its probably just a critters burrow.

the reason theres suction is because wind is blowing accross the other entrances and drawing air through. this how animal burrows avoid becoming co2 death traps while keeping cool. you still shouldn’t mess with it because like, thats a wild animals home and you dont know whats in it or how territorial it might be but the ground isnt going to eat you like an 80s Saturday morning cartoon. even if the burrow does cave in under you, they dont tend to be large enough for one collapsed tunnel to do more than mildly inconvenience your average adult.

anyways heres a fun diagram i found that explains this using prairie dog burrows as an example:

The Molding City

Earlier this year I received a letter of notice from a debt collector stating that they had acquired a debt supposedly belonging to me and that, per law, I have 30 days to dispute the debt. I immediately drafted a letter and sent it to both disputing the debt and request validation of the debt as well as possible settlement arrangements had they actually been able to validate said debt

I sent this letter via certified mail. Always certified mail.

About a week after the 30 day period for them to respond expired, I received a Phone call very specifically crafted in a way to invoke urgency and panic and suggest legal action. So, naturally, I called this number only to discover this was a different company that had only just recently acquired said supposed debt. I reiterated to them that I was disputing this debt and required validation in writing.

The initial conversation went smoothly, they then called me back the next day and became aggressive. They accused me of lying and did everything under the sun to try and trick me into validating this debt as mine so that they would not have to legally send me that validation. I, knowing my rights, insisted that I was disputing the debt and that they were required to send me validation despite them claiming that they were not and that they already had and many other number of lies. I refused to continue the conversation until someone had sent me validation to which they continually responded that they would be forwarding this to their legal department and blah blah blah blah blah.

Surprise surprise, I get a phone call today from yet another company, this one claiming to be in the process of forwarding my account to the county clerks office. That was an immediate red flag as the county clerk does not handle debt disputes. They would have to hire a lawyer in my state to handle this case. I asked what company this was as they had not stated initially, and when they told me I realized this was now another company who had purchased said alleged debt and we’re trying to collect on it. this one outright illegally threatening to take me to court knowing they weren’t.

Beyond that, he tried to lie to me and tell me that a debt validation was not what I thought it was and that a validation was actually just a notice that they had purchased a debt so when I received a letter stating that they had purchased this debt that would be a validation.

That is not true! Debt companies are legally required to send you notice of an allegedly acquired debt in writing and you have 30 days to dispute and request that validation. The company then has 30 days themselves to respond and validate your debt or the debt is forfeit. This man tried to lie to me and tell me that a notice was the same thing as a dead validation in order to trick me into paying a debt that he cannot validate that I am actively disputing.

This is now the fourth company that has attempted to collect on a debt they cannot validate. They know they cannot validate this debt and instead have relied on trying to trick me into paying it. These tactics would absolutely work if I did not have a sales background and or know my rights.

And this ladies and gentlemen is why you always always always dispute a debt. The last debt I disputed was immediately pulled from collections and that allowed me to get back in contact with the original creditor and work out a payment plan so that it would never hit my credit and keep my account with them current. This debt is invalid and therefore they cannot hit my credit with it nor can I collect on it or I will sue them.

First, you need to understand that the rule that jurors can’t just google things is coming from a good place. Like imagine that you are on a jury that’s considering, say, a medical malpractice lawsuit and one of your fellow jurors comes into the jury room and says to you, “I think the victim’s expert was lying because WebMD totally contradicts everything they said.”

And you might be like, “But WebMD is notoriously unreliable website and the expert you’re talking about is a researcher from Mayo Clinic.” But this person cannot be swayed.

Like, we can all agree that would be bad.

So even though these rules can contribute to unjust outcomes as in the case above (and seriously, the fact that the defense attorney didn’t fact check that is probably grounds for legal malpractice), they also prevent jurors from just looking up bullshit online and taking it more seriously than the actual experts the court has put on. And I think in the era of anti-vaxxers/QAnon/COVID denial/etc., we can all understand why it’s a bad idea to trust that people can tell fact from bullshit online.

So in light of this, how do you as a juror fact check something?

The key here is that you have to ask the court for information. Jurors can ask questions of the court during deliberations, so if something you said sounds off to you, you can ask for more information.

The key term you want to use here is “credibility.”

The job of a jury is to decide what are called “questions of fact.” Long before the trial even starts, lawyers will have hashed out all the “questions of law” --- like, what the statute of limitations is; what laws, exactly, were allegedly broken; whether the court you’re in even has jurisdiction; stuff like that. Jurors are responsible for deciding which side’s version of the facts has more credibility.

For instance, if the prosecution’s witness says X and the defense’s witness says Y, the jury is responsible for deciding which is true, X or Y. And you do this by weighing which one is more credible.

So in this case, if the juror had known to, he could have told the judge, “In order to properly assess the ICE agent’s credibility, I need more information about his tattoo. I have doubts about whether he was telling the truth about it, which would impact how credible I would find his testimony. Can the agent please provide evidence that it really is what he says it is?”