There was period from early 2020 into the end of 2021 when this blog site on Thursday was devoted to COVID-19. Remember that the official worldwide count of Covid deaths is just over 7 million.  However, the suspicion is that perhaps 36 million actually died. As far back as late 2021, it was estimated that  nearly 44% of the world's population caught Covid at least once .   This rate was as high as 79.3% in sub-Saharan Africa, as low as 13% in parts of Asia and Oceania, and 31% in the U.S. and Canada.   Forty countries had more than 70% at least once infected. Of Americans under 18, through the end of 2022, only 10% were not infected ( Novids) . 25% of Americans had still not caught Covid by the end of 2023 .  However, and this was not explained, 55% of adults think they have never had Covid. Only 13% of those 16-29 years old were Novids.  The infection rate for Blacks and Whites were about the same, around 77.5%. Asians 66% and Hispanics 81%. A...

Before the nostalgic topic of the day, the latest on what is happening in the Israel-Iran War. The fact that Israel actually had the audacity to bomb Iran was a shock. The Iranian response came, but was weaker than expected. So far, after four days. Iran:  220 deaths, with 1,000 injured.  Don't believe what they report. Israel:  24 deaths, 600 injured. The Iron Dome defense does have U.S. participation, but still allows maybe 5% of drones and missiles to penetrate. Incidentally, Trump wants a  Golden Dome for America  at a  cost of $175 billion . Won't be easy, for Israel is 400 times smaller than the USA.   Much of the hardware came from the U.S. in many billions of dollars since 2011 . The critical contention is that the difference between the iron and golden ones is like comparing a kayak to a battleship. This is not a war for territory.  Israel just wanted to eliminate their most serious existential threat, that of extinction, and felt th...