Me: “The food webs we try to teach children and the public are too simple to get the point across. Why do they never bother to show the more intricate relationships between specific species? It can’t be that hard to represent with basic teaching tools... I’ll make the thing!”

The thing:

Me: “....I get it now.”

I have now had several teachers ask me if they can use this image in a class presentation. 

Joanne the plot of the book series which is the only reason you have any worth whatsoever hinges on the transformative power of unconditional love

Quick, everone in the UK put up a lawn sign like this and make her take detours all day long.

Hi everyone! Here's your Daily Reminder to Click for Palestine!

And if you can spare a dollar, donate to ANERA!

I keep seeing the leather/pleather vs denim jacket poll over and over again with all different sorts of discourse about how there is no plastic-free pleather and like, that's TRUE, there isn't, but honestly I DO think people who don't want to use animal products* also deserve to look cool

and so my suggestion is that y'all google "waxed cotton jacket" or "waxed canvas jacket" plus like, "motorcycle" or whatever style you think is cool, because there's a plastic free leather-look material that is strong and durable and waterproof and doesn't use animal products** AND is plastic free already out there and some of the clothes that you can get made out of it look sick as hell.

*ignoring the fact that most leather is meat by-product that would be going to waste anyway

**except beeswax but if you're going to object to that then honestly there's no helping you

waxed cotton looks so good and wears-in to a gorgeous patina and when it loses its finish you can re-wax it and that just makes it look even better and more patinaed instead of flaking off in horrible bits of microplastic leaving you with a ruined piece of clothing

Thinking out loud

black mackerel tabby

i mean this completely seriously but… a cup of coffee can save your life a little, a shower can save your life a little, making your favorite meal can save your life a little…….little things actually add up to really big things in the long run if you let them, the secret to surviving everyday is infusing a little bit of magic into the mundane i truly believe that

"i have to water the shitbird wait a minute"

"prosper stupid poultry"

oh, but it gets better

"Vedervieh" is a very unusual way to say "poultry: in german. The word in the screengrab translates better as "feather beast"

Exactly what I wanted to answer. Poultry doesn't convey the emotion behind Federvieh at all

I feel like people are missing the Very Important reference picture and that’s just criminal. Clearly if you look at the dog that inspired the piece, you would understand the inherent validity of the voters’ choice.

Thank you for that addition but I assure you we all already understood the the validity of the voters choice

Donate if you can!

My friend Amal (@amalashuor) reached out to me and shared with me the horrible situation her and her family are experiencing right now.

Remember a few weeks ago, Amal was amongst the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who made their journey back to the north of Gaza. When they arrived they came face to face with the magnitude of destruction that Israel had inflicted in the area; their homes were destroyed, with no electricity or water available.

Since the ceasefire in January, Israel has been obstructing the entrance and delivery of aid to all of Gaza but more specifically to the north. Due to that, Amal, her toddler, and husband are now homeless and sheltering in a school.

I can feel Amal's pain through her words and I can't stress this enough but donations are needed and they are needed quite desperately. You can donate here. Any amount, no matter how small, definitely helps. Don't underestimate the power of collective action. Share Amal's story so that it may have a happy ending.

(This campaign is vetted #175)

it's really funny that even people who support luigi mangione have like fully bought into the propaganda being pushed that he's the one who did it when he hasn't been convicted of shit and is extremely likely just some guy the nypd and eric adams could reasonably pass off as the person who did it to save face. That huge fucking perp walk (that shouldn't have even been legal to do) was to plant the idea in the public's mind that yeah, obviously this guy did it, why would they be doing this if he wasnt, and you all fell for it without even thinking about it.

You can support the actions of the person who did it while also believing the fact that the famously corrupt NYPD who completely fumbled around for days, posted multiple pictures of different people in similar clothing claiming they were the same suspect, and then out of nowhere said they knew with 100% certainty who did it and already had him in custody, might be lying and simply selected some dude to take the fall.

The health insurance industry has a term for this sadistic practice. It's called "step therapy." If the choice is between a more expensive medication that works and a cheaper one that doesn't work as well and might have worse side effects, the insurance company requires that the cheaper drug be used first.

One benefit to the insurance company is that the patient on the cheaper drug might die before they get a chance to use the drug that works but is more expensive. That's money in the bank for the insurance company.

Or, the patient might be so worn down and harmed by the cheaper drug that they just give up the fight to get the drug that will help them. Again, that's bank for the insurance company.

Can't even describe how many times the latter has occurred to me. It's fucking exhausting.

You CAN get exceptions sometimes but the insurance company can just...decide to change their mind, or not honor it, randomly. Or force you to renew it.

My BF gets monthly harassing letters from United pressuring him to go on a medication that doesn't fucking exist. "Friendly" of course, very "Oh heyyy bestie, we're your cute little gatekeepers, tee hee, and we noticed you were on this dumb little druuuug, so icky and expensive. But how about this other one, the generic? Yeah. It hasn't actually been made available yet or anything, this has been an issue for moooonths but it'd be great if you could swiiiitch. We just enjoy making sure you make the best decisions and would love it if you just, like, became unable to hold the job that gets you insured with uuuuuus." *Intense vocal fry*

Good news for people in Illinois, step therapy will be banned starting Jan. 1, 2025! And prior auth for mental health crisis inpatient stays, and junk insurance. It’s the first state to ban step therapy, and won’t be the last (I hope).

And in 2026 will require insurance to cover a name brand medication if the generic is experiencing a shortage.

And a lot of other cool stuff. So, go Illinois!

If you're facing step therapy rejections for needed medication, tell your provider about steptherapy.com, which is an organization connected to the National Psoriasis Foundation, one of the conditions that deals a lot with this. They provide state by state breakdowns of protections against step therapy requirements that don't help you or don't make logical sense. They also provide forms tailored to each state's specific protective law if one exists and give your provider a straightforward way to state why you need a therapy over its bullshit alternatives. It's concise, to the point and very strongly worded.

I use this at work daily and it's improving our hit rate in fighting step therapy requirements for diseases where a failed step in step therapy means permanent, degenerative harm to their body (not even including mental anguish from having to go through a failed therapy to receive necessary care). If you're faced with shit like this, advocate for yourself as much as you can and go down swinging in the appeals process (every insurance in the US is required to provide an appeals process for denials, you CAN win in there with your doctor's help) if you gotta.

friend who lives hundreds of miles away: yes

truly the absolute worst thing about the generative ai boom is the mass vandalism of search engines it has enabled (note, not caused--the 'cause' is the economic structures of the internet that incentivise mass producing SEO slop and have for years--but certainly these technologies have accelerated them hopelessly)

Hello. My name is Abdul Aziz Aziz. I am 36 years old and have been living in Belgium for a year. I want to tell you my story, along with my family in Gaza. I am married and the father of three children. My family is displaced in Gaza and I became homeless because our house was destroyed above my family, and because of the bombing of my house I lost my mother and sister. My children were injured and psychologically traumatized by this incident, and I now appeal to you to save my family from death. I also have a child who suffers from a brain tumor and has not received treatment since the beginning of the war. I fear that his health condition will deteriorate due to lack of treatment. My son's name is Yahya and he is 12 years old. He can't handle this disease, so I hope for your help. To take my family out of Gaza to Egypt, save my son, and treat him in Egypt. I hope you will look at my children kindly and help me. Thank you very much.