Blehhhh

25 l she/her

[whosname]

[id. A twitter post by @/Bennieeexyz Jury duty letter came addressed to my cat. Not a mistake. "Felix Martinez" - that's his full name according to his vet records. My last name. His first name. Somehow he's a registered voter now. Called the county clerk. Me: My cat got summoned for jury duty. Clerk: Is the name correct on the summons? Me: Yes, but he's a cat. Clerk: Is Felix Martinez a legal resident of this county? Me: He's a legal cat. Clerk: Sir, if the name matches our records, he needs to appear or file an exemption. Me: He can't file anything. He has paws. Clerk: You can file on his behalf. Me: Under what exemption? There's no box for "is a cat." Clerk: (pause) Check "unable to serve due to medical reasons." Me: What's the medical reason? Clerk: He's a cat. Me: That's not a medical condition. Clerk: It is if it prevents him from serving. Sent in the form. Got rejected two weeks later. "Insufficient documentation. Please provide medical professional's statement." Took the letter to my vet. Me: I need you to write that my cat can't do jury duty. Vet: Why is your cat summoned for jury duty? Me: Excellent question. No good answer. Vet: This is the weirdest request I've gotten. Me: Can you just write that he's medically unfit to serve? Vet: On what grounds? Me: He's a cat. Vet: (started typing) "Patient is unable to serve due to species-related limitations including inability to speak, read, or comprehend legal proceedings." Me: Perfect. Sent it in. Got another rejection. "Summons is mandatory. Failure to appear will result in contempt of court." My roommate thought this was hilarious. Roommate: Felix is going to jail. Me: This is serious. Roommate: Bring him to court. See what happens. Decided that was actually the only option left. Day of jury duty, put Felix in his carrier. Brought the entire paper trail of rejection letters. Checked in at the courthouse. Clerk: Name? Me: Felix Martinez. Clerk: (looked at the cat carrier) Is that Felix? Me: Yes. Clerk: (long stare) He's a cat. Me: I've been saying that for six weeks. Clerk: Why didn't you file an exemption? Me: I filed three. All rejected. Showed her the letters. She read through them, expression shifting from confusion to disbelief. Clerk: Someone rejected the veterinary documentation? Me: Twice. Clerk: (called her supervisor over) You need to see this. Supervisor read everything. Looked at Felix. Looked at me. Supervisor: How did a cat get registered to vote? Me: You tell me. Supervisor: This is a data error. Me: Took you six weeks to figure that out. They dismissed Felix immediately. Apologized for the inconvenience. Supervisor: We'll remove him from the voter registry. Me: Appreciate it. Supervisor: (pause) Out of curiosity, how would he have voted? Me: Probably whatever party supports universal treats. Got a formal apology letter a week later and a voter registration card. For me this time. Apparently I wasn't registered, but my cat was. Roommate: Felix committed voter fraud. Me: Felix committed nothing. He's innocent. Roommate: That's what they all say. Felix is sleeping on the jury summons now. Fitting end to his legal career. end id]

[unidentifiablelifeform]

[starlightxraven]

Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google

Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

[appalachian-werewolf]

"Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry."

It fucking better.

[mrsjdavis]

Like to charge, reblog to cast?

[cuntboysupremacy]

girl helppp

[cuntboysupremacy]

forcefemmed future self

[cuntboysupremacy]

the replies are even worse

[radiosandrecordings]

Scottish government currently has a bunch of ads up to get screened for lung cancer, but for some reason they’ve decided to personify cancer as some sort of gothic butch milf and I’m obsessed with her

[a-random-fandom-friend]

I know I already said it in a reblog 2 years ago, but... the french orangina ads :

[fantasticsacabambaspis]

No way thats called Orangina

[wifegideonnav]

“bits to use in everyday conversations”

[valtsv]

it's not my preferred way to engage with media but a ship dynamic i do have a fondness for is what i've taken to calling "the poor man's rpf", ie: when two (or more) people could viably be the source of lurid speculative fiction and tabloid journalism about the nature of their relationship in the reality they inhabit

[valtsv]

"isn't this technically all ships" well yes but it's about context. the characters need to be famous (or infamous) enough that they could reasonably be the subject of headlines like the one featuring matt damon and ben affleck from which the phrase "which could mean nothing" originated. they need to be getting the dan and phil treatment from mentally unwell fans on social media forums. the conspiracy theories formed about them should make gaylors look rational and sane.

[jessebloom]

rule 1 of rpf have fun it's all fun and games rule 2 ignore rule 1 it's all real and true rule 3 ignore rules 1&2 just do cognitive dissonance rule 4 be better than the larries but if you have the ability to hack into airport security cameras well what better use is there than for rpf

[iphigeniacomplex]

you watch a car commercial and the car is presented as a masculinity carapace and this idea persists as if we don’t all know that the car is actually a second womb and every arrival + subsequent exit from the vehicle is a rebirth — it’s obvious why straight men feel such an attachment, and doubly obvious why they don’t want you to know. the trained eye can locate the mother wound of every car driver within seconds.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

“you cannot ship these two fictional characters because—” actually I can because they are not real people. they are just toys I play with. you cannot apply real-world morality to fiction or how strangers play with their imaginary toys in their imaginary sandboxes.

you can, however, curate your own internet experience by minding your own business, muting/blocking/scrolling past what upsets you but does not hurt anyone in real life in any way, shape or form.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

“ship whatever you want except xyz. there is a limit” so you miss the entire point of what I just said 👌🏻

there is, in fact, no limit. I may be uncomfortable with it, I may even find it unpleasant/disturbing, but my personal feelings are not rules that can be applied to other people, and they absolutely do not justify shaming or harassing other people.

[eggings]

apparently almost no one’s seen the video it’s free real estate comes from so here it is

[prokopetz]

The closer to the modern era you get the more fascinating "lost at sea" becomes as a backstory element. Being lost at sea in 1612 is a downright normal kind of lost to be. Being lost at sea in 2012 is like, okay, back up – I need to hear this one.

[prokopetz]

Like, come on, man.

[dubiousdoobie]

tbf theres. a lot of space to get lost in

[smokingrozanov]

Your Cliff “U tryna get a handie 2nite” post gets even funnier when I remember that Shane’s equivalent of this was the “Wanna get murdered in a dark alley in Mtl in two weeks?” text. I love that their respective modes of communication are Horny (Amicable) and Threatening (Sexual)

Cliff finally feels accepted by Shane when one night Shane texts “Would you like to come over and feast on the blood of our mutual enemy?” Which Cliff translates to “wanna kick Ilya’s ass at Mario Kart?”

[kiefbowl]

I love when people are like “I can’t believe you reblogged that despite their user name, icon, bio, and last twenty posts” bc to me my dash is the only part of this website and I’m not slowing down to look at urls you could all be the same person

[twisted-little-fairy-story]

#spiritual successor is people being like why didnt you read my pinned before you reblogged!!!#dude i am not. i am not vetting every blog#i am here to backread for 45mins and rb 30 posts in a row and disappear#tumblr life

[spreadassholesdotorg]

[havingapoemwithyou]

Scientific method by James Tadd Adcox

[letterful]

[beemovieerotica]

the cognitive dissonance from people who want the products of modern medicine but get weird about animal research. like im sorry but this is necessary for the survival of the society we currently live in. and the scientists who work on these things are not evil cackling psychopaths. anyone you talk to in animal research has incredibly complex feelings about their work and incredibly complex relationships to the animals in their care. there are regulations and oversight and penalties in place to make the work as humane as possible and scientists are overwhelmingly the ones enforcing and advocating for better care.

[beemovieerotica]

@velvetdemon I'm doing a full reply because I want to give this question the time and space it deserves, and I really do appreciate your curiosity about this.

The short answer: It is deeply unethical. There are nowhere near enough willing patients in the world to be able to do this, and it would be criminal to put them through this.

The long answer: The one side of the equation you're focusing on is: how much of a drug is too much, to the point where it will cause negative side effects or even death? And this is crucial to know. But it's not just a matter of finding out the lethal dosage of a heart cholesterol medication, you need to know that it can actually lower the cholesterol of any living thing. There is no way to know this without giving it first to...a living thing.

But beyond this, I need to emphasize: The goal of a drug trial is to effectively cure people who are already suffering from disease, who are living on limited time.

Drug trials don't just happen on any member of the public, they need to happen specifically on people affected by the disease you're trying to treat. There is at any time a very limited and very marginalized population of the world affected by early onset, familial Parkinson's disease. Because you cannot ethically induce disease in a human being, you are working with, speaking with, and helping patients and their families who are hopeful and desperate for a cure.

If you were to jump straight to human trials from petri dishes, not knowing absolutely anything about how the drug functions in a living, breathing animal body, it would look like this:

We didn't know that minute quantities of the drug interact lethally with x, y, z medication that people are commonly also taking. X number of patients have died as a result.

We didn't know that the drug is fatal to people with [common variant] in their genetics. X more patients have died.

We didn't know the drug exacerbates x, y, z chronic illnesses. X number of people have acquired permanent, lifelong disabilities.

We didn't know the best way to deliver the drug, so we tried multiple ways: the people who received it intravenously are now suffering from a painful, costly, and debilitating condition that did not happen with the ingested form.

I could go on, and on, and on.

The vast majority of these problems can be nearly or almost entirely averted by testing other animals first.

These are all people who possibly could have waited for the normal progression from animal testing to human testing and thus received better outcomes. Some people will pass away in the time it takes to get to that point, and that's heartbreaking, and we all wish science could be faster.

But the cost of expediting science could mean a life of profoundly greater suffering or an even shorter life than the one where no intervention happens at all. And at that point, you have completely exhausted your trust, your goodwill, and your patients' hope, after you've failed to do anything or even worsened the lives of people who are already deeply suffering.

[manslaughter]

hi, i’m an animal research professional. making sure laboratory animals stay alive, healthy, and enriched has been my full-time job for several years now.

animal research is not the mad scientist wild west that PETA wants you to think it is. there are extremely strict federal laws in place to protect the well being of these animals. animal welfare organizations like AAALAC ensure that lab animals are treated with dignity & respect and are given enough specialized care & enrichment to be happy and content in captivity, just like AZA accreditation with zoos.

not a single animal from a zebrafish to a mouse to a dog to a macaque goes unaccounted for. if an animal gets moved to a new cage, paired for breeding, has a procedure performed on it, gives birth, gets sick or injured, dies, etc. it is legally required that this information is recorded and kept on file for the US federal government to access. failing to record & retain this information is very much punishable by US federal law.

let me tell you - if you abuse or kill an animal, even a mouse - you are almost certainly getting both fired & blacklisted from the industry. if you abuse or kill a more ‘advanced’ animal, such as a dog or monkey, you will likely face criminal charges. killing a monkey is as serious and disastrous as a nuclear meltdown. you are expected to reasonably explain every illness, injury, or death of an animal under your care. you must record all of this information. animals that are clearly suffering with low QOL are required to be euthanized according to AVMA guidelines.

research animals are highly expensive. yes, even the "lesser" animals like mice. the cheapest mice will run you a few hundred $ per individual, with some of the most expensive mice i've cared for being $25,000 per individual. in research we have the "three Rs" - reduction (reduce amount of necessary animals to a minimum), refinement (refine processes to ensure research is accurate and animals feel no pain or distress), and replacement (replace animals with non-living research models as they become available). i can assure you no proper research team is wasting animals (*do not* say "b-b-but elon musk--" his research team is actively being investigated for animal abuse by the government).

research methods that do not require live animals are currently being looked into & efforts spearheaded by - you guessed it - the animal research industry itself (notice how the animal rights people are strangely silent & unhelpful when it comes to this?) but current technology is rudimentary and does not compare to live animal models.

some research animal fun facts (US edition):

all species of animals are only allowed to have one single major surgery performed on them in their entire lifetime.

institutions with nonhuman primates must have a behavior program in place (run by knowledgeable primate specialists) to ensure that they are happy and receiving enough daily enrichment and social interaction.

institutions with dogs are required to have physical exercise programs in place. this means every individual dog gets a substantial amount of leashed AND free-roaming exercise daily, including playgroups with other dogs.

a majority of nonhuman primates get to retire to sanctuaries like peaceable primate sanctuary, and almost all dogs get retired and adopted out by organizations like homes for animal heroes. some institutions will also adopt out unneeded young rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, etc.

some strains of mice glow neon green (or orange or blue) under UV light. this is not harmful to them and is commonly seen in cancer research.

so yes, you can rest knowing that laboratory animals are treated with the utmost respect by their caretakers. and you can stop this awful, ignorant talk of human experimentation that will only end in the abuse of nonwhite people, LGBT people, disabled people, indigenous people, and so many others. please just take a look at this wikipedia page if you think “ethical” human experimentation can exist.

[feralrookie]

I served on a university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for several years, and we denied (sent back for revisions) a not insignificant number of research proposals. Insufficiently justified use of animals in the first place, insufficiently justified number of animals requested, insufficiently described animal enrichment/QoL measures, insufficiently detailed explanation of how pain and harm were being prevented, minimized, or avoided entirely.

We placed a lab on probation for not following their approved plan during an inspection. The animals weren't even in danger or being harmed, but the researchers were being careless and that's a problem. Another lab got reprimanded for having drugs on hand that had passed their expiration date had passed by less than a month. It wasn't even being used in the current protocol, to give you an idea of how seriously every detail is taken. Everyone in a given lab had to be prepared to answer our questions on procedures and protocols or the lab would get a warning/required improvement plan for insufficiently training their people. At one point we had to suspend a protocol because the vendor the lab was using kept sending unhealthy animals who did not even live long enough for research to begin. Another time the water to an aquatic facility had slightly higher than normal pH levels and the vets had to move a lab of animals while the university facilities manager got an entire building's plumbing replaced.

All of this is at the site level and does not account for the additional federal oversight over research. Which is to say that the attention to animal welfare is significant and the consequences for failure to care for the animals even more so.