How do foreign leaders deal with First Daughter Ivanka Trump? According to one anonymous diplomat quoted by Hindustan Times editor-in-chief Bobby Ghosh, the key is to flatter her and make her feel important — just as you would do with a visiting member of a royal family. “We regard Ivank...
several months ago we had a cat with mysterious skin allergies that we couldn’t find the cause of. he was adopted as a “special needs” cat with the adopters understanding the circumstances
we just got an update and they had decided to get him a full allergy panel to find out what he’s allergic to
Or “Mom Knight” which is what I kept calling it for most of the time I worked on this. This was my story for Valor, a fairy tale anthology I was in last year! It’s a really great book, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it. You can purchase a copy here.
What if instead of gilly weed Harry had showed up to the black lake challenge in muggle scuba gear like “like where’s your advanced magic now bitches? Got me a free fishing knife with this thing”
Honestly I just want an AU where Harry approached all his magical problems with muggle solutions. Nobody knows how to handle it because he’s supposed to be there learning magic but you know what, it fucking works.
Give me Harry Potter who is like fucking MacGuyver up in this shit, creating his own non-magical solutions to magical problems.
“Potter how did you get past the enchanted keys to the Sorcerer’s Stone?”
“I used a fucking net.”
“How did you get past the dragon?”
Harry shines a little red light on the wall “works on cats, why not a dragon”
“How did you get through the hedge maze?”
“Weed-b-gone, it’s like a pound. Nothing will ever grow there again”
It’s the final battle between Harry and Voldemort. The Dark Lord begins to prepare a spell to end Harry Potter’s life once and for all when….
Usually, tunnels are made either by human engineers or flowing water. But near the town of Novo Hamburgo, Brazil, there are tunnels large enough to drive a car in that were dug by neither – instead, these are the work of ancient, giant sloths. Image credits Amilcar Adamy. The massive burrows a...
On Monday morning, I fired up ye olde Tinder
app and did what any modern woman looking for her soulmate should do: I
messaged all of my matches with word vomit spawned from a machine. Read more
never say anything to a penguin that the penguin has not already said to you
this reads like a shitpost but i’m actually 100% serious.
i was walking along the side of the harbour this evening, just after all the penguins had come in from the ocean to nest. there was one penguin right by the footpath, and when it saw me it kept saying ‘höö’. so i said ‘höö’ right back. it seemed to like that, and we had a lovely conversation where we just kept saying ‘höö’ to each other. i crouched down about two metres away from it, and we kept talking, and it actually moved towards me a little bit, seeming to prefer my company to the heartless embrace of the sea.
but then i made the mistake of trying to change things up. i said ‘hweh’, which was something that a previous penguin said to me, and this penguin hated it, and fucked right off. never said another word to me. i felt so rude.
I keep imagining this from the penguin’s point of view:
“Gustav, my friend, why so glum?”
The penguin in question looked up from his half-eaten sprat, shaking his head in disgust.
“Not glum, Sebastian. Affronted, outraged - I had the most perturbing encounter with one of the Beakless Ones.”
Sebastian nodded solemnly. “Yes, they are often perturbing. What happened, my friend?”
Gustav sighed heavily, looking up to the sky and holding his flippers wide, as if to ask the gods “why?”, before mournfully retelling his experience, “I was on the beach where the Beakless sometimes wander, contemplating names for this year’s chicks, when one of them approached. It seemed harmless enough to greet - they’re cute, in a strange, bald and flat-faced way, are they not?”
“Oh Gustav, you kind-hearted fool.”
“Such a fool, I am!” Gustav’s moans had gathered a small crowd already - the only thing penguins love more than a bellyful of fish, is a story. A good storyteller was always guaranteed a warm spot to huddle in the winter, surrounded by bored friends longing for entertainment.
“What did it do, Gustav? Did it kick you?”
“No! When it got close, I called out to it, ‘hello, friend!’. It stopped and returned the greeting - awkwardly, but it was rather sweet, like a chick learning it’s first chirps. ‘Hollow fren,’ it said back to me. I was charmed, but not wanting it to learn poor pronunciation, I repeated the greeting, and so did it! Getting clearer each time, till it could almost pass for a true penguin itself.”
“Gustav is a wonderful teacher,” Adelina, his mate, stated with a proud nod of her lovely blue head. “You remember how well our chicks could enunciate, before they even caught their first fish.”
“But what of it, Gustav? What happened to sour this experience so?”
“We went back and forth, till I was satisfied. It lowered itself near the ground, and I moved closer, carefully, not wanting to alarm it. I was just about to tell it how pleased I was, that it learning so quickly, when all of a sudden, it looked me right in the eye and said ‘Fuck off, freak.’”
There were avian gasps all around.
“Oh no!”
“How rude!”
“I was so appalled, I could not bring myself to even chide it.” Gustav bowed his head in shame. “I turned and left without another word.”
“It said that to you? Oh dear.” Sebastian tilted his head in a piercing glare towards one of their fellows, focusing on the only one who was slapping his sides and chortling. “Björn, you scoundrel! What have I told you about yelling obscenities at the Beakless?”
Björn cackled and bobbed his head in defiance. “How was its enunciation, Gustav? You soft-hearted buffoon!”
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)
So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”.
I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask.
This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.
Pain Scale transcription:
10 - I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
9 - My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
8 - My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 - I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 - I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 - I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 - I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.
3 - My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 - I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 - My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 - I have no pain.
I have never met a chronic pain patient who does not loathe the pain scale with a fiery passion for this exact reason. And I have never seen the above moderately useful descriptions in a doctor’s office or hospital. Instead, they always have this bullshit:
Polish Artist Dawid Planeta Illustrates His Fight Against Depression In Mysterious Dark Paintings
Me: hello I’ve called about an error on my billing
Help desk: sure, how can we help?
Me: yeah it looks here like I’m still paying for “nebulous, draining situational depression, running in the background like low-key malware,”
Help desk: yes I see the payments here
Me: it’s the one where you’re really fine, but somebody else somewhere in the house is just crying softly? Just. Constantly crying quietly
Help desk: yeah haha
Me: now I’m pretty sure I actually signed on for a different package?
Help desk: go on?
Me: I distinctly remember upgrading to the one… I forget what it’s called exactly. It’s the one where you go through a foggy forest , and there’s these giant animals. It looks fuckin awesome. They have luminous white eyes?
Help desk: right right (type type)
Me: they’re kind of remote and menacing, but also soothing
Help desk: yeah I got you. The Forest Journey with Epic Manifestations of Greater Spirits Lurking in the Glades of the Mind?
Me: yes, that’s it
Help desk: yes sorry our mistake. We made a note, but somehow forgot to upgrade you.
Me: okay, is that something you can do for me?
Help desk: yes, we can upgrade you now. Can I help you with anything else?
Me: yes, now i just have a question. Do I have to fight the animals?
Help desk: haha that’s a common question. No, the journey IS the fight. You encounter the animals, and they loom.
Me: oh, they LOOM. Gotcha. I thought I had to fight them.
Help desk: nope. Anything else I can do for you today?
Me: no, no, thank you!
(End call)
Me: (quietly into silence) I’m kinda hoping to befriend them actually
Inflatable chicken behind White House is all the buzz here in DC today. An American citizen put it there to call out the current U.S. President to release his tax returns and stand up to Russia.
And I’m gonna make sure everyone else remembers too.
Why would they kill pit bulls they’re sweeties
Because PETA does not care about animals. they do not care that these dogs live and breathe and feel and want love like every other dog. they do not care about the history of human/dog bonding and co-evolution, they do not care that dogs and human beings have relied on each other for millennia, they do not care that its cruel and morally repugnant to put down an animal just because you can, they do not care about animals.
PETA cares about money and publicity, its a corporation run by a psychopath who is afraid of pitts as it states in the link: she was apparently bit by one, and now she hates them.
PETA doesn’t give a rats ass about animals. They just want to kill and make money off of idiots who fall of their spiel.
Some celebs support them
ah c’mon, dear-tumb1r, I think you’re being a bit harsh. I mean, okay, PETA’s done some questionable things, but it’s not like they’ve also
Vet clinics often have litters of kittens to raise. Either they’re too young for a shelter, too sickly, or the clinic intends to adopt them out when they’re big enough. Whatever the reason, nurses often end up raising kittens and giving them ‘temporary’ names.
The intention of these temporary names is that if you give the kitten a stupid name, you have something to call it other than ‘the middle black male’, but because it’s a stupid name you wont get emotionally attached and end up keeping it. Again.
Which is how some nurses end up with cats that have names like ‘Flea bus’ and ‘Trash bag’.
Folks, I succumbed.
I ended up keeping Trash Bag.
He’s growing fast.
And getting into trouble
Happy post number 2500!
Tell Trashbag I love him
We love you Trashbag
Trash Bag chose Charmander.
I love this
This is my cat Fork
My cat’s shelter name was Toes, because she has two white toes.
Shahak Shapira’s “#HEYTWITTER” video (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic via YouTube)
Shahak Shapira, a Berlin-based Jewish comedian and author, has stenciled and spray-painted 30 racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and homophobic tweets — and the accounts associated with them — outside Twitter’s German headquarters in Hamburg. The action is part of Shapira’s #HEYTWITTER campaign, a response to Twitter’s choice to not remove such comments from their platform.
Over the last six months, Shapira reported comments he found across social media — not just “plain insults,” he explains in a video about the movement, “but absolutely serious threats of violence, homophobia, xenophobia, or Holocaust denial.” Sometimes reporting from multiple accounts, he’d hoped Facebook and Twitter would take action — the former labels hate speech as a terms of service violation; Twitter “prohibits the promotion of hate speech globally.” Though Facebook removed about 80% of about 150 comments, after Shapira reported over 300 tweets, Twitter responded only nine times, always stating that the tweets violated nothing. On the rare occasion they did remove a comment Shapira reported, they’d fail to notify him.
Shahak Shapira’s “#HEYTWITTER” video (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic via YouTube)
In the video, Shapira adds, “If Twitter forces me to see those things, then they’ll have to see them, too.” The spray-painted comments hit right in the heart, forcing you to feel an uncomfortable combination of sheer, tear-inducing horror and total lack of surprise. Sadly, in the video, we watch a street buffer — a black man — clear the sidewalk of the stencils. The others that surround the building, spreading into the street, remain — which, says Shapira, “fits well with Twitter’s policy of cleaning in front of their own door and leaving the rest to be someone else’s problem.”
In-person hate speech carries the threat of physical danger; on the internet, it’s a different kind of insidious, quick like fire. The #HEYTWITTER hashtag has already picked up global supporters and will hopefully force Twitter to take quicker action against such comments.
I reported about 300 hate tweets. Twitter didn't delete 'em, so I sprayed them in front of their office #HEYTWITTERhttps://t.co/wPqiwaxd7J
Shapira’s dissenters feel removing hate speech is a kind of censorship which, he concluded in an email to Hyperallergic, is “stupid on multiple levels. Twitter isn’t a basic human right, so censorship is the wrong word. Twitter is the product of a private company – them deleting certain comments from their platform is simply householder’s rights. Referring to Twitter removing hate speech such as ‘Gays to Auschwitz’ as censorship is an insult to people who actually had to fight for their freedom of speech. I’m not demanding Twitter to set up new guidelines. I’m merely asking them to live up to the guidelines THEY set up themselves. It’s not about them deleting every tweet reported, it’s about reviewing those tweets properly…preferably with the same speed and determination they show when it’s about removing boob pics.”
Shahak Shapira’s “#HEYTWITTER” video (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic via YouTube)
This isn’t Shapira’s first public reaction to shameful behavior. Earlier this year, his video and project, Yolocaust, combined selfies taken at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial (yoga poses, smiling faces!) with footage from Nazi concentration camps; those who wanted their images removed could email the artist at undouche.me@yolocaust.de. Most of the featured “selfie-takers” did reach out and apologize, including the man who’d captioned his photo, “Jumping on dead Jews @ Holocaust Memorial.” “I am sorry,” he wrote. “I truly am…I would like to be undouched.” Perhaps Twitter will undouche themselves, too.
I want Terry Crews and Vin Diesel to do a buddy cop movie where they are both secret nerds but they don’t want the other to know. Like Vin Diesel plays D & D on weekends and Terry likes to create epic crossover fan art. Somehow they have to work undercover at Comic Con and for what ever reason I need Daniel Radcliffe to be the villain.
I’d like to add: not a character played by Dan Radcliffe. Dan Radcliffe, appearing as himself.
no, no wait… I want Elijah Wood to play Daniel Radcliffe.
Elijah Wood plays Daniel Radcliffe and his evil sidekick is Elijah Wood played by Daniel Radcliffe
when cats r really excited to see you and they come trotting as fast as their lil leggys can carry them and go ‘prrrt!’ the whole time reblog if you agree?
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton issued a warning during a 2016 campaign debate with now-President Donald Trump that may be more important than ever as the U.S. inches closer to nuclear war with North Korea. “His cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons is so deeply troubling,...
