No Damn Sense

1.5 hours of sleep. Woke up at 8:30 AM to cook and clean for the holiday. Still awake. Is anyone else ever perturbed when a hand wave is given about your personal knowledge of a subject by an uneducated bystander when you're talking to someone who's definitely an expert? Even if you can keep up in the conversation and possibly can do the same damn job, they'll put you down just because they've seen the other person do that job and talk circles around other people in your shoes.
Anyone else ever argue about lion psychology for three fucking days simply because you couldn't list a source for your knowledge (mine was 15 seasons of Big Cat Diaries on the BBC...good luck finding all of it online). Just so you know, male lions won't eat their cubs for the hell of it. If you'd been watching Big Cat Diaries for 15 years like I had, you'd know that. If you read a book about african predators published in the 60's, you'd think a male would normally eat his cubs if he got hungry and didn't feel like waiting for a kill. That's my opponent's source...he's my dad's age, and apparently doesn't read anything that's been discovered since he became older than 10.
Here's a hint;

Spoiler

If a male lion would ever eat his cubs, it's traditionally (and I use that term loosely {he's a damn lion}) a survival tactic. This is done if there's not been a kill made in long time, long enough to jeopardize the survival of the pride. In this case, the greatest drain on the resources will be sacrificed. That would be the non-hunting cubs, who are coincidentally stimulating their mothers to lactate, which, during a period of starvation, would severely weaken the females. Females will also eat the cubs. The whole hunting portion of the pride will join in to get this energy boost just to venture out and get that big kill and save the pride. It's a big risk, and they either succeed or die off. Another scenario would be that the cubs are sick and die, or they get mauled by a hyena or something. They'd be eaten then, too. Even further than that, a male just took over a pride. He sees there are a bunch of females taking care of cubs, all of them under 2 years old. If they're lucky, they can run. Otherwise, he's going to kill all of them, eat a few, and bang their moms. Why? Average reign is 2-3 years, the king doesn't have time to wait for those moms to raise their cubs. By the time they're fertile again and they mate on their own, he could be ousted and some other king could kill his kids.

It didn't matter how much sense that made. It was all anthropomorphism to the guy as soon as I got to "not killing its own cubs, but killing the previous king's cubs," because there's no way for a lion to know whether or not a cub is his. Granted. There's no cable out in the plains, no Maury Pawvich doing paternity tests on talk shows for lions.
Because if he's the only one mating with an entire pride of females he has no reason to protect whatever cubs are born after he takes over? The whole reason male lions fight other male lions invading their territory is because they don't want them to kill their cubs and steal their women. Unless he was out muscled by two lions at once (and somehow didn't get injured), it's also a death sentence because it means he's past his prime and he can no longer lead a pride anymore...starving to death sucks.
I decided to not even get into how when lions have partners when they take over a pride they don't just bang the females in tandem, they bang each other. Even when they're brothers. That's right, the king is totally gay.

 

I measure human stupidity by the inability to perceive animal intelligence.

 

Very appropriate. Though it would appear these are juvenile males, females are observed to be just as gay as leading males. I'd assume a raspy tongue is about as pleasurable as a penis with barbs on it.