Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican primary race, and endorsed The Donald.  Note the GOD OVER GOVERNMENT sign.  That is a surprise.  I thought both he and Nikki Haley were planning to hang in to the end, hoping Donald Trump would be judged so guilty that he couldn't continue his campaign.  Trump should win the New Hampshire vote over Haley on Tuesday, and crush her in South Carolina on February 24.  Thus, as she was governor of that state, look for her to drop out before or soon after that date. In case you were wondering what this fuss was about Biden not being on the New Hampshire primary ballot,  Democrats bypassed Iowa and New Hampshire, and will count South Carolina as the first primary state , even though no one of any substance is running against him.  New Hampshire, however, got pissed off about being sidestepped--although they say they are required by law to do this--so went on with the ballots anyway, showing his absence.  Thus, if Democrats choose to show up,

COVID-19 summary : With 4% the World population, the USA had 33% of COVID-19 new cases yesterday. While Europe is suffering, ominously, Mexico is now #2 to the U.S. in new deaths. But California had four times more new cases than Mexico yesterday. Apparently, the British virus has mutated and can infect people 1.7 times more efficiently. New cases are increasing in Canada, Indonesia and Japan. China had 23 new cases and no new deaths. Taiwan had 3 new cases and no new deaths. From David Leonhardt of The New York Times : I’ve shown you   a version of this chart before . The basic idea is that if you track the number of new virus cases, you can fairly accurately predict the number of Covid-related deaths about three weeks later. Every 100 new cases in the U.S. has led to an average of roughly 1.6 deaths, with a 22-day lag. (Trevor Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,   explains why  in this Twitter thread.) From colleagues in Florida: Why is this

If you search for any list of the greatest humans of all-time, you will find religious people tend to dominate, and they're all male.   Here is one with Jesus Christ at the top.  Next are scientists/technologists, with world leaders also prominent.  In this list of 100 there are only two females, Queen Isabela at #65 and  Queen Elizabeth I ( not II ) as 94, among 98 men.  A case can be made that it's harder to gain fame these days: Five years ago, I wrote a tongue firmly in cheek posting on   ELON MUSK vs PAT TAKAHASHI .  A few friends thought it was hilarious.  On this Sabbath, I toyed with doing a similar analysis involving Jesus Christ.  Then I thought, nah, it would probably not be taken in good humor by some.  So what about a famous artist-technologist like Leonardo da Vinci? Leo has it all over me in the art department, for he painted the Mona Lisa ( worth $850 million ) and the Last Supper ( only around $100 million ).  I minored in art as an undergraduate and misplace