer one will live.

This doesn't hold true for humans who live much, much longer than what would be expected based on their body size and cardiac rate. A researcher from the U of Alabama was telling me about this at a FASEB meeting in Washington DC at which we were both presenting.

[BenLurkin]

"He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years."

Guess not, huh.

[BenLurkin]

Talk about ‘the one that got away’!

[Hacksaw]

BOSTON - A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago.

The Associated Press strikes again. If this centurion whale had been killed (excuse me, "caught") by a non "indigenous person", what do you think the AP headline would be? I really hate the AP. The AP really does think people don't notice these things.