I was checking out at Walmart, and as I was reaching for my bags I said, “Happy Holidays!” And the cashier leaned in like she was sharing a secret and said “Merry Christmas.” So I smiled politely and said, “Blessed Yule!” And the look that spread across her face, you would have thought I’d literally stolen Christmas from her.
If you’re going to make a point of wishing me a happy whatever-you-celebrate, I’m going to make a point of wishing you a happy whatever-I-celebrate, and if you think that’s wrong you should consider getting “hypocrite” tattooed across your forehead.
It’s that time of year again
A post I made has officially become an “it’s that time of year again” post and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t honored
As a matter of fact, because it is November, here’s a friendly reminder that the “Christmas controversy” was a huge non problem made up by right winged conservative walnuts to convince people that their religious freedoms are under attacked. In actuality, saying “happy holidays” just reminds us that this place isn’t a fucking theocracy, and that non Christians still fucking exist here. And that there are several other holidays around the same time as Xmas. (Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Yuletide, etc.) It doesn’t breach your freedoms, as the government is not favoring any religion over your own.Shit, if anything…non of them are being held higher than the other, since you’re grouped under one broad “Happy Holidays”. Hell, Xmas ain’t even Christian…it was actually outlawed by puritans in America, wasn’t popularized until the 1800s in America, and was only adopted as a way to dominate over pre-existing pagan holidays in Europe.
There is no war on Christianity or Christmas. Christmas was never a Christian holiday, and America was founded as a secular nation in terms of things like religion and etc. Enjoy your fuckin’ holiday…and try to coexist with people and not dominate over them, no matter how fucking large of a christian population America is….the end
Everything below is posted with liberty and credit to Jemima Harrison and the PDE blog, with the sole purpose for this information to spread as far as possible.
• soon to be 10 years since Pedigree Dogs Exposed
• five years since The Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues of Dog
Breeding highlighted the issues linked to head conformation in
brachycephalic breeds
• 18 months since the publication of research (funded by the kennel
club) spelling out the link between stenosis (pinched nostrils) and
respiratory issues, especially in French Bulldogs
• a year since a veterinary petition demanding urgent reform for flat-faced dogs
• almost a year since the Kennel Club set up the Brachcycephalic Breeds Working Group in response to that petition
.. and of course I have highlighted the issue of pinched nostrils endlessly here on this blog.
Endlessly.
And yet… the picture at the top is one the Kennel Club has used as the
ideal depiction of the French Bulldog in its new edition (2017) of its Illustrated Breed Standards.
And it isn’t a one-off. Here’s the one the KC has used for the Boston Terrier standard.
The Bulldog.
And the Pug.
Dogs are as near-as-damn-it obligate nose breathers. And even if they
can supplement by mouth-breathing when they are awake, they are unable
to do so when they are asleep, meaning thousands of these dogs live
lives of interrupted sleep as they have to wake up in order to not
asphyxiate.
Study after study has shown that these dogs pay the price for not being
able to pull in a decent lungful of air and that starts with the
nostrils.
These pictures are all the proof you need that the Kennel Club is not
taking this issue seriously; that at its very core the KC is paying
nothing more than lip-service to the demands for reform by the
veterinary profession and animal welfare campaigners.
At one of the first meetings of the Brachycephalic Breeds Working Group,
then KC Chairman Steve Dean expressly said that he didn’t want
“changing the breed standards” to be at the top of everyone’s list of
actions that could be taken.
And indeed, it hasn’t been.
There have been some new measures. The KC continues to fund brachy research. There is also now a brachy learning resource
available on the KC website, the promise of better education of judges
and a breed club commitment to educate better about the importance of
keeping brachycephalics slim. There are also now health schemes for the
Bulldog, French Bulldog and the Pug which do test for respiratory
issues.
All this is welcome. But, bottom line, the Kennel Club continues to bat
for the breeders who do not want the basic phenotype to change because
it’s the breeders that pay their wages.
Of course the simplest, quickest remedy is to give these dogs
back some muzzle – to help not just with breathing issues, but to help
protect their eyes from trauma and to give their teeth some room in
their overcrowded mouths (a Pug here compared to an Australian
Shepherd).
The problem is that breeders are wedded to flat faces, particularly in
Pugs and Bulldogs. They talk about the perfect “layback” – which
essentially means that the nose should not interrupt the line between
the forehead and tip of the dog’s chin.
In fact, there’s a new book out on the Pug head (yours for only $159)
which reminds everyone that the word Pug comes from the latin for
“fist” and that this is the shape the Pug’s head should be in profile –
i.e. totally flat.
Here’s a reminder from a top UK show breeder of what the Bulldog’s head should look like.
As you can see, a protruding nose or a less severe underbite is considered a fault.
There was a big review of breed standards following Pedigree Dogs Exposed
but it was mostly to add vague qualifiers such as, in the Pug standard,
"relatively" short rather than just short when describing the length
of the muzzle. This gives the breeders way too much wiggle room. We
need proper metrics – a defined minimum skull/head/muzzle ratio and we
need to find more profound ways to change their minds about what
constitutes their breed in their eyes.
Large open nostrils are a requirement in brachy breed standards, but
this is widely ignored because other points of the breed are considered
more important. There would be outrage if a Frenchie with one lop ear
or a Bulldog with a liver-coloured nose won in the show-ring, but dogs
with slits for nostrils continue to be made up to champions.
Meanwhile, on my CRUFFA group,
whenever you post a picture of more moderate examples of the breed,
current of historical, the breeders heap scorn. A few days ago, one
breeder insisted that the dog featured in this famous painting of a Pug
by Carl Reichert, dating from the late 19th century, was a crossbreed.
Same for these ones. Mongrels, the lot of them.
She admitted that the eye-white showing was undesirable but preferred the look of this Crufts dog.
Today, this was posted on a public Facebook page by one French Bulldog
breeder in response to a plea by vets for more moderate dogs.
(My bolding below)
To those who say you cannot rebuild Rome in a day I say… rubbish. There are already more moderate versions of these breeds out there being
bred by breeders more interested in health than the current fashion.
For more than 10 years, I have called for moderation and hoped it would
come from the breeders. But I now know it won’t. If we want anything
more than a wee bit of tweaking round the edges, then we need to demand
it.
It is time to get tough. These dogs suffer – not all of them all the time but too many of them too often.
Brachycephalics live a third less long than non-brachy dogs. Fifty per
cent have significant airway disease. Almost all struggle to cool
themselves. Most Bulldogs still can’t mate or give birth naturally. Pugs
have 19 times the risk of developing corneal ulcers. All suffer from
very low genetic diversity. And so on.
Today, Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs make up one in five of the
dogs registered with the Kennel Club – up from one in 50 in 2005.
Yesterday, a new petitionwas launched asking for a ban on brachycephalics. Over 20k people signed it in the first 24 hrs.
Have we reached a tipping point? With your help.
I haven’t been able to blog much recently because I am busy finishing
off a television series for BBC2. But I have taken time out to write
this because the new breed standard pictures made me so angry.
So please… Although it’s moderation I want, not a ban, sign the petition. Make your feelings known to the Kennel Club (see here). Complain if brands or media use generic pictures of brachycephalics to sell their wares.
Vets: thank you so much for all that you are now doing, but please keep the pressure on.
And, of course, to everyone out there – please don’t buy that puppy.
It is not safe to buy a Pug, Bulldog or French Bulldog. Not safe for them and not safe for your wallet.
Seriously people. This deserves 6000 notes. It’s not even my text, so it’s not like I’m attention-fishing.
I’m shocked to see just how SILENT everyone are about Article 13 and what it could potentially do to us European social media users as well as to anyone outside of Europe.
On September 2018, according to the Verge: “Yesterday, the European Parliament approved amendments to the controversial Copyright Directive, a piece of legislation intended to update copyright for the internet age”; “But the proposed change hasn’t finished yet, and it’s still too early to say exactly what it will mean”. That was back in September.
Recently, Youtube started making noise and sharing all the information needed on Article 13 and what will happen if it gets approved by the majority in the Parliament (you can read all the info on their twitter account @YTCreators). The news are not great and there’s NOT MUCH TIME LEFT before the final decision gets made. The whole European Parliament will make final votes for or against Article 13 in 2019 around spring time. That time will be crucial not only for US EUROPEANS but for THE REST OF THE WORLD as well. Why?
As WIRED writes, Article 13 will have major influence on all the content that gets shared around on social medias like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Youtube. What that means? European social media users won’t be able to share music, videos, photos UNLESS they’re original and were created by them. If not, social medias will be forced to REMOVE any content that infringes on copyright, meaning all reaction videos, gifs, memes, songs will be continuously banned from being used by us.
And most importantly, YOUTUBE AND ALL YOUTUBE CREATORS IN EUROPE WILL BE IN GREAT DANGER. Why? Because same things will happen on youtube:
Billions of videos made by European content creators will probably be removed– again because of new copyright laws;
Small content creators will have the biggest crash and will literally have to say goodbye to their dreams of even becoming youtubers, because the focus will be put mainly on big youtubers and big corporations running youtube channels- everyone else will be left in the dark;
The access to youtube videos by us regular viewers will be limited SIGNIFICANTLY to the point where there’ll be any content left to watch;
Any creator OUTSIDE OF EUROPE will lose all their European viewers, meaning SIGNIFICANT DROP IN NUMBERS;
Any European content creators will experience significant changes on their channels– all to the worse resulting in HUGE LOSS OF VIEWS and SUBSCRIBERS as well as FACING THE CONSTANT BATTLE AGAINST COPYRIGHT STRIKES;
That’s right, all European content creators will have to PROVE that their content is original and ONLY ORIGINAL. If not, those videos get removed instantly. So what does it mean to all the gaming channels? To all the react channels? Youtubers right now have to deal with constant copyright strikes resulting either in demonetization or their videos getting taken down- what will happen when Article 13 gets put in place???
UNTIL SPRING WE HAVE AROUND 4-5 MONTHS LEFT- PERFECT AMOUNT OF TIME TO MAKE SOME NOISE, TO SPREAD AWARENESS AND MOST IMPORTANTLY- TAKE ACTION!! AND IT HAS TO BE DONE NOW!!
So what can we really do?
First and foremost don’t sit back on this and think all of this will be fine, it’s not that scary as everyone makes it to be. OH HELL YEAH IT WILL GET SCARY once you will face all the consequences of not doing anything to change things around.
GO AND TYPE OUT YOUR OWN POSTS SHARING YOUR CONCERNS AND ENCOURAGING EVERYONE TO TAKE ACTION– TAG AS MANY FANDOMS AND YOUTUBERS AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN THINK OF
Anyone who lives in Europe- go to saveyourinternet.eu and contact your MEPs. THIS PART RIGHT HERE IS CRUCIAL, BECAUSE THIS IS THE ONLY WAY WE CAN BE HEARD. WRITE EMAILS TO THEM, MAKE CALLS and state all the FACTS on why ARTICLE13 SHOULDN’T BE APPROVED!!!!! PESTER THE HELL OUT OF YOUR MEPS!!!!!
Anyone outside of Europe, please PLEASE go to this site and sign this petition: https://t.co/QY3fwK113F. The goal is 2 million signs, but I’m 100% we can surpass that goal and show just how much we care about this!!
As an European myself, I’m GREATLY TERRIFIED about what will happen if Article 13 gets approved in 2019. If action will not be taken right now, we will be striped down of our ability to stay creative, have fun on the internet and enjoy the content shared by everyone around us.
Don’t let Article 13 take away this from us and don’t wait until the last day when it’s all too late. You have time right now to make change so TAKE YOUR PHONES, YOUR LAPTOPS AND COMPUTERS AND CREATE SOME GODDAMN NOISE ABOUT ARTICLE13 ON ALL YOUR SOCIAL MEDIAS!!!!
as you may know by now, i live in Europe, many of my online friends, do not. what brought us together was, the internet.
a mere love for say Yuri on Ice, memes, youtubers.
in the recent months, the internet has been under attack, free speech and fair use are being silenced.
think about this: you’re just watching a music video from your favorite idol, whether it be Taylor Swift or Queen, you really enjoy that content
as you go to the next video it says “error, this video is not available in your country” you think ‘okay, whatever’ and move on to the next one, same message, you skip to the next one again, same message again.
then you realize, all content by Taylor Swift has been blocked by Youtube. all content by Cardi B has been blocked by Youtube.
Article 13 threatens to block songs like despacito, DESPACITO, a song that gained over 90b views, over a directive.
this is not a joke anymore. this is not a “meme ban law”, this will affect the UK, this will affect your favorite non European creators, this will affect you.
European content creators will not be able to make content anymore. not without licenses for every single thing they show, do and put as background music.
this threatens to kill creativity and the internet as we know it.
our future, is in jeopardy if this gets passed. without Europe, net neutrality would’ve already been non existent.
the internet needs to be saved.
not just for us, but for our future. the future of the world. the internet brought us together as a world and we’ve shown it many times before how strong it can be.
we have to show that strength again.
we have lost a crucial battle back in September, but we have not lost the war. we have to keep fighting and to push our belief. to push the internet further. to grow as a community, as a society.
what Europe wants to do is protect copyright, which is needed yes, but not in this extreme, it’s like when you were in elementary school and this one kid ruined a field trip for everyone.
we cannot let them take away our internet. fight for your right to free speech, fight for your right to have fair use.
fight for your internet
if a company like YouTube, a google owned company that literally owns all your data and probably sold it making millions off of it, is NOT able to afford a directive like Article 13.
please, i beg you, to share this with your friends, your family, to tweet your MEP’s, to email them, to call them, to remind your European friends to do that.
we are strong.
we are a unity.
we are a community.
we are the internet.
we have put our strengths together to save the Internet.
thank you for listening. don’t give up. stay strong.
Many users are reporting massive data loss following the October 2018 Windows 10 update. Personal files are being deleted and hard drives are being corrupted in addition to several performance glitches. Users who have received the update are reporting all of their personal files such as documents, music, pictures, and videos being deleted following the update.
Some people have lost hundreds of gigabytes of data. These files are completely disappearing following the update – they do not wind up in the recycle bin, they are completely gone. Other users are reporting their entire hard drives or SSDs becoming corrupted, making rollback and recovery of said deleted files impossible.
In addition to the file deletion, devices with 6th generation Intel processors and newer are reporting awful battery life and CPU usage following the update.
Long story short, hold off on the October 2018 update for now. There are too many glitches and way too much to lose. If you attempt it,
Adult things arent NEARLY as complex as I thought they were growing up I just walked into bank of america and said im here to open a checking account and they said ok and opened me a checking account
If you have anxiety about being an adult, it may help to think of adult things as basically just doing a lot of quests.
Me: [googles “where do i get a passport”] Me: [goes to that building] Me: [asks first person I encounter] Where do I get a passport? Them: Third floor, room twelve. Me: [goes to that room] Me: [asks first person I encounter] Where do I get a passport? Them: That desk over there. Me: [goes to that desk] Me: Where do I get a passport? Them: Fill out this form. Me: [thinking] Silver key opens the garden gate, in the garden is the red key, which opens the red door, there’s a boy in the red house who tells you his dog is trapped in the old abandoned barn and can I please rescue him…
being an adult is a serious of fetch quests and waiting in lines
In all seriousness though, one of the most liberating things about being an adult is it’s perfectly acceptable to walk up to another adult and say, “I don’t know how to do this thing, can you help me?” and they will.
I’ve used this for everything from renewing my tags at the DMV to buying a house to cooking a steak. Adults are way more chill with ignorance than I thought they would be, but if you’re up front and just say, “Hey this is new to me, can you walk me through the process?” they just. Will?
Sure there are some assholes out there but mostly just…people are cool helping you figure out how to do things.
Also 99.99% of the time if something fucks up, it’ll be fine. I messed up and paid my tuition off after the due date, but it still went through. I went to the wrong building at the hospital for a doctor’s appointment one time and I was almost thirty minutes late, but they made time for me anyway. I booked a train to Seattle and it was supposed to depart at 5:30 and the line was huge so my friend was scared it was going to leave without us, but we got on the train and it was fine. I had to transfer flights in Atlanta and I was late, but I made it in the end because they’re not gonna just leave you to fend for yourself at the airport, trust me you will figure out a way home. Most things will work out, and if they don’t it’s usually not the end of the world.
like you see in Instagram videos? that’s not edible. you can’t get an unnatural reflective shine like that without plastic. it’s usually labeled as edible or “food safe” but it is not any different than the glitter in the craft section at Michael’s. the reason they get away with this is because they label it with “FDA Approved” or “non-toxic.” FDA Approved just means the risks of consuming it aren’t enough to warrant concern (x), and non-toxic just means it’s not poisonous. it doesn’t mean it’s made from edible ingredients.
so YES there is such a thing as edible glitter, however the stuff they used didn’t look like it.
I feel like an important message is trying to be communicated to me but I have no idea what it is
Our forests are being cut down 3x faster than they can grow! One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees!!! This is super useful for so many things, especially paper production! In addition, hemp takes in carbon dioxide 4x as fast as trees do, which makes it especially valuable in the act of reducing CO2 emissions/greenhouse gases! 🌲🌲🌲 source
Important reminder that industrial hemp can’t be used as a recreational drug, so if anyone tries to pull that card you can just stop them then and there. There are no real arguments against using industrial hemp, even if you’re rigidly against the legalization of any recreational drugs.
Remember the Muslim group who started raising funds to help pay for funerals and medical expenses for the victims in Pittsburgh?? Well. They’re not done yet. Look at this
They have increased their goal several times and exceeded it within hours. HOURS!!
Here is their latest update
They’re asking you to please donate to their other fund, to help the victims of the shooting in Kentucky. These people are beyond amazing. They give me hope for the future and restore my faith in humanity.
They haven’t reached their goal with this one yet. If you’re feeling compelled to donate, please donate to the Kentucky fund. Because of everything else going on, it hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention. But these two peoples lives were just as important. They were just as loved and they will be just as missed.
And because they haven’t gotten as much attention and their stories aren’t in the news as much, here’s their story. From the fund raiser.
Please pass this around. If you can’t donate, someone who sees your reblog might.
Respond to evil with good.
It has been two and half hours since I posted this and the funds raised has increased by almost $2800 !!! This is amazing !! You are wonderful people for helping in any way you can.
Keep up the great work!!
PS: the fund for the Tree Of Life victims has raised an additional $11k in the past two and half hours as well. How amazing is that ?!
LGBT BRAZILIANS TAKE CARE WITH DATING APPS AND GRINDR, THEY WILL BE USED TO TARGET VICTIMS PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST
ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!
In Whatsapp (the most used messaging app in Brazil), if you receive a contact from a “juridical support group for LGBT+ people who are being harassed” called “REAJA”, DO NOT INTERACT!!!!!!! Apparently, this is not a real support group but it’s a trap that are targeting LGBT+ people to physically harm them. They people behind “REAJA” have very malicious intentions.
SquireofGotham 