Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 13, 2021

I always wanted to wag my tail.

Some folks think that they grew brains, invented societies, blew each other up in a global war and then millions of years of geology has covered up that tiny little 20,000 to 50,000 or so years.

We’d have been terrible lizards.

For one thing, your arms wouldn’t be long enough to hold that newspaper!!!

Ahem, Danae – care to take a look at the US Congress!?! Lots of ’em around.

What’s that goo between the dinosaur’s toes? People.

If Captain Ahab and his crew had been Velociraptors, then: https://www.analogsf.com/assets/6/6/TheQuestGreatGrayMossy_Turtledove.pdf

Cockroaches are waiting for their turn.

Imagining being a dinosaur is a lot more fun than actually being a dinosaur – I imagine.

Strictly speaking, not all of them died out. The dinosaur descendants who still exist are called…birds.

Playing what if can be fun but …

I’m not sure whether it’s me, but shouldn’t that be “became” extinct… I’m not trying to be pedantic, but that’s how I’ve always said it… Am I wrong?

Dad is feeling blue about the state of the world, but that’s his usual take.

My grandkids call me a dinosaur.

Unless we change our climate-changing ways we’ll soon go the way of the dinosaurs, lasting only a tiny fraction of the time they were here. So much for ‘intelligence’ as a survival trait!

Look at your bird feeders to see their descendants.

We should be so lucky to be as successful as the dinosaurs, living for millions of years

I have enough trouble with Gecko’s. The last thing I need is a smarmy insurance selling stegosaurus.

♫For everything, turn, turn, turn, There is a season, turn, turn, turn♫

Well, what more can you expect from the fossilized when given that Wiley is probably reading the NY Times or Washington Post with CNN and NPR playing in the background…

There have been 5 major as well as many minor extinction events which changed the direction of life on earth.

Some years back I read an article in “Science Digest” about speculation that had the dinosaurs not gone extinct, there was a species that was already on its way to evolving into an upright biped with a large brain that would have eventually occupied the niche that humans fill today. There was even an artist’s conception of what that dinosaur would look like after evolving. Reminded me of sci-fi aliens in comic books.

I like my dinosaurs small and edible. Like chicken, turkey and other fowl.

165 million years is a pretty good run. We should be so lucky. We won’t be, but it’s nice to think about.

And we all know that life is fair, right?

Their brains were small, and they died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcPcKXoyv3A

Would we even know the difference?

There’s still Congress…

Whatever evolves next, will grow to be intelligent, develop archeology and wonder how this race could evolve and then knowingly kill itself off. At least the dinosaurs had an excuse.

Honestly, the planet would be in better shape if the dinosaurs were still in charge.

In the Star Trek novel First Frontier Kirk & crew encounter a parallel universe in which raptors did live long enough to develop interstellar flight.

But of course she’s a raptor.

Based on some people I’ve met, I’m not so sure that Neanderthals really are extinct.

Danae would enjoy being a Dinosaur, so long as she could be a Velociraptor.

I’ve noticed that Americans have difficulty with the use of past tenses. “If they didn’t go extinct” should be “If they hadn’t gone extinct”.