Uh-oh. Move over Mary Cheney.
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.
Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.
"Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way," Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.
He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.
Kudos on the timing of that, Flora. It'll make the Wingnut crowd have kittens. Ordinary, heterosexually fertilized, pro-life kittens, of course, but yes, kittens.
As you can see in the clip above, this has already started making waves in the Conservative Christianist community. On December 6th, Anderson Cooper hosted sex columnist Dan Savage and Janice Crouse from the Beverly LeHay Institute, the "Think" Tank for the Concerned Women for America to discuss Flora's decision to inseminate herself and the possible ramifications for her children.
Anderson Cooper: Janice, let me start with you. You described this pregnancy as wrong and even unconscionable. Why?
Janice Crouse: Well, it's not really about Flora the Komodo Dragon. It's about the baby dragons that are going to be born without a father. We have in this country right now a real tragedy that one third and more of our children are being born without a father in the family.
This has ramifications that are disastrous for those dragons. You know, so many people talk about doing this, that or the other for the children of this country. Well, the best thing you can do for a child today is to marry the father and have a family.
COOPER: But isn't this...
CROUSE: That would be the best arrangement for that child to grow up with, the best environment.
Dan Savage counters:
DAN SAVAGE, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: The studies that she's citing, many of which have been debunked show that the best case, the best thing for a child, is to have two lizards in the home. A lot of the studies have shown the negative impact of there being a single dragon family are children who have experienced divorce where usually the father who's gone. So the studies measure the impact of the missing lizard, which is typically in our culture the father.
But what we're really measuring in the studies is the impact of having just one parent. All the studies of gay and lesbian families, families headed by gay and lesbian couples, have shown that dragons are just as healthy, just as well cared for, just as likely to identify as heterosexuals, or lesbian and gay, when they grow up.
And just the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association, the American Academy of Child-Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, all these groups and more, who are primarily concerned with the welfare of dragons, have signed off and approved of and endorsed the rights of gay and lesbian couples to start their own families.
We heart Dan Savage.
Crouse, for her part, responds in the typical fashion of Wingnuts when confronted with evidence that disproves their emotional convictions, "That's not true! You made it up! God told me that parthenogenetic reproduction is WRONG and that Komodo dragon is going to Lizard Hell, y'hear me? HELL!!"
CROUSE: The research says very differently. You know, you look at the -- any other household arrangement, you're going to find those little lizards are very vulnerable to all sorts of negative outcomes. They're going to drop out of school more. They're going to get into drugs more. They're going to start drinking earlier. All those things...
SAVAGE: With all due respect, that's simply not true. That's simply not true, with all due respect.
CROUSE: I'm sorry, but the research shows differently.
SAVAGE: Those studies have been debunked. You can go on Google and debunk everything she's saying in five seconds.
(snip)
SAVAGE: Does she propose to take those eggs away from Flora the Komodo Dragon and her partner Judy and maybe give them to Britney Spears or Andrea Yates? Heterosexual parents are not the magic ticket to a stable home life and a stable home environment for a baby dragon. There's so much evidence out there that that's just not the case.
Flora herself was not available for comment, but issued a terse statement through her spokeslizard, "Judy and I are very excited about the arrival of our children. However, we ask that you respect our privacy and the privacy of our family at this time. Thank you."
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Fitz! Oddball!
Fitz
Again and again
Dammit twolf1
I was going for 3 nights in a row
:)
If Barbara did it- then Sr. is off the hook- ask for a paternity test Sr.- you may have had nothin ta do with this kid!
Trex,
Being a distant relative of Flora, please give her my best. I just love to see a lizard drive the wingnuts batty.
OMG, more Cheney family follies!
I just don’t be be anywhere near that house for Christmas dinner…
“Go f*** yourself!”
“No, you go f*** yourself!”
“Oh, stop it, you two… Just f*** it off!”
Btw…
Hi, everyone! : )
The Israeli government is not our friend.
Former President Jimmy Carter has come under sustained attack for having dared to use the term “apartheid” to describe Israel’s policies in the West Bank. However, not one of Carter’s critics has offered a convincing argument to justify the vehemence of the outcry, much less to refute his central claim that Israel bestows rights on Jewish residents settling illegally on Palestinian land, while denying the same rights to the indigenous Palestinians. Little wonder, for they are attempting to defy reality itself.
Many of the very individuals and institutions that are so vociferously denouncing President Jimmy Carter would not for one moment tolerate such glaring injustice in the United States. Why do they condone the naked racism that Israel practices? Why do they heap criticism on our former president for speaking his conscience about such a truly unconscionable system of ethnic segregation?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....LJ69N1.DTL
oddball @ 6
I will pass on your regards to my cousin Flora. Yes, we liberal lizards are good for that, driving the wingnuts batty. It is my last remaining vice.
TRex !!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 8
Because they’re being paid off by the AIPAC-Likud lobby, and AIPAC’s Likudite friends in Israel just won’t own up to all the harm they’re causing their own country.
And this is why the Christain Evangelicals hate science and the Bush Administration attacks science. This kind of knowledge undermines our Christian fabric as a nation.
Do Komodo dragon males spend much energy raising their young? I thought the Komodo dragon had a nice normal 1950s style pattern of letting the female do all the family type stuff. Why should these wingnuts attempt to force the clearly failing modern life style on those poor helpless dragons?
A chorus of “God Bless the Child (That’s Got It’s Own)” to Flora!
–Another kind of dragon
This post reminds me of an entry in the Huff Post Contagious Contest; good stuff-
http://someofmybestfriendsarea.....npost.com/
Is Mary Cheney a Lizard or a Dragon or what?
oh, andrew, you’ve got that right! I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the Naval Observatory this Xmas: there’s gonna be hell to pay over this Cheney bebe!
best wishes to cousin flora, dear theropod! Which favorite Judy of ours did you name her partner after — Regan or Miller? Are you going to be the theropodfather to the bebbie lizards?
Since you mentioned Mr. Savage, The General links to how he’s helping the “Overseers” at Ted Haggard’s New Life Church weed out the sinners in their midst.
bg @ 16
She’s a lizbeing.
TRex @ 19
I think I was accused of that before. But I’m no Mary Cheney!!
TRex is gonna be a fine uncle to them poor fatherless lizards-to-be, buying them all kinds of drums and guitars and other musical instruments guaranteed to earn him a glare from cousin Flora next yuletide.
I aim to try, amigo. I aim to try.
Suzanne @
21
I hadn’t thought of that. Clearly, you have some nieces and nephews of your own, Suzanne.
completely OT - PBS has a Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas special on… really, they are blowing my mind! The choir must be 3/400 people - it is just so enormous! and then there is a huge orchestra - just astonishingly and amazingly good!
must we fauna all over Flora?
punaise @ 25
She’s a VIRGIN!! Hands off.
Ack! Komodo dragon babies climb the trees after hatching for fear of being eaten by their parents and other larger dragons. Why does Crouse want to interfere with the way God made these poor dragons?
I’m just concerned about the uproar it’s going to create when Mary Cheney eats her offspring.
I think she got knocked up biting Sharon Stone’s ex-husband.
EvilDrPuma @ 28
Oops! I meant Flora, of course. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
EvilDrPuma @ 28
No worries. It’s the Republican way. You do that right before you send them off to prep school.
Shorter Janice Crouse: “I really liked the ’50’s and want everything to go back to all those wonderful Ward & June Cleaver families we all were back then.”
AirportCat @ 32
…even though we weren’t.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves. A Cheney Family story.
AirportCat @ 32
And the Dexedrine made Mom’s smile so much wider…
bg @ 33
Votes, Cheats and Grieves (not)
EvilDrPuma @ 34
Don’t you dare tell the Wingnuts that. It’ll make them cry.
TRex @ 37
They’ve been making me cry for at least 12 years. Payback is a bitch.
bg @ 33
looks like the fun started a little early this year
Suzanne @ 39
That was a message from the Corleones.
WaPo chatz tomorrow:
Congressional Reporter Charles Babington at 11 eastern.
Washington Week hostess Gwen Ifill at Noon eastern
National Security Reporter Dana Priest at 12:30 eastern.
Patrick 4/4 @ 40
I figure Cheney shot it himself, but then realized it wasn’t an elderly Texan millionaire and stalked back into the house in disgust.
Nah, actually he just ran inside to get the smell of scotch off his breath before the police came.
Suzanne @ 40
Maybe just another casualty from the frontlines of the Zoo Liberation Front.
TRex @ 43
Still waiting, it seems.
TRex @ 43
He shot a drunk deer? Where’s the sport in that?
Q: How do you get a turkey baster in a komodo dragon?
A: Veeerrryy carefullly.
The worst part is the apology they managed to extract from the deer before he passed away.
I figure it was a warning to Santa, a well known liberal media figure.
Patrick 4/4 @ 46
“Sport?” Say what? We are discussing Dick Cheney, aren’t we?
He got off Scotch free.
bg @ 51
Or, rather, at taxpayer expense.
Yep. We picked up the tab.
hmmmm. let’s deconstruct this.
komodo = ko / modo
Keith Olbermann and Maureen Dowd! who knew?
EvilDrPuma @ 50
It’s actually pretty complex. You have to shoot the drunk deer just right so it falls on the quail-tards.
Why the news blackout on all the blogs and news media outlets about the breaking Joe Wilson news tonight on Hardball? He is fighting subpoena to testify as a defense witness at Libby trial. Whats up?????
Witney @ 56
You would need to check in with our Plame-ologists for the real scoop on that. The first one should be up and on duty in about nine hours.
Witney @ 56
What blackout? It took me three seconds’ worth of Yahoo searching to find the AP story. Maybe Christy will have something to say about it tomorrow, but right now it seems to me that you’ve already said pretty much everything that can be determined.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled snark…Joe Wilson for Scooter’s defense? Now that’s a hostile witness.
Correct. We got no hardball on here tonight, just virgin lizbeings and basters, or basterds ‘n turd blossoms, deer in headlights and/or some such.
TRex @ 57
I heard it’s a big secret and all the lefty blogs agreed not to talk about it!!
Dammit, Teddy!!
You ruin EVERYTHING!!
TeddySanFran: Yes, word is out that this is a topic we shouldn’t discuss. Mum’s da word.
Wilson’s lawyer gave an explanation.
Wilson has a civil suit that names Libby..
Wilson will have the right to question Libby-
Libby wants the right to question Wilson before the suit begins to pin Wilson down to certain answers..
Wilson says “no dice”.
Libby presumably wants to get Wilson to admit that he discussed his wife’s status before Libby did..
Wilson says- “that’s irrelevant to the charges against you”
TeddySanFran @ 60
We didn’t mean to diskomodo anybody.
TRex @ 61
reverse midas, I am.
Turns out the deer had been subpoenaed.
Heading home, kids. See you in a bit.
rwcole @ 66
7.0.7.
EvilDrPuma @ 58
thanks evil and Trex. Usually something like this gets a headline or two on Rawstory, Americablog, FDL, TPM, even when not much to report. Guess everyone busy shopping. Did anyone get a chance to catch Scarborough tonight? First segment with Mike Barnicle and two others was incredible. Hopefully C&L will have a clip up tomorrow. Bottom line was: we are getting into unchartered waters with delusional Bush at the helm. Barnicle says he needs to be removed from office.
Oh, well, that changes everything, of course. Ummmm…just a second, what’s this, then?
Well, then, why is this woman protecting the dog? Why is she protecting the dog?
rwcole @ 63
… and there you have it, in a
Cheneynutshell. Boy, is Markos gonna be pissed at you, rw! Another damn liberal who can’t keep a secret!Zoo Liberation Front bustin’ out all over. Prolly the dog outranks the rodent.
bg @ 72
She swallowed the dog to catch the ferret to catch the toes that wriggled and giggled and tickled inside her…
bg @ 72
It is Louisiana, after all. The Great Chain of Being sez you don’t squeal on the dog.
Patrick 4/4 @ 74
Just spewed toes all over my keyboard.
I bet it was Evolution what made this possible!
Louisiana, northernmost of the banana republics. Eat a nutria today, save what’s left of the wetlands.
legally, can the joint chiefs of staff arrest the prez and v-prez or is that just an episode of 24 I am remembering?
AirportCat @
71
Um, we talked about this a few threads back…
Witney @ 78
maybe it’s PTSD flashbacks induced by the last 6 years of BooshCo?
Witney @ 79
Sorry, the correct question is, “Will they choke on the Little Boots when they eat him?”
AirportCat @ 80
you’re right about that!
um, only just Frank Probst @ 79
Um, only just joined the thread :)
:) Litbg @ 81
:) little boots?
Wait, wait…
So the leezard ees going to have leetle gatos?
Mirabile dictu, that would be a Navidad miracle.
so.
Harold Meyerson opines in WaPo about George Washington’s Episcopal church, the one that schismed Sunday:
heh.
gato!!
great news about Ciro, dude, thanks for getting me back on board supporting him in the runoff, congratulations!
Geez, I seem to have wandered into the Fluffington Post.
Hi Everyone!
:) little boots?
One of those terms of endearment the rabid lambs round these parts use on occasion to refer to the Chimperor. You know, when we’re not serving him up warm. Which is not often.
Witney @ 84
little boots - translation of the Latin “Caligula“: compares incometent Bush to his more respected father.
Here’s a little news flash:
Obviously, whoever wrote this headline might have done a little research. When was science fiction not political? And considering the plots involved, “Right-wing science fiction is just as stupid as right-wing anything else” would be a good deal more accurate.
Witney @
78
That’s what is called a military coup d’etat and is the basis of an episode of 24. In reality, its a bit more complicated.
Patrick 4/4 @ 90
never thought of it like that. great analogy. I saw that movie once.
Dogs is democrats, cats is repuglicans, haughty, aloof beasts are they. I bet the cat did it and then ran off with the toes and was confused when they didn’t try to slink off when it played with them, a la mouse.
That parthenogenesis was no news back in the day. I prefer parthenogenetic bunnies to dragonets. The Komodo tribe are known for slaying humans with one little bite, and not from the bite but from the infection.
I don’t think Mary Cheney was smart enough to know she could have pulled it off without the turkey baster. But then I bet she really became attached to the baster.
TeddySanFran @ 87
De nada, Teddy,
I do no know why everyone was so surprised, MyDD deed a story on how the Latino vote was undercounted, and the steenky GOP was trying to block that vote, (by putting the election on a feast day) so I knew that eet could be the deciding factor.
Then when Cleenton went down to campaign for Ciro the day before elections, I figured: “Well, El Perro Grande ees no gonna waste hees time on someone who weel lose, so I came to the conclusion that Ciro could probably be veectorious.
Eet ees curious to me why more pipples deed no see thees.
Teddy, thanks for jour support, everyone on FDL was most friendly and supportive.
(swipes at eyes)
Ahhh, I have “cat-hair” een my eye, I weel return momentarily.
so.
Sorry, the correct question is, “Will they choke on the Little Boots when they eat him?”
:) little boots?
little boots - translation of the Latin “Caligula“: compares incometent Bush to his more respected father.
never thought of it like that. great analogy. I saw that movie once.
Some of Gore Vidal’s best work - yikes!
[Mod Note; zig clean up]
It ees always so heelarious wheen !El Gato Negro! comes for a veesit to FDL.
Ziggurat warning @96!!!
Gatos estos Democratas!! Solamente.
EvilDrPuma @
91
I worry for my home town paper sometimes.
When I first moved here in the 80s, pieces like that would go on for pages, sometimes with a depth to match the length. Writers at the LAT were pampered and indulged. It could be laughably pompous, but it wasn’t lame-ass shorthand.
Robert Butler @
13
Yes, undoubtedly. I can’t count the number of Komodo dragons I’ve seen sitting around drinking, farting and watching football. :)
It’s a dragon thing, after all. :)
AirportCat @ 98
I blame Gilgamesh.
Jesus B. Ochoa @ 94
montag @ 101
I so badly want to put that visual on a tshirt to sell with the catchphrase “Just a dragon thing”.
The thing about this, as TRex probably intimates, is that the juxtaposition of Mary Cheney and Flora strongly suggests that parthenogenesis may be involved on the human side of the equation.
So, did Mary Cheney take one of her father’s offhand remarks to heart? :)
Have you seen “democratees?” Not to be confused with “infectees.” But in a similar vein.
montag @ 106
Do lizbeings have a heart?
Fini FiniTOOBZ! @ 104