Today, sports.  In the past I've posted on   Tampa, Florida,  because this seems to be the city for sports champs.  Today, I'll expand the kudos to the entire state, for their excellence has been almost remarkable. To begin, the Florida Panthers are in the Stanley Cup.   Not sure who will oppose them , for the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights will play game 5 tonight, with Vegas leading 3-1.  The Panthers, incidentally, are located in Sunrise.  Sunrise?  That's in Broward County, in the Miami metropolitan area.  Population, around 100,000. It hasn't been easy, for the Panthers had to come back from a 3-1 deficit to eliminate the Boston Bruins, who had set NHL records in wins (65) and points (135).  Earlier last month Florida was ranked #12 in the NHL, with the Bruins at #1.  The Florida star is a 25-year old American, Matthew Tkachuk Or maybe like Tampa, I need to focus on Miami, for their NBA Heat was at one time 3-0 against the Boston Celtics.  Now, 3-2, with g

 I yesterday ended with this cartoon by Mike Lukovich: Something terrible has happened to the Republican Party.  The root cause is Donald Trump.   At one time, smart minds guided the Grand Old Party.  Today, the dregs of society control this organization. That Trump coup attempt on 6January2021 was Act One.  Then consider all the legal problems facing him.  Add the mediocre competitors facing him.  I've long thought Ron DeSantis was an idiot governor, and nothing he has recently done has helped.  Are they doomed on 5 November 2024? They still have two pathways for victory.  If Joe Biden gets seriously ill, that could become a problem for Democrats.  If the national economy crashes by the Fall of 2024, Republicans can cheer.  The one sure way this can occur, beginning now, Act Two, is to default on our national debt.  Sure the country will suffer, and if Republicans succeed, this will just be another way to discombobulate not only our economy, but the foundation of democracy and fre

   Some weekly   Worldometer   info on COVID-19: Deaths over the past 7 days. World  1913 #1    Brazil  243 #2    Germany 223 #3    USA  209 #4    Russia  183 #5    France  155 Deaths in the past 7 days per million population. World  0.24 #1    New Zealand  11 #2    Hong Kong  11 #3    Martinique  5 #4    Greece  4 #5    Denmark  4 #11  S. Korea  2 #17  Brazil  1 #23  USA  0.9 Worried about long covid?  At one time as high as one-third of people who got infected were suspected of suffering this symptomatic fallout.  However, a  recent study seems to show that only 10% now suffer from this ailment .  Part of the reason is that the subvariants from Omicron to the present are not as troublesome.  Now that the pandemic has been declared over,  what was the cost of covid?   Seems like an uncalculable task, but Jakub Hlávaka (top photo) and Adam Rose of CREATE ( University of Southern California's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Threats and Emergency ) made an attempt. First, th

You by now must know that GOAT is the Greatest Of All Time.  But  BOAT:  The Brightest of All Time ? Last October telescopes spotted a gamma ray burst, which is caused by the collapse of a black hole.  These also occur when two black holes or neutron stars collide.  This phenomenon is focused along a narrow beam.  If you happen to be in the path, you could be in trouble. One of Humanity's most serious possible extinction evenf could well be a gamma ray burst. However, Planet Earth is so far away from such things that astronomers don't much worry about that, especially as the odds of this beam heading exactly our way are very low. Yet, astronomers detect about a burst a day, and these are only the ones heading in our general direction, which is a small percentage of all GRBs in the Universe. The calculation is that an extinction GRB happens once every five million years, but not on here. Possibly, a GRB with this potential could have occurred about 450 million years ago. Well, t

I've had numerous articles featuring the Big Band Era.  To the right Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, with Janet Blair.    In 2020 I posted: My favorite song #56 enters the Big Bang era, and today, I feature Jimmy Dorsey: I'll Be Seeing You All the Things You are I'm Getting Sentimental Over You In the beginning there were the Dorsey brothers, Jimmy (left), elder, and Tommy.  In their early group was Rudy Vallee.  They joined Paul Whiteman in 1927 and in 1929 had their first hit.  In 1934 they signed with Decca, and a member of their band was Glenn Miller, who received a loan from Tommy to form his own band.  The brothers had a falling out, so in 1935 Tommy, who played the trombone, formed his own orchestra.  Frank Sinatra became a singer with him, then quit. Boogie Woogie  came in 1939.  Frank Sinatra returned from the Harry James band in 1940 and they made 80 records.  In 1940  I'll be Seeing You ,  written by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal made it to #4, but the  Bing Crosby sol