siliquasquama

[siliquasquama]

Manoeuvre is such a bullshit word. You don't need all those vowels.

[siliquasquama]

The square cows... they're real

Is there beef with the Holstein cows and you or what was that joke lol

It's kind of wild It's just never come up on this blog before, but I HATE holsteins. Bottom 10 cow breeds for me. I hate how they're so common they account for the majority of milk produced. I hate that they're the "default" cow to the point where some don't even know cattle HAVE other colors. I hate their tiny horns (IF THEY EVEN HAVE THAT. LOSER ASS HORNLESS COW) and their painfully massive udders.

Legit I'm trying so hard to not launch into a No Mouth Must Scream style AM speech-- shoot my hand slipped.

(AM speech about why i dont like holsteins below the cut)

For starters, I have to give a brief lesson on what these terms mean; the "Holstein" is the American strain of the "Frisian" breed. Frisians are an ancient breed from Frisia, in the north of what we now consider the Netherlands. Crosses between the breeds are "Holstein-Frisians."

(There’s even more to this but im keeping it as simple as possible. Also one of my friends is Frisian and she is probably going to kill me for describing it like that.)

Historically, livestock was adapted to the environment they lived in. Frisians were bred by the Frisii people for hundreds of years in extremely grass-rich, lush, flat environments. The "polders" of the northern parts of the Netherlands. They're huge and eat a LOT of food.

Traditional Frisians were developed to produce as much meat and milk from a single individual as possible, without compromising the health of the cattle with constant inbreeding to get quick gains. We are talking about a breed that is over 2000 years old. They had the perfect environment to make The Ultimate Food Cow and by god they did it. I can respect that.

So, take that, drag it across an ocean to a place that does NOT have polders, and add the rapid enshittification of capitalism to it. BAM you've got a fucking holstein.

There is ONE goal for "improving" the holstein. Make More Milk. As long as the black and white milkbag leaks enough, nothing else matters. Health? Fertility? Feed ratio? Ability to not die of infection? WHO CARES. MILK LINE GO UP.

Over 90% of holsteins are inbred to start with, because Milk Line Go Up. To the tune of having an average COI of 8%-- where extreme negative effects (think Hapsburgs) start to crop up around 10%

Holstein bulls are aggressive bastards (many dairy bulls are), so no one wants to keep intact males in their herds, meaning most cows are artificially inseminated

Not being limited by the natural lifespan of a living bull means that the same stud can keep having direct offspring for decades after his death

Toystory the bull had 500,000 calves before he died, and hit over 1 million offspring in 2015. That's ONE animal and to put this in perspective, there are 9 million holsteins in the US.

DON'T WORRY IT GETS WORSE

Not only can 99% of holsteins be traced back to just two bulls-- 99% of male holsteins share one of two exact Y chromosomes with those two bulls.

The gene pool is so small that it's equivalent to about 60 individuals. Warrior Cat allegiances are larger than that. That's barely bigger than modern ThunderClan.

"Massive lack of genetic diversity" does not begin to capture the existential dread of this situation. Mark my words, WATCH, when the Bird Flu finally mutates a strain that rips through a mammalian population, it's gonna be in the USA and it's going to be through our dairy cattle.

This is not prophecy or me laying a curse on the land, this is the natural consequence of basing the stability of US milk production on the equivalent of 9 million clones of two classrooms worth of individuals, and then packing them in close quarters

And we don't have to wait for doomsday for the impacts to be apparent on the cattle themelves

Holstein fertility has also dropped by half since the 1960s when the intensive inbreeding really kicked into high gear

Because their whole body is dedicating all of their resources to milk production, they have a notoriously "bony" frame.

Show judges, however, like this because they think that's a very "feminine" look for a 1600 pound ruminant. Very normal thing to think.

Like. I don't know if i can communicate this to people who don't look at cows a lot (it's not quite as obviously dramatic as a pug skull) but here is a comparison of an "ideal" show holstein and an "unselected" holstein from a herd that's been established as a sort of "control group" for what they looked like back in the 1960s;

The way that the artery on the "modern" cow's belly runs to the udder like a big pink worm freaks me out the most ngl

The udder also bulges out from between the back legs

The show cow is so thin

And then compare these both to a Holstein-Frisian cross who leans more on the Frisian side;

Proper weight, developed legs. Its biggest "problem" is actually just the udder shape-- deep udders, which "hang" low like that, aren't optimal for milk-focused breeds because the higher away from the ground the less chance there is of infection. In that department, the "unselected" holstein clearly outclasses the holstein-frisian.

But it probably won't be surprising to hear that the "show holstein," with its massive, swollen udder, is SUPER prone to infections such as mastitis.

But it is also just more prone to getting sick generally

And, to keep up with these insane demands, holsteins need a TON of food. You aren't going to just turn these things out into a pasture and be done with it. Even its ancestor the Frisian needed premium Dutch polder grass to be such a good cow-- crank that up to 11 with these Monuments to Humanity's Hubrice

The Texas Longhorn developed in semi-feral conditions and can eat a bush to become the best thing in a 10 mile radius. The Scottish Highland was iron-forged in upland moors with a steady diet of turf and rain.

Meanwhile if a Holstein has less than 5 homemade meals a day without poland spring bottled water it will die to death.

And the WORST part? You have to use these if you want to make money in dairy farming. It's WAAY too expensive to just run a suboptimal farm. Their milk isn't great, but they sure do make a lot of it.

...so Holsteins and Holstein-Frisians (and other "super efficient" breeds) have absolutely decimated heritage cattle. The American Milking Devon is a deep reddish brown with gorgeous horns and low maintenance; rare. Randall Linebacks are painted with lines of white speckles down the back and can be used for any purpose; critically endangered. The Niata was a pug-faced cow who could fight jaguars; extinct.

And THAT'S what makes me hate them most of all. I LOVE cows, but whenever I see a reference to one, it's a holstein. It's always boring black and white splotches with big pink udders. They're practically synonymous with "cow" when their homogeniety is actually hiding much cooler breeds from you.

Did you know cows can be tiger-striped?

And that England has its own type of longhorn?

Or that cow horns can twist upwards like an antelope?

And that they can have REALLY LONG ears?

And that they can be blue?

And that's not even getting into some of the cows that have gotten a small crumb of attention lately, such as Highlands, Ankole-Watusi, and Texas Longhorns. There's so many cool cows out there! And they're all really different from holsteins! MOST of them are also a lot healthier and produce tastier milk and meat!

TL;DR yeah i don't like holsteins and I like sniping at them. For reasons both legit and petty.

[siliquasquama]

Well, I'll be hornswoggled!

Hello, greetings, howdy and salutations!

I'm the silly word collector

I roam around Tumblr in my neverending quest to collect silly words

Yes this is a gimmick blog

Your silly words will make a fine addition to my collection

:3

(i will also collect combinations of no more than 3 words *if* they are silly enough)

[siliquasquama]

i miss everyone

[siliquasquama]

The economy is going to be obliterated because the president is a very old and stupid man, who believes very fervently something which is simply not true, and he is surrounded by a great deal of similar idiots who will gladly implement his hazy visions.

This would not be a problem if he were simply an idiotic old man speaking to no one but the sea.

An underdiscussed aspect of the tariffs is that they are being driven because Trump falsely believes that a trade deficit is the same thing as a budget deficit. The economy is going to be obliterated because the president is a very old and stupid man who believes very fervently something which is simply not true.

[siliquasquama]

Cybertrucks fuck themselves up

I wish Mythbusters was still around so we could see them fuck up a Cybertruck

[siliquasquama]

GAC CC4 Concept, 2025. The fourth concept in their Car Culture series is a radically low, futuristic 2 seat sports car whose interior is accessed via 2 large canopy-style gullwing doors. GAC say the styling is inspired by avant-garde pre-war automotive design.

[siliquasquama]

The austerity chickens have come home to roost

have the usa tried going to the imf about their money problems?

[siliquasquama]

Baby clothes used to be non-gendered and loose-fitting because they were usually hand-me-downs. You passed them to someone else once your own children were grown enough. There was no sense wasting money on clothing that children were going to quickly grow out of.

Which is to say, the business of making close-fitting quickly-outgrown baby clothing is a way of making more money off of people, and if the romper is gendered, then parents have to pay even more money to get the "correct" outfit.

“I’m having my son in 2 months and I’m jealous of how cute baby girl clothes are” you can put your newborn son in a little strawberry print romper, I swear. he won’t mind. he won’t develop a complex over it, I promise.

[siliquasquama]

There appears to be nothing for April Fools this year.

Perhaps that is the joke?

[siliquasquama]

Trans day of durability: You can't get rid of me that easily, motherfucker

[siliquasquama]

I was, in fact, a Steven Universe blogger.

tumblr lives in constant fear of the looming specter of the loser virgin the ultimate tumblr boogeyman no matter how many trends come and go all are defined by a defiance of and reaction to the theoretical tumblr archetype of the loser virgin the website and the users in it cannot ever reach the 37th layer of enlightenment if we do not experience radical acceptance of the concept of the loser virgin this is the legacy of ace discourse the asexuals reject the status as loser and everyone else rejects the status of virgin despite how real and true such labels may be to your lived reality everyone loves to posture to this day that theyre not and in fact have nothing to do with the steven universe blogger with endless callouts and what do they do in defiance of this try and posture as much as possible about how cool they are how avant garde their kinks are the drugs and sex etc again all in fear of the actual truth of the legacy of the tumblr loser virgin i think we should all bravely come out of the closet here and say anyone can be conceptually a loser virgin no matter their life experiences this is a beautiful mindset once u move beyond fear into radical acceptance we dont need to keep posturing live your truth..

[siliquasquama]

In light of the actions and screwups of Pete Hegseth et al, I don't think the U.S. military would win a war against Canada.

[siliquasquama]

In Western Europe, between the later 1800s and the beginning of World War II, travel between countries was passport-free. The technology of trains and ocean liners had progressed faster than politics could keep up, and trying to force everyone to go through checkpoints would have created economy-wrecking bottlenecks. How much did anyone in any of those countries suffer from it? If there was any suffering at all, it was far less than that which was visited upon them by governments trying to destroy each other.

At the same time, the United States relied on a yearly tidal wave of open immigration to support its massive economic growth, which would yield huge dividends by putting it in the world's best economic position after World War II.

But now the walls have gone up all over the world. Shall we see them lowered in our lifetime?

surprising number of idiots use Ukraine as an example of why open borders doesn't work, because if you allow people to travel freely without checkpoints between historical enemies like say Germany and France it also allows those countries to bomb each other's cities and.

[siliquasquama]

Hitler never actually delivered the Volkswagens.

Even so, I'd rather have a car I paid for and never got than a car that traps me inside while it burns.

Hitler doing a Volkswagen car advertisement for the owner and one of his biggest donors in 1938

Trump doing a Tesla sales pitch on the White House Lawn for shadow President Elon Musk and largest donor in 2025

[ID: The first photo is a black and white picture of Adolf Hitler and the owner of VW smiling in a car with many N*zis behind them. The second photo is color picture of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in a red Tesla. Musk is smiling while Trump is looking forward with his mouth open. End ID]

Image ID by @qquesadilla

[siliquasquama]

Are you kidding? It looks sick as fuck. Keep it up.

[siliquasquama]

Whatever else you might say about Mussolini, he was certainly well-hung.