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.

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...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

THE BULLET TRAIN

Japan had the first bullet train more than 60 years ago. It was 10October1964, when the opening ceremony was held in Tokyo in anticipation of Japan's first-ever Olympic Games, which began that day. The Shinkansen, meaning new mainline , with a separate track, arrived when normal train traffic had reached the limit for carrying passengers and freight. A train trip between Osaka and Tokyo dropped from 6 hours and 40 minutes to 4 hours, shortened to 3 hours and 10 minutes by 1964, and is now 2 hours and 30 minutes. From the Shin-Osaka Station to the Shin-Yokohama Station only takes a little more than 2 hours. In 1964 the track was 320 miles long. Today, it's up to 1484 miles. The original itinerary incorporating Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka now carries 159 million passengers/year. In this 6 decade period, more than 10 billion passengers have been safely handled. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT NOT ONE PASSENGER HAS YET BEEN KILLED IN A DERA...

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