One quick summary of Donald Trump's hush money trial, then on to the Moxy Matter. Court is closed today so Trump can attend son Baron's graduation in Florida. Continues Monday on the final day of the defense trying to break down Michael Cohen. How many more Republicans will show up in person for the trial on Monday?  Can't imagine Melania will. Prosecutors called 19 witnesses.  Defense...zero, unless they surprise the judge and prosecution. Final arguments, as currently planned, should come on Tuesday. Hate to say this will be a hung jury, but in this day and age, not totally comprehending why so many remain Trump fans. it's difficult to imagine that all 12 jurors  will vote guilty. Hung jury not all that bad for Democrats, for this will just mean this trial will again be held, but when? Our OMGA ( O ur  M onumental  G lobal  A dventure ) circumnavigation was mostly good, but had some down moments. At least two of the cruises had Covid outbreaks, something that always

I can't find any explanation of why this is occurring, but South Korea again leads the world in most covid cases during the past week.  This has been going on for more than a month now.  From  Worldometer , new cases this past week: World  272,971 #1  South Korea  210,672 (77%) #2  USA  32,537  (12%) Covid deaths during the past week: World  590 #1  USA  129 #2  Brazil  116 #3  S. Korea  71 Mortality rate average this past week: World  0.2% USA  0.4% Brazil  1.2% S. Korea  0.03% Covid deaths/million population: #1    2    Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Malta. #5    1    S. Korea, Canada, Croatia #12  0.4  USA, Guatemala, Romania, Norway How does one make any sense of these differences?  Take mortality rate, for example. The annual mortality rate of the seasonal flu is around 0.1%. With all the vaccinations and infections, the mortality rate of covid, which was at 1% for much of the first two years, has dropped to 0.2% for the world and 0.4% for the USA. But Brazil remains arou

You know how the U.S. has reacted to this Pandemic.  How do we compare with other parts of the world?  Let's look at  New Zealand, Japan and Australia , where they all initially well-handled this COVID-19 virus. New Zealand closed its border to non-residents and went into a protracted lockdown, eliminating COVID-19.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her leadership. It went months without a single locally spread case, and life returned to normal. But this month the Sydney outbreak spread to New Zealand by just one returning traveler Cases spread to 72 and 10,000 people exposed people were identified.   A total national lockdown was instituted, and widely supported by the populace. During the past two days they have had 24 new cases/day but no new deaths. Total deaths since the beginning amounted to 2873, or  5 per million population . Vaccination rate is only at 20%. Japan initially was successful because its citizens, mostly because of air pollution ( usually from

If you don't have much time today, you can skip all the data presented at the front, and go to the end of the posting just before the portion about purple colored ocean storms .  Those bits of information presented there will immediately improve your day. This past Thursday I posted on: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COVID-19 VACCINES However, Ray Kamada sent me the very latest.   In particular, the AGAINST SEVERE DISEASE column is worthy of note. Efficacy by country where trials were conducted - VACCINE DOSES OVERALL AGAINST SEVERE DISEASE U.S. U.K. S. AFRICA L. AMERICA Moderna 2 94.1% 100% 95% - - - Pfizer/BioNTech 2 95% 90% 95% - - - AstraZeneca 2 62% ? - 60% - 64.2% AstraZeneca (½ + full dose) 2 90% ? - 90% - - J&J 1 66% 100% 72% - 57% 66% Novavax 2 - 100% - 89.3% 49.4% - Other Info VACCINE MODERNA PFIZER/BIONTECH ASTRAZENECA J&J NOVAVAX Type mRNA mRNA DNA/ Adenovirus DNA/ Adenovirus Protein Dose 2 2 2 1 2 Days between doses 28 21 28 - 21 Storage Temperature -20 o C