Memories of 21, 42, 63 ... the 84th meandering

OOOOH, tough choics. Somedays Im clicking on marine wetlands cauase they are being destroyed naturally and by human means.
Today I saved a square foot of marine wetland and you are allowed one click a day? Is there any way one can click on more than one category without creating a new address?

I'll let Danon or ehBeth fill you in on this. They are the experts in such matters.

Here is a tongue in cheek posting to this thread:

March 9, 2009
Editorial Observer

On the Origin of Bankers’ Giant Bonuses

By EDUARDO PORTER

If you’re still having trouble understanding big-time bankers’ huge paychecks " and who isn’t? " try thinking of the problem in more primitive terms. Like, say, the lives of elephant seals.

Bull seals put on flab for competitive reasons: the bigger the bull, the greater its chances of thrashing other males on the beach to win a harem of cows.

The problem is that while each bull may be happy with his success, the competitive dynamic has a cost to elephant seal society. When the fattest seals always win, they will be more successful in passing their genes to the next generation "which will lead to a fatter population over time.

Elephant seal bulls can weigh 8,000 pounds. As the Cornell economist Robert Frank has pointed out, the social costs come clear when you consider that at 8,000 pounds it is pretty difficult to out-swim a great white shark.

Which brings us back to Wall Street. There are competing hypotheses about why top bankers and corporate chief executives are paid so much. Some researchers suggest a form of theft, exercised by coaxing, cajoling or browbeating pliant boards of directors to hand over more and more company money.

Bankers prefer the elephant seal theory: the humongous bonus packages are essential to attract top executives who otherwise would be nabbed by a rival. Bailed-out bankers grumble that the pay caps imposed by the Obama administration will allow better-financed hedge funds to swoop down and poach the best from their ranks.

This theory of capitalist evolution conveniently omits the part about the social costs. It is doubtful whether this executive superstar system adds any value to firms.

One study by Ulrike Malmendier of Berkeley and Geoffrey Tate of U.C.L.A. suggested that when C.E.O.’s are anointed as superstars by the media, shareholders suffer: C.E.O. performance declines relative to what it was before and to that of other C.E.O.’s. They start writing books, serving on boards and doing more work outside the company. And they become more active in tinkering with corporate earnings. Of course, the C.E.O.’s themselves get a raise.

Today we are all bearing the costs of bankers’ lopsided remuneration. The arms race in financial-sector pay that started with financial deregulation in the 1980s has grossly distorted economic incentives. Not only did handsomely compensated financiers engineer the dot-com bubble and the housing crisis, but bankers’ pay is reshaping the economy and society in other perilous ways.

Between 1980 and last year, the financial industry’s share of the nation’s corporate profits rose from 19 percent to 30 percent, government figures show. Wages followed. Research by the economists Thomas Philippon of New York University and Ariell Reshef of the University of Virginia found average remuneration in the financial industry rose from about par with wages in the non-farm private sector in 1980 to about 1.7 times today.

In the face of such odds, more of the nation’s pool of talented students decided there was no point in becoming a doctor or an engineer, when one could be a banker. In a recent research paper, the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz reported that the share of Harvard graduates who took jobs in finance increased from 5 percent of the 1970 class to 15 percent of the 1990 class. The share going into law and medicine fell from 39 percent to 30 percent.

Perhaps the current crisis will end this trend. Finance is unlikely to recover quickly from this debacle, which has caused shares in financial companies to slide almost 60 percent in the last year. That means pay packages might return to earth, where the rest of us live. Banks could start competing for talent on the scale of hundreds of thousands of dollars, rather than in the millions.

Elephant seals don’t know that they would reduce their odds of becoming lunch if they all cut their tonnage by half " a move that would leave the competitive field unaltered. But people are smarter, we hope, and can understand that if we rein in all bankers’ pay we might be able to protect society from the fallout of their mating habits.

Clicked. How wonderful to see so many people here. After snow a week ago today, we were in the 80's over the weekend.

Hey Farmerman

I click each one of the three that come up and it's set (somehow) to automatically log me on so i don't put any password in now - if you try and click twice on the same one it tells you that you've already clicked today. Hope I'm doing it correctly. Bethie............................................

click click click

Farmerman, you can register using a secondary browser if you choose to click for the rainforest and marine wetlands both each day.
I have one account now {new computer} but had two accounts when i joined the team.

Our resident mega clicker Dan is the expert though. He manages a few extra rainforest clicks per day - and they count!

Beth, could you also advise Farmerman? Don't you have a Facebook account? I'm not certain how those sites work.

Farmerman, all the causes at the care2 rainforest clicking page are worthy. You are clicking each day and that's what counts.

I'm here, I think! I can't get updates, but I'll click everyday, as I've already done, today. Just great to be here and see my Abuzz friends. Happy belated New Year!

grrr - how do i change the danged clock???

GMT - 8 hours {preferances}

The time in Califorina is right this second 7:52 A.M.

anyone???

Hi Teeny!

Haven't gotten updates from a2k either since the new thread. Maybe the Hampsters are backlogged.

So glad you're checking in each day and clicking! How's the ankle?

Hurray!!

"Watchman" is number one at the boxoffice!

Check it out!!! Some of the wildclickers recall my mentioning a dear friend sons who live and work in Hollywood - Eddie's a producer, and Tyler wrote and directed the music for the Watchman.

So proud...

The storks are back- the first 2 were spotted today. So spring is just around the corner. Hopefully.

Have a nice evening!

ul, i'm still receiving updates from the Journey North site you posted last year at one of the rainforest threads - and today they're following the Songbird Migration.

Today the weathers very cold, but the chill hasn't stopped the hummingbirds or Finches who have been frequent visitors even during snowstorms!

Happy belated Birthday!

Right, since this week the storks from the West (Spain/Africa via Gibraltar) are back - the mass from the East (Africa via Israel) will arrive later.
(Tried to take a photo of one today .... but obviously it hasn't been one of the locals but one who only rested here: away northward.)

Meine Got, Walter. I am so glad to see you on this tread. Happy Clicking guy...

Stick around and have some fun.

Ul, it's my absolute dream come true to see you here. You are my most wonderful Viennese lady in the world.......... Except for Frieda, Edie, Christine und, of course Herta........Grin

That's a joke. All the others are friends as are we. Thank you again for your hospitality in Vienna.

Making another tree smile today.........We Wildclickers do!!!!

Und, fer deine, Farmerman, Ja, du bist ein "heel clicker" You could dance around with the best of them - "clomppers"

BAG = big assed grin....

Notice all the4 Spellung --------Nuther BAG.....!!!!!!!

Great to see so many of the Wildclickers, young and old, new and errr old posting here.

I'm back from dance class and have made my clicking rounds. I click through accounts I set up at care2 using my pets' names I've set up the accounts to deliver any emails to my primary hotmail account.

~~~~

The Wildclickers have supported a total of 2,929,941.4 square feet so far!

composed of:

Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 221,548.2 square feet.
American Prairie habitat supported: 68,854.1 square feet.
Rainforest habitat supported: 2,639,539.1 square feet.

~~~

I heard from Aa recently. She was the original original wildclicker back at Abuzz. She's busy writing - perhaps we'll see her here again later this year.

Happy Earthturn to all the WildClickers from Aa and me!

Hey Bethie - got an email thru about supporting "Big Kitties"... click click click... (being a cat sorta goil!)

http://bigcats.care2.com/i?p=818548161

Isn't it great! so many things you can click for. Easy peasy.

ehBeth,

Would you please click for me for the next week - that is - biginning the 12th of March through the 18th of March.

You may let my clickerers have and give what they want to help with.....

Thank you sooooo very much.

I'm leaving the eleventh of this month and will return on 19th of this month -March................. going on a really great trip with friends from California. We will be going to all the great places in TX. That's what they wanted and that's what they will get.

Our Forest Friends,

Dan............You can split all my clicks between whom ever yu wish.

See how the spelling goes????????????????????????

Hewy, Farmerman - Stay with us..............




Your absoute friend,

Dan

Will do, Danon. I'll check my email for your clicking details. I'm sure I've saved it (and my puter may remember a few of them for me).

He must have been a scout at one time as he sure is prepared.

Arsenal Confirms Chimp's Ability to Plan, Study Says
Animal at Swedish Zoo Collects Stones to Hurl at Visitors

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 10, 2009; A06

Santino evidently knows he's going to get upset, so he plans ahead.

The 30-year-old chimpanzee, who has lived in a Swedish zoo most of his life, sometimes gets agitated when zoo visitors begin to gather on the other side of the moat that surrounds his enclosure, where he is the dominant -- and only -- male in a group that includes half a dozen females.

He shows his displeasure by flinging stones or bits of concrete at the human intruders, but finding a suitable weapon on the spur of the moment perhaps isn't so easy. To prepare, Santino often begins his day by roaming the enclosure, finding stones and stacking them in handy piles.

On some days, he's barraged visitors with up to 20 projectiles thrown in rapid succession, always underhand. Several times he has hit spectators standing 30 feet away across the water-filled moat.

The behavior, witnessed dozens of times, has made Santino something of a local celebrity.

It also made him the subject of a scientific paper, published yesterday, documenting one of the more elaborate examples of contingency planning in the animal world.

"Many animals plan. But this is planning for a future psychological state. That is what is so advanced," said Mathias Osvath, director of the primate research station at Lund University and author of the paper in the journal Current Biology.

The animal's preparations include not only stockpiling the stones he finds but also, more recently, also fashioning projectiles from pieces of concrete he has broken off artificial rocks in his habitat.

Others have observed great apes planning, both in the wild and in captivity. Some birds in the corvid family, which includes jays and ravens, also plan for future contingencies. In general, though, planning by animals is thought to occur only when the payoff is immediate and more or less certain.

"People always assume that animals live in the present. This seems to indicate that they don't live entirely in the present," said Frans de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the research.

Santino was born in a zoo in Munich in 1978 but has lived all but five years of his life at the Furuvik Zoo, about 60 miles north of Stockholm.

He began throwing stones at age 16 when he became the sole -- and therefore dominant -- male in the group. None of the other chimpanzees, including a male that was in the group briefly, stored or threw stones.

The troop's habitat is an island surrounded by a moat. The stone-throwing is more frequent early in the season when the zoo reopens after the winter and Santino sees crowds of people across the water for the first time in months. Sometimes particular individuals seem to bother him, Osvath said.

On some days, zookeepers have found as many as five caches, containing three to eight stones each, along the shore facing the viewing area. Once, a hidden observer saw him gather stones five mornings in a row before the zoo opened.

Most of the stones are taken from the shallows at the edge of the moat. About a year after his storing and throwing began, however, Santino began tapping stones against the concrete artificial rocks, evidently listening for a hollow sound that indicates a fissure. He would then hit the concrete harder until a piece chipped off, occasionally then hitting it again to make it fist-size.

"I have seen him going around doing this. It is very impressive," Osvath said.

The throwing behavior is part of a normal display of dominance and territorial protection by male chimpanzees that occasionally involves throwing feces. Osvath doesn't think this animal is particularly smart or aggressive.

"I don't think he is unusual in any way. If anything, chimpanzees in the wild would plan more, I suspect," he said.

Osvath and others have tested chimpanzees' ability to plan. In one experiment, the animals were given a choice between eating grapes at the moment and getting and storing a rubber hose they could use sometime in the future to gain access to fruit soup, one of their favorite foods. Many chose the hose.

De Waal, who is also affiliated with the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, said he's observed a female chimp at a zoo in the Netherlands that in cold weather -- but not warm -- would bring an armful of straw from her enclosure when she went outside in order to have something to sit on.

Amy Fultz, a primatologist at Chimp Haven, a sanctuary in Louisiana for animals once used for entertainment or research, said she also has seen planning in some of the 132 chimpanzees living there.

As in the wild, some fashion tools from stalks of plants that they use to fish ants from anthills.

"One, named Karin, will gather up a particular species of verbena and save it in a place in her habitat. I have watched her go back and get them later in the day, or even later in the week," Fultz said.

One expert said planning by chimpanzees has been observed often enough in the wild that she questioned the novelty of Santino's behavior.

Sue Taylor Parker, a retired professor of biological anthropology at California's Sonoma State University who has compared the cognitive development of humans and primates, said wild chimpanzees sometimes carry rocks long distances to "anvil sites" for future use in cracking nuts. Cooperative hunting also implies a certain minimum of planning.

"Chimpanzee behavior that is at the edge of their highest abilities is always interesting to read about. I just question the uniqueness of this," she said. She added that the level of planning seen in Santino is roughly the same as that of 3-to-5-year-old children.

Unusual or not, Santino's rock-throwing may not be in evidence when spring comes to Sweden this year and he again sees visitors across the water.

In order to decrease his agitation, which was fueled in part by high testosterone levels characteristic of dominant males, the animal was castrated last fall.