Aug
5
2024

This is Why They Tend to Point North

Unexpected news from the Guardian: Komodo dragons have iron-coated teeth, scientists find.

With their huge size, venomous bite and the fantastical connotations of their name, Komodo dragons seem like the stuff of legend.

Now, that status has been elevated further: scientists have discovered that their teeth are coated with a layer of iron that helps keep their serrated edges razor sharp.

Later on in the article:

Komodo dragons are the largest living lizards…

OK, I knew that, thanks to Bob and Ray:

For some reason, this sketch cracks me up every time I listen. "If we wanted to take the youngsters to see a Komodo dragon…"

Also of note:

  • Good thing to add to your bullshit detector. Noah Rothman at NR on how to handle Everything before the ‘But’ . . .

    There’s a rule of thumb that loosely prescribes disregarding everything that precedes the “but” in a compound sentence. The introduction is a throat-clearing concession designed to soften the blow of what’s about to follow, and what follows invariably contradicts the introduction. If we observe that rule, Axios’s latest report on how the Biden White House is reacting to Israel’s targeted assassinations of the leaders of U.S.-designated terrorist groups is a doozy of a “but.”

    Reporter Barak Ravid revealed on Friday that Joe Biden insisted upon holding a “tough” call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which the president conveyed how “deeply frustrated” the administration is by Israel’s actions.

    “U.S. officials don’t mourn the deaths of either Hezbollah’s top military commander Fuad Shukr, who was involved in killing 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983, or Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre,” the report read. Here it comes . . .

    “But,” the subsequent paragraph began, “they feel that Netanyahu kept Biden in the dark over his plans to carry out the assassinations after leaving the impression last week that he was attentive to the president’s request to focus on getting a Gaza deal.”

    Emphasis added. Why, this is just malarkey!

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