I’m So Sorry I Just Need To Organize My Reference Tag So Warning For Long Post And Organization System

A recent study shows that lettuce can be grown in greenhouses that filter out wavelengths of light used to generate solar power, demonstrating the feasibility of using see-through solar panels in greenhouses to generate electricity. https://ift.tt/2NsbAH5

(I saw this and thought that it would help with the heat wave since a lot of people don’t have AC)

Heat Wave Peppermint Spray (AC in a Bottle)

10g peppermint essential oil 10g menthol essential oil Equal volume of solubilizer

200mL aloe vera juice

Weigh the essential oils out into an empty spray bottle, and top off with an equal amount of solubilizer. Swirl to combine. Add a small amount of aloe vera juice and shake gently to combine. Add the rest of the aloe vera, shake gently to combine.

To use, spritz on bare skin. If you cover your torso and your limbs, you will likely end up with goosebumps! I find this keeps me quite cool/cold for upwards of 20 minutes.

If you don’t want to use the solubilizer you can leave it out and just shake thoroughly before each use. That means the mixture will not emulsify at all and you’ll likely have troubles getting it to spritz evenly.

Vegans who are vegan because “but the earth” and “but the farmers” and “but the animals” and all this other hoity-toity nonsense and not just because they can’t or don’t wanna eat meat/animal products make me fuckin tired man.

I grow our own vegetables. Many hybrid and heirloom varieties are bred for flavor rather than for commercial appeal and travel. There are entire species on the allotment that you can’t easily buy in stores because of this - like salsify, a root vegetable that tastes of fish and shellfish. Our neighbours happily take it to make vegan latkes of alarming similarity to fishcakes. You cannot sell it in stores because - despite looking like a white parsnip - it turns brown when you pick it if you scrape/bruise/cut the white root in any way, or damage the delicate little hairs, for some reason, it BLEEDS RED and is very upsetting to look at.

There are whole classes of foods like this. Foods that just don’t ship well or look good on supermarket shelves. Forbidden fruits. Vegetables that bleed and taste like meat. Sorry about this

French senator Claude Malhuret sums up the world made by the current American administration, 5 March 2025

Noticed something a little funky in the world around you and want to figure out what's up? Especially if there might be something you ought to be doing about it? Not sure what information sources to trust these days? If you're in the US, federal agencies like NOAA, USGS, EPA and more collect massive amounts of scientific data every day, much of which is publicly available online - if you know where to look.

A PDF version with clickable links is available for free on my itchio page (quakeandquiver); I'll add a direct link in a reblog.

if you, like me, get so angry when discussing or debating current issues with ignorant/bigoted people that you can’t articulate your thoughts, here is a list of arguments i’ve seen so far defending darren wilson or going against the ferguson protests, with suggestions as to how to counter and links to helpful posts to support your argument:

1. “It’s not a race issue!”

Actual KKK waving a Confederate flag as they walk the streets of Ferguson, celebrating.

Darren Wilson might even be affiliated with the KKK

White Man waves a gun at children in a park, is taken into custody alive

More examples of double standards in favor of white people: James Eagan Holmes, various other (unnamed but fairly well-known) cases

2. “The officer feared for his life. It was self defense.”

Pictures of Darren Wilson’s oh-so-life-threatening injuries + full-body shot

Darren Wilson says he would do it again

Darren Wilson is 6’4” and 215lbs (needs source), in a vehicle with a loaded weapon. Mike Brown was an unarmed teenager walking down the street.

(Speculative) He got married while on leave, possibly so his wife wouldn’t have to testify if she knew something.

Wilson did not complete an incident report, which is a violation of protocol

Article about why Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown was illegal no matter how you look at it

3. “Michael Brown stole from a convenience store. He was a thug and a thief.”

Statement from the store owner saying that no one called the police and nothing was taken

This is disputable and the time stamps on the video don’t sync up with the story.

The cigarettes he allegedly stole were paid for and there’s proof

Remind them that even if Mike Brown had done some petty shoplifting, that’s no reason for him to be shot six times in the middle of a street.

4. “The jury saw all the evidence, they know better.”/Something about insufficient/unreliable evidence.

“It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did” + only .0004% of grand juries fail to indict

All 4 eyewitness accounts of the murder in chronological order

Every piece of evidence in the case against officer wilson

Prosecutor supported Wilson, and other problems with the case

Remind them that even “people get charged with manslaughter when someone dies in a car accident” and Darren Wilson wasn’t even charged that

The National Bar Association and its president know the jury’s decision was bullshit

5. “The riots and protests are out of hand and unnecessary. It’s just an excuse to be violent and steal things.”

Video of protesters getting shot with (I think) flare bombs and tear gas by police. (warning: flashing lights and loud sounds)

Video of protesters quietly sitting down

Video of protesters peacefully but firmly chanting outside the supreme court

Video of the National Guard arriving with automatic weapons

Crips and Blood gang members preventing looters at the riots (from the first riots back in august)

Community working together to clean up the aftermath of the riots

6. “You can’t fight violence with violence, what would Martin Luther King say?”

“It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots…..” -MLK

Remind them that as pro-peaceful protests as MLK was, he still got shot in the head.

If after all this, they’re still arguing in defense of Darren Wilson or the jury, just give up because there’s no way you can change the mind of such a complete fucking bigot.

Some masterposts I used that also have more information: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 

If there’s anything I should add or fix, please let me know

x

Dumpster diving tip: What to do with more than you need

Well I’m at it again. From one dumpster diving haul from a single pet store I will be able to feed 4 dogs for a month.

Pictured above is 2 dog food containers, each with about 60 pounds of kibble, and another bag of dog food at 30 pounds. Yes, out of 1 haul I got 150 pounds of perfectly edible dog food. This waste is inherent to capitalism, especially the late capitalism we’re living in now, and even in the middle of a pandemic.

For 4 years now I have been feeding my dog for free, not just with freegan kibble but with meat, eggs, and veggies saved from being thrown away from households, restaurants, and retailers.

But more often than not I come across way more food than I need, and it’s not always shelf stable kibble. So what now? Take a portion and leave the rest to rot? Well, you don’t have to!

If you find yourself with the time and enthusiasm, a dumpster full of perfectly good potatoes can quickly become an empty dumpster, but how do you disperse this much food? First, try to find a Buy Nothing Project near you, see if your city has a free store, a food rescue project, or if you need to get your precious perishables to a fridge ASAP, donate to the closest homeless shelter (they’re usually open 24/7, but make sure to call ahead first). But if it can wait, food banks do take “expired” food, and are always in dire need of bulk donations.

Whichever method you choose, always make it a point to connect with people, dive and donate regularly if you can, and most importantly, get organized. Because when you donate what you don’t need, you’re taking direct action, and you are more powerful together.

Dumpster diving safety

Dumpster diving legalities

Go dumpster diving, y’all

KU JOURNALISM MAJOR SHREDS “CASE” AGAINST MIKE BROWN

Shelby Lawson is a student at the University of Kansas, majoring in Journalism and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Lawson posted the following to her Facebook page: 

“Alright y’all. I’d like to clear a few things up. This is a general address to the long list of misconceptions and inconsistencies and abuses of power that exist surrounding the killing of Mike Brown. I have researched these points and provided sources in case you wish to do some reading of your own.

-The most common misconception I’m hearing is that Mike Brown was significantly larger than Officer Wilson. This is incorrect. On page 198 of the official grand jury transcript, you can see that Officer Wilson testifies he is 6 ft 4 and weighs 210 lbs,the same size as Mike Brown.

(source)

-Mike Brown was NOT stopped because he was a suspect in crime. He and his friend Dorian Johnson were stopped for jaywalking, as Darren Wilson testifies to on page 208 of his grand jury testimony.

-Mike Brown WAS fleeing from Officer Wilson when he was fatally shot. Wilson confirms this on page 281 of his grand jury testimony.

-Officer Wilson broke police self-defense protocol, which teaches to disarm and incapacitate rather than kill and teaches officers to go for body shots. Officer Wilson shot Mike Brown twice in the head, after he shot him four times in his arm and torso.

(source)

-Ferguson Police ignored protocol and refused to interview or take a statement from the eyewitness present from Officer Wilson’s initial contact with Mike Brown until his death.

(source)

-The forensic examiner broke protocol by failing to take crime scene photos. On page 95 of the grand jury transcript, she claims that this was because her camera had died, however, she goes on to describe how she immediately followed Wilson to the hospital in order to photograph his “injuries.”

-Forensic investigators broke protocol by failing to test Officer Wilson’s gun for fingerprints, since Wilson claims that Brown grabbed his gun and caused it to misfire. Page 39, grand jury transcript.

-Darren Wilson was then allowed to break protocol by washing the blood off of himself before it could be photographed, making it impossible to analyze blood spatter patterns and determine what position Mike Brown was in when Wilson first shot him. Wilson recounts this on page 10 of his official police interview.

(source)

-While Officer Wilson’s story of what happened that day has changed at least three times, six separate eyewitnesses, four of whom have never met each other, all have identical accounts of what happened. They were never interviewed by police.

(source)

-These eyewitnesses all agree that Darren Wilson was the aggressor and that Mike Brown was shot while surrendering, with his hands in the air and that his last words were “I don’t have a gun. Stop shooting.”

-This is backed up by Mike Brown’s autopsy, which suggests that Mike Brown would have had to be in the hands-up position for the bullets to enter his hand and arm the way they did.

(source)

-Furthermore, in a press conference, the coroner who performed Mike Brown’s autopsy relays that there was no trace of gun shot residue anywhere on his body, proving that Wilson’s claim that Mike Brown grabbed his gun, causing it to misfire, is impossible and untrue.

(source)

-Ferguson Police lied about the distance Mike Brown was from Officer Wilson when he was killed. They reported it was 35 ft. but it was in fact 148 ft.

(source)

-Owner of Ferguson Market states that he did not call police to report a theft of cigars, that the theft had nothing to do with Mike Brown, and that the man on the security footage is not Mike Brown.

(source)

-The prosecuting attorney for the case against Darren Wilson has helped raise $600,000 in donations for Darren Wilson, creating a clear conflict of interest.

(source)

-The police department that Officer Wilson worked for prior to coming to Ferguson was disbanded after multiple instances of racial profiling.”

(source)

Source