Vet clinics often have litters of kittens to raise. Either they’re too young for a shelter, too sickly, or the clinic intends to adopt them out when they’re big enough. Whatever the reason, nurses often end up raising kittens and giving them ‘temporary’ names.
The intention of these temporary names is that if you give the kitten a stupid name, you have something to call it other than ‘the middle black male’, but because it’s a stupid name you wont get emotionally attached and end up keeping it. Again.
Which is how some nurses end up with cats that have names like ‘Flea bus’ and ‘Trash bag’.
“You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for.”
—
Barack Obama, 7 September 2018
Better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the white house. Better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country. Not perfect, better. The civil rights act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people. Do not let people tell you the fight’s not worth it because you won’t get everything that you want. The idea that, well, you know, there’s racism in America, so I’m not going to bother voting, no point, that makes no sense. You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for. That’s how our founders expected this system of self-government to work. Through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and evidence and proof, we could sort through our differences, and nobody would get exactly what they wanted, but it would be possible to find a basis for common ground. And that common ground exists.
i cant believe its daylight savings time and i havent seen the “hello its me your cousin oskaar from iceland” video on my dash yet you are all slackers
i guess i have to do all the work around here dont i
Would you like to know something interesting about falcons?
YES
Mid-century use of DDT and related pesticides caused a massive decline in wild raptor populations. They built up in the brids’ fatty tissues and caused their eggshells to become too thin, meaning many chicks did not hatch. Peregrine falcons became endangered in many parts of the world as a direct result.
Conservation efforts to save the species began in the late 1960′s, but there was one alarming problem: without parents of their own species to see, falcons raised by hand imprinted on humans. When these falcons reached sexual maturity, they had no interest in other falcons – they recognized their keepers as their mates and would not copulate with others of their own species.
So, falconers and conservation biologists did the logical thing: they developed special Falcon Sex Hats. They’re large rubber hats with a rolled brim, covered in a honeycomb of… orifices. The conservationist will wear this hat and then “court the male falcon by mimicking a female’s head bobs and vocalizations. If it works, the falcon will land on the hat and inject its genetic material into one of the honeycombs. It is then collected from the hat and used to artificially inseminate a female falcon.
It worked, and the peregrine falcon was removed from the Endangered Species list in 1999.
Here is a video of the hat in action:
Nowadays people mostly try to raise peregrine falcons using falcon puppets so that the chicks do not imprint upon human beings. Still, you can buy Falcon Sex Hats online, if you’re a falconer and wish to breed your birds that have eyes only for you.
