Talking about largest snakes, last week one of my postings was entitled,  A COMING TRUMP DICTATORSHIP?   Someone e-mailed me this link of  Senator Chris Murphy's speech on the Senate floor, also sounding an alarm about President Trump's coordinated effort to dismantle democracy.   Watch it!  The Florida Museum reports that the Titanoboa is the largest snake that ever lived.  Perhaps up to 50 feet long 2500 pounds and 3 feet wide, was the largest predator on the planet after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.  However, 23 million years ago came the  Megalodon .  Okay, a deviation, for this was not a snake. Several  films,  but there are so few remains, that there can only be estimates of size:  perhaps 47 feet to 80 feet long and at most, 200,000 pounds. However, this is about 10 times larger that an adult Great White Shark.  Here are two comparisons. Today, the  Green Anaconda  is the longest a...

Well, Honolulu remains beautiful.  A couple of photos from where I sit composing this posting. There have been good trips and bad.  Since I retired a quarter century ago, the 50 or so I've taken have all been good to great.  However, I've been thinking about all my travels, and a few did not go right. Some particularly worried me.  For the next few Tuesday nostalgia days, I'll focus on the worst ones.  There was danger in Papua New Guinea, concern that I might not be able to leave China, an incident at Machu Picchu, Peru, the weirdness of Cairo, Egypt and scare in Delhi, India.  These experiences were sufficient so that I can't imagine my ever returning to those countries. The first I'll report on occurred in 2010.  This was a global journey, and here is how it started. Today, I begin my journey. I will visit Seoul, Hanoi and other parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, New Delhi, Barcelona, Munich, Helsinki, Copenhagen, A...

Just when you thought the USA had abandoned Ukraine,  President Donald Trump today indicated that he will resume aid, both military and intelligence, to Ukraine .  What did President Volodmyr Zelenskyy have to do?  He showed openness to a 30-day ceasefire.  However, in talks that began in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that Ukraine had to give up land won by Russia in this war.  What a way to start discussions.  Note that  Ukraine was not invited to this meeting . It was exactly five years, on 11March2020, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was announced by the World Health Organization ( WHO ) to be a pandemic.   Before that day, this disease was called coronavirus, novel coronavirus, Wuhan coronavirus or Wuhan pneumonia.   WHO officially named it 2019-nCoV in January 2020, and shortened it to COVID-19 on 11February2020, with CO from COronavirus, VI from VIrus and D from Disease, while 19 came from the year it was fi...