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.

Jim Saksa at Democracy Docket:

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) confirmed it is following a pair of court orders blocking it from implementing President Donald Trump’s anti-mail voting executive order.  “The Postal Service is abiding by these injunctions, which are also currently under appeal,” Postmaster General David Steiner and Amber McReynolds, chairwoman of the USPS board of governors, wrote Monday in a letter to Senate Democrats obtained by Democracy Docket. The USPS leaders were responding to concerns Democratic senators raised in a letter after Trump issued his executive order in March. That order directed the Postal Service to only deliver mail ballots if states handed over a list of preapproved voters. The senators later reiterated their concerns after USPS published a proposed rule to execute the order in June.  Trump’s directive also mandated USPS to develop secure ballot envelopes with unique barcodes for tracking and utilize them ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. USPS’s letter contends that, even though the agency proposed the rule in response to the executive order, the changes themselves would be “consistent with the Postal Service’s existing — and longstanding — recommended best practices.” 

Excerpt from this story from High Country News:

After more than half a century of federal protections, the Trump Administration on Tuesday announced a proposal to return management of grizzly bears in the Lower 48 to the states. 

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, flanked by governors Greg Gianforte of Montana, Mark Gordon of Wyoming, and Brad Little of Idaho, heralded the new rule at a press conference in the heart of grizzly country north of Yellowstone National Park. 

“The grizzly bear recovery story is one of America’s greatest conservation successes,” Gianforte said from a makeshift stage just south of Big Sky, Montana. He cited a downside of the bears’ 50-year recovery and pointed to increasing bear-human conflicts in front yards, playgrounds and ranch pastures. “Montana is ready to have full authority to manage grizzly bears,” he said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1975 listed grizzlies as “threatened” in the Lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act. At the time, fewer than 600 members of the species existed south of the Canadian border. Today, two major populations thrive in and around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks, each with approximately 1,000 bears — along with a smattering of smaller ecosystems that could support grizzlies with far fewer resident bruins.

The federal government has twice attempted to remove Endangered Species Act protections for grizzlies, specifically in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The move to delist bears would mean returning management to the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Both efforts, in 2007 and 2017, respectively, were overturned in court. Yet states kept petitioning to remove federal protections. In January 2025, during the final hours of the Biden administration, FWS denied those petitions and released a new rule perpetuating the bears’ protected status.

The rule announced today took a different approach, amending the Biden administration’s 2025 edict: Instead of delisting grizzlies, the bears will stay on the endangered species list. But under a new revision of section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act, the federal government will concede grizzly management to the states. 

“I think of this as a dress rehearsal for delisting,” said Christy Clark, director of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, after the meeting concluded.

For decades, concerns over delisting have centered around a grizzly hunt that could come with state management. However, Montana has a five-year moratorium on pursuing the animals post-delisting and Gianforte said the new rule would not permit a hunt in Montana.  

The text of the new 4(d) rule is yet to be published, but all three speakers and Secretary Burgum stressed that the new rule would grant states more flexibility to manage grizzlies on the ground as the states transition from an era of grizzly recovery to stewardship of the species.

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Brian Steinberg at Variety:

The Federal Communications Commission signaled it will vote on Aug. 6 to repeal the longstanding cap on ownership of TV stations, replacing a limit that keeps owners from controlling stations in more than 39% of markets with a case-by-case review of transactions that might come before regulators. “Today, national programmers can distribute their programming to 100 percent of the country — either through their own streaming services or through deals they cut with nationwide ‘virtual cable companies,’ like YouTube TV. The cap no longer constrains their control over distribution in this respect,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote in an op-ed published by Brietbart. “Nor does the cap limit other players in today’s media market. Cable channels like MS NOW can reach 100 percent of the country. Social media sites from Bluesky to X can reach 100 percent of the country. Netflix can reach 100 percent too. Same with podcasts and all other forms of digital content.” A decision by the FCC to eliminate the cap might have immediate consequences. Nexstar, one of the largest owners of TV stations in the U.S., has been barred by a federal court from completing its recent acquisition of Tegna, a smaller TV station owner, on the grounds that the transaction would give Nexstar too much control over local TV properties across the country. Nexstar also owns national outlets like the CW broadcast network and the NewsNation cable-news outlet.

More insanity from FCC Chair Brendan Carr.