Very Interesting

From daily timewaster blog

Black sand dunes on Mars ...

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!

Dubious Augury

Martian Levittown

I have major doubts whether the following popular forecasts will come to pass ... at least in our lifetimes ...

-  Go-everywhere self-driving vehicles

- Serious global warming caused by increases in carbon dioxide

- Electric vehicles/airplanes totally replacing internal-combustion ones

- Widespread G-5 communications

- Colonization of Mars

- Artificial intelligence/robots controlling humans

- Nuclear-powered missiles

- Vegetarian “meat” replacing real meat

- Total elimination of nuclear and hydrocarbon-based power plants

- Nuclear fusion power generation

- Quantum computers

- Plastic products disappearing altogether

Headlines

Trump’s Biden bashing splits his advisers

Qualcomm expects at least $4.5 billion from Apple settlement

Buzz Aldrin: Time to plot migration to Mars ...

Mueller objected to report rollout, but did not say it was inaccurate

Biden goes light on policy, heavy on emotion

Major Wall Street banks are telling clients to be ready for a sudden rip higher in the market

Moscow ‘installs nukes’ in Venezuela?

Mueller report: Special Counsel did not examine DNC servers

Powell ignores Trump, sees no need for Fed to cut rates

Tesla files for a shelf offering to raise capital

American military prepping for Guaido takeover ...

Ilhan Omar: ‘This is not going to be a country of white people’

Headlines

Negotiators have deal within sight in talks to avert shutdown

The rocket engine that Elon Musk wants to use to get to Mars just passed a key test

Late night hosts wore blackface, now avoid subject ...

New Jersey residents to be hit with ‘rain tax’

2020 Dems see danger in the Mueller probe

AAA confirms what electric car owners suspected — cold weather saps EV range

Schiff announces sweeping investigation into Trump finances, Russia ...

U.S. to purchase Iron Dome missile defense system from Israel

Democrats duck for cover as Virginia scandals pile up

China and Russia loaned billions to Venezuela. — and then the presidency went up for grabs

Mexico to send military to murder hot spots ...

... NOW calls on Justin Fairfax to resign

reddit Pic

Water ice on Mars.

The Martian

A little green man from Mars

Wanted to rocket to the stars.

A saucer, his mode of flight,

Faster than the speed of light,

He arrived in just a few hours.

Headlines

'Its not going to be a great meeting': Trump to welcome European Commission head

House Financial Services chair splits with Trump on farm relief: 'Donald Trump has too much power'

Turkey vows to keep buying Iran oil, 'We will not obey' ...

U.K. Ministry of Defense runs out of money ...

Trump attacks 'week politicians' who speak out against tariffs

Southern California home sales crash, a warning sign to the nation

Founder of anti-Putin feminist group found dead ...

Page surveillance documents indicate State Dept.provided in initial info

Pompeo, Mattis on cleanup duty after Trump diplomatic blowups

Judge rejects Trump's bid to dismiss foreign payments lawsuit

Radar detects lake on Mars ... 12-mile wide reservoir ...

Income inequality much worse in blue states than red states

Headlines

Trump pledges to end military exercises as part on North Korea nuke deal

Facebook denies building eye-tracking software it's hinted at

Inflation at six-year high, eating away at wage increases ...

Nancy Pelosi trashes Trump after North Korea summit

Senate will try to reverse ZTE deal with a must-pass defense bill

Trump says Trudeau's comments are going to cost Canada 'a lot of money'

NASA: Humans 'absolutely' could live on Mars ...

Small business confidence hits highest level in 34 years

Voto Latino aiming to register 1 million new voters by 2020

Dennis Rodman cries, wears MAGA hat ...

Seattle reverses course on business tax after AMAZON pressure ...

 Alec Baldwin: 'If I ran for president, I would win, hands down'

Headlines

Trump and Bolton spurn top-level North Korea planning

Facebook bug makes the private posts of 14 million users public

NASA: Building blocks for life discovered on Mars ... Organic molecules ...

Report: Kim Jong-Un fears assassination attempt at Singapore

Macron and Trudeau vow to confront Trump on  tariffs [at G7]

U.S. hits China's ZTE with $1 billion fine in deal to end crippling sanctions, Wilbur Ross says

American wealth surpasses  $100 trillion!

Trump: Rodman 'not invited' to Kim summit

Senate GOP leaders rebuff attempts the rein in Trump tariffs

Se. Mark Warner will 'acsolutely try to stop 'awful, awful' deal with China's ZTE

[TRUMP] APPROVAL STEADY AT 49% ...

Mika: Source says Trump 'upset' he can't watch porn in WH

Tech Dreams

Elon Musk spins many high-tech dreams almost on a daily basis. Colonizing Mars. Hyperloop transports. Underground highways. Electric autonomous vehicles. Satellite launching. Solar cells. Commercial building electricity storage and retrieval, Virtual reality. Flame throwing gun. Totally green economy. And, I'm sure, more to come ... next time the Tesla Model 3 production schedule slips.

These chimeras (and our utopian mindset) have made him a many-times-over billionaire. Is this good and will his idiosyncratic dreams prevail? Who am I to judge? My dreams upto now have turned to cottage cheese. So I must demur.

Headlines

Exclusive: Trump finalizing opioid plan that includes death penalty for dealers

Trump decides to remove National Security Advisor McMaster: Washington Post

Republics push Internet sales tax ...

Parents argue school district's decision to allow student walkout

Democrats meddle in Illinois GOP primary

Southeast Asia is increasingly turning toward India instead of US or China

Space Race: Mission to Mars in 2019 ...

SECRET EMPIRES: Joe Biden and John Kerry's sons strike billion dollar deal

Donald Trump Jr.'s wife, Vanessa Trump, files for divorce

If the US and Russia had a cyberwar, Russia would win: Cybersecurity CEO

US accuses Russia for attacks on [electric] grid

Illegal alien acquitted of killing Kate Steinle sues Feds for 'vindictive prosecution'

Headlines

At the Pennsylvania rally Trump endorses himself

Elon Musk projects Mars spaceship will be ready for short trips by first half of 2019

[Miguel Diaz-Canel] The new tyrant of Cuba ...  

75% of first-time young  Italian voters marked their ballots for populist parties

Trump's military parade, minus the tanks, set for Veterans Day

China allows Xi to remain president indefinitely

Elizabeth Warren refuses DNA test to prove her Native American heritage

Trump to buck NRA, push to raise minimum rifle purchase age to 21

Trump Organization sends $51,470 in foreign profits to Treasury

China minister says trade war with U.S. would be 'disaster'

Free-falling 8.5 ton space station to crash in Michigan?

Vladamir Putin suggests Jews were behind election interference

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 CNBC?

GOP leaders bullish tax bill will pass the House this week

Media Matters using Roy Moore allegations to go after Hannity's advertisers

Hundreds of millionaires are banding together to tell Congress: Raise our taxes

Bears Packers game half empty at Soldier Field ...

Alabama polls show close race after Moore accusations

Remember [acting AG] Sally Yates? She says Trump is 'shamelessly unpatriotic'

Humans traveling to Mars may soon be possible. Whether they can survive the trip is another story.

Bill Gates buys big chunk of land to build 'smart city' ...

Middle class biggest winner in Senate tax plan, study says

Top Dems STILL won't say what should happen to Menendez if he is convicted

Trump bailed on a trade deal, and now a bunch of US businesses may suffer

Politics killing mood at Barcelona's storied sex club ...

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.

Headlines

These headlines have all come from Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Politico?

Health bill could show limits of Trump's Senate sway

Musk: We'll create city on Mars with a million inhabitants!

Report: Walmart orders vendors not to use Amazon Web Server

Going Green: Trump officially suggests building the US border wall with solar panels

Texas nurse could have killed up to 60 children

Anthem Blue Cross withdraws from Obamacare in IN, WI

Gowdy: Maybe the DNC didn't cooperate with DHS because there was something else on that server

McCabe: FBI has great number of folks working for Trump-Russia Special Prosecutor

Feds: More than a quarter of illegal immigrant minors in our care are gang members

Two Cosby holdouts prevented guilty verdict ...

Democrat finger pointing intensifies after Georgia loss

Michael Moore: Dems have 'no message, no plan, no leaders' ...

Musk Melon

I have been a reluctant skeptic when it comes to the enigmatic Elon Musk ... particularly when one recognized his string of successes. But, of late, these successes seem to have gone to his head as he is sounding more and more eccentric ... we are all part of a giant computer simulation ... robots are going to take over from man ... humans will be inhabiting Mars by 2020 ... and now a new company to hook our brains (melons) directly to computers within four years. He is using his eclat and easy funding to pursue his highly personal but questionable quests. Some of these things may come about but I do think Musk has become smitten by his own genius.

The Wall Street Journal has summarized Elon's recent dreams in a brighter light than he might have liked ... see: WSJ Article (may be behind a pay wall).

Shades of Cold Fusion

Golamaphobia -- fear of robots

Periodically visionaries appear in the news with proposals that appeal to the public's WOW element ... a public usually composed of those younger people who have not seen it all before ... and who don't bring a healthy skepticism into such dreams. I distinctly remember many years ago how the world was all aflutter about the possibility of unlimited cheap energy from "cold fusion" ... essentially capturing a hydrogen bomb in a bottle. Here we are over 25 years later and this dream is yet to become a reality.

Enter stage left, Elon Musk, the world's latest technical visionary who has just announced his intent to link our brains directly with computers ... or Neuralink as he has dubbed it. This new company would create a helmet that fits over one's head to transmit and receive directly from a computer in order to eliminate the middleman and increase the bandwidth ... see: LA Times Article. Musk's intent to use to Neuralink to defeat robots. Not to be outdone by this loopiness, Musk is also promising space travelers a trip around the moon next year ... and a flight to Mars by 2024 using his company, SpaceX's technology ... see: Daily Caller Article.c

Musk seems to be transfixed with the survival of mankind using the Mars colonization scheme to prevent an Apocalypse ... the subjudigation of humans by robots. If Musk had not already had his share of successes with Tesla and SpaceX, I expect that the authorities would be after him with a net ... shades of cold fusion. But he has had impressive wins and people are therefore reluctant to criticism his visions.

But I am a doubter ... reluctantly ...