My news first…we here on the Gulf Coast are waiting for final word on the landfall of Hurricane Ida….here we go again…..well it is Summer on the Coast where we are always just North of a hurricane…..

The weekend begins and I want to report a few stories that may not have made your local news show….

I am an old fart so I am confused at why so many young people need flavored beverages….like booze, coffee, soft drinks, vitamins and the list goes on and on…….then there are those damn energy drinks that are filled with caffeine and artificial BS…like a fan favorite Mountain Dew (a truly disgusting tasting drink)….now there is a new flavor to tease the idiots….those most easily manipulated….

You can now have your Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and drink them, too.

In perhaps the most bizarre flavor mash-up of 2021, Mountain Dew has introduced a Flamin’ Hot flavor combo that blends “the sweet, citrus DEW with a new spicy goodness.”

“As a brand, DEW has a rich history of experimenting with new flavors our fans love. We certainly had them in mind when we developed the FLAMIN’ HOT beverage,” said Matt Nielsten, senior director of marketing at PepsiCo, in a press release. “This is one of our most provocative beverages yet, and we’re excited for DEW Nation to taste the unique blend of spicy and classic sweet citrus flavor of MTN DEW.”

https://people.com/food/flamin-hot-mountain-dew/

WHY?

I am a big fan of a maled milk shake…..different from the MacD’s thin soft swirl they calla milk shake….if you are unsure what it is then this should help…..

First, let’s learn what a chocolate malt is. Because let’s be real, we all know what a milkshake is. A chocolate malt is also a milkshake made with chocolate ice cream. You can even use vanilla ice cream and add chocolate syrup to it to get the chocolate flavor. What makes it different is the extra step. You need to add malted milk powder to round out the drink.

“Malted milk powder was invented by a man named William Horlick in 1873 as a much more manageable means of using malt rather than the very thick malt syrup,” Piedmont Grocery store shared. “Malted milk powder is made by sprouting and drying a grain, typically barley, and mixing it with powdered milk and wheat flour. Sometimes sugar and chocolate flavoring are also added to the powder. While you may not often order a malted milkshake, you may be familiar with the flavor thanks to Whoppers or Ovaltine,” myrecipes.com added.

Malted Milkshakes: The Classic Milkshake Add-in Soon To Be Lost to History

If you love the Earth then you are trying to soften your solid waste especially plastic bags, right?  You may have gone to those cotton bags for your shopping to eliminate adding to plastic waste……you may not be doing the Earth a favor with cotton…..

How many cotton tote bags do you have shoved into closets and cabinets and your car trunk? If the answer is too many, but you’ve at least consoled yourself that you’re doing the planet good, bad news. In a piece for the New York Times on our “cotton tote crisis,” Grace Cook cites some disheartening stats: Cotton is a water-intensive crop, and offsetting the environmental impact of creating just one bag is a long road. Per a 2018 study out of Denmark, an organic cotton tote would need to be used 20,000 times to zero out the impact that its production had on the environment. “That equates to daily use for 54 years—for just one bag,” writes Cook. If you have more like 25 bags, that works out to a thousand-plus years.

And to add insult to injury, they’re really tough to recycle, in part because most compost facilities don’t accept textiles, and the scant amount of cotton that does make it to a treatment plant can’t be recycled if it features PVC-based logos, as many bags do. Cook dates the origins of the cotton-bag explosion to 2007 and a British designer and looks at how brands ranging from the New Yorker to the beauty brand Aesop have contributed to the problem. If this has you wondering whether plastic is actually the lesser evil, Cook definitely doesn’t go that far. “Lightweight plastic bags use greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, never biodegrade, and clog up the oceans,” she cautions. The best bet might be skipping a bag altogether when possible.

Sometimes we just cannot win, right?

Finally…asphalt with a floral smell….

Construction workers know the stench of hot asphalt all too well, and it doesn’t smell like roses. Or does it? Polish construction firm Budimex says it’s teamed up with refiner Lotos to create a floral-scented asphalt more pleasing to road builders. Added to the typical bitumen recipe are natural and synthetic essential oils, some of which neutralize the unpleasant smell, per Reuters. The others give off a floral scent, Budimex says in a news release.

 

“At times one could smell the scent of flowers, which made working more pleasant,” a Budimex foreman is quoted as saying in the release. It notes the company will look at introducing the compound on a wider scale. However, it’s unclear if the alteration will be any safer for road builders. According to the CDC, exposure to asphalt fumes is associated “with irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat” as well as “acute lower respiratory tract symptoms.”

Now that is something I have always worried about….the smell of asphalt.

Finally with all the hub-bub over pills being taken as a deterrent to the Covid there is some fairly promising news…but first….

DISCLAIMER:  Do not take any medication without first checking with your doctor.

Second–DO NOT for any reason take a drug that is formulated for use on cows and horses….regardless what some overweight pastor or talk show host may tell you…if you do talk their words as fact the  you are proving just how f*cking stupid you truly are.

Since Covid-19 patients started showing up at clinics and hospitals a year and a half ago, doctors and researchers have been hard at work trying to figure out how to treat them. Most drugs and treatments haven’t panned out, producing either no results or small ones in large-scale clinical trials. Many of the few that work are expensive and difficult to administer.

Hydroxychloroquine, enthusiastically endorsed by President Trump last year, has been shown to have no measurable benefits. New drugs like monoclonal antibodies — proteins meant to imitate the immune system’s response to the disease — have been approved by regulators but must be administered by a doctor through an IV or series of injections.

But scientists haven’t stopped searching, and the results of a new massive clinical trial suggest they’re getting somewhere. In a large, randomized clinical trial conducted with thousands of patients over the past six months, researchers at McMaster University tested eight different Covid-19 treatments against a control group to figure out what works.

One drug stood out: fluvoxamine, an antidepressant that the Food and Drug Administration has already found to be safe and that’s cheap to produce as a generic drug.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22619137/fluvoxamine-covid-ivermectin-together-study-mcmaster

I am finished with the ‘dump’….have a great Saturday….

Be well and be safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”