KitKat

Chromosome Testing Will Take Sports Back To The Dark Ages | Defector In the late 1990s, Olympics officials were suddenly eager to exit the business of testing women’s DNA. After three decades of requiring all women athletes to sit for chromosome tests in order to compe...

Delirious Cold War panic has been swapped out for noxious trans panic, but the result will be the same: athletes will be punished for no good reason.
@michaelwaters.bsky.social on chromosome testing at the Olympics is a must-read
defector.com/chromosome-t...

OMG THEY'RE SO TINY!!!!!!!! INCREDIBLE!!!

That's right. That's where my troubles began.

His alleged mistress left her precious heated blanket on the other plane, so Corey Lewandowski demanded the pilot turn the plane around to go get it.

When he refused, Lewandowski -- who has zero authority to fire anyone at any time -- tried to fire the pilot IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLIGHT.

I admit I've under-emphasized this point, but it should be higher up in my list of reasons never to use "AI".

A painting of a bird beside the text "I could do with considerably less bullshit"

Not only can they fly and see a whole set of colors we can't*, they carry around personal duvets and don't have to go to the dentist.

*varies by clade

ICE holds people in disgusting conditions. Now it’s turning warehouses into camps | Moira Donegan The Trump administration has bought warehouses across the US that could hold thousands. But resistance is growing

I wrote about ICE’s concentration camps. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Recent CBS News news:
1. Anderson Cooper leaves 60 Minutes after two decades
2. Stephen Colbert reveals network won’t let him air interview with Dem
3. Producer says politics dictating what airs
4. Owner’s bid for CNN parent back on the table.
5. Not firing Epstein pal.

I think it’s time for Democratic leaders to start saying “if you’re a pilot or ground crew involved in a deportation that was stayed by a judge, you’ll be held criminally liable for human trafficking.” Everyone involved in these flights should have that fear in the back of their minds.

Colbert Doesn’t Give an FCC About Calling Out CBS

Stephen Colbert said that the FCC and CBS - which is in no way a compromised or complicit organization - wouldn’t allow him to broadcast an interview with Democratic State Rep James Talarico. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/a...

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

Birds are cool 🪶

ICE bad, immigration good

Yes! Not caveated, focused on reassuring restrictionists. Direct.

Not just right, good politics. As @gregsargent.bsky.social shows, approval of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is higher when asked in the abstract, but negative when asked about what he’s actually doing.

AOC’s biggest problem if she runs for president is that the white men who control our media ecosystem will not so much put a finger on the scale to stop her as an entire hand

it can be done (see: Zohran) but it’s going to be blatant and it’s going to be infuriating

Is it all coming together?

A 20-year-old cancer vaccine may hold the key to long-term survival Two decades after a breast cancer vaccine trial, every participant is still alive—an astonishing result for metastatic disease. Scientists found their immune systems retained long-lasting memory…

Two decades after a small Duke breast cancer vaccine trial, every participant is still alive — a rare outcome for metastatic disease. When researchers looked closer, they found the women’s immune systems still carried “memory” cells that recognised the cancer. buff.ly/MNeRhJh
#ShareGoodNewsToo

I mean, I'm just going to keep detaching this from people who quote post with direct links to the regs dot gov page to bypass the guide — my whole thing is "here's how you submit a comment that /matters/" — if you want people to spam the register with nonsense, that's fine but do it on your own.

National Park Service removing a slavery exhibit

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto “Ignorance is Strength,” this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truth when it domain over historical facts. It does not.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibit that the National Park Service removed in Philadelphia

www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Everywhere this man goes he should be treated as if he murdered millions of children, because he did.

Every time she worriedly rushes to make sure you aren’t annoyed; every time she decides not to ask for what she needs; every time she’s relieved and grateful over common, coequal courtesy — that’s you benefitting from the violence of other men. That’s you being the hero over nothing.

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

Pencil line dragonfly tattoo on pale skin

Belated birthday present from my sister. Turn 50, get a tattoo

man ... lying under oath really ought to be a crime, you know?

FDA’s Makary backs measles vaccinations as South Carolina cases rise Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin Makary, in an interview on Friday, urged Americans to get vaccinated for measles, ​as the country faces its largest measles ‌su...

Another one now is urging people to get vaccinated, as measles cases rise in SC. First it was Dr. Oz. As unvaccinated children attend school, outbreaks will increase. 950 reported cases in SC. Again, preventable. Thinking about how many encephalitis cases will be reported.
🧪 wkzo.com/2026/02/13/f...

If those who claim the authority of law do not obey the law, and the law does not stop them, then they do not have the authority of law, because there is no longer any law.

Photo of an Ancient Egyptian artists’s small, naturalistic painting of a standing hippopotamus on a flake of white limestone, dated c. 1479–1425. The hippo is painted in profile with head lowered and to the right. The body is outlined with black paint and painted brown. The belly, eyes, and ears are painted red. Although the ancient Egyptians were well aware of the danger and destructive power of hippos, this painted hippo has rather a friendly face! Dimensions: H. 10.8 cm (4 1/4 in); W. 12 cm (4 3/4 in); Th. 1.7 cm (11/16 in) Egyptian artists made practice sketches on flakes of limestone, sometimes for use as templates when transferring an image to the wall of a tomb or a temple. Limestone flakes were readily available because of the constant construction of temples and rock-cut tombs. A number of such sketches were recovered at Deir el-Bahri during the 1922-23 MMA excavations. This painting was acquired by the museum in the division of finds.

Happy #WorldHippoDay! 🦛❤️

To celebrate here’s a lovely naturalistic painting of a hippo on a small flake of limestone. Painted by an Egyptian artist some 3,500 years ago!

📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#Archaeology

What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it

Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon.

Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.

Met Museum photo of an ancient Egyptian board game carved from cream-coloured ivory displayed against a dark background. The original name of the game is unknown. It is now known as ‘Hounds and Jackals’ or the ‘Game of 58 holes’. The game board rests on four bulls' legs. One of the legs, seen at back of the board on the right of photo, is completely restored. Another has a restored hoof (seen at front of the board on left). The board is shaped like an axe head. In the centre of the upper surface is an incised palm tree topped by a ‘Shen’ symbol (a circle atop a a horizontal line to which it is tied). The palm’s trunk runs down the length of the board. There are 58 holes in the upper surface; 29 arranged evenly on either side of the palm tree. At the lower side of the game board there is a drawer with a bolt to store the playing pieces. The playing pieces are made up of ten long pins (sticks) with carved animal heads. Five are hounds and five are jackals. In the photo, the ten pins are arranged randomly in holes on the game board. The board is carved from ivory with ebony detailing around the 58 holes. The pins are ivory. Measurements: Game board: H 6.8cm W 10.1 cm, D 15.6 cm. Hound pins: H 6 cm to 6.8 cm Jackal pins: H 7 cm to 8.5 cm
 The game was excavated in 1910 by Howard Carter from the tomb of an official named Reniseneb at Thebes. The tomb is dated to Dynasty 12, Reign of Amenemhat IV, circa 1814–1805 BC. “Ancient Egyptians likened the intricate voyage through the underworld to a game. This made gaming boards and gaming pieces appropriate objects to deposit in tombs” (The Met).

This Ancient Egyptian board game is almost 4,000 years old!

Known as ‘Hounds and Jackals’ or ‘Game of 58 holes’, its original name is unknown. It’s suggested it was played in a similar way to ‘Snakes and Ladders’.

📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

#Archaeology