“This week, President Donald Trump admitted on Truth Social that his mass deportations are hurting farmers and the economy. Those removals are “taking very good, longtime workers away” from farms and hotels, Trump declared, adding that those workers are proving “impossible to replace.” To be clear, Trump was talking about his own immigration policies. That’s a stunning acknowledgment that Trump’s forced mass removals are targeting hard-working folks and that those undocumented immigrants aren’t taking Americans’ jobs. But it’s also functionally an admission of political vulnerability. Trump plainly grasps that his deportations are now perceived—accurately—as needlessly targeting good people who are contributing vitally to our economy and society, and not primarily the violent “criminal migrant” class that Trump and Stephen Miller keep insisting they’re removing.”
“The birthday boy watched from his special viewing stand and made his strong-boy scowl. All his favorite TV people were with him, mostly because he had appointed them to his cabinet. Secretary Gin-For-Breakfast, the war criminal and blow-dried TV propaganda ghoul who now controls the armed forces he someday hopes to use to murder U.S. citizens, sat right next to the birthday boy, which was nice of him. The Secretary’s appointment stood against the public good and all common sense, but it did what it was supposed to do, which is prove that the birthday boy gets his way in all things. Proving this same thing appears to also have been the main reason for the tank parade. He got to say a few words, the birthday boy, and it must be admitted that he does still know a few. He’s been wanting this parade for year, the birthday boy. Perhaps he thought it would fill the hole in himself where a human soul normally is. Maybe for a few minutes it did. Who knows? It was apropos to drive tanks over something named for the Constitution. It’s a perfect metaphor for what the birthday boy and his gang of thugs do every day.”
Meet the pitcher plant moths, Exyra semicrocea: one of the few insects badass enough to live their whole lives in a trap specifically evolved to kill their kind.
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Pitcher plants are finely tuned to kill insects, with slippery sloping walls leading down to a pit of insect-dissolving digestive juices. But these little guys turned the tables! From the moment they hatch, they’re a pitcher’s nightmare.
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The spiky blood-red caterpillars seal the pitchers’ entrances and eat them from the inside out, using the death trap as their own personal sanctuary from predators. They have specialized feet to grip onto the slippery walls, and use silk as a safety line to keep themselves from falling to their deaths.
When they emerge as adults, they wait until nightfall and then go party in other pitchers.
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Adults have only ever been observed to perch inside pitchers with their heads facing up. It’s assumed that their grip only works in one direction, and if they slip up they could fall in (like the poor fly below).
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