There is not much military activity diirectly related to the War with Iran today, but: Iran insists that the U.S. agrees to all concessions before opening the Strait of Hormuz. No serious peace talks are occurring. The Houthis continue to cause problems with Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally rejected the U.S. proposal for the Gaza Strip. In other news: Todd Blanche was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. attorney general. Typhoon Dolphin made landfall over Okinawa at 101 MPH, causing damage, but, at this time, no known deaths.  Next, on to Zhejiang. While not threatening Hong Kong, this storm was deemed responsible for the record high temperature today of just about 98.5 F. As we are expecting to stop through Vancouver after our cruise ship docks in Montreal, I asked Google AI whether the latest British Columbia wild fire is also impacting this city: Yes, there are some active wildfires and smoke in British Columbia , including a small local fire in Metro V...

Let me first dabble into those wars: Gaza Strip. Hamas has agreed to disarm . Israel maintains skepticism. Palestinians mistrust both Israel and Hamas. Iran War . Iran accused U.S. of escalating tensions. Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is still down by 95%. Houthis blocking the passing of Saudi ships through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Both the old and new versions of this blog site have seen a jump in readership from March of this year, when we flew from Honolulu to Las Vegas for a few days, then on to Memphis to visit Elvis' Graceland, followed by a cruise down the Mississippi to New Orleans.  A short stop there, then on to New York City, followed by a Viking cruise from Manhattan to Toronto.  We then boarded a train towards Vancouver, catching another train to get us there. Original blog: As I compose this posting, first one on 29April2008, this daily blog has had just under 10.5 million viewers over 6669 days, or 1574/day. However, the first ten years avera...

This is Monday, 1June2026. For the record today, the USA/Israel vs Iran War peace talk  seems be fraying .   Maybe the U.S. can't convince Israel to pull back from Lebanon.   Plus, we again bombed Iran and stopped missiles fired at American troops in Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz is not totally closed, for 2 ships/day passed through this past week, a trickle compared to the average of 130 ships/day before the war began.  Gas prices are high and fertilizer shortages are occurring. Even worse, Iran might work with its proxies in Yeman to close the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb , totally cutting off oil shipments from Saudi Arabia.  Sure, there is the Suez, but that significantly adds shipping cost. Last month was an amazing one for this blog.  This original site began in April of 2008, and will be 18 years old at the end of the month.  I do this daily, though I had to skip a few while in China (they've long had a feud with Google, which produces this ...