keeptheearthbelow(ff)

Probably mostly to do with The Hunger Games, nature, and food.

[lady-ofmischief]

Everyone is fighting a tough battle so reblog to give previous a sword 🗡️

[digitalkiddo]

If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.

[muttsandmustelidae]

From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!

[muttsandmustelidae]

Because people will pay attention to cute animals, here are some of the critically endangered/endangered species housed at the Nashville Zoo!

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

Look at them!!!! Look at them and fight like hell to save them!!!!

[victusinveritas]

[boomer-mythology-destroyer]

[armengoldira]

The scale of baby hummingbirds vs a human hand

[revretch]

The inside of the nest is white because they're so tiny they line them with spiderwebs!

[ampervadasz]

May the 4th be with you ! Heathrow airport

[fleshst4r]

.

we're not going to make it

we will make it

it'll take too long to rebuild ourselves

we will make it

but what if we don't wake up in the morning

we will make it

i don't see a future with me in it

we will make it

we'll give up long before then

we will make it

im scared

i love you. we will make it

Voting ended onApr 11

[animnightmare]

The votes on this post. Oh. A poem in poll form, interactive art, the fact we can see how the other people reading it felt. im. this is really good.

[maureen2musings]

The quiet magic of forest light

vincentjamesphotography

[gulyas069]

[gulyas069]

hmmm

[lovehael]

One of their last Tweets before the account got suspended:

With an update since getting it back:

[dwellordream]

if you are a white american millennial (1981-1996), what is your mom’s name?

mary/maria

deborah/debra/debbie

susan

patricia/tricia/trisha

barbara

karen

nancy

donna

elizabeth

cheryl/cherie/sherry

kathleen/katherine/catherine

none of the above

Voting ended onMar 13

[deactivated-blog]

30 THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU BECOME MORE SELF-AWARE

❦ how much self-control do i have with things that i know are bad for me, but tend to indulge in?

❦ how do i respond to someone who is different from me or whose ideals and beliefs i don't agree with or understand?

❦ how do i deal with being misperceived or misunderstood?

❦ how do i respond when someone judges me, makes fun of me, or calls me names?

❦ how do i deal with other people's mistakes and unpleasant behavior?

❦ how do i deal with people who have hurt me in the past?

❦ how do i spend my free time?

❦ how do i deal with negative people?

❦ how do i deal with stressful situations? do i tend to worry a lot? what else do i do?

❦ how do i deal with inconvenient life situations?

❦ how do i respond to situations that i have no control over?

❦ how do i deal with negativity in my environment?

❦ how do i deal with challenges in my life?

❦ how do i respond to situations that force me to get out of my comfort zone?

❦ how motivated am i to change my life for the better?

❦ how much do i follow through on what i preach and talk about?

❦ how do i deal with uncertainty, the unknown or a future event that i have no control over?

❦ how do i respond to obstacles, hardships, and "bad" things that happen in my life?

❦ how do i respond when i don't get what i want?

❦ how fulfilling is my everyday life?

❦ how do i respond to new ideas and new ways of thinking?

❦ how do i respond to bad or inconvenient news?

❦ how do i deal with the violence, hate, and suffering in the world?

❦ how do i recharge, rejuvenate, and replenish my energy?

❦ how much do i prioritize spending time and energy on myself and on my passions?

❦ how do i deal with change? new job, new house, new lifestyle, new people, new rules, new technology...do i tend to avoid it, welcome it, fear it, like it, complain about it, stress out about it, worry about it?

❦ how do i deal with emotional pain?

❦ how do i respond when plans change or plans get cancelled without my say so?

❦ how do i respond when i make a mistake or when i fail at something?

❦  how do i deal with rejection?

[treasuresfromthearchives]

Good Housekeeping 1916-02

Cover art by Coles Phillips

[leebrontide]

Ok the US Attorney General says that she will remove ICE if MN drops all our sanctuary laws, complies with ICE, hands over all our SNAP, Medicaid and voter rolls. They demand control over our voter registration so they can "ensure free and fair elections".

They want to control our elections.

I am dead serious people call your representatives. Get volunteering. Get protesting. Get LOUD.

They released a letter full of straight up lies. Spread the truth. MAKE NOISE.

Source

[rederiswrites]

How interesting. How very interesting. They rejected my Blaze of this post.

Well, y'all. Make of this what you will, eh?

[edwordsmyth]

"Friends outside of Minnesota please read. I'm sharing a post written by a personal friend and medical doctor: Friends outside MN, you need to know what is happening here. Everyone knows that ICE shot and killed a woman here on Wednesday. But that’s not the only thing that’s going on:

ICE agents are cruising areas with immigrant-owned businesses, and kidnapping patrons and employees alike. Yesterday they abducted two US citizen employees at a suburban Target, one who was begging them to allow him to go get his passport to show them.

ICE is going door to door in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods, asking residents where their immigrant neighbors live. Read that again. If it sounds like something out of your high school history textbook, that’s because it is.

ICE is targeting schools and school buses. They pepper sprayed teenagers and abducted two school staff members at the high school up the street from me on Wednesday. Police are literally escorting school buses to ensure children can get to school and home safely. The Minneapolis Public Schools have moved to virtual learning for the next 4 weeks because it’s unsafe for children or teachers to physically come to school.

They are targeting hospitals and clinics. Patients are scared and are cancelling their appointments or just not showing up. Kids are missing their checkups and vaccines, folks aren’t getting their cancer care, etc.

They are smashing windows in cars and homes.

ICE is increasingly picking up Native Americans—again, targeting folks based on skin color alone.

They are arresting and beating legal observers. A friend of a friend had her arm broken yesterday. Folks are showing up at local hospitals, brought in in ICE custody, with severe injuries that are absolutely inconsistent with mechanism of injury reported by ICE. (Think: patient appears to have been beaten unconscious, while ICE agent says he slipped and fell.) I can’t emphasize enough that these ICE agents do not have warrants. There are 2,000+ agents here and they are simply hunting for anyone that’s not white. It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen or a green card holder, they will kidnap you first and ask questions later. But the community is fighting back.

Protests are happening every day.

Community groups have been leading know-your-rights sessions for months, often to packed venues.

Whistles are being distributed by the thousands, carried on keychains and worn on coat zippers, always at the ready to be blown in warning if ICE is spotted.

Drivers are following ICE vehicles, blaring their horns in warning.

Businesses are locking their doors even while open to keep employees and customers safe. As I type this, I’m standing guard at the locked door of our neighborhood burrito joint while I wait for my takeout order, so the employees can focus on their jobs. The place is packed with neighbors supporting this small business.

Anti-ICE signs are posted everywhere. The community is making it crystal clear that ICE is not welcome here.

Parents and neighbors are standing guard outside schools, organizing carpools, and escorting kids to and from school on foot.

Parents of kids in Spanish-immersion daycare (there are a LOT of these daycares here!) are keeping their kids home so the teachers don’t have to take the risk of coming to work.

Churches and community groups are holding fundraisers to buy and deliver groceries to families who don’t feel safe leaving home.

Mutual aid money is going out to folks who can’t make rent because they can’t work or because a breadwinner was abducted, or who need a warm place to stay after their home’s windows were smashed. THAT is what is happening here. This fight is ongoing and it’s horrifying to watch. But we are not backing down. To my friends in other cities and states, don’t think for a minute that this won’t happen in your town. It will. Be ready. Learn from us, as we have learned from Portland and Chicago and New York. Fight back. Don’t let us get to the last line of Martin Niemoller’s poem.” -Grant Boulanger

[bloodmoonlich]

Here's an AP news brief with a little more info. It's limited in the way major news outlets are right now but provides context that supports the personal account shared.

[thesaltofcarthage]

We will not allow a Noche de Cristales Rotos.

[preserving-tiktok]

[directactionforhope]

aeroleaf hybrid's tree-shaped wind turbine includes solar panels for dual energy production

 

-via Design Bloom, November 24, 2023. Very cool! Some excellent info on exactly why these will be so useful in the comments.

[figuring-421]

🚨

HEADS UP: The U.S. Postal Service quietly changed how postmarks work.

Mail is no longer automatically postmarked with the date you drop it off. Instead, the postmark now reflects the date it’s first processed by an automated sorting facility — which can be days later.

If you mail something right at a deadline, the official postmark could be later than your drop-off date and may be considered late.

If mailing date matters to you, go inside the post office and request a hand-stamped postmark.

USPS postmark shake-up could cost you big — property tax payers warned of surprise late fees

A new USPS postmark rule may cause property tax payments to look late even when people mail them on time. The change can create surprise lat

This will invalidate votes too

[seymour-butz-stuff]

This will invalidate votes too

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