There was panic about raw milk looonnnggg before Covid. And I if you had read what I wrote, I did say pasteurization IS a good thing and I'm all for it. But it's just not the evil most think it is.

You have owned a dairy herd?

It's a bad analogy and just plain wrong fact. Do better.

It's possible! But I would eat your Aunt's hotdish in silence and using my passive/aggressive look while consuming it.

You do understand that ALL dairy farms that sell milk are regularly tested for safety of the milk they sell. This is federally mandated. You miss the thresholds for bacteria counts, you will be dumping all your milk produced until it tests clean again. So those cows can't be held in very dirty and vile conditions because your milk won't pass those mandated tests. Slackers go broke and are out of business in short order.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for selling pasteurized milk in stores. The milk you buy in the store can be a week old before you see it on the shelf. But the unreasoning fear of raw milk is just plain ridiculous.

Anything but plain cream of mushroom soup is a vile heathen concoction.

Corn or string-beans are fine. Anything else is sacrilege.

You put those tater tots ANYWHERE but in top, I will personally drive to your house and stare at you with passive/aggressive looks while I call your Mother!

A very large amount of those dug up diamonds end up as "industrial diamonds." Because they are far from gemstone quality. And they definitely get used up. I have used up my share of them as cutting tools when I was a toolmaker.

While I certainly don't miss milking cows, I too miss the insanely rich texture and flavor of that fresh from the cow milk.

Civilian Marksmanship Program. It was a program designed to sell cheap obsolete military rifles, pistols, and ammunition to civilians to shoot target competitions with. It still exists today, though the supply of cheap surplus firearms has dwindled significantly. They never sell machine guns or assault rifles either.

The program arose at the end of WW2 because the US army discovered that the US is not a "Nation of Marksmen" but mostly a motley collection of "city slickers" that didn't know one end of a rifle from the other. Let alone actually shoot well enough to hit anything. It was taking too long to train recruits to use a firearm properly.

All you had to do was join a CMP approved target shooting club and shoot a set number of sanctioned matches to qualify to purchase a refurbished M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, 1903 Springfield, or 1911A1 pistol for very little money. It cost me $200US for a "Rack Grade" M1 Garand back in the day. And for the longest time there was no need for an FFL transfer either. The CMP would mail the firearm directly to your home.

And it's tatertot hot dish!

Can imagine the delaying tactics that a classic Minnesotan long goodbye would cause to an invading military? You could cause delays of up to several hours just saying goodbye!

It has a lot of oil sands.

Nope, logistics is the first enemy. You can have the men and high tech weapons you want. But if you can't get them to where those things are needed in the quantity they are needed-- You lose.

The US military is still the best in the world at moving men and material in the least amount of time than anyone else. And as much as fuckcars hates the over grown US highway system, it would be a tremendous advantage to be used against any would be invader.

I grew up on a dairy farm and we drank raw milk every day. I can remember my sisters bringing the milk pitcher to the barn and dipping into the bulk tank of raw milk every morning or so. No one got sick and no one died. We even made butter at home from it after separating the cream. But pasteurization is a good thing for all you urbane urbanites out there. It increases the shelf life and safety for consumption. Plus it reduces number of small dairies near population centers that used to exist. Dairies can be 100+ miles away now. After all, you wouldn't want to be exposed to the smell of cow shit right?

Raw milk does taste very different from store bought pasteurized milk, (whole milk ain't whole). And like shelf stable milk, I doubt anyone of you would like drinking it.

As someone who has sat behind the wheel of an ambulance and various firetrucks, even those sirens aren't enough to get other people on the road or sidewalks to pull their collective heads out of their arses long enough to pay attention to their surroundings and get out of the way. And it is possible to over drive the sound also. But cars tend to be so well sound insulated these days that it's doubtful any bicycle siren is going to really be loud enough to get one's attention.

We finally installed a "rumbler" on some of the vehicles to assist the siren and lights to get attention. A rumbler is a large speaker installed behind the grill and aimed downwards to the ground. When you hit the switch, it would emit a very low pitched note that would literally cause the ground to rumble and quake ahead of the vehicle as you drive. They have a limited usage life, so you only used it as needed to wake someone up long enough to get them out of the way.

But I'm personally of the opinion that bicycles should carry more lighting than they do. A headlight, rear facing marker/brake/turn signal lights should be a standard requirement for new bicycles. It would increase safety for everyone.

With all all the ebikes out there it is trivial to add a headlight, brake lights, turn signals, and marker lights and require them to be used and maintained like any other road worthy vehicle.

Nope. Far too misogynistic and aggressive. It implies there are small dicks and it even completely ignores people born without dicks or had them removed.

The point is, there is no such thing as perfection. We all follow the "Open mouth and insert foot" rule on occasion. But we can try to do our best knowing we will often fail. And when others fail us in return, we must learn to gently correct and forgive.

It's less state dependent than you think. The feds have the last say in the safety equipment that comes on your car from the factory. They write the regulations on safety equipment for all highway vehicles.

What is interesting is that the NFPA, (the US National Fire Prevention Association), which writes the guidance for US public safety departments, has learned that you can have too much flashy-flashies and woo-woos and sparkles hanging on your vehicle. We used to hang as much as that stuff as we could on fire trucks and ambulances. Now, new rigs are toning it down to reflective chevrons and marker lights on the back end to prevent dazzling and confusing traffic as they approach a scene. The NFPA national tracking has shown a marked decline in tertiary accidents.

Reflectives and markers are important, but you can do too much can have worse outcomes because of it.

I don't mind the roads so much. We plow the roads to have a snowbank on the ditch edges to act as bumpers to keep idiots and fools from careening off the road into a tree. As a retired medic, it made it easier to get people out of their cars and with less serious injuries.

What really pisses me off is the inability of people to park correctly in a parking lot. When the lines get covered in snow pack, everyone loses their minds and just start to randomly park anywhere and in any direction. I've seen clown park across two parking spots. And it stays that way for a least 6 months out of the year.

Those are the best days to go outside when you can feel the brittleness of the air.

Those are the lazy people. Lazy people refuse to learn new things. You don't sound lazy.

Don't be like them. Hang out with those people that piss excellence.