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ALOHA ANGELA

                     From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82
July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82
Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85
Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118
Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465
Jan     14       4142     15512        1151        189      712              
Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398
Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194
April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37
May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 
June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95
 July   7          251      8440        1595        817       411
Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532      423 
Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235
          8        1700      9836          250        339     253
        14        1934      9001          709        281      300
        21        2152     8466           484        385      160
        22       2228     9326           839        279      124

Summary:   Our new cases yesterday of 133,620 just about equaled that of the next four countries combined:  Brazil, UK, India,  and Turkey.  This means that the U.S. will continue be the only to show new daily deaths of four digits for weeks to come.

Looks like Pfizer has taken a definite lead in the race to provide vaccines.   Not only has it been approved for that third booster, President Joe Biden, looking for a way to appease the UN delegates, promised 500 million Pfizer vaccines to needy countries.  I took two Moderna shots.  Apparently there will now be a lag to my expected booster inoculation.

On the matter of vaccines, mandates and avoidance:


About the Macron-Biden hoo-ha, more will ultimately come out, but:

  • The USA and UK one-upped the French's $90 billion submarine deal with Australia.
    • Australia was worried about anything nuclear, so they asked France to re-design their nuclear sub to use diesel.
    • So France did and were in midst of following through for initial delivery in 2034.
    • But apparently there was an assortment of problems.
  • Emmanuel Macron is seeking re-election in April of next year and needed to show some public muscle.
  • Well, Biden and Macron met and essentially made up, with details to later surface.
  • Incidentally, Germany will vote on Sunday, September 26, to replace Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has held office for 16 years.  She represents the Christian Democrat party, which just dropped below 20% support for the first time since World War II.  
  • Their candidate is 60-year old Armin Laschet, in the middle of the photo to the right.  
  • However, favored to win is Social Democrat Olaf Scholz (twice), former mayor of Hamburg and finance minister in Merkel's coalition government.  
  • Annalena Baerbock of the Greens is to the right.  She is only 40 years old and earlier this summer was leading the polls.  
  • Here is an election poll tracker.
  • Germany has two large parties (CD and SD), three smaller ones and a slew of minors.
  • One confusion is that there is also a President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is theoretically more important than the Chancellor, but the latter is like a Prime Minister and wields most of the power.  The President is elected by the Bundestag (parliament) and state legislature members.  Here he is with Merkel.  You'll never see him again.
  • You might have known that Germany has no term limits, and Merkel could have run again if she so chose.  Also, Canada, Japan, India, Singapore, China, Iceland, Italy, Spain, UK, and many more.  Russia is a special case of only two 6-year terms, which can be adjusted as necessary by anyone named Putin.  Trump was trying to do this.
67-year old Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg, but her father, a Lutheran clergyman, moved to a position in East Germany where she grew up.  She went on to obtain a doctorate in quantum chemistry...QUANTUM CHEMISTRY, and became the first female chancellor of Germany.  She most definitely was the most powerful woman in the world.  Remember those days when the Berlin Wall fell?  During the Revolution of 1989 at the age of 35 she turned to politics.  She became a protegee of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.  While her term is said by some to be ambiguous, she held the European Union together and saved the Euro.  Maybe strategic patience could well be her legacy.  Got to show one more photo of her...at the age of one and a half.

Two days ago I posted on the threat posed by that volcano on La Palma, an island in the Canaries.  Here is an impressive video:

Want to hear the sound and see the fountains of this eruption?  A whole hour.

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