IT HAS BEEN A FINE WEEK, INDEED

It was a discrepant, rainy and magical night in Paris for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympics. A 3.5 mile flotilla on the River Seine, carrying 10,500 athletes on 94 boats. Lady Gaga and Aya Nakamura performed. The whole spectacle ended on a high, with the lighting of a floating cauldron and a courageous tour de force of Celine Dione singing Edith Piaff's L'Hymne a L'amour.

There is a lot of history.

It was in Paris way back in 1783 that the very first flight took place, on a hot air balloon before King Louis XVI. On board were a sheep, a duck and a young rooster. They survived.
A few days later, Jacques Charles used a hydrogen-filled balloon from the same spot in the Jardin des Tuileries in front of 400,000 people.

The ballon is filled with hydrogen, but the cauldron is not a fossil-fuel flame. Electricity is fed to 40 LED spotlights to illuminate a cloud of water using 200 high-pressure misting nozzles...an electric flame.
From today, and every day from 11AM to 7PM, 10,000 visitors in 300 people batches, can approach the Cauldron, for free, with reservations. From sunset until 2AM, the Cauldron will be floated. It will continue to float for the Paralympic Games, which end on September 8.

There was one big boo-boo. Shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron declared the Games open, the five-ring Olympic flag was raised at the Trocadero, across from the Eiffel Tower...upside-down. There was another one, for South Korea was introduced as North Korea.

I tend to totally avoid public pools. A good reason is a report from The Wall Street Journal that Everyone Pees in an Olympic Pool.

Some of these downs continued today, for it continued to rain and a few events had to be cancelled or moved indoors. The good news is that the weather will improve from tomorrow.

Medals have already been awarded, with Australia and the USA in the lead with 5 each. 13 Gold medals have already been decided and 19 countries have won at least one.

AUS

USA

The Paris Olympics end on Sunday, August 11.

The final event will be the 9:30AM EDT Gold medal women's basketball game at Bercy Arena. The odds are overwhelming that the USA will be one of the contestants.
The Closing Ceremony will take place inside the Stade de France (where the track and field events take place), beginning at 2PM EDT.
Remember Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir? The were the closing couple for the Pyeong Chang, Tokyo and Beijing Olympics. Also moderating will be Mike Tirico, Jimmy Fallon and Terry Gannon.

But the best part of this week is that Democracy in America just might have been preserved. Two weeks ago, Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. He thus became the equivalent of a Savior. Took a whole week of resurrection for the Republican National Convention to officially name him as their candidate for president. Trump was triumphant, he looked like a shoo-in to become our next leader and I was despondent.

Then earlier this week on Sunday, President Joe Biden decided to abandon his campaign for president, endorsing Kamala Harris, and sparking what was the equivalent of a building miracle. Over the next few days, anyone of any importance, like the Obamas, personally affirmed that Harris was, indeed, the one. Early polls show that Harris caught up with Trump, and looks promising as the one to rescue Democracy from the almost sure dictatorship of King Donald. Republicans aren't sure what to do. The vice presidency selection will add further thrill to the Democratic team. It won't be a female. It will be a White governor or senator, and my sense is that either Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker will be chosen. Harris and Shapiro are both former attorney generals of their state, and have worked together for two decades. Should work well. I'm now back to being buoyant.

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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