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:

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

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 only couple in the history of this event who failed to drink bee

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