andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2008-08-25 09:48 am
Entry tags:

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 8-25-2008

[identity profile] henriksdal.livejournal.com 2008-08-25 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
I gave it a shot following the instructions you linked to (I have some webspace at nytoo.rumandmonkey.com) but nothing happened).

otoh most of my delicious links involve badger mitigation.

I have a two day conference in Glasgow in November on Badger mitigation.

I hate badgers

[identity profile] surliminal.livejournal.com 2008-08-25 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)
How in god's name do you mitigate a badger??

Interesting fact: there is more legislation protecing badgers than any other species..

TMI! TMI!

[identity profile] henriksdal.livejournal.com 2008-08-25 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
you don't, you mitigate for them. ("Thinking Like A Badger: Mitigation Design and Management Planning")! Srsly, the conference is mitigation for all sorts of species, including "Mitigation for Butterflies" and "Reptile Mitigation: Conservation Or Just Killing Them Slowly?" Mitigation is truly an exciting branch of ecological management.

PS Badgers do indeed get lots of extra protection - this is because the way they are sported (baiting and destruction of setts with dogs) is so truly awful and utterly cruel, it was noticed bloody ages ago[1] and so they got lots of extra protection before everything else did in the big Wildlife & Countryside Act (1981).

[1] 1830s for Badger Baiting, 1960sish for destruction of setts

Re: TMI! TMI!

[identity profile] surliminal.livejournal.com 2008-08-25 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
OMG, think like a badger? is it like walking like an Egyptian??

Srsly this is an abolminable misuse of the verb "mitigate" - as I've always understood it, it was never meant to take the thing to be protected or helped as a direct object! You mitigate *for* possible calamities or outcomes; you make a plea in mitigation to ask a ned not to be sent to jail if you're a a lawyer (this is practically the only context in which I've seen it used); you do mitigate damage. but suely you can't mitigate (insert "threats") beavers without a for in there!!!

ps badger acts go way way back - the reason i know is we used to use it as a research question for out law first years! (The course convener added to the notes for tutors. "I wish i was a beaver." I have always remembered this thereafter..)

Re: TMI! TMI!

[identity profile] henriksdal.livejournal.com 2008-08-25 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
gah, what can you do, it's a living language and you let just any old biologists and ecologists use tools designed for lawyers and english..ists...

I think the problem is saying "Mitigating possible negative impacts on" is a bit of a mouthful for people who'd rather be out getting muddy than stuck in an IEEM lecture hall talking about.. oh god I'm boring myself. Let's pretend this never happened.

Are there exciting laws for Beavers, too?