My latest article for Educate magazine is all about verse novels. In it, I explore how they can help make reading possible for children who might feel overwhelmed by the amount of text on a page, why they work brilliantly as read-alouds and how they're helpful for developing empathy.
They're calling it the imperial boomerang, folks. They say it's the biggest boomerang they've ever seen, maybe even a plane of some kind. Whatever it is, it's coming right back to us, right back to us. The haters say it's not returning to the imperial core, but folks it's called a boomerang for a re
A platypus lower jaw and upper jaw, showing one remaining horny pad and three empty sockets where the pads have fallen out. From the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge
The #platypus has solved the key flaw of mammal teeth - that they can't be replaced*: #platypuses got rid of teeth. Instead they have horny pads to smash the crayfish & larvae they eat. As they wear down, they just regrow like fingernails.
*Unless you're a nabarlek, a rock-wallaby with endless teeth
If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kΔkΔpΕ chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!
Back at it observation sketching again
Scientists discovered a caterpillar that murders insects and stitches their dismembered body parts onto its back as armor
Youβre welcome. Happy day! π
*You know that Ursula Le Guin myth about "Omelas"? Well this world is the opposite of that. There's this secret, ritual chamber holding eighty moguls in luxurious contentment, while the entire planet and everyone in it is in obvious suffering and decay
"The Knight hadn't signed up for this. This was Debate. Debate was why the gods had created priests and trade union committee members. Not knights." π
πββ¬β€οΈππ₯Ή
Let me get all of this straight in my head. They want their allies to join in an ill-thought-out war of choice with unclear aims and an uncertain chance of success for any of the myriad aims stated so far. They want everyone else to just absorb any of the externalities like influxes of refugees, disruptions to shipping, higher oil and commodity prices and maybe even some incoming missiles. And then they also want to tariff everyone at 15%. I'm not sure they can keep pushing at everyone all at once indefinitely. There seems to be an inability here not just to anticipate second and third order effects, but even just to model a response from any other party, much less every other party.
Sure: they looked at decades of obsequious grovelling to one President after another and concluded - we can do whatever we want, and these clowns will just wear it and come crawling back to us begging for more. And what, have we seen any indications that this is wrong? No.
people's minds would be BLOWN if they found out why Trent Lott resigned as republican leader nearly a quarter century ago
Thing I discovered: Name, Name Jr., Name III = TrΓ©/Tres/Trey/Trip[le]. You meet a Tre or Trip, thereβs good chance they are βthird of his nameβ. American Southern thing mostly.
interesting that it's taken as a given that the US should have a hand in shaping who the iranian people choose as their leader
New from 404 Media: CBP tapped into the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples' movements, according to an internal DHS document. Shows for the first time DHS tracked phones via process for putting ads in ordinary appsβvideo games, fitness apps, many more www.404media.co/cbp-tapped-i...
I want to know the back story so bad. Is he boffing the marketer and felt like he couldnβt say no? Did he insist on doing it? Was he reluctantly strong armed by the board?
Analysts say the US has already used up about one-quarter of its missile interceptors, crucial for a prolonged assault.
Table with 3 columns and 6 rows. (column headers with buttons are sortable) Country Missiles Drones UAE 174 ballistic 8 cruise 689 Kuwait 97 ballistic 283 Qatar 67 ballistic 17 Bahrain 115* 136 Shahed 68 other Jordan 13 ballistic Multiple Saudi Arabia 5 hostile 2 other *Missiles not identified Source: WSJ staff reports
Experts have been saying, rather patly, that Iran's drones will last longer than the interceptors in the ME, but this story from @yarotrof.bsky.social is the first I've seen that explains the numbers.
www.wsj.com/world/gulf-s...
"Iβm going to take the diplomatic hat off here and say with brutal honesty: Basically everybody in the music business hates Spotify except for the people who work there."
joelgouveia.substack.com/p/the-death-...
Yes, Jane Hume (current deputy leader of the Liberal party) could not contain herself and here we are.
@JoyceCarolOates X.com speaking as glibly as Beavis & Butthead. does T***p even grasp the profound significance of what he has set in motion in the Middle East? this person whose most essential self is riding in a golf cart fatly, cheating at the profoundly insignificant game of leisure golf when he assumes no one is looking.
if βfor sale, baby shoes, never wornβ are the saddest six words, then βriding in a golf cart fatlyβ is the opposite of that
As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.
Again, I have to ask: what do people in power think the UK actually *makes*? Because we don't build stuff any more. You and your predecessors deliberately shifted us towards being a service economy a generation ago. All we have going for us is our art, music, educational establishments...
lol this is an incredible video
The number of fixed-wing aircraft lost in friendly fire incidents today equals the number lost during the entire 20-year span of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
You can eat them. Probably good to know it hasnβt been sprayed with herbicide if youβre into that?
since the U.S. and Israeli strikes are framed as "targeted operations against terrorist infrastructure," rather than a full-scale invasion, the Kremlin interprets this as a case that does not fall under the collective defense provisions.
At some point you wonder not just if insiders using information to place bets, but maybe also reshaping their advice to make those bets profitable.
Russian ideologist Dugin is worried about the regime in Russia after the Iran operation began. If Iran falls, Russia is next, he says.
What will the Iranian attack mean for drone warfare in Ukraine? I assume less available for export, but not sure how quickly that happens and is noticed.
"Years ago, we tore up a nuclear peace deal w/Iran.
Months ago, we bombed Iran
& "obliterated" their nuke capabilities.
And now, we might just have to go to war with Iran
bc of their nuke capabilities."
-the ppl who tore up the nuclear peace deal w/Iran
Itβs really not any better watching on a random Saturday night, Australian time.
