My Nest of Weird™

It was only legalized in 8 US states (the 8th only a few months before), and wouldn’t be legalized nation-wide until 2015.

It was only legal in TEN COUNTRIES in 2011. We wouldn’t hit 20 countries until 2017. (Australia was 23rd)

As of today (April 14, 2026), I believe only 38 countries have fully legalized same-sex marriage. Out of somewhere around 200 countries in the world. That’s only ~19% of countries.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

please rb for larger sample size!

Question 1/3

Thank you for helping with this data collection. Please rb for as big a sample as possible!

Museums and Galleries are celebrations of the natural world and of culture and history and innovation. And you want to take that away from experts who have studied and explored and absorbed and enthused about it with knowledge and care, and hand it over to a soulless machine that uses pattern recognition and data aggregation without truly understanding what it’s looking at.

The reason that this comparison is inaccurate is because humans have the ability to use reason and make logical choices, but cats don’t. Humans see a car coming and wait until the street is clear to cross. Cats don’t. Humans know not to eat strange food on the ground. Cats don’t. Humans can look up which plants are toxic and avoid them. Cats can’t. Humans don’t eat raw rabbits and rodents that may carry disease. Cats do. Humans who hunt follow laws that prevent them from killing endangered species (besides shitty poachers). Cats don’t.

A far more accurate comparison would be a cat and a toddler. They lack the ability to recognize danger and don’t have the ability to reason that an adult does. I’m sure a toddler would have a great time roaming around the neighborhood, but no one is going to argue in favor of that. People can understand that doing that is irresponsible and dangerous. But no sane person is going to lock their toddler inside and provide them with nothing to do; no one is saying we should do that for cats either. Play with them. Provide cat trees. Rotate their toys. Give them puzzle feeders. And if you want them to go outside you can leash train them. Or build a catio. The options aren’t let them roam vs. never provide them with entertainment. If it is unbearable to entertain and care for a cat that is kept indoors, you probably shouldn’t own a cat.

Would you let your dog roam? Or your bird? How about your rabbit? I’m sure all of these animals would have a great time running (or flying) around the neighborhood, but we generally recognize that this is a bad idea. It’s no different for cats. We are caretakers for our animals, so it is up to us to use our big brains to make logical choices about what they should or shouldn’t do. We have the ability to understand the risks associated with free roaming. Cats don’t. We can weigh risks and benefits before making a decision. Cats can’t.

Just the other day, I stopped two middle school aged girls who were walking away carrying one of the two remaining cats. They’d picked her up off my neighbor’s porch and tried to lie to me that she was their cat.

Also PLS realize that the key difference between Europe and America/Australia is that in Europe homes are typically closer together, streets are smaller and with far fewer cars that drive far more slowly, and native flora and fauna has been changing for millennia thanks to human society so having cats chill around is not going to do anything for or against conservation efforts.

That’s quite probably why Europeans let their cats out unless there is a good reason why they shouldn’t.

And yes, considering cats can’t be taken for walks as such, I would consider it extremely cruel to leave a cat, a wild animal with predatorial instincts, imprisoned inside a house without any access to nature. Even if letting them out puts them at greater risk.

Toddlers are also far safer indoors and yet somehow we take them to the park and let them learn to climb trees and ride bikes and swim and do sport and go to school where they could get all kinds of diseases or bullied or whatever. Because leaving them trapped in one building their whole lives to “keep them safe” is considered cruel to the point of being abusive. But I guess when it comes to a pet, an ANIMAL that by nature lives outside completely by itself, then that risk is not worth taking and we should just pat ourselves in the back as great owners for treating our cats like toys or prisoners?

Some asshat on tumblr:

Like did you bother to read any of that or did you just see that there were scientifically backed reasons why you’re an irresponsible cat owner and immediately go on the defensive? So I guess you think it’s cool for toddlers to walk around the neighborhood unsupervised then? Because keeping them indoors is so cruel and clearly the only options are free roaming without supervision or locking them away forever. Also cats can’t be taken for walks??

I live in England

I worked at an emergency vets where we constantly had to deal with dead and dying cats due to the multitude of outdoor dangers

I completed a masters in Animal Welfare and Conservation (2:1 if you’re wondering)

My final dissertation was focused on welfare issues with indoor/outdoor cats - I came to the same conclusion as @vet-and-wild based on scientific fact (not anecdotal evidence)

Our neighborhood is near a field that happens to be home to at least one coyote. I have seen that coyote wander down the road and people have even spotted it in fenced backyards before. I'm sure one reason it dares to wander into backyards is because it knows there are cats wandering freely around here.

The red tailed hawks in the area may not be large enough to carry off most full grown cats, but that doesn't mean they won't try.

Raccoons aren't exactly nice to cats either.

And i can easily point out several houses, including my own, with flowering plants out front that could absolutely make a cat sick or worse. Lilies, for example.

Even before tackling the problems of cars, malicious people, poison from pest control, or the ecological damage cats themselves cause, just the fact that other people will decorate their own yards with plants that can poison a cat should be enough of a reason to keep them inside!

Alpha News, our local fascist outlet that "leaked" Jonathan Ross's video of him murdering Renee Good, which also pushed George Floyd conspiracy theories, with an anchor married to loathsome fascist police union boss Bob Kroll (Liz Collin), has set up another doxx line, this time for ICE observers.

WE NEED THEM TO BE OVERWHELMED WITH USELESS INFORMATION.

Please help us! We are under occupation!

Their post about it:

This is something you can do 100% remotely that is VERY HELPFUL to stop observers from being intimidated out of doing this vital work. It is not an exaggeration to say spamming this line will save lives: the more observers we have, the fewer people ICE can abduct, abuse, murder, and send to concentration camps.

A lot has changed these past 15 years but it’s delightful to see this little cat continuing to zip past every corner of the internet. Happy 15th birthday to Nyan Cat!