Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

The Courageous Leap

From Behind the Pen

Image Credit: Circe Denyer

          This morning I watched a squirrel scale through the trunk and limbs of the various trees in our backyard. It approached the end of an oak tree and stopped. I observed to see what it would do next. Would it go back in the direction it came from, or would it try to find another way to get to the nearby pine tree? Well, being the squirrel that it was, it leaped over to the closest branch of the pine tree and began dangling. I gasped because at first, I thought it would fall down to the ground, but I watched it hold on for dear life. “What amazing upper body strength it had,” I thought.

          It seemed that it would have been so much easier to go back, descend down the oak tree’s trunk, hit…

View original post 131 more words

How factory farming and bird flu spread are linked | TheSpec.com

Migratory birds have carried bird flu the farthest, but highly pathogenic (severe) strains of bird flu only pop up when the virus leaps into farmed birds. This is not surprising. It is standard practice in the poultry industry for tens of thousands of highly stressed birds to be kept close together, forced to live in their own waste. In fact, experts have long said that the ongoing expansion and intensification of poultry farming is the reason behind the increasing frequency and severity of bird flu outbreaks. Wild bird deaths are already double those from the last wave of bird flu, and wild mammals in many provinces and states — so far foxes, skunks, and raccoons — are also dying from this virus.

The latest and most dire reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the UN and Canada’s Food Guide tell us we need to eat more plant-based food. And yet, our government subsidizes the meat industry with our tax dollars.

What if we dreamed of a world where humans don’t use other animals for food, fun or fashion; zoonotic diseases decrease; our planet’s warming slows; and we use our precious resources to feed hungry children rather than feeding and watering farmed animals for months or years for luxury food our planet cannot afford?

Source: How factory farming and bird flu spread are linked | TheSpec.com

U.S. employers add a solid 372,000 jobs in sign of resilience – Los Angeles Times

America’s employers shrugged off high inflation and weakening growth to add 372,000 jobs in June, a surprisingly strong gain that will likely spur the Federal Reserve to keep sharply raising interest rates to cool the economy and slow price increases.

The unemployment rate in June remained at 3.6% for a fourth straight month, the Labor Department said Friday, matching a near-50-year low that was reached before the pandemic struck in early 2020.

The past year’s streak of robust hiring has been good for job seekers and has led to higher pay for many employees. But it has also helped fuel the highest inflation in four decades and heightened pressure on the Fed to further slow borrowing and spending.

Many employers are still struggling to fill jobs, especially in the economy’s vast service sector, with Americans now traveling, eating out and attending public events with much greater frequency. The Fed may regard the June job gain as evidence that the rapid pace of hiring is feeding inflation as companies raise pay to attract workers and then increase prices to cover their higher labor costs.

 

Source: U.S. employers add a solid 372,000 jobs in sign of resilience – Los Angeles Times

Everything Under the Sun

The Twisting Tail

Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows

Helen Keller

Haiku: picturesque beach

sand under my nails
wild ocean air in my hair
I draw the shoreline


six-word story: blink of an eye holiday

I looked so quickly, yet overlooked


I look to the skies
the sun burns
Sunblock in my eyes
only makes it worse


Temperatures inside the Sun can reach 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million °F).

More fun sun facts: Here


Wet with
Sweat
Hot with
Rot
Naught with
Not
The remnants
of my lot


•° I’m running ° ®
° around •.
°• in a circle o©°
someone else
. .•° drew for me •o.


Weekly Theme:
Bits & Pieces

I’ve thrown together leftover b-sides that didn’t make it into past posts for some reason or another.


View original post

Più di un anno fa, il capo delle Nazioni Unite ha avvertito che « La distruzione umana della Natura è ‘insensata e suicida’! » – Cosa possiamo fare …

« L’umanità è in guerra con la Natura. Questo è insensato e suicida », avvertì António Guterres in quel momento. « Le conseguenze della nostra …

Più di un anno fa, il capo delle Nazioni Unite ha avvertito che « La distruzione umana della Natura è ‘insensata e suicida’! » – Cosa possiamo fare …