The Font of All Crazy Ramblings @8lottie8 - Tumblr Blog

The other night husband and I were watching a documentary about the yeti where they were doing DNA analysis of samples of supposed yeti fur, and every one of them came back as bears.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

Bears. They’re everywhere. Be wary. Anyone or anything could be a bear.

iguanamouth

oh shit

throughshadow-to-the-edgeofnight

alanaisalive

As the OP of this post, I’m going to threaten that if this gets to one million notes by the 10 year anniversary on 1 June 2026, one year from today, I will get a lower back tattoo of the loch ness bear monster.

striving-artist

At time of posting, this is at 711.6k notes

29 Days Remain

nelc

Only 12 days left.

triflesandparsnips

It’s Saturday, May 30, 3:18 PM EDT

The note count as of 3:12 PM EDT was 742.4K.

We’re almost 258,000 notes short of the Committment To The Bit Tumblr Curse goal, or what I am choosing to call:

The Bear Nessiecity

You know what to do.

starleska

a PSA for anyone who is confused by the panic over the UK heatwaves! ☀️

the UK has an amber warning declared for a heatwave this weekend, where temperatures will reach above 30C (86F). to many, especially Americans, this doesn't seem like a notable temperature, and i've seen many ignorant posts mocking UK residents who are worried about how they and their loved ones will be affected by the temperatures. i'd like to explain why heatwaves in the UK are different than other parts of the world, and why they cause such a panic: 🔥 because we are an island nation, our heat isn't dry: it's horrendously humid. high humidity means that your lungs need to work harder to breathe, and it's much harder for your sweat to evaporate in the air. sweating is how your body regulates its temperature, and you sweat more in humid environments. when sweat doesn't evaporate it remains on the skin, leaving you feeling hot, sticky, and ill. 🔥 our homes and buildings are built to retain heat. because the UK is so cold and rainy for the vast majority of the year, our homes are supposed to trap heat, not let it out. not only are our homes smaller on average, but between double glazing, cavity wall insulation and loft insulation, when heat hits a British home, it causes a greenhouse effect. heat just sits in our homes, and it doesn't dissipate at night, meaning we are unable to sleep. 🔥 we have no air conditioning. i have never been in a home with air-con, and very few public buildings have it (except some shops). because of the aforementioned cold, rainy conditions that affect the UK for the vast majority of the year, air-con has never received a significant roll-out here. this means that we have little to no relief from being inside buildings besides being in the shade, and few homes even have fans. 🔥 our city centres are packed and highly urbanised, which causes heat traps. because our streets and homes are often stacked tightly together, including rows of houses/buildings/etc., heat in densely packed areas has nowhere to go, and will simply sit. trying to walk through a city during a heatwave will leave you sweating and exhausted in minutes. likewise, there are limited spaces to go to cool off during these temperatures: people will literally go to the shops to stand in the fridge/freezer aisles. 🔥 our infrastructure is not built to cope with heat. during heatwaves, our tarmac melts. the rails which hold our trains bend and warp. our grass catches fire. a few years ago, airport runways cracked and lifted in the heat, halting flights. the UK is brought to a standstill during high temperatures because our cities and towns are built for colder, wetter temperatures. add in the 16 hours of daylight we get during the summer, and you have a recipe for disaster. 🔥 the hottest temperature ever recorded in the UK is 40C (104F). this was in England, and in other UK countries, it's even lower: in Wales, it was 37.1C (98.78F); in Scotland, it was 34.8C (94.64F), and in Northern Ireland, it was 31.3C (88.3F). because these are our highest temperatures, many of us are unused to the symptoms which signify heat exhaustion or heat stroke. i need to emphasise: people die during heatwaves. i highly encourage people to read about the 2022 UK heatwaves, which saw the deaths of nearly 3000 people (many of whom were elderly). we could do nothing but hunker down and survive the heat during this time, and it was especially dreadful for anyone who is older, disabled, and/or neurodivergent. so while 30C is not unheard of in the UK, any heatwave poses significant risks, including illness, disruption to transport, wildfires, and even death. thanks for reading, and to everyone from outside the UK who's provided useful advice on keeping cool! i'm sure we'll be alright, but i'm hoping folks won't parrot misinformation about us just 'not being able to cope with the heat' 💔

starleska

it's that special time of year where a heatwave is hitting the UK and mockery/misinformation spreads like wildfire from people who don't live here. so just some reminders for those unfamiliar with how UK heat can be deadly 💖

saxifraga-x-urbium

writetothem.com and ask your mp to ask the ehrc if this means it is acceptable to exclude customers and employees from facilities based on your feeling of whether they look cis or not, and whether they feel this is enforcible and low risk for service providers

raygun631

exxos-von-steamboldt

delicatefury

I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Thank God someone bothered to check.

beardedmrbean

>I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

Sources beyond dude just trust me, for the skeptics.

Scientists may have been unknowingly inflating microplastics pollution estimates, and the surprising source could be their own lab gloves. A

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/scientists-lab-gloves-may-be-causing-an-overestimation-of-microplastics-411138

Nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny poll

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics - Phys.org (it’s a pdf)

Researchers discovered a standard piece of lab equipment has added thousands of microplastic ‘false positives’ per each square-millimeter un

Ordinary Lab Gloves May Have Skewed Microplastic Data: That doesn’t mean microplastics aren’t a problem, though

That should be enough

rimonoroni2

“obviously the way that Jews have privilege over non-Jews in Israel means antisemitism doesn’t exist in other places, like where i live” says american guy who’s cousins are part of a white supremacist group that regularly threaten and harass Jews when they walk to synagogue

rimonoroni2

“antisemitism isn’t systemic” says guy who lives in a country where cops are overwhelmingly likely to be neo-nazis and politicians in power are actively trying to usher in christo-fascism

rimonoroni2

and, one of my favorites: “antisemitism isn’t systemic” says guy who lives in a country with no Jews because they were all either exterminated or systematically pushed to the brink of starvation or forced to migrate somewhere else due to intense discrimination or—

buffalo-tracks

futureelderscollective

eisenkrahe

Last year JK Rowling personally funded a group called Sex Matters to amend UK law so that trans women *overnight* went from legally women to legally men. This has resulted in mass exclusion of the trans community from numerous organizations, along with ongoing violent assaults on both trans and cis women alike.

With the new Harry Potter series she will be making a reported $20 million per-season renewal + other performance dependent royalties. She has been open across multiple interviews regarding her intentions to use said funds to push forth even more trans targeted legislation in the years to come.

This isn’t a “she gets paid no matter what” situation. The more eyeballs on this show the more money she has to actively harm vulnerable communities. By engaging with it you are directly supporting this and otherwise making a conscious choice to consume HP over doing the literal very least possible to not destroy the lives of trans people across the world.

If my stating the objective facts above upsets you then feel free to unfriend and move along. Your nostalgia-goggles feelings for a tired, problematic franchise mean nothing to me compared to the welfare of my trans friends and loved ones."

If you care more about badly written children's books and imaginary wizards more than you do about real people in the real world do it far the fuck away from me.

Don't try to be in my life.

In fact, you are cordially invited to eat shit and die.

aro-ace-culture-is

Adult aroace culture is realizing that holding onto the pain — all the negative feelings of not fitting in or not meeting expectations and milestones not meant for you — is just tending to a wound that can't disappear. Stop probing at it, lest it fester.

You were never supposed to fit into that, contorted and broken, writhing into the odd shapes of a stranger, because that was never who you are. If you were made to feel as if you didn't belong, as if you weren't part of the community for being yourself, then how was it a community? You were never one of them. You are one of you.

You didn't miss on anything. The frogs enjoy the flies, the snakes enjoy the frogs, the foxes enjoy the snakes. Whose meat are you waiting to savour? Why are you so sure it would please your taste?

Let the scar tissue cover you, it is the strongest of all your skin, you look as unique and as true to yourself, and the life you've lived, as you should feel. Can you recognize yourself in the mirror yet?

crazysodomite

the racism against indians is just overwhelming and insane. its everywhere. people go out of their way to talk about how indian immigrants are 'the worst kind of immigrants' when its people working their ass off to get a medical degree while working underpaid jobs in delivery just to get a better life.

people are literally chomping at the bit to say indians are the reason their wages are falling and their life is getting worse because indians are ready to work for less money or some shit. it's actually very disturbing

batboyblog

"if you convince people that there's no difference between a blood thirsty dictator and a dedicated leader who is human and thus unable to solve every problem, the dictator wins."

doodle-shenanigans

Millions died of covid because Trump dismantled the international disease task force with some of the hardest hit areas being minority communities and Native American reservations.

Hundreds of thousands of people overseas now will die of aids because he dismantled the USAID.

None of that would’ve happened with Clinton or Kamala. Not voting because you think they’re the same or being tired of democrats being uninspiring is the White Person moment. Everyone alive in the US needs to humble themselves that they were privileged and lucky enough to survive Trump’s first term, because a lot of vulnerable people aren’t alive to say the same. Not participating doesn’t make you a sovereign citizen, it’s just avoiding responsibility for our out of control country so you don’t have to get a bad taste in your mouth.

iamnmbr3

Millions of people - mostly children, mostly in Africa - will die over the next few years due to the USAID cuts.

People of color, regardless of immigration status, are being kidnapped off the streets.

ICE is summarily murdering people.

Civil rights is under attack. LGBTQ rights are under attack. Trans people are being criminalized.

Millions are at risk because of rollbacks in vaccine programs.

Ukrainians are freezing and dying while Trump tries to help Putin.

If you don't think this matters you are the most despicable sort of person.

ithelpstodream

orpheusdoctor

Pretty sure that generation has been dead for awhile but ok, pretend one thing has something to do with another

systlin

The end of Jim Crow laws was in the 1950′s. The first black student to attend a formerly all white school was Ruby Bridges in 1960.

Here she is being walked to school under the protection of Federal Marshals because angry white people were ready to harm or kill her.

Here she is in 2010, eight years ago.

The generation that enforced segregation is not dead, fucko. They were our fuckin grandparents, and it was not that goddamn long ago.

Google is free.

prismatic-bell

Grandparents?!

I’m 31.

My MOM was born the year before school segregation ended.

She was NINE when MLK was shot.

She remembers race riots in her school over school segregation ending in our home state.

My MOTHER lived through this. She’s 61 years old–which means while her own health is shot, people from her generation will be around for another twenty to thirty years.

1956. This is not colorized. IT WAS SHOT IN COLOR. Look at that–segregation was still ongoing in the age of neon lights.

Same exhibit. 1956. Banana splits, poodle skirts, and the ability to get “colored” drinking water only from the white folks’ backwash. You can see the pipe connecting the white tank to the colored fountain behind the little girl in the light pink dress.

Less than ten years later. That’s Martin Luther King, Jr. in the middle. Have you ever seen him in a color photograph before? There are many, but for some reason … maybe because black-and-white makes things look old … nobody ever uses them.

Look at the bank logo in the back. Colored squares like that were a thing in the mid-to-late 1960s. The slicked-down hair on the Black girl in front says we’re not yet to the mid-1970s, and since these signs all say “Honor King” it’s quite likely this is 1969-1970. You know what else was happening in 1969? Not Woodstock, not the moon landing, although both of those things happened. No, something we think of as being much more recent.

THE INTERNET STARTED.

1969 was the launch of ARPANET, which would later become the Internet. BLACK PEOPLE WERE STILL MARCHING FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS WHEN THE INTERNET WAS STARTED.

This picture was taken sometime between 1956 and 1958. I don’t have a precise date on it, but the sleeveless sundress says later 1950s, the hair on Orange Plai says this was after Elvis, and the stars on the flag say that’s not a modern 50-star flag, which was first used in 1959. (We had a single year, 1958, with 49 stars.)

Ah yes. It was so long ago. Let’s get some more perspective:

Donald Trump was eight years old when school segregation was declared illegal in 1954. He was nineteen when the police beat and shot at peaceful Black protest marchers in Selma, Alabama and twenty-two when MLK was assassinated by the FBI for trying to encourage desegregation.

Hillary Clinton was seven when school segregation was declared, eleven when it went into effect, and eighteen when Selma happened.

Bernie Sanders was thirteen when the integration ruling occurred, 19 when Ruby Bridges started going to a formerly all-white school, and twenty-four when Selma happened. Joe Biden is only a year younger than Bernie.

Elizabeth Warren was eleven when Ruby started her new school, fifteen when Selma happened, eighteen when MLK was shot.

You will notice that all of these people are running for President, or were rumored to be running for President, this year. They’re not just alive, they’re thriving. And they were all alive for desegregation–in fact Trump, Clinton, and Sanders were all old enough to either endorse or oppose what happened at Selma.

But let’s keep looking, because they’re probably outliers, right?

Hm. Three of MLK’s children are still alive. They’re between 56 and 62 years old. (His elder daughter died of unknown causes; her family suspects an undiagnosed heart condition.) In fact one of his siblings is still alive, and she was born before him! She’s 96.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Yeah, she was 21 when school integration was made the law of the land. And she’s still serving on the Supreme Court.

But tell me again how long ago it was.

I’m sure the people from those generations are all dead, after all.

tygressofaera

This was amazing.

cyanide-sippy-cup

For anybody not caught up: Tennessee just passed a new map that pretty much makes it so black neighborhoods have no power in local votes. Two things about this. While protestors were chanting "No Jim Crow", white Tennessee lawmakers were caught laughing on video. On top of this, Representative Justin Pearson and his brother KeShaun Pearson were arrested for trying to give their takes on the matter (which is not only their legal right but literally his job). If you give a shit about black people, help fight this. We can't allow a return to Jim Crow.

icemankazansky

Heyyy guess where I live

A local paper had some great photographs, all taken by Nicole Hester:

The day before, Rep. Justin Pearson tries to attend a Senate Committee meeting and is barred access by the Sergeant at Arms.

Lawmakers and protesters link arms as the descend the capitol steps.

Once inside the chamber, Democratic representatives continued to stand together with arms linked.

They continued standing together with arms linked as votes were cast.

Democratic representatives take a group photo protesting the redistricting.

Rep. Justin Jones burns a photo of the Confederate flag with the words, We will not go back.

And stomps the ashes.

KeShaun Pearson being escorted from the building by the Staties.

KeShaun Pearson (left) being taken into custody. Rep. Justin Pearson (right) showing his support of his brother.

Additional information: State lawmakers have been gunning for Pearson and Jones nearly their entire terms. Most notably, in 2023, the House expelled them for participating in a protest at the Capitol. Their districts had to have special elections to have them reinstated.

Pearson is one of the plaintiffs of a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the redistricting.

The city most affected by the redistricting is Memphis, where locals are fighting against xAI's data center, which has been operating with very little oversight and is poisoning the people who live there. Here is a previous post on that with more information and more sources.

roycohn

if you are a left-leaning person in a political debate/argument with someone (a normal person - not an avowed fascist but someone who is being polite and open to hearing you out), there are a few questions you need to get comfortable and reliable about asking yourself:

am i treating the other person like it's their first day in the real world and need to be taught what to think, or am i doing the basic decent thing and assuming they have put some amount of thought into their existing beliefs with which i must contend and out-reason?

am i advocating for something, or am i just trying to make this other person feel small or stupid?

in the process of this discussion, have i actually made the case that what i'm advocating for will improve the other person's life in a material way?

and if the answer to some or all of these is "no," what you are doing is venting, preaching, or otherwise not helping to make a persuasive case for your beliefs. as we get closer to the midterms in november, it's going to be important to convince and persuade people to support various issues, and the first thing to do is not enter into those conversations with the attitude that all americans are temporarily embarrassed socialists who just need to be lectured about their own moral turpitude until they agree with me. contrary to popular belief within a not-insignificant subset of the internet, persuasion is not capitulation, it's just politics. if people don't see you as someone who genuinely has their best interests at heart, they will eye you and everything you're espousing with suspicion at best and outright anger at worst. and hostility and grandstanding doesn't convince anyone who isn't already on your side! so once again, i really gotta urge people to try to be thoughtful about the language and rhetoric they use to communicate their platforms to others. use accessible language to advocate for policies in a way that meets folks where they're at and assumes their best intentions. most importantly, again, don't treat people like they're stupid - treat them like you're trying to help them. because ultimately, you are.

(i've made this point before and gotten called everything but a child of god for it, but all i can say is i helped raise over $30 million last year at work that went to unambiguously good programs and causes, so i do know what i'm talking about in terms of persuasive communication. i would like democrats to win a majority this election season, and i think we can do this if we behave like serious people. and if you're not american, i especially don't want to hear from you in the notes. this is a triage election, not a pie-in-the-sky one.)