Day 11 at sea on the Norwegian Encore was fun.  Probably our best day on this cruise,  Dinner was at their fanciest restaurant, Le Bistro,  Veuve Clichot Champaign entrance. Red and Rosé French wines. Le Bistro is one of the six special places where you need to pay extra,  However, we are provided three free ones during the first phase of the cruise to Miami, then two more from Miami to Southampton.  There are order restrictions.  One item from the appetizer/soup/salad page and one entré on the other,  None of the main dishes appealed to me so I was given permission to have a first course of appetizer/salad and the second of soup/salad.  The waiter tried to be as generous as possible to extract a good tip.  Thus, the first course for me was escargot and endive salad, which were outstanding.  Ate too much bread to soak up the butter. My second course was a combination of French Onion Soup and Steak Tartar.  I was so filled already th...

   Before I get into the   Condé Nast   article, a few items of import today: Congress is in session, and the House is scheduled to vote on their rules package tonight.   This bit of legislation simply provides the  rules of the House . This will not be covered like those 14 Speaker voting embarrassments, for who really knows, this could also go on into several attempts. Chances are, though, that they'll succeed on vote #1. But, over the next two years you can expect gridlock, government closures, full court presses to gain revenge over Biden, the January 6 House Special Committee and the Judiciary Department, for, guess what, Rep. Jim Jordan chairs the Judiciary Committee. Yet, Republicans can't be really that stupid.  Sure, ignore country, world, Democracy and sanity, but will their highest priority be for Republicans to dominate on 5 November 2024?  Will that happen?  Doubt it. The same thing that jolted our nation on 6 January 2021 i...

       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        7...