It's a case of everyday language being outside the scope of science to 'fix', like when you casually use the demonic act of possession as an excuse for doing something 'I don't know what possessed me to do that!'.

WELL IMA INVENTA WAY; I'M MAKE A BIG MACHINE WIHT DRILLS AND CAN CHANGE BRAINS!! ME A FIX IT !!

You'll fix it?

Pah!

Mankind ill needs a saviour such as you!

So think they; but lo! for I am not mere a man as thou art. Look upon this shining visage mine, and behold: I am not of this land, nor of this orbital sphere; I come from far 'cross the star-strewn Galaxy, in my flying coaster, to save you and your kin from a fate which they may not by themselves avoid.

Wait I thought we were discussing dolphin sex..?

Your world is doomed, mortal. Can you not see it? Can you not read the signs? See! Smarter than thou art, the dolphins flee your planet; they will not stay to be destroyed. Even their desire for thou bodily pleasures will not hold them here!

I already heard all I needed to about dolphin sex six years ago. And then I had to learn about the eels.

I spent much of today reading about bat sex. It was horrifying and hilarious.

With all this talk of whales, dolphins and orcas, where do porpoises fit in?

Sure there's an opening left for them.

Once and for all:

All ceteceans are whales, and modern whales are divided into two Suborders: toothed (Odontoceti) and baleen (Mysticeti) whales. There are four superfamilies of Toothed whales: Delphinoidea (which include oceanic dolphins, belugas, narwhals and porpoises; Inioidea, Liptotoidea and Platanistoidea (all river dolphins); Physeteroidea (sperm whales and allies) and Ziphioidea (the elusive beaked whales).

There is no monophyletic classification that can include the other whales while excluding dolphins. That is an arbitrary distinction.

That's what I always thought. And, after looking up 'whales' on Wikipedia, I again think so. On the Dolphin article, it says they're closely related to whales, but on the Whale article, it says that dolphins are actually whales, but not in common usage.

You can always count on wikipedia to have ambiguous definitions for things.

Uguu...

Okay, so about the stimulation thing...THEN GIVE THEM SOME STIMULATION!!!God, yes, I would be bored sitting around all day in a concrete block, but at least i wouldn't Be killing people.
Also, i tried to put a quote in my reply, but it didn't work. sorry.

And what's this I hear about bats and eels?

Erm... our point was that learning tricks and putting on shows is stimulation. What alternative do they have?

Hey, has anyone ever seen that picture of Shamu's wee wee, where he's posing for his trainer? I think it was indexed under "A Whale of a Tail."

I think he's saying they should intentionally feed people to Killer Orcas. More likely, he doesn't know what 'stimulation' means.

He should go to the Sex Toy thread then.

@Nate and his comment for stimulation...
Over at this aquarium I go to sometimes, they stimulate the Octopi by putting food in jars and plastic balls and Mr Potato Heads. For the Stingrays they put in hard shells, fish, and these weird seafood cookies. For the eels they put in tennis balls and stuff liek that. I'm sure that they could find a way to entertain the damn thing.
And if they can't, then they can just put it down.

You're saying it's better for an Orca to be dead than to live semi-comfortably in captivity?!

No, but I am saying that it's better to put an animal into a humaine sleep than to put him on stage to horrible kill a human being. And i never said that we HAD to kill the whale, I'm just saying no more shows for him. Put him in a tank with some computers or something to keep him entertained.

Yes. Whales love to play Doom and Battle Chess.

Doom is ossim. But I ment more liek matching shapes or something simple and educational like that.

Why not let it free, brother?

Being forced to do nothing more than basically play on a computer all day is a fate worse than death.

You mean like Keiko (Willy, from Free Willy), who died cold, hungry, lost and lonely after beaching himself in Norway because he couldn't adjust to life in the wild?

...

What's your point?

That he didn't die because he couldn't adjust to the wild.

EDIT: Never mind

If you read the rest of the Wikipedia article, you'll see that he crossed the Atlantic, but did not join with any pod of other Orcas. Rather, he searched out human accompanyment. Also, he hadn't been catching enough food for himself and was hungry and underweight.

Doesn't sound to me like a well-balanced wild animal.

Well, they shouldn't have caught him in the first place.

Well, that's a different issue. I agree with you there.

Why the fuck would you need to educate a whale on mathematics?

The challenge?

Yes, it is better to kill things than let them live.

Universal truth right there.

For humans anyway.

Mind being the first one in line, Havoc?

Not it.