let’s hear it for the world’s smallest whale (the vaquita) you guys!!

ooo.... lady vaquita

I am a real girl....

People really do say this kinda stuff. I swear no consistency at all

I think it’s just a girl thing

stellar graffiti near my apartment

this hurt my feelings

well fuck it instead of a christmas tree this year i'm just going to construct a panopticon in my living room and cut the crap

Internet leftists: The Elf on a Shelf normalizes living in a surveillance state for impressionable children.

Holly Jolly Capitalism: Hold my eggnog

Trans girl: Call me Olive.

Trans guy who needs to 1-up everyone around him: Oh yeah? Call me Oliver!

Enby who didn’t come here to make friends: oh hi there I’m Olivest

Oh fuck

I'm a very "incremental changes don't fix a broken system" type of person, but Biden's NLRB deserves credit. It's obviously operating within existing labor laws, but it's a been doing everything within that legal power to help unions and it's a significant reason for the success of so many unionization pushes in the last several years

I should actually do some research on why this is, huh. one sec

Biden, to his credit, went and fired the Top Lawyer of the Board immediately (the first time a President has exercised this authority since 1950 lol). I don't think he himself has done anything that different since then - his appointees came from SEIU, which is pretty normal afaik, and he waited for a normal term to expire before getting his 3/5 majority on the Board itself.

That alone has been pretty big - it reset the inertia of the Board, putting a new majority to work with a new General Counsel, who has forced Amazon to allow workers to organize throughout their facilities. This was crucial to many (all?) recent Amazon unionization votes. They've also forced employers to hire workers fired for organizing.

I'm not finding huge seismic changes in policy - obviously Biden isn't passing new labor laws even if he wanted to. It just seems like his firing of the General Counsel allowed the NLRB to really hit the ground running and give full support to a wave of grassroots unionization. Nice

Wait I found a seismic change in policy

6 days ago the NLRB released a decision reviving the Joy Silk doctrine. Starting now, the federal government will recognize a union as soon as a majority of employees sign union cards - no election needed. If the employer requests an election (I'm sure they always will), the Board will automatically recognize the union if the employer is found tampering with the process. This means firing organizing workers, intimidation/harassment, etc., will result in an immediate union victory.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to call this the biggest change in labor law since the doctrine was killed off in the 70s. I also actually believe that Biden's NLRB will enforce it. This actually deserves its own post, it's that huge and it just happened. I'm so glad I did this research lmao

Just had to do some searching and wow, this is real.

Sometimes I miss how much better birdsite was for news, but here you get to learn about labor law developments from someone who goes by yiffmaster.

Stay away from this crabby ass bird. That foot is absolutely prehistoric.

@todaysbird

colllection

Gollum’s lowkey adoreable tbh i would like to keep him as a pet❤️

The way the activity tab cuts the end off replies with ellipsis is the funniest thing in the world sometimes

In case you’re wondering how smart rats can be, and if Ratatouille is real, then allow me to share this story: I once had two rats, River and Chell, both rescued from a laboratory as babies. Chell was whip-smart and liked to ride around on my shoulders as I walked around the apartment. She would recognize places she wanted to go, such as her cage or the sofa, and I would raise my arm up to let her run across to her objective. She quickly cottoned on to this and, in an entirely self-taught behavior, would run to one of my shoulders or another and tug on my sleeve, to signal me to raise my arm in the direction she wanted. In this manner she was able to steer me around the apartment and would frequently use me as a taxi instead of walking herself. She then taught her sister how to do it too.