Month: May 2018

fierceawakening:

youareagoodperson:

y’know, if you’re at least trying to pretend that you care about other women besides women that are exactly like you, you’d think that you wouldn’t go around saying how stupid women that are attracted to men are and how much smarter you are than them

this thing baffles me so much tbh

like, i want everyone to have happy sex lives, whatever their gender or orientation

i feel like i missed some memo informing me that was never the goal

typhlonectes:

Moose mother with calves,
Gulkana Wild and Scenic River in Alaska

The largest member of the deer family, moose lead routine lives for most
of the year. While normally solitary, moose will gather in the fall for
the rut
(or mating season) and about eight months later, calves are born in
late May through early June. When food is scarce and predators abound,
moose can skip years between calving.

Just a few days after birth, baby moose can eat solid food and will spend the summer with their mothers, fattening up for winter. Word of warning: mama moose are extremely defensive of their young,
so use extra caution and never get between a mother and her calf!

Photo by Bob Wick, Bureau
of Land Management

via: U.S. Dept. of Interior Blog

Trump administration just announced plans to roll back child labor laws for hazardous work

princesssarcastia:

aniseandspearmint:

seandotpolitics:

In what comes as the just latest indication that our current government is run by morally bankrupt, parasitic opportunists, the Labor Department has announced that it will seek to repeal labor protection laws that prevent teenagers from working too many hours in hazardous condition, Bloomberg Law reports.

Under the new law, regulations would be relaxed to allow 16 and 17-year-old apprentices and student learners to receive longer blocks of training in dangerous professions.

Currently, roofing work, work involving chainsaws, and other hazardous machines are generally off-limits for people under the age of 18. However, exemptions are available to 16 and 17-year-olds currently in vocational schools. The exemptions usually allow for just an hour of such a workday. The new proposal would allow for larger chunks of consecutive time.

*incoherent rage*

@princesssarcastia

Okay, so this is so stupid.  Here’s the link to the current U.S. laws concerning Hazardous Occupations Orders (HOs).  In addition to the above, it also includes coal mining, manufacturing or storage occupations involving explosives, forestry occupations (sawmills, etc.), radioactive substances, mining in general, meat industry jobs (slaughtering, packaging), and wrecking and demolition.

My understanding is that the DOL won’t be including any of the coal mining or radioactive substances on their list of “things we should totally be letting teenagers do” but I wouldn’t put it past them.

The DoL says “The Department proposes to safely launch more family-sustaining careers by removing current regulatory restrictions on the amount of time that apprentices and student learners may perform HO-governed work,” 

A former DOL administrator said  “There are a lot of technological and equipment and machinery advances where you can all but eliminate dangers to youth under 18…When we can provide for a safe work environment and youth under 18 can participate in apprenticeship programs—and individuals over 18 can do likewise—I think it’s a win win for everybody.”

Okay, first of all, why does this training suddenly stop once you reach 18? Why do minors need to be learning everything there is to know about meatpacking/slaughtering operations at 16/17? Can’t they just do this training the DOL is saying will make them safer when they’re older? If they’re so concerned about their 18 year olds being able to do their jobs, just train the 18 year olds!

If we don’t think these people are old enough to VOTE why the fuck do you want to put them on heavy machinery??

Deaths related to teenage vocational training in heavy machinery is a really hard, really specific thing to look for, but I would be interested to know what that is if someone can find it. 

Trump administration just announced plans to roll back child labor laws for hazardous work

tane-p:

moniquill:

fistfulofgammarays:

So I got blood drawn today, and left a note for myself last night to remember to fast.

It was much more confusing at 5AM than it was the night before.

….as a person who works in a medical lab, my initial reaction to that sign was ‘This coffee pot is for use with blood only’ 

We have refrigerators that literally have signs on them that says ‘NO FOOD – BLOOD’ and ‘NO FOOD – SPECIMENS ONLY’ on them. 

vampire and human roommates AU

Source: fistfulofgammarays

typhlonectes:

Muskoxen,
Bering Land Bridge National Park, Alaska

With thick, long fur that trails like a skirt, muskoxen make motherhood look easy. Called Oomingmak
in the Inupiaq Eskimo language, meaning “hairy one” or “bearded one,”
muskoxen live in complex social circles with up to 75 in a herd, which
can be seen frolicking through the Alaskan tundra.

A female will give
birth to a single calf in April or May,
weighing about 20-30 pounds. The calf is able to stand and move around
hours after birth, and eats small, tender plants that are abundant and
nutritious. When danger approaches, muskoxen stick together, either
forming a line or a circle against predators. Calves will stay near their mothers or hide in the center of the circle for protection.

Photo by Jason Gablask, National Park Service

via:
U.S. Dept. of Interior Blog

A Rare Look at a Bobcat Family

typhlonectes:

On a hot Texas day last June, wildlife photographer Karine Aigner came face to face with a bobcat, and an unexpected relationship began.

“I’d been told bobcats
had been denning under the house for years, but for the six summers I
had spent teaching photography workshops at the ranch I’d only seen them
once or twice.”

Bobcats are notoriously shy, and while they live throughout the
United States, getting more than a passing glimpse is rare. She had
never considered them serious photography subjects…

A Rare Look at a Bobcat Family

Mass ICE Raids Leave a Trail of Misery and Broken Communities

antoine-roquentin:

After the raid, Postville’s economy tanked. The nearly 400 people
removed overnight were followed by many who fled in fear of more ICE
raids or because they had nothing left there — and with them vanished
the money they had spent on rent, groceries, and laundromats. Local
stores and restaurants shut down. The school came close to it. Immigrant
families, but also Jewish ones who had relied on the plant for work,
turned to the local church for help. The ripple effects stretched to
nearby towns — like Decorah, where Postville residents would shop at the
local Walmart. There were no more quinceañeras, bautismos, bodas,
said Lopez, referring to the birthdays, baptisms, and wedding parties
that made the town so vibrant. “We had two Mexican stores, a Guatemalan
store, a Guatemalan restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, a pizzeria. … It
was beautiful.”…

In the years after the raid, Postville became a case study for failed
immigration policy — with researchers analyzing the raid’s devastating impact on the community’s economy and health. One study linked the raid to lower birth weights of babies born to Latina mothers in the months that followed.

It took years for Postville to recover, and when it started to do so,
it was again thanks to an influx of new and returning immigrants from
Central America, as well as a growing number of Somali refugees who
found jobs at the same meatpacking plant, under new owners. The town,
which before the raid was home to white Iowans and Hasidic Jews, as well
as Mexicans and Guatemalans, is even more diverse today, as eastern
Europeans and Somalis have moved there in recent years. Postville’s
diversity is rare in northeastern Iowa but not unique in small-town and
rural America, where communities in which immigrants live alongside
longtime residents have little say in their states’ immigration rhetoric
and policies.

It’s quite ironic that deportation fans tend to talk up immigration’s supposed negative effects on the economy, and how small town America is collapsing under its weight, when the record shows that neither is caused by immigration.

Mass ICE Raids Leave a Trail of Misery and Broken Communities