One of the greatest ongoing scandals of today is that our elected officials — Democrats included — continue to refuse to ban members of Congress and their families from trading stocks.

i've been neglecting drawing gid with curly hair... righting my wrongs

don’t talk to ME about gay yearning. in 2020 during lockdown i lived alone on a boat for three months. i went ashore once a day to work in a marine bio lab. we all had to access the lab at different times so we were never together & risking infection. i was alone all day every day, from my boat to the lab and back to my boat. one day a woman anchored her boat beside mine. we passed each other ashore just once at the harbor and she hit on me and invited me back to her boat. i told her i’d love nothing more but i could not risk exposure because of my weak immune system. she said it was a shame but that she understood. that night i was watering my vegetable garden i grew in 5 gallon buckets up on my roof and playing music on my speaker. “american pie” came on and she climbed up on her roof and shouted all the lyrics to every verse at me across the water and we danced together on our respective roofs. she raised anchor and moved on a few days later.

so yeah i know what it is to die a thousand deaths in an instant while your heart beats on.

etc.

i just saw a post on reddit titled "the writer is cooking but the food doesn't agree with me" and it was about OP clicking off a fic because they don't like the direction it's going in. slightly different context but can we all be more like this reddit OP. i think "the writer is cooking but the food doesn't agree with me" should be the new "don't like don't read." dead doves may give you diarrhea but don't make that everyone else's problem.

For those of yall wondering what the fuck is up with my chihuahua, the answer is unfortunately, we don’t really know.

We, in this case, being scientists. See, the thing is, Pale foxes (Vulpes pallida) live in the Sahel region of Africa, which is notoriously inhospitable. Not to mention the fact they blend in perfectly with the landscape. So researchers aren’t really going out and studying them :/

I’d love to see some more funding made available to biology students in the countries where the pale fox is found to get a better idea of what they are all about.

As far as Sméagol himself, he came from a rescuer-turned-hoarder situation. We don’t know who his original breeder was, or if he was caught in the wild. We do know, however, that he is the oldest recorded pale fox in the world and that his dietary, enrichment, and veterinary needs are being met, and that he is less cold tolerant than fennecs.

A couple weeks ago I was practicing my owl calls on a night hike and I successfully called in a barred owl. My owl call is pretty good, but I've never called an owl to me from afar because I rarely do night hikes and so I don't get much chance to. I had expected to be really excited about this, especially since two of my coworkers are really skilled at owl calls and they don't usually get a response, much less a full conversation, but instead I felt so guilty. I eventually had to start ignoring this poor deceived owl that was following my call through the park. I felt like I catfished him.

I was gonna say "who among us would follow an inhuman voice in the forest yelling HEY, HEY YOU WHAT'S UP?" but then I remembered this website has me pigeonholed as Most Likely To Be Taken By The Fae. So. Yeah fair enough to this owl, I would probably do the same.

EXCUSE ME????

Reblog to share a Frot with your mutuals

Yeah the fries and tots are all in same bag they're rubbing against each other all hot and crispy.........

"The first satellite in a constellation designed specifically to locate wildfires early and precisely anywhere on the planet has now reached Earth's orbit, and it could forever change how we tackle unplanned infernos.

The FireSat constellation, which will consist of more than 50 satellites when it goes live, is the first of its kind that's purpose-built to detect and track fires. It's an initiative launched by nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance, which includes Google and Silicon Valley-based space services startup Muon Space as partners, among others.

According to Google, current satellite systems rely on low-resolution imagery and cover a particular area only once every 12 hours to spot significantly large wildfires spanning a couple of acres. FireSat, on the other hand, will be able to detect wildfires as small as 270 sq ft (25 sq m) – the size of a classroom – and deliver high-resolution visual updates every 20 minutes.

The FireSat project has only been in the works for less than a year and a half. The satellites are fitted with custom six-band multispectral infrared cameras, designed to capture imagery suitable for machine learning algorithms to accurately identify wildfires – differentiating them from misleading objects like smokestacks.

These algorithms look at an image from a particular location, and compare it with the last 1,000 times it was captured by the satellite's camera to determine if what it's seeing is indeed a wildfire. AI technology in the FireSat system also helps predict how a fire might spread; that can help firefighters make better decisions about how to control the flames safely and effectively.

This could go a long way towards preventing the immense destruction of forest habitats and urban areas, and the displacement of residents caused by wildfires each year. For reference, the deadly wildfires that raged across Los Angeles in January were estimated to have cuased more than $250 billion in damages.

Muon is currently developing three more satellites, which are set to launch next year. The entire constellation should be in orbit by 2030.

The FireSat effort isn't the only project to watch for wildfires from orbit. OroraTech launched its first wildfire-detection satellite – FOREST-1 – in 2022, followed by one more in 2023 and another earlier this year. The company tells us that another eight are due to go up toward the end of March."

-via March 18, 2025

Hey friendly reminder: Don’t Ruin your life for kink

Don’t harm yourself for kink

Don’t isolate yourself for kink

Don’t put yourself into debt for kink

Don’t put yourself in danger for kink

Alot of people talk a big game about these things, but please practice safe kink practices. Negotiate saftey, boundaries, establish consent. Practice aftercare and check in and make sure people you trust know where you are. Whether you’re dominant, submissive, or switch you deserve safe fun consensual kinks.

It can become dangerous for you and/or your partner(s) really quickly if you don’t make the small effort to make it safe. Getting off is not worth it.

Don’t ruin your life for kink.

Terracotta vase in the form of a lobster claw, Greece, circa 460 BC

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Remembering when I was 13 and had JUST made a tumblr and a fully adult woman became friends with me and tried to get me mad about some guy who posted lolicon. And when I was like "I'm 13 why are you talking to me about porn" she was like "no no no it's fine because I think it's bad"

But sure, proshippers are the ones you gotta worry about using loli porn to groom kids

if u are ever scared of yapping about your blorbo or your life or your creative projects on the dash bc u are worried that no one wants to see it. know that I am holding your hand and supporting you. I want to see it. make that shitpost I need it to read it posthaste

Could you maybe reblog this post if you think respecting trans peoples' names and identities is a basic right and not a political opinion?

No pressure. Just seeking some validation of my sentiment. Due to some. people

everybody go home the best tag on this post just dropped

"Read Banned Books" a new full page cartoon essay published in The New York Times Arts & Leisure section today.

A good day to reblog this, I just found out The Deep & Dark Blue is on another new ban list, this time in Colorado. Hooray.