Last week I posted a two-part series on red wines.  On this nostalgic Tuesday, I will make it a five-part series with a visit I made in 2019 to France, where we tasted champagne and Bordeaux wine and cognac.  Parts 4 and 5 will be posted on subsequent Tuesdays. But first, a few newsworthy items. As my  blog expressed yesterday , President Donald Trump has transformed himself from dud to hero. Looks like that  fragile ceasefire for the Israel-USA vs Iran War is holding.   Lot of questions about where those 880 pounds of enriched uranium might be  to  future role on how the International Atomic Energy Agency can check on Iran  to  how long the ailing 85-year old Ayatollah can hang in there  to  a million others.  However, give Trump credit for solving this war in less than two weeks.  Israel still has that Gaza Strip problem, and there continues the Ukraine-Russia war, but the world today is in a safer place than yesterday. ...

The  Vera C. Rubin Observatory  atop Cerro Pachón in Chile recently experienced first light last night, and released the above photo. But before focusing on that new telescope, the latest summary of what is occurring in the Israel and USA vs Iran War, where controlled orchestration seems to be the mode of operation. Iran did "take revenge" at Trump's attack on its nuclear facilities by lobbing a few missiles into U.S.'s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar . However, Iran first alerted Qatar that this was coming, with a sense that we are not at war with you, but only hate America.  Sort of Trump saying we are not at war with Iran, but only its nuclear facilities.  There were no casualties at the U.S. base. Of course, Qatar informed the U.S., so the ten missiles were all intercepted and destroyed in the air. It seems that Iran had to satisfy it's people, so on TV exaggerated the magnitude of its attack. There are more than 50,000 American troops scattered throughout the Midd...