Unquestioned, passed at birth, from generation to generation, reinforced, armor- plated; the herd-leader template became an item of belief, an ingrained truth, a fundamental, definitive element embedded in the individual and collective consciousness of humanity -- the deal.
He hopes that, by identifying a herd's leaders and equipping them alone, this number can be reduced to a handful.Not all the stimuli used to guide the animals are unpleasant at least, not intentionally so.
It is more likely, though, that his remarks are part of his broader effort to herd Iraqi leaders together, a warning that they run terrible risks if they refuse to compromise.
Researchers found that this was due to hunters having killed the biggest elephants, the herd's leaders, leaving the young with no role models to emulate in behaviour as they grew to maturity.
They need only identify a herd's leaders, fit them with GPS collars, and install a virtual fence of alarms and electrical shocks.
Mr Khalilzad has spoken of herding Iraqi leaders into a conference, possibly outside Iraq, to "work day and night" to reach a consensus on how to proceed.Nonetheless, Iraq continues to generate the odd ray of hope.
In 1989, for example, soldiers under the command of Chris Bunyenyezi, also an RPF leader, herded scores of suspected rebels in the village of Mukura into an empty railway wagon with no ventilation, locked the doors and allowed them to die of suffocation.
THE Thundering Herd has a new leader but not the one most people were expecting.
Choose the biggest dinosaur in the herd to be the leader.
