First I'm intrigued by the sudden popularity of this blog site.  Visitors: All Time 8307449  Today 774535  Yesterday 882129  This Month 2796190  Last Month 653676  In other words: 8.3 million viewers since this blog began 18 years ago. 0.775 million today, which has a few hours to go. 0.882 million yesterday. 2.8 million this month. 0.654 million last month. My first blog was on at the end of April 2008, so this site is now a little more than 18 years old. 18 divided into 8.3 million gives 1263 visitors per day. Yesterday, there were 0.88 million visitors, a record that will be broken today. Could well reach 1 million viewers today, which would be 792 times more than my daily average. For reasons I can't comprehend, this blog site has gone viral. There was a jump in visitors during our recent 50-day trip to the USA and Canada. Historically, I do get more viewers on a trip. But we returned almost 3 weeks ago, and the exponential viewership began this week. My blog postings ...

  But first, the latest news of the day.   President Donald Trump met with Israel's President Benjamin Netanyahu.   In a follow-up press conference they agreed to  Trump's 20-point peace plan . Hamas hasn't seen it yet, it says. But Team Trump-Netanyahu is not this time giving the Hamas any choice:  accept the plan or get totally destroyed! Haven't before seen this type of strategy.  Might work. By now Trump has met with Congressional leaders to work out a plan to avert a government shutdown at 12:01AM Wednesday.  Watch the news. Supreme Court met in private today to discuss what they will do at their next session, which opens on October 2, with official public hearings beginning on October 6. Jessica Sanchez has had quite a journey through both America's Got Talent and American Idol.  Want perseverance?  She epitomizes that term. But first, who is she? She was born on 4August1995 in Chula Vista, California, mother from the Philippi...

Well,  Time  magazine was right.   The Trump-Putin summit fizzled, and ended earlier than expected .  Worse,  Putin won .  Their next session will be in Moscow.  When?  And, in case you were wondering, Putin is 5'7" and Trump 6'3". Way back in 2014,  Guinness World Records deemed the Got Talent franchise the most successful reality TV format worldwide.   At that time, there 58 countries showing their own version of the program.  The whole concept began with  Britain's Got Talent,  created by Simon Cowell.  However, disputes delayed their release, and the first to air was  America's Got Talent  in 2006.  They both run during the summer. The latest ranking  (13August2025) , however, shows the following: #    1  Idol franchise  3.2 billion, 23 years,  2002 to 2025, but did not air in 2017. #    2  Got Talent franchise  500 million in 190 markets, 20 ye...

Donald Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he won the debate with Kamala Harris, and said that there will be no further debates.  Just his general nature, or illusionary as usual, for all polls showed Harris trouncing Trump.  From  Reuters : Voters generally gave Harris better marks than Trump on how she carried herself. Asked which of the two appeared more dignified, 56% of people familiar with the debate picked Harris, compared to 24% who picked Trump. Forty-nine percent said Harris "seemed like someone who would listen to me and understand my concerns," compared to 18% who saw Trump that way. And, oh oh, is he in trouble with The Donald, for  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  himself said Harris won and that Independents support for Trump will drop following this disastrous debate. Fox News host Neil Cavuto said Trump lost the debate by a wide margin.  He decisively lost.  He might have made very good presentations on where the economy was,...