ownedbycats

[ownedbycats]

[ownedbycats]

[ownedbycats]

Ayoo just to preempt the inevitable dumb takes we’re about to start seeing;

I am PRO-WOOL

I am PRO-LEATHER

I am PRO-BEES

Fuck the idea of replacing durable, sustainable animal products with cheap, flimsy plastic that doesn’t bio-degrade. Agave nectar and other artificial sweeteners are expensive, labor-intensive, and destroy the environment to be farmed.

Do not buy into pernicious marketing campaigns pushed by dickhead organizations trying to stay relevant, like PETA.

[ownedbycats]

[ownedbycats]

Boy, I bet the innocent people actually IN Gaza who need help and aid appreciate how lucrative scamming well-meaning westerners on tumblr has been for people pretending to be them. 🙄

For the record, y’all: places like this 👇are real and publish their financial records and actually help real people on a large scale, should you be so inclined.

I hope every fake Palestinian on here using these people’s pain for their own grifting gets a horrible canker sore today.

[ownedbycats]

This is an opinion brought to you by a rancher, who knows quite a few other ranchers and dairy farms.

I recently watched a documentary called Earthlings, which gets praised on a lot in the Vegan, animal rights, and animal welfare tags.

This documentary is complete, biased, exaggerated, and twisted bullshit (At least when it comes to beef and dairy, which is what I’m talking about)

It opens on beef with branding, showing an animal being hot ironed on the face. In my state, you cannot register to brand a cow on a face. In fact, the face is the least common branding site available, as it can damage the cow’s jaw and make it difficult for her to eat. The most common branding site is the hip, rib, and shoulder, but the documentary simply says, cows are branded on their face.

Does it say why? No. Because obviously we scar our animals for fun, right? Cattle don’t have microchips like a dog. If your dog gets stolen, you can usually find it because of it’s Microchipped. Cows don’t have that. Cows are so expensive, they’re like gold, so often Ranchers brand their cattle. If a cow has a brand, she cannot be sold without the brand owner’s authorization, meaning, someone can not steal young, healthy animals from my pasture, and sell them for slaughter.

Next they go on to dehorning, stating that it is cruel, painful, and often done with simple pliers. HAaha.

If I have an animal, I don’t want to ruin it by painfully tearing off it’s horns. This animal will never let me touch it again!

Most cattle, and I DO mean most, are dehorned either as calves (Less painful, not remembered), or have a shot to numb the area at the base of the horn before it’s CUT off, not YANKED off. This way, the cow can still be handled.

Does the documentary say WHY cattle are dehorned? Does it mention that a cow with horns is a danger to itself, humans, and other animals? No? Of course not!

Beef cattle are not stuffed into trailers until it’s so full the animals die. This makes absolutely no sense. If the animals die before they reach the sale ring or slaughter house, no paycheck for you! You make less money if the animals die before slaughter.

Nothing the documentary covers is explained why. WHY do they do that? It’s biased. It makes it seem like ranchers and farmers WANT to hurt their cattle. They don’t. Most of us get attached to our cows. It exaggerates EVERYTHING

Dairy

According to the documentary, Dairy cattle are CHAINED to their stalls, in their own feces, with no water or food, pumped full of hormones to make them milk more. Wrong.

A dairy barn consists of a long isle down the middle of the barn, with a large alley on each side for the cattle. The cattle can walk down the main alley, or lay in a padded stall. They can stick their head through railings to eat food specially mixed to meet all their needs, or drink water. Dairy barns, because they produce milk that MUST be clean, cannot milk a cow pumped full or hormones and chemicals, and clean their barns daily to avoid bacteria. WOW! It’s almost like we take care of our animals so they produce! WHO KNEW?

Most dairy cattle are allowed to graze in a pasture with their calves, until they’re milked in the morning and the evening. Others keep their cows in a well airated barn. Calves are removed to avoid injury! Calves are often kept it smaller pens, with calf huts, pads, soft bedding, and even blankets! It is counter productive to not care for a calf. A calf is your future cow! Dairy farmers feed them the highest quality milk so the calves grow into strong, productive animals.

Dieing cows are not left in the isles. If a cow begins to appear sick, a vet is called. Simple as that.

The documentary states that a cow’s lifespan can reach 20. WRONG. at the age of 8 or 9, a cow starts to lose her teeth. If you kept a cow alive until 20 she would be malnourished and miserable, unable to eat. The average cow lives until 8 or 9, at which point they are sold. It would be cruel to keep an animal who cannot eat or fulfill it’s own needs.

Cows do not, on average, die at FOUR YEARS OLD because of exhaustion! Four years, at almost any dairy or ranch you visit, is a cow in her PRIME! We do not run our animals to death. We do NOT torture them.

You don’t eat meat? Great! Do your thing! Eat your veggies! That’s fine! But don’t make me out to be devilspawn if I eat meat. Don’t make me out to be cruel, (As stated by the documentary, as cruel as hitler to the jews), because I raise cattle. Fuck. You.

The shit thing about that documentary is it preys on people who have never been on a farm or dairy. If you’ve never been to one, it’s easy to believe things like this. If I made a documentary about how vegans grew their food, and showed it to people who have never met Vegans, or seen how crops are grown, I could easily exaggerate and make Veganism seem horrible, like this documentary does to livestock owners.

Please stop hating on ranchers and farmers. Please?

[ownedbycats]

I found a guide for a no tape, easy to unwrap wrapping tutorial to make Christmas a little more accessible, wish I just found it sooner

[ownedbycats]

okay so I was doing a Research™️ about ancient Greek etymology as one does and I found some Things that made me want to Violently Claw My Arms Off please allow me to force feed you my discoveries

So there are 2 words for "not" in ancient Greek, depending on the context: ou and mē. Having introduced himself in the Cyclops episode as " ou tis", or No-man, he then stabs Polyphemus in the eye. When Polyphemus' brothers come to check on him, they say this:

"... surely no man [mē tis] is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man [mē tis] is trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?"

Right after this, after the other cyclopes ditch Polyphemus, Odysseus's inner monologue goes something like this:

"Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my clever strategem [metis]." (pronounced mEH-Tis)

Now, there's a difference between mē tis and metis. [mē tis] (pronounced mEH-Tis with a space between the syllables) is the literal translation for "no man". Metis is a word for extreme intelligence/cunning, which is something Odysseus is famous for.

Now, there are several examples of abuse of metis/intelligence in the Odyssey, but I think the juxtaposition between [mē tis], or the concept of anonymity, and metis, or extreme intelligence, is REALLY interesting. Odysseus's adoption of the title "No-man" was characteristic of metis--it was a really smart move that simultaneously hid him from the cyclops and avoided any future consequences. It was a highly effective strategy all wrapped up in a nest little package with a bow on it.

But when he revealed himself as Odysseus of Ithaca, effectively throwing off No-man (anonymity and [mē tis]), that was characterized as idiocy--he's essentially doxxed himself, and now he's doing to (spoiler alert) get tossed around the Mediterranean by Poseidon for the next 10 years.

This is really interesting because it lets you see the parallels/codependency between metis(intelligence) and humility. When Odysseus refused to allow himself to go unnoticed (hubris) he suffered for it. BUT when he declined instant glory/satisfaction (kleos) in order to achieve the long term goal of survival, he was rewarded with Athena's favor (pay attention. This part is important).

And this situation repeats itself MULTIPLE TIMES in the Odyssey--the EXACT SAME THING happens near the end of the book, with the suitors. When. Odysseus is dressed as a beggar and the suitors/Antinious are abusing him, he ACTIVELY CHOOSES not to react--he doesn't stand up and rip off his disguise and start hollering "TIS I, ODYSSEUS OF ITHACA! FEAR MY WRATH"

No. He sits there patiently and waits. He plans and schemes and quietly orchestrates their downfall without alerting them of it. Why? Because he learned his lesson the first time this happened. He buried his rage and adopted what was, according to Grace LA Franz, a more feminine form of metis, weaving a web of destruction for his enemies that ultimately resulted in their total annihilation (see Weaving a Way to Nostos: Odysseus and Feminine Metis in the Odyssey by Grace LaFranz). His patience allowed him to win the whole prize--no questions asked, no 10-year-long-business-trip strings attached--just the sweetness of a full victory. And he is, once again, rewarded with Athena's favor--both in the battle with the suitors and in the aftermath (cleanup/reuniting with Penelope).

This really reinforces the idea in the Odyssey that Odysseus's defining characteristic is not just his intelligence--it's his ability to learn from his mistakes. He used what he learned at the Lotus Eaters Island against Polyphemus--the Lotus Eaters drugged his men, so he drugged Polyphemus. He used what he learned from Circe and Polyphemus against the suitors--Circe used false sweetness and honeyed words to lure his men into a trap, so that's exactly what he did to the suitors. His hubris on Polyphemus' island cost his whole crew their lives, so he intentionally left well enough alone until the right time. He didn't just learn from his failures--he turned them into BATTLE STRATEGY.

i don't care what anyone says that is completely totally and objectively awesome

[ownedbycats]

LISTEN I understand that Miles is obsessed with joining the military because he was born into a military caste, he's constantly hearing about his parents' military exploits, and also everyone told him he couldn't, but he's incapable of following orders because as soon as someone tells him to do something he's like "what if I did something better though". He has absolutely no respect for the chain of command and is mostly loyal to the emperor because they're kind of bros. This kid does not belong in the military. Even spec ops is pushing it. Take the L before you get court martialed for real, buddy. Nepotism can only save you so many times.

[ownedbycats]

[ownedbycats]

The diagram for the classic Origami Goat, with a twist to make its horns curve ! It's from this video by by Origami Word, but it seems to be a pretty old/intemporal design that a lot of people have made. I could not find a diagram online so I made one.

(If you make her in yellow/orangy-yellow, then decorate her with red ribbons, you can make your own origami gävlebocken ! )

[ownedbycats]

I know I should just take a chill pill about it, but every fanfic where Julian Bashir and his parents reconcile smoothly irritates me like a splinter under the nail.

[ownedbycats]

via indiarosecrawford

Frog Paints a Water Lily Pond 🪷🎨🐸

𝑓ₒᵣ ⲕᵢ𝑛𝑔 ₐ𝑛𝑑 𝑐ₒ𝑡𝑡ₐ𝑔ₑ