Day: August 29, 2024

New ‘Bug’ On The Horizon?

We all remember the dark days of the Covid thingy…..and now out of China could there be a new worry?

As with Covid starting in China a new bug has escaped the just 90 miles off the Coast of the US….

More than 20 people returning to the US from Cuba have been infected with a virus transmitted by bugs in recent months, federal health officials said Tuesday. None have died, and there is no evidence that it’s spreading in the United States. But officials are warning US doctors to be on the lookout for the infection in travelers coming from Cuba and South America, the AP reports. Here’s a look at the illness and what sparked the alert:

  • What is Oropouche virus? Oropouche is a virus that is native to forested tropical areas. It was first identified in 1955 in a 24-year-old forest worker on the island of Trinidad, and was named for a nearby village and wetlands. It has sometimes been called sloth fever because scientists first investigating the virus found it in a three-toed sloth, and believed sloths were important in its spread between insects and animals.
  • How does Oropouche virus spread? The virus is spread to humans by small biting flies called midges, and by some types of mosquitoes. Humans have become infected while visiting forested areas and are believed to be responsible for helping the virus make its way to towns and cities, but person-to-person transmission hasn’t been documented.
  • How many cases have there been? Beginning late last year, the virus was identified as the cause of large outbreaks in Amazon regions where it was known to exist, as well as in new areas in South America and the Caribbean. About 8,000 locally acquired cases have been reported in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Peru. Some travelers have been diagnosed with it in the US and Europe. The CDC said Tuesday that 21 US cases have been reported so far—20 in Florida and one in New York— all of whom had been in Cuba. European health officials previously said they had found 19 cases, nearly all among travelers.
  • Are there other concerns? In Brazil, officials are investigating reports that infections might be passed on from a pregnant woman to a fetus — a potentially frightening echo of what was seen during Zika outbreaks nearly a decade ago. The CDC has recommended that pregnant women avoid non-essential travel to Cuba and suggested all travelers take steps to prevent bug bites, such as using insect repellents and wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants.

Please do not rush out and buy up all the toilet paper….this is just an FYI to let my readers know what is lurking just offshore.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Look At Tim Walz

There has been much written about Harris’ pick to be VP (generic white guy)…..analyzed from many angles from his military service to his time in state government.

Most pundits point to him as as ‘progressive’ (I do not see it but that is what the MSM wants us to believe) I read a piece written by people that were around when Walz was in state government….

++++Keep in mind this is not my analysis but by those that were there with Walz…..++++

This week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was officially endorsed as the 2024 Democratic Party nominee for Vice President at the Democratic National Convention. Since being named the VP pick by the Harris campaign, Walz has received extensive praise for his military background and ‘folksy’ personality (read: midwestern white male); and for his accomplishments as Minnesota Governor, including signing bills that provide free school lunches for children, and set a 100% carbon-free electricity standard. Social media has exploded with memes positioning Walz as a Midwestern folk hero, that dad who “puts $20 in your back pocket so you won’t run out of gas,” or drops everything to dig your car out of a snowbank. Media outlets and nationally known left-leaning activists and commentators have fully embraced this narrative around Walz. As it turns out, Governor Walz and his team have been carefully cultivating this media narrative for nearly two years, the deployment of a long and strategic political calculus befitting of someone who clearly harbors major political ambitions.

For those of us who have had a front row seat to some of Walz’s machinations and political decision-making in Minnesota for the past several years, reconciling the current media narrative around Walz with what we’ve seen with our own eyes has been disorienting. For our own part, we are scientists who frequently came up against the Walz administration as we worked to join the broad and Indigenous-led movement to stop “Line 3”, an enormous tar sands oil pipeline owned by the fossil fuel giant Enbridge that now runs through 300 miles of sensitive northern ecosystems and sovereign treaty territories of Indigenous people in Minnesota. Tar sands oil is some of the dirtiest fuel on the planet; greenhouse gas emissions from the oil running through Line 3 is equivalent to that of 50 coal plants annually, more than the entire state of Minnesota emits alone. This pipeline crosses the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and oil spilled from the pipeline would devastate native flora and fauna, including wild rice, a threatened and sacred food of the Ojibwe people in Minnesota. In the heat of the current political climate, as Tim Walz is being highlighted by some as a “climate champion” and a “true progressive,” our years fighting his administration’s approval of this pipeline leaves us with quite a different understanding of his political choices and gamesmanship.   

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/23/the-whitewashing-and-greenwashing-of-tim-walz/

Again I would like to remind you that this is NOT my opinion offered here as FYI on the candidate by those other than the MSM.

I know, I know….he is better than Vance….but so is my dog but she would make a lousy VP…

But people should also know who they are voting for beyond the holding of the nose.

Keep in mind that very few politicians are the same person that promised you the world for your vote….they will eventually show their true colors.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”