Sophianotloren

brokenyoga:

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Frank Herbert

Dune

“The bees you should be concerned about are the 3,999 other bee species living in North America, most of which are solitary, stingless, ground-nesting bees you’ve never heard of. Incredible losses in native bee diversity are already happening. 50 percent of Midwestern native bee species disappeared from their historic ranges in the last 100 years. Four of our bumblebee species declined 96 percent in the last 20 years, and three species are believed to already be extinct. A little part of me despairs when I read in a scientific paper: “This species probably should be listed under the Endangered Species Act if it still exists.””

- You’re Worrying About the Wrong Bees | WIRED
(via dendroica)

thundercatssghost:

theplushfrog:

commanderflowers:

kinkshamer69:

i wonder if my pets have like a proper language and when i try to speak back to them im just speaking jargon

like for example my cat always speaks to me when I come home and i meow back to her and she’ll meow again & even though i don’t think twice about it to her it’s probably a situation where it’s like

her, meowing: “im glad you’re home”

me, meowing back: “tax benefits”

her, meowing: “why do u always do this”

me

cats actually have a human-specific language. cats don’t often meow at each other and seem to use subvocal communications that humans can’t hear to chat cat-to-cat. however, cats seem to use what humans would call “shout-until-you’re-understood” to speak to humans. so basically, it’s more like:

“I’M GLAD YOU’RE HOME!”

“tax benefits”

“NO, I’M GLAD YOU ARE HOME”

“waffle iron”

“IT’S OKAY. I LOVE YOU TOO, MY DUMB HUMAN”

i’m in class send help

micdotcom:

Watch: This is exactly how white people should respond to the Baltimore protests

An anti-gay Georgia pastor defended a sign outside his church calling for the execution of LGBT people. The Ten Commandments Church in Milledgeville is known for its hateful messages about homosexuality, but neighbors said the church’s latest sign had crossed a clear boundary, reported WGXA-TV. The...

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center just shared these fascinating satellite photos taken in January 2014 over the shallow waters around Sisan Island, South Korea. The tiny patchwork of small squares are entire fields of seaweed that are held in place with ropes and buoys to keep the plants near the surface during high tide but off the seafloor in low tide. Via NASA Earth Observatory:

Since 1970, farmed seaweed production has increased by approximately 8 percent per year. Today, about 90 percent of all the seaweed that humans consume globally is farmed. That may be good for the environment. In comparison to other types of food production, seaweed farming has a light environmental footprint because it does not require fresh water or fertilizer.

You can see much more of what’s happening at NASA lately by following the Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr.

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It's been a long and hard road for NASA's Messenger Probe as it studied the surface of Mercury for the last four years. That journey, however, will come to an end today, after NASA announced that the craft will crash land into the planet at around 3:...

trever-t:

This is my new favorite GIF.

Excerpts from arguments before the Supreme Court on Tuesday about whether states must allow same-sex couples to marry and whether states must recognize same-sex couples' marriages performed in other states...

proletarianrevenge:

Melanie from Baltimore laying down the truth to Vice reporters during a livestream.

salon:

In an impressive game of twisted current events mad libs, a Texas GOP lawmaker has managed to tie the Baltimore riots over police brutality to this week’s Supreme Court case debating the future of same-sex marriage, blaming LGBT rights for the disintegration of the family and, subsequently, the violent protests ravaging American communities.

Rep. Bill Flores suggests riots over police brutality actually have more to do with too few heterosexual marriages

Dear Bill Flores: You’re a pandering asshole, and if you actually believe this, you’re too goddamn stupid to breathe.

Big gay hugs,

Wil

mashable:

Protein World’s ad campaign, which features a woman in a bikini and various products in the company’s “weight loss collection,” asks the question: Are you beach body ready? This has sparked an online backlash in which more than 40,000 people have signed a petition calling for the removal of the ad that’s been deemed body shaming.

The company has insisted there’s nothing wrong with their posters and has “absolutely no intention of removing the adverts because of a minority making a lot of noise.” CEO Arjun Seth said that the people defacing his posters are “terrorists” and that he would only take notice of the petition if it gained one million signatures. [via]

Oh, Protein World. You’re a steaming pile of fail.

Posting this Twitter rant here for posterity. This is Hugo neepery, but not of the usual sort I’ve been neeping about recently.

marshmallowviscera:

I feel like everyone has two kinds of friends

1. the friends you always babytalk and compliment constantly and hug and adore and would never say a rude word to
2. the friends you greet like HEY FUCKTRUCK ANSWER YOUR GODDAMNED IMs OR I’M GONNA COME PISS IN YOUR KEYBOARD

Another bathroom setting!! Bathrooms on the brain, wash me down the drain~ :^)

You’re so added value, baby

Rainbow cake

Tel Aviv-based miniaturist Shay Aaron has sculpted many new pieces of astonishingly realistic miniature food since our last post about his work. Each adorable piece is meticulously handcrafted in a 1:12 scale, sometimes using very tiny tools, such as a sewing needle.

Aaron sells the pieces as minatures or as jewelry at his Etsy store. More of his work can be seen on his Instagram feed.

Chips and guacamole

Girl Scout cookies

Fruit tart

Bananas

Fourth of July berry tart

via Instagram Blog, DesignTAXI

acnl-sparkle:

pulpfanfiction:

is this grand theft auto 5

Getting real tired of your shit Sarah.  

Being the prettiest kitty is its own kind of tyranny.

Hovertext: As far as I know, the real Dr. Munger has not publicly made this argument.

New comic!
Today's News:

I'm just saying. 

owlturdcomix:

OF COURSE I’ve witnessed it.

image | twitter | facebook

The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray’s death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray’s death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.”)

When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

At Breitbart, John Nolte is looking at the problems of America's inner cities and is washing his hands of them, Pontius Pilate-style. There's nothing odd there -- nearly all right-wingers do that. To them, either everything is fine now in the non-white parts of America (which doesn't stop those damn malcontents from grumbling) or everything that is wrong is the grumblers' own damn fault (usually because the grumblers' are on the "liberal plantation," which is the main point of Nolte's rant). Nothing noteworthy here. It's just standard-issue contemporary right-wing invective.

But let's not miss the implication of Nolte's headline:



His argument is that Baltimore is having problems because it's been run by Democrats for decades. But he doesn't say that Baltimore is a problem only for those Americans who are members of that Democratic Party. No: the way he puts it is that if something is the Democrats' problem, it's not a problem for America -- implicitly, because Democrats aren't Americans. According to Nolte, America has no responsibility for, or interest in, what happens in Democratic strongholds, except to shield Americans (an exclusively non-Democratic group) from the work of Democrats (an exclusively non-American group).

Thus, Nolte writes:

Contrary to the emotional blackmail some leftists are attempting to peddle, Baltimore is not America’s problem or shame. That failed city is solely and completely a Democrat problem.... Democrats and their union pals have had carte blanche to inflict their ideas and policies on Baltimore since 1967, the last time there was a Republican Mayor....

Every single member of the Baltimore city council is a Democrat....

Democrats and their never-ending grievance campaigns; their never-ending propaganda that government largess is the answer; their never-ending caves to corrupt unions; their never-ending warehousing of innocent children in failed public schools -- that’s a Democrat problem, not America’s problem.

If I were to argue that illegal border crossings are a Southern and Southwestern problem, not America's problem, or that tornadoes are a heartland problem, not America's problem, it would sound ridiculous -- of course we have to care about these things as a nation because, yes, we are one nation.

But conservatives don't think like that. To them, they're Americans. We Democrats aren't, and the mostly Democratic residents of Baltimore aren't -- at least not until we all regain our senses and become conservative Republicans.

****

And I'm ignoring the fact that the makeup of the government of Ferguson, Missouri, at the time of its unrest gives the lie to Nolte's linkage of Democratic governance with unrest.

jennirl:

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