We all have had life-changing moments, and beginning tomorrow I will return to work for the rest of the year after 21 years of blissful retirement.  I will still board the Island Princess on 19January2022 to begin my world cruise. Some of my sudden past transitions include: Leaving Hawaii for the very first time in 1958 to begin college at Stanford University. Starting my academic life in 1972 at the University of Hawaii, where my presence in my office during the summer of next year will mean I will have been on the Manoa Campus for 50 years. I was, however, away once from 1979 to 1982 working for Senator Spark Matsunaga in DC, where I drafted the original legislation for hydrogen and ocean thermal energy conversion. So what is it that I will do for the next six months?  All that will unfold over the next few days in this blog. Today, I will focus on my final weekend of dabbling for the rest of the year, where I went out of my way to do what I have mostly been doing since I re...

   Here is a video sent to me hailing the incredibly quick development of the vaccine for COVID-19: How wonderful that while it took more than 3000 years for medical science to develop the vaccine for Small Pox and Polio, it took only  four months  to accomplish this task for COVID-19.  Watch that video. Well, I then thought something was missing.  On 7March2021 I had a posting entitled,  HOW EASILY WE FORGET .  To summarize: In the 1957-8 period, there was a pandemic from the H2N2 Asian Avian Flu. The origin was Guizhou, China, about 600 miles from Wuhan. Up to 4 million died ( note that COVID-19 has not quite reached 4 million yet ). The world population then was 2.9 billion, so on a per capita basis, that 4 million of today would be nearly 10.6 million.   It is reasonably safe to say that the total world deaths from COVID-19 will not reach that number when the pandemic is deemed over. The threat was to those UNDER 50 years of age. The...

For a very long time I have been lobbying the world to create an electronic universal passport for travel showing that you completed a COVID-19 vaccination series.  Alas, it is more and more appearing that we might well experience the mayhem of a different pass for just about every location on Planet Earth.  Wouldn't be surprised if a million types of systems appear over the next decade to confuse everyone and waste a lot of time and money. Of course there are concerns about sharing of personal and health data, but that is for something delicate and embarrassing.  Proof of COVID-19 security is something strategically necessary.  Sometimes Big Brother can be a helpful sibling. This nonsense of protecting individual freedom makes no sense.  Show of proof for travel is not new.  First, you need a passport anyway.  Then for some countries you must have a certificate indicating you have been vaccinated to prevent the spread of yellow fever.   To b...

    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        703   ...

    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        703   ...

  First, noteworthy topics of the day that will become newsworthy: The  Supreme Court  announced a unanimous ruling that, while very narrow in application, opened the floodgates for college student-athletes getting paid like professionals.  Essentially, the NCAA was admonished.  States like Alabama, Florida and Texas are close to allowing students to sign endorsements, etc. Medicaid membership is now up to 80 million, a record high. The Democrats won over Senator Joe Manchin, but need to also convince ten Republicans to pass the  voting rights legislation .  It will, of course, fail, but that was expected anyway, and will only further plague Republicans when they re-run for election in 2022. The Tokyo Summer Olympics begin in about a month, and will close on 8 August 2021.  More than 11,000 athletes will perform from 205 nations in 33 sports and 50 disciplines. Tokyo beat Istanbul to host. It's still officially called the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic...