WHY ARE WE HERE? WHERE WILL WE GO?

Day 2 of Why are we here? / Where will we go?  Why did I choose this title?  WaWH?WwWG? is a spinoff from Saving Planet Earth and Humanity, a blog site originally dedicated to renewable energy and and the environment.  Over the more than a dozen years of daily reportage, the focus broadened to include topical subjects of the day, including my travels and cuisine.  SPEaH will continue to operate into the foreseeable future, but soon shift to providing drafts of future books I'm contemplating, plus assorted items to entertain and please.

Note that I dedicated SPEaH to this self-appointed person, me, to save planet earth and humanity.  Not only technologically, but in every other goal, like world peace.  After all, my very first article for The Huffington Post on 29 May 2008--Well, Barack, We have a Problem...--was on world peace.  To quote:

Understanding that, you and you alone can immediately orchestrate a global Manhattan/Apollo effort to minimize the coming pain. We need to spend a trillion dollars over the next few years to stimulate industry to help us remediate the almost certain crisis. This is only a fraction of what we will squander on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so the numbers are tolerable to take on this gallant mission.

So where do you find this kind of money? Ah, the Defense budget. You go to your very first G8 Nations Summit, by your declared emergency to be held at United Nations headquarters in New York City, and pronounce a Gorbachev-like bombshell: our country will reduce military spending by 10% this year, and will continue to do so for the next eight years. This scenario is described on page 65 of my Book 2. You say, we want every country to do the same, for this 10% solution is our best response to Peak Oil and Global Warming. At this stage, keep quiet about the “ending wars forever” part, as then, no one will take you too seriously.

WaWH?/WwWG? will attempt to shift the burden of responsibility from me to both of us.  All these years taught me that I wasn't making any difference in remediating global warming or attaining world peace.  Perhaps together, we can go further.

Well, the USA finally reached 200,00 deaths, at last look now up to 204,502.  

• That is 623 deaths per million people.  
• The World average is 128/million.  
• So our USA death rate is five times worse than the World.  
• China experienced 3 deaths/million.  Thus the USA is 208 times worse than China.
• Japan:  12
• South Korea:  8
• Singapore:  5
• Many African countries are also at this low level
• Could be true, for there could have been a strain of coronavirus cold/flu that swept through those countries.
• But you got to also wonder about their reporting accuracy.
• And are India at 64 and Bangladesh at 30 death rates meaningful?

• 
  Mind you, there are worse countries:
• Peru:  952
• Belgium:  858
• Spain:  656
• Brazil:  645
• Chile:  642
• Bolivia:  641
• Something terrible went wrong in South America.

The U.S. new death rates are now decreasing.  But The New York Times just reported this today, suggesting that the next wave is happening, as has already occurred in Europe:

The topic of the day was addressed in my 19 September 2020 posting:

     Will Ruth Bader Ginsburg be replaced on the Supreme Court this year?

Three days later, developments have reinforced my contention then:

Forget what Republicans said in the past, the odds are high that there will a Trump nominee in our highest court by the end of the year.  

President Donald Trump said he will name his nominee on Saturday.  All the media indicate that this person will be Amy Coney Barrett (left), who if she is affirmed, will give the Republicans a huge anti-abortion victory.  Obama-care will also be set aside.

On the other hand, Barbara Lagoa (right) is an intriguing prospect, for she is the daughter of Cuban immigrants living in Florida.  For the first time, there will be more Hispanic than African-American votes on November 3.  Trump absolutely needs Florida to beat Biden.  

Here is my current take on how and why this will occur:

• Unless there is some incredible thunderbolt issue, the overriding factor is that there is no way for Democrats to derail the process.
• The key difference then and now is that in 2016 there was a Democratic president and a Republican senate.  Today, there is a clear path, for both the White House and Senate are in Republican control.  

• 
  Forget previous promises and so-called precedents.  The only question is whether the Senate vote will occur before November 3 or in the lame duck session.
• The actual vote will probably occur before November 3 because the way the votes are today going, Republicans can protect three challenged Senators running for re-election.  If these three win, there is no way Democrats can take over the Senate.  But if things change, they can still vote after November 3 and before January 3.

• 
  Note there is a difference in who is in office and when.  The new Congress must convene on January 3.  The current President stays in office until January 22.
• How does the Supreme Court brouhaha affect Donald Trump?  Whether before or after November 3, Trump will lose more votes than not.  The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg probably sealed a victory for Joe Biden.

Why am I so confident of the above?  Well, for one, my predictions are iffy anyway, so don't go by what I say in this blog site.  I'm just expressing an opinion.  But come back in mid-November and see how close I was to reality.

My 99th favorite song came from the following list of some more recent performances:

• Rolling in the Deep   Adele
• O Mio Bambino   Jackie Evanko
• I Gotta Feeling   Black Eyed Peas
• Moves Like Jagger   Maroon 5 with Christina Aguilera
• Gangnam Style  Psy
• Blurred Lines   Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams
• Uptown Funk   Mark Ronson with Bruno Mars (this is a better version)
• Despacito Remix   Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber  (the beat)
• Shallow   Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
• Old Town Road Remix   Lis Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus
• Baby Shark Dance   Pinkfong, a South Korea educational entertainment company
• Girl on Fire  Alicia Keys

Rolling Stone had a list of the 100 top songs of this 21st century, I hardly recognized any, and Rolling in the Deep was the only one in the top ten, so I'm certainly not the best judge of contemporary tunes.  Similarly, Honolulu magazine had a top 25 list of Hawaiian music, and nothing in that list sounded familiar.

You Tube compiles the most watched, and it is amazing that South Korea has two of the top four:

• #1  Despacito   just at 7 billion
• #2  Baby Shark Dance  right behind at 6.6 billion
• #6  Uptown Funk  4 billion
• #8  Gangnam Style  3.79 billion, but first song to reach 1 billion

Then, too, because of this pandemic, there have been numerous mashups and remixes.  Here is one coronavirus list of 40.  One example is by Queen and Adam Lambert.  Here is another from around the world.  Randy Rainbow on Trump and clorox.  Also too, not music, but efforts like The Daily Show providing sarcasm and cheeky tongue.  Then, everything I need to know to survive COVID-19 I learned by watching sci-fi and horror movies.

But about my favorite, I was leaning towards Uptown Funk, especially with all those dancing enhancements, but if I had to pick one, #99 is Girl on Fire, not by Alicia Keys, but 9-year Angelica Hale, from her America's Got Talent audition.  By the way, the final night of AGT, with 10 survivors, is tonight on NBC.  Results will be announced Wednesday night, from 7-10PM, with an hour of preview, followed by a lot of guests.

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