flameraven

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MORE DETAILS.

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Ok, question for Jewish folks. Why is the current standard for Matzah the terrible cracker things. From the description in Exodus, "unleavened bread" to me implies a lot more of a flatbread kind of thing. There are lots of breads you can make that don't involve yeast that are still much more bread like than the giant crackers. At what point did the crackers become the main form of matzah. Or are there regional variations still?

did this a bit ago to fantastic results. let's see what the people have to say this time

no nuance. you have to pick. please explain in the notes why you picked what you did, bc i'm genuinely curious. feel free to cite sources or just go based on vibes

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I put 31-40. Although I first read the book at 17 and enjoyed it, I wasn't part of fandom until the series came out when I was 33.

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Much as I love the TV show AZ Fell & Co's, I think the book version of Good Omens was very much referencing these kinds of stores and Aziraphale keeps his store this way. Fortunately for his books he is an angel and so there is no danger of mold or pests-- although he makes it smell moldy to deter customers.

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"Oil company Chevron must pay $744.6 million to restore damage it caused to southeast Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, a jury ruled on Friday [April 4, 2025] following a landmark trial more than a decade in the making.

The case was the first of dozens of pending lawsuits to reach trial in Louisiana against the world’s leading oil companies for their role in accelerating land loss along the state’s rapidly disappearing coast. The verdict – which Chevron says it will appeal – could set a precedent leaving other oil and gas firms on the hook for billions of dollars in damages tied to land loss and environmental degradation...

The jury awarded $575 million to compensate for land loss, $161 million to compensate for contamination and $8.6 million for abandoned equipment. The amount earmarked for restoration exceeds $1.1 billion when including interest, according to attorneys for Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello, the firm behind the lawsuit.

Plaquemines Parish, the southeast Louisiana district which brought the lawsuit, had asked for $2.6 billion in damages...

How are oil companies contributing to Louisiana’s land loss?

The lawsuit against Chevron was filed in 2013 by Plaquemines Parish, a rural district in Louisiana straddling the final leg of the Mississippi River heading into the Gulf of Mexico, also referred to as the Gulf of America as declared by President Donald Trump.

Louisiana’s coastal parishes have lost more than 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers) of land over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has also identified oil and gas infrastructure as a significant cause. The state could lose another 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) in the coming decades, its coastal protection agency has warned...

Thousands of miles of canals cut through the wetlands by oil companies weakens them and exacerbates the impacts of sea level rise. Industrial wastewater from oil production degrades the surrounding soil and vegetation. The torn up wetlands leave South Louisiana – home to some of the nation’s biggest ports and key energy sector infrastructure -- more vulnerable to flooding and destruction from extreme weather events like hurricanes...

Attorney Jimmy Faircloth, Jr., who represented the state of Louisiana, which has backed Plaquemines and other local governments in their lawsuits against oil companies, told jurors from the parish that Chevron was telling them their community was not worth preserving.

“Our communities are built on coast, our families raised on coast, our children go to school on coast,” Faircloth said. “The state of Louisiana will not surrender the coast, it’s for the good of the state that the coast be maintained.”

What does this mean for future litigation against oil companies?

Louisiana’s economy has long been heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry and the industry holds significant political power. Even so, Louisiana’s staunchly pro-industry Gov. Jeff Landry has supported the lawsuits, including bringing the state on board during his tenure as Attorney General.

Oil companies have fought tooth and nail to quash the litigation, including unsuccessfully lobbying Louisiana’s Legislature to pass a law to invalidate the claims. Chevron and other firms also repeatedly tried to move the lawsuits into federal court where they believed they would find a more sympathetic audience.

But the heavy price Chevron is set to pay could hasten other firms to seek settlements in the dozens of other lawsuits across Louisiana. Plaquemines alone has 20 other cases pending against oil companies.

The state is running out of money to support its ambitious coastal restoration plans, which have been fueled by soon-expiring settlement funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and supporters of the litigation say payouts could provide a much-needed injection of funds...

Attorneys for the parish said they hope that big payout will prompt more oil companies to come to the table to negotiate and channel more funding towards coastal restoration.

“Our energy is focused on securing appropriate verdicts and awards for every parish involved in these actions,” Carmouche said in a statement. “If we continue to be successful in our efforts, these parishes, and Louisiana, will have sent a clear message that Louisiana’s future must be built around a new balance between our energy industry and environmental necessities.”"

-via AP News, April 4, 2025

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Adoro rediseñar a los PrrrOmens y hoy vi un adorable gato gordo 🥹❤️ para hacer a crowley me base en mi propio gato 😁

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Illustration for the final chapter of By Any Other Name, my dragon!Aziraphale AU. Crowley's curse is broken, and they finally get their happily ever after. :3

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Crowley reeled back, gasping, and pressed himself further into the shadows of the column he was hiding behind, praying he hadn't been spotted.

Shit, he thought, furious and terrified all at once. Shit shit fuck shit! A dragon ? No one said anything about a bloody dragon on this job! What was a dragon doing in a library, anyway? He was here to steal a book, not gold!

He was going to kill Hastur and Ligur when he got out of here.

He shivered. That was, assuming he got out of this alive.

Swallowing hard, he shoved down his panic with an effort of will. Terrifying as the prospect of going back into that room was, he couldn't back out now. If he went back to Hastur and Ligur empty-handed, they'd never give him a job again, and that meant... No. He wouldn't even entertain the thought. He could do this. He had to do this. Failure was not an option.

He was Anthony J. Crowley and he would do this.

Somehow. ============================================= This was my art piece for the @enchantedomenszine! Exclusivity is over, so I can finally share it. :D I also wrote a short fic to accompany the piece, which was not part of the zine. You can read the rest of it on Ao3 here: In the Dragon's Lair

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dino birb

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"Lost in a Good Book" My piece for the Above, Below, and Common Ground Zine @abczine! Muriel is enjoying Aziraphale's book collection, maybe a little too much, haha.

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Roadrunner

Southern Cassowary Also:

Favorite bird genre has got to be 'that's literally just a dinosaur'

Groove-Billed Ani

Hoatzin

Pheasant Coucal

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From the article:

Above the whirring of 300,000 cars each day on Los Angeles’s 101 freeway, an ambitious project is taking shape. The Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing is the largest wildlife bridge in the world at 210ft long and 174ft wide, and this week it’s had help taking shape: soil. “This is the soul of the project,” says Beth Pratt, the regional executive director, California, at the National Wildlife Federation, who has worked on making the crossing become a reality over the last 13 years. She says she’s seen many milestones, like the 26m pounds of concrete poured to create the structure, but this one is special. “To be able to put my hand in that soil and toss it on and know that we’ll be putting milkweed plants that will flourish for monarch butterflies, or picturing the first mountain lion paw print on that soil,” she says, fills her with hope. “It is wonderful to watch this habitat take shape.” The plot is a native wildlife habitat that connects two parts of the Santa Monica mountain range, with the hopes of saving creatures – from the famous local mountain lions, down to frogs and insects – from being crushed by cars on one of the nation’s busiest roadways. With nearly an acre of local plants on either side and thick vegetated sound walls 12ft high to dampen light and noise for nocturnal animals as they slip across, it’s an unprecedented feat of engineering. Imagination, too. The project began in 2022 through a public-private partnership that brought together many organizations to cover the $92m in costs, according to Caltrans, the state transportation department. Research shows that wildlife crossings save money because it limits animal interactions with vehicles.

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They're wanting to change the definition of water to see which water would qualify under the Clean Water Act...I wish I was making this up.

What this means, in layman's terms, is that not all water or wetlands would be under environmental protections, so some could legally be dumped in, scraped out of, or otherwise harmed.

The comment period for this is pretty short (just a few days left!) so please submit comments asking for ALL water to be protected.

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I was thinking through what else I’m looking forward to this holiday season and I realized I haven’t mentioned it on here, just on discord, but— MY MOMS BEEN MAKING ME A REALLY COOL ART THING??

I think I’ve talked about it before, but my mom has been a quilter for most of my life and in the last few years started doing these really cool fabric collages, and it was my turn to request one so I asked for a phoenix cause I’m obsessed with this one art piece I did in art therapy ages ago

Anyway, my mom has been working on it and THIS was the last update I got???

I’m so excited for it?? Can’t wait to see where it’s at by the time I get there this weekend

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maybe i’m a joyless bitch but i actually do NOT think it’s funny to see women being like “the house is just in my husbands name” or “my husband makes all the money” or “i don’t even know who our mortgage is with” or “the only bank account/credit card is his and i get an allowance” like i do NOT find that cute or romantic and i am begging these women to Stand Up. you should at least be named on the deed to your house and the title to your car and the bank accounts even if you don’t pay for them/earn all the money. you can’t stop existing in the eyes of the law and the credit unions simply because you have a husband. if you’re raising his children and washing his socks half of everything he’s got is yours and it needs to be yours LEGALLY BY NAME. "he takes such good care of me :)" girl you are a PRISONER!! that’s all

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There's also just... less internet. I used to spend hours on different blogs, dozens of sites I visited regularly. Now everything is funneled through a handful of social media apps. It takes real effort to escape that and go looking for other sites to spend your time on and not just endlessly scroll.

while i understand where people are coming from i think its funny when people romanticize the old internet