This has been on my mind for a while now...

I'm amazed at how a certain segment of the population doesn't believe in science, and in particular, how vaccines became a bad thing.  From the dunderhead who currently heads up health and human services on down to the trolls who "do their own research," for some reason vaccines are to be avoided and shouldn't even be in the public purview because .... reasons! 

But yet, these same folks clamor for drugs that they are "told" are miracles, like taking ivermectin as a cure all, despite it having never been tested for efficacy for reasons that make no sense.

Or these drugs you see advertised on TV that may treat some rare thing, but also may cause death, are widely accepted and people clamor for them.  And for things like Ozempic, which causes weight loss *for as long as you take it* as a true side effect of what the drug is intended for, makes people want it as a miracle weight loss drug.

Why is this so hard for people to understand.  Science looks at the small details, the facts, and not hyperbole, wild claims, or other crazy bits of information. And in some cases, protects us from nature itself.  But yet, people seem to think that what matters is that catchy tune that makes everything sound wonderful, even if its not.

It’s no wonder people steer clear of financial advisor types

In summary: a professional football player in Miami used the services of Merrill Lynch in South Florida. The person who was serving as his advisor was actively enriching himself from the players money through a series of shady transactions, and laundering money through a third party - that the player had never met or authorized.

The advisor was arrested and faces restitution and significant jail time.  And Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay about 3x what was stolen, and essentially (paraphrasing from their publci statements) "hopes to do better in the future."

And surely other people who were managed by the same person had money stolen, too. What of them? 

Merrill Lynch Pays $9.5 Million to Settle FINRA Arbitration Brought by Former NFL Star Reshad Jones https://www.iorio.law/blog/merrill-lynch-reshad-jones-fraud-settlement/

Innovative Membrane Technology Promises Access to Clean Water

Here's another approach to providing drinkable water, a commodity that much of the world doesn't have access to. In this case, it's about a desalinization method, meaning salty water can be made drinkable in a fairly low cost way. 

By applying an ultra-thin, electrically conductive coating on top of the membrane and then charging the surface with low voltage, the salt ions and other charged species in the water are pushed away from the membrane surface, reducing scaling and fouling.

Innovative Membrane Technology Promises Access to Clean Water - Tech Briefs https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/53623-innovative-membrane-technology-promises-access-to-clean-water

#BanOpenCarry #PublixSafety

Dear Publix leadership … I urge you to ban open carry at all Publix grocery stores.  By allowing open carry at Publix, I feel as though you have betrayed my community.  Open carry doesn't make me feel safe; it makes me feel threatened.  I don't want to feel intimidated when I go grocery shopping.  I especially don't want to be put in a chaotic situation in which one can't determine if someone is a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun.  Yes, I do have to drive further to shop at other grocery stores, but my need to feel safe when I shop outweighs my desire for convenience.  

Reducing the federal work force

Sometimes things just feel "off"… T-rump came into office with the stated goal of reducing the size of the fr federal government. He leveraged musk to do some fiddling and reduce some of the workers. 

Then it got to the point of being problematic and the courts intervened. 

…and then came the government shutdown.  And let's be honest, this is all on T-rump. It's ostensibly as a means to get some budgetary things he wants through pouting and manipulation of people around him. 

But here's the oddity: he is saying that almost no one who was furloughed (I believe with the exception of the military) will receive back pay for the time they're away from their job. It's a form of what businesses do when they want people to quit: make their lives miserable. 

And maybe I'm dreaming a little, except that I also read that federal workers will see their insurance premiums double next year, eating into their take home pay. They'll be taking a pay cut when they do return. 

Hence, it sure feels like the intent is to get people to leave their jobs in order to reduce that workforce. 

As they say…prove me wrong. I may be. But it's awfully coincidental and convenient. 

High school students create award-winning invention to solve major health crisis: 'We plan to create this into a real business'

Another group of budding young scientists have come up with a way to remove microplastics from water. And they want to scale it in order to actually help with the problem. 

And you have to love this part:

"We brought in some more people to help us with the engineering part of it," explained Swayam Sanghvi, who learned of the dangers that microplastics pose to human health from his mother, a doctor, according to the Midvale Journal. "One of our teammates knew about electrical engineering and soldering, another knew how to work with Arduino; we learned from each other." 

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/portable-microplastic-filter-inventors-utah/

EU commits $638 million to scale up renewables in nine African countries | Business Insider Africa

I love that the EU is investing in a future, rather than focusing on colonization-related activities. Grow the infrastructure. Learn more about things we can be doing.  Create some jobs.  And build a better future for mankind. 

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/eu-commits-dollar638-million-to-scale-up-renewables-in-nine-african-countries/064b30f