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On April 16th 2025 the US federal government has proposed to change the interpretation of the endangered species act so that it no longer protects habitat.

This is open for public comment until the end of May 19th. Please comment and make your voice heard.

Wildlife need their habitat. If the ESA redefines harm so that habitat is no longer protected, the implications for wildlife would be catastrophic.

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when i say i like hiking, i don’t mean “eight mile backpacking trip with special gear and an emergency beacon” sort of hiking, i mean a three mile loop to go look at pretty things and then a huge brunch after.

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“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated—with one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. “Folks,” he said, “I know you’ve had a rough day and you’re frustrated. I can’t do anything about the weather or traffic, but here’s what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Don’t take your problems home to your families tonight—just leave ‘em with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I’ll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?”

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who’d been pretending for the past hour not to notice each other’s existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?

Oh, he was serious.

At the next stop—just as promised—the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up—but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.

We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it’s extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but don’t know where to find it.

But what if you are the light? What if you’re the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?

That’s what this bus driver taught me—that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy “influencer.” He was a bus driver—one of society’s most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the world’s troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I can’t personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely can’t control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each other’s name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagious—sadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.

No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated—one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.“

–Elizabeth Gilbert

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Okay okay we all know Johnny cash did his cover of Hurt and we were all like “ok he owns that now” but I watched the music video he made and I’m like “oh he OWNS it owns it”

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I hate Grey's Anatomy. I hate all medical dramas. Utter fucking disrespect to half the medical specialties, trainees and allied health care workers.

Half the shit you see done by attendings are actually done by their residents. Talking to families, follow up on labs, doing the charting, seeing the consults. Every. Fucking. Consult. Is done by a resident (sometimes medical student). The juniors review with the seniors, seniors make 99% of the decisions and then double check with the attendings. Some attendings dont even know what their patients look like initially because their senior residents literally run their services.

Half the shit you see done by surgeons in the OR are actually done by the anesthesiologists. I feel like the american association of anesthesiology must have pissed off someone on the production team because anesthesia is somehow always portrayed as incompetent or negligent, when in fact anesthesia is THE person who keeps you safe and alive in the OR. You need to understand doing surgery is like flying a damaged spaceship through space while repairs are being done. Anesthesia is the bridge where central command is. Surgery is the engineering crew doing the actual repair. If the repair is botched, the ship will fail, but if central command loses control of the ship, the ship will also fail. If the patient goes into cardiac arrest during surgery, the attending anesthesiologist is the leader running the code, NOT the attending surgeon.

Nurses get absolutely no mention on Grey's Anatomy, other than when they fuck a surgeon. Nurses are doctors' eyes and ears on the floor. They know their patients. They can sense when shit is going south. It's not just about the IVs, the medications, vital takinflg, it's about the comfort, the care, the diaper changes, the bed baths, the soiled sheets and beddings. It's about feeding the patient when they can't eat themselves. It's about caring for the patient day and night.

The entire department of radiology doesn't exist on Grey's Anatomy. The attending surgeons are... running their own MRIs??? Never. Son of a bitch, this Never Ever Happened. The technicians run the CTs, X-rays, Ultrasounds and MRIs etc, and the RADIOLOGISTS AND THEIR RESIDENTS read the fucking scans. All doctors are trained to some degree to read scans, but the final report comes from the radiologist. Without the radiology department, the hospital AINT SHIT. Utter utter disrespect to some of the smartest people.

Internal Medicine. It's like they don't fucking exist. On tv you see surgery and you see emergency room. But do you know what happens to most patients in the hospital? They get admitted to some internal medicine unit. Most common illnesses are not treated with surgery. And just because a patient is getting their femur fixed, doesn't mean their baseline diabetes suddenly disappears. If I had a nickel for every time some surgical service consulted GIM for tachycardia NYD, or blood glucose control... I'd be so fucking rich.

Honestly fuck Grey's Anatomy and every god forsaken medical monstrosity out there. The utter fucking disrespect to me, my profession, and my colleagues. And the fucking unrealistic expectations they set for the public.

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Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

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Make China Great Again (MCGA)

In the nearly three months since his inauguration Donald Trump and his administration have taken a wrecking ball to the U.S. federal government, cultural institutions, academia, schools, immigration policy, military alliances, health and human services, the federal civil service, law enforcement and justice. Although there seems little strategic thinking behind these moves, their end result will be a weaker, poorer and unstable America. But, he did win the election with over seventy million Americans voting for him and, if current polling is correct, still largely supporting him. And Americans were "warned" during the campaign with the disclosure of the Project 25 plans, so whether they simply disbelieved the warnings or supported the direction, they are getting what they voted for. As for the rest of us, that's another matter altogether.

For eighty years since the end of the Second World War America has been the indispensable nation, leading the democratic west and providing an economic engine for much of the rest of the world. This did not happen by chance. It was the result of a deliberate strategy implemented with the creation of institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, NATO and the United Nations, and resulted in decades of remarkable and unprecedented peace and prosperity for much of the world, especially the United States. The stability of that system began to weaken as it moved, perhaps inevitably, towards freer trade causing domestic disruptions in the more advanced economies, including the United States and, while it is true that free trade has added greatly to the prosperity of the advanced economies, it is also true that prosperity has not been shared equally across their populations and that is the starting point for some of the unravelling we are witnessing today.

On April 2, which Donald Trump called "liberation day", he and his government blew all that up, imposing tariffs on friends and foes alike, and blasting through the norms of alliances, international diplomacy and good economic tradecraft. Stock markets around the world plummeted, losing trillions of dollars in assets. I'm not an economist but, if the vast majority of economists are to be believed, this is not going to end well as it ignites a trade war and will likely cause recessions in the United States and much of the rest of the world.

One of the more notable features of the tariffs is how high they are for some of the weakest and poorest economies on earth, which is consistent with Trump's other actions showing no empathy for the poor and downtrodden . Although there are any number of guesses out there, no one seems to have a coherent theory of why and what the U.S. government is doing, and it is possible there isn't one. The justifications being offered contradict each other and almost always go against prevailing economic wisdom. Comparisons are being drawn with The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that, in 1930, attempted to build a tariff wall around the United States and contributed significantly to the Great Depression that only ended with the Second World War. It also ended Republican dominance in the American Congress for decades and forever linked the name of President Herbert Hoover with economic failure and collapse.

Trying to make sense of all this has become something of a cottage industry. My best guess is there is no coherent game plan in Donald Trump's head, just a collection of partially formed ideas animated by long held biases and grudges. I suspect the real planning is being done and executed out of sight by the authors of the Project 25 Plan who want to radically change American society and America's place in the world. Their ideal world is encapsulated in a distorted memory of the 1950's where, if you were a straight white male, things looked pretty good, at least if you weren't born then and with the benefit of hindsight. I also suspect these shadowy figures placate Donald Trump by applying a patina of his worst prejudices when implementing the new policies. Donald Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and increasingly, he will be used as a tool to further the agenda of these extremists.

As well as the figures behind the agenda there are also the Cabinet Secretaries and other senior officials who were chosen not for their experience or skill but for their capacity to flatter and imitate Trump. When I read of the Signal Chat debacle where a number of them were meeting to review the actual bombing plans for Yemen, it struck me how inexperienced and juvenile they all were, showing sophomoric one upmanship in their language and attitude, as well as a complete lack of understanding of history.

Aside from the advisers, there's another possibility. Look carefully at who is making money through the machinations of this government. Of course we know Trump, his family and coterie are monetizing the Presidency in ever more outlandish ways but that may be the least of it. Even if there is a recession and massive stock market losses, some, perhaps with inside information, will be able to take advantage of the chaos to fatten their own bank accounts and that includes the extended Trump family. It doesn't matter that these people are already rich beyond the comprehension of most of humanity because the goal is always to get more and more and more, filling an unquenchable thirst in a morally bankupt existence. Check out how often Trump praises the singular goal of getting richer as if it is the holy grail for all human life, which I guess for him and his circle, it is.

While Democrats in the U.S. may see the economic chaos as helpful politically, providing the issue they need to stage a comback in the midterms in 2026 and the 2028 Presidential election, anyone who thinks that will cause the post Second World War international order to resume is mistaken. America has shown it cannot be trusted, and it will take a very long time, if ever, for other nations to place their faith in the word of the United States again. Canada, its closest neighbour and one of its best and oldest allies, was the first to learn this. That message has now been conveyed to the entire world. What this means is the Western World as it has existed and generally dominated since the seventeenth century is no more. For those of us who live in the so-called Western World, this is very bad news although, for others, it's probably anything but. It is possible some new alliance of democratic nations will emerge, one that continues free trade amongst its members and collaborates on defence but the chance of that completely replacing the alliances with America at the centre are slim. America will remain the dominant economic and military power for some time, although its recent actions will accellerate its relative decline and the move to a world order that is not America centric. The principal winner in all this is China, whose rise as a rival to America has triggered anxiety in Washington and, ironically, prompted policies and actions that will do the opposite of what is needed or intended. All China has to do now is wait patiently on the sidelines, something it has a long history of doing successfully.

Also, what shouldn't be ignored is that the kind of economic instability Donald Trump has unleashed often has led to open conflict between nations, not trade wars, real wars. Whether major but local conflicts or, worse, a third world war have become much more likely in the past ten days. The "greatest generation" is mostly gone now, but if they were here they would weep at this grotesque folly putting paid to their sacrifice.

As a student of history I have often been puzzled at some of the choices earlier nations and empires made, choices that, with the benefit of hindsight, led to their collapse. Now I'm living it in real time.

"plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"

GH

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Source: Make China Great Again (MCGA)

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beavers have the lifestyle that most children dream of. dig and travel through underwater canals. dam a river and flood the local woodlands. stomp mud into dam to seal. swim to flooded trees and destroy them. live in a secret hideout with a underwater entrance. full ownership over an engineering project

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So Nanowrimo is actually dead.

After 25 years of operation, Nanowrimo is shutting down.

An email came out in the hours approaching April Fools

A video was attached to the email, which can be viewed here:

The video is on Kilby’s channel and not the long dead Nanowrimo channel. The video is full of…

Kilby logic, but there is some relevant information contained within.

If have anything on Nanowrimo you need to get off the site, take it now. The site will likely not be around for too much longer.

Despite everything that the organisation has been through, the closure of a 25 year old nonprofit is still a tragedy, and my heart goes out to everyone that’s grieving from this. Nano has hurt a lot of people, but it meant a lot to so many, and I will be sorry to see that go.

Even if I don’t agree with many things in the recent video, I can agree with the sentiment of one slide.

I will update you all if and when relevant information comes out. Despite everything, I now doubt that this will be my last post.

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You suck

Haha fuck you

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Girls making petrol bombs during the Battle of the Bogside, Ireland, 1969

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Week 11: How I Stay Grounded in Stressful Situations

Keeping My Sanity: How I Stay Grounded in Stressful Situations

Let’s be real—stressful situations are inevitable. Whether it’s an overflowing inbox (this absolutely stresses me out!), a family gathering that feels like a reality TV drama, or the unexpected horror of realizing you’re out of coffee, life has a way of testing our patience. But after nearly two decades on this wild ride of codependency recovery, I’ve picked up some solid (and slightly ridiculous) techniques to keep myself grounded when chaos comes knocking. Here’s how I do it, in all my imperfect, sometimes-sassy glory.

1. Deep Breathing (Or as I call it, Avoiding a Meltdown)

I used to roll my eyes when people told me to “just breathe,” but turns out, they were onto something. This is now my "go-to" technique and one I often say to my children. Deep breathing can trick your body into thinking everything is fine—even when your brain is screaming otherwise. One technique you can try is box breathing: inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Bonus points if you close my eyes and pretend you're somewhere peaceful, like a spa, instead of the middle of an emotional tornado.

2. Talking Myself Off the Ledge (With Humor)

Sometimes, my inner dialogue sounds like a disaster movie narrator: “And this is where it all falls apart.” That’s when I channel my inner stand-up comedian and flip the script.

Instead of, “This is a disaster,” I say, “Well, this is a plot twist I didn’t see coming.” Instead of, “I can’t do this,” I say, “Watch me do this… after a snack.”

Humor takes the edge off and reminds me that most situations aren’t as life-or-death as my anxiety wants me to believe.

3. Stepping Away Before I Say Something Regrettable

Look, I have a history of people-pleasing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get irritated or sometimes, down-right angry. When I feel my temperature rising, I excuse myself. Sometimes, that means taking a literal walk outside. Other times, it’s a quick bathroom escape where I stare in the mirror and give myself a pep talk like a football coach. Either way, pausing before I react saves me from saying things I’ll have to apologize for later. Have I had to apologize? Yep.

4. Reminding Myself: ‘Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys’

Ah, the golden mantra of staying in my own lane. I love this saying! As a recovering fixer, I used to think it was my job to keep everyone happy and solve all their problems. Newsflash: It’s not. If the stress isn’t mine to carry, I remind myself (sometimes out loud, sometimes muttered under my breath) that I don’t have to pick it up.

5. Self-Care, Even in Tiny Doses

Stress makes me forget to take care of myself. But I’ve learned that even five minutes of self-care can work wonders. That might mean blasting my favorite 80s throwback song, stepping outside for fresh air, or just stretching like a cat who has zero responsibilities. These little acts remind me that I matter, even in the middle of chaos.

 6. The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Trick

When my mind starts spinning like a hamster on an energy drink, I'm trying this new (to me) simple exercise:

5 things I can see (usually my cluttered desk and at least one abandoned coffee cup)

4 things I can touch (like the soft blanket I may or may not be hiding under)

3 things I can hear (most likely my dog sighing dramatically at me)

2 things I can smell (coffee and whatever candle I panic-lit for ambiance)

1 thing I can taste (probably chocolate, because, priorities)

This helps bring me back to the present moment instead of mentally drafting an escape plan to a tropical island.

Final Thoughts: Progress, Not Perfection

Staying grounded isn’t about being Zen 24/7. (If it were, I’d have failed miserably by now.) It’s about having tools that help bring me back to center when life throws curveballs. Some days, I handle stress like a wise guru. Other days, I handle it like a raccoon who just got caught in the trash. And that’s okay.

If you’re looking for more lessons, laughs, and real talk on navigating recovery and life, hop over to my blog at JourneyOnStrong.com. We’re all just figuring this out as we go, and trust me, you’re not alone in the struggle.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find that abandoned coffee cup.

Week 11 – Blogging Challenge for Codependency Recovery:

Week 11– Blogging Challenge for Advanced Codependency Recovery:

#CodependencyChallenge2025

Source: Week 11: How I Stay Grounded in Stressful Situations

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Oskars ancient Greek curse is that every day he wakes up convinced that this time he can totally walk on the drying rack

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oh to be a pup being painted - by William Henry Hamilton Trood (1848-1899).