Title?

just lurking

[goodluckdetective]

I’m reading the goblin emperor and man, this dude is having the worst “accidentally became important at work” situation ever, which is only enhanced by the fact that he’s also the new guy at work.

[ramalamacreatures]

Handmade polymer clay White-headed Vulture sculpture painted with acrylics.

[cookiedoves]

[dankomaksimovic]

ph. Danko Maksimovic - Frankfurt, Germany (2026)

Film: Kodak Ultramax 400

[herpsandbirds]

Could I request please, some beautiful Bateleur?

Indeed.

Bateleur Eagle (Terathopius ecaudatus), GETTIN PUFFFY!!!, family Accipitridae, found in much of Sub-Saharan Africa

ENDANGERED.

photograph by Sarina Crous

Albert Beukhof

photographs by Ray Coombes 

 photograph by Johan Wandrag

photograph by Nick Dale

[todaysbird]

the beautiful nuthatch is a large member of the nuthatch family, found through most of southeast asia’s mainland. the nuthatch is named for its vibrant coloration, unusual in the nuthatch family. like its relatives, the bird feeds on mainly small insects. the species does not exhibit sexual dimorphism, with both the male and female showing brilliant plumage.

[stranger-nature]

[velvetcloak]

[vaspider]

I think it's really important to point out one of the major flaws in that highway analogy:

Eminent domain requires payment.

The government cannot come in and merely seize your land under eminent domain and pay you nothing. There is a process & they have to pay you market value for your land and the buildings on it. A couple of my former clients went through this about 15 years ago when the 202 Bypass went through in Montgomery & Bucks County in Pennsylvania. Their houses and land were taken via eminent domain so that the highway could be built, but, I need to say this again: they were paid.

They were paid and there was a process in which they were informed ahead of time. They didn't just drive home one day and find out their home had been snatched, too bad, so sad, no money for you, you should have put your house in a bank vault.

Just taking someone's shit like that without compensation has a name, and it's not eminent domain or anything like it:

It's fucking theft.

(I'm not interested in hearing the same tired shit about how copyright is inherently bad and only protects corporations, because as someone who deals with protecting my livelihood from scammers and scrapers via copyright every goddamned day, this isn't a fun mental exercise/philosophical debate for me, and you're absolutely wrong. Fucking save it for someone ignorant enough and with time to waste on that.)

[vmures]

The highway argument is also disingenuous in that ignores the very real harms caused by the systems that decide which neighborhoods to target and who precisely is going to be displaced. From numerous historically black neighborhoods being demolished to farmers being displaced and left with no livelihood. There has been a great deal of harm done in the name of public good. https://historyfortomorrow.org/story/eminent-domain-and-the-displacement-of-black-communities/ https://thenarrativematters.com/eminent-domains-devastating-impact-on-communities-of-color/

https://www.condemnation-law.com/blog/general-eminent-domain/farm-land-and-eminent-domain/ https://www.vermontpublic.org/programs/2019-10-29/interstates-burning-farms-eminent-domain-remembering-romaine-tenney

There have long been worries about the abuse of eminent domain, and the AI scraping model is far closer to the abusive aspects of eminent domain than any supposed public good aspect. https://ij.org/issues/private-property/eminent-domain/eminent-domain-history/ https://www.purdybailey.com/blog/2020/january/5-famous-cases-of-eminent-domain-abuse/

Anytime someone brings up an argument that states something is for the greater good, always ask yourself "for whose greater good?" Who benefits most, who gets harmed the most, what are the actual harms when you think through the logistics and future implications of the harms and not just the immediate harm, is there remuneration for the harm being caused, is it sufficient?

These are all things that must be asked before proceeding with any so called public works plan. Anyone who tells you otherwise is scamming you.

[vaspider]

Oh, completely agreed. I only didn't go that far bc, like, you don't even need to before the argument entirely falls apart. But yeah, if people don't know about how eminent domain has been used to destroy Black neighborhoods in particular, they should read up and ask the questions.

[leahberman]

woodsy; yosemite national park, california

instagram - twitter - website

[holly-warbs]

Sketchbook drawing from a moment in Verőce, Hungary.

[feather-bone]

Creature spotlight: rodents

IDs in alt text - how many can you guess? :-)

This is a collection of creatures originally drawn for my sticker club. Learn more and see more of my work here!

[tsaktahis]

Two Blue Deer

Woodrow Wilson Crumbo, Citizen Potawatomi, mid-20th century, airbrush and tempera on paper

[hope-for-the-planet]

Africa secures $900 million in new clean cooking commitments | The Optimist Daily

New $900 million pledge brings total Africa clean cooking commitments to $3.1 billion, as nearly 1 billion people still lack access.

Cooking may not be the first thing that springs to mind when we think of carbon emissions and air pollution, but for parts of the world without access to clean cooking methods it's a significant issue.

Around 70% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa cooks over firewood, charcoal, or kerosene due to lack of access to cleaner fuels like ethanol, gas, or electricity. This constitutes up to 45% of Africa's greenhouse gas emissions and, even more significantly, causes 850,000 premature deaths from air pollution. Securing fuels like charcoal and firewood can also contribute to deforestation.

The Africa Clean Cooking Summit in 2024 secured $2.2 billion dollars in funding to provide access to clean cooking methods, and recently an additional $900 million in funding was added. Around one third of the money pledged at the Clean Cooking Summit has already been mobilized to help local communities.

[crynwr-drwg]

[merps]

In Protest Of Mass Layoffs, Bethesda Devs Greet Xbox Leadership With A Giant Inflatable Rat - Kotaku

'We heard that Microsoft leadership was coming to our office this week, and decided to make our presence visible'

Article date: August 11, 2026

[radicalgraff]

"Go ahead and destroy the AI Data Centers Godzilla, make the people happy!!!"

Poster spotted in Naarm / Melbourne

[wizardarchetypes]

i know it's been said on here and said again but people do so desperately need to genuinely do intentional work to build distress tolerance and start figuring out how to recognize the differences between danger, discomfort, and when a situation that is merely uncomfortable is triggering an emotional flashback in your bodies because it resembles a past situation that actually was dangerous which makes it difficult to realize/believe that this moment is merely uncomfortable.

[wizardarchetypes]

i spoke to an allistic person who said their autistic classmate had a meltdown in class, during which the autistic classmate collapsed to the floor in the middle of the room, screaming and crying. they said it was "terrifying" and they were arguing for the autistic student to be removed permanently from the program.

when i asked whether their autistic classmate's meltdown was dangerous or merely uncomfortable, they said, "i felt like i was in danger!"

i understand that. but that's not what i asked.

[wizardarchetypes]

"i shouldn't have to experience that."

yes you should, actually. that's life. upsetting things happen. no one should have to experience any discomfort. but we do. we get stung by bees and sunburns and headaches. we live in bodies in the world.

autistic people are human beings who have the right to exist in society, including during meltdowns. having one class of your entire semester interrupted by a singular meltdown is not anymore of an infringement upon your entitlement to education than having your class interrupted by a fire alarm or cancelled for a snow storm.

one of my peers once experienced a cardiac event 10 minutes into class. it was terrifying. it was desperately upsetting. i was contacted by the school and offered counseling because i happened to be the one who managed the situation until paramedics arrived. everyone was worried about my classmate first and foremost, and then about me. no one blamed anyone, and certainly when my classmate happily recovered and returned to school, no one thought they should be removed from the program.

the difference being that people believe a disabled personal, especially with cognitive disabilities, in crisis are not experiencing something outside of our control, but instead that we are in fact making a choice to make a scene, out of malice.

[herpsandbirds]

I’m going to Galveston TX for the first time, any cool critters there I might see?

Oh yeah, Im there all the time. Here's some of the things i look for when i'm there this time of year...

CRITTERS OF GALVESTON ISLAND (Summer)

Western Slender Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus a. attenuatus), family Anguidae

Legless lizard

Photograph by Chad Wallis

Gulf Saltmarsh Snake (Nerodia c. clarkii), family Colubridae, Gulf Coast of TX, USA

Living in saltmarshes, this is the only snake in the U.S. that is adapted to live in salt water.

photograph by John Williams

Texas Diamond-backed Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin littoralis), family Emydidae, Galveston County, TX, USA

* Diamondback terrapins live in coastal salt marshes along the east coast of the U.S.

Photograph by William L. Farr

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii), females coming ashore to lay eggs, family Cheloniidae

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.

This mass or group egg laying event is called an “arribada”.

photograph by Hrchenge

Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger), family Laridae, order Charadriiformes

photographs by Glenn Bartley & Dan Pancamo 

Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens), courtship display, family Ardeidae, order Pelicaniformes

L - normal morph, R - white morph

photograph by Wanda Phillips Nichols

Common Nighthawk aka Bullbat (Chordeiles minor), parent with chick, family Caprimulgidae, order Caprimulgiformes

photographs by Larry Pace & Steve Gifford

Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) in breeding plumage, family Threskiornithidae, found in the SE United States, Central and South America

Photograph by Veronique Huez‎

[hope-for-the-planet]

How One Man Singlehandedly Repopulated a Rare Butterfly Species in His Backyard

Long gone from their home in San Francisco, the California pipevine swallowtail is back thanks to one man transforming his yard into a habitat for them The iridescent blue wings of the California pipevine swallowtail are considered by collectors to be among the most magnificent in North America. For centuries …

As the California pipevine plant was displaced from San Francisco by urban sprawl, the California pipevine swallowtail, which relies on the pipevine plant to feed its caterpillars, also disappeared. That is, until a biologist named Tim Wong made it his mission to repopuplate the species in his own backyard.

Armed only with a cutting of California pipevine from the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Tim created a screened in butterfly enclosure in his backyard and began to reproduce California pipevines.

As new butterflies were born, Tim would donate them to the San Francisco Botanical Gardens where their pipevine host plant could still be found.

“At first he brought them in by the hundreds. Now he brings them in by the thousands every few months.”

While most of us don’t have the power to create habitat for endangered rhinos or tigers, anyone with a little bit of outdoor space can help create habitat for endangered insects!

You can:

-plant a pollinator garden with native nectar-producing plants

-plant host plants of local butterfly species

-leave piles of fallen leaves or sticks in your yard as habitat for native bees

-avoid using pesticides (or use them as sparingly as possible) around your home and yard

“Improving habitat for native fauna is something anyone can do. Conservation and stewardship can start in your very own backyard.” -Tim Wong