We bring you the new grim pandemic future, we fly to London with miles, the best money truths, the depressing opioid epidemic, the miles promotions for buying groceries, more online shopping miles promotions, the best COVID-19 coverage, the best photography, we travel to many places, we take some shots against the US Prez who has not resigned for killing almost 150,000 of our fellow citizens, and lots more very important stuff I share with you without ANY clickbait shit like stupid videos of people fighting in airports or over masks that are ONLY designed to bring in the clicks so they can make more money off of them….STOP CLICKING CLICKBAIT SHIT, JUST STAY AWAY, thank you for doing your part to keep the internet free of pollution, every little bit helps!
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BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT
I am sticking with posting only on Thursdays this month…Where we go in August I don’t know, seriously! I guess I will figure it out over the next week.
For time-sensitive content that can not wait until next Thursday, I will add it here throughout the next week and add NEW in the front of it.
There is a lot to unpack here. Enjoy learning and having fun with these curated links and always eclectic commentary 🙂
Appreciate you passing a link to my blog to someone you love if you think they will enjoy it as much as you.
Best read in this post is this one about the history of mining in what is now Kosovo that has evolved to, please sit down, cryptomining! I bring you stuff you won’t find anywhere else, enjoy!
Electric Crypto Balkan Acid Test
COVID-19
We all know Dr. Fauci of course. But we will now learn more about his boss in this fantastic interview: A Long Talk With Anthony Fauci’s Boss About the Pandemic, Vaccines, and Faith. Yeah, must read, I don’t do stupid clickbait headline crap in my blog. I certainly feel much better after reading this and you will too. No excerpts, read the whole thing, really! And in the end it turns a little strange and even more interesting as the interview revolves around his Christian faith and how that interacts with science, you won’t believe what happens next! 🙂
I am on a roll today with must read/click stuff. Hey, I stick with the mission of the blog for almost 8 years and dwindling conversions, sad lol! A new Bill Gates interview, click it! How the pandemic will shape the near future.
With the body bags piling up in the US where almost everywhere around the world every country it appears has controlled the pandemic, you know where I am going with this: Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus. More on Dr. Birx in this piece. Sad to see that history will not be kind to her too.
Let’s look at How does mortality differ across countries? Hey, San Marino and Andorra beats us here in the US, sad covfefe!
Funny how citizens in Barcelona last summer were all like “Go home tourists” while this year they are kind of hanging on for dear life economically speaking without them: How coronavirus is reshaping Europe’s tourism hotspots. The collapse of visitor numbers amid the pandemic offers cities a new opportunity to rethink their business model. Speaking about holding on for dear life…actually, starving over in Thailand: Deserted beaches, empty bars: Covid-19 devastates Thailand’s tourist islands. I understand people need to eat, believe me. But until we defeat the virus and all fear is gone…it may be tough for some people to hang on! Be grateful and please help out in any way you can!
We did have some encouraging news in the vaccine front but…we have a long way to go. We’ll get there…eventually: Oxford coronavirus vaccine safe and promising, according to early human trial results published in the Lancet. What if the Chinese get there first you guys? The conspiracy freaks will go even more bonkers!
I am with the scientists on this one…hoping to add another awesome looking chart like the one shown below in this article: Our history is a battle against the microbes: we lost terribly before science, public health, and vaccines allowed us to protect ourselves.
I think Iran will be the first country to hit herd immunity if it keeps this up: Iran estimates up to 25 million virus cases since outbreak. Are the clerics preparing to come out with the real numbers?
You know, we could have been…Taiwan? How Taiwan beat the coronavirus. The one time we needed government leadership we got the worst person alive leading the US! Elections have consequences I guess. Oh, Taiwan has 451 cases and 7 body bags. IN TOTAL! That is like downtown Miami in a hot summer July day smh.
Even Bahamas said never mind! American tourists barred from entering Bahamas due to COVID-19 cases; other countries still allowed. I can’t even drive to Canada a short drive away from my house!
This is a short and devastating read by a doctor: The New Stability. I felt it…and I had to sit down, it starts out like this below and just gets harder until the end…
Before I become your doctor, you have been intubated for weeks. I am a point in time, unattached to the greater narrative. I call your husband each afternoon, tell him you are stable. He asks about the medicine that props up your blood pressure. He calls it the levo, acquainted by now with the slang of intensive care. It’s true, we have pressors to assist your failing heart, a ventilator to breathe for you, venovenous hemofiltration to do the work of your kidneys. “Your wife is very sick,” I say, “but stably sick.” None of this is anything new.
In case you are more patient than me: How to talk to conspiracy theorists – and still be kind. Number 1 is to always, always speak respectfully. I gave up right there lol.
You want to laugh? Here you go: John Oliver examines coronavirus conspiracy theories.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: For a standard workhorse card I recommend the 60k Chase Sapphire Preferred card. For a standard premium card I recommend the 50k Chase Sapphire Reserve card. For a standard 2% cash back card I recommend the Citi Double Cash card. Available with my links.
This miles and points hobby is so boring these days that we start off my weekly post with this: United/Alaska/Southwest Shopping Portal: Get Up To 2,500 Bonus Miles Per Airline.
This is a really good post by DansDeals. A Deep Dive Into The Best Way To Use Miles To Fly American Or British Airways Between The US And London. One of these years Dan will link to my blog and I will be on my way to Titanhood….still waiting almost eight years.
I saw other bloggers pumping it like crazy so I thought I should mention it here that the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card for 100,000 Marriott Bonvoy points is available with my links, thank you for supporting this blog.
That was fast! Confirmed: Alaska Airlines Joins Oneworld By Year End. I guess when you have so many employees on payroll not doing much these days…might as well put them to work! Oh, and kiss those Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan sweet spots goodbye soon, so sad.
TRAVEL
Great trip report and photos: Ayubowan from Sri Lanka (with a side of Dubai).
Just in case you go one day: 12 Very Useful Things to Know Before You Travel to Bolivia. I always thought the salt desert looks unbelievable!
An amazing photo of Meteora, Greece that went viral in Instagram.
For the aviation geeks I bring you this: Why You Couldn’t Afford To Fly the Concorde.
You will not believe where this city in China is built, wow! Ville de Yanjingzhen, Province du Yunnan, Chine.
Location of American Burger Chains. Click to Enlarge if needed. We need more In-N-Out stores!
Very interesting:
This is kind of a sweet story: Meet the United States’s Only Female Lighthouse Keeper.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Ok, cheesy headline for sure but this is excellent! The 12 most overlooked truths of money and life ‘no one teaches you in school,’ says financial psychology expert. I sent it to my kids so maybe you should click it and read it, just saying.
And another must read, we all will need this one day! 7 Items Your Estate Plan May Have Left Out.
Germany has its Enron moment these days with the company Wirecard that someway somehow managed to make at least $2 billion disappear. And in the process its COO Jan Marsalek disappeared as well. And his case is a lot more complex it appears! World’s Most Wanted Man Jan Marsalek Located in Belarus; Data Points to Russian Intel Links.
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
You even got 27 countries coming together over in Europe, wow! EU leaders strike ‘historic’ $2 trillion deal to rebuild Europe’s economy. To the shock of many, Europe is still standing while the US dollar is going down the toilet.
RIP John Lewis, Towering Figure of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 80.
I could not resist, sorry: Donald Trump Is a Broken Man. This would only be true after the election results confirm it. This assumes he accepts them, you think he will?
There were certainly ugly elements on the American right during the Reagan presidency, and Reagan himself was not without flaws. But as president, he set the tone, and the tone was optimism, courtliness and elegance, joie de vivre. He has since been replaced by the crudest and cruelest man ever to be president. But not just that. One senses in Donald Trump no joy, no delight, no laughter. All the emotions that drive him are negative. There is something repugnant about Trump, yes, but there is also something quite sad about the man. He is a damaged soul.
Recall how he answered the last question by Fox News journalist Chris Wallace how he would like to be remembered. And he went on and on whining how he is not liked. And you guys thought I whine a lot, bwahahahaha!
I passed the CPA and the CFP exam the first time while the Prez brags about this smh. This is the first time I brag about this in my blog 🙂 The US Prez also said this lol: “We won two world wars. Beautiful world wars. That were vicious and horrible.” Sometimes I feel like we are all living in a parallel universe, in an alternate reality…
ODDZ & ENDZ
In my blog mission, I include to “inspire you”. Well, here we go: “This is one of those gestures that a person remembers for the rest of their life“. Let’s cry together (but in a socially distant way, thanks!).
This will blow you away, WOW! Jaw Dropping Footage from Mars Rovers Rendered in Stunning 4K.
Be careful out there! Hundreds of hyperpartisan sites are masquerading as local news. This map shows if there’s one near you.
I found myself very sad watching this: The Top Trending Google Searches in Every US State Throughout the 2010s.
What Bird Are You Like? Your humble blogger is a Blue Jay which is supposed to be like this: “You combine brains, beauty, and loyalty to family and friends. Quick to anger when you feel threatened, you also have a sense of humor. Adaptable and unpredictable, you enjoy a wide variety of foods and communicate well both vocally and with body language“. Dang…fairly accurate, not sure about the beauty part though lol.
Wow, thirty years later this guy remembers what it was like: I was Saddam’s prisoner.
Another fascinating read. About the history of Nestle and its Nespresso coffee: How Nespresso’s coffee revolution got ground down.
Best photography link I posted here in a long time! Winners of International Photo Contest Celebrate the Art of Movement. I think I am in love with this pic below, WOW!
The French and Greeks are in extreme ends of this: Where babies are born outside of marriage.
Just devastating: The Spiraling Opioid Epidemic in America.
Love learning new stuff. In little info nuggets. Or in tweets lol! 30 Random Things Twitter Told Us That We Should Have Learned In School.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
Maybe warnings to readers not to mess with the AMEX Rats would be a lot more useful. This is true for all miles and points blogs! The ones that are still left I mean. Data Points on GC Purchases Using Credit Card Grocery Purchase Promotions.
The days are passing even faster now, we are almost into August! Missing travel and adjusting to this new reality. I haven’t checked my miles and points balances in Award Wallet in weeks. I don’t remember the last time I got me a credit card for the signing bonus. I don’t really care about this hobby anymore. Trying to fit in a trip to the Michigan UP but…the dates do not line up so we can all make it. Daughter along with myself (the mover) will need to quarantine ourselves for two weeks before she moves into her dorm room in the University of Michigan. While the Ann Arbor public schools she just graduated from announced the school year will start remotely…
Conversions have dried up in my site. My current thinking is to go on a little longer, perhaps have another blog anniversary (year 8) and then stop posting regularly and instead whenever I feel like it, something I should have done many years ago. When I do that…the whining will stop. I guess I was not born to be a Titan blogger. 🙂
You KNOW bloggers would sell the crap out of this credit card if it paid a sales commission! I would rather eat durian before I get so pathetically low. How do people eat durian is beyond me…and some like it even #barf!
Remember the good old days when we could buy tons of dollar coins straight from the US Mint for free with our travel rewards credit cards? Maybe those days will be back #dreaming.
I went to the dentist for the first time in post virus times. It was weird. The dental hygienist was as always super chatty and sometimes I felt like telling her “Sue just stop”! If someone in that office has the virus there is no way in hell somebody will not catch it too. I was also referred for a root canal, first one in many many years. I remember when I had one it was done by Dr. Fear. Not joking, that was his real name!
You probably remember the band Rage Against The Machine. I hear they are reuniting and will go on tour. Well, maybe next year because #corona. They had a famous song “Killing in the name of”. And this cover by “Audrey” will make you smile #toocute
And I leave you with this…
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That is a guard dog!
Thanks for the links. Off to see the doctor on Monday to see whether all the vaccines I had for the aborted trip to Japan will do anything for the immunity that the MMR vaccine seems to do.
Silver! Great links George. I’m with you on the lack of patience to talk to Covidiots.
Regarding our dear leader, how awesome was when Wallace ridiculed him. Brilliant.
One thing for sure I will change in August.
Post on Friday mornings instead of Thursday evenings!
If a TBB reader can not repeat five words in a row (like person, woman, man, camera, TV) please leave immediately!
Perhaps you can post 1 less time per week too!
I think you are telling me to stop, thank you for taking the time to contribute.
no problemo, Amigo
I’ve avoided going to the dentist. I feel more comfortable going to a doctor. Waiting until cases go in the right direction.
Nice to see UK removed from the babies born outside marriage table. Glad that drama is over.
Marriott/Chase off is nice… but 5/24.
“The CDC has changed their recommendation to now say to just send your kids to school.”
Why does this agency still exist? It failed at developing a test and contact tracing. In the future, it must NOT report to HHS & the president.
I’m getting more concerned about US-China tensions. DJT spent 1-2 years talking about an agreement being just around the corner. Now he’s targeting Chinese-American scientists more and more. This could have been resolved a long time ago. 4 more years of this…
Yeah, extremely disappointed by the CDC, wow.
Hopefully not 4 more years of this insane lethal incompetence we are all living through. These assholes are wagging the dog…aiming to find someone to blame non stop, the Chinese (he called it the China virus again) are always there to take shots of course while at the same time trying to get a deal going (WTF!), the cities run by liberal Democrats needing help (lol!), the Europeans taking advantage of us, the rapist Mexicans overrunning our border, I mean…this shit is endless. No coherence on anything, just pure racist horrific cruelty. I mean, it took over 140,000 deaths for the phucking moron to say to wear masks! Kind of late for the Kevins and Karens out there to make this public health issue a partisan matter…again.
We need normalcy to return. Biden is the choice. Anything but another 4 years.
I never felt better than my second passport than these days!
Hey TBB – I’m glad you’re continuing to fight the good fight, even if only once a week. Thanks for linking to our blog post about DPs on the credit card grocery promotions. We posted an update this morning. Short version is that we actually received the Marriott points from grocery spend on our Amex Marriott Bonvoy card and we still didn’t receive any points for grocery spend on our Amex Hilton card. Have a great weekend! ~Craig
I guess we’ll no longer be going Krogering with our Amex Hilton cards 🙂
It appears my credit card links may have been terminated. Unless it is a tech glitch…
The end is near….er.
If they got rid of your links they probably got rid of TPG’s too.
In Titan lingo…I am touched 🙂
#WuhanDeathVirus
https://youtu.be/Dy4HA3vUv2c
#TBBon
Thanks for continuing to post once a week. You always find some interesting items that I don’t see elsewhere.
These diversions are particularly sweet during the months of lockdown ennui, which apparently will be ongoing if Karens/Kens continue to believe that only their lives matter. Next up: they’ll refuse a covid vaccine too. Really sad that in my state many of us have been staying incessantly at home, waiting for the statistical break to finally free us, but certain cultists have refused to so much as wear a simple mask–which effectively has made all of our quarantining sacrifices moot.
So this is one vote for you to keep posting, Buzz…you are perhaps needed now more than ever.
Wait, you are saying that it is not going to magically disappear? Fake News!
Sadly not…4 million. It took just two weeks to go from 3 to 4 million.
Read an article today about Taiwan…455 cases and 7 deaths. IN TOTAL. My God….how far we have fallen. And there are humans out there believing this guy who brags about stringing along 5 words in a row…
We are living the greatest American tragedy…I expect a lot more crazy shit to happen….friend’s daughter got tested and got the results after, please sit down, 19 days. WHAT A PATHETIC JOKE!
The credit card links were down for hours…thought they finally canned me.
But they are back now…weird.
Anyone see what happened to Garmin, the watch and app I use for running…be careful out there folks!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/tech/garmin-ransomware-attack/index.html
Keep this in mind next time you consider investing in biotech stocks
“ A NYT investigation found a pattern of insiders at biotech companies selling shares shortly after announcing incremental progress on coronavirus vaccines. When their stock prices jumped, they sold $1 billion+ of stock. In June, the biotech company Vaxart gave stock options to its CEO and agreed to let its top shareholder quickly buy and sell its shares.
Weeks later, Vaxart said it was selected for Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine initiative. Its shares instantly doubled.
The CEO’s stock awards went from $4m to $28m. Vaxart’s top shareholder immediately sold all its shares, netting $200m of profits.
HHS tells us Vaxart’s Warp Speed work is confined to a single monkey trial. “
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/25/business/coronavirus-vaccine-profits-vaxart.html
I think investigative journalists (financial) at NYT will be very busy. Nikola next?
We’ll be hearing more stories like these for a long time…
Shocked…nope!
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/biopharma-nanoviricides-sees-stock-soar-on-coronavirus-claims.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain
I have 17 links in the queue lined up for the next post on Thursday next week…
I have a problem.
Hi, I am George and I am a blogaholic…
Was bored…just burned Chase UR points to pay for a couple of hundred dollars of grocery/dining charges…
Zzzzzzzz
Deleted another one…maybe I am just the type of blogger who will allow stuff like this, smh
——————–
Hi George,
I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll be brief. I’m reaching out to you today to see if you’re interested in receiving a new and timely article for publication on your website, travelbloggerbuzz.com?
The piece will reference one of our clients, but we work hard to make the content valuable and relevant to your audience. We want it to be worthwhile for you as well, which is why we’re willing to pay you $100 for your time and effort. Payment is made through PayPal.
Can we send you a draft, George? Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. We want this process to be a win-win!
Hope to hear from you soon,
Elise
Never miss an opportunity to exploit a pandemic “ COVID-19 Vaccine Drama in Development at HBO”.
Waiting for Contagion 2 next 🙂
Have you reinforced the TBB servers in anticipation of the deluge of mouth breathers no longer allowed to wax poetic on the Algonquin round table of the TPG comment section?
The hard working staff at TBB Headquarters are all in on going out to poach millions of TPG readers who were left voiceless. At last, the break we needed over here!
P.S. Sam is still #1…as in, the only one with a cc conversion this month 🙂