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Welp.

@class-cryptid

They/she | AroAce and After your kneecaps | Consistently Confused | Forest Creature with ADHD, Autism, and an Internet Connection |

*through gritted teeth* when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my character. when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my worth as a human being

"Put Baby in pelican mouth" has transformed my thinking in ways I haven't entirely discovered yet. The other day at the shop I heard "just give us your ID card at the till to get 15% off such-and-such products!" And my brain went "Big Chain Store perfec/t size for give all your personal data! Deals very cheap and fun your data safe give data to Big Chain Store. Give data to Big Chain Store. No problems ever with Big Chain Store because good size and safety for ID card weak of so much yummy personal data. Abig Chain Store yes a place for data give data to Big Chain Store can trust Big Chain Store for give data to all its friends. Friend Store"

mae "Rho Fabi yng ngheg pelican" wedi trawsffurfio fy meddwl mewn ffyrdd dydw i heb eu darganfod yn gyfan gwbl eto. Y diwrnod o'r blaen yn y siop glywais "jyst rhowch eich cerdyn ID i ni wrth y til i dderbyn 15% i ffwrdd o'r hyn a'r llall!" Ac aeth fy ymennydd "Siop Gadwyn Fawr yn faint perffait/h i roi dy holl ddata personol! Bargeinion rhad iawn a hwyl dy ddata yn ddiogel rho ddata i Siop Gadwyn Fawr. Rho ddata i Siop Gadwyn Fawr. Dim problemau byth gyda Siop Gadwyn Fawr oherwydd maint da a diogelwch ar gyfer cerdyn ID yn wan o gymaint o ddata personol blasus. Siop Gadwyn Fawr ydy lle ar gyfer data rho ddata i Siop Gadwyn Fawr gallwch ymddiried yn Siop Gadwyn Fawr i roi data i'w ffrindiau i gyd. Siop Ffrindiau"

You don’t say.

For the record, she actually abandoned the movement BEFORE they all got whooping cough, but abandoned it too late. There’d been a breakout of measles in her area that caused her to reassess, and she and her doctor had already drafted and started a catch-up vaccination schedule, but her kids caught whooping cough just before it could be started. Then she wrote a blog post for The Scientific Parent explaining how she and her husband had come to wrong decisions in the first place, how they changed their mind, the consequences they suffered as a result, and asking other parents to please vaccinate their kids. And now she’s an activist for destroying the misinformation of anti-vaxxers, and reaching out to anti-vaxxers because she’s understands their fears but knows their kids deserve better. 

She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.

Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest.  Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear.  I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”

She understood the consequences and still put herself and her story out there. 

You know what, it does take a big person to admit they were wrong so publicly and work to undo the harm. I believe I made fun of her in the past, but timemachineyeah changed my mind.

“I never thought leopards would eat MY face, until I realized they totally would, and they will eat your face, too!” warns defector from the leopards-eating-faces party

The #1 trait of anti-vaxxers is not “they’re stupid” or “they fell for propaganda” but “they don’t know who’s safe to trust.”

The movement is pushed by women, especially suburban moms, because they know damn well you cannot trust doctors. You cannot trust the medical industry, the billion-dollar corporate zone of “you should lose some weight and maybe the pain will stop.” Cannot trust the ones who keep changing diet advice - is it no sugar? No carbs? No fats? Is it dangerous to let kids eat things in wild colors? Food pyramid: good or bad? They cannot trust the BMI chart that says they should lose 75 lbs to be “healthy.” (Whether or not they “should” lose 75 lbs, they know damn well that “healthy” does not describe any part of the journey to getting there.) Cannot trust the ones who keep giving them incomplete and sometimes incorrect information about contraception. The ones who said “that’s false labor; you have two weeks more” 12 hours before they gave birth. And so on.

So they have their kids, and they want so much for their kids to be safe, and the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

So they ask: What about if there’s complications? An allergic reaction? Side effects?

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

This is… not reassuring.

And they ask, My sister-in-law’s cousin had a really bad reaction to the MMR shot and I want to know how I can tell it’s safe for my kids.

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

Throw in the right-wing/libertarian faction yelling YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO and the insurance companies saying “hey um you need a specific type of coverage for that; we probably cover those vaccinations but you’ll need this special paperwork to be sure” - and then you have the actual anti-vax propagandists yelling some combination of cherry-picked statistics and outright lies, and you get a whole lot of moms willing to say BUGGRE ALL THIS FOR A LARKE.

There is no amount of facts that can fix this. They’re swamped with facts from 300 directions. What they need to fix this is empathy and the kind of connections that lead to trust.

They need to trust that, even as the medical industry dismisses a whole lot of womens’ concerns, in this particular area, they’re right.

Add in the consequences of having a significant portion of your social support network tied up in a particular worldview, leaving it, much less openly condemning it, is really hard and means losing your community support. In a world where the system can’t be trusted to pick up that slack, Moms can’t afford to risk the change - until the cost of staying clearly outweighs the coat of pushing back, not just in general, but for their kids.

Kindness doesn’t just matter because it’s more ethical - it'salso a more effective strategy.

Don’t normally do this but

Kindness doesn’t just matter because it’s more ethical - it'salso a more effective strategy.

Get this into your fucking heads. Kindness and compassion and one might even say “love,” are strategies, not just vague fluffy inoffensive emotions. Cruelty will never save us.

Gods damn I wish there was an option so’s you could see the latest addition to a post when it swims across your dash instead of the first.

KINDNESS IS A MORE EFFECTIVE STRATEGY. CRUELTY WILL NEVER SAVE US.

We do not do elf of the shelf but our house does have borrowers. Penny knows that if she leaves a mess out at night the borrowers will take that as a sign that they can have it and take it into the walls to build their homes

This teaches her to out her stuff away at the end of the night or I chuck it out and also sometimes she wakes up and yells "HEY ELEVES I LEFT YOU SOME STUFF!" And it is hilarious

Penny: THE ELVES HAVE ONIONTIZED

My mom on FaceTime: ???

Me: I had to explain to Penny how the borrowers are part of the elf union and so they go to North Pole the last 3 weeks of the year so no one ever has to work too much over time and that's why they haven't taken mommy's wrapping paper or scissors or anything else I've left out... shes trying to explain the elf union to you.

Penny: THEY GET PAID EXTRA CAUSE OF THE ONION

I'm in tears 🤣🤣🤣

it's so funny how whenever phoenix says something that doesn't make sense and the prosecution says hey that doesn't make sense he goes MEAN TO MEEEEE 🥺🥺😖😖😫

Hey the US government is proposing to get rid of the Endangered Species Act. Please go comment.

(yes this entirely for corporate profit)

Cut and paste the docket number to put in your response if you remember. You can comment anonymously if you want.

The Oregon Zoo has some sample arguments you can make.

We have until December 22nd!

I don't usually add on to stuff like this, but this is really really important to me.

Since OP didn't explain what's actually changing (lots of things) here's a simple explanation of one of the Big Ones.

One of the biggest changes is a proposal to remove the ESA’s Threatened Species Blanket Rule (FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0029). The Blanket Rule is extremely important because it automatically extends the same protections given to endangered species to all newly listed threatened species, quickly providing prohibitions on harming, killing or trading the species. If the Blanket Rule is rescinded, species-specific rules would have to be enacted, imposing additional procedural delays and uncertainty at the most critical time for the species' survival. And with more and more species in danger each year, that’s a risk that we as a country cannot afford to take. 

Also, @why-animals-do-the-thing / @animalphotorefs this seems like something that your reach might help with, and that's relevant to your blog(s).

If you run into issues, try turning off your VPN if you have one, in case it's getting annoyed that you're not "in the U.S.".

If you need a template, I'm putting one I got sent at work under the cut. (But check out the Oregon Zoo link, too! Or better yet, write your own! Unique and individual comments catch more attention than copy-pasted ones!)

Thanks for the tag, I definitely want to jump in here because the most helpful thing any individual can do is write your own comment.

I’m going to give you a little bit of information about the process that’s happening here, why it’s happening, and how you can best contribute to protecting the Endangered Species Act. You can skip it by scrolling to the red text, but you’ll be best set up to comment and help if you know some things about what’s happening first, so please stick with me. I promise to be as simple and jargon free as possible.

First, and to catch people's attention as they scroll, here's two red wolf sisters: a species the ESA actively preserving. This is who we're doing this for.

To clarify one thing: they’re not trying to totally repeal the ESA, the entire law, they’re looking to roll back regulations implementing it/enforcing it to what was being used in 2019. This is still bad! Very bad! But a thing that’s important when dealing with legislation/regulation is precision in the language we use.

Okay, so here’s what you need to know. This is part of what is known as the “notice-and-comment” rule making process, which is federally mandated. This happens with the implementation of regulations to enact new laws, or changes to the interpretation of laws. Laws like the ESA, once passed, are delegated to various federal agencies and departments to enact and make happen, and they do that by deciding what regulations need to exist to fulfill the text and intent of the law. This change to the ESA is happening because one of the earliest executive orders from this administration “directed all departments and agencies to immediately review agency actions to identify those actions that potentially impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources, and, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, consider suspending, revising, or rescinding agency actions identified as unduly burdensome that conflict with this national objective.” So, as @sweetfirebird said, literally go figure out what laws and regs and protections they can interpret differently, put on hold, or trash for the energy sector. Fucking gross.

This “notice-and-comment” process is the process with which all these federal agencies go about exploring changing regulations. It’s a formal process that is specifically designed to allow stakeholders to have input on what happens. Good news: in the ESA, the public is literally a stakeholder! It’s written into the law that any “person” (basically an individual or a group of individuals) can sue the government for a violation of the law. This is actually historically the prime enforcement mechanism of the ESA. Which means you, as an American on tumblr reading this, have absolutely valid standing to go tell the feds to knock this shit off. And with the way the “notice-and-comment” process works, they actually have to take your argument into account. (Yes, even though we know this admin is a piece of shit and dgaf). Here’s why.

A “notice and comment” process has four major steps.

  1. Agency issues a notice of proposed rulemaking. That’s what you’re looking at in the first link @sweetbirdfire shared. They have to describe what the rule they want to make/change is and explain the legal authority for the rule.
  2. The public must be given an opportunity to participate in a written comment period. That’s what you’re being asked to do - submit a comment before the comment period is over on the 22nd.
  3. The agency must “consider all relevant, timely-submitted comments. If it decides to issue a final rule, the agency develops the regulatory text along with a preamble explaining the rule’s basis and responding to all significant issues raised in the comments.”
  4. Final rule is published.

Okay, so why did I jump to a direct quote from federal documents in the third bullet point? Because that’s the really important shit. When federal agencies move forward with rulemaking after a public comment period, they are required to consider and response to all significant issues raised. And that is why you should write your own comment if you can.

It’s really common for organizations encouraging people to leave public comment to ask people to send in form letters. It’s easy, it takes no time or real work, it shows a lot of general public support on the issue, and they can quote the comment numbers when they’re lobbying.

But! What I’ve been told by serious professional people who work with regulatory agencies is that all those form letters only have the functional weight of a single comment during the “notice-and-comment” process. If 100 people only bring up the same significant set of issues, that requires far less time and work for the agency to respond to than even 20 people writing in with their individual concerns. I’ve seen follow-ups on comment periods where they actually count how many people raised issues on a single topic or concern - but the form letters only counted as one “comment” because they were the exact same thing.

And while the political agency head probably wants to fast-track this process of changing the regs to let the feds tear up whatever the fuck they want, a “notice-and-comment period” is a really good way to gum up those gears. There are still people in lower-level positions who do this daily work and I expect that they’re opposed to this and will go through the whole process like they’re been trained to. Under normal administrations, an overwhelming number of concerns raised during comment periods have stalled the creation/change of specific regulations for a decade. This is a process that works best when as many people as possible participate, and it’s detrimental to our interests as invested members of the public that that isn’t more widely known or the process understood.

So! What does that mean you should do here?

Write your own comment if you have the time/spoons.

Literally, write it in your own words, rather than using the form letters provided. If you make it a “different comment” it has to be considered separately and your concerns on the topic will be given more weight. Even if you just stick to the topics the Oregon Zoo offered: to be clear, they’re really good ones.

But, you’ll have even more impact if you can tie it to specific concerns for you. It takes a little more work so I don’t expect everyone to do this, but if you have some specialized or local knowledge that can be relevant, this is a great time to drop that in. Tie the concern to endangered or threatened species in your specific community, or an ecosystem that you know companies might want to pillage.

Your comment doesn’t have to be super well written or perfectly edited. It can be in language about as casual as you’d use in a tumblr post (with punctuation, though). This isn’t something you’re turning in for a grade - it’s raising your hand to say hey, I object! You’re not a major advocacy group or professional org, you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to tell them how you feel. That being said. Public comments are public record. You can submit them anonymously but don’t include identifying information.

Here’s a link directly to the comment portal. While the site has a text box embedded in the page, you can also submit a document/file containing your comment.

Comments close at 11:59 PM EST (4:59 GMT) on December 22nd. We have less than five days to get more comments in. I’m really not kidding when I say every unique, individual comment makes an impact. Let’s do this.

Images from @animalphotorefs

this isn’t what i normally post here but firefox just switched ceos and this “anthony” dumbass is trying to put more “ai” slopware into it, meaning more bloat and privacy loss

if you use this browser you should go to their support forums and complain about it

irritatingly, the list of AI settings in Firefox has grown. to kill them all as of today (Nov 20, 2025), go into about:config and set all of these to false (yes, you’ll have to copy and paste them one by one):

  • browser.ml.enable
  • browser.ml.chat.enabled
  • browser.ml.chat.menu
  • browser.ml.chat.page
  • browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge
  • browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge
  • browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled
  • browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled
  • browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled
  • browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled
  • extensions.ml.enabled
  • browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate

in addition to nuking AI, it’ll also speed up your browsing

Unfortunately, my wife is dying before my eyes. With a broken heart, I tell you that her blood has become extremely weak, she suffers from severe vitamin deficiencies, and painful spots have started to appear on her body because of exhaustion and extreme weakness.

We cannot afford the medicine, and her condition is getting worse day by day.

If you are scrolling, please donate and share don’t leave us alone.

Please don’t let my wife suffer. Every share or support—even a small one—can make a big difference for her. Your donation now can truly save her Please don’t ignore us

Please we beg you — don’t ignore us. We truly need your support. Share the post and donate now… your help can save a life

Please help us Please Help my wife

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