John S. Quarterman

Pouring beautyberry into jars to make jelly. American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana.

Making beautyberry jelly 2025-10-11

Smells good while doing this.

Very tasty later as jelly.

American Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana.

This is the same plant whose leaves repel mosquitos, yellowflies, and other insects.

National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders Honored for rejecting illegal orders during martial law, Marine death probe

The South Korean Ministry of Defense has awarded medals of merit to 11 officers for disobeying direct orders of superiors during the martial law fiasco, orders that they deemed to be contrary to the constitution and endangerment to democracy.
www.chosun.com/english/nati...

Ossof's DC voicemail is full and no staffers are available, so I left a message at his Savannah office.

The irony is the emotional desire for weight loss is leading to less emotional decision-making.
And that first desire, abetted by previous emotional decision-making marketing, makes countering these drugs difficult.

Cypress swamp pollen 2025-03-27 With example of pine blown down by Hurricane Helene yet still green with rootball. Maybe pine salvage will come soon.

Cypress Swamp pollen 2025-02-27
That slash pine is one tree blown down by Hurricane Helene that still has a rootball and green needles.
Maybe some day soon the pine salvage operation will get here for such trees. They can’t survive like that, and they have some value as saw-timber of pulpwood.

Câbles rompus en Baltique : le pétrolier suspect « Eagle S » autorisé à quitter la Finlande Huit marins sont soupçonnés d’être impliqués dans les dégradations survenues le 25 décembre 2024. Trois d’entre eux ont toujours interdiction de quitter le territoire finlandais.

Câbles rompus en Baltique : le pétrolier suspect « Eagle S » autorisé à quitter la Finlande

The $100 Trillion Disruption: The Unforeseen Economic Earthquake While Silicon Valley obsesses over AI, a weight-loss drug is quietly becoming the biggest economic disruptor since the internet. Here's why your job, investments, and future depend on understanding it

What if a fourth-order effect is less emotional voting?
wildfirelabs.substack.com/p/the-100-tr...

I’ve been suggesting on TV and podcasts—without actual evidence(!)—that it may turn out that DOJ will wind up not having enough lawyers to defend all the lawsuits challenging this administration’s illegal conduct.

Turns out it seems already to be true. 👉

Sky Dog and the driveway LeConte pear; Blondie Dog and the garden pear.

Blondie Dog and the garden LeConte pear tree.

The driveway LeConte pear tree.

Sky Dog and the driveway LeConte pear tree.

LeConte Pear Tree 2025-02-24
We got this Pyrus communis from cousin Cecil in a pot. When we moved the pot to the garden to plant it, it had already grown a root into the ground. And the root grew a tree on the driveway.
So it’s one tree in two locations.
-jsq
www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/?p=9636

Tomorrow, people across the country are participating in an Economic Blackout—a coordinated effort to withhold spending for 24 hours to send a powerful message about economic justice, corporate greed, and political accountability.

He should be testifying before Congress. But he won't, because his "cursory examination" is bs.

How about we hold another U.S. presidential election.

“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.” -FDR, 1941

Mike Pence just reposted an old article he wrote about the limitations on the powers of a president. For some reason. Here is a part of it.

EPA employees who work on environmental justice are put on leave In an email obtained by NPR, employees at EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were told they were on administrative leave, effective immediately.

In an email obtained by NPR, employees at EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were told they were on administrative leave, effective immediately.

Oops 😬

Doge staffers enter Noaa headquarters and incite reports of cuts and threats Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’

DOGE is reportedly threatening NOAA with massive staff and budget cuts.

NOAA houses the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, which produce forecasts and warn people about storms.

This attack on public safety is ripped straight from the pages of Project 2025.

I am on bsky and mastodon. But for some purposes fb still has the network effect.

I guess I should be proud, since facebook keeps popping this up.

You’re Temporarily Blocked
It looks like you were misusing this feature by going too fast. You’ve been temporarily blocked from using it.

If you think this doesn't go against our Community Standards let us know.

This was yesterday, 30 miles from Florida, and still frozen this morning.
Sleet and snow is, ah, unusual here.
As is a week of 20-degree F temperatures.

Removed: pine deadfall in back driveway 2025-01-14

That pine deadfall in the back driveway was in the way, so I removed it the next day.

These other logs also I recently dragged out of there with tractor and logging chain.

www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/?p=9610

A slash pine fell across my back driveway.
This was six weeks after I got that big oak you see cut out of the way after Hurricane Helene.
www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/?p=9606

$1,131,794,901

That's how much Big Oil has spent over the last 30 years paying off Congress to look the other way on climate action while the planet burns.

Well, the planet is burning.
Don't let them look away.

Fallen oak and pine trees after Hurricane Helene, south Georgia, USA.

Every path through my woods looks like this. Hurricane Helene was ten times worse than Idalia for south Georgia and north Florida. Forestry is Georgia's top industry, and it is hurting bad, along with pecan trees and other agriculture.

Red sky at 7AM dawn, November 27, 2024.

Red sky at morning 2024-11-29

The sun also rose by 7AM, and the sky was red.
www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/?p=9590

That's the approach I use.

Solar power is beating fracked methane like the Internet won over BITNET 2020-12-27
Why am I so sure that I will live to see fracked methane pipelines shut? I’ve seen it before, when the Internet won over all other networks.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=21985

A Naive Projection of the Growth of the Internet
[6 years ago about 32 years ago. -jsq]
Just as four years ago I projected solar growth ten years ahead, a quarter century ago I projected Internet growth ten years into the future:

How close was that estimate?...
www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=1988

Power source growth rates projected ten years forward from 2012: solar and wind pass coal about 2022, and pass gas by 2024.

Power source growth rates like compound interest 2013-01-29
What if ... we project gigawatts from FERC’s December 2012 Installed Operating Generating Capacity table?
[...]
Solar passes coal in about 8 years, wind in about 9, and natural gas in about a decade.
[...]
www.l-a-k-e.org/blog/?p=161