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WSJ rankings show Salt Lake City, Atlanta and Minneapolis all Delta hubs as the best on time airports in the US. For reaching the most destinations Dallas, Texas and Dulles in Virginia. The best small airport is Indianapolis.

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France per capital GDP $46000 compares to Mississippi's $55000- productivity and quality of life in the US vs France -healthcare, pharmaceutical, and vacation time, the serious drawbacks in the US. Lower taxes in the US yet the difference easily evaporating with expensive cost of healthcare and pharmaceuticals in the US, lack of maternity leave and health supporting vacation time.

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R.E.O. is lingo for "Real Estate Owned," the term for homes taken in by banks that are from foreclosures. Reomac is the industry group that specializes in the sales of such homes. And "REO tsunami" refers to the flood of some 700,000 bank properties now on the market nationwide. Therre were just 100,000 in 2006. In February, nearly 45% of the home sales natinwide were called short sales in which homeowners under duress sell a property for less than their mortgage, according to the National Associaiton of Realtors. These sales have worsened a natiowide decline in home values, as REO homes typically sell at a 20% discount. Reomac just held its 2009 conference at Palm Desert. The extravagance and the excess at the conference is amazing considering that the whole country is facing this crisis and California is one of the hardest hit states. From the way people are trying to get these properties one could not imagine that the rest of the country is going through a crisis, and millions in developing countries might at this very moment be plunged below the poverty line!...

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Norwegian skier Lie McGrath with father US alpine skierand Norwegian mother on Vermont ski team, does something unusual in the Olympics. After leading 0.59 seconds and in a good position for first in downhill skiing in slalom he goes all out but makes one error missing a tightly set gate, then decides to throw his poles, teke off his skiis and go into the woods. He says-

"I thought I would get some peace and quiet, which I didn’t because photographers and police found me out in the woods. I just needed some time for myself.”

McGrath is a 5 time World Cup winner in slalom. He had lost his grandfather just at the start of the games and was distraught. He just decided this was it after the slight error. The Gold, Silver or Bronze medal meant little by that time.

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WSJ Quiz on data centers- test your knowledge. Does China have the most data centers? No the US with 4000, followed by Britain with 515 and Germany with 500 showing that China is not in the AI craze the way the US is even though the idea of the US falling behind in AI is used to get trillions of dollars in AI funding. This only means infrastructure that is dilapidated and broken in the US will not be replaced, and that the US plan to reindustrialize to get jobs will lack funding as dollars are diverted from these essential and vital needs to AI. Eventually Asian countries with new infrastructure will find ways to get that US technology without having to pay for it. The American public will be paying for this AI craze. We at Lyrarc.com checked how many data centers China has built? The number is 250 data centers are operational and note this in the MIT Technology Review it says 80% of these data centers are not being used, there is 80% overcapacity in China. Because China's AI such as Deep Seek is designed so that it uses less computing power. What this means is that only the US will put over 3 times the combined data centers put in by China, UK and Germany for AI and US will put in 16 times the data centers China has put in. As China only needs or is using 20% of its 250 operational data centers or 50 data centers the US is putting in 80 times the data center capacity China is using in 2026. Why 80 times? Because China has a Plan and it can manage the supply to the need or demand. In the US each company is trying to put so many in so it can get the leadership position in the market. For example Amazon puts in $200 billion instead of the $100 billion it can afford simply to be in the leadership ranks. There is much wasteful spending in the US market system than China's coordinated effort in a new technology even though ideologues like to say the US system is superior, and a plan by the state is frowned upon in the US, costing the US dearly when it lost its entire manufacturing base to China while economists said everything was OK. Even the WSJ Quiz fails to ask the question we asked about China and how many data centers China has actually made operational, how much is overcapacity- 250 datacenters and 80% overcapacity. Showing how little the public knows and even WSJ has looked into, giving a few companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and others the freedom to spend in a reckless way so that future infrastructure investments and reindustrialization investments will be crowded out in the US economy. And economists as usual will say its OK. ...

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Britain's trains on time record beats Germany's- it is at 98% during the coronavirus time. With about one tenth of the passengers as reopening happens gradually. The Deutsche Bahn German train system is suffering from a lack of investment, neglect of infrastructure. Britain's needs an update too, but the Deutsche Bahn has taken a sharp turn for the worse in recent years. The German government is shifting its attention away from protecting the auto industry to investing in infrastructure in its new $130 billion investment initiative to tackle the upheaval of digitisation, climate change, and decaying infrastructure. 

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U.S. gasoline prices at the pump drop below $3.00 in November 2014.

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For the first time deaths in Britain from coronavirus exceed 100,000. Deaths reached 103,602 on January 27, 2021, with all of the UK in lockdown again. Britain now has the highest coronavirus deaths per million population in the world. Analysis in The Times looks at what went wrong.

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This article in the Los Angeles Times "Shifting tides for Obama in 2012" puts things in perspective for the situation Biden faces in the 2024 campaign.  The LA Times points out in its report by David Lauter October 30, 2011, that among white working class voters the defeat Obama experienced in 2008 will turn into a rout in 2012. It says the rising racial diversity and increase in college graduates were only two factors helping Obama and this also was in doubt in 2012. The 2009 financial crisis had led to high unemployment and poverty among Hispanic households and also affected black people. The soured economy put Obama at risk in 2012. The rout among white working class voters for Obama in 2012 turned into a complete rout for Clinton in 2016. The Obama coalition looks like a one time affair and an aberration in America where white non college graduates almost all vote Republican. By putting white working class and factory voters firmly in the Democrats camp as they were for the last century and building a strong economy and manufacturing Biden now brings back the America of TR, Wilson, FDR, Truman and Eisenhower. By putting the struggle to improve the lives of working people at the heart of the democratic process Biden is rebuilding the America that transformed a less developed agricultural nation into a modern industrial economy. ...

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The steep decline in popularity of French president Emmanuel Macron in the period of one year. With the yellow vest protests on the economic insecurity of struggling families, Macron's efforts to bring in business friendly policies as a change agent are itself out of step with the times and with France in the provinces and small towns, as pointed out in the New York Times and Times of London analysis of the situation in France today.

As pointed out in the analysis Macron's base itself is small and its anti-institutional posture rejecting conventional politics itself has given momentum to the current yellow vest protests about economic insecurity of struggling families. The support for this comes from all parts of society and single political party, without nationalism, race or migration as factors at all, and comes so soon in one year from the time that Macron emerged with his own movement rejecting the institutional structure.  

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Times of London View in 2025- Labour would be wise to follow Merz of Germany's approach to illegal migrants and Farage's proposals need a hearing even if with a pinch of salt. Labour says The Times of London would be wise to take the get-tough approach of Germany's Merz.

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Jill Biden regrets getting Biden to run for a second term in her Memoir. Jill is cited in WSJ as telling NBC - "As I look back, would I want to put Joe through the hurt and the pain that we felt during that time? Never. Never." Jill also faults Harris for seeking an immediate endorsement from Biden. WSJ says it had said at the time that the best way for the country and for Democrats was to let the Convention pick the nominee by competitive party convention.

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"The negotiations are proceeding in an orderly and constructive manner. Time is on our side."

On the US blockade of Iranian ports- "will remain in full force and effect" until an agreement is reached and signed.

"Both sides must take their time and get it right. There can be no mistakes!"  "The US-Iran relationship is becoming "much more professional and productive."

DJT stressed that Iran must know "They cannot develop or procure a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb."

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This report in The Times cites David Stockman, Reagan's budget director, saying afterwards that the Reagan tax cuts were a Trojan horse for getting tax cuts to the rich. The Reagan cuts says The Times did not work and led to huge deficits. Liz Truss's new budget with tax cuts is seen as a policy failure at a time of cost of living crisis for most people in the UK.

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Nutrition plays a big part in sleep. More fruits and vegetables, legumes, grains, fish in the diet helps sleep by supplying melatonin. Increases supply of the essential amino acid tryptophan. This includes dairy foods. Tryptophan is a precursor of serotonin which converts into melatonin. This needs to be eaten with high fibre diet as a legume or  grain so it is digested properly. Lower inflammation levels improve sleep quality and plant based foods lower inflammation. High fibre helps as a healthy gut is beneficial for sleep. 

Consistent eating times, separation between day and night so that the biggest calories are taken earlier in the day with a good breakfast in the bright daylight hours, and the night meal taken early a few hours before sleep. This sends signals that the body is winding down to sleep and get the body ready to sleep.

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This report in The Times shows the need to counter misinformation in parts of the media about vaccines. Inadvertently or through a poor comprehension of the data, German media reports in Handelsblatt and the Bild have stated that vaccine effectiveness for older people is 8%. Here in The Times of London, Oxford University and Astra Zeneca point out that the 8% figure is for the number of people in the trials who were given the vaccine in the age group 56-70 years. This does not refer to how effective the vaccines were in older people.  The first dose increases monoclonal antibodies for people of all ages, say Astra Zeneca and Oxford. We are now beyond trials in a sense today as Israel has vaccinated large parts of the population and the UK, India are vaccinating millions of British and Indian citizens. Israeli reports from one of the major medical centres show that the second dose increases monoclonal antibodies by multiple times and provides effective protection. As British data is available from medical research institutions from the vaccination drive in Britain, and from India, the effectiveness of the vaccines used in Britain and India will be shown more clearly. India today has used a package with near 100% compliance to tackle the virus relatively effectively by combining safety protocols (masks+ social distancing+ hygiene) with nutritional, medicinal protocols, restricted overseas flights. Cases are down to 13,000 for 1.2 billion people, with positivity rate in testing down to 1.66%. One readers comment in The Times says a lot- She says her 79 year old Irish mother was given the vaccine today in Coventry, England. She was given the Astra Zeneca Oxford vaccine jab by a British Asian doctor who took the time to talk to her, and listened to her and thanked her for her service as a midwife for 40 years. That these few minutes were the happiest time in 10 months for her mother. It also showed she says the very best of this country.   ...