i'm doomed, you're safe

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

some quick fun facts for you!

whales originally evolved from a kind of wolf with hooves called Pakicetus

their closest living relatives are even-toed ungulates such as hippos (unsurprising) and cows (very surprising)

baleen whales (the ones with giant hairbrush mouths) are called 'mysticeti' which translates to 'moustache whales'

the latin name for the blue whale, the largest creature to have ever lived on earth, bigger than all dinosaurs, is 'balaenoptera musculus' which translates literally to 'little mouse whale'

Southern right whales are so friendly they are surprisingly dangerous to dive with. They can't properly hug so they say hi by gently swimming by and rubbing their side against the side of their new friend. Unfortunately they are the size of a truck and 'gentle' for them is 'equivalent to being kicked by a horse' for you

the humpback whale has the longest limb on earth - its pectoral flippers can be 5 metres (16 feet) in length. The edges of these flippers are covered in sharp barnacles, essentially giving them knives for arms. You sometimes see predatory ocean-going dolphins (orca, false killer whales, pilot whales) with scars as a result of getting slashed by a humpback

humpback whales don't just use their knife-arms to defend themselves! They've been observed protecting other whale species, seals, and even people!

sperm whales are the largest toothed predators on the planet however they do not use their teeth to eat - they feed on squid by suction! the teeth are for mating rights duels and it's relatively common to see male sperm whales with broken or deformed lower jaws

whales still have hip bones! they are tiny and undeveloped and not connected to the rest of the skeleton

the bowhead whale lives in and around the arctic. its blubber (insulating fat in place of fur) can be 50cms thick and it has a special organ in its mouth to prevent this insanely thick blubber from causing it hypothermia! the organ is very sensitive to temperature, so when it opens its mouth to feed the cold arctic water flows over the organ and allows cooled-down blood to travel around the whale's body

sperm whales can control their buoyancy! they have this big ol' contraption in their huge heads called the spermaceti organ (it's white and liquid. early whalers thought it was a weird giant head testicle. this is where the name comes from) that is a very flammable wax, and blood washing over it makes it liquid while restricting blood turns it solid! this is what allows them to dive to depths of nearly two kilometres. they can hold their breath for an hour and a half

they are very cool and weird and I love them ever so much but sadly most whale species are endangered :( many of them were hunted to near-extinction for their oil, and as they reproduce similarly to humans (long pregnancies producing one baby every two-to-ten years) their population recovery rate is very slow :(

many die from getting tangled in fishing equipment, many more from ship strikes, some are starving because they're accidentally eating plastic waste that's wound up in the ocean, and most recently, human presence in the oceans is causing all sorts of noise that confuses, distresses, and even deafens them! some deep-diving whales have been found dead from the Bends, the same condition we see in human divers who surface too quickly without adjusting to the water pressure. It's painful and scary :(

you can help! buy certified dolphin-safe fish, dispose of your rubbish safely, and check out your local conservation societies! a lot of them are working to trace whale migration routes so we can reroute our shipping away from them, and others are protesting against Navy SONAR tests in the ocean

Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.

The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.

In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.

Why might someone from a group of people that historically have been denied access to wealth, now brag that they have it?

“Rappers only talk about sex!”

Why might someone from a group that have historically been denied sexual autonomy now brag about their sexual escapades on their own terms?

“Rappers only talk about drugs and crime!”

LETS PLAY A GAME. It’s called: Who directed it TIM BURTON or HENRY SELICK

We’ll start with the 2009 Laika film Coraline based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Do you know who directed it? Burton or Selick?

Did you guess yet?

If you guessed Henry Selick, you would be correct. Tim Burton actually had absolutely nothing to do with Coraline at all in anyway ever. Reminder: Tim Burton has NOTHING to do with Coraline. At all. But that was an easy one. Let’s go to the Walt Disney Pictures adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel, James and the Giant Peach next.

Think you got it? Are you sure? Better double check…

Oh, look. It’s Henry Selick again! Tim Burton actually interacted with this project, though only as a producer. Bet that was tricky… Next one! Let’s go to the Disney/Touchstone Pictures film Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Have you guessed it correctly? Have you really?

Yep that’s right. Even Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas was directed by Henry Selick. Though Burton wrote the poem and created the characters in which Nightmare was based he didn’t have much interaction with the project beyond that. At the time he had already signed off to direct the film Batman Returns and did not want to be involved with the “painstakingly slow process of stop-motion animation.”