National Lobster Day!

Nature 9 Minutes

In honor of National Lobster Day, here are a few fascinating lobster facts according to Maine Lobster Now.  (If you visit their website, you can order your own!)

Two Strong Front Claws

The first thing to know about Maine lobsters and what visually distinguishes them from other types of lobsters is that they have two strong front claws. All lobsters have eight walking legs they use to crawl forward.

Wild Lobsters Are Colorful

While we commonly imagine the iconic bright red lobster, lobsters in nature are a wide range of colors, but not red. Wild lobsters can be green, blue, yellow, grey, calico, multi-colored or even albino. Most commonly, lobsters are a dark greenish-brown, and the more unique colors are the result of a genetic mutation that causes a color of pigment to be missing. When a lobster is cooked, only the red pigments in the shell can withstand the heat, resulting in the bright red shell most people are familiar with. Only albino, or white, lobsters retain their natural color after they are cooked because their shell does not contain any color pigments.

Lobsters Have Clear Blood

Unlike humans and other mammals whose blood is red, lobsters have clear blood. When cooked, their blood oozes out of the lobster meat, producing a thick opaque white substance. You can see this jelly-like substance along the inside of the shell when you crack it open.

Lobsters Have a Dominant Claw

Each lobster has two different claws, a larger crusher claw and a smaller pincher claw. The crusher claw has a ridged edge that resembles molars and is used to break up hard food such as clams and crabs. The pincher claw, or ripper claw, is used to tear apart softer prey such as worms or fish. These claws can be on different sides of a lobster’s body, as the crusher claw is always on the lobster’s dominant side.

Lobsters Can Regenerate Their Limbs

If a lobster loses a claw, antenna or leg, it is able to grow it back. However, it typically takes about five years for a lobster to regenerate a claw that is the same size as the one it lost. Lobsters that are missing a claw are referred to in the industry as “cull.” Cull can still be caught and consumed, and are often marked down in stores. However, if you are serving lobster a fancy dinner party, you may want to wait for its limbs to grow back.

Lobsters Smell with Their Legs

Lobsters use small chemosensory hairs on their legs and feet to identify their food. This is particularly useful for small creatures or food that is dissolved into the water. Lobsters also use the antennae on the front of their heads to smell food that is further away. Combined, these features make their sense of smell so precise that they can seek out a single amino acid just by smelling. When consuming their prey, the hairs on a lobster’s front walking legs allow them to taste the food.

Lobsters Have Poor Vision

Members of the lobster species have poor vision. They probably don’t see objects but can detect motion in dim light in the depths of the sea. They may be blind in bright light.

Lobsters use their excellent sense of smell to locate their prey. Their longer antennae and tiny hairs over their whole body are sensitive to touch. The shorter antennae detect odors and chemical signals in water. Those shorter antennae also help lobsters to find their food.

Lobsters Chew with Their Stomachs

Lobsters do not have teeth, but instead have a structure called a gastric mill that is located in their digestive track. The gastric mill has three grinding surfaces that break down food as it moves from the lobster’s mouth to its stomach. A lobster’s stomach is located right behind their eyes and is about the size of a walnut.

Lobsters Grow by Molting

A lobster’s shell does not grow, so they must molt their shell and grow a new one as they age. When lobsters molt, they wiggle out of their hard exoskeleton, leaving them vulnerable to predators. The molting process itself puts a lot of stress on a lobster’s body, and about ten to fifteen percent of lobsters die naturally while shedding their shell. As the lobster grows, each new molting requires even more energy. Lobsters molt very frequently in the first few years of their life, and then about once a year after they have reached a mature size. Typically, lobsters molt about 25 times in the first five to seven years of their life. After lobsters molt, they are starving and deficient in nutrients, so they often eat the shell they have just molted to replenish their calcium levels.

Lobsters Live on the Ocean Floor

Smaller lobsters typically live in rocky habitats or seaweed where they can find protection and food. Larger lobsters may explore further offshore in coastal habitats. Most lobsters do not migrate, and will only travel about a mile. Some larger lobsters that live in deeper waters are known to migrate closer to the shore in summer.

Lobsters Can Swim Backward

While lobsters most commonly swim or crawl forwards, they can swim backward just as easily. If a lobster feels threatened or startled, it will dart backward by curling and uncurling its tail. This allows it to keep its eyes on the predator or threat in front of it while escaping.

Lobsters Cannot Process Pain

Before dropping a lobster into a pot for the first time, many people find themselves wondering, “Do lobsters feel pain?” While it is impossible to come to a completely conclusive answer to this question, most scientists would agree that lobsters are not able to process pain. Lobsters do not have a cerebral cortex, which is what gives humans our perception of pain, so it is unlikely that lobsters can feel pain. The hissing noise that occurs when a lobster is boiled can often be mistaken for crying or screaming but is just steam escaping from the lobster’s shell.

Lobsters Are Cannibalistic

Lobsters typically dine on fresh food such as clams, crabs, snails, mussels, sea urchins and small fish. However, when these food sources are not available or are scarce, they will also eat other lobsters. Other lobsters are the biggest threat just after a lobster has molted when it is an easy target for all predators, including other hungry lobsters.

Lobsters Have a Fascinating Reproductive Process

Lobsters are only able to breed seasonally, right after the female lobster has molted. Once she sheds her hard shell, she releases a pheromone to attract male lobsters for breeding. This has the bonus of protecting her from being eaten by other lobsters before her new shell has grown because male lobsters would rather mate with her than eat her. Once the female lobster has mated, she can carry the sperm in her body and choose when she wants to fertilize her eggs. If the water is warm and conditions are fair, she can hold the sperm for up to a year. Female lobsters can produce more than eight thousand eggs which may be fertilized by several different males. Lobster eggs are carried under the female’s body in her swimmerets until they hatch nine to twelve months later.

Lobsters Never Stop Growing

As far as scientists know, lobsters continue to grow throughout their entire lives. Lobsters will continue to eat, grow and molt indefinitely until they die of natural causes or are caught. The largest lobster recorded so far was caught in Nova Scotia in 1977. The monstrous lobster was 3.5 feet long and weighed over 44 pounds. Since then, many Maine lobsters weighing nearly thirty pounds have been pulled out of the Atlantic Ocean. Theoretically, there could be massive lobsters living in the deeper ocean that we simply have not yet discovered.

Lobsters Are Biologically Immortal

As lobsters get older, they show no signs of aging. Older lobsters continue to eat, have a stable metabolism and have high energy. Lobsters also continue to mate and reproduce with equal vigor. In fact, older and larger female lobsters can carry more eggs than younger, smaller lobsters. This has caused scientists and lobster-lovers alike to ask, “Are lobsters immortal?” Because lobsters do not show characteristics of aging, or senescence, they are said to be biologically immortal. Most lobsters die from external causes, including predators, humans and disease, but it is still possible for a lobster to die from old age. This typically occurs when an aging lobster is unable to continue molting and rots inside of its shell.

Lobsters Can Live to Be Over 100 Years Old

Scientists do not have a method to accurately determine the age of a lobster. When lobsters molt, they also shed their gastric mill and digestive tract along with their shell. This means that no hard parts are left for scientists to sample to determine age. However, scientists can estimate the age of a lobster based on its size. Lobsters purchased in stores are typically about five to seven years old, but scientists estimate that lobsters can live to be over one hundred years old.

The First Lobster Catch Was Over 400 Years Ago

The first Maine lobster catch was recorded by James Rosier in 1605, but the lobster industry truly took off in the 1700s when lobster “smacks” were introduced. These traditional fishing boats continued to be used by lobstermen in the Northern Atlantic through the 1900s.

Lobster Was Once Poor Man’s Food

When lobster was first consumed, it was by servants and prisoners. Lobster was plentiful in oceans around New England, making it an extremely cheap food source. In fact, servants and slaves were forced to eat lobster so often, that prisoners in a town in Massachusetts fought to have a rule passed so they only had to eat lobster three times a week. Extra lobster was fed to pigs or used as fishing bait or fertilizer.

Lobster Used to Be Caught by Hand

Because lobster was so plentiful, they would wash up on the seashore in large piles after storms. Lobsters were then gathered by hand from tide pools and beaches. Lobster fishing and trapping did not develop until much later.

Egg-Bearing Lobsters Are Legally Protected

After the creation of smacks and trap fishing, the number of lobsters in the ocean began to decline. Lobster also became popular as a canned good in the mid-1800s, leading to a rapid decrease in population. In 1872, the first law was passed in Maine to ban the capture of egg-bearing females. This conservation is still in place, and lobster-fishers are required to cut a small v-shaped notch in the tail of an egg-bearing female lobster so other fishers can identify it. Female lobsters with a v-notch are illegal to catch and consume. These conservation methods have helped lobster populations grow again, so we can continue to enjoy this delicacy.

Lobsters Can Be Purchased Soft-Shell

While many people associate soft-shell with crabs, lobsters can also be purchased with soft shells. Soft-shell lobsters are caught just after molting, typically in July and October. While not as common as hard-shell lobsters, soft-shell lobster is said to have sweeter and more tender meat.

Lobster Meat Is Healthy

In addition to its rich and delicious taste, lobster is good for you too. Lobster is high in protein and low in fat. Three ounces of lobster contains about 76 calories, 16 grams of protein and less than one gram of fat. Lobster also contains healthy omega-3 fatty acids and iron. If you avoid smothering it in butter, lobster is a great addition to any diet and a healthy way to build muscle. When shopping for lobster, seek wild caught lobster that was not raised on a farm. Farm-raised lobster often contains antibiotics or hormones that many people want to avoid.

Maine Lobster Is the Best Lobster

While we may be a little biased on this “fact,” Maine’s massive lobster industry attests to the quality of our catch. Lobster represents 75 percent of Maine’s commercial fishery value and hauls in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. The largest catch on record occurred in 2016 when Maine’s 6,000 lobster-fishers landed more than 130 million pounds of lobster. This massive catch was valued at over $533 million. Maine lobster is iconic, not only for its economic value but also for its delicious meat. While spiny lobsters caught in the southern Atlantic and Caribbean are only eaten for their tails, Main lobsters boast large meaty claws as well as delicate and delicious tails. Some people will even crack into the delicate legs of Maine lobsters to enjoy every last bite of tender meat. Over the last 400 years, Maine’s long history of lobstering has shaped both the culture and cuisine of the state and thrilled taste buds across the country.

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Published by pat frederick

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194 thoughts on “National Lobster Day!”

  1. Morning All!
    Sorry I left so abruptly yesterday. hubby ran out of gas mowing…and said wanna go for a ride? I thought just down to the little gas station in town, but he wanted to go out for supper as well.
    on the way back, we saw one of the neighbors-he has the nearest home to us and uses it as a hunting camp. He had 2 younger boys with him–all in hunting orange. Seems one of the boys shot his first squirrel–a black one. Then we started talking. We told him about the cinnamon cub and he told us that big cinnamon bear–that was in our pond last year–was shot last fall. he weighed 568 pounds!!!!!

    Liked by 1 person

            1. I like that, too, and I love shrimp. What I don’t generally like is fish in general – I’ll buy some Tilapia now and then but that’s it. Oh, we ate some of the Bluefish we caught in the Chesapeake Bay but it wasn’t all that great. We just wanted to eat what we caught. We put the filets in foil with butter and lemon and did them on the grill. With Blues, there is a dark stripe down the side that has to be removed to help eliminate some of the wild taste. It was palatable but that’s about it for me.

              We ALWAYS threw any bass back but we would bring stringers of Bluegill back with us. We always just gave them away – far too much work on such small fish, especially when one isn’t fond of it anyway.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. yeah, not much on fish or shrimp or seafood…but hubby makes it for himself…and when he grills shrimp for him, he throws a steak on the grill for me…win/win

                Liked by 1 person

              2. Steaks are what I miss eating the most, I think….especially a T-bone or Porter House. Oh, my mouth just waters thinking about it!!!! And London Broil – surprisingly, I do a REALLY good job with that on the grill.

                Liked by 1 person

              3. my very first date–i was 16, the guy was 22…he took me to the best seafood place around…I saw the price of the steaks and ordered french fries instead. the waiter thought i was joking. but i wanted to go on another date and thought that if i ordered an expensive meal, we wouldn’t…LOL

                Liked by 1 person

  7. from tcth
    Citizen817
    September 25, 2022 12:31 am

    Judicial Watch: New Documents Reveal COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Used by HHS were Conducted in China

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/covid-vaccine-studies-conducted-in-china/

    excerpt

    nwtex
    September 25, 2022 1:24 am
    Reply to Citizen817

    Excuse me while I step in here for a brief moment, thx 😉
    I found this interesting.

    From your judicialwatch piece above.

    September 23, 2022

    (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received 115 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing previously redacted locations of COVID-19 vaccine testing facilities in Shanghai, China.
    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had claimed the name and location of the testing facilities were protected by the confidential commercial information exemption of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

    The records were obtained through a September 2021 FOIA lawsuit filed after the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease failed to respond to a June 7, 2021, FOIA request for all biodistribution studies and data for the COVID-19 vaccines (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02418)).

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Liked by 1 person

  12. long article but a good read on ultra maggot’s many impeachable crimes
    entire article
    ver six months ago, I made the case here at American Greatness for impeaching Joe Biden. The case has only grown stronger in the interim. Not only has more information come to light about Biden’s illegal conduct, but he also has pushed a number of new policies that are constitutionally suspect at best and deserve intensive congressional scrutiny—assuming the Republicans don’t blow the midterms in November.

    I argued that the impeachment effort should be about educating moderate voters, independent voters, and even working-class Democrats about the stunning number of unconstitutional actions undertaken by the Biden Administration. It doesn’t matter if the GOP doesn’t have the two-thirds vote necessary in the Senate to convict and remove Biden from office. That’s not the point. After all, a successful impeachment and removal would put Kamala Harris in the Oval Office, and she may be even worse.

    Some pundits claim that impeaching Biden would hurt the GOP politically. That’s nuts. The Democrats impeached Trump twice and used those hearings to convince many former Trump voters to abandon him in 2020. Along with all the “2000 Mules”-type cheating, it worked.

    Similarly, the GOP should drag out the impeachment hearings for a year while they feature an array of credible witnesses to testify how this man has declared war on the American middle class and brought our country to the brink of economic collapse. Try as they might, such political theater would be difficult for the media to ignore.

    Biden’s impeachable actions include his refusal to enforce immigration laws; the debacle in Afghanistan; the nuclear deal with Iran; the Hunter Biden scandal; using the COVID epidemic to illegally accumulate power; weaponizing the FBI and Department of Justice against Americans; violating the rights of January 6 protestors; and working with Big Tech to censor the First Amendment rights of Americans.

    Indeed, unlike the two phony impeachment hearings held by the Democrats, the GOP’s impeachment hearings would feature real crimes by Biden, involving bribery, treason, and “high crimes and misdemeanors” that many constitutional experts define as “abusing the public trust.”

    On illegal immigration, we now know Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has deliberately flauted federal law by refusing to deport convicted criminal aliens. In a memo, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated, “The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.” In the same memo, Mayorkas claimed DHS has “discretion” due to the criminal’s “advanced or tender age,” “lengthy presence in the United States,” a “mental condition that may have contributed to the criminal conduct,” a “physical or mental condition requiring care or treatment,” or the “impact of removal on family in the United States, such as loss of provider or caregiver.” In other words, an illegal alien who commits murder can remain in the United States if he’s a senior, has a mental illness, or if removing him does harm to his family.

    In fact, the DHS has no such discretion. This policy was simply made up and violates federal law. Indeed, the Biden Administration’s concern for poor criminal aliens does not extend to American citizens who have been victimized by them. The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Biden to correct this, but so far, there is little evidence anything has changed and the administration is appealing the decision. Furthermore, documents uncovered by Florida’s attorney general show that Mayorkas knew Biden’s policies would help the cartels and hurt American citizens.

    On the Afghanistan front, whistleblowers are now revealing that the Biden Administration brought 324 Afghans to the United States who are on the terrorist “watch list” and apparently didn’t care. Again, like illegal alien criminals, this has already led to crimes against American citizens, but Biden seems unperturbed.

    As for Biden’s ongoing effort to strike a deal with the Iranian mullahs bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, Biden has dropped even more demands so that the final deal would not curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The deal is shaping up to be a suicide pact.

    Over the last few months, new information has come to light in the Hunter Biden scandal. Joe Biden has consistently claimed he never discussed his son’s foreign business deals. He lied. Hunter’s dealings were clearly illegal “pay for play” schemes, and Biden not only knew about these deals but was involved in them. “The Big Guy’s” involvement in his family’s financial entanglements raises questions of whether he has been compromised by hostile countries. If bribery or treason were involved, Biden’s lies are clearly impeachable. Indeed, Biden has already sold 950,000 barrels of oil from America’s Strategic Oil Reserve to a Chinese government-controlled company. Hunter sits on that same company’s board. How is that not illegal?

    Then, of course, there are Biden’s COVID policies, in particular his refusal to grant religious exemptions from mandatory vaccinations to federal workers, including military personnel. Even the Defense Department’s inspector general has concluded that such mandates violate the First Amendment. Moreover, it appears that the Pentagon has illegally coerced service personnel to take the vaccination.

    On the Big Tech censorship front, we now know the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with Big Tech to censor conservatives.

    Then, of course, there is the weaponizing of the FBI and the Department of Justice against Americans, which has escalated dramatically on Biden’s watch. The Justice Department propaganda tarring parents as “terrorists” was a lie. The raids on Americans involved with the January 6 protests is like something we’d see in a Third World country and cries out for investigation. Coupled with illegal spying on Americans, the FBI under Biden is becoming the enforcement wing of the Democratic Party.

    Biden has refused to hold Black Lives Matter or Antifa accountable for the billion dollars in damages and two-dozen deaths their riots caused over two years ago. His Justice Department has also ignored acts of terror directed toward pregnancy counseling centers and pro-life groups. One Justice Department official even smeared these groups as if to encourage more violence against them.

    Biden has also violated the free speech rights of psychologists by issuing an illegal executive order calling upon federal agencies to put a stop to all counseling aimed at aiding people to overcome same-sex attractions. Bear in mind, most of these are people who have voluntarily approached psychologists for help in leaving the homosexual lifestyle.

    If the GOP retakes control of Congress in January, MAGA activists cannot rest. Patriots will need to make it clear to Republican leadership that they will be expected to not only follow the America First agenda but also to hold Joe Biden accountable for his unconstitutional actions.

    https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/24/the-case-for-impeachment-gets-stronger/

    Liked by 1 person

  14. very long article about the cps and california…many unexplained deaths and sexual abuse stories
    FTA
    The deaths of numerous children in the Child Protective Services (CPS) system in Contra Costa County, California are raising suspicions, especially considering the county’s proximity to Bohemian Grove, home of an alleged elitist Moloch-worshipping cult. The deaths highlight the CPS crisis in northern California. Nancy Pelosi personally rents office space to a pedophilia-linked “child welfare” group that was designed by a notorious pedophile in the Bay Area. The political class in northern California allegedly lords over a child sex trafficking epidemic in which foster care kids are being used as sex workers, according to our recent documentary Save the Babies. So why are children dying in the system and why is Contra Costa County forcing dead babies to be cremated so their families can’t see their bodies? What are they trying to hide?

    Foster care kids have a 42 percent greater chance of dying than kids who are not in foster care, according to a 2020 analysis conducted by a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia fellow and others. One-to-four year old children have a substantially higher death rate in foster care than in the normal world, as do children of every racial category that the analysts studied.

    https://nationalfile.com/exposed-dead-children-in-the-cps-system-near-bohemian-grove-and-pelosis-pedophilia-links/

    Liked by 1 person

  17. SMDH – I can’t believe this case is STILL dragging on!!!! Entire Article @ EpochTimes:

    “A Texas father embroiled in a high-profile custody battle fears a court ruling this week could allow his ex-wife to move to California and medically transition his 10-year-old son to a girl. Jeff Younger, who lives in the Dallas area, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 23 that he will fight the Sept. 21 ruling by Dallas District Judge Mary Brown, and vows he’ll continue to fight for his son, James.

    The parents have been engaged in a custody battle over James for most of his life. The mother, Anne Georgulas, started questioning James’s gender when he was a toddler. She argues that from a young age James chose to identify as a female, wanted to wear dresses, and eventually wanted to be known as Luna. She eventually socially transitioned the boy, and presented him at school as a girl. The school supported that after the couple separated.

    Younger accused his ex-spouse of leading their young child to socially transition before he could understand the concept or its implications. He said James rejected being female and did not wear dresses when visiting his home after the parents separated in 2015. “I had a dress at my house, but he threw it in the trash can in the middle of the night when he thought I wasn’t looking,” Younger said.

    Younger is concerned that his ex-wife now will transition James medically. He says documents he obtained during court proceedings show she took James to a therapist who recommended the family “explore” gender transitioning at the Dallas-based Genecis medical clinic. Younger intends to file an emergency stay in response to the Sept. 21 court order. He’ll ask that a previous jury verdict, allowing 50-50 custody and no child support, be reaffirmed.

    Brown, a liberal Democrat sitting on the bench for Texas 301st District Court, ruled that Younger’s ex-wife could move James and his twin brother, Jude, anywhere in the continental United States. The judge said her ruling was for the “safety and welfare” of the twins. The order also said Younger would have to schedule supervised parental visits in the county and state where the children reside.

    In her ruling, the judge “ordered” the mother not to reveal their future whereabouts to the boys’ father. And the judge allowed her to apply for new passports. Georgulas, a Dallas-area pediatrician, indicated earlier this month that she intends to move to California, Younger said.

    The move is consequential because lawmakers there have passed a bill that, according to a California Senate Rules Committee explanation, would enact “various safeguards against the enforcement of other states’ laws” that would “penalize individuals from obtaining gender-affirming care that is legal in California.” The bill was delivered to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 9 and, if not vetoed, will become law.

    The legislation would prohibit medical providers from releasing information in response to lawsuits originating in other states that oppose “gender-affirming” care for children. It also would bar California state and local police from arresting or extraditing someone for violating other states’ laws regarding treatment.

    “As soon as she’s there for a year, my sons will become citizens of California,” Younger said. “And then it becomes legal for them to castrate James. So they’ll chemically castrate him.”

    In 2021, Brown stripped Younger of most parental rights, giving full custody in a temporary order to Georgulas, after Younger was late making child support payments, medical support, and interest, as ordered. Then, he only paid his past-due support after the motion for enforcement was filed, according to the judge’s ruling.

    Younger believes the new California law will allow his ex-wife to get around a previous Texas court order preventing either parent from treating the child with hormonal suppression therapy, puberty blockers, or transgender reassignment surgery without both parents’ consent or a court order. In the Sept. 21 ruling, Brown said Younger ignored her instructions to attend therapy sessions. and failed to see his children in the past 13 months.

    Younger said that he was not allowed to see his children individually, and had to see them together. The judge ordered him to pay hundreds of dollars for each supervised visit. The judge also ordered him not to change James out of a dress when he visited, which Younger refused to do. “I’ve told the judge I’ll just go to jail over that,” Younger said. “I’m not harming my son.” The court also issued a gag order against Younger, forbidding him to talk to the media. He defied it.

    Younger believes the supervised visits ordered by the judge were “a setup,” so the observer could make adverse reports about his refusal to call the boy Luna. “We have reached a point of absolute despotism in the Texas courts,” said Younger, who in the spring ran unsuccessfully for the office of state representative on the issue of making gender transition illegal for minors. “This is directly the fault of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature,” he said, noting that attempts to pass such legislation in 2021 failed.

    When reached by The Epoch Times, Georgulas declined to comment on the ruling or her plans to move.”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. altho it’s Dallas…I’m surprised texas allows this.
      they will castrate the boy–he will grow up to resent his mother and may take things into his hands when he can…

      Like

  18. EXCERPTS: “Sheila Bath, a 60-something chef and life coach from Connecticut, first suspected she’d been injured by the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine on April 11, 2021 — exactly 14 days after she got the vaccine.

    In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Bath said her initial symptoms included a burning sensation running from her legs to her spine and numbness in her feet. The symptoms lasted for two months. “My legs were burning from my ankle all the way up to my lower spine on both sides. Burning, burning, burning,” Bath said. “My feet were numb. It was burning out the nerves in my legs and in my spine.”

    She said she also sustained “terrible bruising” on her extremities, dry mouth, worsening vision, inability to walk, cysts on her kidneys, gallstones in her bladder, calf cramps, muscle spasms, depression, brain fog and 20 lbs. of water-weight gain.

    These are “classical Guillain-Barré Syndrome symptoms,” Bath said. Bath suspected the vaccine triggered the symptoms, but doctors were initially reluctant to draw the same conclusion. Bath told The Defender:

    “I didn’t know what Guillain-Barré was, but it’s a very well-known thing that you have to go directly to the hospital. And [my neurologist] could have sent me directly to the hospital. The neurologist neglected to follow the protocol of getting me into hospital when they could have cured it.”

    “Three times I went back to him and he sent me home,” she said, telling her, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve got neuropathy because you’re older.”

    When Bath told her doctor the only explanation she could think of was that she’d been vaccinated two-and-a-half weeks ago, “He practically kicked me out of the office,” she said. “And then I called back a third time. I said, my legs are still burning up … can you help me? And they refused to see me.” Then things got worse.

    More than a year after getting the J&J vaccine, Bath began to experience new symptoms, including partial digestive paralysis, which she said “means the COVID-19 spike protein [was] still alive, doing damage,” even though it is “supposed to be a dead virus, we were told.” Doctors attributed the new symptoms to Crohn’s disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disorder, because Bath had a history of autoimmune disease. But Bath disagreed with that diagnosis:

    “I felt like saying, honey, I had Crohn’s when nobody knew Crohn’s, and I had to fight my way through that for 13 years. I said, that is not Crohn’s … That is the paralysis from the shot.”

    Bath described being “chided and yelled at” by doctors for even suggesting her health troubles were related to the vaccine. According to her, it was not until she visited a naturopathic doctor that she finally received care, attention and a concrete diagnosis.

    She said: “I walked in, he took one look at me and he said, ‘I know what you got.’ [The] first time I saw him, he says, ‘you’ve got paralysis in your spine and in your legs. Did you take the [Johnson & Johnson vaccine] or what other one?’

    “He said, ‘I’ve got an antidote for that, a homeopathic antidote for peristalsis.’ And sure enough, it worked. Now, did it work perfectly? No. But what it did do was save my life.”

    According to Bath, when she shared the news of this successful treatment with her cardiologist, “She started screaming at me, this nice, gentle woman who isn’t even connected to the vaccine.”
    —————–
    Through this, Bath hopes that she can sensitize the broader public to what is happening. “We need the public to know this is not political,” Bath said. “Both sides of the aisle have been hurt, and we are in this together. She added: “We can’t trust the regulators because they’re all owned by Yale and Harvard and everything else.”

    More details: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/sheila-bath-covid-vaccine-injury/

    Liked by 1 person

  23. EXCERPT from video in Tweet: “Massie was on Fox Business Network’s “Kennedy” and called out Kerry, saying the top Democrat called him “an a**hole more than once.”

    “Let’s get sassy with Massie,” Kennedy said. “I know John Kerry is one of your favorite targets. Are you–”

    “He called me an a**hole more than once,” Massie said. Kennedy started to laugh before telling him: “We’re on the air, congressman. Did no one tell you?”

    Liked by 1 person

  24. raining heavy off and on here…
    cleaned out the woodstove so we may have a fire this afternoon.
    gave hubby a haircut–he needed one!
    oh–we went into NY yesterday afternoon for supper–hubby really wanted to try something on the arby menu…and we wanted to see if the menu options were better in ny than pa.
    they were…they weren’t out of anything at the ny arby’s…so it’s not a franchise thing–like they can’t get this or that product at the time…must just be bad management in pa…

    Like

  25. whoa…25,000 gallons of water to extinguish? is that predicated on it NOT catching fire again?

    sync
    sync
    September 25, 2022 9:18 am

    Tesla car fire in Connecticut takes 42 minutes & 25,000 gallons of water to extinguish.

    Is there anything actually energy and resource efficient about these things?

    Liked by 1 person

  26. One of the comments: “Replying to @DrLiMengYAN1: “this fake was created by a chinese journalist in the USA”

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I’ve never heard of this UK site but it pretty much covers all the rumors out there about the 24th:

      “What’s going to happen on 24th September 2022? To be brutally honest: nothing. It’s just another fake doomsday date with rumours ready to give us all a sense of impending doom.”

      https://thetab.com/uk/2022/09/20/whats-happening-on-24-september-2022-tiktok-doomsday-solar-flare-global-powercut-death-german-politician-video-solar-storm-274463

      Liked by 1 person

    3. From the premier “fact checker,” Lead Stories – if the official transcript has, indeed, been revised then this explains it:

      “Did German politician Friedrich Merz issue a warning that something would occur on September 24, 2022, which would be remembered into the future and not be forgotten by any person? No, that’s not true: On February 27, 2022, just days after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Merz spoke of the first pictures seen, and first thoughts in the minutes after receiving news of the war. He misspoke when he referred to the date, saying “September 24, 2022,” when he intended to say “February 24, 2022.” The official minutes of the German Bundestag meeting have a corrected transcript that says February 24, 2022, but social media posts in September 2022 wrongly claimed his misstatement was an ominous warning.

      The video clip comes from an address by Merz given in the Bundestag on February 27, 2022. The full video is posted on Merz’ YouTube account, with the clip in question starting 0:30 seconds in. A short 15-second clip of the address was posted on TikTok by @creazy_pfleger (archived here) with these hashtags:
      —————
      The minutes from the Bundestag meeting of February 27, 2022 have corrected the error in Merz’ spoken address (on page 9) to say February rather than September. The context of the address is unquestionably about the invasion of Ukraine. Translated to English it reads:

      Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU):
      “Madam President! Ladies and gentlemen! Dear Colleagues! This February 24, 2022 will be a day that remains in our memory, of which we will later say: I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news about the war in Ukraine and saw the first pictures of it. – Our first thoughts in those minutes were and remain unchanged to this day for all of the people of Ukraine.
      …
      We mourn with the families of the victims who died in such large numbers in those hours and minutes up to this day – including among the civilian population. And we admire the courage and the will of these people to fight for their freedom.”

      Original in German @ link: https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/09/fact-check-friedrich-merz-did-not-issue-a-september-24-2022-warning-he-intended-to-say-february-and-the-record-is-corrected.html

      Liked by 1 person

          1. In most places, I have a long-held phobia about being able to completely cover every single window and door in the house so no-one can see inside. But if I lived where YOU live, I could deal with having that many windows w/o drapes or blinds.

            Liked by 1 person

  28. I would absolutely accept DeS running as POTUS’ VP in 2024, altho it still wouldn’t be completely fair to Floridians who re-elect him. I don’t think they would be too disappointed, tho.

    Entire Article @ AmericanThinker:

    “September 25, 2022
    Trump or DeSantis? Why not both?
    By Spruce Fontaine

    Jack Cashill, in his Thursday AT piece, “Can the GOP Accommodate Two Rock Stars?” seemed to be taken with DeSantis’s use of “we,” whereas Trump uses “I,” as did Obama.

    But DeSantis’s choice of “we” works fine without weighing in a political calculation. Trump’s virtuosity is his command of a bigger-than-life “I” personality that can accomplish big things. Sure, Obama used “I.” He used it as would an imaginary sculptor recounting his agony and ecstasy as he carved the marble statue of himself for the Louvre.

    At some point, Gov. DeSantis will commit or not. I love Ron DeSantis. I’ll vote for him. As of now, I would prefer the “we” to be a Trump/DeSantis duo because it would lengthen the MAGA approach to governance to probably twelve years or more.

    This past week, Sean Hannity talked about meeting Trump at Mar-a-Lago for his upcoming interview. Hannity observed that all the forces arrayed against Trump never seem to distract him.

    I’ve heard Trump explain the difference between what he does as a very high-level entrepreneur compared to what high-level CEOs do. High-level entrepreneurs have a supra-capacity to handle enormous pressure. The obviously talented DeSantis would benefit from Trump’s Oval Office experience to navigate the historic treachery from the radical left that will only get more diabolically irrational. I don’t think we’ve seen a fraction of the leftist derangement that will come whether the GOP regains control of the Legislative Branch or not. The North Dakota driver running down an imagined extremist Republican could become both a template and a precursor.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis shattered the elites’ virtue with the Martha’s Vineyard ploy. It was delectable, but busing illegal aliens to blue states was originally Texas governor Greg Abbott’s idea. DeSantis took it to another level. Is DeSantis as creative and clever as he seems to be? I hope so, but DeSantis’s life has not been bombed the way Trump’s has.

    The way I believe voters are beginning to frame their choice for the “who can save America” presidential candidate boils down to whether candidate Trump or candidate DeSantis is the indispensable choice to overcome the Deep State and the absolutely massive cheating to come.

    I do not think Trump is in any way a loose cannon problem that a “tempering” DeSantis would solve. To allow the media to be arbiters of what is cringe-worthy is old-school fretting that will not be helpful next time around. Donald Trump understands the battlefield as no one else. He would help mature DeSantis to be an even greater force for his own eight years. I think having both in the White House at the same time is the indispensable choice.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. HAHA! piglosi booed in ny looking all virginal in her white outfit…

    Todd
    Todd
    September 25, 2022 10:36 am

    Loser…. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11247827/Nancy-Pelosi-BOOED-surprise-visit-New-York-City-festival.html
    3
    Reply
    Nycjoe
    Nycjoe
    September 25, 2022 11:58 am
    Reply to Todd

    Some good photos in story – she is wearing an immaculate white pants suit outfit , very nice ( hint to Jill ?) almost a first communion looking outfit ( for us former/fallen RCs). And a closeup picture of her looking very concerned with booing and conferring with woman singer ( who I never heard of) who likewise seemed surprised/stunned by booing = in NYC of ALL places ( Slo Joe won NYC with like roughly 75% plus of the vote )

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Well, I’m back to the same old problem uploading camera pics to Imgur, even after re-saving them. SMDH – I hadn’t checked my cukes for several days and finally just went out a few minutes ago….after I saw that the danged squirrel had knocked one of my feeders down! 😦😠😡🥴

    The next time I’m going to be returning from Michael’s house at sunset, I’m taking my camera! I saw some gorgeous shots on my way home the other day and was itching to take some pics. Stunningly beautiful!!!! It’s a back road and I usually don’t even see another vehicle so I could stop any time. Then again, there are days when one gets stuck behind a herd of cows being moved to another pasture! LOL – the farmers on tractors and other equipment will pull way over to give you room to pass – can’t do that with cows!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. You know what I really like about Massie? I mean beyond the fact that he just flat-out rocks…..he isn’t focused on “climbing the ladder,” doesn’t have long-term political plans, other than representing the people who elected him to the best of his ability, all while keeping diligent faith with our Constitution. They don’t get much better, IMO.

      Liked by 2 people

  34. texas takes aim at cartels
    FTA
    Governor Greg Abbott today issued an executive order designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and instructing the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to take immediate action to keep Texans safe amid the growing national fentanyl crisis. At a roundtable discussion and press conference in Midland today, the Governor also sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris requesting federal terrorist classifications for the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as well as other cartels producing and distributing deadly fentanyl.

    “Fentanyl is a clandestine killer, and Texans are falling victim to the Mexican cartels that are producing it,” said Governor Abbott. “Cartels are terrorists, and it’s time we treated them that way. In fact, more Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in the past year than all terrorist attacks across the globe in the past 100 years. In order to save our country, particularly our next generation, we must do more to get fentanyl off our streets.”

    The Governor was joined at the roundtable discussion and press conference by DPS Director Steve McCraw, DPS Regional Director West Texas Region Jose Sanchez, Midland County Judge Terry Johnson, Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis, Midland County Sheriff Chief Deputy Benny Matlock, Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke, Midland Police Chief Seth Herman, and Midland Memorial Hospital District Police Chief Steve McNeill.

    Governor Abbott also directed DPS and law enforcement agencies to identify Texas gangs that support Mexican drug cartels and seize their assets in order to disrupt cartel networks operating in Texas communities, as thousands of Texans have been poisoned unwittingly by counterfeit pills laced with the deadly synthetic opioid.

    With Mexican drug cartels disguising fentanyl as counterfeit pills and targeting children with “rainbow fentanyl” pills, the Governor emphasizes in his letter that immediate decisive action is needed from the Biden Administration to combat this deadly crisis impacting the nation.

    https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-designates-mexican-cartels-as-terrorist-organizations

    Liked by 1 person

    1. yup–i read that…clothing, magazines, books, passports, and now HE has to explain why he should get them back…
      the doj should be apologizing and REALPOTUS should sue for illegal search and seizure

      Liked by 1 person

  38. guess they call him a climate “hawk” because he flew nearly 6,000 miles for climate summit…
    FTA
    Illinois Democratic congressman Sean Casten, who has called the climate “crisis” a “code red emergency,” flew roughly 6,000 miles and stayed in a luxury European hotel to fight global warming, House disclosures show.

    Casten in late August and early September accompanied the Aspen Institute on the think tank’s congressional trip to Reykjavík, Iceland, which aimed to provide members with guidance “on public policy issues as it relates to addressing energy and climate challenges,” according to the Democrat’s travel disclosures. The trip saw Casten fly business class from Chicago to Reykjavík, Iceland, and back—a trek that totals 5,888 miles and more than 313,000 pounds of carbon, given that planes on average produce 53.3 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile traveled. The Aspen Institute also provided Casten with lodging at the Grand Hotel Reykjavík—a four-star luxury hotel that includes a “beautiful spa” and “lovely candle lit lounge”—and private meals at a total cost of nearly $5,000.

    Casten, who is known as Congress’s “fiercest climate hawk,” has said members of Congress “have a duty to do everything we can” to provide “our children and grandchildren” with a “livable planet.” In the case of his Iceland trip, however, Casten almost certainly did not need to travel thousands of miles on a gas-guzzling flight to meet with many of the climate “leaders” the Aspen Institute assembled. According to the trip’s schedule, a majority of the “scholars” Casten met with are based in America. A pair of “roundtable discussions” on day one of the trip, for example, slated to feature Polar Institute senior fellow Sherri Goodman, Harvard University’s Meghan O’Sullivan, and Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv Shah, all of whom are based in the United States.

    https://freebeacon.com/democrats/climate-hawk-sean-casten-flew-6000-miles-stayed-in-luxury-european-hotel-to-fight-global-warming/

    Liked by 1 person

  39. Entire Article @ SOTN: “It’s gonna be a BLOODBATH on Election Day unless……..…the Democrats steal every single election in sight across the USA.

    There are basically three distinctly different scenarios shaping up for Election Day 2022, each of which will have HUGE repercussions for the continuity of the American Republic.

    First, if the midterm elections actually take place, they will only occur in the midst of so much chaos, confusion and conflict that the Democrat Party really believes they will be successful at stealing every election in sight. In other words, only in the fog of war (that’s why they’re called “campaigns’), and in a national environment of overwhelming distraction and turmoil, will the Democrats be confident of successfully stealing the sufficient number of elections necessary to win majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House. Of course, this scenario implies a series of stunning October Surprises that will be as shocking as they are disorienting, wreaking havoc in all the ways required to provide LOTs of cover for massive vote fraud nationwide—even more than 2020 if you can believe that.

    The second scenario is one where a very desperate Joe Biden, who really hates that the whole world knows he’s a stone-cold election thief, will officially declare the MAGA Movement a terrorist threat to the United States, thereby falsely justifying a cancellation of elections across the country. In so doing, he may attempt to establish a new single ruling party form of governance where the communist-run Democrat Party runs everything. Given many of Biden’s recent pronouncements, it’s now clear that the POTUS Pretender will say and do ANYTHING his masters tell him to. There is simply no conscience remaining whatsoever and a complete lack of morality, Biden has been so completely taken over by dark forces. Given the graphic exposure of his complicity with son Hunter Biden’s worldwide crime sprees, Biden’s handlers can easily manipulate him into perpetrating any evil.

    Thirdly, especially in the face of the two preceding alternatives, is the increasingly likely scenario where a global black swan (or two or three) comes out of nowhere to everyone’s astonishment and consternation. This could take the form of a spontaneous collapse (not the long-planned controlled demolition by the New World Order globalist cabal) of the Global Economic & Financial System. It could also appear as a grey swan and manifest as a highly kinetic World War III centered around the Ukraine drawing in all the major military powers on the planet. (Such a hot phase of WW3 could also easily evolve into a devastating exchange of nuclear weapons across the planet.)

    Then there is the possibility of a very real and deadly Fall pandemic (not a Plandemic) breaking out that disproportionately affects the USA due to the aggressive implementation of the Covid Super Vaccination Agenda. Other grey swans include a false flag EMP attack carried out by the US government and blamed on Russia or China as a classic “wag the dog” maneuver. Of course there are many other black swan and grey swan events hovering on the horizon, both manmade and the result of divine intervention, any of which could postpone Election Day giving Team Biden more time to execute either a covert or in-your-face takeover of the American Republic.

    KEY POINT: Democrat leaders, politicians, officials, as well as liberal corporate officers and boards, all colluded to insanely carry out the greatest governmental and public health cataclysm in American history. Conspiring closely with woke elements and organizations throughout civil society, these hardcore Covid fearmongers shut down, locked down and closed down whole cities, counties and communities everywhere. The average citizen was not only medically trampled on and politically traumatized and economically terrorized, they were relentlessly tyrannized by Democrat leadership across the board. The citizenry will never forget it; and the more the Covid killshots and clotshots do their damage, the Democrats will be rightly blamed for the unparalleled carnage and deliberate destruction of the American Republic.

    Conclusion

    In any case, it must be correctly understood why the Democrats are more desperate and frantic, dangerous and frenzied as they have ever been in U.S. electoral history. It’s now a political fact of life, ever since the Democrat Party has shown its true communist colors, that many traditional and old-fashioned Democrats are absolutely horrified at what has happened to their party during the Trump era.

    True, these Reagan Democrats may not like Donald Trump, but they really detest what they have seen from the likes of Biden and Harris, Clinton and Clinton, Pelosi and Schumer, Schiff and Swalwell, Garland and Mayorkas, Blinken and Austin, Buttigieg and Becerra, as well as Ocasio-Cortez and her squad of feminazis.

    Now those countless Democrats, who are silently defecting by the millions, may not officially leave the Democrat Party, but they will never vote Democrat again. They may not vote Republican either, although there are many DEMs who can’t wait to vote for Ron DeSantis in Florida … … … as well as for many other patriotic Republicans who did not lock them down and/or mandate ‘vaccines’ during the Covid era.

    The DNC knows all of this quite well, which is why the Mainstream Media is so busy gaslighting the electorate — every single day — with utterly phony polls falsely showing Democrat candidates leading in one fake poll after another. The DNC knows that, without any serious cheating and fraud and stealing in November, it’s going to be an historic BLOODBATH for them.

    Biden’s truly catastrophic term has pushed even longtime loyal liberals into a place of apathy and indifference, if not disgust toward their dreadfully reformed “Donkey Party”. They know that their POTUS imposter has been an unmitigated disaster for Middle America and everyone else, too. Just ask voter how they like the price of everything these days compared to the economic stability and financial security under President Trump. If they don’t have Trump Derangement Syndrome, they will surely give you an earful. Which bodes quite well for a season of landslides victories for the GOP this election cycle… … … and a real BLOODBATH for the Democrats.

    The Armchair Political Analyst
    State of the Nation
    September 23, 2022

    Liked by 1 person

    1. what is the headline? 98% of eligible recipients are NOT getting the boosters…
      another pandemic would be a tough sell…i think
      canceling elections might be a bridge too far even for some dems…

      we’ll see I guess

      Liked by 1 person

        1. really? I don’t think they believe they can pull that off.
          if the numbers were reversed–98% of those eligible GET the boosters…they might think they could do that…
          but americans are sick of the lockdowns, sick of the hypocrisy and sick of being lied to…
          i am not sure what will happen

          Liked by 1 person

    2. Take note: he says “American Republic, NOT “democracy.” He also says Democrat Party, NOT “democratic party.” These small things tell you the origins of his thinking….and shows how gaslighted people are, like Tucker and everyone else who uses those words and phrases.

      Liked by 1 person

  41. This is how they screw over people in court – denying requests simply on process issues!!!! It is a very handy excuse!!!

    “OAN Newsroom
    UPDATED 9:40 AM PT –Friday, September 23, 2022

    A federal judge has rejected MyPillow CEO’s Mike Lindell’s request to block federal authorities from accessing his recently seized cell phone.

    In a decision on Thursday, a United States district court judge ruled against Lindell’s motion for a temporary restraining order and for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to return the phone. Judge Eric Tostrud, who a Trump appointee, said that Lindell did not properly answer the legal questions that were required to make the request.

    Lindell is suing the DOJ and FBI over allegations that the seizure of his phone may have been illegal. The CEO’s phone was seized by the FBI at a Hardee’s drive-thru in Minnesota. The Trump-supporting business executive has not been charged with a crime or has accused of wrongdoing by authorities. A hearing date in Lindell’s case against the federal government has yet to be set.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. This could affect pig farmers across the nation if they can’t send their products to CA!!!

    Entire Article from RealClearPolicy: “On October 11th at the Supreme Court, America’s pork farmers will stand trial.

    The formal question before the justices will be the constitutionality of California’s 2018 initiative-passed Proposition 12. If the farmers lose, a state will be allowed to enforce a regulation on out-of-state production methods. Historically, states could regulate only the character and quality of products made elsewhere (via product safety standards, for example), not the means of making them.

    But alongside the constitutional question will be public judgment on the morality of American pig farming. The case arose because accusers skillful in modern media but ignorant of modern pig farming charged U.S. pig farmers with cruelty to their animals. Prop 12 bans in-state sale of pork from pigs born anywhere to sows housed in so-called “gestation crates” (protective pens) that don’t meet California space specifications, which almost none in the nation do. It ignores that other states – such as Ohio – have other rules, some in conflict with California’s.

    Among the pig farmers’ accusers, the most surprisingly clueless have been academic economists who filed briefs saying that pig farmers could easily comply with Proposition 12’s requirements.

    Pig raising is broken into stages (with some farms combining the first two). Farrow-to-Wean farms breed pigs and raise piglets until they are weaned (around 10 pounds). Feeder farms take weaned pigs and raise them until they are about 40 pounds. Finishing farms take those pigs and raise them until they reach market weight. Then the pigs go to the processor.

    It sounds simple, but sometimes, with each movement to a new stage and a new farm, growing pigs can be combined with pigs from other farms. Tracking which pig was born to which sow at which farms adds a level of complexity and legal risk that major processors will not accept. Rather than deal with higher costs and exposure, they will demand that all farms comply or charge consumers a big premium. I can say with 100 percent certainty, when that happens, our barns will have to be shuttered. Our family cannot afford the compliance costs.

    One economist who denies this fact of pig farming life has insisted that specialized breeding, even for “cage free” raising of pigs, already occurs. But what works on a small, almost artisan scale, for highly affluent customers cannot feed a nation. He listed the retailers who embrace Prop 12 standards, led by Whole Food Markets. According to a recently published marketing study, the typical Whole Foods shopper is “a West Coast millennial woman between 25 and 34-years-old [with] a graduate degree and an annual income of more than $80,000.” The median American household income is $65,000; 68 percent of adults have no college degree at all. The professor lives in a very different world than most Americans. Pig farmers must serve all America.

    The critics who brought the case seem unaware of (or choose to ignore) contemporary American hog care standards. In the past two decades, pig husbandry in the United States has changed dramatically. Pig farmers (who led the change), swine veterinarians (now an important specialty), federal and state governments (which set a floor to humanitarian standards), bankers (who financed the unprecedented increase in the standards of pig housing, feeding, and sanitation) and many others revolutionized the field.

    Consider this: Historically, throughout the world, pig raising standards have been very bad. In many places pigs were fed rotted table scraps and other garbage. As late as the 1980s, American families routinely over-cooked pork products. Parents worried that pork would give their children debilitating trichinosis. Overcooking was to kill the parasite.

    Today, U.S. pigs consume a healthy combination of corn and soymeal. They live in temperature-controlled housing kept clean to almost hospital standards. The trichinosis threat is largely forgotten, even as pork price inflation from 1969 to today has lagged overall inflation by more than 20 percent.

    At the same time, pig farms are safer for pigs. Because pigs can be extremely aggressive toward one another, during vulnerable periods in their lifecycles sows are now moved to carefully designed individual stalls. This specialized housing is the excuse that anti-meat activists have used to attack us.

    Pig farmers cannot believe these attacks. They have dedicated their lives to providing the nation with a healthy source of protein and other nutrients at a price ordinary families can afford — and doing it ever more humanely. The public benefits have been enormous, and the treatment of pigs is now by far the best in the world.

    Pig farmers take seriously their duty to make available the nourishment that American families put on their tables. Let’s hope the justices understand that.”

    [Thomas Titus is an Illinois farmer of corn, soybeans, and pigs.]

    Liked by 1 person

        1. It is sooooo ironic that I haven’t the slightest desire to watch the NFL any more (same for Nascar but I wasn’t quite as rabid about that – came late to it), when I used to be an absolute FREAK about not missing my football! ROFL – when HB was a baby, it was reversed for her Dad and I – he hated football so Sunday afternoons were always MY day and his job was to keep HB out of my hair. Waaaay back in the early ’80’s, when cable first came out and they had those boxes with different buttons to push to change stations? I would sit in my chair, surrounded by all of the necessary accoutrements like beer, chips, cheese dip, cigs, etc., with my right hand on the box so I could quickly switch to other games to keep track of the scores. Same with college football!

          Liked by 1 person

              2. Well, whether it’s trash or not depends on what one chooses to watch. At least 95% of what I watch is in documentary form and I know enough by now what to screen out. The rest is comprised of The Waltons, Highway to Heaven, Rizzoli & Isles, Castle, good movies – just watched Independence Day again yesterday – stuff like that. Since the one station that carried some of the shows I liked, like NCIS, cancelled their agreement with DTV, I can’t get it any more. Not a big loss, really, since they’d begun getting WAY too far out over their skis lately!

                Liked by 1 person

  45. Very long article so I’ll only post some excerpts – goes into great detail on the history of Ukraine/Russia:

    “The cultural and historical elements that determine the relations between Russia and Ukraine are important. The two countries have a long, rich, diverse, and eventful history together.

    This would be essential if the crisis we are experiencing today were rooted in history. However, it is a product of the present. The war we see today does not come from our great-grandparents, our grandparents or even our parents. It comes from us. We created this crisis. We created every piece and every mechanism. We have only exploited existing dynamics and exploited Ukraine to satisfy an old dream: to try to bring down Russia. Chrystia Freeland’s, Antony Blinken’s, Victoria Nuland’s and Olaf Scholz’s grandfathers had that dream; we realized it.

    The way we understand crises determines the way we solve them. Cheating with the facts leads to disaster. This is what is happening in Ukraine. In this case the number of issues is so enormous that we will not be able to discuss them here. Let me just focus on some of them.

    Did James Baker make Promises to Limit Eastward Expansion of NATO to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990?……..So, written record or not, there was a “deal,” simply because a “deal” was inevitable. Now, in international law, a “promise” is a valid unilateral act that must be respected (“promissio est servanda“). Those who deny this today are simply individuals who do not know the value of a given word.
    —————–
    Did Vladimir Putin disregard the Budapest Memorandum (1994)

    In February 2022, at the Munich Security Forum, Volodymyr Zelensky referred to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and threatened to become a nuclear power again. However, it is unlikely that Ukraine will become a nuclear power again, nor will the nuclear powers allow it to do so. Zelensky and Putin know this. In Fact, Zelensky is not using this memorandum to get nuclear weapons, but to get Crimea back, since the Ukrainians see Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a violation of this treaty. Basically, Zelensky is trying to hold Western countries hostage. To understand that we must go back to events and facts that are opportunistically “forgotten” by our historians.

    On 20 January 1991, before the independence of Ukraine, the Crimeans were invited to choose by referendum between two options: to remain with Kiev or to return to the pre-1954 situation and be administered by Moscow. The question asked on the ballot was:

    ‘Are you in favor of the restoration of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Crimea as a subject of the Soviet Union and a member of the Union Treaty?’

    This was the first referendum on autonomy in the USSR, and 93.6% of Crimeans agreed to be attached to Moscow. The Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Crimea (ASSR Crimea), abolished in 1945, was thus re-established on 12 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. On 17 March, Moscow organized a referendum for the maintenance of the Soviet Union, which would be accepted by Ukraine, thus indirectly validating the decision of the Crimeans. At this stage, Crimea was under the control of Moscow and not Kiev, while Ukraine was not yet independent. As Ukraine organized its own referendum for independence, the participation of the Crimeans remained weak, because they did not feel concerned anymore.

    Ukraine became independent six months after Crimea, and after the latter had proclaimed its sovereignty on September 4. On February 26, 1992, the Crimean parliament proclaimed the “Republic of Crimea” with the agreement of the Ukrainian government, which granted it the status of a self-governing republic. On 5 May 1992, Crimea declared its independence and adopted a Constitution. The city of Sevastopol, managed directly by Moscow in the communist system, had a similar situation, having been integrated by Ukraine in 1991, outside of all legality. The following years were marked by a tug of war between Simferopol and Kiev, which wanted to keep Crimea under its control.
    —————–
    Is the Ukrainian Government Legitimate?

    The Russians still see the regime change that occurred in 2014 as illegitimate, as it was not done through constitutional process and without any support from a large part of the Ukrainian population.

    The Maidan revolution can be broken down into several sequences, with different actors. Today, those who are driven by hatred of Russia are trying to merge these different sequences into one single “democratic impulse”: A way to validate the crimes committed by Ukraine and its neo-Nazis zealots.

    At first, the population of Kiev, disappointed by the government’s decision to postpone the signing of the treaty with the EU, gathered in the streets. Regime change was not in the air. This was a simple expression of discontent.

    Much, much more: https://www.thepostil.com/the-hidden-truth-about-the-war-in-ukraine/

    Like

  48. Liked by 1 person

  50. Watching Maria’s show from this morning – Kari Lake is laying out her priorities. The more I hear from her, the more I like her!!!

    First, of course, is the border but she is also going to work on the work-force situation by “…bringing vocational and trade skill training into our high schools in a bigger way so that after 10th grade, HS students can get some real training for the real jobs that are out there. These trade jobs will allow these kids to make good money where they can actually support themselves. We’re going to bring that into our schools.”

    Liked by 1 person

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