PUS (President of the United States) DONALD TRUMP

Huge day for now the 47th President of the United States (PUS47) Donald Trump. Before leaving office, outgoing President Joe Biden thumbed his nose at Trump by pardoning a whole host of people:

Liz Cheney and all the other members of the House Special Committee on the 6January2021 coup attempt, plus their staff and selected people who testified.
Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Anthony Fauci, who ran afoul of Trump's irrationality.
There were a few others.
Hunter Biden of course was already pardoned in December.

You know how Trump likes to exaggerate reality, as for example his statement at his first Inauguration, where he said he had the the all-time-largest crowd? Nope. Trump drew 600,000 people. President Barack Obama's first Inauguration had 1.8 million. Well, this second time, his ceremony will be among the smallest ever, for it was done indoors in the Capitol Rotunda.

Veep JD Vance joked that he would skip the Inauguration to instead attend the Ohio-State Notre college championship game. 7:30PM ET on ESPN. He graduated from Ohio State. Of course JD was in the Rotunda. So was Trump son Barron, who stands tall at 6 feet 7 inches. That hat worn by Melania was designed by Eric Javits.

Who are the oligarchs with Trump? At the inaugural lunch today of Chesapeake crab. angus ribeye steak, and apple ice box terrine with sour cream ice cream, with wine:

Apple CEO Tim Cook is seated next to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Also at the table are the President’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is sitting next to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, days after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold a ban on TikTok unless the company changes its ownership structure—a move that could benefit Meta.
Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos is seated next to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Also at their table: Sen. Marco Rubio, who was nominated for Secretary of State, and the President’s son Barron Trump.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is seated at a table with Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for the Treasury Department, and Eric and Lara Trump, Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barasso, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton declined their invitations.

How was the weather today? Not that bad, actually, with a high of 21F at noon, nice sunshine, with some wind making the wind chill uncomfortable. Even the parade was mostly cancelled, with many of the bands and groups sent to the Capitol One Arena.

Also in the Capitol One Arena, President Trump is soon expected to sign as many as a hundred executive orders.

Will pardon a number of January 6 U.S. Capitol attackers, but how many?
Certainly something on immigration, more specifically his mass deportation plan and renew building his south wall.
Will ease burdens on oil and natural gas production.
Will roll back Biden's electric vehicle mandate.
Will roll back protections for transgender people.
Will establish a new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk (was that a Nazi salute?). Vivek Ramaswamy has apparently dropped out to run for office, like maybe governor of Ohio.
Will give Tiktok some time to work out a deal to stay in business.
Could well again withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
Will declare Central and South American drug cartels as global terrorists.
Looks like his tariff plan on China, Mexico, Canada and other countries might await a later date.
Will he today sign an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, and Mount Denali back to becoming Mount McKinley?
Or announce an end of the Ukraine-Russia War. And if not, at least his plan.
If it's true that he will sign up to 100 documents, there will be others.

But before those signings. The inaugural parade, indoors.

Tropical Cyclone Sean is moving along the west coast of Australia, and was today up to 130 MPH. However, a weakening is expected over the next few days, with probably no landfall.

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...

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 ...

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