they should make a pill that makes people in their 20s feel good about where their lives are going

Impressive to me that no one said the same thing twice

In a monumental discovery for paleontology and the first of its kind "Mummy of a juvenile sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens from the Upper Pleistocene of Siberia"

Abstract The frozen mummy of the large felid cub was found in the Upper Pleistocene permafrost on the Badyarikha River (Indigirka River basin) in the northeast of Yakutia, Russia. The study of the specimen appearance showed its significant differences from a modern lion cub of similar age (three weeks) in the unusual shape of the muzzle with a large mouth opening and small ears, the very massive neck region, the elongated forelimbs, and the dark coat color. Tomographic analysis of the mummy skull revealed the features characteristic of Machairodontinae and of the genus Homotherium. For the first time in the history of paleontology, the appearance of an extinct mammal that has no analogues in the modern fauna has been studied. For more read here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1

I always knew it was possible, but I never dared to hope.

Prehistoric toe beans!!!

disabled people are worth whatever cost or resources is needed to keep them alive. disabled people are worth it even if they don't live long. they're worth it even if they will need extra support and resources for every day of their life. they're worth it even if they spend all they life indoors. none of it is wasted. none of it is in vain. time, effort, money, resources spent on a life are not wasted. these things have served their purpose. the joy of someone's existence is not undermined by not lasting forever. there's no meaningful point, some threshold where you can say "okay this is enough. after that it's not worth it." it's always worth it.

This is resonating deeply with me today. People have constantly been blocking the ramp out of my apartment lately and it makes me feel like I am not worth the effort. I'm glad there are still people who think otherwise

This is going to fucking suck but I will not do my enemies’ work for them. I will not just roll over and fucking die.

We’re going into an era that demands intelligence and courage and compassion. Bring all three to the table when you engage with your community, and DO engage with your community. It’s past time to take off the kid gloves when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable members, and people on here tend to be the sort that are willing to do that. Be tactical and safe in your efforts going forward, and stand with imperfect allies even when you’d rather not. If someone isn’t as far left as you’d like, still watch their back and buy time for them to do the same for you — leftist infighting has cost us so goddamn much already.

Intelligence. Courage. Compassion.

If you aren't sure you can bring enough intelligence or enough courage to the table, then focus on bringing compassion; it's the least intimidating of the three skills to build up, and EVERYONE benefits from expressions of it.

And while you're contemplating compassion: there's no harm in being earnest or sincere, either. I know we're all Very Online and super into being Cool™ and ironic and whatnot, but—fuck it. The older I get, the more I realize that doesn't matter a damn bit. It's okay to be kind to people and mean it. It's okay to be compassionate and not worry that other people will think you're too much.

Care radically. Care wildly. We're going to need so much compassion, and the compassion you can give to the world is different than the compassion anyone else can.

(And if that sounds scary? Care a tiny little bit. Care on tiptoe. Because compassion isn't something you're born with—as @lynati said upthread, it's a skill you can build.)

survey question time

Assume that your magic membership would let you and your friends go there (as long as you're with them) for free and works for any location within the chosen category (unless you pick that last one, in which case your membership is only valid for that one location).

(This is partially true honestly, because a lot of museums participate in reciprocity programs as a travel benefit so you can use your museum membership to get free or significantly reduced admission in museums out of town.)

i gotta remember this

Fresh off her role in ‘The Asphalt Jungle’, Hagen read for the part for producer Arthur Freed. She did a dead-on impression of Judy Holliday’s Billie Dawn character from ‘Born Yesterday’, – for which Hagen had been Holliday’s understudy – which won her the role. Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

watching a national dog show vid. this beast has the saddest most glistening eyes I've ever seen

This is a gnome

it would be cool if websites let you be an adult on them. the advertisers and payment processors need everything to be Family Friendly though and their definitions of family and friendly are absolutely fucked. but since they're in charge of the Internet now, no one is allowed to be an adult. tiktokers say things like "unalive" and "seggs" because they know death and sex are too adult for online. online is for idiot babies only now because they're easier to market to

oh im sorry you're a trans adult? super ban. you are super banned for life. you have upset Visa's feelings. Mastercard is throwing up in the corner. how could you do this to Google Ads?

much better footage of the haka that shut down parliament today

The fact that you can’t raise taxes on billionaires even slightly without them pouring money into fascist political movements is, of itself, evidence that billionaires as a class shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the first place.

I’d just like to point out that every single thing that has happened in the 6 years since I created this post has only reinscribed its absolute moral correctness in my mind.

Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

Goes insanely hard

To provide further context from what I understand the bill wanted to take the rights guaranteed to the Maori in said treaty and expand them to all New Zealand citizens. The issue with that is that it sort of defeats the point of the protections of the treaty.

The Treaty of Waitangi is not even that good of a treaty. But it is better than any treaty the Crown signed with indigenous peoples

And it absolutely was not meant to be

The treaty as written screws over Māori, and was written in Te Reo Māori and English with deliberately misleading translations to Te Reo Māori. I'm not an expert by any means, but basically the Te Reo Māori version has clauses that promise much more independence and sovereignty, while the English version does not

However

The English version promises them rights as Citizens

From what I remember from University 10+ years ago, this clause, this sentence, was added last minute by the writer of the treaty. Like, right before the big signing at Waitangi.

And the Crown was PISSED

Because now they had a legally binding document that promised, in their own language, to treat Māori with the same rights as they would English. Which was absolutely not the goal. The goal was to trick Māori into signing away their lands and that honestly still did happen. The treaty was not a good faith proposal by the Engliah.

But its still better than anyone else got, and it's better than no treaty. And because nowadays we can't just ignore the Te Reo Māori side of the treaty, the government's of the past few decades have been honouring Māori sovereignty, honouring their stewardship of the land, and undoing a lot of the bad faith "sales" or straight up stolen land.

Except our current fuck nuggets, who want to make Te Reo Māori an endangered language again, and steal back that land because they want to mine on it and sell it and they hate that Māori stewardship is so environmentally focused and not profit driven.

So, in a way, the current government is more true to the intentions of the Crown who initially came up with the treaty.

But since those guys were colonising bastards, I don't see "honouring" them as anything good.

Even with criticism of the treaty, without it, Māori would lose a lot of protections to their lands, their culture, their language, and as a country we would go backwards to a time when they were even more discriminated against

Toitū te tiriti

Uphold the treaty