THIS HAS BEEN A GOOD MONTH

I liked this month of May. We completed our 53-day around the world trip, and came home healthy. I did gain 7 pounds, but by yesterday found out that I had lost 7.5 pounds of that. The World did okay too, if you are not Trump, Netanyahu or Red Lobster.

For example, that disquieting unified reich matter might have been a clerical error, but Truth Social did carry it, for a while, and any reference to Hitler can't help a presidential campaign.

Red Lobster was one of ten companies going bankrupt this month. I remember a bunch of new restaurant openings in Florida going back as far as 1968 with Red Lobster. Many of them, like Outback Steakhouse, LongHorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden seem to be having financial problems these days. Fast food chains are doing well, and so are high end restaurants. It is this middle category that is affected by consumer adjustments.

Is it possible we now have a working U.S. Congress?

They passed 50 measures in May, and all became public laws.
We now have a bipartisan Congress, even the House.

House Democrats this month rescued the House speaker, a Republican whom far-right members of his party wanted to topple after he helped pass a bipartisan foreign aid package.
Into May, President Joe Biden has signed a more significant set of bipartisan bills — on infrastructure, semiconductors, gun violence, the electoral process and more — than any president in decades.

Did you realize that ethanol is considered to be a drug? The New York Times this morning reported:

Cannabis now tops alcohol as Americans’ daily drug of choice, a study found.
If you have difficulty accessing that article, try CNBC, where they too say: daily or near-daily marijuana use is now more common than similar levels of drinking in the U.S. Americans are reaching for buds more than booze.

Time magazine has an article about The Apprentice, saying it is almost too real.

I've never seen such a vicious movie review, which pretty much condemns Donald Trump.
Trump called it GARBAGE.
Sebastian Stan as The Donald and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn, that despicable lawyer who trained Trump.
Here is one quote:

Ali Abbasi The Apprentice, which premiered here in Cannes on May 20, arrives at just the right time. And if it isn’t a great movie, it’s at least a fascinating and thoughtful one, an even-handed film that doesn’t need to resort to extremes to paint an accurate picture of what America and the world are up against right now, in terms of one particular past and possibly future president. Sebastian Stan plays 1970s-and-'80s-era Donald Trump, at the time a socially clumsy, insecure underling in his bullying father’s real estate business. Jeremy Strong plays Roy Cohn, the cutthroat lawyer who’d served as Senator Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Army-McCarthy hearings, and who’d earlier used questionable means to get Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted as Soviet spies, resulting in their 1953 execution. By the 1970s, he was gathering steam as a fixer extraordinaire, and this is where Abbasi’s movie begins.

Having spent almost a whole week in Manhattan at Times Square this month, where most of the Broadway show theaters are located, I thought I'd watch a movie I had recorded a long time ago, 42nd Street, loved by Rotten Tomatoes reviewers with a 96 rating. You too can see this film, for free, on Tubi.

What is Tubi?

Now known as tubi.
Launched in 2014, but bought out by Fox Corporation in 2020 for $440 million.
As of September 2023 had 74 million monthly active users.
Linked to South Korean entertainment company CJ ENM and Warner Brothers/Discovery.
Now also in Canada, the European Union, Oceania and Central America.
They have access to 50,000 films/television series, 250 provider and 200 live TV channels for local news and sports.
Is a free streaming service.
How do they do this for FREE? Well, actually, there are short ad breaks. But not too many, and they are really short.
Competes against Netflix and Hulu.
No sign-up. But need to activate.
Is compatible with Sony, Vizio and Samsung smart TVs.

Read this for a good explanation of tubi.
While offerings are not the newest, you will wonder, why pay Netflix.
Just go to THIS or https://tubitv.com/home.

I typed in my favorite movie at the top, South Pacific, and there it was.
Typed Casablanca. Nope, not there.
Typed Play it Again Sam, not there.
Typed Sound of Music, and got the 2015 version with no actor you know.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the only couple in the history of this event who failed to drink bee

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