arklooch 🟧

Save Democracy! animal lover & spider rescuer, science will save us! #KamalaHarris2024 #brightbluedot #bluewave No DMs!!

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

1. You didn’t respond to my tweet? Do you want to start by deporting your immigrant in laws? Your immigrant father-in-law, after all, was a convicted criminal.
2. Washington actually had people called Muhammad fighting in his Continental Army. Have you ever read US history?

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

FACT-CHECK: TRUE ✅

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

In January, our administration inherited a $12 billion budget deficit — a fiscal crisis greater than the Great Recession. 

Today I am proud to announce that our balanced budget has cleared the final step and passed the New York City Council. 

We balanced the budget by taxing the rich and making government more efficient. We did not balance this budget on the backs of working people, and we never will. 

Every year that follows will build on these principles: Honest budgeting. Fiscal discipline. Transparent government. And an unwavering belief that working people deserve a government that delivers for them every day.

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

This weekend I’m having huevos rancheros in my district. Then visit the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Grab some rugelach at Canter’s deli. Stroll diverse Venice Beach. Have pho for dinner. And hug my kids and kiss my wife, all of whom have yellow skin and slanted eyes.

I love America

[Hemant Mehta @hemantmehta]

A Kentucky church reportedly staged a fake execution during Vacation Bible School... with realistic-looking guns... while children chanted, "Take him out! Blow him up!"

I wish I were making this up.

https://t.co/as3bVELF3f

[Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders]

There is a record-breaking heat wave in Europe and hundreds are dying.

There is drought all across America and farmers are going out of business. Yet, Trump thinks climate change is a “hoax” and cuts funding for sustainable energy.

Insane. He is threatening the very future of our planet.

[Rebekah Jones @GeoRebekah]

The Bible Belt is also:

The divorce belt
The teen pregnancy belt
The obesity belt
The murder belt
The poverty belt
The high-school dropout belt
The uneducated belt
The MAGA belt
The prison belt
The disease belt

None of these are a coincidence. They are not simply correlation.

This is cause and effect.

[arklooch 🟧 @robbieklooch]

@giveashitnature I rescued a domestic rabbit last year that I found in my flower bed. After a little detective work, found out my neighbor had dumped it, was probably an Easter gift for their young children. Meet Henry

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Every summer, shelters fill with rabbits once the Easter bunny excitement has worn off..

Domestic rabbits are the third most surrendered pet in the US, behind dogs and cats. They live eight to twelve years, need specialized veterinary care, and eat a diet that's mostly fresh hay, not carrots. They bond deeply with their owners and get lonely and depressed in isolation. They are not low-maintenance starter pets, nor are they wild animals.

When people realize that, a lot of them release the rabbit outside. This is a death sentence. A domestic rabbit has no survival instincts suited to the outdoors. It can't recognize predators, can't find food, and is visible to every hawk and fox in the neighborhood within hours of being set loose.

The ones that do survive long enough to be found are usually in bad shape by the time a wildlife rehabilitator gets them, and wildlife rehabbers aren't equipped to take domestic animals anyway.

If you have a rabbit you can no longer care for, the right move is a rabbit rescue or a shelter with a rabbit program. The House Rabbit Society has a rescue finder. Most metro areas have one. It's not glamorous and it's not a happy ending, but it's the one that doesn't involve the rabbit dying alone in a field.

If you're thinking about getting a rabbit for a child: get a stuffed one. Or better yet, find a rescue that allows visits and let the kid meet a real one first.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

The firefly blinking over your yard tonight has maybe 2 weeks left to live. It spent the last year or 2 as a fierce little predator underground.

Fireflies are beetles, and the glow you know is its final act. Before it, the larva lived down in the soil and leaf litter, hunting slugs, snails, and earthworms, injecting them with a paralyzing toxin and slurping them out.

Most adults don't even eat. Their whole remaining job is to flash.

And that flash is a language. Each species has its own pattern, a coded signal between males and females trying to find each other.

Which is exactly why your porch light is a problem. Artificial light at night washes the flashes out, and a firefly that can't be seen can't find a mate. The Xerces Society lists light pollution, along with pesticides and lost habitat, as a leading reason firefly numbers are dropping, with several species now considered at risk.

Helping them is mostly about doing less. Cut the outdoor lights on summer nights, or put them on a motion sensor. Leave a corner of leaf litter and longer grass damp and undisturbed for the larvae. Skip the lawn chemicals that poison the soil they grow up in.

A dark, slightly messy yard is the only place the light show still happens.

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Some native plants feed you and the wildlife off the same branch. You take the harvest, the birds and bees get the rest, and nobody has to mow it.

A few worth planting:

Serviceberry: sweet, blueberry-like fruit in June, if you beat the birds to it. The early white flowers feed pollinators, and 40-plus bird species eat the berries.

Pawpaw: the largest fruit native to North America, custard-textured, somewhere between banana and mango. It's also the only plant a zebra swallowtail caterpillar can eat.

Elderberry: clusters of berries for syrup and jam, cooked first, with flowers and fruit feeding birds and pollinators.

American persimmon: bright orange fall fruit for you, the turkeys, and the foxes alike. Hosts luna moths.

Black cherry: fruit for jam and for birds, and it feeds hundreds of caterpillar species, which in turn feed the birds.

A yard can be a grocery store for everything living in it, you included.

[arklooch 🟧 @robbieklooch]

@giveashitnature I just planted three elderberry, a red chokeberry and two American beautyberry. I have committed to natives in my yard this year am adding a serviceberry to my list for fall planting. I already have high bush blueberries and it's always a battle with the birds! I got about 4 cups

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

That little black-and-orange alligator crawling across your leaf isn't a pest: it's a baby ladybug, and it's the best aphid killer in your garden.

Ladybug larvae look nothing like the adults. They're small, spiky, dark, and dotted with bright spots, and most people squash them on sight thinking they found something bad.

A single larva eats around 400 aphids before it's even grown. The adult it turns into clears roughly 5,000 more over its life. They take mites, scale, and mealybugs too. Pound for pound, the ugly larva out-eats the cute adult.

To keep them around, lay off the insecticide, which kills them faster than the aphids, and tolerate a few aphids so they have something to hunt. No pests, no ladybugs.

And skip the mail-order lady bugs too. Those are mostly wild-collected or the invasive Asian beetle, and they just fly off. Build the habitat and the natives show up on their own.

[arklooch 🟧 @robbieklooch]

@giveashitnature I love your account; just followed you in the last few days. Thank you for the very informative posts and the sticker!

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Holy shit, 40,000 new friends in a single day?

I'm still stunned at how many of you are showing up and giving a shit about nature. As a massive thank you, I'm doing another free "Give A Shit About Nature" sticker giveaway.

→ Find the link in first reply

They'll look way better on your water bottle, laptop, or bumper than piled on my desk 😅

Grateful as hell for every single one of you. Y'all are the best.

[Nashville Zoo @NashvilleZoo]

On Thursday, we asked our community to stand with Nashville Zoo in protecting the animals, habitats and future of the Zoo from a proposed data center next door.

Please keep sharing and contact your local representatives ➡️ https://t.co/q2ISQnxLBK

[🇵🇸 | WillowTheBirdwatcher | Arcee’s #1 Fan @Dopamine_Fan]

this Datacenter is only 200 meters from the zoo. These things make constant noise & heat the surrounding areas by up to 16 degrees. The Nashville Zoo is home to over 350 species of Leopards, Tigers, Rhinos, Zebras, Giraffes, Alligators, Monkeys, & more. Please sign the petition

[FoxNashville @FOXNashville]

🦁 Nashville Zoo is asking the public to help oppose a proposed data center planned on neighboring property.

Zoo officials say they are concerned about potential impacts on animals, visitors and natural resources, and want more information about the project's environmental effects before it moves forward.

READ MORE: https://t.co/aJfnSGD0Sw

[Irah ☁️ (in mourning) @lovto_loveyou]

Please guys, if you hate AI, sign the petition to keep a data center from being put in right next to our zoo! it is close to down town.

nashville needs your help to keep our zoo, our water, & our city safe!

https://t.co/Mxsy6ISH6O

[Alex Daugherty @AlexDaugherty1]

Please join all of Nashville in saying hell no to this AI Data Center.

Maybe the easiest petition to sign I’ve ever come across.