The Kilauea summit caldera, within Halemaumau Crater, began erupting at 2:30AM this morning.  Volcanic fountains up to 262 feet, with gas emissions now at 8,000 feet levels.   How long will this continue?  Not sure, but if you had any urge to see Hawaii at Christmas-time, plus view an eruption, why not now, as the weather throughout the state is fabulous.    Watch this video . Kilauea eruptions have kept this blog site going.  Read my posting of 30April2018 which was titled  MY FINAL DAILY BLOG . Then on 3May2018 I provided a  grand perspective of this 10-year old blog site .  The very next day, Kilauea Volcano erupted, and I posted on  PUNA AGAIN BECOMES THE MOST DANGEROUS SPOT ON EARTH .  I said: It was on   3January1983  that Kilauea Volcano   first erupted .  I just happened to be golfing at the Volcano Golf Course that day, when, on the tenth hole we felt the ground shudder: Soon thereafter, we saw fountains...

President has made some perplexing choices for his cabinet.  The first batch made some sense.  The latest seems cloying, if not baffling and certainly stunning. Take  Matt Gaetz as Attorney General .  Here Trump should have selected a lawyer with gravitas and high credibility.  Surely there are many of them, who would still be supremely loyal to him.  Trump called Gaetz  a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney .  A 42-year old Floridian with a law degree from William and Mary,  Gaetz  practiced law for two years, never as a prosecutor, partly tainted by one suspension.  You would think that his legal shallowness and potential for not being confirmed by the Senate would influence him to for now hold on to his House seat.  But he just resigned from the Congress.  Perhaps Gaetz's irredeeming virtue is that he too has some sexual issues clouding his past.  He will become a weapon for Trump. The other worrisome selection is...

Biggest news of the day?   The House of Representatives voted to oust Keven McCarthy as Speaker of the House, 216-210 .  Never happened before in our history.   So what's next? At the beginning of his speakership, McCarthy filed into the record (kept secret) a list of names in priority order to the House Clerk to act in the case of his vacancy.   The person highest on the list shall act as Speaker pro tempore.   The first task will presumably be to vote on a permanent speaker.  But not necessarily.  There is no legal time frame for anything. Could McCarthy run again? Sure. Probably won't win a normal vote, so could well work out a deal with Democrats. But he has said  enough , and won't run again. Could Democrat Hakeem Jeffries run? Sure. But he won't get that position. Could Matt Gaetz become the next speaker.  Nope. Why?  Republicans are not idiotic as Gaetz. The second big newsworthy item is that no one won the Pow...