My Mother Didn’t Believe Me When I Said The Reason Her Phone Keeps Displaying Ads For Dog Car Harnesses

I think one of the most damaging ideologies towards children is the conviction that having children isn’t a calling but a moral obligation.

🇵🇸 From Friends of Al-Aqsa (FOA):

This Ramadan make sure you’re not breaking your fast with the taste of apartheid. All you need to do is check the label to avoid buying dates from apartheid Israel. This includes dates labelled from Israel, the West Bank and the Jordan Valley or if the country of origin is not shown. Ramadan is a time of reflection and self-improvement. During this month we are more conscious of our actions and how they affect others. Israel is the world’s largest producer of Medjoul dates. Let's be conscious of not buying dates that support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and apartheid regime. * Major UK supermarkets like ASDA, Tesco, Iceland and Waitrose all sell dates from apartheid Israel as well as local grocery stores * The UK is the second-biggest importer of Israeli dates in Europe 50% of Israeli dates are exported to Europe, where the UK, Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy import huge quantities of the dried fruit. In 2020 the UK imported over 3000 tonnes of dates from Israel, worth roughly 7.5 million pounds. There are two peaks of date consumption in Europe. One is during the month of Ramadan and the other is during New Year’s Eve and Christmas. Boycotting Israeli dates in Ramadan is a concerted community effort that can show we are not powerless. It would be brilliant to see all Israeli dates still left on shelves across the UK and Europe at the end of the blessed month. This would reflect our strength as a community to stand together with a very important message: We will not support the oppression of Palestinians and we will not be complicit in Israeli apartheid. So, this Ramadan #CheckTheLabel and boycott Israeli dates.

With Ramadan approaching, please consider sharing!

If you're in the UK, they also have leaflets available for order on their webpage. These tie into their upcoming campaign #CheckTheLabel, with a national day of action on the 16th of February.

Again, check their webpage for more info.

Hi so if anyone following me is from Hawai’i or even visiting there, if you see this bastard

Throw a milkshake or something at him for me. He is the Australian prime minister, and a terrible person.

For one, he is from the Liberal Party, which is Australia’s republican party.

For another thing he abandoned the Australian people to burn in bushfires so he could take a holiday. 

People have died, and he yet refuses foreign aid. The fires have burned the same amount of area as all of south eastern UK, or for the American people, from NYC too well beyond Philadelphia. 

We are dying, and he has abandoned us. Please throw something at him!

Credit: Ashley McMinn

hey so uh

Since the referendum in Russia has approved of Putin’s changes to Constituition, letting him stay in power until 2035, redefining marriage as “union of man and woman” and the government literally having talks about banning rainbow and comparing rainbow flags to nazi symbolism, it’s not been great for the LGBT+ community here.

In addition to that, we had the awful “Gay Propaganda” law since 2013 and the number of hate crimes towards LGBT+ Russians has increased greatly since then, and it’s likely to increase even more now.

So maybe consider donating to Russian LGBT Network to help us Russian gays out?

This Black History Month, reflect for a moment on the fact that George Washington Carver, famously "the inventor of peanut butter and more than 100 industrial uses for peanuts" wasn't, like, Doc Brown fucking around in his garage because he really liked peanuts but was specifically trying to introduce larger use of a nitrogen fixing legume into crop rotations against cotton monoculture which was destroying yields, livelihoods and the biosphere, and how most agribusiness farming now just destroys that topsoil on purpose and continues to grow a cotton monoculture (or soy or corn or whichever local monoculture is profitable) using petrochemical derived fertilizer, which is one element driving climate change

Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful heart surgery. He also founded the first nonsegregated hospital in America because he was keenly aware of disparate health outcomes by race which is still a problem today.

WEB Dubois was a part of the delegations for the birth of the UN. His proposal to include in the charter that "the colonial system of government … is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars" was not adapted for the final draft. We might see inaction against colonial violence to this day as part of the failure of others to heed his warnings there.

I feel like so often when we look at Black History Month so much of it is driven by factoids but when taken as history in context its about a direct line from decades and centuries to what is happening right now.

Redditors crashed the website with donations over $25k and 0 wishes left. via /r/MadeMeSmile

Click here and follow to get more daily positivity on your dash!

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

Have you been playing a lot of Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon lately? There's a new farming sim in the works, created by an Indonesian company with more diverse gameplay!

Create your farm, romance the villagers, dive to save coral reefs, catch bugs and fish to put in the museum, attend mini games and festivals, and MEET MERMAIDS.

Let's talk about Coral Island!

This Kickstarter has come a long way since it's launch, and as of Feb. 15 it's still got 15 days to reach it's higher goals.

Or, DO YOU WANT TO DATE A MERMAID?

There are three mythical figures in this game, one of them being mermaids. We've finally unlocked the village, but if we unlock the kingdom there are two romance mermaid options.

But if mermaids don't do it for you, the human options are just as sexy! (And yes, OF COURSE YOU CAN PICK ANY GENDER 🏳️‍🌈)

(and the normal townies aren't bad looking either 👀)

Coral island can be a solo or multiplayer experience, and is planned to launch on switch and other consoles not long after early access in Q4!

By backing you get the game key for only $20, which is low for the amount of gameplay Coral Island has to offer!

Yes, that's right! For the low amount of $20, you too can eventually date a mermaid! Consider pledging today!

Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.