Day: January 8, 2025

Do We Need Another Pandemic?

Most of us remember the Covid pandemic and most remember it only because they got some free money…..but the fact is and the question is ‘can it happen again’?

As long as we are remembering the last pandemic we will recall that the accusation is that it came from a research lab in Wuhan China….and that thought brings me to this bit of info….

It’s been five years since we first started hearing about a contagion out of China called the coronavirus, and now there’s word of a new virus causing concern. The Guardian reports that cases of human metapneumovirus, or HMPV, have been surging in the northern part of the country, especially among children, though Chinese health officials are downplaying talk of another pandemic. More:

  • What is HMPV? Per the Cleveland Clinic, the illness is a respiratory disease that’s similar to RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. Symptoms usually mimic those of the common cold (cough, fever, runny nose, sore throat, etc.), but it can also lead to worse infections and spur bronchitis or pneumonia. Young children, the elderly, and immunocompromised people are especially at risk.
  • Viral footage: The Economic Times notes that videos are circulating showing a “scary scene” in China’s hospitals, with coughing patients in masks “crammed” in waiting rooms, with one social media post claiming hospitals are “overwhelmed.”
  • Response: A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, however, didn’t seem alarmed on Friday, simply noting, per the Guardian: “Respiratory infections tend to peak during the winter season. The diseases appear to be less severe and spread with a smaller scale compared to the previous year.” Some experts also agree that the apparent spike in cases may simply be explained by better detection techniques.
  • Outside of China: Neighboring countries are keeping tabs on the illness, with Hong Kong and India already reporting multiple cases, per the Independent. Cambodia and Taiwan are also monitoring the situation.
  • Precautions: There are no vaccines yet available for HMPV, nor any specific antiviral treatments, per Live Science. So far, health experts are offering the same advice they’d give to anyone with a cold: Stay home if you’re sick (or wear a mask if you must interact with the public), wash your hands often, and practice “good cough and sneeze etiquette,” an infectious diseases expert tells the Guardian.

This may be nothing to panic about just yet but it does need to be watched and we should be prepared.

Then a little closer to home….the Bird Flu….most of us have heard about this simply because our eggs are so damn expensive…..but the fact is it can jump species to humans…..and that means yet another potential pandemic waiting…..and even more deaths….

A patient hospitalized in Louisiana last month with severe illness caused by bird flu has become the first person in the US to die from H5N1. The Louisiana Department of Health reported the death Monday, saying the person “was over the age of 65 and was reported to have underlying medical conditions.” Officials said the patient, who had the nation’s first case of severe illness caused by bird flu, had been in contact with sick birds in a backyard flock, the Washington Post reports. The department said it had “identified no additional H5N1 cases nor evidence of person-to-person transmission.” It said that due to “patient confidentiality and respect for the family, this will be the final update about the patient.” The first 60 cases of bird flu illnesses in the US have been mild, a CDC official said, and all of those patients recovered. 

This yet another panic in waiting…..please be prepared for any eventuality.

Guard the toilet paper well!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

War On Porn

Last year my state of Mississippi passed a law that requires age verification before entering…..and Mississippi is not alone this movement has swept through the South in break neck speed.

The idea was to protect underage viewers from accessing these sites to look a porn.

My question is how successful has this battle been?

The panic over porn has spread through the South, with Pornhub’s parent company Aylo cutting off access to its sites in states that have instituted age-verification requirements: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

These laws are positioned as protecting minors, though we’re not seeing the same enthusiasm for legislation to close a loophole allowing videos featuring children. That’s because the ultimate aim of the age-verification laws is not to promote the welfare of children but to criminalize access to anything pertaining to sexuality or gender that conservatives find objectionable.

The Pornhub bans are part and parcel of a movement seeking to return to a time when obscenity laws were thinly veiled curbs on LGBTQ+ rights. As Aylo notes: “Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.” (The company has instead backed device-level age verification.)

With these laws, children are (non-voting) pawns used to justify discriminatory measures, from Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law to Target being successfully cowed via social media to hide or remove Pride merchandise from its stores. 

The conservative Heritage Foundation states that one of its objectives is to ban pornography in the United States—not just for minors, but for everyone. Yet it repeatedly tries to bring the focus to children and LGBTQ+ issues when it makes its arguments for the eradication of porn. 

In its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, which is part of Project 2025, Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts writes that “children suffer the toxic normalization of transgenderism with drag queens and pornography invading their school libraries.” He adds that “educators and public librarians who purvey [pornography] should be classed as registered sex offenders.”

https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/the-pornhub-bans-are-not-about-keeping-kids-safe

Here we go again…..from a party that thinks government is too intrusive to being the leader of intrusiveness.

Could we find a more accurate example of hypocrisy?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is Military Force On The Table?

After silly statements made by the president-elect I made my thoughts known on his first foreign policy statement…..

Is This Trump Foreign Policy?

The whole idea is ludicrous….but what he said after that statement sends chills up my spine…..

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has been rebuked in recent days by the leaders of both Panama and Denmark for his insistence that the Panama Canal and Danish territory Greenland must be under American control, and his latest comments on Tuesday were expected to garner more anger—and eye-rolling—from abroad.

At a press conference at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, the Republican leader refused to rule out using military force to take over the canal and Greenland.

“It might be that you’ll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country,” said Trump. “We need Greenland for national security purposes.”

He added that both the canal and Greenland, the world’s largest island and home to a U.S. military base, are needed for U.S. “economic security.”

Under President Jimmy Carter, who died late last month, the U.S. signed a treaty returning the Panama Canal Zone to Panama in 1979, and the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans has been solely controlled by the Panamanian government since 1999.

Trump repeated a false claim that the canal is being “operated by China.”

Last month, after the president-elect demanded “that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly and without question,” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino posted a video to social media in response.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/panama-canal-importance-us-history

Hopefully this is just one of his idle threats while chest thumping….like the threat to use US troops to invade Mexico back in his last admin….

There is a couple more totally absurd claims and threats issued by the clown-in-waiting…..

On Canada, he said he was willing to use “economic force” to acquire the nation, reports USA Today. “Canada and the United States—that would really be something,” he said. “You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security.”

Trump also continued to needle Mexico in regard to trade and immigration, per the Hill. “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate. And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country.” Ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that she would quickly introduce legislation to make it so.

Is this the beginning of an imperial America?

If this is any indication on the policies that the Trump administration is going to follow then I say the country needs help and the world should be prepared for the stupid to come.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”