Rant VIII: The Reckoning
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@Dave and @Bubble181 I’m so sorry. I wish I could rate your posts with more than one hug each.
Dave
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Mom's out of the hospital and back in the assisted living facility, so the one hug is all good.
I thought it was funny that my religious sister posted "Thanks for all the thoughts & prayers! They work!"
Well, what else could it have been?! It's not like shes been looked after by professionals and treated or anything!I thought it was funny that my religious sister posted "Thanks for all the thoughts & prayers! They work!"
"I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"
EDIT: For @Bubble181 click here to read one of the variations.
--Patrick
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"I'm only going to say this one time. Buy a ticket."
I know people who hold that belief as well - it isn't a miracle if a human can do it. So once it's de-mystified (heart surgery, wifi, magnets) it leaves the realm of the miraculous and comes under the ownership of humanity. To my way of thinking, that's a reasonable recipe for atheism, because you force God further out into the fringes, and assume that when something happens that's extraordinary it will eventually be explainable.
The helicopter story is fairly close to the doctrine and teachings I believe in, though, and honestly if you're religious it's fine to hope for miracles outside human understanding, but if you or your kids are sick get thee to a doctor! I hate reading stories of people with treatable problems who, instead of seeking the best medical care they have available, seek for signs and wonders as if their faith bank account can write a check to God that pays for something God has already provided to man through modern science.
Thanks. I knew the joke but hadn't made the connection.
Or it's evidence for an argument that God is not going to save you, since such miracles are exceedingly rare.
I give up. Now our tv is on the fritz. Nice big purple line down the middle. I don't have money for a haircut much less a new tv! Fuck.
Personal rant: I hate, hate, hate depression...but I hate what my meds do as well. I haven't really wanted sex in a dogs age and, while my husband is patient, I know it hurts him and I don't know what to do to fix myself. I've switched meds, I'm tried just 'going along' with it, I've tried therapy.
Yet I can't seem to feel like it.
I hate it and I really do worry that, some day, Blue will run out of patience with me.
Yet I can't seem to feel like it.
I hate it and I really do worry that, some day, Blue will run out of patience with me.
I hope this isn't insensitive of me to say, but I misread that when I read your post a bit too quickly, and was rather confused for a moment.
As someone who's wife was surreptitiously taking anti-depressants for a while for post-partum (that she never told me about, but that's a different rant), I can state that if Blue is half the man you've made him out to be, then he will understand. Don't stress so much about how he feels - stressing will only exacerbate the issue.
As I understand it, there are workarounds, but I can't recall any off the top of my head.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
I've had sex with my wife once since April. The last time before that was the previous November. Same reason - antidepressants that suppress libido. It sucks, but I have not strayed because I love her, not her Trumpy grabby-bits.
I guess it depends of the type of antidepressants and your own hormonal make-up. I've heard lots of women complain about it, but when I was on them, the effect was more what you describe, too.
I've been fortunate that my antidepressant hasn't had that kind of effect on me. Stress and workload, however....
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
A panicked call for an MSDS is a terrible thing.
Yes. Yes, it is.
And my aunt's cancer has been pronounced inoperable and incurable.
I'm posting in the rant threads way too much this week.
Aussie finally got an appointment with DAV (Disabled American Veterans) in the summer to straighten out this VA mess. Two YEARS and still no disability pay. They made him basically start from scratch. New medical evaluation, resent the records, made a list, checked it twice, etc. We were supposed to get something in two months. Labor Day goes by...nothing. October...nothing. The VA website just says it's pending after twice the amount of time. Called his case manager at DAV. Made an appointment and went in today. You know what the guy's response was?
Well that's not supposed to happen.
No Shit! That's why he's your client. Because this isn't supposed to happen! We've been waiting over 2 years because the VA or the Navy or both done fucked up. Fix this shit because I'm getting real tired of living on a thread stretched over a flame. We have nothing in savings except money we can't touch in the kids' college fund and his retirement fund. Our credit card is maxed out. Our cars are 11 and 12 years old. "That's not supposed to happen." None of this should have happened!!
Oh look at the bright side: back pay.
That doesn't help us right now! That doesn't pay our credit card or fix Aussie's car so he can pass the damn safety inspection - which is now 3 months past due. That doesn't pay for Christmas presents or get me a haircut or pay my school's stupid parking fee in the next month. Ugh. I want to quit living this nightmare where I keep telling myself it's coming, it's going to be ok, and NOTHING happens!
Well that's not supposed to happen.
No Shit! That's why he's your client. Because this isn't supposed to happen! We've been waiting over 2 years because the VA or the Navy or both done fucked up. Fix this shit because I'm getting real tired of living on a thread stretched over a flame. We have nothing in savings except money we can't touch in the kids' college fund and his retirement fund. Our credit card is maxed out. Our cars are 11 and 12 years old. "That's not supposed to happen." None of this should have happened!!
Oh look at the bright side: back pay.
That doesn't help us right now! That doesn't pay our credit card or fix Aussie's car so he can pass the damn safety inspection - which is now 3 months past due. That doesn't pay for Christmas presents or get me a haircut or pay my school's stupid parking fee in the next month. Ugh. I want to quit living this nightmare where I keep telling myself it's coming, it's going to be ok, and NOTHING happens!
I hope to extend to you the my earnest intention not to offend you when I ask:
What is the degree of your husband's disability?
EDIT: I wish to state that I do sympathize with your family's situation. But I do wonder if t is possible that your government is:
a) too cheap
b) too ideologically committed to maintaining small government
to hire enough workers to deal with the caseload.
If yes, then it could be that the officers handling these cases have to prioritize. Taking care of the cases where someone took a piece of shrapnel on the nose and lost their eyes, or someone who got their spine shattered by a bullet and will never walk again.
Is that possible, or am I just being an insensitive and obnoxious jerk by bringing such things up? (hint: insensitive and obnoxious are my two middle names)
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The US government doesn't adequately (gross understatement) fund the veteran's programs, including disability. It has less to do with "small government" and more to do with money and power than anything else.
We already don't pay our military personnel what they're worth, but then to treat them this way, particularly those that suffered injury in service, is horrible*.
But it's a pawn well worn in political circles as they push it around to achieve other goals, and as a result the 22 million veterans in the US have to fight for what is owed them in care and services after their discharge.
We already don't pay our military personnel what they're worth, but then to treat them this way, particularly those that suffered injury in service, is horrible*.
But it's a pawn well worn in political circles as they push it around to achieve other goals, and as a result the 22 million veterans in the US have to fight for what is owed them in care and services after their discharge.
The non-payment of veterans has become somewhat of a trope in the USA. Serve your country in wartime, get squat when you return. There's even kinda a movie about it.
--Patrick
--Patrick
Something something thou shalt not test the Lord something something.
Eh you're not obnoxious. You aren't familiar with the broken, ridiculous system in the US is all. The DAV is not a military organization in the sense that military officers would be running it. It was created by Congress to help disabled vets who are having problems with the Veteran's Administration (VA). They have some former military people working there and some civilians from what I know.
When you retire from military service, they evaluate your level of disability based on all of your past injuries and a very thorough exam. Aussie was told that he should have a disability rating of at least 80%. He has permanent damage to his lower back including nerve damage, permanent damage to his shoulder (he's like Riggs in Lethal Weapon and can dislocate it at will), plus some hearing loss. All of it is "service related" and documented in his medical files.
People with severe injuries may get taken care of sooner, but they don't have priority per se. They go through a slightly different process than retirees from what I understand. It's supposed to take about 2-3 months for disability pay to kick in for retirees once they separate from service. We have several friends who retired long after him that had no problems getting their disability benefit. We've been left with no answers as to why his claim circles the bowl as "pending". The VA only states that it is in pending status when he asks for information, no explanation of what that means or what the hold up is. Which is why we're now involved with DAV. The case managers there are supposed to get us answers and fix the problem. This is all so frustrating.[DOUBLEPOST=1510679859,1510679780][/DOUBLEPOST]
Unfortunately, as a spouse, I can't do much but look pretty and be a nag to my husband. :/At this point I'd suggest you make yourself his daily nightmare.
And a song!
(I didn't know until I read Bruce's autobiography that the song was also inspired by Ron Kovic. He had met him years before the movie was made, and wrote the song in support of getting Vets the treatment they deserved. Just don't tell Ronald Reagan. He and many others seemed to have missed the point. )
When I was in high school, our social studies teacher challenged us all to bring in "a protest song." I chose Steve Taylor's "Over My Dead Body" (even though I felt it was a bit heavy on the proselytizing), but BitUSA was still really popular at the time and to this day I wish I'd realized (at the time) that it was a protest song because I would've gotten so many teacher points for realizing that and pointing it out.
--Patrick
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This is a disaster: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/57.0/releasenotes/
Removing legacy extensions before MANY of the functionalities there are available through the new framework? WTF were they thinking? In particular, no removing LSOs (SuperCookies), no full support for mouse gestures (weird bugs, platform-specific BS, etc), and making the tab group functionality not work at all either. They officially removed panorama (that was the feature name) some time ago, so fans had to to to extensions. OK, but then when LITERALLY 10,000s of users are left out in the cold entirely? WTF?
Fine, FF57 is faster. Great. But it'd also be "faster" if it stopped processing javascript entirely. That'd be LIGHTNING fast. It wouldn't be FUNCTIONAL, but it'd be FAST!!!
Idiots. Should have put BIG warnings up about "deprecated" addons and made DAMNED SURE that MAJOR functionality wasn't completely missing from addons PRIOR to releasing FF57. Or had a time of peaceful co-existence. Like 2 years. Be SURE.
Basically I'm going to have to regress to FF52 ESR, and then the middle of next year... I hope that replacements exist by then. If not, browser shopping time!
For reference, I'm open to another browser as long as it offers good support for ad-blocking, mouse gestures, cookie whitelist/blacklist (including SuperCookies, aka Locally Stored Objects) (I was using Self-Destructing Cookies), something like Ghostery, and Tab Groups would be just awesome, and are on my "I really REALLY want but aren't essential like the others" for my feature list. Oh, and doesn't track 100% of where you go all the time (Chrome, Edge).
Removing legacy extensions before MANY of the functionalities there are available through the new framework? WTF were they thinking? In particular, no removing LSOs (SuperCookies), no full support for mouse gestures (weird bugs, platform-specific BS, etc), and making the tab group functionality not work at all either. They officially removed panorama (that was the feature name) some time ago, so fans had to to to extensions. OK, but then when LITERALLY 10,000s of users are left out in the cold entirely? WTF?
Fine, FF57 is faster. Great. But it'd also be "faster" if it stopped processing javascript entirely. That'd be LIGHTNING fast. It wouldn't be FUNCTIONAL, but it'd be FAST!!!
Idiots. Should have put BIG warnings up about "deprecated" addons and made DAMNED SURE that MAJOR functionality wasn't completely missing from addons PRIOR to releasing FF57. Or had a time of peaceful co-existence. Like 2 years. Be SURE.
Basically I'm going to have to regress to FF52 ESR, and then the middle of next year... I hope that replacements exist by then. If not, browser shopping time!
For reference, I'm open to another browser as long as it offers good support for ad-blocking, mouse gestures, cookie whitelist/blacklist (including SuperCookies, aka Locally Stored Objects) (I was using Self-Destructing Cookies), something like Ghostery, and Tab Groups would be just awesome, and are on my "I really REALLY want but aren't essential like the others" for my feature list. Oh, and doesn't track 100% of where you go all the time (Chrome, Edge).
I haven't checked it against your list, but does brave meet your needs?
https://brave.com/
It is, of course, created by Brandon Eich, creator of javascript and ousted former CEO of Mozilla due to his support of CA Prop 8, so if that's a problem you'll need to steer clear.
I use Chrome, and simply live with the tracking, but it also meets all your other needs. I expect you could turn off tracking or block it, but there again you run into memory consumption (trade off for speed in many ways).
@steinman, I appreciate the suggestion, but that website is HORRIFIC for telling you about the following:
- What's the engine of the browser (found it in an UNRELATED FAQ question about laptops) - chromium
- Screenshots? - You know, I don't LIKE watching videos about programs generally
- Simple feature list? Not a bunch of marketing-like hype-machine BS
- Extension support? What other feature things does it do or not?