WHAT IS A REPUBLICAN?

Remember the parable of the Blind Men and an Elephant? Well, the Republican Party is at a crucial crossroad about where they're headed.

First Republican presidential debate? Read this. And this.

Japan releasing nuclear contaminated wastewater into the Pacific? Read this. Dumping of radiated fluids will need to go on for the next forty or so years. International relationships? Totally screwed up. A quote:

Bob Richmond of the University of Hawaii (we are in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology), scientific advisor to the Pacific Island states, which like China and most countries are adamantly opposed, analogized that Japan's extensive monitoring plans do not actually mitigate health risks posed by duming the wastewater into the ocean:

Its' the same thing as saying, 'I'm going to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, but I'm not worried because I'm gonna get a chest X-ray every year. That's my monitoring program.' One you you get a lesion on your lung, and you don't say, 'Ok, I'm done smoking, I see the lesion. I'm going to quit.' You've got cancer.

So was Yevgeny Prigozhin assassinated by Putin? Of course. Is this ironically the beginning of the end of Putin? Probably yes.

This Forbes article is two years old, but now seems to be the time to keep blaming Donald Trump for what he has wrought. He is not on trial for this "crime," but the Trump administration is said to have killed more people than the total American deaths in WWI (53,402) and WWII (291,557), combined. This from the British Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health. Thus, nothing to be national politics. 40% of Covid-19-related deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented had the U.S. only had the same Covid-19 death rates as those of other Group of Seven (G7) nations. But going back 40 years, the gap between the USA and G7 countries has been growing anyway. It's just that during Trump's 4 years as president, he aggravated the decline through his misguided Covid Pandemic policies.

The range of Trump priorities, from a trillion-dollar tax cut for corporations and high-income individuals, followed by reductions in food subsidy and health care programs, to repealing environmental regulations to actions that left 2.3 million few people medically insured, had adverse impacts that hurt.

This last graph shows that life expectancy in the pro-Trump counties was 2 years shorter than counties where he was defeated. So, ironically, those who supported him suffered the most. In short, Trump's repudiation of science, disdain for wearing a mask and lack of clear messaging cost a lot of lives.

As you might know, he will be booked today at 7:30 PM EDT at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, paying a $200,000 bond. Terms will be set. What happens if Trump violates his bond conditions?

About a dozen of the 18 other co-defendants have already surrendered. A federal judge yesterday denied requests by Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark to delay their arrests. Meadows complied and was released after paying his $100,000 bond, and Clark will need to show up by noon tomorrow, with $100,000. Remember that March 2024 trial date previously announced? Well, that has now changed to October 23, 2023...for all of them. Looks like the Republican Party, after what happened at their first debate yesterday, is in real trouble.

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 suspicio...

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...

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...

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