Hmmm!

From reddit Pics

Ghislaine Maxwell with Elon Musk at a high-society event ...

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

48 Years Ago

Back in 1972 Norman Cousins, editor of the World magazine and former editor of the Saturday Review magazine, was a director of Metalanguage Products, a software company I had founded. He then was also agitating for private industry taking over space exploration. I thought this was a rather ambitious vision ... given all the enormoous costs and technology involved in such an endeavor.

Norman Cousins died in 1990 ... but today, 48 years after his initial vision ... his wish has finally been realized by Elon Musk’s private company, SpaceX.

A dream come true, Norman!

Little Blue Marble

Egomania is a term used to describe one who is totally absorbed with oneself.

For this blog post I have invented “anthromania,” a term using the Greek word for mankind, to describe our often illogical insistence that we humans can insure our existence by totally controlling our environment. Does anyone with a brain believe we can survive for the next hundred years without burning some hydrocarbons ... even if we have to melt our frozen poles in doing so? You too AOC and Greta ...

This notion that humans are the masters of the universe is biblical in its origin and continually reinforced by our remarkable scientific discoveries. However, Mother Nature allows us to persist in this anthromania until she decides to destroy an island with a hurricane unleashing the energy of a hundred hydrogen bombs ... just to remind us who is boss.

I know people like Elon Musk have imagined us inhabiting other planets before we destroy our own spaceship Earth. (I, myself, do not think this outcome is that pressing.) But, when one realizes the quality of life that would exist on these alien planets ... like a fish out of water ... the appeal seems only to be one of survival. For myself, I am just as happy to (hopefully) spend my remaining time on our little blue marble.

Headlines

Biden reveals deep bench in campaign bundlers

Elon Musk says Boring Company’s Las Vegas will ‘hopefully’ be operational next year

Imus dead ... Shock jock spanned generations

Christian Post: Buttigieg’s ‘bible missing a lot of pages’

Did Democrats take black voters in Michigan for granted in 2016?

70% of American investors wish they’d handled money differently in 2019

Mystery drone sighting continue in Colorado, into Nebraska ... Fleet of 30?

China doubles U.S. soy purchases during phase 1 trade deal talks

Intel probe puts CIA’s Haskell in a bind

Russia claims its new hypersonic weapon is ready for war

2010s = 1984: The decade we finally understood George Orwell ...

Mars

I read recently that the atmosphere of Mars is 95% carbon dioxide ... see: Atmosphere of Mars. This surprised me since the atmosphere here on Earth is only 0.04% CO2. Now I understand that the Martian atmosphere is much thinner (1%) than it is on our planet, but it is still revealing and prompts the following observations:

- Mars obviously has no fossil fuels since it is questionable if it ever supported any life that left a legacy of hydrocarbons ... nor does it have any internal combustion engines. So where did this CO2 come from? The answer must be that there is a natural out-gassing from volcanoes and vents occurring there and, not having any plant life to convert this carbon dioxide to sugar and oxygen over the eons, this gas has kept building up. This also strongly suggest that this process must have happened, and probably still does occur, here on Earth.

- Being that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and given its huge percentage there, the temperature on Mars must be extraordinarily high. But no, it is cold enough there to freeze this CO2 into dry ice around it’s polar regions ... see picture above. Huh?

- Elon Musk is pointing to Mars as being the refuge that we must inhabit to escape from our Earth that is destroying itself with CO2-produced global warming. Why would we seek to flee to a planet that has many thousands of times more percentage of atmospheric carbon dioxide than we have here at home? Do government subsidies for electric cars and rocket ships have anything to do with this?

Afterward: Thinking more about Earthlings settling Mars — Mars obviously has no ozone layer like we do on Earth that protects us from the sun’s lethal cosmic rays. This would complicate the habitation process there enormously ... possibly too enormously.

Hydrocarbon Irony

I am surprised that so few people have pointed out the irony contained in Elon Musk’s SpaceX company sending one of his electric Tesla cars into orbit around the moon. Has anyone stopped to consider that the hydrocarbons burned to accomplish this piece of self-promotion was likely equivalent to those saved by thousands of his electric cars scooting about here in Earth? What about all the global warming that possibly resulted from this enormous amount of CO2 so produced? As a matter of fact, when is Musk’s SpaceX going to develop an all-electric rocket-ship so that we (and he?) can colonize Mars?

Fat chance!

Paradoxical Reality

OK, let’s suppose Elon Musk is right and we are only players in some super simulation run in a gigantic computer sometime in the future. Now fast forward in this computer until the time that the group of scientists begin assembling this big brain and then programming our simulation. Now take us to that moment when they activate this simulation in which they themselves have been players. What happens next in this paradoxical reality?

Does everything disappear in cloud of quantum smoke? Or does Schroeder’s cat step out of its box both dead and alive?

Jet Planes

Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez is right and we must abandon hydrocarbon assist when we travel. And perhaps Elon Musk clones will invent battery-powered 10-passenger prop planes that can go 300 miles before a recharge.

But what these Musk-ateers can’t do is to create jet-engine speeds without the condensed power contained in hydrocarbon fuels ... until nuclear-powered jets exist ... like the one that just blew up in Russia.

So, dear reader, enjoy what we have today in jet travel ... it is not to last 12 years ... according to Alexandria.

Reefer Madness (Revised)

I have been curious as to whether Elon Musk's  (ditto California's) chimera of converting ALL our petroleum-driven vehicles to electric ones. I have performed the following very rough calculations ... which I welcome you dear readers to check and, hopefully, verify:

Daily US number of vehicle miles driven: 8.8 brillion  miles (2015)

Range of electric vehicles (Tesla): 250 miles

= 35.2 million ... average number of daily recharges of US electric vehicles

X  94 KWh ... power used per vehicle recharge (Tesla cars ... much more for trucks)

= 3.3  billion KWh total additional US electric power demand per day

versus 10.7 billion KWh current (2016) US electric power usage per day

Ergo: For the US to go all electric vehicles, we would have to expand our electric power generation capacity by something like 30%. It ain't gonna happen ... certainly not with just wind and solar ... which now represents 10% of our generation ... and would have to expand at least 13 fold.

I think you may now guess why Elon Musk is smoking weed.

Model A Rod

Elon Musk and others are hellbent on repopulating our streets and highways with autonomous electric cars. Someday they say we won't even own these cars, we will just rent them by the hour. We will call for them on our smart phones and driverless electric cars will come, pick us up and take us, taxi-alike, to our destination ... then go for someone else. No mire personal cars, no more garages, mo more pumping gas, mo more paying car insurance and registration fees, no stick shifts, no more maintenance headaches ... no more loving Simonizing of our pet machines.

And American men no longer will have a passionate love affair with their cars. Their wheels were once their ticket to the world, their personal magic carpet, their reason for living. Their Model A hot rod was once like the cutest girl in class who talked dirty and gave you a glimpse of heaven. To many20th century teenagers, a "chopped" car was the center of their world.

Soon cars will no longer need gasoline. They will just plug in for God's sake. No flaming exhaust. No vroom, vroom, vroom. I kinda think autonomous cars won't be programmed to "lay rubber." No backfires. No overhauling of the engine. No twin double barrel carbonators. No low riders. No emissions tests. No neckers' nobs. No backseat fun on lover's lane ... perhaps one more reason for a lowered birth rate.

I will not be around when this transmogrification takes place ... and I am not that unhappy about it.

Headlines

Obama issues new warning against 'strongman politics'

Powell: 'Rising chorus of concern' from business over tariffs

Russia celebrates: 'West has frailed' ...

Chinese state media: No fear of Trump-Putin ''forming an alliance' against China

Trump's step towards Putin seals a new world order

Key Republican Orrin Hatch threatens to check Trump's tariff policy

Elon Musk's latest outburst raises doubts on leadership ...

... 'American patriot": Australian PM backs POTUS ...

Rand [Paul] sees lots to like about Trump's presser with Putin

Blue states file suit against the U.S. over tax deduction limitations

Poll: 73% of Dems want fresh face in 2020 ...

... Morning Joe: 'Pitin has something over Trump' ...

Dismal Sciences

The world is full of scientists who have abandoned their craft ... and are shoving each other aside to get "liked" on Facebook or have their video go viral on YouTube. Science starts with a premise, collects reliable data, conducts experiments to validate, modify or disprove the premise, offers the data and experiment protocols to peers for reproducible validation or invalidation and, finally, publishes results using a non-political narrative. This is called the "scientific method."

Unfortunately, due to social, monetary and academic pressures, this scientific methodology has, in many instances, been short circuited ... or even abandoned. And, equally unfortunately, our naive public seldom notices ... not a recipe for greater enlightenment. May I offer some contemporary examples?

- Psychiatrists and psychologists are diagnosing our president with all kinds of mental maladies without having examined him in person. This goes against the basic tenets of these soft sciences.

- Climate scientists (97%?) who build computer models using "adjusted data" whose predictions do not even come close to transpiring ... yet who tenaciously hold by their debunked premises.

- There have been some pretty astounding predictions made by scientists and scientist wannabes about the future of artificial intelligence ... from the future of autonomous cars to cyborgs eventually taking over our lives. Many of these predictions seem pie-in-the-sky ... driven more by Internet grandstanding than by true science.

- Has anyone (besides my son) worried about the demands that might be put upon our electric grid if our nation went totally electric cars, trucks, buses and planes? Yet, Elon Musk is leading us by the nose into this brave new world. Either we have converted to nuclear power plants by then ... or the output of fossils fuel plants will rise dramatically. (And I will never fly by in a battery-powered plane.)

- Economists, the most dismal scientists of all, are quick to predict the results of changes in regulations, taxes and tariffs --- most of which are not based in any science but on political leanings.

Headlines

High school slaughter, 17 dead ... 'Everyone predicted it' ...

Republicans in Congress get embattled Kelly's back

Elon Musk broadband-from-space plan backed by FCC chair ...

Report: Jared Kushner's debt rose by millions during his first year in the White House

Senate immigration deal on life support

Illegal immigrants warmed about Florida travel as arrests soar ...

Ryan blames McCain for tanking Obamacare repeal

Shadowy criminals prowling the seas, putting food supplies in danger

Schiff complains FBI, Justice Department making too many demands on Russian memo

FBI warns: Whole of Chinese society is a threat ... Don't use Chinese-made smartphones ...

GOP takes lead in generic Congressional Ballot, Trump job approval hits 47% ...

Economists rip Trump"s spending plan as 'foolhardy,' 'ludicrous' and 'the dumbest'

Silly Season

What?! Elon Musk uses his new powerful SpaceX rocket to send a Tesla sportscar to Mars ...  see: Quartz Story. Is this a rational use of assets all around? Feels like PR hokum to me.

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico.

Trump will scrap critical Obamacare subsidy

Billionaire Tesla CEO reveals he owns two gas cars and one is his 'first love'

Bannon bombshell: Trump has 30% chance of survival!

[AG] Sessions calls out asylum racket, demands reform from Congress

Trump sparks new backlash after threatening Puerto Rican aid

FBI looking into Puerto Rican officials withholding hurricane relief

Congres warned: NKorean EMP [electro-magnetic pulse] would kill '90% of Americans' ...

Hollywood rape culture: Oscar-winner [Emma] Thompson says harassment 'endemic'

House passes second massive disaster [relief] package

Another quake rattles North Korean nuclear testings grounds

Evacuations widen as CA wildfires spread ...

USA withdraws from UNESCO over anti-Israel bias

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Trump review leans toward proposing mini-nuke

Eric Bolling's son found dead

AMAZONGOOGLEAPPLE in line of fire as EU moves to tax tech ...

Floods kill at least six as storms thrash Italy

Trump calls S. Korean leader a 'beggar' in call to Japan PM

AL Sharpton's daughter arrested for brawling with cab driver

[Trump] Approval pops to 46% ...

Elon Musk's mother fashion's new 'It' model at 69 years-old

NATO chief: North Korean crisis requires a global response

George Clooney rants about 'failed screenwriter' Steve Bannon

Vast intelligence haul funds next phase in fight against ISIS ...

Firemen abandon house blaze after attack in Swedish 'no-go' zone

Some Obvious Observations

If the United State could inflict devastating punishment on North Korea for their nuclear belligerence (without starting WW III), Iran might have second thoughts about its quest for atomic weaponry.

The Democrats' real objective after Obamacare was not just 'single payer' but 'single provider' too.

Trump is ever so slowly adjusting to his role as president. We occasionally are seeing glimpses of his incipient liberal tendencies.

Possibly Obama's most grievous failure as president (and there were many) was putting America's missile defense system on the back burner.

The Democrat party has a very thin bench of moderates. Most of its younger hopefuls are unacceptably radicalized.

Hillary Clinton and her band of media outlaws, by demonizing Russia as the reason for her defeat, have possibly removed the Kremlin as a natural ally in the war against radical jihadism and in reining in North Korea.

If protectionism causes world-wide depressions, why hasn't China, the second largest economy in the world, with its onerous import policies, tripped this wire?

Global warming alarmists are losing their propaganda war primarily because their dire predictions are not coming to pass. The world is slowly waking up to this massive fraud and those, who refuse to admit the folly of their ways, are getting even more desperately strident in their rhetoric.

China is gradually losing its advantage as a mercantile giant and, unless it can add a new engine for growth, runs the risk of having all its bad bank loans pull the country into a Japan-like economic morass.

Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) , in as few as ten years, could bring about the next source of world-wide economic collapse.

Elon Musk will NOT have landed, as promised, anyone on Mars by the end of 2018 ... or even by 2020.

One Problem with A.I.

Elon Musk is constantly warning us about the dangers of artificial intelligence (A.I.) ... despite the fact that he is balls out to develop it for autonomous cars. Having been somewhat involved in this technology myself, may I point out one possible problem?

Let us take the example of autonomous cars. When a programmer is accounting for one circumstance of driving, he/she might have to deal with the following conditionals:

Is it dusk out?
Is the pavement wet?
Does this car have new tires?
Is it above freezing?
Can I see the other driver?
Is this a holiday weekend?
How heavy is the other traffic?
Are the other car's headlights flashing?
Is everyone wearing their seat belts?
Etc.
Etc.

And what if one obscure possibility is not included? Such a decision tree may be 20 or 30 deep and, here is the rub, they are in a predetermined sequence ... and the order of these conditionals often produces different judgments. The human mind does not have such a restriction. It can resequence things in a flash. The possible sequencing of 30 conditionals is a huge number ... a number that would confound today's super computers. And things might get even more complex ... not to be so resolved in a microsecond. Only hope might be quantum computers ...

I'm not claiming to be brighter than Musk ... just quite a bit older and perhaps wiser ...

Afterthought: Perhaps the human mind's ability to rearrange such decision trees on the fly is called "judgment" ...

Brave New World

II is upon us ... the brave new world. Now, employees of Three Square Market in Wisconsin are voluntarily getting RFI microchips implanted between their thumbs and forefingers that identifies them as employees and allows them to swipe their hands to open doors and get soft drinks ... see: ABC Wbay Story.

This developmention is eerie. There is something very Ray Bradbury about this story ... the use of technology to strip people of their autonomy ... almost like making them part of the corporate machinery ... and, in a way, frightenly reminiscent of the tattoos placed by the Nazis to indelibly identify Jews during the holocaust. One could also liken it to branding cattle.

Three Square Market downplays the implications of this development ... saying that there is no GPS capability to this chip, it's voluntary, and it can be removed like a splinter. However, what is the next step? Such removal of our inalienable rights will surely not obey stop signs. This insideous trend seems to point to the eventual loss of our humanity. Elon Musk may be a bipolar Chicken Little ... but he does have a point -- we must be ever vigilant about giving over even the smallest part of our lives to the cyber world.

They likely will not give it back ...

Cartoon of the Day

From Powerline Blog

Really Carptoon of the Day