News blues
Still searching, after all this time: where did what became the virulent Covid-19 pandemic start? The search for origins – “wet” market, lab, somewhere else – comes full circle, from Wuhan’s or Hunan’s “wet”/live-animal markets to the political hot potato of a “leak” in a Chinese lab and now back to the markets. A recent analysis by evolutionary virologist Dr. Michael Worobey indicates, “the pandemic wasn’t triggered by a leak in a Chinese lab…or by a Chinese accountant…” and that “it becomes very difficult to explain the pattern if the outbreak didn’t start at the market.”Read the article >>
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What’s next with the pandemic? The next turn hinges on three unknowns >>Healthy planet, anyone?
The US House of Representatives passed the second – and most “progressive” part of Prez Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Now it goes to the Senate…where, no doubt, it will be whittled down to meaninglessness… and, if passed at all, will be toothless against real climate change and vitally needed social protections. What’s in it? >>Or am I overly cynical?
Perhaps. But cynicism is well founded. Take, for example, the moribund US Senate’s years’ long fight against banning “forever chemicals” such as PFAS, aka “forever chemicals, a class of compounds used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, heat, stains and grease. The chemicals are especially common in food packaging because they repel grease and liquid, which prevents paper products from disintegrating. Passage of the bill “is far from certain and a fight with industry allies in the Senate looms.” >>
This is life in America where Republicans are horrified by passing anything that smacks of supporting, y’know, actual regular, hard-working humans…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
More fall photos |
| A passel of ponderous pelicans |
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| Above and below: two collections of curios cormorants |
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| This is a family of mallards: two males, one female and two "sex undetermined". Despite their coloring, the two white ducks (right) are also mallards. Turns out mallards easily interbreed with other ducks species and these two are excellent examples. Not a new species, but variation in mallard-ness. |
