Nothing much is changing today, so far. The  Los Angeles County wildfire  continues, with the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires still burning. Trump cabinet confirmation hearings  doing well, with no bumps in the road today. The hoped for first phase of  peace in the Gaza Strip  still seems ready to occur on Sunday, January 19. President Joe Biden made his farewell address,  and warned against the influence of the super-rich.  Surely sounds like the coming of a dictatorship featuring oligarchs, as in Russia. Kilauea Volcano inside Halemaumau Crater  still erupting .  It comes and goes, and is now again active. It took me two weeks, but I watched all 9 episodes of Squid Game Season 1 and 7 episodes of the second season.  Each chapter is about an hour long.  I normally would be discrete about sharing too much from these productions, but will make an exception for this series. Most of you don't know South Korean culture, nor their perf...

The  big news of the day is that a ceasefire has been reached in the Gaza Strip Israel-Hamas War , with hostages to be exchanged and mass aid to be initiated on January 19.  That will be phase one.  Further negotiations into phases two and three are in the agreement for an end to this war, including all hostages and remains and other matters.  Someone named Trump will not be happy with that specific date, but his administration will need to handle the next two phases.   All still remains fragile and the next two steps will be difficult, but this time, the peace announcement by Qatar, Egypt and the USA looks real, bringing an end to the 467 days war.  With the skirmish in Lebanon between  Israel and the Hezbollah  looking settled,  Iran  significantly weakened, things falling into place in  Syria  with the departure of  Bashar Al Assad, AND NO MAJOR CONFLICT EXPANSION IN THE MIDDLE LOOMING, the region for the first tim...

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 Gover...