The True Story of the Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

[Francie26]

The True Story of the Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Paul A. Cantor

It all began in the late Triassic Period, when the government decided to come to the aid of cold-blooded creatures everywhere. Federal authorities were deeply disturbed by the appearance of the first warm-blooded animals, who seemed to have an unfair advantage over their cold-blooded brethren — they moved faster, were more alert, and generally seemed to get a lot more done, particularly during the winter months.

Concerned by the possibility that warm-blooded animals might end up displacing cold-blooded animals entirely, the government passed the Body Temperature Stabilization Act. Subsidizing cold-blooded animals at the expense of warm-blooded, this bill eliminated all federal taxes on the former and doubled them on the latter. The bill also tried to outlaw winter, but this move was declared unconstitutional by the courts.

The trouble with this seemingly enlightened piece of legislation began when the National Body Temperature Stabilization Control Board ruled that dinosaurs were cold-blooded and thus granted them enormous tax breaks. As one bureaucrat put it, "Their name means 'thunder lizard,' doesn't it? That makes them reptiles and therefore cold-blooded. Case closed." Of course the latest scientific evidence today suggests that the dinosaurs were warm-blooded and closer in some respects to birds than to reptiles. Thus the dinosaurs, as the only animal group combining warm-bloodedness with tax breaks, prospered and soon were overruning the earth.

"Are even the dinosaurs lining up against the cause of the free market these days?" Alarmed at this new development, the government decided to impose a head tax on the dinosaurs. Well into the late Triassic Period, all animals subject to taxes had been assessed by the pound. Government officials figured they could reduce the proliferation of dinosaurs by taxing them by number instead of by weight. Still concerned with the uncompetitiveness of cold-blooded animals, the government also instituted a new tax penalizing the increase in brain size that was occurring as a result of evolution.

The impact of this new tax legislation on the dinosaurs was immediate and dramatic: taxed by number not weight, they found it expedient to grow fewer but larger. At the same time, with the new tax penalty on intelligence, their brains grew smaller. In the end the policy of the federal government succeeded in producing a remarkable mirror image of itself in the Jurassic dinosaur: a large, sluggish, bloated, overgrown body animated by a brain the size of a pea.

You might think that the government would have been overjoyed with this result. But as soon as federal policy resulted in colossal land animals bestriding the earth, the cry went up everywhere: "Break up the dinosaurs." Resentment was particularly strong against one species of dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus rex, which as the largest predator ever to walk the face of the earth was accused of predatory pricing by the Justice Department.

Oddly enough, the campaign against the dinosaurs was led by one particularly horrifying species of dinosaur, the dreaded Algorosaurus. This creature actually managed to convince its fellow dinosaurs that they had become too large for their own good and were consuming an unjustifiably large portion of the earth's resources. With their morale broken, and faced with the prospect of hundreds of millions of years of litigation, the dinosaurs eventually signed consent letters with the Justice Department, agreeing to break themselves up into several pieces, no fewer than five or six in most cases.

"Judging by the fossil evidence, by the time the federal government was through with the dinosaurs, it had picked them to the bone." Many have dated the demise of the dinosaurs from this moment. The fossil record seems to bear them out. To this date a whole intact dinosaur specimen has never been found anywhere. Indeed, judging by the fossil evidence, by the time the federal government was through with the dinosaurs, it had picked them to the bone. Once the most successful creatures on the planet, the dinosaurs ended up wiped out everywhere across the globe approximately 65 million years ago.

At that point the government placed the dinosaurs on the Endangered Species list. To be fair to the government, they actually made this declaration some 3 million years before the dinosaur extinction. Unfortunately, the official notices protecting the dinosaurs were sent by regular mail. Then as now the slogan of the Post Office was "When it absolutely, positively has to be there in roughly the same geologic era." Since the mail delivery in this case was off by some 5 million years, the dinosaurs were already extinct when the federal government invoked its protection over them.

Such is the story of the extinction of the dinosaurs, at least as I have been able to reconstruct it.

[shaneelstar]

Excuse me, but what is your point here? We all know dinosaurs are extinct.

[Inbedded HorseHead]

the Okie disease is spreading.................who will cure it?

[Joeshmoe]

You have waaaaaaaay too much time on your hands. It would actually be somewhat worth reading if you called them "DINARsours". Seriously couldn't make it more than two paragraphs in. You do realize this is a dinar website right?

[AZ Native]

To much time on their HANDS!

You have to be kidding me.

Look at the post on the boards, and tell me, this is the only one with too much TIME ON THEIR HANDS!!!!

[magawatt]

For some fun on this topic you might read the short story "Harrison Bergeron" from Welcome To the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

http://brainz.org/harrison-bergeron-kurt-vonnegut-jr/

[djiboutikid]

humor.... much needed at this point... I liked it Thanks for sharing

[Kevin B]

Excuse me, but what is your point here? We all know dinosaurs are extinct.

Please tell us that was your attempt at humor.

That was way too funny and right on the mark concerning government interaction with the masses they are supposed to support

You have waaaaaaaay too much time on your hands. It would actually be somewhat worth reading if you called them "DINARsours". Seriously couldn't make it more than two paragraphs in. You do realize this is a dinar website right?

...and you do realize that this was posted in the 'Off Topic' area of the dinar web site?

come on, really?

Even if it was not funny (which it was if you have an attention span greater than a five year old), it is still 'off topic' and in the right place.

[delta22]

Francine26 thank you for a well thought out editorial. Funny but too much truth in the comparison to the goverment and it's mandates and taxes killing off the country. I had to laugh thanks again.

[Francie26]

You have waaaaaaaay too much time on your hands. It would actually be somewhat worth reading if you called them "DINARsours". Seriously couldn't make it more than two paragraphs in. You do realize this is a dinar website right?

Your comments show that your name is appropriate, particularly the "shmoe" part.

[Francie26]

For some fun on this topic you might read the short story "Harrison Bergeron" from Welcome To the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

http://brainz.org/harrison-bergeron-kurt-vonnegut-jr/

Thanks much. I'm always glad to get a tip on something interesting to read. I would say I enjoyed it, but such content is far "too close to the bone" these days, close enough for those of us who are aware of it to feel it breathing down our necks.