I hate how inaccurate and illogical the title of this post is. But glad to see that at least some of the comments are filling in the gaps.

Gotta geek out a tiny bit.

Assuming my uncited research from a decade+ ago is correct ...

Citronella was actually extracted from the "Lemon Eucalyptus / Lemon-scented Gum" tree, formerly known as Eucalyptus citriodora but more accurately known as Corymbia citriodora.

The "Citronella Scented Geraniums" never worked much at all to repel mosquitoes. It was essentially the placebo effect. I've done really lame and totally non-scientific experiments myself. The geraniums simply do not work to any significant benefit. People will literally argue with you day and night about this, but it's just not true.

That being said, grow scented geraniums to your heart's content. Burn citronella candles as if your life depended on it. They smell really good and olfactory cues like this will burn memories into your brain that you'll treasure when you're older and fading.

I'm not sure I get the sentiment, but I'm here for the cashew memes so I upvote and interact regardless.

I thought that was a picture of ICE making their children something for dinner.

szchzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-buzzzzupt-szchzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I mean, of course you call me, any time day or night. My phone won't ring and I definitely won't answer, but you do you and call call call all you want, sweetie! How's your mama doing?

My ride cost me around $1,000 USD, which sounds like a bargain compared to numbers I've heard from others. But, it was still a big financial burden considering I'd just been laid off from work.

There's only one ambulance service operating in my rural area, and my health insurance considers them "out-of-network". Not that it would have mattered, when you call 911 (emergency services), you don't get to haggle and negotiate with the operator and your insurance provider to send an in-network unit, you get what you get.

Probably a good thing I refused treatment, other than bandaging to stop the blood loss, during the ambulance ride. The 2 ibuprofen I was given in the emergency room cost $40 since they were considered non-necessary and I did not get prior approval. I can only imagine what the ambulance up-charge would have been if I'd accepted anything from them aside from letting them wrap me up so I didn't bleed to death on the way to the hospital.

Used to be a program on the tv set called Lizard Lick Towing. Never watched it, myself, but now I'm kind of glad I missed it. So, thank you for that CERN. Money well spent.

Why ask why? Eins, zwei, drei.

I said what, what kitty butt. I said what, what kitty butt.

Ah, so this could be why all of a sudden, like in the past several days or so, that word is showing up super frequently on Lemmy (and elsewhere). I kind of assumed it wasn't by coincidence. So interesting to see how these things become a life imitating art versus art imitating life situation.

Probably Coca-cola and its legal teams have some degree of responsibility for the minimal polar bear association.

I had one of the shimmering metalic emerald green species land on my shirt this summer and it was honestly one of the highlights of my year. "THAT FIGURES!" I thought, even the animal kingdom agrees I'm a piece of shit.

Am I missing something? A few penguin references / associations with Christmas, sure I've seen that. But, at least in my part of the world, they're not a major part of the lore -- or am I having a moment?

Either way, this can be easily explained: It's called being inclusive. The last thing you want is a north pole versus south pole world wide Christmas turf war, best to extend an olive branch andlean into that diversity and inclusion metric for the good of the world's children and the fate of humanity.

For all you youngins out there: DO NOT PUT HYDROFLUORIC ACID IN YOUR BUSSY

Based on the fact that they'd give someone like me a PhD, this comes as no surprise. But it's not saying as much about GPT-5 as a lot of people might think.

Yeah, happens all the time with all kinds of different instances. Just do yourself a favor and set-up an account on at least three but preferably around eight different instances and then maybe if you're super lucky you'll always be able to find at least one that's up and running when you want to get on.

Also, one of my big gripes is that so many Lemmy instances have various uptime monitoring services in place, but then when you check those while the site appears to be down, they almost always indicate that the site is fully operational and just fine. Those things are close to being useless, anecdotally speaking.

This is what I've been saying my entire life. Bald eagles are a scam.

Humans are already imposing upon our pets and depriving them of their autonomy, simply by keeping them in captivity. Any argument against merciful euthanasia grounded in concerns about how it is imposing are moot.

As for pulling human euthanasia into this context, do yourself a favor and don't. You might be surprised at how common euthanasia is in humans. At least in my part of the world, it's largely a wink-wink nudge-nudge situation, but it does happen with some regularity. Also for people who are actually suffering in decline, there are all kinds of supportive care options being provided that simply aren't feasible or economical for pets. There's also not really the potential for the same kinds of perverse intentions with pets as there might be for people. Like, the list goes on.

So, basically from either of those two perspectives, let alone the fact that both apply, the argument against euthanizing pets that you've presented fall apart.

Having said that, this is often not a simple and straightforward decision. But since we've already established that we're imposing upon them one way or the other, it really comes down to what kind of imposition do you want? The animal is going to die soon one way or the other. You can impose upon it and force it to experience the pain and fear and discomfort of its body naturally shutting down over the course of days, weeks, or months. You could impose upon it and decide to euthanize. What can you live with?

On a more personal note, I've had to have 2 pets euthanized.

One was a cat who managed to escape outside, it got hit by a car and then a neighbor's dog mauled it. Literally pieces of broken rib and punctured lung exposed as well as untold other injuries. No hope of recovery. The idea of letting it suffer another moment was not something I could live with and it was going to die anyway.

The other was a dog with congestive heart failure. There comes a point where there are no more medications and no higher doses that are effective. The animal literally is experiencing the sensation of drowning. They're terrified and in pain, exhausted, and suffering. The vet might be able to alleviate it a few hours or even a couple of days with a procedure to manually remove the fluid, but then you're just going to put the animal through this again and soon. I could not live with myself forcing the dog to endure that knowing there was another option.

Plus, I have seen the pet owner that refused euthanasia and wanted their pet to die a natural death. The dog had cancer. I'm honestly broken up enough just thinking about what I witnessed that I can't even bring myself to type it out. So I'll stop there other than to say I've seen people dying of cancer in their final hours -- there is a world of difference in those things, at least in modern times. The pet was clearly distressed, in pain, and suffering. The people are being made comfortable with drugs and medical care.

I'm not sure if the recent fledglings actually are larger or if it's more of an illusion.

Logically, it doesn't make sense that their bodies (sans plumage) would actually be substantially larger than the mature adult parents, other than maybe if the juveniles have a lot of "baby fat" or just different body shapes early on. I assume there are other aspects in play, like maybe they have more down feathers that push up on their outer plumage causing it to be more fluffed up and giving the appearance of them being larger than their parents.

Maybe a birdologology expert can weigh in (yes I know the actual term is ornithologist).