All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Mini-Snippets of Snark

Filosofa's Word

I sometimes have a short attention span and today I have only a few mini-snippets of snark for you …


The Republicans have solutions for mass shootings.  Last week it was arming the teachers. This week it’s arm the doctors, arm the undertakers. But when that white supremacist shot up the Black grocery store in Buffalo, guess what they did not say:  Arm the black people.  Anybody wonder why?


Nobody who still believes that the 2020 election results were not fair, that the former guy actually won, has any right whatsoever to be placed in a position of trust either monitoring or otherwise affecting election results in 2022 or 2024 … or ever.  The Republicans talk the talk about election integrity, but they damn sure don’t walk the walk, for they already have plans in the works to put partisan hacks in charge of elections starting this November.


Rumour has…

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Kit Carson Electric Coop Hits 100% Daytime Solar Power

Kit Carson Electric Cooperative (KCEC) and Guzman Energy recently celebrated the cooperative’s achievement of providing 100 percent of its daytime power with solar energy this summer.

Integral to this milestone, construction has been completed on KCEC’s Taos Mesa Solar Array. The completed array has testing underway as it nears ongoing generation and delivery of 15 MW of solar power, which will be capable of powering approximately 7,500 homes with locally generated renewable energy.

 

Source: Kit Carson Electric Coop Hits 100% Daytime Solar Power

Palestinian farmers sound alarm over foot-and-mouth outbreak | Mena – Gulf News

“I got no help from the PA, not even a telephone call,” Basheer, who owns thousands of livestock near the city of Nablus, told AFP, voicing frustration over what he described as inaction from the Palestinian agriculture ministry.

Palestinian farmers blamed the PA for halting a vaccinations programme that had proven essential in protecting livestock against an endemic disease.

And with animals absent from large stretches of grazing land, farmers fear land grabs from Jewish settlers who have repeatedly set up illegal outposts on West Bank land they claim is unused.

The PA “should protect us because we protect the land,” Basheer said. “The farms protect the land… If you remove the farmers, Israel takes the land.”

Farmers ‘destroyed’

A new strain of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), which causes potentially lethal fevers and blisters in young animals, was detected in livestock last November in Jordan.

It soon spread across the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, and heavily reliant on agriculture.

But the PA’s agriculture ministry has not carried out a regular vaccination drive since 2019.

A ministry official, who requested anonymity, told AFP that a normal year sees 60 to 70 per cent of goats and sheep in the West Bank vaccinated against FMD.

That figure dropped to 20 percent in 2020 and 2021, the official said.

 

Source: Palestinian farmers sound alarm over foot-and-mouth outbreak | Mena – Gulf News

How do we test for monkeypox? — Quartz

Monkeypox has been endemic in parts of Africa for decades, but there isn’t fast testing for it, and detecting the virus is limited to lab analysis. Currently, only a few labs have the capacity to run tests to detect monkeypox, although this may change soon.

Diagnostics companies are racing to develop new monkeypox tests

A person who suspects having a case of monkeypox (for instance, after noticing skin lesions) should contact a doctor, who can then contact one of the labs with equipment for testing for orthopoxviruses. Experts recommend labs testing for monkeypox from swabs and lesion tissue specimens.

The test doesn’t confirm monkeypox per se, but just the presence of an orthopoxvirus. Given the current situation, the assumption is that it’s monkeypox, and the protocol is to isolate the individual for up to 21 days. Should cases rise significantly, more specific testing would be needed to confirm the virus is actually monkeypox and not one of its relatives.

 

Source: How do we test for monkeypox? — Quartz

Avian Flu Diary: WHO Situation Update: Multi-country Monkeypox Outbreak – June 4th

The sudden and unexpected appearance of monkeypox simultaneously in several non-endemic countries suggests that there might have been undetected transmission for some unknown duration of time followed by recent amplifier events.
WHO assesses the risk at the global level as moderate considering this is the first time that many monkeypox cases and clusters are reported concurrently in non-endemic and endemic countries in widely disparate WHO geographical areas.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: WHO Situation Update: Multi-country Monkeypox Outbreak – June 4th

Boomers

bluejayblog

When disgraced politico Steve Bannon exclaimed that baby boomers are the most self-centered, most narcissistic generation the U.S. has ever had, I could only shake my head because he, himself is a boomer. I wonder if it is from self-loathing that he made such a remark or if it was merely to score political points. Regardless of the reason, it is unwise and unkind to smear entire groups of people with toxic stereotypes and to stir up hatred.

Whether or not anyone is clinically diagnosed as self-centered and narcissistic, is up to a mental health professional regarding a particular patient to determine. Otherwise Bannon’s use of the term defames millions of people. The term “narcissism” has become watered down due to its popular useage by many self-proclaimed self-help experts. Being self-centered and narcissistic are traits that are not limited to boomers nor any other generation. Such behavior has likely been…

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