Saturday--

Well the weather has turned more seasonal the last few days--cold with bouts of snow. Thursday we did our grocery shopping because it was the driest and warmest on the forecast and yesterday was bread baking day. I didn't see much to comment on on-line. The political scene has been as crazy as it has been for a goodly while now. I am ignoring it as much as I can given our (s)news media's penchant for repetition, drama and provocative sound bites.

I was reading some reports which gushed about the "health" of the U.S. labor market the last couple of days. Evidently the number of people filing for first time unemployment benefits dropped below the expected number. The unemployment rate (supposedly) fell--again. And, as one of the accounts said, the experts didn't expect any large scale layoffs in the near future. Given this article I have to ask "How do you define 'large scale?'" And, of course, there were the reports that Walmart is closing 150+ stores in the U.S. leaving some small towns totally without any grocery or pharmacy. No wonder the public (this "public" in particular) are skeptical about "expert" pronouncements.

The TV (s)news this morning announced that WHO is certain that the Zika virus carried by mosquitoes is the cause the the spike in cases of microcephaly in Brazil and elsewhere in South and Central America. I have also read that the number of microcephalic infants that have tested positive for Zika is extremely small--4 out of 4000 last time I saw a number. And yet the "experts" are certain Zika is the culprit. Then I saw this article and I suddenly had a flash of insight as to why they are certain--who wants to accuse Monsanto of producing a chemical that causes birth defects. The article should give us pause though because obviously the matter isn't settled and the evidence is certainly not all in.