In regard to all the sicknesses going around, COVID, Flu, Common Cold, RSV, does a simple cloth face mask provide any protection against these? I know it stops me from subconsciously touching my face, but does it provide any airborne protection or do I need an N95?

Could either of you please send a picture or link to where I could buy one of these? I am interested in having one to supplement my home’s heating or act as a backup source of heat.

Thanks for the news roundup! That’s good advice to get my Thanksgiving food and Christmas shopping done early.

It makes sense to use the naturally occurring energy source around the ship at all times, wind. Funny to see it in action though.

Love these calls to action! In response to the review your entertainment point, I have been trying to read more often and decrease the amount of TV time that spend, and the biggest surprise to me is how relaxing and stress relieving it is. I look forward to my book time each night now.

I appreciate the paywall-less links because I am such a minimal consumer of news that I may only skim one article every few weeks, and if it is behind a paywall there is no chance I would pay for it just because I just don’t care that much.  But if you do read a lot of news and like a particular group, you should support them. These news roundup summaries are excellent and are how I like to take in my weekly news. Thank you Carlotta Susanna for the time you take searching for, organizing, reading, and summarizing them.

I just looked through my shot records and see that I had the complete polio vaccine series as a child. Thank you mom and dad! That’s one less thing to worry about.

103 degrees and 32% humidity (121 degrees in May) and most of the population not having air conditioning or even stable electricity. Wow… I don’t think I can ever complain about the heat again. Thanks for finding that article.

With temperatures rising up here in North America, I wonder how those along the equator are fairing. 

Iraq has been struggling through some 120+ degree heat and power grid shutdowns. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/iraq-broils-in-dangerous-120-degree-heat-as-power-grid-shuts-down/

I didn’t know that most of those vaccines wore off over time. It’s definitely been longer than most of those immunity duration times since I’ve gotten my childhood shots. When I asked my doctor recently, they said I am all good and don’t need any more right now. But now I’m thinking that it might be good to order a titer blood test to check my immunity against some of those diseases I am more likely to get and see if I need a booster.

I can just tell from the news articles this week that a lot of research and organization has gone into this compilation. Thank you Carlotta Susanna for the great work you do. That Saudi Arabia line community looks very interesting and would be something I would like to live in. Not having to need a car and I can walk to all the amenities that I need within 5 minutes? That sounds amazing. My first thought when seeing this though was how would it affect animals? There probably aren’t too many there in the middle of the desert, but do they have to travel 10 miles in either direction to get on the other side of the wall? Hopefully they have some holes along the way that allows for them to travel through.

I have some more uplifting solar panel articles that I saw this week. Delaware will give free solar panels to low-income residents – Energy costs are a higher percentage of low income family’s income and helping offset that means that they can more quickly save and increase their ability to buy more nutritious food, more reliable car, and more. It probably will make their homes more resilient to outages and reduce demand on the grid. Solar panel saves Arkansas school enough for teachers get up to $15K in raises – By installing solar they save $600,000 a year. This leads to better retention, higher morale, and the ability to recruit quality educators in a small town that might not have as many opportunities.

I totally forgot about the Queen’s guard! They must have been really struggling through that hot streak. Sorry if it’s dark humor, this heat wave is nothing to laugh about, but I hope each guard has their own fuzzy hat. Wouldn’t want to start your shift and have to put on the sweaty hat from the last guy who’s been out in the 100+ degree weather all day.

That makes so much sense. I never knew about the fracked oil and how there is no such thing as US oil independence.  If I was a leader of this country, I would realize this and recognize that although our money is very appealing and is a strong source of constant oil, that it isn’t full-proof and one day the world might all agree to not give the US any more oil for whatever reason. In that case we need to work on becoming more energy sufficient with renewables like sun and wind. Those are solutions that can’t be stopped or taken away.  There are seriously so many things to think about though and it’s easy for me to just type “make more solar panels” without knowledge of how things truly work. Let’s just say I’m grateful that I’m not in charge.

That article on a possible insurgency was interesting. It says that there isn’t going to be a north vs south type of civil war like the last one the US had, but instead extremist groups will target infrastructure and civilians using domestic terror and guerrilla warfare. All the more need to prepare if roads get blocked, water treatment plants get infected, or power companies have to shut down. Hope it doesn’t come down to that.

In a previous news roundup, it was said that they were going to get rid of the federal tax on gasoline to help prices out for a while. Maybe that also has something to do with lowering prices?

Can I share some news I saw this week that might relate? The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is getting a three digit speed dial number of 988 starting tomorrow. Currently you have to call 1800-273-8255 but hopefully this speed dial number will be a quick number that people can memorize like 911 for the police and get help sooner. And while many places up north are experiencing record highs, down south in Australia they are in the middle of their winter and it seems like some of the houses there are not built for such cold temperatures. Australian homes are so cold that some are falling below the WHO’s recommended ‘safe’ temperature

The first section talks about how food prices are falling. Has anyone noticed a drop at the grocery store yet?

In response to the medical debt article, first off… “41% of US adults have health care debt” That is insane to me! Car debt, house debt, credit card debt, medical debt, the list goes on and on… There are some good tips in the article such as to be familiar with your coverage and out-of-pocket costs. But with the tip to check whether the specifics of your care are covered… the problem I keep running into is I’m at a doctors office and they ask if I want such and such test ran. I ask them if it is covered by my insurance and most of the time their response is “We won’t know until we run it through insurance and try and bill them” okay… That doesn’t help. So I either don’t get it done or I do it and it may or may not be covered. And when I’ve tried calling into my insurance before to ask about a procedure they even have said that they don’t know how much will be covered. I will try to learn more about my insurance though and be as well educated about it as I can. It is a good article and guide and I will be bookmarking it for study this week.