Quote:Donald Trump’s recent address to the joint session of Congress (emphasis on “joint” and “con”), while entertaining at times, offered no real updates on anything of substance. He’s a showman, and it was a show, which the Democrats unwittingly participated in. However, like no-alcohol beer, it was all bubbles and no buzz.

Trump made one quick reference to his administration’s ambitions in space that got the old brain juice flowing. His exact statement was, "We are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond."

Now where have we heard this before? Oh, that’s right, every administration since Nixon. Apparently Trump also forgot that the American flag has been emblazoned on every landing craft since Viking in 1976. Space nerds are forgivably a bit jaded when it comes to grandiose claims of “this time it’s gonna be different”.

Colonizing a planet is not like voyages to the New World. In the latter case, there were already humans living there, food and water were widely available, and the atmosphere was the same as back home, not to mention gravity.

There’s just a few major technological hurdles to clear to make Mars colonization feasible, not the least of which is the truth about what’s waiting up there. Some very plausible arguments have been made by some very credible people concerning evidence of a previous civilization up there. But even short of the highly speculative musings, there’s some very practical issues to address. Here’s just some of them:

• Spacecraft Reliability & Transport
  
• Radiation Protection
  
• Life Support Systems
  
• Habitat Construction
  
• Energy Generation & Storage
  
• Communications Delay
  
• Autonomous Operations
  
• Resource Utilization
  
• Medical Capabilities
  
• Extreme Cold
  
• Thin Atmosphere
  
• Low Gravity
  
• Toxic Soil & Dust
  
• Global Dust Storms
  
• Lack of Liquid Water
  
• Planetary Protection
  

Terraforming Mars is not exactly as easy as digging the Panama Canal. Without terraforming, inhabitants would be doomed to lives in sealed environments. Colonists could never go outside for a breath of fresh air, or lie in the grass and stare at the clouds, or swim in the pond and fish in the creek. In fact, water would likely become a medium of exchange, like gold, but even more precious.

Folks would have to megadose Vitamin D3 daily, since even direct exposure to the Sun would be many times less intense than a winter day on Earth. They would never enjoy the sound of rain on thee dome, but they would be sealed inside for months during the planetary dust storms.

It would take a very specific set of psychological tools for someone born on Earth to live on Mars. It would be akin to someone growing up in the tropics and moving to the Gobi desert or Death Valley, without a cell phone or life line of any kind. The colonists would be more isolated than any human has ever been in all of history, except maybe Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Speaking of where one is born, the United States has been around for about 10 generations. What would humans be like after the same amount of time on Mars? Us Earthers probably wouldn’t even recognize the Gingers as human. Here’s just some of the changes they would undergo:

• Lower Bone Density & Muscle Mass
  
• Taller, Leaner Bodies
  
• Altered Cardiovascular System
  
• Radiation Resistance
  
• Oxygen Adaptations
  
• Increased Isolation Resilience
  
• Cognitive Divergence from Earth
  
• Different Circadian Rhythms
  
• Martian Identity & Independence
  
• New Social Structures
  
• Technology-Driven Lifestyle
  
• New Ethical & Legal Systems
  
• Speciation Possibility
  
• Reduced Immune Function
  
• Vision Changes
  

What’s interesting is that NASA isolation studies, where people have been sealed in caves for months, have shown changes in their circadian rhythm that roughly match a Martian day (24 hours, 40 minutes). We might already be Gingers. In fact, with our weak bones, muscles and eyes, we might do very well on Mars, returning to our pre-Earth forms. Chew on that for a minute.

The worst part of living on Mars is the synodic cycle of roughly 2 years, during which Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun for about half the cycle. During the two-year cycle, there’s also a two-week blackout period, when the planets are at full opposition (opposite sides of the Sun). Round-trip communications can be as fast as 6 minutes at conjunction (closest point), and up to 44 minutes at the furthest point. Kind of kills Netflix streaming and texting folks Earthside.

So what all this comes down to is, we either send a bunch of folks off to Mars with a one-way ticket and a couple of ships full of luggage and wish them luck, or we create a massive interplanetary infrastructure that would, in any case, only have a short window every two years to exchange care packages between planets. In either case, it all seems rather implausible using chemical rockets. We need a significant upgrade in propulsion technology.

Metal tubes belching hot gasses is no way to run an interplanetary empire.

No matter how all this plays out, a human staying on Mars for a full synodic cycle (2 years) would likely never be able to come back to Earth. If they did, they would need more survival gear than a deep-sea diver. Anyone born and raised on Mars would certainly never be able to come to Earth without an environmental suit and bionic aids to move around. Mars’ gravity is just 38% that of Earth, so their bones would probably shatter just climbing out of the vehicle.

If Mars is truly lifeless, which it isn’t, would humans completely lose their immune systems after a couple of generations? Given that Mars does at least have some kind of microbial life (see Dr. Gil Levin’s work), would humans die almost instantly from infections? Will we send animals first, like The Andromeda Strain?

And none of this even begins to address the issues of food and water. Would food grown in Mars soil have the same nutritional value? Would the water there have the same characteristics as water on Earth? No one I’ve ever heard of has tried living on just exowater.

There are literally thousands of variables in the proposition of human colonization of Mars, or any other celestial body. Any wrong answer to any question could be fatal.

So, it’s fun to see Trump and Musk blithely wave their hands in the general direction of the sky and talk about planting flags and building cities, but there are so many assumptions contained in those pronouncements that entire novels and feature films have been made on the subject since the 1800s, and still the issues have not been fully explored.


The US and Japan are now bringing back samples of asteroids without, so far as anyone knows, doing any kind of due diligence on stray lifeforms. Gil Levin’s experiments found strong evidence for microbes in Martian soil, but no follow-up tests have ever been performed, for some strange reason. We know bacteria and mold grow all over the exterior of the International Space Station.

If Trump and Musk wanted to do something truly valuable for humanity’s future in space, it would be to hold a global symposium to expose all that we currently know, and all that could become known in the near future.

When you look at the diseases introduced to the New World, or brought back to the Old World, some serious problems start to emerge. While I personally advocate for human colonization of space, I also acknowledge that one-way trips are the only reasonable options for the time being.

It’s vital to dream. It’s even better to make them come true. But it’s prudent not to let the dreams become nightmares.


=====
There’s only one way to go with this cinematically, and that’s with the BBC/Grenada TV (when those brands meant something) mini series The Martian Chronicles (1980), starring Rock Hudson and other faces you’ll recognize. The series captures both the wonder and warning of Ray Bradbury’s seminal novel of the same name.

China has some of the toughest drug laws of any nation.. Have dope and be executed kind of laws, however exporting seems to be OK for state sponsored companies.

Interesting video on A.I. ....... I do believe the national security of a nation will continue to push the development of artificial war fighting capabilities. These developments will change the world forever IMO.

The "Book of Two Ways" is an ancient Egyptian funerary text considered to be the oldest known illustrated book. It served as a guide for the deceased to navigate the treacherous paths of the underworld, known as the Duat, and reach Rostau—the realm governed by the god Osiris. This text is part of the Coffin Texts, a collection of spells and illustrations inscribed on coffins during Egypt's Middle Kingdom period, around 4,000 years ago. 

In 2012, archaeologists led by Harco Willems from Belgium's University of Leuven uncovered fragments of the "Book of Two Ways" on the coffin of a woman named Ankh in the Deir el-Bersha necropolis. Despite the coffin's deterioration due to fungi, the inscriptions remained visible, providing valuable insights into ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife.

The "Book of Two Ways" maps out two distinct routes—one by land and one by water—that the deceased could take to reach the afterlife. These paths are depicted as being separated by a lake of fire and are filled with various obstacles, including demons and fiery barriers. The text includes incantations and spells designed to help the deceased overcome these challenges, reflecting the Egyptians' deep concern with ensuring a safe passage to the afterlife. 

This discovery not only sheds light on the funerary practices of ancient Egypt but also highlights their intricate belief systems regarding life after death. The "Book of Two Ways" predates other well-known funerary texts, such as the "Book of the Dead," underscoring its significance in the evolution of Egyptian religious literature. 

The unearthing of Ankh's coffin and the inscriptions of the "Book of Two Ways" within it provide a rare glimpse into the personalized nature of these texts, as they were often customized based on the individual's status and wealth. This find enriches our understanding of how ancient Egyptians perceived the journey after death and the measures they took to prepare for it. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/book-of-two-ways

comparison

I've never seen a Doppelganger that I know of. Never experienced it at all.

But I've apparently been one, at least twice now.

Many, many moons ago, in the late 70's - 1979, I think it was - a girl I'd known for years saw me walking the streets of a nearby town. She yelled and waved and did everything she could to get my attention, but apparently I ignored her entirely and just kept walking on.

Problem was, I was a long, long way away from that town at the time. Not there at all, and up to my eyeballs in rough livin' and bad business. When she actually did see me, and confronted me about my indiscretion, I of course denied being there at all, and told her where I HAD been at the time... but she wasn't buying it. She was so convinced it had been me that she didn't speak to me for a few years afterwards over my slight of her. She was just that certain that I was lying to her, and that I damned well HAD been there.

Flash forward 45 years or so, to last Thursday evening - 6 March, 2025 - around 6:30 Pm my time. There I was, minding my own business taking an evening nap, sound asleep, when Grace comes running into the bedroom, starts shaking my leg and shouting "Are you DEAD? Are you DEAD?".

One can imagine my confusion at being abruptly awakened in such a manner.

Once I got her calmed down, she told me that walking through the living room, she'd seen me sitting there (here) in my usual place as she passed. Then, thinking of something she wanted to ask me, she immediately turned around to ask it, but POOF! I was gone. Not there at all. So, she went looking for me through the house, wondering where I had gone to, but I was not in the kitchen, nor the bathroom, nor anywhere else. She finally found me laying in bed,in the bedroom, where I'd been for the last hour and a half or so.

That's when the shaking and yelling started.

Everything got better when I answered her, because dead guys, as a rule, don't answer. I think she thought she'd seen my ghost... even though she claims not to believe in ghosts.

it's a weird phenomena that I know nothing about, this doppelganger business. I've no idea what causes it, or what it means, or if it even means anything at all. It's just not something I've ever studied up on.

Does anyone else have any ideas as to why this sort of thing happens? I'm stumped.

.

An interesting take on the Epstein list

Quote:Annunaki | Gods from Planet Nibiru and the Makers of Man Seven million years ago, a chimpanzee stood up on its hind legs, and a new species of hominin emerged. Over the next few million years, hominins evolved. They were still ape-like in appearance, but these were not apes. Their brains grew larger. They created stone tools and hunted large game. They discovered fire and learned to follow the migration patterns of the animals they used for food, clothing, and shelter. It took a few million years for hominins to discover how to make a stone spearhead. Two million years later, that stone spearhead changed into - a different shaped spearhead. Technology evolved slowly. But, three hundred thousand years ago, homo sapiens appeared. And before long, they - we were the dominant species on the planet. Once they destroyed Neanderthals once and for all, something happened. Technology accelerated. It only took 30,000 years to go from Gobekli Tepe to landing probes on other planets. How could mankind evolve so fast? The answer is: they couldn't. Mankind didn't evolve at all. Mankind was engineered: purpose-built to be the perfect slaves for a race of far superior beings who, according to ancient texts, descended from the heavens. Eventually, the slaves rebelled. And our masters - tried to destroy us in a great flood. Sumerian texts, Egyptian religions, Ancient Indian myths, Native American legends - even the Bible. They all tell the same story. It's the story of Gods and Men. It's the story of the Annunaki.

This is set at a time in the future when corporations rule... Some serious cussing but entertaining with a great story line IMO as our heroin Captain Hinckley goes about some serious retribution. The video has to be watched on youtube so sorry for that..

All the BILLIONS of taxpayer money they are finding enriching the Democratic Party chosen. Act Blue is about to go down as well it appears as their leadership is abandoning ship.

Quote:In a SHOCKING potential scandal that rivals Watergate, The Biden-Harris administration appears to have funneled $7 BILLION of YOUR tax dollars into a ghost fund—the United Climate Fund—tied to a $20 BILLION jackpot from the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. Spoiler: It’s got nothing to do with inflation. From Stacey Abrams’ shady Power Forward Communities (raising just $100 before scoring BILLIONS from Biden) to an EPA whistleblower spilling the truth—this was a desperate cash dump to benefit Democrat allies before Trump took office. Where did the money go? A black hole of legal fees, vague solar promises, and political insiders. When you break it all down, this amounts to $240 stolen from every American family—groceries, gas, your children's school supplies, gone. People MUST be held accountable for this.

Quote:DOGE Uncovers Biden’s $375 BILLION Slush Fund Given To Clinton’s Campaign Manager!