Here is a ‘dash cam’ photo of Martin Luther King Jr Way South.
Tuesday/ got my flu shot 💉
I got my flu shot today, the one branded as the FLUCELVAX® Quad 2023-24.
It’s the first flu vaccine in the United States that was cultured in cells* and not in chicken eggs.
Some observational studies have shown cell culture-based vaccines to provide greater protection against flu or flu-like illness (as opposed to ones grown in eggs).
*From the CDC’s website: ‘Cell culture-based flu vaccine production does not require chicken eggs because the vaccine viruses used to make vaccine are grown in mammalian cell cultures (no animals are harmed by this process)’.
[Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/resource-center/shareable-resources.htm]
Monday/ it’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day 🌅
Let’s leave Columbus out of it. Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
[Artwork by Louie Cong]
Sunday/ the war against the Hamas terrorists 💣
As of Sunday night:
Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 700 people were killed and 2,000 wounded, making Saturday’s surprise early morning attack by Hamas the deadliest attack in Israel in decades.
At least 232 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza, a deeply sensitive issue for Israel, in harrowing scenes posted on social media videos.
Among those killed in Israel was Lt. Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the military’s Nachal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.
– Reported by newspaper Israel Hayom at israelhayom.com
Saturday 🌳
Fall colors, seen on 17th Avenue East here in Capitol Hill, Seattle.
[Source: The Smithsonian Institution]
Friday/ working hard 😓
The US economy added 336,000 new jobs to payrolls in September: about double what analysts had expected.
The stock market fell at first (the Fed may have to keep hiking interest rates), but by the early afternoon, the stock market decided that the initial sell-off was overdone, and by the end of trading the Dow Jones Industrial Index was up by 288 points (0.87%).
[Graph and text from the New York Times]
Thursday/ fall 🍂 pickle ball 🥒
We had lovely weather today (68 °F / 20 °C), and the amigos played a little pickle ball at Mount Baker Park.
Wednesday/ keeping an eye on Apophis 🌠
I stumbled across an old YouTube video in which astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about the dire possibility of giant asteroid Apophis hitting Earth.
Luckily, I also found this updated report on NASA’s web site:
Estimated to be about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across, Apophis quickly gained notoriety as an asteroid that could pose a serious threat to Earth when astronomers predicted that it would come uncomfortably close in 2029. Thanks to additional observations of Apophis, the risk of an impact in 2029 was later ruled out, as was the potential impact risk posed by another close approach in 2036. Until March 2021, however, a small chance of impact in 2068 still remained.
When Apophis made a distant flyby of Earth around March 5, 2021, astronomers took the opportunity to use powerful radar observations to refine the estimate of its orbit around the Sun with extreme precision, enabling them to confidently rule out any impact risk in 2068 and long after.
Tuesday/ the Republican inmates are running the asylum 😵💫
If you want to know what it looks like when democracy is in trouble, this is what it looks like.
– Daniel Ziblatt, professor of government at Harvard University.
Welp.
The House of Representatives in the 118th United States Congress has no speaker— a first in the history of Congress.
(Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina has been named interim speaker under a law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, in the event of a vacancy in the office. There is no defined timeframe for finding a new speaker. And the interim speaker can only do basic housekeeping functions, and not bring legislation to the floor, for example).
Monday/ a little rain ☔
It rained a little today, on and off.
There was time in Earth’s history when it rained for eons.
Here is an excerpt from a book I’m reading:
For a few million years our planet had rings, like Saturn. Eventually, the rings coalesced to create another new world – the Moon. All this happened approximately 4,600,000,000 (4.6 billion) years ago.
Millions more years passed. The day came when the Earth had cooled enough for the water vapor in the atmosphere to condense and fall as rain. It rained for millions of years, long enough to create the first oceans. And oceans were all there were; there was no land. The Earth, once a ball of fire, had become a world of water. Not that things were any calmer. In those days the Earth spun faster on its axis than it does today. The new Moon loomed close above the black horizon. Each incoming tide was a tsunami.
Sunday 🌞
It’s October— and I saw a few Halloween decorations on houses, while I was out on my walk tonight.
It was a dry and mild weekend here in the city (65°F/ 18 °C), but it might rain a little on Monday.
