The cruise continues with two days at-sea, getting into St. John's, Newfoundland on Thursday, August 20.  I'll be including activities on board, but this period allows me to provide further episodes for a couple of series I earlier began.  Today, Part 3g of My Life. The story of My Life began  as a post on 31May2026, after I realized that, from the age of 5, my life could be represented by three periods of 27 years:  education, work and retirement.  To summarize: The average person spends the first 20 to 25 years growing up and going to school, the next 40 years working, and the final phase in retirement, generally only around 10 years. My life: I was born in 1940, and my life expectancy was supposed to only be 45.    This comes from Google AI citing Our World Data. I was born in Hawaii, not then yet part of the USA, but if I asked Google AI, what would my life expectancy be if I were born in the U.S. in 1940, the answer was 61.4. Were I to ask, since...

But first, a Supreme Court decision today that will give Republicans a big advantage in the upcoming midterm elections and into the future .   Essentially the justices struck down campaign spending limits, allowing corporations to donate as any citizen can.  Further: The three major Republican committees — the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee — ended May with $256 million in cash and no debt. That was more than double the roughly $126 million held by their Democratic counterparts, who also carried more than $18 million in debt . The White House also, can more easily be corrupt, legally. One plus for Democracy is that, now, President Donald Trump will more comfortably allow the midterm elections to proceed on November 3, which is a little more than four months away. Who is the most popular politician in the USA?   From Time magazine. Nostalgia Tuesday is today, so back...

I've been posting on dropping my wife's ashes on these nostalgic Tuesdays.  Here are three photos of her:  as a baby, graduation from Hilo High School and our wedding. Continuing today, I realized I had miscounted, for  I left you two weeks ago with Pearl's Ashes #24  at the foot of a statue of what looks like her at the Jindaiji Biological Park outside of Tokyo.  Part of this problem is that I have also written a book ( which has not yet been published ) with chapters.  For example, on  22March2017 I posted on Chapter 12:  Rio de Janeiro .  As you have surely noted, I'm not exactly suffering on my quest to drop Pearl's Ashes.  Who's paying for all this?  I'm using her savings.  On 3 October 2011 I activated a  monumental around the world trip , to quote: Today I begin my final  ash scattering journey .  I'll be stopping through Bangkok, Tokyo, Zurich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Sao Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, L...

First, some news summaries: Looks like the U.S. Congress, mostly the fault of the House, will not by Friday provide stopgap funding for some of our Federal agencies, thus partially shutting down certain departments. Big deal?  Not particularly, as this  has happened 10 times since 1981 . Also, the offices affected are not so crucial.  The important ones need funding by March 8.  But even then, "essential" employees, including the president and the Congress, will continue to work and be paid under any circumstance. The longest shutdown was during Trump's reign, when functions stopped for more than a month. Chances are that something will happen next week to again, temporarily, re-open our government. By the time you read this,  moon lander Odysseus might not be working,  a few days earlier than planned.   Not a great mission, for the lander tipped over on landing, preventing full use of the solar panels. Watch a video  of what happened. Sent a...