ALLIGATORS, MONARCH BUTTERFLIES, WHALE SHARKS AND BLUE WHALES

To start, a tidbit from OZY Sunday Magazine:

If the problem is the U.S. border with Mexico, is the solution an alligator-filled moat? In 2019, former President Donald Trump reportedly asked aides to explore that idea. In a response worthy of Jonathan Swift, defense strategist and author Peter W. Singer worked out the costs of replacing border fences with a moat filled with alligators and snakes. Spoiler alert: It’s surprisingly doable, costing $2.5 billion to acquire the reptiles and $1.8 billion a year to maintain them as a “border force.”

The Rio Grande is 1255 miles of the 1954-mile long U.S.-Mexico border. If Donald Trump had succeeded in totally building a wall at a projected cost of $20 million/mile, the cost would eventually have been $39 billion. He was planning, though, to only construct 576 miles at a cost of $11 billion, using the Rio Grande as part of his barrier, and some previous walls to suffice. Gobal warming has made it easier to cross the Rio now, so this gap is more and more becoming a viable entry. Maybe alligators might have been a good part of his more complete solution. Then again, that would be un-Biden-like today.

What's that graphic above? Must have represented other topics from OZY today.

The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico has declined by around 90% since a quarter century or so ago:

Here, a robot spy hummingbird filming half a billion monarch butterflies. Or, listen to the sound of millions of butterflies. Well, what did you expect? They mostly go to the Sierra Madre Mountains at an elevation of almost two miles high, near Mexico City. The temperature varies from freezing to 59F, so they need to bunch up at night to preserve heat.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) sponsors in collaboration tours to the site. They are now exactly 50 years old. The panda was modeled after Chi Chi of the London Zoo. You can also view a congregation of whale sharks off the Yucatan Peninsula or Baja for blue whales.

There are 119,000-238,000 whale sharks in our oceans, and their locations look similar to where the Blue Revolution will place future ocean cities, which of course will protect them and provide benefits. While many object to caging or keeping any animals, there are seven aquaria exhibiting whale sharks. My most recent stop in Okinawa included a tour to the Churaumi Aquarium, which hosts two of them.

At one time there were a quarter million blue whales, and their numbers have declined to from 19,000 to 25,000. They are the largest animals who have lived. While the largest dinosaur and largest blue whale were in the range of 110 feet (this remains contentious), the BLUE WHALE WEIGHED THREE TIMES MORE! A blue whale, which actually is grayish, can only be seen in the wild.

Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic is getting close to super hurricane strength. However, projections show gradual weakening and avoidance of landfall over the U.S. In any case, too early to tell for sure.

A more dangerous storm at this time is almost Super Typhoon Mindulle, now at close to 150 MPH, headed towards Japan:

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

THE FIRST 84 YEARS OF MY LIFE

The first half of my life was spent preparing myself for my final 42 years. This was a mostly trying and stressful period involving a less than ideal youth, then struggles to get through school, my first few jobs and accompanying life, ending two months later on a Sunday with Part 15E , so it was a spiritual conclusion to my final transition. I never did count the number of actual postings, but I suspect it was around 25 parts. The ending had to do with golf, the disappearance and re-appearance of an 8-iron cover. That was the final clue to whether the beyond after death would be eternal gloom or Heaven. Today, I provide only one transition, but hint about a final one, for this, after all, is Sunday. I'm 84 years old, so let me summarize what happened during the first phase, from 0-42, and follow with the years 42-84. As this is 2024, that key transition year was 1982. I can't seem to find this photo, but as a one-year old baby, I was fat....

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