Rachel Maddow Totally Loses It

That parrot one was the best Moment of Geek ever.

I agree - "you are being shagged by a rare parrot" is one of the best lines of all time. Stephen Fry is brilliant. :)

Specifically, it's a Kakapo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakapo

I remember watching this a couple of months ago, and it's such an lovely, bizarre animal it's a shame there's so few left.

OT, just discovered this, but Knol is pretty cool:

http://knol.google.com/k/why-are-europeans-white-e1
http://knol.google.com/k/the-perception-of-racial-traits

One does wonder *HOW* such randy birds ever became endangered. You'd think they'd outnumber ants by now, or something.

++Good because of Fry's part in making the film of Douglas Adams's non-fiction book "A Last Chance to See".

One does wonder *HOW* such randy birds ever became endangered. You'd think they'd outnumber ants by now, or something.

Well, yeah, except that they seem to be remarkably deficient in the whole 'species-recognition' department. That's gotta impede your growth curve a little.

they seem to be remarkably deficient in the whole 'species-recognition' department.

Well, the MALES are deficient in this area. As is often the case.

I about pissed myself when I saw that at Lynchs place!

Dude lets his friend get molested by a parrot for like, 5 minutes. Laughs his ass of... THEN is concerned about his friend.

ROFL!!!

Y'know, I used to be baffled at those animals that are so dumb they'll mate with anything, without even recognizing their own species... Until it occured to me we humans don't just mate with other humans either. Except it's not we that are dumb, it's our neural circuitry that's dumb, and we take advantage of it for masturbation. How many of those head-shagging parrots are doing the same ?

When you live in the Jungle, you are advised to wear a hat. At at all times.

Maybe he liked being shagged by the rare parrot. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Beautiful plumage!

My wife and I laughed our asses off at this yesterday.

"You are being shagged by a rare parrot!"

I keep hearing this in John Cleese's voice. It would have been a great line in "Fierce Animals."
It also would have been great in Zork.

#4:"One does wonder *HOW* such randy birds ever became endangered.
You'd think they'd outnumber ants by now, or something."

I think the video explains this pretty well: They pay absolutely NO attention to what it is that they're shagging. Biology FAIL.

I keep hearing it as a line from a Cat Stevens song. I listened to this show on a podcast but it is great to see on video.

Given that the parrot thought that the guys head looked like a suitable mating partner, I suspect I can guess at least one reason why this parrot is so rare...

Boring. FAIL. This vid and topic has been around for more than a week.

Since before it existed?

No just dissing your blog as johnny come late on the parrot vid. None of the comments have a thing to to do about Maddow.

Yeah... the parrot is kind of a distraction. but sometimes comment threads do that

I saw that "shagging parrot" a few weeks or months ago(whenever it was aired), and I thought it was quite funny back then. I still think it's quite funny. I can easily see why Rachel Maddow "lost it". I don't blame her in the least.
Anne G

Since before it existed?

I saw the whole show (part 5/6 in a series) over a month ago.

You'd think they'd outnumber ants by now, or something.

They are too dumb to realize danger -- and if they do, they just sit still until it goes away or they get eaten. Works well without predatory mammals. Doesn't work well after the introduction of, say, badgers and cats.

Back to Maddow. Being from the Old World (Denmark), I'd never heard about her. She seemed a completely daft dumb brunette in this clip but she apparently has smarts: she got a DPhil from Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. Weird. Also, it was apparently very important to note on Wikipedia that she was openly gay. Also weird.

I saw the whole show (part 5/6 in a series) over a month ago.

No, this was the Rachel Maddow show for the end of the year 2009!

Back to Maddow. Being from the Old World (Denmark), I'd never heard about her. She seemed a completely daft dumb brunette in this clip but she apparently has smarts: she got a DPhil from Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. Weird. Also, it was apparently very important to note on Wikipedia that she was openly gay. Also weird.

It is very weird that Wikipedia would mention that she is openly gay. Who cares, really.

I think she might be a little smart.

It was a clip from Last Chance to See part 5 with Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine bracketed by Maddow being boring and Maddow being inane.

Anne Gilbert might possible have seen that parrot before the Maddow show, either because she's a Fry fan and saw the whole thing or because somebody else found it funny and made that clip form the show, don't you think?

they seem to be remarkably deficient in the whole 'species-recognition' department

They are not, but this particular Kakapo was imprinted on humans. He became ill when he was very young and he had to be hand reared. He still doesn't associate with other Kakapos and it seems unlikely that he will ever mate with a female Kakapo. He is very tame and he has become an ambassador for his species.

Peter: It was a retrospective. You show old stuff for a retrospective. Thus, the part of the word that says "retro"

And Rachel is never boring and never inane.

Jeesh.

Maddow *is* a little smart.
Just like parrot is a little randy.

And the only reason it matters that wiki says she's gay is that people never believe me when I say they can't have her cause they have dumb boy bits. Granted, this might be because, given the insufferable smugness with which I say it, I don't exactly incentivize people believing me.

And as far as not being picky- even a blind parrot nuts a squirrel! Wait. You know what I mean. They've gotta get around to finding their own species sometime.
The poor response to predators explanation does make more sense to me.