sucker-footed bats are similar but they use sticky sweat, not suction cup hands
são tomé collared fruit bats have three lower incisors with one in the middle like tom cruise
mouse-tailed bats have really long tails
new zealand short-tailed bats prefer to walk on the forest floor and often dig for food, they also sometimes dig burrows
bulldog bats catch fish
spectral bats catch and eat birds
bat wings have such large surface area with blood vessels so close to the skin that they can do up to 11% of their gas exchange directly through the skin, this is measured like this:
vampire bats are the only known vertebrates that lack maltase, the enzyme that breaks down maltose sugars
honduran white bats make leaf tents and sleep together in piles
The people who say #AllLivesMatter enjoy cruelty, suffering, and [state executed] death for billions of vulnerable people around the world, and especially in the US.
The increasingly popular conspiracy theory QAnon was recently the target of a Twitter crackdown, and several of its adherents are running for office across the country. But what is QAnon, exactly? The Onion breaks down the conspiracy theory with its guide to QAnon.
Q: What is QAnon?
A: A conspiracy theory that posits world leaders are secretly evil rather than openly so.
Q: What do QAnon supporters believe?
A: That by working together, they can discover a renewed sense of purpose and community.
Q: Who is Q?
A: Oh no, did no one tell you? The cabal executed him for treason this morning.
Q: How do members communicate with each other?
A: In the comments beneath a mutual friend’s completely unrelated Facebook post.
Q: Do all QAnon supporters share the same beliefs?
A: No—fundamentalists tend to read the QAnon text literally, while evangelicals believe it’s an allegory for President Trump’s unfair treatment.
Q: How did Twitter crack down on these dangerous conspiracy theories?
A: They were immediately removed after being shared thousands of times.
Q: Is QAnon part of the mainstream Republican Party?
A: No, the fact that they share similar views on race, religion, and politics is totally coincidental.
Q: Shouldn’t the fact that Hillary Clinton hasn’t been arrested yet disprove the whole conspiracy?
A: Only if you believe that an all-knowing figurehead like Q should somehow be able to know things.
Q: Is imagining clandestine government intrigue more palatable than dwelling on the reality that the American people are under complete control of international corporate interests?
A: Yes.
Q: You’re answering my questions in the exact way that someone who’s been paid off to discredit QAnon would, aren’t you?
After two months of protests across from the State Capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee lawmakers voted for a tidy way to disperse their new neighbors: making it illegal to camp there.
The law, which also targets protests on public property, makes convictions punishable by up to six years in prison—and even loss of voting rights.
The Tennessee bill, passed by the state legislature last week, was the latest legislation targeting dissent in a year marked by nationwide protests against racism and police brutality. It follows a Michigan bill that would classify rioting as terrorism, and a slew of recent legislation—begun before George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in late May—imposing harsh punishments on anti-pipeline protesters.
The measures have real potential to chill protest movements, their critics say.
Tennessee’s SB 8005/HB 8005, which passed the state legislature on Wednesday, would rewrite state criminal code to make it a Class E felony to camp on state property between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. That’s bad news for the People’s Plaza, a movement of racial justice protesters who have led a nonstop demonstration near the State Capitol since June 12.
The group says it will gladly vacate the state-owned plaza—as soon as Gov. Bill Lee meets with them, or the state legislature removes a bust of Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol building. So far, neither has happened.
“There are aspects of the law that I might have done differently, that were different from my original proposal,” Lee said last week, indicating he nonetheless intended to sign it so as to ensure “lawlessness doesn’t occur in the midst of protest.”
Protesters and civil liberties experts cried foul.
“They can say this bill is about protecting law enforcement,” ACLU of Tennessee Policy Director Brandon Tucker told The Daily Beast. “It’s not. Law enforcement is already protected. This bill came about when people took to the street demanding racial justice, an end to police violence, and to say that Black lives matter.”
Anjanette Edwards, an activist who demonstrates at the People’s Plaza, said she thought it was quite clear that the bill targeted protesters like her.
“I believe a lot of the revisions that were made to this bill were trying to capitalize on actions that occurred when the People’s Plaza was occupying that space,” she told The Daily Beast.
Guess what making protest a felony does: it nullifies your right to vote. Sometimes permanently, depending on which state you’re a citizen of. Only two U.S. states never curtail your right to vote: Maine and Vermont. These bills are voter disenfranchisement and suppression of the First Amendment.
Using the hashtag #WhereIsMyName, campaigners pushed for the right of women to be named on official documents including children’s birth certificates, which previously named only the father.
The President signed the amendment after Parliament had delayed passing the changes, which were scheduled for discussion last week.
“I feel like a bird in a cage whose door has just been opened, achieving the dream of flying in the sky,” said activist Sonia Ahmadi, who joined the campaign when it began in 2017.
“My feeling of happiness may seem ridiculous for women in other countries, but when we live in a society where women are physically and spiritually excluded, achieving such basic rights is a big and difficult task.”
#WhereIsMyName campaigners are fighting an ingrained Afghan tradition that states using a woman’s name in public brings shame on the family.
Instead, women are publicly referred to by the name of their closest male relatives.
Their own names are generally not present on documents, on their wedding invitations or even on their own gravestones.
“In a society where everything is against women and they work to keep women down, this is a big step forward,” Ms Ahmadi said.
“It gives me an extraordinary feeling of happiness.”
The Afghan cabinet’s legal affairs committee said the move was a significant achievement.
“The decision to include the mother’s name in the ID card is a big step towards gender equality and the realisation of women’s rights,” the committee said in a statement.
The movement, which began in the city of Herat but has since expanded worldwide, has faced opposition in the conservative and patriarchal Muslim country.
During a joint press conference with local authorities and the founders of the movement, Herat Governor Wahid Qattali said he feared there would be resistance to the change.
“We need to work in the districts also to prevent a public opposition against the initiative … but there may be some who try to make trouble along the way,” he said.
Instead, focus on the provision in its coronavirus relief bill that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) calls a must-have in any bill that passes: It’s liability protection for employers whose employees get sick at work.
This proposal has received scant attention in coverage of the GOP plan. But it’s more vicious than you could possibly imagine.
The GOP proposal would erect almost insurmountable obstacles to lawsuits by workers who become infected with the coronavirus at their workplaces.
It would absolve employers of responsibility for taking any but the most minimal steps to make their workplaces safe. It would preempt tough state workplace safety laws (not that there are very many of them).
And while shutting the courthouse door to workers, it would allow employers to sue workers for demanding safer conditions.
This is the provision that McConnell has described as his “red line” in negotiations over the next coronavirus relief bill, meaning that he intends to demand that it be incorporated in anything passed on Capitol Hill and sent to President Trump for his signature. The provision would be retroactive to last Dec. 1 and remain in effect at least until Oct. 1, 2024.
The GOP proposal would make workplaces immeasurably more hazardous for workers, and also for customers. That’s because litigation — or the threat of litigation — is one of the bulwarks of workplace safety enforcement.
Without confidence that workplaces are safe, employees will be reluctant to come to work and customers reluctant to walk in the door.
“Ensuring that workers and consumers can hold companies accountable for their actions is critical to establishing a safe reopening of our economy,” Celine McNicholas and Margaret Poydock of the labor-associated Economic Policy Institute have observed.
The proposal would supersede such federal worker safeguards as the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, among others.
In plain English, the Republicans are proposing to eviscerate almost all workplace protections at the moment when the threat to workers’ health may be its highest in a century. Let’s not overlook that federal enforcement of workplace safety is anything but strong to begin with. The maximum OSHA penalty is $13,494 per violation.
That’s “insufficient to serve as a deterrent,” McNicholas and Poydock say. “Companies merely factor these penalties into the cost of doing business.”
