On this nostalgic Tuesday, I look back at my posting of 2012:   Kung Hee Fat Choy , which means Happy New Year.  I said: This is the year of the dragon, which is the most favorable, luckiest and revered zodiac sign.  Dragons are confident, generous, colorful, gifted and operate on a grand scale.  Hmm...no wonder I am a dragon.  Both  weddings and births will spike this year in the Orient .  We dragons, though, can be conceited, tactless, and solitary.   The more I look at the above, the more it makes sense, for I can be conceited, tactless and solitary.  I also said: There are, actually,  ten different dragons .  Twelve years ago it was metal and in 2024 it will be wood.  This year?  The  water dragon , something that won't happen again for 120 years.  The founders of  Blue Revolution Hawaii  have accepted the Blue Marine Dragon as our mascot . I showed a photo of the fireworks at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore: How old is China?  This posting mentioned above said:   In the West

Season 21 of American Idol has two weekends to go.  Last night three contestants were eliminated and now 5 remain.  The show also had a scoop of a lifetime, for on walk in King Charles III and Queen Camilla.  He was only crowned Saturday.    Lionel Richie and Katy Perry   had joined Nicole Scherzinger, Andrea Bocelli and others in just entertaining them.    Watch this all here .   One of the five finalists is Iam Tongi, a Kahuku High student from  Hawaii.  The next show will be on May 14 to whittle the number down to three for the final on Sunday, May 21. About the topic of today, here is a headline you might have missed...from the  United Nations : UN DESA Policy Brief No. 153:  India overtakes  China as the world’s most populous country Some time last month--can't find the exact day--both their population reached 1,427,775,850.  But India is growing, while China is declining. Both countries had close to 6 births/woman in 1970.  This number has dropped closer to 1 for China and 2

Sorry for being a little late today.  I went to Shimazu Shave Ice and had a Ling Hing Mui flavored shave ice, topped with condensed cream...for $7. Looking at the  Worldometer  data of yesterday, Japan remains #1 with 230,555 new cases.  The USA is #2 at 99,061.  The pandemic epicenter has shifted from Europe to Asia/Oceania.  Ranking of major countries in terms of new cases/million population: #1  Japan  1831 #2  Australia  1733 #3  South Korea 1660 #4  New Zealand  1579 #6  Singapore  1335 #7  Taiwan  974 #8  Italy  909 #9  Austria  831 #10  Germany  783 The average for the U.S is 296 new cases/million. Most think global warming is our biggest problem.  Over-population is also way up there as a concern.  According to the  United Nations, the World will hit a population of 8 billion on November 15 .  The World reached 7 billion in 2011. Our global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, increasing at a rate of less than one percent growth rate/year. Fertility in two-thir

Hurricane Ida was as fearsome as predicted, with more than a million in Louisiana without electricity, but, as of this morning, there has been only   one person reported killed , by a falling tree.  This number will no doubt increase as the search begins, but Hurricane Katrina had 1833 deaths. The good news of the day is that  some doubt has been cast on the Israeli report  that vaccine immunity is waning, maybe dropping to as low as 39% from the original mid-nineties.  While there is no doubt that more vaccinated people are today getting sick from the Delta-variant, that could well be because they are taking more chances through travel and so on, and the actual immunity might still be quite high.  In any case, these individuals who do get sick, all tend to live with mostly mild symptoms.   There is a growing sense that booster shots might not be necessary at this time, and the more sensible policy would be to first vaccinate the world, invoke more vaccine mandates and accelerate the