Strange Women Lying in Ponds

As July gets started people on tumblr will invariably turn their mind to International Bog Day, and I want to get ahead of it and propose something.

Bog Day falls on the 4th Sunday in July, the 22nd the year the screenshot was taken but this year the 26th.

Given that this always takes off with the assumption that its the 22nd, I think we should split the holiday into two forms: observed and official

Observed will take place on the 22nd as usual, and we can celebrate it here with memes, shitpostery and bog awareness.

Offiical is for action and celebration away from tumblr. Make something with dolphin-safe cranberries! Find out about wetlands in your area! Visit them if open to the public! Sign up to volunteer with orgs that protect them! Donate to nonprofits looking to preserve them! They’re very vulnerable habits - ever more so in the U.S. after the devastating Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency decision from the supreme court in 2023, which limits the Clean Water Act and took protection away from the majority of the nation’s wetlands. The Audubon Society is one of the orgs working to look after them in the face of that, and Wetlands International has a fund you can donate to help monitor the areas used by migratory waterbirds, but I encourage you to do your own research and find ones that speak to you. It’s worth it - they are so important to natural world and the one built by humans alike.

Rocks at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île, Claude Monet, 1886, Art Institute of Chicago: European Painting and Sculpture

Belle-Ile, a small island off the southern shore of Brittany, was known for its dramatic cliffs, rock formations, and grottoes. As he often did, Claude Monet misjudged the time he would need to explore and capture the beauty of the place, which he variously called “lugubrious,” “terrifying,” and “very beautiful.” He came for two weeks and stayed for more than two months. This canvas is one of a group depicting the frieze of rock formations known as Port-Goulphar. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey B. Borland Size: 66 × 81.8 cm (26 × 32 3/16 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

The Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in 2022, was the first and largest climate bill in the history of the United States. It was also the cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda. The bill offered billions of dollars in tax credits for companies that built solar and wind farms or electric vehicle battery factories, and to consumers who purchased electric cars and heat pumps. These incentives led developers to build enough solar and wind to power millions of homes and spurred the construction of hundreds of new factories, helping trigger a surge of new American manufacturing investment for the first time in decades.

The law lasted less than three years. Last July, President Donald Trump signed what he called the “Big Beautiful Bill,” a sweeping tax reform that repealed almost all the main subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. Even though around two dozen Republicans in Congress said they wanted to preserve clean energy incentives, almost all of them voted to pass the law. In signing the bill, Trump said it would end what he called the “Green New Scam.” 

A year after the repeal, the outlook for the climate is mixed. Most significantly, the IRA’s path toward sharply lowering emissions has been derailed. The IRA would have led the U.S. to cut its carbon emissions 50 percent from peak levels by 2035, but that goal is now out of reach. A series of studies have found that the repeal puts the U.S. back on track for the 30 percent reduction it was on track to achieve even before the IRA, and that emissions will likely remain more or less flat through the end of the decade. The repeal has also succeeded in slowing the clean energy buildout. Manufacturers and energy developers have scrapped dozens of solar farms and battery plants.

But the transition has not come to a complete halt. Most solar and wind projects that relied on Biden-era tax credits are still moving forward because they can make a profit even without subsidies. The electricity sector in particular is edging away from fossil fuels as renewables offer a cheap and fast alternative in many parts of the country. And some nixed projects may make a comeback despite Trump’s efforts to kill them.

Even now, a year after the repeal, its full effects are difficult to measure. It’s also hard to separate the effect of the IRA repeal from the Trump administration’s other policies. The president has canceled federal grants for clean energy projects, blocked the development of offshore wind, used executive authority to prevent the retirement of coal plants, and repealed dozens of agency rules that were meant to crack down on emissions. It’s unclear how many of these efforts will survive in court or how long they will last, which also makes it difficult to know how damaging the loss of tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles might be. That’s all without factoring in the AI boom, which has triggered more development of renewable energy and fossil fuels.

Sunbittern (Eurypyga helias), family Eurypygidae, order Eurypygiformes, Costa Rica

This bird is the only member of its family.

Its closest living relative is the Kagu of New Caldeonia.

She’s finally getting her money from that fucking scumbag!!!!

What Survival Left Behind, art exhibition for young Palestinians at al-Bareij refugee camp in Gaza city Middle East, Palestine; May 2026

Horse-head-shaped Bronze Chariot Ornament Inlaid with Gold and Silver, Warring States Period (403-221 BC), Wei State. H. 8.8 cm, L. 13.7 cm, Dia. of neck 4.8 cm. Unearthed at Huixian, Henan Province, 1951

Lynn Seymour as Ophelia and Rudolf Nureyev as Hamlet in rehearsal for Robert Helpmann's Hamlet.

London, Royal Opera House, 1964.