have you consideredā¦ Goncharov (1973) the ttrpg?
download the one-page rpg for free here!
You are the characters in one of the many fabled extended and unreleased cuts of GONCHAROV (1973), the greatest mafia movie ever made, and winter has come to Naples, Italyā¦
Get your cast of players together to tell your own tale of drama and crime, passion and longing, and maybe just a little bit of humanity. Make your fortune, claim your city, then face your hubrisāand give yourself a cinematic final act.
In the end, sometimes death is what makes one immortal.
Moving is wild, taking all your worldly possessions and packing them into tiny boxes so some strangers can carry them around put them in a truck so they can sit on the same shelves with a different view.
Do you consider cat declawing to be unethical, and if so, what would you consider to be the best alternative?
yeah declawing is ABSOLUTELY unethical from a medical standpoint, and I'll tell you why!
so this is what a cat's paw looks like on the inside:
take a quick second to look it over, and note which parts of it are actually touching the ground and bearing the cat's weight.
it's the "palm" and the ends of the toes, right?
well, that's the problem. so you probably ALSO noticed that the cat's claws are actually attached to those last toe bones, which is why when a cat is declawed, they remove that entire last toe joint like this:
so the issue is, the bone that was bearing the cat's weight is gone. it no longer exists. this forces the weight of the cat's body onto the end of the second bone, here:
and that's a HUGE fucking problem. that bone was never meant to touch earth, the ends of it are covered in nerves and connective tissue instead of padding! putting weight on it WILL cause the cat pain, chronic-for-the-rest-of-your-life pain!
cats are terrible about actually expressing pain, but if you pay attention to how declawed and non-declawed cats walk, you'll notice that declawed cats put their feet down much more gingerly and are more hesitant with their first steps.
and this is because it hurts.
please don't declaw your cat. just use claw caps or keep their nails trimmed.
Raven Steals the Sun by Preston Singletary (Tlingit), Raven Steals the Light by Bill Reid (Haida), Raven Stealing the Sun by Ken Mowatt (Gitksan), webb and hubble images of the pilars if creation
tl;dr my country is literally on fire and the politicians refuse to help
I know thereās a lot going on in the world, but you probably havenāt heard about whatās happening in Australia.
weāre on fire.
approximately Ā¼ of australiaās population is in catastrophic fire danger. A catastrophic fire level means your only chance of surviving is leaving before itās too late.
itās Spring in Australia, and rainforests arenāt meant to be dry enough to burn, yet at the time of writing this (11/11/19) there are 71 active fires in NSW (43 out of control), and 51 active fires in Queensland - not including those that have already burned before now, and there are more in other states. Sydney is already rated ācatastrophicā, the first time this rating has ever been used there since its creation in 2009. Thatās right, we had to add yet another level of destructiveness, because āhighā, āvery highā, āsevereā, and āextremeā were no longer adequate. To quote the Fire Danger Ratings, āfor your survival, leaving early is the only optionā.Ā conditions tomorrow will be the worst they have been, and people are evacuating as we speak. the fire fighters are preparing as best they can.
This isnāt just about people losing their homes; people have died and will die, countless animals have already lost their lives and many more will still perish. our land, our lives, and our hope is up in flames and will soon be nothing but ash. the annual fire season has not even begun yet. this is only the beginning. my native land is burning, and there is nothing i can do to stop it.
the government refuses to acknowledge that we are in a climate crisis. the fires have never been this bad. we have been in severe drought for more than a year which has only contributed to the force of these fires. the Prime Minister Scott Morrison has done nothing but send his āthoughts and prayersā. He will not accept aid from other countries because he is too egotistical to admit that we need it. All the while the people of this land are suffering. Climate change needs radical human change to be combated. we are already seeing the results of years of indifference, and this is barely the beginning of something that will only get worse the longer governmentās and big companies refuse to act to counteract climate change.
Our government has also cut funding to Fire and Rescue NSW by 35.4%, the Rural Fire Service by 75.2%, and QLD Rural Fire Service by 26.42%, resulting in closures of services; they donāt have the resources to cope. We are fighting a losing battle against the results of climate change.Ā and this is only the beginning.
At least 6 million people today are prepared for evacuating. There are strong winds, low humidity, and high temperatures which will only exacerbate and encourage the fires. Authorities have warned that there arenāt enough fire trucks to help everyone, so unless you are prepared to the maximum, you need to leave. 600 schools and TAFEās across NSW have been closed due to the fires, with others in Queensland closing due to air quality being virtually unbreathable due to smoke. Rural Fire Service Deputy Commisioner Rob Rogers said the state was as prepared as it could be, with military aircraft on standby to rescue people from fires if needed.
As Queensland and New South Wales deal with these unprecedented bushfires, there is a lot of talk about how to stop, or at least reduce them. David Bowman is a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania and he says the short answer is that climate change is making a bad situation worse.
But itās also much more complex than that. Much of Australiaās natural biodiversity has evolved to withstand and even stop bushfires due to a multitude of species being in one area. Eucalyptus trees encourage fires as they help spread seeds, but other species are naturally flame retardant and help to curb the fires. The issue is that so much of the native bush has been cut down for farming and agriculture that the natural fire defence has virtually been destroyed. Australia is the leading country in mammal extinction, as well as one of the worst 7 for biodiversity loss.
There have already been significant harmful impacts to wildlife, with entire ecosystems up in smoke and individual species affected, including around 350 Koalas presumed dead ā all before the fires have reached their peak.
my heart goes out to the victims of the current fires, which we know have been exacerbated by the decline of native biodiversity. Australian conservation efforts need a radical overhaul. Mitigating the intensity of these fires, mostly set by humans and their activities, can be achieved by restoring our native ecosystem engineers, such as bandicoots, bettongs and potoroos.
These species help to maintain healthy forests by continually turning over and breaking down forest leaf litter, thereby drastically reducing fuel load. In their absence, fires are more intense, often reaching the treetops, which can affect populations of species already on the brink, like the Koala.
Slow growing and ancient Australian East coast temperate forests are of global significance, as these forests have some of the highest carbon storage on the planet. Fires of this intensity threaten their very existence but managing wildlife to reduce fire intensity and protect forests is under-appreciated for its importance in reducing the release of carbon into the atmosphere.
If you wish to donate to the NSW Rural Fire Service, follow this link. Iām not sure if it works for countries outside Australia, but if you can spare some money, please try
Support your local brigade - NSW Rural Fire Service
Or you can donate to the Red Cross who have set up many shelters and are providing first aid, and are trying to fund small kits to provide families with basic necessities
Where there's disaster, an emergency, conflict or crisis, your support means Red Cross will be there.
An update on the fire situation, because theyāre reached Victoria down south now. Weāve started to feel the heat down south and now had a cold snap. 21st November.
This is eleven days later and still burning.
The important points:
Fire season hasnāt even officially begun yet.
It was the hottest November night in a century last night
The rainforests are dry enough to still burn
The Liberal government not only cut funding to firefighters, but continues to deny climate change and the climate crisis.
We are now also at risk of thunderstorm asthma.
Thunderstorm asthma occurs when the grasslands are super dry, and then along comes a thunderstorm which not only disturbs and picks up all the pollen, but the sudden moisture causes the pollen particles to fragment and break apart, becoming multiple smaller pollen particles, each equally capable of triggering asthma, only now there is more of them. And those particles are small enough to avoid getting trapped in the nose, and go straight to the lungs.
This overwhelms emergency services and people die.
We have always been a country of fire and flood, but not at this time of year, not this bad. The climate is changing. Donāt let anyone tell you otherwise.
Oh hey folks, itās the 7th of December now, so officially in Bushfire season, and now three still burning fires have merged to cause a mega fire which has an actively burning area larger than Sydney, our biggest city.
I donāt know how folks in Sydney are managing to still breatheā¦ and it turns out a bunch are not, with asthmatics and respiratory distress cases increasing 25% in emergency wards.
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vaporwave
stormborns
theartofmadeline
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