shortages? thoughts?

[tortoise]

plus how are the germs getting in there to begin with?!

Wild birds - typically waterfowl. Backyard keepers were told to keep flocks covered to protect from wild bird poo falling from the sky

 

[tortoise]

where would one fact check that isn't biased?

Yeah, I wouldnt go for a media source in general. If you prefer them (they're easier to read!!), you can pick a media source that is politically neutral or compare news articles with opposing biases and glean whatever is in common between them.

You can look up political biases of news media. You can see that AP is the most fact-based and least biased news source available. NPR, PBS and BBC are right up there too. I like BBC for the international perspective on USA issues.

You can also look up industry reports which arent funded by special interests, or which pre-date the information being questioned. That's what I did to see if the fire data was unusual. I also check produce industry market reports to see what prices are high due to normal reasons and which are inflation.

If its a legal or scientific topic, I use google scholar to find primary sources. However, beware of medical studies because they may be influenced by big pharma and its not always apparent. When you hit a paywall, email the author to request a free copy of their article - they usually send it!

 

[tortoise]

what i can say for sure is gas is $4, lunch meat for sandwiches is $7, bacon is $10, hamburger is $8, feed has doubled, my taxes have doubled, and now we are having serious power grid issues....not to mention our leaders are trying to take our rights away a little at a time and theres nothing stopping them.

You're not wrong, but you're doing a cognitive distortion called "kitchen sinking" as in the idiom everything but the kitchen sink. You're combining multiple unrelated things together in a way that increases anxiety.

Serious power grid issues are not new, especially for Texans. So the "and now" is the cognitive distortion.

Taxes (plural, as in all of my taxes) have not doubled, literally. Thats a cognitive distortion. Which taxes have increased by how much? Is a better way to discuss. Federal income tax rates are the same and since we live in different states, I dont know from your comment what changes you are facing or how significant they are.

We also need to compare apples to apples. I've always bought $7 lunch meat (when its on sale from $10-$12/pound). I have not seen $10 bacon or $8 hamburger. I've seen situations (in large sicial media groups) where someone complains about a high grocery price, and someone else says a store 15 miles away has a normal price for the same item. We have to remember our world views are geographically small and our online views very narrow because algorithms only show us what we agree with.

Social media algorithms are terrifying, frankly. Look at what happened to Brazil!! The deep political divides in the USA are due to social media algorithms. I deleted my accounts and use ad blockers. It is the only thing I can control. I wont be influenced by a computer algorithm.

 

[Hinotori]

my property taxes have doubled. car registration has doubled here as well. what im telling you in no fancy words is they are continually makin it harder and harder for a workin man to raise kids in this messed up place. everything but the kitchen sink can go right up ur keester.
we didnt have power grid failures before 2 years ago. ive lived here all my life, i never experienced that.

maybe we can say its because of this or that, but at the end of the day it all adds up to me and my kids getting the shaft.

working people in my county are getting ran out of town because they cant afford to live here and at the same time immigrants from California (thats right they aint native texan) are buying all the property at increased prices because they have a large amount of cash from selling in California, where they left because they couldnt afford to live.



i used to get mad about it, but now im just done. theres no arguing morallity or common sense to all these socialists and progressives because they have all been brain washed. they come at regular joes all the time with the same long list of fancy words and bull**** like you been doing.




but you just keep saying everything is ok and believing it while ur president sells the american people out daily. im gonna keep doing for myself and avoiding the communist propaganda like the plague.

Well there is your issue. Transplants from California. They have been raising housing costs up here for ages. I remember back in the 80s-90s and California transplants causing the same issues in Portland Oregon.

That's an issue where ever they go. Even to some foreign countries. Singapore was just in the news about it a few weeks ago. Mexico has the same issues. Rich yuppies willing to pay lots drive out the people who have been living there by making it unaffordable. Then they want to change all the laws to favor them.

 

[Hinotori]

My problem is that there has been rampant Mcmansion subdivision building around here driving up housing prices. They are putting a huge one is about 4 miles down the road. No infrastructure for it. 500+ houses. It will require another fire station because the one rural 2 miles away can't handle that much more. Oh but the rest of us have to pay for it.

The apartment we rented a decade ago now is almost 4x times what we paid for rent.

Then the yuppies want horse properties. There are a few 10acre HOA subdivisions here as well. Only horses mind you. No chickens even. Even though the county says it's allowed. We can point you which road the nearest one of these monstrosities is on by the fact the people don't know how to drive on country roads.

 

[flowerbug]

we didnt have power grid failures before 2 years ago. ive lived here all my life, i never experienced that.

The Texas Blackout Is the Story of a Disaster Foretold

Those in charge of Texas’s deregulated power sector were warned again and again that the electric grid was vulnerable.

www.texasmonthly.com

"Hell may not freeze over, but history suggests that Texas’s energy system does—and with some frequency. In 1989, in 2003, and in 2011, the state experienced, to varying degrees, simultaneous shutdowns of power plants and parts of its natural gas–producing infrastructure, as significant swaths of both of those critical systems were incapacitated by arctic temperatures, triggering blackouts."

i guess you were lucky then to not have experienced those...

as for the rest of your comments. i consider the abortion rights changes recently happening a return to the dark ages for sure. the violence towards minorities and people i consider friends isn't making for a wonderful country either.

 

[flowerbug]

i think egg prices will come back down eventually.

 

[CrealCritter]

50 lb bagged feed prices are crazy. Pics from Rural King, last week Friday August 19th. I'm going to try Tractor Supply next feed run, I buy feed every two weeks. I was feeding the fowl all flock pellets 18%. But dropped down to layer pellets 16%. see pics and I think you'll understand why.

Livestock Commodity

Meatbird Crumbles 21%

All Flock Pellets 18%

Layer Pellets 16%

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

I just cut the squash in half and let the chickens pick it out. They will get harder rinds for awhile and then feed any that start to get soft/rotten spots. They eat what they want,,, scratch the rest into oblivion.
TSC feed is higher cost and I don't like the quality near as much as Rural King. I buy most all mine from a local feed mill anyway... Fresh and supporting a local company.
Be careful of feeding chunks to cattle... they can get it stuck in their mouths/windpipe. I don't like to feed much garden produce to cattle unless it is something they would eat out in the field... grasses/hay/corn stalks etc.

Thanks 👍 I looked for a gravity wagon over the summer, none could be found within a 100 mile radius 🙄 I would like to buy bulk feed, I just don't have anything to load it in.

Typical Gravity Wagon

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

There is a shortage of sunflower seeds. Globally is due to Ukraine. In the USA, there was a shortage of sunflower seed (field seed) this spring. There might be some relief this winter from this year's USA sunflower harvest, but sunflower products (especially oil) are likely to be higher priced and less available for at least a year.

Ukraine exports/exported 47% of global exports of sunflower oil.

This, yes. We haven't seen it since late last winter. It is all my oldest can eat in terms of any seed/nut butters due to allergies. She asked for it again this week, so I am on the hunt. It was already close to $8/jar I hate to see what it is now.