JUST ANOTHER SPLENDID WEEK IN PARADISE

I yesterday expounded on social welfare. Let me add a final editorial, the matter of the child tax credit, which will be excised when Biden and Manchin next year agree on the Build Back Better Act that will end up being close to $1.8 trillion. I don't want to go into the details of that child tax credit, which you can read here. But is basically a transfer of money from the rich to the masses.

I think we need to adjust our charitable and social welfare programs to consider family well-being. With aid to parents should be some compelling motivational incentive. The whole matter of entitlements is at the foundation of what has to be re-thought out.

Finally, unmentioned is that this type of government aid only further exacerbates population growth, which will more and more strain the resource limits available in the world. Compound this factor with the contribution to poverty for families who can't afford children. In the U.S. there is no effort to limit population growth.

On December 4 the Omicron variant represented only 0.7% of new infections, which jumped to 12.6% on December 11, while Delta was at almost 87.4%. Over the past weekend Omicron jumped to 73.2% and Delta dropped to 26.6%. I guess there must be a third variant at around 0.2%. I further checked, and there are limited cases of alpha, beta and mu variants still infecting people. There was also the first Omicron death, to a Texas man in his 50's who was not vaccinated.

My splendid week began with a TEDx talk on the Blue Revolution beamed throughout the world as the first of eight lectures Blue Revolution Hawaii hosted, where we were linked in advance to the Glasgow climate change summit. Watch my presentation. Should you have any special connection to an imaginative billionaire, send him this concept, which might well be the only geoengineering solution for atmospheric warming, where those participating can actually make a financial profit.

Had several great dinners in my 15 Craigside apartment. The first set compared two types of American beef, one wagyu, accompanied by chu-toro sashimi:

The wine was a Stanford Governor's Selection Martelloto Red Blend. Plus hot sake and cold Sapporo Beer, with hot green tea. The wagyu at $30/pound was better than the $24/pound tenderloin. However this American wagyu was nowhere close to the typically $100/pound wagyu from Japan, although I've seen it in stores such as Mitsukoshi in Japan at more than $250/pound.

Then pork tonkatsu fried in butter with ahi and hamachi sashimi.

Next, artichoke with roast duck/pork and salad, with a Prosecco and Johnny Walker Blue:

Golfing at the Ewa Villages Golf Course:

A double rainbow at the Ted Makalena Golf Course:

John and two cats on the 16th hole:

One sunset the horizon looked clear, so I tried to take a photo of a green flash:

Remarkably, I succeeded!!!

The post-sunset with Venus at the top left:

Yes, just another splendid week in Paradise.

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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