From the New York Times this morning: The Pfizer and Moderna shots  appear to work against the variants  found in New York, Britain and South Africa. Women in the U.S. are getting vaccinated  at a higher rate than men . The Senate passed a bill to help law enforcement agencies  review hate crimes against Asian-Americans . The House voted along party lines to  grant statehood to Washington, D.C. , a Democratic priority that faces obstacles in the Senate. Is this another Democratic ploy for something that just will not happen?  What about global warming, gun control, minimum wage and whole slew of other liberal dreams?  No way because of something called a filibuster in the U.S. Senate.  But it only takes a majority vote to abolish filibuster.  Why not? This is easier said than understood, but: The nuclear option leverages the fact that a new precedent can be created by a senator raising a point of order, or claiming that a Senate rule is being violated. If the presiding officer (typica

Let me start with a summary of how the USA is doing with this pandemic.  The following graphics from the New York Times this morning.  We are next to the UK in vaccinations: Why is Japan so laggard, and especially so with the Summer Olympics nearing?  One key factor is that only 30% of citizens think these vaccines are safe !!! New Deaths/Day are dropping and Cases/Day have reached a lower plateau in the U.S.: Tomorrow I'll delve into the matter of communities, like Hawaii, needing to adjust targets to continue re-opening the economy.  While the number of new cases/day has risen a bit, the new deaths/day and hospital occupancy rate are continuing to decrease.  The matter of getting infected today is not necessarily a key factor because most of them are younger people who have one percent the morbidity of elders .  Most of these older people have been vaccinated and are safe.  The herd immunity percentage is increasing and the positivity, while still high, has become dismissible as