But first, looks like the Federal government will be shut down just after midnight tonight.   How terrible is that? To begin, there have been 14 of these since 1980, including three during Trump's first term.   In 2018, for 34 days, from December 22 to January 25. This broke the 21-day record on one under President Bill Clinton. How will the stock market react?  Many times, goes up.   In anticipation  of what could happen tomorrow: The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) rose 0.2%. The S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) rose 0.4%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) gained 0.3%, coming off modest   closing gains   on Wall Street.  Both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 notched their best third quarter since 2020. Want more details on what to expect?   Read this. About that other matter of importance,  Time  magazine had some details:   Trump and Netanyahu Announce Major Gaza Deal, Threaten Dire Outcome if ...

Kiko remains a hurricane , but should by tomorrow weaken into a tropical storm.  If the eye went over Hawaii, there would still be some devastation and a lot of flooding.  However, the track has been predicted to pass sufficiently north of the state such that high surf and associated damage might well be the only problem. In the West Pacific is  Typhoon Tapah,  which just attained typhoon strength today and made landfall over China well away from Macao. The Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of America are eerily quiet as high season begins.  No serious ocean storms are predicted for at least the next week. In the East Pacific is  Post-Tropical Cyclone Lorene  so inconsequential that it is not even shown on the map. She was a hurricane on September 3, strengthened to 85 MPH on the 4th, but later that day lost hurricane status. Almost all ocean storms in the East Pacific threaten Mexico, especially the Baha Peninsula, but only very rarely extend into California....

My blog yesterday ended with some beautiful photos, indicating that these were sent to me by, for me, a relatively new informant, Gan Jing World.  Before I go into this mysterious organization, though, first, a question.  Do you want to be a billionaire? Turns out that the jackpot for the Powerball drawing tonight at 10:59 PM EDT is up to $1.8 billion. This is the second-highest grand prize in history, to the $2.04 billion jackpot won in November 2022. By the way, there is also Mega Millions, which had a $1.602 jackpot in August 2023.  Costs $5/ticket. But back to Powerball, say you match all five numbers.  Are you then a billionaire? Nope.  You have two options. Take a one-time cash payment, and while that is $1.8 billion, for the moment you are a billionaire.  However, the way this works, you only get $826.4 billion. Or, take 29 annual payments to get the full $1.8 billion.  But you still need to pay taxes and wait for 29 years to get it all. Either ...