The Argue Thread

[markdoane]

Originally Posted by Drathaar

Ipse dixit

Oww. I've been spanked.

[SteveSueMac]

Lorem ipsum.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, Lithium batteries; Oh wait, that's another argue thread. Too rich for my blood.


Influenza; Another money making scam. Get your shots while we keep guessing what strain is headed your way. Well I don't get no stinking flue shots and I'm doing just fine.

[markdoane]

That's because of herd mentality.


Sent from my iPhone using Airstream Forums

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Influenza; Another money making scam. Get your shots while we keep guessing what strain is headed your way. Well I don't get no stinking flu shots and I'm doing just fine.

More people worldwide died from Influenza (Spanish Flu) in 1918-1919 than died in World War I in 1914-1918. More than 20 million people dead of the Flu in two years, some of them only 24 hours after manifesting symptoms.

In 1957-1958, over 70,000 people died from Influenza (Asian Flu) in the US alone.

In 1968-1969, over 34,000 people died of Influenza (Hong Kong Flu) in the US alone.

I get my flu shots every year, and I'm glad to have them available. Being diabetic, I take longer to heal from anything I catch, and being sick from any cause always boosts my blood glucose to unacceptable levels. My goal is to one day be the world's oldest living diabetic, because if they ever come up with a cure for my particular diabetic syndrome (there are at least five varieties of that I know of) I want to be alive to take advantage of it!

For those who are wondering about five diabetic syndromes (those who aren't wondering can stop reading now, if you haven't already):
1 - muscles are insulin-resistant so excess glucose builds up in the blood rather than being burned by muscles. Exercise is the only treatment for this one, but insulin-resistant muscles make it more difficult to exercise.
2 - lack of diet control, i.e. eating too many carbs that are converted to glucose by the intestinal tract.
3 - liver converts too much fat to glucose. Sometimes related to diet, but also happens during weight loss, because fat-to-glucose conversion could be either dietary fat or body fat.
4 - kidneys don't filter out enough glucose from the blood. These are the folks who end up on dialysis.
5 - pancreas produces too little insulin (Type II) or no insulin at all (Type I). This is what most people think of as "the" cause of diabetes.
6 - pregnancy can shift metabolic rates and cause a condition known as "gestational" diabetes, which at present is the only form of diabetes that can actually be cured rather than simply going into remission. But being male I can't be affected by this one which is why I didn't count it.

Having at least five/six causes for diabetes is one reason (five or six reasons?) why finding a cure is so difficult, and why one in every six Americans shows symptoms of diabetes.

[Rocinante]

The underlying problem with the diabetes is that they've been feeding us high fructose corn syrup and scads of carbs for years, telling us to go low fat instead of low carbs, etc. Now that's a topic worthy of this thread.

[Jim & Susan]

Originally Posted by Ag&Au

Speaking of spell checkers:

Did you mean?

не знаю я только живу

Ken

Yup, those cheap Google keyboard translator apps lack a few things when it comes to Cyrillic. Thanks for letting me play along with the family home edition. You guys are still a hoot. Keep up the good work.

Gene, hope you and the Mrs. feel better soon.

Jim

[PKI]

Get your flu shots. It is not a conspiracy. Fewer folks with the flu mean fewer folks to give it to you. If you spend your time with no outside contact, it's possible to build a case you can't catch the flu. But how in the world do you make smiles if you don't see people? Get your flu shot, please. Pat

[SteveSueMac]

I never used to get flu shots. A few years ago, I was talking to my Dr. about upcoming plans to visit my 4 year old niece in TN. She asked me whether I had my flu shot and I told her I never get one. She said - it's not just for your benefit - young kids are particularly vulnerable so think about doing it for her.

I get one every year now.

[Wayne&Sam]

Originally Posted by Lumatic

I wasn't there, but know for a fact Woodstock had a simple open stage.

That was not the stage at the original Woodstock. It's probably from one of the later incarnations

Woodstock wasn't in Woodstock , it was in Bethel.

I was there - for a few hours- too many people. I now live near the site and it is a beautiful performing arts center called Bethel Woods.

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Rocinante

The underlying problem with the diabetes is that they've been feeding us high fructose corn syrup and scads of carbs for years, telling us to go low fat instead of low carbs, etc. Now that's a topic worthy of this thread.

Doesn't have to be high-fructose corn syrup. Any "-ose" is a sugar, and we consume to much of it. Fructose. Sucrose. Dextrose. Maltose. Lactose. Glucose. All sugars. A tall glass of sweet tea can contain as much as 56g of carbs just from the added sugar (sucrose). A single pint of ice cream can have as many as 120g of carbs (lactose and sucrose)— a pint is FOUR servings if you read the nutrition label on the container.

But the non-sugar carbs are just as bad for a diabetic or pre-diabetic if you overdo it. Bread. French fries. Rice. Pizza crust. They all get converted to glucose by the body. And that doesn't even count the fat that's converted to glucose by the liver as it's digested, that even carb-counting diabetics often forget to count. A McDonald's Happy Meal contains 90g of carbs and 22g of fat, which can be converted to as much as 107g of glucose by the body (only 5g of the carbs are fiber). And that's with small fries and small non-diet soft drink. I shudder to think what it would be if you super-size it!

The recommended daily requirement of carbs based on a statistically-average healthy 2000-calorie-per-day diet is 300g of carbs, of which 25 is fiber that doesn't get converted to glucose because it passes through without being digested. For a typical diet-controlled diabetic it should usually be less total carbs (but the same amount of fiber) with enough extra protein to make up the difference on a gram-for-gram basis.

People sometimes wonder about my diabetic meal plan. I tell them, "I can eat anything I want. I'm just not allowed to want much!" Which is true. Portion control is the key.

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, when asked about having the flu shot at my doctor's office, I always say no. Then I ask them, nurses, doctors, Etc. if they had one and almost everyone of them told me no, they didn't get it either. My Dad worked at a medical center and was asked if he wanted a free flu shot, he said no. The next day at the office, virtually all of the doctor's helpers were missing. They all got sick. A very close relative got very sick every time they got a flu shot.

If you are weak, sick, or unhealthy, get the shot for yourself and for those you are in close contact with. And if you are sick, stay home; Don't go to the malls and markets where lots of people are.

My secret is to stay healthy, keep away from little kids, and old people.

[Gene]

I know two people with Type II diabetes and they do not fit the profile of obesity. Both are thin. I think of diabetes as a collection of symptoms of perhaps more than one disease. That's one thing I don't have.

I do have asthma and that seems to have complicated the flu/pneumonia experience. It is scary to have trouble breathing—it is like drowning and feelings of desperation surface. If I were waterboarded, I would confess to anything to stop the torture—and that's why waterboarding doesn't provide useful info. My mother's left lung was damaged by the 1918 Spanish Flu. She was 8 at the time. In 1947 the damaged lung was mostly removed in an operation hardly ever done before. The scars from that were amazing. She looked like a zipper had been installed on the whole length of her back. That was pretty scary to a little kid. In 2000 she caught the flu and it killed her. Her body was worn out by that time, so she was very susceptible. I caught it from her and though it was bad, it wasn't as bad as this time. I am very nervous about the flu.

No flu vaccine is 100% effective even against the strains in the particular version for that year. But if you do get sick, it should reduce the time and misery you are sick unless, perhaps, the strain you catch wasn't in that batch. Barb got Tamiflu in time to reduce her symptoms so far as we know. And she doesn't have asthma and didn't get pneumonia. Tamiflu is not very effective and doesn't prevent flu once you are exposed. Even with her Part D plan, the script cost $91—$9.10/pill. Since flu is a very dangerous disease, it is worth taking Tamiflu, but it is another rip off drug price.

My pneumonia was probably bacterial. The hospital did a culture and would have called me had it been shown to be viral. But since I was taking an antibiotic, no need to call if it were bacterial. Pneumonia is also not a disease, but a symptom of many diseases that attack your lungs. The ER doc wanted me to take quinolone family antibiotic, but I don't like the numerous side effects with that class of drugs. My doc suggested instead a "Z" pack which is in the -mycin family. Every day is better and I still have some stamina issues and coughs, but a lot better than a week ago. The weekend I got sick, I discovered the water heater was leaking and a neighbor recommended a plumber. When he showed up Tuesday morning I was in bad shape and later he told me he was worried about me. Barb said after going over things with the plumber I looked green. It isn't easy being green.

Better to get the flu shot than not. Just because someone gets the flu and had the shot doesn't mean the shot didn't reduce the period of sickness. Especially for the old and very young, flu is a very dangerous disease. We send to accept it because it is common and it never killed us before. But when a week plus ago I was having more trouble breathing every hour, I could predict by midnight I would be gasping for air. The ER put me on oxygen, pumped Albuteral (the stuff in rescue inhalers) into my lungs, hydrated me and in about 2 hours I was feeling much better, though certainly not well. I still have an oxygen concentrator that was delivered to my house and it seems to help clear my lungs if I use it for a couple of hours a day. The Albuterol inhaler they gave me is just about exhausted, but I don't think I need a new one. They changed the propellant in Albuterol and thus the drug companies got new patents on an old drug and charge a lot for something that should be cheap. People with limited incomes can't afford it.

People in my family are more likely to die from cardiac disease, so I never thought about my lungs failing. I was unprepared for this flirtation with the grim reaper. If there were no ER and no drugs and oxygen available, I don't know what would have happened, but I knew I was in very bad shape very fast. That's part of the flu—it comes on so fast you are unprepared to act, or at least I was. By the time breathing got very difficult, I was feverish and not thinking clearly. If I lived alone, I might have tried to tough it out.

When we lived in a remote rural area, we hardly ever got sick. "Outsiders" rarely came there and we didn't come to civilization almost every day as we do now. We never were exposed to children either since everyone we knew was old. Now living close to a city of 60,000 in a county of 155,000, we are exposed. I don't know where I got it (I got it first by about 36 hours), but I was at various events every day the days before symptoms appeared.

I heard about people in Texas who have recently gotten a very bad flu with some younger people dying. So, it is around. Take it seriously and don't argue. Just to make this even scarier, bird flu has a 50% mortality in humans. It is caught by handling birds and has not yet mutated to being able to be caught by coughing or other casual contract with the people. Very few people have gotten it so far. I think it is inevitable it will mutate and hopefully is will also mutate to be less deadly. The Spanish Flu mortality was 2.5%, 20+ times more fatal than normal flu. But it killed 20,000,000 in a world with far less people than now.

Now I have to get the trailer ready for a trip into town tomorrow for wheel bearing packing. And, over this last weekend, it snowed from Friday most of the time until Sunday morning. It melted fast, but probably was 8-10" all together. The Front Range got lots more. I-70 was closed. We were going to a political convention in Loveland (north of Denver and Boulder) because I was a delegate, but sickness intervened. Glad not be stuck somewhere.

Gene

[Noggin]

OK, I think my garage door opener button on my new truck is possessed and may need the demons removed. I programed this thing when I got the truck and it worked fine. Then about a month ago it would only work off and on. Thursday it didn't work and all and same for Friday and Saturday morning. I tried to reprogram several times. Nothing worked.
Last night I tried for an hour with no success. I went to the Ford site this morning and saw a bunch of videos of how to program. I didn't watch any of them. Later went out to move the truck and for just the fun of it pushed the button to close the garage door. Of course it worked. Still is working now. If I had seen a candid camera person I probably would be in jail.
Why am I being picked on? Can I throw some kind of motor oil on the truck to get the demons out? If so, what weight would you recommend? It is a big diesel truck so I don't think anything like 3 in 1 oil would work but am open to anything.
Thanks in advance for your help.

[Ag&Au]

Originally Posted by Noggin

OK, I think my garage door opener button on my new truck is possessed and may need the demons removed. I programed this thing when I got the truck and it worked fine. Then about a month ago it would only work off and on. Thursday it didn't work and all and same for Friday and Saturday morning. I tried to reprogram several times. Nothing worked.
Last night I tried for an hour with no success. I went to the Ford site this morning and saw a bunch of videos of how to program. I didn't watch any of them. Later went out to move the truck and for just the fun of it pushed the button to close the garage door. Of course it worked. Still is working now. If I had seen a candid camera person I probably would be in jail.
Why am I being picked on? Can I throw some kind of motor oil on the truck to get the demons out? If so, what weight would you recommend? It is a big diesel truck so I don't think anything like 3 in 1 oil would work but am open to anything.
Thanks in advance for your help.

If there is anything in that system that uses a battery (besides the big one in the truck), replace it. (the battery not the truck (or big truck battery))


Demons live in dry cell batteries.
Ken

[Gene]

I disagree. Demons do not live in dry cell batteries. Those are the ravings of a demon trying to confuse all us angels.

Best to throw the truck away. It is possessed and no amount of oil will help. Perhaps a gallon of urea sprinkled all over the truck, especially on the seats, will remove the threat, but it is dangerous to even be in the truck. You may grow a tail and horns. Have it towed to the crusher immediately. You ever see a photo of Henry Ford? He looked demonical to me.

I solved my demon problem by giving up on programming the garage door opener button in our SUV. It wasn't meant to be and I think the button doesn't do anything anyway. It is just another button on something that does something I never thought was important anyway.

I think all the mysterious buttons on electronic stuff are just there to make us feel inadequate and commit suicide so the robots who planned this can take over. Beware the robots! The clicker that goes onto the sunshade is good enough. I suspect my wife is a demon or a robot—every week she brings me her laptop and tells me it isn't working—in 10 seconds I solve the so called nonworking thing and somehow I think there is a plot by the demon-robot conspiracy and she is involved in it. I haven't figured out exactly what is happening, but I will.

I have to go now. The cat is sending me messages.

Gene

[ROBERT CROSS]

Is it me, or is my 'smart phone' a slow learner?

Bob


Are you sure...Protag

[Protagonist]

Fortunately, Airstreamers don't have to resort to those goofy aluminum foil hats to block out those evil radio waves from the alien demons. Just go inside the Airstream and you'll be safe.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

Fortunately, Airstreamers don't have to resort to those goofy aluminum foil hats to block out those evil radio waves from the alien demons. Just go inside the Airstream and you'll be safe.

But be sure to block the windows with foil. Cover the vents too! And never stand over the shower drain because the demon in the gray water tank will grab your foot and drag you into the tank!

The cat made me post this.

Gene

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Gene

The cat made me post this.

Cats are weird. They are really cold-blooded reptilian demons in disguise. Otherwise why would a critter covered nose to tail in fur want to lay in a sunbeam in the middle of summer to get warm when any smart dog is flopping down in a shady spot to cool off?