David Leonhardt of the  New York Times  this morning in his briefing started with: Good morning. An unvaccinated child is at less risk of serious Covid illness than a vaccinated 70-year-old. That statement was based on an article by Emily Oster, a Brown University economist, from an  Atlantic  article in March, which got angry reactions as being insensitive and misleading.  The key point is that, sure, this kid will not get seriously ill...BUT COULD SPREAD THE VIRUS!!! Oster was right about the risk factor: Oster more recently said she would be vaccinating her children once they became eligible, and also: I do not want them to get Covid. I am worried about their immune-compromised grandparent. I would like to avoid quarantine and keep them in school . The Leonhardt report went further to say: Different elderly people will respond to the risks in different  ways, and   that’s OK . Some may decide to be extremely  cautious until caseloads fall to low levels. Others —  especially those wi

The largest airplane, Stratolaunch  ( by wingspan ), flew for the second time last month, a decade after first imagined by someone I mentioned this past Sunday , Paul Allen, who with Bill Gates founded Microsoft.  Unfortunately, Allen never saw it take flight.  Read the details here . That plane will be reminiscent of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose , the wooden ( made of birch, not spruce ) Flying Boat that was originally designed to ferry American troops to Europe to avoid being sunk by German submarines.  It was six times larger than any aircraft of its time, and made only one flight, in 1947.  The plane can today be found, of all the places, in McMinnville, Oregon, where volunteers are trying to restore it. Did you know the USA has a  Doomsday Plane ? The following video indicates the power of Queen Elizabeth II.  Donald Trump is not mentioned, but the Queen cannot be arrested and pays her taxes...even though she legally does not need to do this.  She is the largest landowner in th

About those gasoline lines on the Eastern Seaboard, Elliptic has reported : That the Darkside ransonware group received $5 million from Colonial Pipeline through a Bitcoin wallet. Turns out a German chemical distribution company Brenntag on May 11 also sent $4.4 million, to the same cyberspace to prevent the leakage of stolen data. There were other incidents, as that wallet has received a total of $17.5 million since March, and $12.5 million were re-sent to other sites. Just today, though, there is uncertainty about what exactly has happened to the remaining $5 million, for that location ceased operations. One theory is that the U.S. government was able to do this.   Then again, nothing has been announced. Stephen Hawking might well have been the smartest person alive , then he passed away three years ago.  Perhaps Paul Allen, who with Bill Gates founded Microsoft, might well have then become the smartest.  Allen scored 10 points higher in the SAT than Gates, with a perfect 1600 (the m