“Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or something idk

Look I love Antony Green as much as the next aspiring wonk but also it would be an absolute delight to see him get progressively three sheets to the wind tomorrow, take a leak on the big board, and then storm out trousers down yelling “Follow THAT Casey!”

A Twitter thread. Amazon Help replies to a (not visible) tweet saying "Autumn Nations Cup coverage is available to Prime Video customers based in UK only. Prime Video doesn't support streaming content through Virtual Private Network (VPN) or proxy connections. Are you using either of these?" Chris Jones says "No." Amazon Help says "Thank you for that information. We apologize but upon reviewing your location you're in Northern Ireland. Rugby Autumn Nations Cup coverage is exclusively available to Prime members based in the UK. We don't have the rights to other territories."

The thread continues. Chris Jones says "Northern Ireland is part of the UK." Amazon Help says "Many apologies, but we don't have the broadcast rights for Ireland or other territories." Another twitter user says "Northern Ireland *IS* the UK, "UK" is short for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. (This tweet does not reflect my opinions on the matter of a united island of Ireland)" Amazon Help replies "Thank you for reaching out to us. We'll be sure to pass your feedback along to the appropriate team."

Amazon Help replies to a different tweet, and leads with "Hi there! We apologize for the troubles."

in slightly-early honour of St Patricks Day, I will once again remind the world of the time Amazon united Ireland (and apologized for the Troubles), still one of my favourite moments on twitter

A social distancing cheat chart:

New from me on what the rage and glee on public display after the killing of a healthcare CEO portends.

I suspect the corporate world will respond with more security and retreating even more into their gated lives.

They would be advised to read up on history.

🎁🔗
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/o...

fyi I'm trying to be really careful about what I hear on the scene because I'm drunk, my political vocabulary is not great, and ajussis slur their syllables together -- so some of the stuff I say will lag behind reuters etc!

Vincent D'Onofrio & @vincentdonofrio Pigs can't look up. But I could pick a pig up one night and raise it into the sky and tilt this pig ever so gentle. I can make sure this pigs eyes line up with the stars. Imagine seeing the stars 4the first time.l want 2b treated that kindly and see the stars for the first time.

I feel like this was the greatest celebrity post of all time because you initially want to make fun of it because we’re all irony poisoned jerks but the sheer scale of human compassion overwhelms it and you end up going yes Vincent I also want to help a pig see the stars for the first time

Annual morbidity in the 20th century, before and after vaccines:

Measles:
Before: 530,000, After: 47

Mumps:
Before: 160,000, After: 429

Rubella:
Before: 50,000, After: 3

Diphtheria:
Before: 20,000, After: 2

Smallpox:
Before: 30,000, After: 0

Polio:
Before: 16,000, After: 0

😁😁

A text screenshot from Kaushik Roy’s Global History of Premodern Warfare that reads: “Humans reached New Guinea and Australia about 35,000 years ago and soon killed the megafauna. This megafauna included giant kangaroos, rhino-like marsupials called diprotodonts, ostrich-like flightless birds, each weighing 181 kilos, and big reptiles like a one-ton lizard, land-dwelling crocodiles, etc. Diamond speculates that the giant mammals of Australia and New Guinea died but the big mammals of Africa and Eurasia survived into modern times because the later had coevolved with proto-humans for hundreds of thousands of years. Hence, the mammals of Africa and Eurasia had lot of time to evolve a fear of the humans as the proto-humans’ hunting skill slowly improved. In contrast, the giant mammals of Australia and New Guinea, without any evolutionary …”

A second text screenshot, continuing the first. It reads “preparation, suddenly confronted the humans with developed hunting skills and were soon wiped out. For the giant mammals of New Guinea and Australia, it was a sort of ‘culture clash’. The humans in New Guinea and Australia killed these giant mammals for food, and some of these animals also died indirectly due to fire and habitat modification by the humans. The net result was that the humans in New Guinea and Australia, as in the case of North and South America, were left with no indigenous animals which could be domesticated ( Diamond 2005: 42–4). So the destruction of the inmates of the ‘quasi-Jurassic Park’ in New Guinea and Australia seriously impeded the economic and technological evolution of the humans in these regions. We could speculate about a counterfactual scenario. If the one-ton lizards were domesticated and used for agriculture and riding, then the course of history would have been different...”

do you ever find yourself reading something fairly tedious and dry but then suddenly hit a passage that makes you think that you somehow might be totally fucking stoned

Remake of 2 girls/boyfriend with wandering eye meme Left and right: 2 girls. One at left has Putin's head, one at right has Hitler's head. Center: An adjudicated rapist, business fraud, and insurrectionist who's been indicted on 91 criminal charges as the boyfriend.

Repost from Mastodon, original source uncredited (alas, because it's brilliant)

Climate deniers be like…

IT’S THE MESS WE INHERITED

IT’S THE AGEING POPULATION

IT’S THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

IT’S BED BLOCKERS

IT’S THE PANDEMIC

IT’S THE WAR IN UKRAINE

IT’S THE UNIONS

IT’S IMMIGRANTS

Is it though.