THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

Donald Trump met with President Joe Biden at the White House today. Four years ago, Trump was the first president in a long time not to have invited the incoming president.,,,Biden. Worse, Trump did not bother to show up for Joe's Inauguration, the first absentee outgoing president to do this since Andrew Johnson's skipped Ulysses Grant's 1869 swearing-in ceremony. Apparently all went well today.

Senate Republicans voted on their new majority leader and picked John Thune of South Dakota. John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida also ran. Mitch McConnell was the longest serving leader in Senate history. Scott was the only MAGA endorsed candidate, so Thune might not be what Trump will desire.

One significant change to be instituted by the re-elected President Donald Trump will be to create at least one new department to allow for only true loyalists to serve in his bureaucracy. This new one will be called the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by two billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The president has authority to do this, with limited oversight from Congress. But both houses will be Republican-controlled, so Trump will essentially go ahead and do whatever he wants.

Note that dog above. This is a Shiba Inu, a Japanese hunting dog. Doge is the acronym for the Department Of Government Efficiency, and also an internet meme of a Shiba Inu. Kabosu, a Shiba Inu dog, became famous through a blog site. Read the story of how dog was intentionally misspelled to doge, and how it became associated with Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency. Kabosu passed away in May of this year at the age of 18.

While the 53-year old Musk is the richest person in the world with a net worth of $263.8 billion, 39-year old Ramaswamy is only barely a billionaire. When Ramaswamy ran as a presidential candidate, he pledged to eliminate the FBI, Department of Education and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Well, back to our 31st day on the Norwegian Encore. Some photos, beginning with an earlier lunch on Day 29.

Dinner of Samosa, followed by a steak.

Walked 3134 steps on Day 29.

Day 30 at sea. Lunch

Dinner of shrimp, ziti, salad and pork scaloppini.

On to the Social Club for a 50's-60's hop.

Good walk day of 4853 steps.

Day 31 arrival and departure from La Coruna, Spain.

Lunch.

Soon after lunch, departure at 4PM. From our veranda, some photos. It was chilly.

Tomorrow, at-sea.

There are four ocean storms around the Philippines. The two more serious ones attained hurricane strength today. Typhoon Usagi already is already up to a Category 3 at 130 MPH. The track will skirt the north side of the country, then head for Taiwan.

Tropical Storm Man-Yi has been slowly heading towards the Philippines. However, Typhoon Man-Yi will tomorrow reach Category 2 strength, making landfall over the Philippines on Saturday, passing north of Manila, then head for China.

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

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 are held every five years, and there have only been

Search This Blog