One more craziness about the frozen Iowa caucus today.   Republican candidates have spent $123 million in advertising so far.   With such low temperatures throughout the state tonight, it would not be surprising if only 123,000 show up to vote.  $1,000/vote????  In the  2020 presidential election, $14.4 billion  was spent to gain 155.4 million votes.  That calculates to around $10/vote.  Does this make any sense?  Incidentally, the first official primary election state for Democrats is South Carolina, although only Joe Biden will get votes.  Bet you did not know that  President Grover Cleveland is on the newest $1000 bill , which has been discontinued.  The  appraised value if you have one is $5000. We're better off in the USA than anywhere else.  I say this on the basis of the following from  Wikipedia  ranking household expenditure per capita/year: #1      United States          $43,931 #2      Hong Kong             $37,893 #3      Luxembourg           $33,647 #4      Bermuda   

Cable news channels are mostly covering today the  shootings in Maine where 18 people were killed .  Considering that there are typically around 20 firearm deaths in the entire state annually, this is consequential.  However, something like a staggering  150 suicides by gun yearly occur in Maine . This is the 565th mass shooting ( at least 4 deaths/event ) in the U.S. this year.   In 2021 , there were 48,830 gun-related deaths in the country.  54% were suicides ( 26,368 ) and 43% were murders ( 20,997 ).  Has the time finally come for gun control?  Nope.  There is something about the right to own guns and the efforts of the National Rifle Association that overcome any kind of common sense.   Any chance for some kind of ban on assault weapons?  Well, a  quarter century ago  when President Joe Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress passed the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, also known as the assault weapons ban.  It was Senator Diane Fe

While on his way to Israel, a huge explosion occurred in the Gaza Strip Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital parking lot.    Early reports indicated a thousand people were sheltered in this 80-bed hotel, and hundreds perished.      Initial media reports blamed an Israeli air strike.  The Arab world erupted, with protests against the American embassies.  Then, more recent news seem to indicate that the cause was an errant terrorist rocket.  This whole war has been stoked by mis-information and fake news, so it will be some before any conclusive evidence will become universally accepted. In the meantime, after arriving in Israel, Biden met with a lot of leaders and gave two speeches. On arrival. After a few meetings . Emotionally empathic. Said Israel was not responsible for hospital bombing. Repeated, you are not alone Promised considerable humanitarian and military aid. This was the first visit to Israel by an American president during a time of war. During all this consternation, a tiny country c

You know this Israel-Hamas War is newsworthy because I've been gazing at MSNBC all morning, and there has yet to be even one commercial.  On nostalgic Tuesday today, I focus on the Hamas and the Gaza Strip.   My posting 15 years ago said :   End to the Gaza Strip War : “Why don’t those #&%#@* Hamas idiots just stop lobbing rockets into Israel,” courtesy of a golf buddy pundit expressed at the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse. He wanted me to repeat this in my daily blog, but I thought we should protect both of us from any possible fatwa by not specifically identifying the source.  Two years later in 2010 , I reported that the 128th country to visit this blog site, was the  Gaza Strip , with, then, a population of 1.5 million.   I might add  that I am now up to 221 entities and 2,731,530 pageviews.  That 875,512 pageviews in the graphic is because, I stopped paying Google many years ago to carry my blog. While there are only 195 countries in the world, their are 221 entries because