If you live in the USA and you're pleading for donations to pay your rent, bills, or get food then dial 211! Please dial 211 before the last minute!

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

https://www.211.org/

Hi I work for my state's 211 service. It really breaks my heart how many people only know to call us at the last minute. 211's can provide a whole wealth of resources to use before things ever get to a cut off utility, eviction, or homelessness!

I can't speak for all 211's but most should also have a website detailing all the agencies in their database. if you don't like phone calls, this can be something to reference instead.

If you don't have health insurance but you need to see a doctor, reference 211! We list clinics that provide free or discounted general care, vision, and dental services to low income households and people without insurance! Many hospitals also have financial aid policies that can severely reduce your bill if you had an expensive procedure!

If you're stuck in a dead end job or need educational resources reference 211! There are a lot of programs focused on providing basic adult education as well as trade skills or other high demand fields! State governments are generally more interested in funneling people into work than providing benefits, but you can still use this to your advantage especially if you have some form of disability but are still able to work. That includes if you're neurodiverse or have mental health issues! Most of these programs are extremely underutilized.

If you believe you qualify for public benefits but the bureaucracy of the process is in your way, reference 211! There are agencies specifically geared towards helping people obtain the benefits they qualify for- for free!

If you need help with your taxes-

If you need help finding a pro bono lawyer-

If you need help finding affordable housing/section 8 housing-

If you need help finding food pantries-

If you need help paying for your prescriptions-

If you need help obtaining disability aids or assistive technology-

If you need help finding transportation options-

If you need help following a natural or personal disaster (like a home fire)-

If you need help repairing a home you or your family owns or it needs modifications to be accessible-

If you need Queer resources-

Reference your 211!!!!!

I had no idea what 211 was before working for it but I wish I had. I've learned so much about what resources are actually available to the community even in a ho hum area of the country like my state. I've saved my partner literally thousands of dollars just from the medical resources I've gathered.

Not enough young people know about or utilize these services but they are there for you!

P. S.

This isn't an intended use of 211, but I like to reference the agency listings when I look for jobs. Many of the agencies listed are non-profits which, while they certainly are not perfect, generally have lower barriers of entry to decent paying jobs with benefits. The work environments tend to be much kinder and at least pretend to be forward thinking. You're more likely to find jobs without as many people applying as well, especially if they're only advertising their positions through their own website.

Since the holiday toy drive post is circulating again, I figured this would also be helpful! Food insecurity is such a massive problem in America, in general, and if you have the means to help feed others, I think you should take that opportunity. Here are some other tips:

1. If you’re planning on donating items from your own pantry, please check the expiration dates on the packaging. Think of your donations as gifts to bestow, not castoffs to be rid of. It’s awful to think of people feeling like they got scraps someone else just didn’t want. Everyone deserves dignity with their meals.

2. If you’d rather give money to a food bank, that’s also great since they buy food in bulk and know what items are most wanted/needed!

3. Not everyone has access to appliances like stoves or microwaves or hot plates so if you can donate items that don’t need to be heated up, that would also be greatly appreciated!

🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

huge carrot recall affecting canada and the united states, including puerto rico, due to shiga toxin-producing e. coli

november 16, 2024

this recall may expand. see below for details.

(emphasis mine)

affected whole carrot brands and their bag sizes:

affected baby (cut and peeled) carrot brands and their bag sizes:

formatting on tumblr is difficult, please see the FDA outbreak investigation page for the affected ranges of best-by dates for baby carrots, and pictures of the affected carrots.

as of time of posting, the main FDA recall page and the CDC investigation page have an error and do not list Kroger or LIDL baby carrots, while the FDA outbreak investigation page does. I am assuming that this means they are part of the recall and that this error will probably be fixed soon.

the recalled carrots are thought to be associated with an E. coli O121:H19 outbreak. 39 illnesses, 15 hospitalizations, and one death have been linked to this outbreak so far.

as always, these numbers are expected to be lower than the true number of illnesses and deaths, and will likely rise. not everyone seeks medical attention, and even when all testing and reporting procedures go as smoothly as possible, it can take weeks to officially link an illness to an outbreak.

noteworthy from the FDA investigation page:

in short, there is a possibility this contamination may affect more than just the recalled carrots. keep up to date with these pages to stay on top of this outbreak.

the recalled carrots are no longer on shelves. but if they are in your fridge or freezer, destroy or discard them and clean anything they may have touched.

do NOT eat these carrots! this strain of e. coli is dangerous and at least one person has died.

if you think you got sick in relation to this outbreak, please seek medical attention, even if just to get your illness officially associated with this outbreak.

you know what you shouldnt do? constantly tell your child how expensive they are to take care of. because eventually, that child gets scared of asking for money, and doesnt feed themself at school, doesnt go places with their friends that require money, because she doesnt want to be expensive. it really does get into their minds, that theyre too much money and that they shouldnt do anything.

Netanyahu's aide Eli Feldstein has been arrested for leaking edited documents about a fabricated Hamas plan that the Israeli government used to obstruct a ceasefire, leading to public turmoil and a big question:

Did the PM sabotage the hostage deal for his political survival?

"China’s carbon emissions have flatlined over the past six months and there’s now an opportunity for substantial declines over the next decade, analysts say.

The rapid growth in clean energy generation has been sufficient to offset a recent surge in power demand caused by higher air conditioning use amid late-summer heatwaves, and the government’s manufacturing push, according to an analysis by Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

China’s carbon emissions fell by 1% in the second quarter of 2024 and were flat in the third quarter, providing another indication that emissions may have already peaked.

This is largely because solar power output was up 44% in the three months to end-September, compared to a year before, while wind power generation grew 24%. In the first nine months of 2024, China installed 161GW of new solar capacity and 39GW of wind, per CREA data.

For emissions to post a decline in 2024 as a whole, there will need to be a 2% reduction in the fourth quarter, Myllyvirta’s calculations show. That’s probable if power demand growth cools as expected and hydro plants perform in line with historical averages, he wrote in a post on X, adding that over the entire summer period, clean energy expansion covered all electricity demand growth.

“If the current downturn in China’s emissions is sustained — with emissions falling in the second quarter and stable in the third quarter — that would open the door to the country beginning to reduce emissions much faster than its current commitments require.

“This would have enormous significance for the global effort to avoid catastrophic climate change, as China’s emissions growth has been the dominant factor pushing global emissions up for the past eight years since the signing of the Paris climate agreement.”

Based on current trends and targets, CREA expects China’s emissions will decline 30% by 2035. The International Energy Agency says emissions will fall 24% by then based only on stated policies, but that could be raised to 45% if the country follows a pathway that’s consistent with its long-term carbon neutrality target.

For the time being, Chinese policymakers are setting relatively unambitious targets, and “it’s vital that future targets reflect ongoing clean energy trends to avoid locking in lower ambitions,” Myllyvirta said."

-via The Progress Playbook, October 29, 2024

Microsoft Office, like many companies in recent months, has slyly turned on an “opt-out” feature that scrapes your Word and Excel documents to train its internal AI systems. This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.

If you are a writer who uses MS Word to write any proprietary content (blog posts, novels, or any work you intend to protect with copyright and/or sell), you’re going to want to turn this feature off immediately.How to Turn off Word’s AI Access To Your Content

I won’t beat around the bush. Microsoft Office doesn’t make it easy to opt out of this new AI privacy agreement, as the feature is hidden through a series of popup menus in your settings:On a Windows computer, follow these steps to turn off “Connected Experiences”:

File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences > Uncheck box: “Turn on optional connected experiences”

Can I recommend: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Which not only does not scrape your data for AI training, it has no native cloud services at all. You keep your writing on your local machine, where no one but you can access it. Delicious.

i won’t lie, im not a fan of the increasing suggestion by people that israel is the one controlling the US. you could perhaps suggest that Netanyahu doesn’t care about what the US says but to say that israel is the one controlling us politicians as if most aren’t rabid anti-arab genocidal enthusiasts is just wild. it’s also just anti-Semitic and ignorant of the geopolitical reality at hand

Dont skip 🔴

I am Falestine, Jad Al-Haq, I am 36 years old, married, and I have a three-month-old child named Youssef. I gave birth to him during the war during very harsh conditions that no human being can bear. I moved from the hospital immediately after giving birth to the tent in which we were staying after we were displaced to it after the Israeli bulldozers completely bulldozed my house.  Kamel has become featureless, and my suffering did not start from here. Rather, it began since the beginning of the war, and I am still suffering. I cannot provide enough milk for my baby or diapers. Even medicines and vitamins are not available.

I ask you for your urgent help in disseminating the link to my family and communicating it to people interested and able to help us.  I didn't want to do it, but the tragic situation we are living in is what pushed me to do it.  I feel sad and helpless, after we had everything, we are now homeless on the streets, living in a tent next to a dilapidated public toilet and there is sewage, dirt and waste everywhere, we sleep on it!  We suffer from terrible heat, insects, scorpions, the danger of death, bombs and missiles, in addition to hunger of course, the danger of pollution and terrible diseases, especially the digestive, respiratory and reproductive systems!

.  My father and mother could not bear it any longer. My father had a stroke after losing his home and his place of work, and my mother suffers from chronic diseases and needs treatment.

  Do you have the right to imagine that when you spend your life building for yourself and your children to live a decent life, all of this disappears in the blink of an eye, and now when you reach the age where you should rest, you are forced to start again!!?  But the most important thing now is to try to survive and protect your children from all the factors of death that surround us!  I ask everyone who has humanity or conscience to feel our situation and put themselves in our place.  How can someone who has lived with dignity all his life accept this?  We are slowly dying every day.

Your donation, no matter how small, can have a big impact.  It can provide a meal for my little one, a clean bottle of water, or a moment of safety under these difficult circumstances.  Every donation brings with it a ray of hope, alleviating our suffering and giving us the strength to face a new day.

I ask you to donate and support the steadfastness of the Gazan people, and share this campaign with your friends and families.  Together, we can make a difference and help my family get through this ordeal.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity and support.

Warm greetings,

Falestine

Falestine’s campaign is verified and only at 41k/100k. Please read and share her story and help her family any way you can: reblog frequently, share on other platforms & offline, donate if you can, and urge others to do the same.

i think the worst attitude people have is how often they act like having privilege is some moral failure. like. cmon.

people always get So Upset when you point out that they have privilege in some areas and list off all their identities and stuff like that negates the privilege somehow and it's really like. idk.

like you're not doing anything wrong by having privilege. it's a structural problem. lmfao. the only time you're doing something wrong is when you use that structural privilege against those you are privileged against.

it's so frustrating. it's so frustrating. like sorry. you've got privilege! by denying it you're not denying wrongdoing on your part, you're denying the existence of the existence of these structures. lmfao

there's just not much recognition that like. racism and stuff extend beyond intentional hatred and acts against other people.

you also see it a lot when people act like These bad things are caused by These bad people and if the bad people are gone then Good things will happen.

it's just that same lack of understanding over and over again.

,,,,,,,,,,,,🚨URGENT🚨,,,,,,,,,,

🚨 !! DONT SKIP !! donations urgently needed 🚨

On September 18, 2024, I created my campaign to help go to a safe place outside the Gaza Strip.

On November 16, 2024, my son Ibrahim was injured by explosive fragments

# He needs medicine at a very high price.

# I need help ASAP & DONATE.

# HELP US PROVIDE TREATMEMTS.

Share this link as you can as possible🍉🍉

* 10$ = 108 SEK

* 25$ = 272 SEK

* 50$ = 544 SEK

* 100$ = 1,088 SEK

To Donate 👇

https://gofund.me/9aa3797a

This website is elite. This website is the blueprint, it's the pinnacle. There is no website like it. I lwill never leave this website

🔗 https://gofund.me/c7ddcdbe

the new American Gothic. // artist unknown, feel free to tag and tell me who painted this.

This is by Mexican American artist Crieselda Vasquez. Her words on this painting is as follows.

“The two most important people in my life, my parents, are also the two who motivated me to develop such a strong concept. When my parents pose for these paintings, their faces are reduced to extremely raw and somehow vulnerable expressions. Sadly, they strive to be invisible every day. They don’t have to pretend to illustrate the invisible. They have dealt with constant rejection, suspicion and fear so long, that it seems now that it comes naturally to them. I strive to capture how their expressions deliver that sense of tiredness, resignation, and quiet acceptance. It seems relevant to show that underneath all the politicization and undeserved labeling this community receives, these are regular people just like all of us. In the long tradition of immigrants that come to the United States, they have made homes here and they are just trying to live a simple life with a bit of security and hopefulness for their children."

Think Ify had some very salient points when he replied to this on bluesky last night