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Sunday, July 19, 2026

Post #7773 Social Media Dgest

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Post #7772 M: Hegseth Announces Testosterone Tests & Vance Fixates on Biden’s Ice Cream Licking; Turn On The Taps; McClanahan on The Virginia Way

 Quote of the Day

He who is drowned 
is not troubled by the rain.
Chinese Proverb  

Hegseth Announces Testosterone Tests & Vance Fixates on Biden’s Ice Cream Licking

Turn On The Taps

McClanahan on The Virginia Way

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael DeAdder via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1964 Top 100 Hits 

Surfin’ Bird - Trashmen

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Saturday, July 18, 2026

Post #7771 J

 Endemic Report

The latest CDC stats:

It looks like CDC has reorganized its relevant webpages, consolidating respiratory illnesses.




The Sick Times:



We now see the clear shape of the summer surge, with testing and infections spreading across the South and up the West Coast, and a foothold in the Midwest. Probably the biggest news is post-pandemic audits, like the current British investigation into government waste. In the US, we see Congressional Republicans wanting to test Biden's pardon of Fauci, a focus on "vaccine injuries", and the Trump Pentagon continuing to focus on military amnesty for those who refused COVID shots.

COVID news items include:

Other Notes

The new normal of higher blog pageviews, if anything, has accelerated over the past week. I had a 3-day Texas trip to attend a niece's wedding in the Dallas area over the weekend; I brought my Chromebook, ,but for some reason I couldn't connect to the Hilton WIFI. (I did it on my Android cellphone.) So I largely depended on prescheduled posts. I still haven't written, let alone started, my latest essays since I returned on Sunday. X/Twitter continues to muddle on, roughly stabilizing my follower base. No recent viral posts. 

It was my first scheduled flight since I flew to San Antonio last summer for my late Mom's funeral mass. I had planned an earlier holiday trip on SWA a couple of years earlier, but I caught a vicious flu after a family visit to Cincinnati over Thanksgiving and canceled my reservation. SWA still owed several hundred dollars in credit, but they wanted like $1200 for a short-term reservation, and I took Spirit and Frontier instead for about half the fare. Spirit almost canceled my flight from Nashville, and Frontier lost my luggage.

I think I had to supplement my credit for the shorter round trip to Love Field. A few different things: SWA had since transitioned to assigned seating, no longer allowed one free suitcase, and of course, I remembered the security lines from the budget shutdown days.  My youngest sister wanted me to bring a backpack back with something she didn't trust to baggage (related to Mom's possessions). I think backpacks weren't a thing yet when I was in K-12. I was worried about compliance with SWA dimensions, but bought a good one from Amazon. I worried about SWA's obesity rules (buying 2 seats), but I'm literally the lightest I've been since my road warrior days as a consultant around the millennium. Gone are the embarrassing times I needed belt extenders. In fact, I could tighten my buckle a few inches. I think it was also the first time I resorted to boarding passes on a cellphone, delighted how it integrated with Google Wallet.

For the most part, TSA was less of a pain than usual. No longer shoe hassles and I didn't have to take off my belts (well, they started to in Dallas, but quickly amended it to say it was optional if your pants would drop). For some odd reason, they still wanted me to separate my empty leather cell phone holster with threaded loops from my belt.

I have 21 nephews and nieces (and 26, I think, grandnephews and grandnieces). This was the first niece/nephew's wedding I've attended. As an Oracle DBA for over 3 decades, I often have to work nights, weekends, and holidays. I got to meet 5 grandnieces and 5 grandnephews for the first time. I melted over 3 of them serving as flower girls. I got to see one of my nieces who is a PhD candidate in archeology at Berkeley; I had another 2 nephews who started for PhD's in engineering and meteorology, but stopped at their Master's. The bride niece was my third sister's only daughter, a forensic scientist working for the state of Texas; my sister, with education and library degrees, started her kids' given names ABCDEF, the first 5 all Eagle Scout sons.

I was mildly surprised to find my Catholic niece had joined her fiancé's Protestant church. I found the Baptist minister sitting next to me at the reception. I was praying my sister-in-law wouldn't mention her married gay son or her parish priest. It turned out the minister himself had a gay son.

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Post #7770 M: Trump’s New War with Iran, Lindsey Graham’s Sister Replacing Him; How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Mind?;

Quote of the Day

An educated man is 
one who knows a lot 
and says nothing about it.
Gracie Fields  

Trump’s New War with Iran, Lindsey Graham’s Sister Replacing Him 

How Much Control Do You Have Over Your Mind?


McClanahan on Young Washington

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of David Hrsey via Poliico

Musical Interlude: 1964 Top 100 Hits 

Ronnie - Four Seasons

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Friday, July 17, 2026

Post #7769 M: Trump's IndyCar Race, Lindsey Graham's Sis Successor & Toll War in Hormuz Strait; Stossel on Nuclear Power Is Back?; McClanahan on The Death of the 1990s GOP?

 Quote of the Day

You can't build a reputation on 
what you're going to do.
Henry Ford  

Trump's IndyCar Race, Lindsey Graham's Sis Successor & Toll War in Hormuz Strait |

Stossel on Nuclear Power Is Back?

McClanahan on The Death of the 1990s GOP?

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Margolis & Cox via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1964 Top 100 Hits

 It’s Over - Roy Orbison

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Thursday, July 16, 2026

Post #7768 M: Jon Stewart on Lindsey Graham's Death & America's Geriatric Political Class; Tom Woods: 11 Arguments Against Democratic Soclalism; How we took on the IRS…and WON

 Quote of the Day

It is impossible for a man to learn 
what he thinks he already knows.
Epictetus  

Jon Stewart on Lindsey Graham's Death & America's Geriatric Political Class

Tom Woods: 11 Arguments Against Democratic Socialism

 How we took on the IRS…and WON

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Political Cartoon


Courtesy of Pat Bagley via  Politico

Musical Interlude: 1964 Top 100 Hits

I Love You More And More Every Day - Al Martino

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Post #7767 M: Platner Calls It Quits in Maine Race & Trump’s Qatari Bribe Plane Gets Grounded; Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 22); Robert Reich's deceptive data tricks

 Quote of the Day

We have, I fear, confused power 
with greatness.
Stewart Udall 

Platner Calls It Quits in Maine Race & Trump’s Qatari Bribe Plane Gets Grounded

Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (Vol. 22)

Robert Reich's deceptive data tricks

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Matt Davies via Politico

Musical Interlude: 1964 Top 100 Hits

Anyone Who Had A Heart - Dionne Warwick

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