In case you didn't see it elsewhere

[sabotabby]

There's a lot of newsblogging I could be doing right now, from commenting on how Drug Fraud's cut regulations on daycare (those regulations were there for child safety!) cut regulations on businesses (those regulations were there because otherwise businesses will work their employees to death) and cut protections on the Greenbelt (because lol fuck the environment) and is really bad at accounting (cutting Toronto city council to save money ended up costing the same amount because the councillors remaining after the cull had to hire more staff to, you know, do the job we used to elect people to do), but I'm pretty exhausted from living in a province run by a buffoon, so I'm going to just post a link to the one story that matters.

Actual headline:

‘Make better choices’: Endangered Hawaiian monk seals keep getting eels stuck up their noses and scientists want them to stop

Some choice excerpts:

“It’s just so shocking,” Claire Simeone, a veterinarian and monk seal expert based in Hawaii, told The Washington Post on Thursday. “It’s an animal that has another animal stuck up its nose.”

...

“It was just like, ‘We found a seal with an eel stuck in its nose, do we have a protocol?’”

...

“I struggle to think of an eel really wanting to force its way into a nose,” he said.

...

“It almost does feel like one of those teenage trends that happen,” he said. “One juvenile seal did this very stupid thing and now the others are trying to mimic it.”

Anyway just go read the whole thing; it's all quite good.

Comments

[sara]

...I am laughing really hard because my older child's high school's motto is "make good choices."

No really, they close every email to everyone with, "And remember, make good choices!"

Yes, it does fill me with the urge to, IDK, go eat a Snickers bar or something, just for spite.

[sabotabby]

I'm always telling my students to "make better life choices," with some irony but not 100% irony. Most find it funny; some react like these monk seals.

[lapinlunaire]

How is eating a Snickers bar not a good life choice? Other than any concerns about the ethics of how it's made or something.

Then again, my life is a mess so it's possible that the very concept of what a good choice is is beyond me

[franklanguage]

It seems Drug Fraud is taking a page—or two—from @realDonaldTrump's playbook. I'm also sure he never heard of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

The seal story reminds me of the time when my sister was about two or three and stuck a pebble up her nose "to clean it." Mom had to take her to the doctor to get it out; but that's nothing compared to how my now-deceased roommate somehow got some cement stuck in his ear and it hardened—this was in the 30s, when dentists would even give kids the leftover mercury from their fillings to kids to take home and play with.

He was at home and referred to his left ear as "my cement ear;" when his mother figured out what he meant by that, she took him to the doctor, who proceeded to pull the hardened cement—presumably with forceps—until it came out, breaking the eardrum.

[sabotabby]

I am fairly certain they would consider the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire to be an acceptable bit of collateral damage in the all-important quest to line the pockets of their cronies.

Ouch! Was he okay? I mean, obviously not now, but at the time.

[ironed_orchid]

THAT PHOTO!!!! ::laughcrying::

I feel like this should get posted on wtf_nature.

[sabotabby]

I may need to join that comm. I should join comms.

[lapinlunaire]

I saw the seal thing yesterday and this is why seals are great and majestic animals.

[sabotabby]

SO GRACEFUL SO DIGNIFIED

[lapinlunaire]

After reading these comments, I feel like I'm missing out because when I was a kid I didn't stick weird things in my nose (or ears) (I still don't)

[sabotabby]

I didn't either. I don't think. I was pretty obsessed with not getting dirty.

[lapinlunaire]

Same. I would probably have been OFFENDED by the very idea of putting a foreign object in my nose.