Today I Learned

Pretty wild! All states give you at least 30 days to dump your baby, no strings attached. Some states give you 60 days!

I feel like more people should know about this! It seems like a highly under utilized ability.

In the 1970s, the "burning" that effectively ended British diplomatic presence in the Irish Republic (the south) was the Burning of the British Embassy in Dublin in 1972. It was a pivotal moment of national fury that essentially told the British government they were no longer welcome in the Republic's capital. This event was a direct response to Bloody Sunday, which had happened just three days prior in Derry, where British paratroopers killed 13 unarmed civil rights marchers. The Protest: An estimated 100,000 people (one of the largest protests in Irish history) marched on the British Embassy at 39 Merrion Square in Dublin. Protesters carried black coffins to the embassy steps. Using petrol bombs and gelignite, the crowd breached the building’s defenses. Despite a line of Irish police (Gardaí), the building was eventually gutted by fire. The British Ambassador and his staff had to be evacuated, and the embassy was relocated to a much more secure, less central location. It served as a massive symbolic "eviction" of the British diplomatic core from the heart of Dublin.

We really need to bring that back 👀

Greeks and Romans would frequently curse anyone they didn't like, writing it as a curse on a lead sheet, roll it up and pierce it with a nail and put in a specific place, depending on the curse.

Given the amount of such tablets found, they probably cursed someone every other week.

For extra photos - https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/roman-curse-tablets

This is the GOAT practical joke.

François "Pierre" Picaud (French: [piko]) was a 19th-century shoemaker in Nîmes, France who may have been the basis for the character of Edmond Dantès in Alexandre Dumas, père's 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo.

Not actually underwear, but devices to analyze parts.

also

Referring to alcohol or cannabis as social lubricants has been criticized because they have negative effects on empathy.

I feel like weed does the opposite to that lol
to me at least 🤷‍♀️

cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/44490709

Leon Black's son Benjamin Black was appointed CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) by Donald Trump.

§ 14-309.8. Limit on sessions.

The number of sessions of bingo conducted or sponsored by an exempt organization shall be limited to two sessions per week and such sessions must not exceed a period of five hours each per session. No two sessions of bingo shall be held within a 48-hour period of time. No more than two sessions of bingo shall be operated or conducted in any one building, hall or structure during any one calendar week and if two sessions are held, they must be held by the same exempt organization. This section shall not apply to bingo games conducted at a fair or other exhibition conducted pursuant to Article 45 of Chapter 106 of the General Statutes. (1983, c. 896, s. 3; c. 923, s. 217; 1983 (Reg. Sess., 1984), c. 1107, ss. 6, 7.)

I always assumed it came from Shakespeare, or something along those lines. That it actually came from putrid legalese was like finding out that my online girlfriend was an AI chatbot all along.

It outranks German and French. Almost all of it is bot-generated.

And yes, I learned about it from the popular "casual geographic" tuber. But given my involvement with bears, I also have a soft spot in my heart for raccoons. And this lady (and more importantly this species!) deserve more recognition!

There's only about 250 left in the wild and, despite having tons of available funding, Mexico is not publicly funding any conservation for them.

Also the antifungus cream I'm using has synthetic sperm whale oil in it

•A Brief History of America’s Private Prison Industry

•From FBI reject to private warlord: the rise of George Wackenhut

•By 1966, Wackenhut could confidently state that it had secret files on 4 million Americans

•Many of the Wackenhut documents and a series on student movements in California highlight the suspected connections between Communism, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the broader left counterculture of the 1960s, and document the right's evolving definition of "subversion."

•An ICE Contractor Is Worth Billions. It’s Still Fighting to Pay Detainees as Little as $1 a Day to Work. GEO Group, whose stock is valued at $4 billion, says that state minimum wage laws don’t apply to the cleaning services that it’s asked detained migrants to perform at facilities where they’re kept.

•Ice contractor plans for surveillance boom under Trump migrant crackdown: Geo Group, an Ice partner, is moving at ‘unprecedented speed’ to build out its monitoring, executive chair says

•Better know a private prison giant: GEO Group’s Board of Directors

•Feb 2025: Private Prison Exec Calls Mass Deportation Plans ‘Unprecedented Opportunity’ GEO Group Chairman George Zoley said the company stands to gain up to $1 billion in additional revenue from detaining and surveilling undocumented immigrants.

•The man who is making a killing from Trump’s current onslaught of immigrant persecution is himself an immigrant. In fact, if George Zoley had been born just 20 years later, he’d more likely be cowering inside the Aurora Detention Center instead of raking in the profits from it.

•George C. Zoley, chairman of the board and founder of GEO Group, the second largest private prison company is the United States, has been with GEO or its former parent company, the Wackenhut Corporation, since 1981. Zoley has called late George Wackenhut, the controversial right-wing founder of Wackenhut Corporation, the person he most admired.

Among the many concerning controversies involving Wackenhut corporations, one that might seem especially relevant in 2026, was their suspected involvement in several murders relating to the very convoluted Inslaw and PROMIS (Prosecutors Management Information System) software scandal of the 1980s. The software was sold as an automation system for police and court data, and advertised as one day having the potential to predict crime before it even happened. It was allegedly stolen and modified before being distributed by the U.S. government and used to spy on other countries.

•We know from witness statements that the murders appear to be connected to the corruption surrounding Wackenhut and the PROMIS affair. We know from FBI’s own records that the Bureau looked into the matter. And most recently, we know that the FBI has not only repeatedly refused to release those files, but apparently removed the request from their FOIA tracking system.