June 28

 Sunny today--well sort of sunny. I am not sure if we have clouds or smoke from Canada. We still have an air quality alert and the possibility of stray showers/thunderstorms.

Improve the News writes that the CDC is warning about an increase in malaria cases that are not related to foreign travel--in other words are locally acquired. There are only two vaccines being tested for malaria so the only strategy available to prevent the disease is "vector control," that is taking out the mosquitoes. That might be difficult given the weather--high heat and heavy rains causing flooding--which is ideal for mosquito breeding. One of the serious problems for Europeans colonizing the U.S. south from Virginia was malaria. It was especially devastating for pregnant women.

I have seen a lot of vaccine skeptics (to be polite) demanding that one or another scientist on the other side "debate" them. I put debate in quotes because the two sides don't agree on what constitutes evidence. I noted this yesterday when I wrote a bit about one such skeptic. They wouldn't be debating so much as talking past each other one presenting data and the other presenting anecdotes, or the skeptic criticizes data which answers one question while the critic thinks another question, which the study wasn't designed to answer,  is more important and refuses accept the scientist's explanation. No study answers all questions and a good study generates more questions than it answers. The scientists know this so why bother.

Bill Astore put an amusing post on his substack today. Over the last ten years or so I have really wished for some younger politicians with new ideas but I haven's seen them. Most of the younger ones haven't come up with any original thoughts at all. I am looking at ANOTHER election where I don't have any real viable choice except the lesser disaster.

And here is another amusing story from a Kentucky outlet. Kentucky and Indiana allow medical but not recreational marijuana but a newly opened cannabis outlet in a southern Illinois has more Indiana customers than Illinois customers and the third place goes to --Kentucky.