HONOLULU TO NARITA, TOKYO

 First, though:

• Maine shooter Robert Card is dead, self-inflicted.
• Are we headed to war with Iran?  The Hamas-Israel War and Syrian incidents were all orchestrated by Iran.  What about Russia and China?

• 
  Before you go to sleep Saturday night, turn back your clock one hour.  By a 63% to 16% majority, Americans don't like to do this, and statistics show these two changes/year are just not good for society.  Congress is attempting do something, and, if anything, will keep it always at daylight savings time.  Hawaii, and a few other locations in the U.S., don't make any changes.
• 
  When is Halloween Night?  Every year it is observed on October 31, which is a Tuesday this year.  The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints, or All Hallows Day, from where comes Halloween.  Goes back to the Celts and the festival of Samhain, mentioned in the earliest Irish literature from the 9th century.

Not much to say about our Honolulu to Tokyo flight because we are at the airport.  However, here are the top 10 airports in the world:

1. Singapore (SIN) 90.12
2. Istanbul (IST) 87.62
3. Seoul Incheon (ICN) 87.15
4. Doha (DOH) 86.78
5. Zurich (ZRH) 83.79
6. Hong Kong (HKG) 83.41
7. Tokyo Haneda (HND) 83.02
8. Dubai (DXB) 82.40
9. Helsinki (HEL) 81.13
10. New Delhi (DEL) 80.88

I've landed in all these cities, although Istanbul has a relatively new airport, and I haven't been to Turkey in at least six years.

Well, if I take any photos at the Honolulu International Airport, for surely we will be in some airline lounge, I'll add to this posting.  But if not, see you in Tokyo.

Actually, I can add two photos to clear my desktop.  We yesterday had lunch at Pad Thai in the Salt Lake Shopping Center.  An excellent fried chicken and okay red curry coconut dish.  Interesting that there must be six restaurants in this shopping area, and the other five were almost devoid of customers.

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AWAY WE GO

News of the day.

• No break in the search for Robert Card in Maine.  Follow live updates here.
• Looks like Israel has increased war-like activity in the Gaza Strip.  Time magazine can only discuss four bad options.
• 
  Earlier this week Jimmy Kimmel indicated that Donald Trump will go to jail.  Clearly, Kimmel also doesn't like new Speaker Mike Johnson.  Watch him say the following:

Johnson, he noted, backed Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election results and remain in power despite losing.

“Also anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-conspiracy theory, he seems terrific,” Kimmel snarked. “Not only is he not the best choice for speaker, you can’t even definitively say Mike Johnson is the best Mike Johnson they could’ve chosen.” 

Kimmel then ticked off a list of better Mike Johnsons, from chefs to athletes to yodelers.

“You could go to the middle of the phone book and pick any of the hundreds of Mike Johnsons. Each one would be a better choice for speaker because not one of them tried to overthrow the presidential election,” Kimmel declared.

• Category 5 Hurricane Otis devastated Acapulco yesterday, killing 27.

Tomorrow we fly to Tokyo to begin our 5-week Fall Colors Odyssey.  First, a 9-day cruise around Japan, with a stopover in Busan, South Korea.  Then three 7-day Japan Rail Passes to follow the colors, from Hokkaido all the way down to one of our favorite places, the Sheraton Ocean Resort in Miyakojima, Kyushu.  Our home hotel will be the Sheraton Yokohama Bay, which is close to the port and a short walk to both the Shin-Yokohama and Yokohama train stations.  During the train visits, we leave our large baggage at the hotel.

We have also made all the reservations for our Spring Sakura and Tulip Global Journey in the Spring, to include:

• First class on Emirate Air from Bangkok to Dubai to Munich.
• Tauck Tulip river cruise.
• Regent 7 Seas Mediterranean cruise.
• Queen Mary II from Southampton to New York City.

We have begun to plan for an  end of year 2024 trip using a couple of cruises east to get us to Europe.  Then a long awaited Christmas European river cruise.

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ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING

Cable news channels are mostly covering today the shootings in Maine where 18 people were killed.  Considering that there are typically around 20 firearm deaths in the entire state annually, this is consequential.  However, something like a staggering 150 suicides by gun yearly occur in Maine.

This is the 565th mass shooting (at least 4 deaths/event) in the U.S. this year.  In 2021, there were 48,830 gun-related deaths in the country.  54% were suicides (26,368) and 43% were murders (20,997).  Has the time finally come for gun control?  Nope.  There is something about the right to own guns and the efforts of the National Rifle Association that overcome any kind of common sense.  

Any chance for some kind of ban on assault weapons?  Well, a quarter century ago when President Joe Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Congress passed the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, also known as the assault weapons ban.  It was Senator Diane Feinstein that was the chief sponsor, taking over for another Democrat, Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum, who in 1989 introduced the bill after a mass shooting on a schoolyard in Stockton, California, where 5 children were killed.  The new spark was a San Francisco law firm shooting in 1993 that killed 8.

Alas, there was a sunset provision, meaning Congress had to do this again in ten years.  In the meantime, Republicans gained prominence in Congress and the White House, there was the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the U.S. (New York World Trade Center and Pentagon), causing anxiety favoring private gun ownership, so the ban expired in 2004.  The Democratic Obama administration never could again bring back this gun control legislation.  The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 killed 26, including 20 young students.  Even then, nothing sensible resulted.  

Looks like Biden will try again, but the deaths of just adults in Maine are not sufficient for winning over a public still dreaming about Constitutional rights. The Second Amendment actually does not guarantee the right to own a gun.  Read this.  Essentially, the times have changed.  We now have a dependable Department of Defense.  Back 200 years ago you pretty much had to actually defend your home.  Not anymore, for we also have strong police departments.  Arms today are mostly used for killing animals, including humans.

How out of step is the USA?  We lead the world in civilian firearms/person at 1.2.  #2 is Falkland Islands with 0.6 and #3 Yemen 0.5.  Others? #7 Canada 0.3, #26 France 0.2, #50 Thailand 0.15, #60 Mexico 0.13,  #68 Russian 0.12 (note that this is one tenth that of the U.S.), #139 China 0.04, #172 Cuba 0.02, #219 Japan 0.003, #224 South Korea 0.002 and #230 Taiwan ZERO.  

Zero?  Well, here is a video showing that gun violence is rising in New Taipei City.  Officially, in 2005, Taiwan was at 0.04 guns/person, but by 2017 the number dropped to ZERO.  But there is illicit ownership.

Regarding suicides, as high as these numbers are in the U.S., we are #30 in the world with 14.5 suicides/100,000 residents/year.  

• South Korea with so few guns is higher, #11,  21.2.
• Russia, with one-tenth the number of guns/capita  is also higher, #10,  22.
• Lesotho #1  0.09.
• World average is 10.5 suicides/100,000.
• #183  Antigua, Barbuda, Barbados  0.3
• #171  Philippines  2.55
• #150  Italy  4.3
• #100  Serbia  7.9
• #  92  Germany  8.3
• #  49  Japan  12.2

You might wonder, with so few guns available, how do South Koreans commit suicide?  More than half by drinking poison, especially pesticides, or by hanging.  Carbon monoxide is growing as an agent.  Also bridge jumping.  The Mapo Bridge is known as The Bridge of Death.  Russia?  Half of suicides come from alcohol abuse.  In Taiwan, which now prohibits gun ownership, people commit suicide similarly to South Korea.

Is there a moral to this posting?  Well, guns kill.  But do they also protect?  What is the net result?  Here is a list of countries of homicide rate per 100,000 people, compared to gun ownership rate?

                    Homicide rate        Weapons ownership rate (firearms/person)

                    Rank  

World                    6.1                               0.1

USA               51   6.8                              1.20

Yemen           53   6.3                               0.53

Canada         120   2.1                               0.3

France          148   1.1                               0.2

Thailand        68    4.8                              0.15

Russia            52   6.8                               0.12

China           181   0.5                               0.04

Cuba              75   4.4                               0.02

Japan            195   0.1                              0.003

S. Korea       177   0.5                              0.002

Can you make any sense to the above?  On first glance, there does not seem to be a clear correlation for firearms increasing homicide rate.  There are too many exceptions. 

As today focuses on death, on a ranked list of 33 songs about death, loss and grief, guess who is #1?  Taylor Swift with Marjorie.  This was a tribute to her grandmother.

• #15 is Candle in the Wind, Elton John.
• #29 is Knocking on Heaven's Door, Bob Dylan.
• #31 is Let It Be, The Beatles.
• #33 is Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton.

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WHO IS MIKE JOHNSON?

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected speaker of the House today.  He got every Republican to vote for him.  That was a minor miracle.  Who is he?

• He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana 51 years ago, 1972.

• 
  I was then completing my PhD in biochemical engineering at LSU.  Nearly four years of living in that state was most experienceful.
• Johnson's father was a firefighter, and Mike indicated that he was the first in his family to go to college.  In 1995 he too graduated from LSU in business administration.  In 1998, a law degree from LSU.
• Won a seat House in 2016, and has easily won re-elections.

• 
  In 2021 was one of the architects in a vote to overturn the 2020 election results.
• Voted against forming the House Commission to investigate the 6January2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.
• Became Speaker of the House today, and has the shortest House membership tenure of any Speaker in 140 years.
• What does he represent?
• Member of the Christian right faction of the Republican Party.
• Is aligned with Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters.

• 

  Is anti-abortion,
• Outspoken critic of LGBT rights.
• Questions the science of climate warming.
• Against wind and solar energy.
• Has received $338,125 from the oil and gas industry.
• For prohibiting immigration from seven Muslim countries.
• Opposes any minimum wage bill.
• Married for 24 years with four children.  Took in a 14-year old African-American boy as part of their family 22 years ago.

Watched his acceptance speech.  Shows promise.  Nice guy.  Seems to be anti-Ukraine funding.  If he compromises on this, and wades through all the controversy to largely pass the Biden $106 billion aid package, plus works out any kind of compromise to keep the government going till the end of the year, that would be minor miracle 2.  If he remains speaker through next year, he could well blossom to be an attractive presidential candidate in 2028.  Could there be a minor miracle 3?

Johnson's victory might well be a sign that Republicans will continue to support Trump as their presidential candidate, dooming the party next year. 

• Trump had a decisive role in making Johnson speaker.  

• 
  At Trump's New York fraud trial, a former lawyer of his, Michael Cohen, yesterday called Trump a criminal and cheat.  Trump was seated nearby, scoffed and shook his  head.

• 
  Today, Trump just got another fine from New York Judge Arthur Engoron for violating the gag order.  $10,000 this time.  Soon thereafter, Trump stormed out of the courthouse.
• I'm losing track, but is it up to five of his lawyers/staff/cronies prematurely flipping to to set Trump up for conviction?

• 
  If not in jail in a year or so, all the evidence about the January 6 coup attempt to whatever is happening in Georgia will be on the minds of Independents for election day on 5November2024.  They will determine who will be in the White House and U.S. Capitol.
• So far, the most foresightful and creative Hollywood script writer couldn't have created what has happened above for the benefit of the Democratic Party.

Today, there is just one important Republican brave enough to keep sounding the alarm about Trump, Mitt Romney.  Award-winning The Atlantic writer McKay Coppins, after a series of interviews with him, published Romney:  A Reckoning, about how he failed to neutralize Trump, and why he decided to quit the U.S. Senate, which will take effect after the session next year.  From a Politico article, referring way back to 2016:

Romney, in Coppins’ telling, considered Trump a “buffoon,” an “unabashed demagogue,” a “manifestly unqualified madman” and a “profoundly depraved and broken person whose election would coarsen America’s culture.” His “number one priority” was to stop him. When Chris Christie became arguably the first major establishment Republican to endorse Trump, Romney sent Christie an email: “He is unquestionably mentally unstable, and he is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar and prone to violence. There is simply no rational argument that could lead me to vote for someone with those characteristics. I believe your endorsement of him severely diminishes you morally — though probably not politically — and that you must withdraw that support to preserve your integrity and character.” When Reince Priebus, then the chair of the Republican National Committee, called Romney to urge him to endorse Trump, Romney laughed and called Trump “nuts.”

Well, that was seven years ago.  What are his feelings today?  Here, from Chuck Todd:

• He’s (Romney) clearly concerned that Trump’s lack of interest in or reverence for democracy is having a trickle-down effect on the base of the party — and that his cult-of-personality-driven campaigns are spiraling the party closer to either irrelevance (if it continues to lose) or worse, authoritarianism (if Trump gets power again).
• Right now, fear of primary voters is the single biggest driving force dictating why elected Republicans do what they do when it comes to Trump.
• This book, and Romney’s decision to let it all be public, is his attempt to sound the alarm one last time before it’s too late to save the GOP from itself.

Also from Romney about the five Republican families:

• The Freedom Caucus, a hard-right faction made up of lawmakers who formed the Tea Party movement and strongly back Trump.

• 
  The Republican Study Committee, an older conservative group and the largest G.O.P. ideological faction.

• 
  The Main Street Caucus, made up of pro-business Republicans.

• 
  The Republican Governance Group, which comprises many fiscally conservative but socially moderate members.
• 
  The Problem Solvers Caucus, which includes both Republicans and Democrats and focuses on policies with bipartisan support.

Not much happening with the Hamas-Israel War:

• No hostage release today.  There still are 200 or so, and around 20 children, as young as 6 months old.
• Israel is continuing to bomb the Gaza Strip.
• Increased activity in the West Bank.

Victor Wembanyama's debuts at 9:30PM EDT on ESPN.  

• He is a 19-year old Frenchman who is 7'4"" tall. and only 209 pounds.  
• His mother, a basketball coach, is French, while his father, 6'6" tall, is from the Congo.
• Read about this French connection, for, next to Canada, they have sent the most number of foreign players into the NBA.

Super Hurricane Otis made landfall at 165 MPH right over Acapulco, with a population of about a million.  

• 
  Only formed on Sunday, became a hurricane yesterday, and quickly zoomed up to 165 MPH.  
• Eye reached Mexico at 11:25 last night.  This is the first super hurricane ever to make landfall in the Eastern Pacific.

• 
  In 1997 Hurricane Pauline made arrive on shore southeast of Acapulco as a Category 4. 
• Only 6% of hurricanes reach super hurricane strength, and almost all of them lose intensity before reaching land.
• How deadly was Otis?  At this writing, authorities still don't know.

• While a fun city into the 1960's, since 2000 crime worsened to make it the deadliest city in Mexico.  Well, another reference showed that there are deadlier cities in Mexico.  But note the presence of New Orleans.  Well, I just cancelled my return to Louisiana.

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THIS IS NATIONAL BALONEY DAY

Seventeen days into the Hamas attack into Israel, one of the core goals was an insurance policy to protect them from wholesale retribution.  Found was a Hamas abduction manual detailing instructions on how to take civilian hostages.  That is page one to the left.  

No releases today, but more should be coming if Israel continues to delay their military plan to enter the Gaza Strip to eliminate the Hamas.  As long as this prospect remains, and there is no serious participation of the Hezbollah to the north, the next few weeks could well be driven by these hostage negotiations.  

Donald Trump's reputation and effectiveness are as good as already lying in a coffin with daily events hammering more and more nails for his permanent doom.  In a New Hampshire speech, he compared himself to Nelson Mandela.  He just might be right and could well spend a good portion of his life in jail.  The following developments certainly are condemning:

• A third former lawyer to Trump, Jenna Ellis, pleaded guilty in the election subversion Georgia case.  

• 
  She thus become the fourth of 19 co-defendants to do so.  
• She chose to testify against Trump for no jail time, a fine and some community service.  
• Watch a video from Georgia.
• That is her with Rudy to her right and Sidney Powell in the back.
• Said she aided Rudy Giuliani in this voter fraud effort.

• 
  Surely looks like Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis' strategy to charge such a large number is working, for there were too many of them for Trump to continue paying their lawyer fees and daily expenses.
• You can expect more nails in the coffin when many more co-defendants choose to continue on with their personal lives than sacrifice for the leader of an coup attempt to destroy democracy in America.

• 
  A fourth former lawyer to Trump, Michael Cohen, testified in a New York trial that he lied for Trump because he was told to do so.  Watch this MSNBC report.  One comment that clip:

From Trump's lackey now David to his Goliath. Cohen's reported demeanor on the stand comes as no surprise as he has been waiting eagerly for this day for a long, long time. Trump made sure that Cohen lost everything, and Cohen is returning the favor.

About the Florida trial about Trump mishandling classified documents?  That's on hold, probably because the Department of Justice treats this crime as not worthy of pursuit compared to the Georgia and DC indictments about 6January2021 and related criminal actions.  However, watch this video from Australia detailing his sharing of secrets with Trump's friend in that country, and how that information made it back to enemies in the Middle East.  After this information became public, Trump branded Anthony Pratt a red-hair weirdo.

I should mention that Tom Emmer just dropped out of the Speaker's race.  He was called a RINO by Trump and said voting for him would be a tragic mistake.  The Donald clearly wants the House to remain screwed up.

For those into pro basketball, the NBA season begins tonight with a TNT doubleheader.  Want to know who made the roster on your team?  Click on this.  I have fantasy teams this year.  My mild interest is in how Victor Wembanhama of the San Antonio Spurs competes.  They host Dallas tomorrow night.

Otherwise in sports, I'm ignoring the rest of the Major League Baseball playoffs because my fantasy team picked the wrong players.  The hot sports item, though, is Lionel Messi's pink jersey.  I have one of his when he played for Barcelona, given to me by the Qatar government when I was there.

Finally, sad to report that Bobi, the world's oldest dog EVER, died at the age of 31 years and 165 days.  Lived for 11,478 days in Conquiros, a small Portuguese village.  Always roamed freely in a peaceful environment, wandering about with cats and eating human food soaked in water to remove sesonings.

About the above posting.  Let me remind you that today is National Bologna Day.  You can also spell it baloney.  In America this is a type of sausage similar to the Italian mortadella.  Finely ground pork or beef, smoked and cured.  They taste different because of different spices.  In the USA, can also be made from chicken, turkey venison and soy protein.  Very dangerous product.  How to observe this day.  Get a bologna sandwich.  Also, listen to My Bologna by Weird Al Yankovic.

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