Wednesday, November 9
Mars is Alive
Color-coded topographic view shows the relative heights of features in Cerberus Fossae: reds and whites are relatively higher than blues and purples. The image is based on a digital terrain model of the region, from which the topography of the landscape can be derived. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Ever since the NASA InSight Mission deployed the SEIS seismometer on the surface of Mars in 2018, seismologists and geophysicists at ETH Zurich have been listening to the seismic pings of more than 1,300 marsquakes.
Mars shows signs of geological life
Led by ETH Zurich, an international team of researchers analyzed a cluster of more than 20 recent marsquakes that originated in the Cerberus Fossae graben system. From the seismic data, scientists concluded that the low-frequency quakes indicate a potentially warm source that could be explained by present-day molten lava, i.e., magma at that depth, and volcanic activity on Mars. Specifically, they found that the quakes are located mostly in the innermost part of Cerberus Fossae. READ MORE...
Tuesday, November 8
Wishful Thinking
The high temps today will be in the low 70s... not as cold as up north nor as warm as down in the deep south...
The sun is out and there is a gentle breeze...
My daily walk will start in a few minutes as I give my breakfast a little time to settle... I try to walk a mile or more each day which takes me over 20 minutes but less than 30 minutes now... my back surgery was 5 months ago so I am walking a little better but not like I was or want to...
My task today is to work on the basement, looking for stuff we don't need anymore to take to the dump, find stuff that we don't want and can be put in a yard sell, and then rearrange what is left so that it is more conveniently found and labeled...
I work on this task about 60-90 minutes... not because I get tired or bored with the task, but to stretch it out so that I will have this focus for several days... it is also healthy to move around and do stuff, especially as we get older...
We are cleaning up our home in the event that we can find an alternative house that has what we want, for a similar price that is also smaller in size with minimal land to maintain... actually no land would be ideal... but with that said, we don't want to pay HOA fees... so, it is doubtful we will find what we want...
Final thought: our three cats likes the two levels as they can go to the lower level and go outside into an enclosure that is fenced in with chicken wire or they can dart upstairs and go out into the screened in porch and look down on whatever it is that is below them... it is doubtful they will have that arrangement if we move.
Midterm Election Day
I stopped voting sometime between 1990 and 2000 and I cannot remember anything more specific than that in the sense of did I stop cold turkey or gradually.
I do know why I stopped and it is because NOTHING EVER CHANGED regardless of whether a Democratic won or a Republican won...
If nothing changed, why did I need to vote?
My involvement with politics began in the 1960 with John F. Kennedy and the same issues that we had back then, we still have in 2022... WHY?
We have had plenty of Demcrats in power and plenty of Republicans in power so that these issues could be resolved and yet NOTHING CHANGES...
We still have:
- Racism
- Crime and Violence
- Increasing Drugs
- Higher Prices
- Wage Issues
- Sheltering Income
- National Debt Increasing
- Loss of Global Respect
- Wealthy versus Poor
- Double Standards
- Not Caring about Veterans
- Problems with Education
- Loss of Morals
- Loss of Integrity
Perspective
Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Lymphoma and discovered that I had experienced a heart attack while walking on the treadmill. Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with a second cancer, Melanoma, and the two cancers were treated simultaneously. Because I had 2 cancers I was not eligible to participate in any clinical trials.
This past year, I underwent surgery to fuse 5 lumbar disks together and have spent the last five months learning how to walk again and walk up a flight of stairs both of which were unanticipated.
At 75 years old, these last 15 years has, needless to say, been interesting.
Sickness after treatment has stopped ever since I switched from chemo to immunotherapies for my two cancers, that I have been told I will have for the rest of my life.
In another 15 years, I will be 90 and I am sure that my physical abilities will be limited, even if I continue to walk a mile each day, which is what I am doing now, except on Sundays.
My perspective on life is no doubt different than your perspectives... that is not to say that our different perspectives are right or wrong, just different.
I intentionally try to stay away from stressful situations and if I do find myself in one of those situations, then I try to maintain a "I don't give a shit" attitude.
As I write this piece, I am watching FOX News and the whole show is focused on the midterms... while I am a reformed Democrat but not a full fledged Republican yet I lean in a conservative direction, I really don't care about what happens...
If the lack of gasoline forces my wife and I to purchase an electric car, then we will buy the cheapest car we can and simply stop driving as much... just where we have to go... by the time this change actually happens to us, we will be well over the age of 80... how many places do you think we will want to drive to at that age??? I mean really???
If our economy gets better or worse, it just will not bother us as we will adjust our purchases and our needs... We will simply survive and BLAME NO ONE...
This is a stress free perspective...
Mysteries of King Tut
It is one of the most iconic discoveries in all of archaeology—the treasure-filled tomb of the young Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. One hundred years ago today British archaeologist Howard Carter and an Egyptian excavation team found the boy king’s final resting place. Scholars have been studying the royal tomb and its owner ever since.
The key to Tut’s discovery was dogged perseverance. By November 4, 1922, Carter and his team had spent five futile years searching for an undiscovered royal tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. The prevailing wisdom said that everything the valley had to offer had already been found. Carter decided to spend what was to be his final field season digging beneath a group of huts that housed the ancient tomb builders.
Beneath those huts, the excavation team uncovered a step cut into the rock. Within days the team had dug out a steep staircase and a 30-foot-long passageway that ended in a door sealed with plaster and stamped with the royal necropolis seal. Carter waited to open the door until his benefactor George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, fifth earl of Carnarvon, who had funded his work in the valley for all those years, could travel to the site.
Monday, November 7
Ignorance is Bliss
CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and NBC do not report all the news so that you, the viewer, will be ignorant and not worry about...
- Many Dems dont think we have an immigration problem because the Republicans invented it...
- Many Dems don't think that we have an inflation problem because the Republicans invented it...
- Many Dems don't think we have a crime and violence problem because the Republicans invented it...
- Many Dems don't think we have a fentanyl problem because the Republicans invented it...
- Many Dems think our economy is perfect because Joe Biden claims that it is healthy as hell...
W
Tomorrow Means CHANGE
Once the general public takes into consideration the following: inflation, immigration, gas prices, crime and violence, unemployment, a non growth economy, and the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle just to name a few... the democrats are literally going to get their asses kicked at the polls and that will be the end of;
- Pelosi
- Schumer
- Schiff
- Nadler
- Gasoline will be back online
- The border wall will be finished
- Illegals will be kicked out
- Police Depts will be funded again
- illegal drugs will reduce
- Our economy will grow
- Putin will be told to go screw himself
- China will be placed into check
- NOKO will be told to shut up
- CRT will not be taught in schools
- abortions will still be allowed
- twitter will promote free speech
- our WOKE military will change back
- gays will still be able to get married
- blacks will still be able to become wealthy
A Polite Warning
I am retired, a vietnam veteran, a southerner, a tarheel, well educated, well traveled, well loved, well experienced, a cat lover, conservative with some liberal views, 75 years of age, married, a heart attack survivor, a cancer survivor (still being treated), lumbar fusion surgery survivor, creative writer, novelist, world traveler, born under the sign of scorpion, and an INTJ who does not GIVE A SHIT whether you read this blog or not.
I have tried several directions in order to attract attention, none of which has worked very well... so since I prefer to write novels, I will post only one superficial article a day that you might or might not want to read. I will post some kind of image with that article and I may write something myself... but, I am not spending anymore time than that on this blog.
I will continue to post one poem a day on my Reflections blog as I have been doing for several years now. Writing one poem a day is a piece of cake and takes very little time and is rather entertaining to capture my feeling in a poetic style.
But, this Journal Blog, will be given a minimal amount of attention... about the same amount of attention that it has been given... it's nothing personal, it is just me making sure that there is a good return on my invested time.
When you get to be 75, you can afford to have an I don't give a shit attitude...
Keep the faith...
PS - the use of warning was just to see if I could get your attention...
Growing Brain Cells
The story could have been straight out of science fiction – scientists have grown human brain cells in a lab, and taught them to play the video game Pong, similar to squash or tennis. But this didn’t happen on the big screen. It happened in a lab in Melbourne, Australia, and it raises the fundamental question of the legal status of these so-called neural networks.
Are they the property of the team that created them, or do they deserve some kind of special status – or even rights?
The reason this question needs to be asked is because the ability to play Pong may be a sign that these lab-grown brain cells have achieved sentience – often defined as the capacity to sense and respond to a world that is external to yourself.
And there is widespread consensus that sentience is an important threshold for moral status. Ethicists believe that sentient beings are capable of having the moral right not to be treated badly, and an awareness of the implications of sentience is increasingly embedded in research practices involving animals. READ MORE...
Russians Against Putin
It only took a few hours after Russia’s Vladimir Putin hailed his mobilization as a sparkling success Friday for a torrent of humiliating reports to emerge that suggest the war effort has been more successful in turning the country against him than defeating mythical Nazis in Ukraine.
The most staggering contradiction to the Russian president’s boastful claims came perhaps in Kazan, where dozens of drafted troops were captured on video late Friday berating military leadership outside a collection point for the newly mobilized.
The angry crowd complained of a lack of water, food, and “rusty” rifles from the 1970s that one soldier said were too “dangerous” to even use, according to local outlets. Spectacularly, the troops were not cowed by a military officer who threatened to call in riot police. READ MORE...
Gerrymandering
The districts that will determine the House majority were crafted not only by fellow Republicans protecting their incumbents but by courts and commissions that drew many of the nation’s battleground districts — and by Democrats who may have reached too far with their own maps. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Republicans are trying to flip control of the House this week. And their paths to victory were meticulously fashioned via redistricting long before the votes were cast.
The districts that will determine the House majority were crafted not only by fellow Republicans protecting their incumbents but by courts and commissions that drew many of the nation’s battleground districts — and by Democrats who may have reached too far with their own maps.
The main consequences of redistricting this year: There are fewer tightly divided districts than ever. Partisan control of redistricting in dozens of states allowing lawmakers from both parties to shore up incumbents at the expense of competitive seats.
Republicans are likely to benefit from redistricting more than Democrats, after they pushed through aggressive, seat-flipping gerrymanders in states such as Florida. Meanwhile, some Democratic attempts to draw maps to their advantage, including in New York, were struck down by the courts. READ MORE...
Sunday, November 6
Let The Games Begin
Now that I am retired and have no place to go other than to doctors appointments, I take a shower and shave every other day. That is not to say, I don't shower on those those days if there is a doctors appointment because I do.
I maintain a laid back attitude, getting up in the mornings when I wanted to, walking 1.5 miles each day when I want to, cooking my meals when I want to, and watching HULU when I want to... understand that I let my wife think that she tells me what to do and when I need to do it.... and I do this because I know that if momma ain't happy then nobody is happy.
In previous posts, I have shared with everyone the benefits of living in East TN and that has not changed. I like this area better than the Piedmont of NC where I am from after high school. But, it is more than just liking this area because there is no state income tax so that saves lots of needlessly spent monies. Instead we have a state lottery and since I don't gamble, I don't waste my money there either for a million to one chance of winning.
We just got take out Asian food (rice, chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, and wonton soup for $12 each. We were serve more than we could eat, so each of us have two meals... each meal costing $6... Share with me if you can another place in the US of A where you can get a meal like this for the amount of money we paid... and, it is delicious on top of that.
My wife and I have been debt free for over 15 years, so we are not burdened by having to pay a montly mortgage or pay down some line of credit we needed. Cash and carry is how we roll nowadays. I pity all those hard working people that have debt hanging over their heads and finding themselves working to basically pay of debt... just another form of slavery in my opinion.
The midterms are just around the corner and we don't give a rat's ass who wins (what party that is) because whether the liberals or conservatives are in control, none of their decisions will really impact us.
- We get two tanks of gasoline a month, at the most which at inflated prices is about $100.
- The illegal drugs that are arriving in the US don't impact us because we don't take drugs.
- The illegal immigrants coming across the border do not impact us either as we are a long ways away from our southern border.
- Increased food prices don't really bother us much as neither one of us eats that much.
- Inflation does not negatively rock our world because we saved more than enough money
- Neither one of us gives a shit about CRT being taught in schools
- Neither one of us gives a shit about the LGBTQ+ movement
- Neither one of us gives a shit about going green
- Neither one of us gives a shit about racism
THE TIDE IS TURNING... as they say...
While many of us dislike Donald Trump, what we have to accept whether we like it or not, the economy was the healthiest it has been in the history of our young country... in other words, what he did WORKED... China and Russia were afraid of him because of his unpredictability... and, while that can be problematic at time, IT WORKED...
Very quickly, we have learned that the Biden Administration and his policies (assuming that they are really his) are not working... and logically, the American public is beginning to realize that our economy cannot be blamed on COVID and the WAR IN UKRAINE.
It is also obvious that we cannot blame covid or the ukraine war for the increase in immigration or the increase in illegal drugs coming into the USA.
Nor can we blame the increase in violence and crime on covid or the ukraine war.
It took Trump 2 years to build the economy and it took Biden 2 years to destroy it... with his FOCUS being whatever Trump did I will UNDO... that spiteful attitude was good politically but it was not good for the American people as a whole.
Most people, including conservatives, realize that we must be good stewards of the environment and direct our attention to alternative energies... BUT THAT MOVE MUST BE GRADUAL... and, not the rapid acceleration that Biden wants... it is reckless behavior... which is why we are in the situation that we are in.
Economists will argue all day long what caused inflation as well as argue over the fact that we are not experiencing inflation at all. This reminds me of being in college and listening to 2 PhDs argue claiming they both are correct simply because they have a PhD. The winner of the debate was decided not on the facts but on who got their PhD first.
Of course that makes no sense!!!
A friend of mine from Canada told me the other day that because of the decline in the stock market due to Biden's policies, he has lost $100K. He is retired and in his mid 70s and cannot afford to lose money.
Can you imagine what poor people are doing and how they have to live?
It is time to put Trump behind us and take the concepts that worked for him and implement them again... just to see if we can pull ourselves out of this hole...
I believe the general public is beginning to think like this and I believe the midterms will reflect that change.
False & Misleading Information
Washington -- CNN --
President Joe Biden has been back on the campaign trail, traveling in October and early November to deliver his pitch for electing Democrats in the midterm elections on Tuesday.
Biden’s pitch has included claims that are false, misleading or lacking important context. (As always, we take no position on the accuracy of his subjective arguments.) Here is a fact-check look at nine of his recent statements.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article. READ MORE...
Manchin Unloads on Biden
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Saturday slammed President Joe Biden for pledging to shut down America’s coal plants in a speech in California.
“President Biden’s comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs,” Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in a statement just days ahead of the midterm elections.
Biden Says: Twitter Spews Lies
Twitter laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.
Biden said at a fundraiser: "And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends - that spews lies all across the world... There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?" READ MORE...
Saturday, November 5
AOC Continues to Mock Musk
Part of what has made New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez such a political star is her total lack of fear of speaking truth to power—and that includes one of the richest, and arguably most powerful, men in the world, Elon Musk.
AOC has been mercilessly dragging the new billionaire owner of Twitter, who acquired the platform last month for $44 billion in a purported bid to strengthen "free speech" and make the virtual "town square" a place where discourse is exchanged more freely.
In practice, this has mostly resulted in free-flowing racial, ethnic and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and disinformation by the far-right figures to whom he has become a hero, and a desperate plan to charge verified users for their blue check marks.
If charging public figures for their only means of ensuring rogue account holders don't imitate and speak for them online seems antithetical to Musk's stated goals, you're not alone. READ MORE...
Anti-Trumper Loses Fans
Jimmy Kimmel this week said that he has lost at least half of his fanbase due to his anti-Trump jokes on his late-night show.
"I have lost half of my fans — maybe more than that," the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" host said on the "Naked Lunch" podcast Thursday, adding that "10 years ago among Republicans I was the most popular talk show host," according to research.
He said when former President Trump was first running for office ABC executives "hinted" he should back off on his jokes about the candidate. READ MORE...



















































