But first, tidbits about Juneteenth ( today is a national holiday, and tomorrow will be the first day of summer ) and the Israel-Iran War. Time  magazine agrees with my  Tuesday posting  that, Juneteenth or not,  the struggle for civil rights still continues . President Donald Trump has said his decision to join Israel on strikes against Iran will wait for two weeks. He  says Iran needs some time to decide for itself if it really wants to be decimated .  Fat chance that they will agree to stop trying to become a nuclear power.  And, by the way, there are now nine of them:  US, Russia, China, France, UK, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea. The Gerald Ford Task Force has not left Norfolk, Virginia yet, and will probably arrive in the Mediterranean in just about two weeks. Trump seems to be facing some MAGA backlash.  Important elements don't want to join a foreign war.  Yet, most probably would also like to see Iran drop their nuclear...

The Norwegian Encore arrived in Southampton, UK.  The end of 35 days on the ship, which started in Seattle, went through the Panama Canal, then via Miami, all the way to England.  I will tomorrow provide a summary of our cruise. COVID-19 hasn't quite disappeared.   There were  45,737 new cases last week , with Russia #1 and the USA #2.  There were 363 deaths. However, an average of 389,000 die in the world from the  flu  each year.  That's 7481 deaths/week, 20 times higher than COVID-19 last week. Further,  coronary heart disease  kills 9 million.year.  Or 173,000 deaths/week. So COVID deaths are now very minimal. So while this pandemic was declared over a year and a half ago, it is still of some interest to peer into some of the more newsworthy aspects of this illness.  For example,  can a vaccine similar to that used for COVID-19 cure cancer?   For sure, people with pre-conditions who caught COVID-19 had a...

    From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):            DAY    USA    WORLD      Brazil      India      South Africa June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82 July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21      1225      6849         571     ...