Less for your dollar

these are hyraxes! they're not rodents or canines or anything like that. they belong to their very own order known as hyracoidea. their closest relatives are elephants and manatees, and these mamas and babies have FREAKY teeth

also important to note that the

and:

West Papua’s Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.

All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.

More than 90 West Papuan tribes, political organisations and religious groups have endorsed the call for a boycott, which they say should continue until the people of West Papua are given the right to self-determination.

Raki Ap, a spokesperson for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, which is overseeing the call, said: “These products are linked to human rights violations, in the first place, because West Papuans are being forced, with violence, to get off the land where they’ve lived for thousands of years, which has now resulted in ecocide.

“This is a signal to the countries who are dealing with Indonesia, especially those in the Pacific region, to take notice of who they’re dealing with and how they are basically allowing Indonesia to continue the colonial project in West Papua, the human rights violations, and also ecocide.”

West Papuans say more than 500,000 of their people have been killed by the occupation in the past six decades, while millions of acres of their ancestral lands have been destroyed for corporate profit. Indonesia, already the world’s largest palm oil exporter, is now breaking ground in West Papua on the world’s biggest single palm oil plantation, as well as a sugar cane and biofuel plantation that will be the largest deforestation project ever launched.

“West Papuans’, especially the ULMWP, position is very clear: we are a modern-day colony,” said Ap, speaking from the Netherlands.

“Indonesia hijacked the right to self-determination in 1962 when the Netherlands and Indonesia signed an agreement without any consultation in West Papua … After that, in 1969, there was a so-called referendum, which wasn’t fair, which wasn’t under international law, one man, one vote: just 1,025 men were handpicked at gunpoint to vote for integration to Indonesia.

obviously, palm oil is a huge and massive issue causing immense damage to rich flourishing ecosystems. the process of planting palm means removing basically everything that was there before it, most often with burning techniques. yes, as in burning entire swaths of jungle/forest and all of its inhabitants in order to have land for a shitty monoculture for capital gain that never ever benefits the indigenous communities. the palm oil industry is an example of why #landback matters for all indigenous people across the globe and a perfect example pf how capitalism and colonialism directly harms all life forms. humans, animals, and plants.

if you want to do your best to avoid palm oils and giving money to bastard companies, i heavily recommend the app named PalmOil Scan made by the WAZA (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums). it’s an app that helps you learn more about the palm oil prevalence in the foods you eat. take an evening with the app, and scan things in your pantry closet/food storage areas. it may be a sobering experience, but you will be much better informed in the end.

information on the PalmOil Scan app can be found here and is downloadable from the Apple store and Google Play store. i hope some of you find it to be useful and help you make more ethical shopping choices

i understand that every post about Israel or the IDF or hell, even the Middle East, at the end of the day, is a ruthless and unfair attack on you and your way of life. all of these people on the internet humanizing Arabs and Muslims and children and women and condemning them being raped and blown to pieces... they just keep focusing on the wrong things and it's probably extremely, extremely scary for you, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with you or Judaism whatsoever. or is it that you think that everything Israel does is truly in the name of Judaism? because i don't think that.

ultimately, there is only one thing to consider in this 75+ year occupation and extermination of an indigenous people: how any criticism might make you feel deep down inside. that is what we need to focus on and i can see now that i've made a grave mistake.

furthermore, i can't put myself in your shoes, so i can't imagine how it must feel to have to see someone suggest that the US media apparatus might be providing cover to a country that you've never been to, that you weren't born in, who desires to be an entirely pure religious fundamentalist ethnostate so badly that it's willing to slaughter, rape and desecrate the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and Arabs in order to achieve it's goals. all i can do is hope that you heal from this.

Israel has been blocking crucial aid (tents and mobile homes) from entering Gaza, knowing full well what the weather was going to be like and the obvious consequences. Similarly, the rise in the number of amputations of diabetic patients in Gaza precisely because they haven't had access to their treatments which Israel is blocking.

according to data aggregated from 2013 to the end of 2024, approximately 85% of transgender homicide victims in the usa are people of color - with a majority of victims being black transgender women.

also, if you're going to share pictures of sam, show what he actually looked like as himself - not the pretansition photo picked by basically every fucking news outlet. pre-transition and non-op/non-medically transitioning transgender people are obviously still trans, but that was not his current situation at all, and it's so profoundly disrespectful to latch onto an outdated photo to represent him. here's what he looked like in actual recent pics he chose to share on his own social media:

Reminder that porn will never stop being a thing. It just won't. If it's made illegal, then it will continue to be created and distributed - its just that it will now be done under the table, and with no safety regulations or protections for anyone.

Yes, the hard-right's ultimate plan is to use porn as a gateway from which to attack queer people, but even if that wasn't their plan, you should want to protect the legality of porn anyway.

Keeping porn legal means that the chances of sexual assault on those who work in the industry are reduced, and means that victims of assault are able to pursue legal action against their attackers. Keeping porn legal means that human trafficking is decreased, and it gives victims of human trafficking a legally supported escape route that would be lost if porn were made illegal.

Keeping porn legal means that anyone who is involved in making it - regardless of whether theyre making it simply because they want to, or because they're financially desperate -- is granted a measure of protection that they otherwise would not be. People love to raise the "but porn is made by desperate people who sell their body to survive," but a) some people make porn because they like it, and b) someone who is desperate enough to sell their body will do so regardless of whether it's legal or not. But when it's legal, that desperate person has far more protections and is less likely to be taken advantage of than when it's illegal.

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

if AI is going to be a trillion dollar investment, what trillion dollar problem is it solving?

what does it mean when people say that AI will "get better"? what does that look like and how would it even be achieved? the article makes a point to debunk talking points about how all tech is misunderstood at first by pointing out that the tech it gets compared to the most, the internet and smartphones, were both created over the course of decades with roadmaps and clear goals. AI does not have this.

the american power grid straight up cannot handle the load required to run AI because it has not been meaningfully developed in decades. how are they going to overcome this hurdle (they aren't)?

people who are losing their jobs to this tech aren't being "replaced". they're just getting a taste of how little their managers care about their craft and how little they think of their consumer base. ai is not capable of replacing humans and there's no indication they ever will because...