WHAT A WEEK

What a week:

• If you are in the stock market, for Wall Street closed the latest winning week, pushing the S&P to 5,137 and Nasdaq to 16,275, both all time highs.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at 39,087, not quite up to the record of last week.

• 
  Your name is Donald John Trump.  Did you know that he is a John?  Also, that he was the #4 child, with two sisters and two brothers.
• The Supreme Court chose to accept his case about immunity, raising questions about when they will actually announce anything.  Some have speculated that Jack Smith might never get to prosecute him even if SCOTUS rules that he will be be immune to conviction.  I still think they will act on this measure before July, and that his failed 6January2021 coup attempt trial can still occur this summer, say in September.  Perfect timing, actually.

• 
  This leaves the Georgia case awaiting the decision by Judge Scott McAfee's decision to allow attorney general Fani Willis to try these cases or not.  Should announce in two weeks, and if she prevails, her case against Trump will definitely occur before November 5.

• 
  Then there is that Florida classified documents case before pro-Trump Judge Aileen Canyon.  
• There is some skepticism about her allowing to hear the case this year.
• However, as the Georgia and DC trials could be seriously condemning, and this almost nuisance Florida judgement can fill up court time, there is a sense that Trump might want this one to proceed to prevent the other two from happening this year.
• 
  But, aha, if the presidential elections were held now, Trump would beat Biden.
• In a Bloomberg News / Morning Consult poll, Trump leading Biden in 7 swing states.  Trump maintained a 6-point lead over Biden in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania in the recent poll — four states Biden carried in 2020.
• 
  Siena College poll shows Trump ahead of Biden.
• From The Economist, Trump 47% and Biden 44%.
• Oh, well, 244 days left for Trump to get into more trouble.

• 

  The second-largest wildfire in U.S. history is sweeping across the Texas Panhandle, burning through more than 1.25 million acres.  Only two deaths, but there are 140 active blazes, the largest of more than a million acres at Smokehouse Creek is only 5% contained, and 12 additional fires in Oklahoma, now up to 115,000 acres.

• California faced monster blizzards this week, and the Sierra Nevada could receive 12 feet (yes, feet, not inches) of piled-up snow.

• Also in California, at the San Francisco California Academy of Sciences, Mirage, an Amorphophalus titanum, began blooming.
• Called a corpse flower because it smells like a corpse.  From Wikipedia.

Analyses of chemicals released by the spadix show the stench includes dimethyl trisulfide (like limburger cheese), dimethyl disulfide (garlic), trimethylamine (rotting fish), isovaleric acid (sweaty socks), benzyl alcohol (sweet floral scent), phenol (like Chloraseptic), and indole (like feces).^[28][29]

• 
  Has various cousins, and they are mostly from Sumatra, Indonesia, although also found in Malaysia and Borneo.
• The largest flower, called a corm, was grown at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, weighing 339 pounds.  Above right.

• 
  AccuWeather warned that this could be an explosive Atlantic hurricane season this year.  More information later coming about the entire Pacific Ocean.

Yesterday I wrote on new Netflix films, where Adam Sandler's Spaceman scored poorly on Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, Time magazine liked this movie.  Maybe I'll now take a chance on it.  No, that's not Sandler, it's that alien...or perhaps what his mind sees.  Watch the production to learn the truth.

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