Rant for the Day (keep it clean)

[Magus]

Stomach is still being hateful but in a different way than before. Bro is now having the same symptoms. Could be something we ate, could be the Metformin (we both take it), or could be a bug.
My memory sucks so I forgot a few things that I meant to put on my shopping list. House is a huge mess and I have a ton to clean up but never seem to have the energy or motivation. I need to get myself motivated and stop procrastinating.

We're in the same boat, almost to the letter. The new Omniprezole I have does NOT work, I can't stay out of the toilet and eating hurts.

 

[zannej]

Is it a different manufacturer for your meds than before? With my BP meds I've noticed a difference with a certain manufacturer, they wear off after about 15-16 hours instead of lasting the full 24. I try to avoid that manufacturer, it's hard to sleep when my heart rate is through the roof to say the least.

It's the same mfr for the medicine I was taking before when it was working, but then they switched me to a different brand for awhile but it had horrible side effects. It exacerbated my arrhythmia and made me feel like garbage. It also sapped my energy completely. I had to get them to switch me back to the Synthroid after a little over a week of the other stuff. But, my doctor suggested I might need a higher dose if I'm still not having energy. I was feeling better on Synthroid but the Euthyrox messed me up. It can cause stomach issues as well.

Magus, IIRC, Omeprizole is not meant to be used longterm. I wish I had useful advice but I don't. Wish I could sort out the stomach issues myself. The symptoms seem to have mostly passed for now, but its frustrating. Sending virtual hugs your way.

I forgot about one of my beefs from yesterday. My idiot brother waited until the gas was almost empty and we barely made it to the nearest gas station- the Y-Not-Stop which has Shell company gas. When it came to select the type of gas I hit the button for the cheapest gas but it automatically selected the most expensive gas and would not let me change it or select anything other than the most expensive. I told my brother we would only put in one gallon. But he grabbed the pump from me and put in two before I had to tell him more forcefully to stop (I'd said "Ok, that's enough" earlier but he ignored it). He also argued with me about which grade of gas. When I showed him the price and the one that was lit up and how it lit up when I hit the cheaper gas, he realized it was ripping us off & griped about how crappy it was and how we would not use that gas station again.

 

[Magus]

Magus, IIRC, Omeprizole is not meant to be used longterm. I wish I had useful advice but I don't. Wish I could sort out the stomach issues myself. The symptoms seem to have mostly passed for now, but its frustrating. Sending virtual hugs your way.

I've heard prolonged use causes cancer, but as much radiation as I was exposed to as a kid makes it a Fait De Complete for me. Not to suggest something you probably tried already, but strong mint tinctures helped my light asthma immensely, a breath mint called ice drops did as well. funniest thing, when I started smoking weed for my stomach, my COPD went into remission as did my Asthma, granted neither were serious, but bad enough.

 

[Chaosdawn]

Z and Magus, I hope you both feel better soon! Stomach issues are awful. I'm on a prescription acid reducer and will be for the rest of my life since there's no other way to control the acid reflux. Long term use of omeprazole and others are a double edged sword, they may cause issues but uncontrolled acid damaging your insides will cause problems too.

 

[Patchouli]

@Wingnut sorry not window units I’m referring to. Not old central AC units either, just high temps, cars, large buildings.

 

[Heartbroken]

Here's my rant: just trying to breathe in my own backyard, even in my own house, is impossible. The neighbor had the tankers come in with that nasty industrial sludge from the giant dairy plant and poured it all over the fields. The stench is absolutely nauseating. I can't do anything because the smell makes me so ill. I have all the windows shut tight and the air conditioner set to 'no vent' and still the insidious smell creeps in and ruins everything. I feel like my clothes and hair still stink no matter how freshly laundered and washed. Like back when I was in college and went to the bar with friends when everyone still smoked while drinking. No hiding where you've been.
I grew up on a farm, and cleaned out the barn and spread it on the fields, so yeah, I know manure. That can get a bit ripe at times, but it was never like this. It just smelled like cow poop, and really wasn't bad; our cows ate grass and hay and lived outside most of the time. They were happy old cows with plenty of room to roam and lived into their 20s.
Now it's concentrated waste from cows that are kept jammed together in concrete barns, never feeling the rain or sun and never tasting grass. They're fed antibiotics, hormones, and drugs to keep them calm because their lives are so short and stressful in the overcrowded conditions. They last for 3 years of milking on average, so they're dead by the age of five. Their waste is stored in giant lagoons where it festers and cooks into an anaerobic toxic sludge that is then pumped into giant tankers pulled by tractors that run the roads 45mph, huge tires thrumming and roaring up and down the road from dawn til after dusk in a maddening parade day after day like a bizarre form of torture. They're supposed to incorporate it within 24 hours, but they never do. Occasionally they might run a disc over the field, but that doesn't cover the crap at all, just aerates it a little.
That's not farming. That's not agriculture. That's a factory and the stuff they're spreading is toxic and making life miserable for everyone.
I need to move.

 

[Amish Heart]

That sounds absolutely awful, Heartbroken. I've never heard of that. All I see in our area is plowed in cow manure, and I'm pretty much used to that smell. And it's always aged, so it's not too bad.
I do worry about the crop dusters, though. The amish farms around here don't tend to hire them, but the other farms do. A farm two over from us had their fields done a couple of nights ago, and those planes fly low. Must have made a dozen passes, and did the turn around at our farm.

 

[Magus]

I ran into something like that once, put a .05 micron filter in your 3M vapor mask, then crush up some mint and wad it up in a paper towel put it in the mask and wear it. I had to dispose of a sun bloated dog once, it really helps!

 

[backlash]

Around here the dairy's liquify the manure and spread it on their field with either a truck or a sprinkler system.
The smell is pretty bad but it's legal and they have to get rid of the waste somehow.
When our dog got out I finally found him a mile away. As soon as I stopped my truck he came running and jumped into my arms. He had just walked through one of those field freshly spread with manure.
We both had a long shower and we still smelled.
Dairy cows expensive so they are well cared for. They only go to the milking barns when it's time.
Who was there first? You or the cows?

 

[Amish Heart]

You know, one of our dogs would be rolling in that stuff if he found it. We get alot of horse poop on our dirt road from the horse and buggies, and he finds it every time on his walks and rolls in it. So gross.

 

[Weedygarden]

You know, one of our dogs would be rolling in that stuff if he found it. We get alot of horse poop on our dirt road from the horse and buggies, and he finds it every time on his walks and rolls in it. So gross.

They love to roll around in sh**. Sometimes a dog that has been newly groomed, shampooed and the works cannot wait to find something to roll in to eliminate the foo foo smell that they just got put on them that took away their natural dog smell.

 

[Magus]

I heard the oddest thing about keeping a dog from rolling in filth, no idea if its true.
Rub some cheese or bacon fat on his snout just out of licking range, since now he smells
like food already, he no longer has to bring the pack news of what he found, hopefully
he likes what you rub on him better than ick.

 

[Heartbroken]

I've been here for 30 years, and that's long before all the giant dairies moved in. And no, these dairies do not let the cows go outside and graze then come in to be milked. They live in giant cement floor sheds and walk a narrow cement floored hallway to the parlor and back. They never go outside. Time was farms were run by families who cared about the land and the animals, not these giant corporations that treat man, land, and beast as commodities for their pockets. I've lived in farm country all my life and I have no problem with trucks parked on the road during harvest, combines blocking corners, chaff on the wind when the wheat is taken off, the racket when all the fields are getting tilled tall hours of the night, or with honest, aged manure, properly handled. It's all changed for the worse, and very quickly in the last ten years. This stuff they're pouring on the fields is a toxic soup and contains all the drugs these poor animals were fed. It's super concentrated and they routinely add more than the soil can absorb, so if we do get any rain it quickly washes out into the drains and creeks, sending the bacteria and drugs into the water system. Having 6,000 cows jammed into sheds that cover 10 acres isn't farming, it's industry. They've been busted numerous times for all the illegal immigrant labor they hire; they provide "housing" which consists of old mobile homes parked out back. I've seen it all first hand, as I used to have a job where I had reason to visit these places. A young boy is always stationed out front, and if an unknown truck pulls in he whistles and all the workers in the milk parlor take off running. Dead animals are usually lined up outside the shed, they lose several every day. They come through with front end loaders and scoop up the dead and pile them up and cover them with a bit of brush and call it composting. There's always a random hoof or tail sticking out, half rotted. It's truly horrifying to see what it has become when one remembers what a dairy farm was just 40 years ago.
It's ironically sad that we also have a lot of Amish here, with the quiet farms that they work by hand and with horses - but they earn a part of their living raising the calves for the dairies. They'll have a hundred or so of the tiny calf hutches all lined up by the barn, and cattle trucks regularly come and go, picking up heifers and dropping off more calves. The cows don't live very long, so there's a constant demand for replacements. Here's on of the dairies in the neighborhood. There's thousands of cows under those shed roofs. You can see they have alleyways to get to the parlor and back, the unlined dug pits of slurry, and the little mobile homes for the workers.

 

[Wingnut]

That whole disgusting operation needs to be cratered... I've seen dairies where the cows are outside, but who keeps large animals under a roof like that? Worse than the egg ranches, I reckon. And how healthy do ya suppose that milk is, given the conditions and the large drug doses? Ugh.

Heartbroken, I know the real estate market is still crazy right now, but the sooner you get out of that place, the better... it's one big cesspool of misery, and the sooner you're away from it, the better. I look at how man treats some animals on this planet, and I think the whole world would would be better off without mankind, ya know?

It's one thing to be on a regular farm or ranch where the animals have room to roam and at least live somewhat healthy lives before they meet their end, but to suffer through all those disgusting conditions and then die, well, that's the pits. I guess "humane treatment" has gone out the window with these factory farms... they're f#%ng disgusting.

 

[Weedygarden]

The whole organic foods industry has always been suspect, imho, but after reading this, @Heartbroken , it sure makes me wonder about how poisoned we are by the "normal" food that is being fed to the masses?

I know that farming is darned hard work, and with the GMO's, and "progress" things are a challenge, but raising ones own food seems to be the safest way to go.

 

[goshengirl]

@Weedygarden , I was going to say the same thing - I do wonder sometimes if we as a population aren’t changed by consuming meat raised in such a fashion.

I hear you, @Heartbroken. I have not seen such operations with cattle, but I have with hogs and it’s much the same. Well, I haven’t seen the illegals. But many old family farms have changed drastically in the past 10-15 years or so - they’ve had to or they’d go under. In order to survive they contract with large commercial operations, and in turn those large commercial operations dictate what’s what. It’s very hard for a small family operation to raise some animals and bring them in to a processor the way they did in the past.

 

[backlash]

I've been here for 30 years, and that's long before all the giant dairies moved in. And no, these dairies do not let the cows go outside and graze then come in to be milked. They live in giant cement floor sheds and walk a narrow cement floored hallway to the parlor and back. They never go outside. Time was farms were run by families who cared about the land and the animals, not these giant corporations that treat man, land, and beast as commodities for their pockets. I've lived in farm country all my life and I have no problem with trucks parked on the road during harvest, combines blocking corners, chaff on the wind when the wheat is taken off, the racket when all the fields are getting tilled tall hours of the night, or with honest, aged manure, properly handled. It's all changed for the worse, and very quickly in the last ten years. This stuff they're pouring on the fields is a toxic soup and contains all the drugs these poor animals were fed. It's super concentrated and they routinely add more than the soil can absorb, so if we do get any rain it quickly washes out into the drains and creeks, sending the bacteria and drugs into the water system. Having 6,000 cows jammed into sheds that cover 10 acres isn't farming, it's industry. They've been busted numerous times for all the illegal immigrant labor they hire; they provide "housing" which consists of old mobile homes parked out back. I've seen it all first hand, as I used to have a job where I had reason to visit these places. A young boy is always stationed out front, and if an unknown truck pulls in he whistles and all the workers in the milk parlor take off running. Dead animals are usually lined up outside the shed, they lose several every day. They come through with front end loaders and scoop up the dead and pile them up and cover them with a bit of brush and call it composting. There's always a random hoof or tail sticking out, half rotted. It's truly horrifying to see what it has become when one remembers what a dairy farm was just 40 years ago.
It's ironically sad that we also have a lot of Amish here, with the quiet farms that they work by hand and with horses - but they earn a part of their living raising the calves for the dairies. They'll have a hundred or so of the tiny calf hutches all lined up by the barn, and cattle trucks regularly come and go, picking up heifers and dropping off more calves. The cows don't live very long, so there's a constant demand for replacements. Here's on of the dairies in the neighborhood. There's thousands of cows under those shed roofs. You can see they have alleyways to get to the parlor and back, the unlined dug pits of slurry, and the little mobile homes for the workers.
View attachment 91074

That should be illegal. I have never seen anything like that in my life. It is so sad.
The animal rights people need to see this and get involved.

 

[Weedygarden]

That should be illegal. I have never seen anything like that in my life. It is so sad.
The animal rights people need to see this and get involved.

I agree, but it seems to be a fairly common practice. I do think there has been objections to this, but as time has gone on, the way animals have been raised for human consumption has declined gradually.

The thing that is often said is to vote with your money. But even that doesn't necessarily make the practices better. I think the thing to do is to shop locally, from farmers whose practices you can see with your eyes. I know that finding these farmers is not necessarily easy, but it is possible.

 

[Magus]

Wasteful and sadistic. And we blame some devil for the wrongs on earth, when all we have to do is look in a mirror.

 

[Supervisor42]

That should be illegal. I have never seen anything like that in my life. It is so sad.
The animal rights people need to see this and get involved.

You are missing the big picture on the cruelty. The grown milk-cows have a pretty sweet life. A cow only produces milk after it has had a calf. To keep a cow constantly producing milk, you must re-inseminate it every year before it goes dry.
Nobody asks about what happens to the calves.
The milk that the cow produces was supposed to grow them up big and strong, but we steal that. (If you continue reading, you will never eat "veal" again)
The calves, some barely old enough to walk, are knocked in the head with a ball peen hammer, and tossed in the back of a dump truck to become veal, dogfood or catfood.
I had to do a lot of disgusting things when I was growing up, but this is the worst.

 

[zannej]

Magus, thanks for the tip. I also have had quite a bit of radiation from x-rays.

Heartbroken, that is just awful! I wish there was some organization you could complain to about the foul odor making people in the area ill.

I didn't take my Metformin last night to see if it made my stomach feel any better. No real change. Still very tired.

My gripe is my friend's gf that he needs to kick to the curb. While my friend is ecstatic about his new teeth & has a huge boost of confidence from it, his gf is extremely unhappy, insecure, and is freaking out & behaving worse. He barely gets to work and she's calling him demanding he come right back home. The toddler is teething & she claims she can't handle the crying. She mostly just covers her ears and screams at the kid instead of trying to comfort him. But she also is worried my friend will find someone else & the only reason she's still around is bc he thinks with his genitals and doesn't have anyone else to have sex with other than her (she does her best to alienate any attractive female he comes into contact with). She once tried to get me to babysit her kid on the pretense that my friend wanted her to go over and visit (while he was hanging out with a female friend-- they were broken up at the time & she was supposed to be watching the kid). She was furious when I told her "No". I knew she was lying to me bc I know my friend didn't want her around & she was the reason he'd left. Unfortunately, when women see how he lets himself be cheated on repeatedly & treated like trash by his exgf and his current gf, they lose all interest in him. Doesn't help that she'll show up wherever he is & invite herself in to cockblock & claim he invited her. She'll call the women he talks to and lie to them about stuff & claim he's still engaged to her. Another issue is that she gets physically abusive with him & he doesn't see that she might kill him one day. She doesn't just use her hands and feet/body. She uses pots & pans & has hit him in the head more than once. I'm worried that the happier he starts to get & more confident, the more violent and controlling she will get.

 

[Magus]

NP, I could tell you how to steal a coon dog or horse too, but that's just wrong.

 

[Magus]

Anyway, all this cultural appropriation crap.
If my bud gets corn rows, he's stealing African culture. No Karen, Vikings had them too.
If I drink a shot of reposado with a wedge of lime, I'm stealing Mexican culture, really?
If I eat Chili I'm stealing? No hon.. take your idiot pills, MY people were adding deer meat to chili
before we knew what a Mexican was! Like rap music? tough crap Karen, you need to take a nap from being "woke" Bob Dylan did it first! historical fact sugar, but I know your kind hate facts, but moving on...Metal was simultaneously discovered by Blue cheer and Love, Love's lead was black you know.
I don't understand, you want us to accept each other and blend culturally and understand each other, I mean that's why we got all these wigger kids smoking pot and listening to rap, BUT THAT'S OK IN YOUR BOOK? It is in mine, you'll like what you like. If I date a black/Chinese/Mexican lady I'm some kind of genetic rapist but you practically threaten white girls who like white boys? I smell hypocrisy on your breath Karen, or is that your soul rotting inside you? hard to tell. You dress like a 10$ prostitute and get all offended if I steal a look. is your limp wristed boyfriend the only man on earth? Maybe you're shopping for another one because deep in your heart you know he's not a real man? and what is a man to you? is it "size" Date a donkey. Money? I know lots of old white guys who would be your sugar daddy if they couldn't spot you for the self important, gold digging, annoying, domineering idiot you are in one glance. You put that "tramp stamp" on your butt and shared it on Facebook. don't you know that's a "for rent" sign? you whine about culture, society and patriarchy.
that's fine, as a pagan I'm a mamma's boy myself, but you know what? thirty years ago we almost had it figured out, everybody got along! We didn't have school shootings back then either and "assault rifles" have been available to the public since they existed! In short Karen, I'm blaming you and your generation for ALL OF THIS CRAP! You want to whine about world population? Well here we agree, go home and save Gaia! drink a bleach and ammonia cocktail and let us get back to our lives you stupid, whiny, self important sack of rancid horse feces! I hope your dog gives you AIDS!

 

[Amish Heart]

Hey Supervisor, suppose it depends where you live. Around here, a calf is usually removed from it's mom and bottle fed. Mama cow gets kinda anxious if baby is around and can turn on you. My favorite cousin's adult son has a glass eye because he was kicked by an anxious mama. Calves are routinely sold at the cow auction barn on Tuesdays here. They'll fetch a few hundred a piece, depending on what type. Jersey calves go for way less than Angus calves. No one around here knocks them on the head. They are all valuable. I know my cousin's son in law buys lots of calves. He raises them up (grows his own feed) and resells them for beef when they get bigger.

 

[Peanut]

I bought an over priced garden hose last Tues. Big box store, it was the only 25ft hose they sold. It was a "Zero-G", supposed to be a good hose, 5year warranty.

It failed instantly, leaked badly, backwards out of the sheath, not the connector, O-ring was fine, it didn't leak there. There's a plastic shield around the hose just before the connector. It poured water...

So I have to drive 80miles to return a hose... For some reason the employee's didn't understand, the rest of the 25ft hoses had been pulled off the shelf. They had left the 50-100ft hoses of the same brand on the shelves. They refunded my money.

So I had to stop at wallys across the road for the knock off brand of the same type, $10 less. It didn't fail, worked fine.

So I guess this is a rant about burning $20 in gas to return a crappy $30 hose... and a warning about this brand of garden hose.

 

[backlash]

I have never found one of those type hoses to be worth having.
Every one I had leaked an 1 even burst apart.

 

[Magus]

I bought one at a local industrial supply guaranteed to never freeze and burst.
its been supplying water going on 5 years and hasn't yet, I think it was made in house like
their super heavy duty drop cords.

 

[zannej]

I understand being mad about cultural appropriation when it is done to mock or disrespect the culture, but people take it too far. There was a white woman who was throwing a Japanese tea party for her young daughter (per the daughter's request) and wanted it to be accurate so she asked about it on Instagram of all places. A bunch of white people started accusing her of cultural appropriation and trying to shame her. Then a Japanese woman got on and gave her the details she wanted and told the other people (politely) to shut up. She was happy that a young girl wanted to learn about and emulate her culture.

But so many people are afraid that something might offend someone else even when the people they are supposedly defending don't feel insulted. It's overcompensation and a sense of guilt or some such bs.

 

[Faez]

My rant is the world has gone to hell and didn't wait for me to catch up with my handbasket.

 

[Chaosdawn]

I've said that repeatedly, ask a person of the culture if they're offended and listen to the answer. Nearby a Dr. Seuss mural was removed due to depictions of a Chinese stereotype DESPITE a prominent Chinese immigrant family in the area asking to NOT remove it and even offering to buy it, which was refused. They were not offended, they understood it was a product of the time and even tried to save it but were ignored. Infuriating.