The world has reached a lull period. Iran war continues with the Strait of Hormuz closed and little in battleground activity.   Invasion of Kharg Island? Maybe tomorrow? The sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham was a shock.  Now what? He was the Republican to face Democrat Annie Andrews on November 3. Republicans now need to go through essentially the same ( but different ) process as Democrats in Maine to find a replacement. There are 114 days until November 3, so both parties have enough time. Fritz Hollings was the last Democratic Senator from South Carolina.  That was 20 years ago.  The other senator from this state is Tim Scott. Prediction markets in January of this year gave Democrats less than a 10% chance to beat Graham.  However, last month that percentage had jumped to 21%.  On November 3 with no Graham on the ballot, who knows for sure? The FIFA World Cup is taking a 2-day break. Semifinal 1: France vs. Spain – July 14 at 8 PM ED T (AT...

This blog site has been posting daily now for 18 years. Has been visited by 221 countries, and the reason why this is more than the 193 countries in the United Nations is that there are entities like Antarctica, and smaller territories that have their own domain. Not sure when I first reached 1 million total visitors, but I do know that for the first 15 years or so the average viewers/day was around 500, so I would guess that this site took around 7 years to hit one million.  Now up past 6 million total. However, during the past two days, the number of visitors reached 147,720 and 123,579, so for reasons I can't explain this site went viral.   For long-time readers, I have tended to focus on certain topics on a given week day. Sunday:  spiritual, religion, reflection on life, etc. Monday: global topics, with some thoughts about what is to come during this week. Tuesday:  nostalgic, linking with the past, etc. Wednesday:  sci-tech and the future. Thursday:...

 I reached a milestone today, hitting 4 million viewers: Since my first blog on 29April2008, there have been 6792 postings.  Thus, an average of close to 600 readers/day.  221 countries have visited this site. Actually, in October of 2020 I reached the limit of how many labels I could use, so in parallel I initiated a  different location , which began accumulating another set of viewers, and this blog is up to 172,000 viewers.  So you have an option to read this second site, which has the same content, but looks different.  One of the photos I used in that initial  10October2020 posting  was of Phil Spector.  Why?  My #80 favorite song was featured,  To Know Him is to Love Him , and he started performing by writing that song and is one of the three Teddy Bears.  Then he later developed his wall of sound background music for which he is famous, married Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes and became mad, as in crazy.  Incidentall...