Every time I have heard Elon Musk talk about journeys to and colonization of Mars by human beings, I had to wonder. Here we are on a small, blue planet at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy in space beyond comprehension.
I wondered whether deep space exploration by humans is really realistic. Then I came across a book by Dennis Meredith called, “Earthbound”. From reading it, I have concluded deep space trips by humans requiring months or years to complete are not going to happen. We, human beings, are children of the Earth and are tied to our planet except for near Earth orbiting or trips to our own moon.
I want to quote from the last chapter of the Meredith book. He writes, “As this book has revealed, deep space is an invariable killer. Whether the lethal source be radiation, weightlessness, disease, or the trauma of isolation, humans cannot exist for any length of time beyond the sheltering environment of Earth orbit.”
He write further, “Nor is exploring deep space economically feasible. It is just not worth the massive expense of building the elaborate infrastructure of human deep-space travel and exploration.”
We have already seen the negative health effects on astronauts even from lengthy stays on the International Space Station in relatively close Earth orbit. These are minuscule when compared to what would be experienced in year long or more trips at extreme distances from our home planet.
So, what is the answer. It is clear. We have already sent probes and landers to distance places. The Voyager I and II space probes still function decades after launch as they have sailed into interstellar space. And we have already sent landers and rovers to the moon and Mars and even to one comet.
Humans, people, require oxygen to breathe, water intake, a rather narrow temperature range in which to live, nourishment for life biological processes, handling of human waste products, spacial orientation for mental health, and much more. Human bodies are biological, living beings based largely upon a very limited number of chemical substances: Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Potassium plus a few more minor others.
Robots and other electronic devices require none of this. The only requirement is a power supply like the sun’s radiant energy or, perhaps, nuclear energy or solar energy generally. Humans are capable of developing very sophisticated silicon based robots that require only an outside energy source.
So, we need to get out of our ego and recognize our limits. As stated, we are deeply rooted in our home. We are children of the Earth from which we cannot venture far. We should put our efforts into the development of AI and robots to send into space exploration with communications back to Earth about what is found. This we can do and have already taken early and pretty complex steps in this direction…. And it won’t break the bank.
Carl Sagan, an astronomer from our past, described Earth as the Pale Blue Planet floating in space. It is our home that we need to preserve and cherish.
End “Home Rule” of D.C.
With all that has gone on in Washington, D.C., it is time for Congress to take serious action. All of you and I know the governance of the District of Columbia is corrupt and incompetent. It is time to revoke “Home Rule” for the District; something Congress has the full power to accomplish.
Now we even have D.C. judges trying to over rule decisions made by the President of the United States. The worst of them is U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. He even ordered President Trump to turn plane loads of illegal criminal aliens around and bring them back into our country when they were headed for prison in El Salvador. I am thinking, “Just who in the Hell do these judges think they are???”. And this comes on the heels of J6 decisions a couple of years earlier that jailed American citizens for years when they peacefully stepped foot in the U.S. Capital in January 2021. Thankfully, President Trump pardoned most, but D.C. judges are responsible for incredible injustices and even suicides. And now those judges want to be President. They even resisted the release of citizens who had been pardoned. The U.S. Marshalls had to be sent in.
If I read things correctly, the establishment of “Home Rule” for the District of Columbia took place on December 24, 1973 under the President Richard Nixon administration. I’m not sure it has ever worked. The U.S. Constitution provides Congress has plenary (total) legislative authority of the federal district (District of Columbia). Home Rule delegated some of the day-to-day work of municipal government to local entities.
We know as of today, the governance is abysmal. We know the physical maintenance is terrible. We know crime is out of control. We know actions of judges and the courts are not only bad, but may be illegal themselves. And I was surprised to learn the D.C. judges are specifically appointed by the President of the United States.
It is time for Congress to take back control of and governance of the District of Columbia. I have no idea why this has not been done before now. If Congress does not take back control of the seat of the federal government, it is derelict in its duty. As for the federal judges; maybe they cannot be summarily removed, but Congress has total control of purse strings that support their courts. Time to bring those budgets to zero. And, frankly, Judge Boasberg should be impeached immediately.
We cannot have a country where the balance of power between the three branches of the United States federal government has been bastardized to such imbalance as presently exists. Federal District courts cannot rule over the Presidency and every decision coming out of the Executive Branch. My biggest issue is with the U.S. Supreme Court that has allowed all of the overstepping to happen. Too long Supreme Court justices have remained silent or cowards. The Supreme Court could stop all of the nonsense, but has not.
The Executive Branch through the President cannot act by itself to stop all of the roadblocks being put its way. The Congress and the Supreme Court have the power to correct all. It is time if we want to have a strong, healthy Constitutional Republic. Article II of the Constitution states, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”…… not in Congress or the Courts.
Tax $$ and NPR/PBS
It is long past time for taxpayer dollars from the federal government to be sent off to the Public Broadcasting System and the National Public Radio. We are not talking a few dollars but hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting takes federal tax dollars north of $500 million a year. Time for it to come to a screeching halt.
As one who drives a lot for business, I do a good deal of radio listening. An Indianapolis PBS station is one I frequent from time to time. I finally had to give it up. The reason was I became irritated with the politically left Democrat messages that came through either explicitly or subtlety in even the words or the slant of reports much too often.
Then I did a bit of research. I ran into an OpenSecrets report that 100% of political donations from PBS employees went to Democrats during the 2024 political cycle. And since 1996, going back nearly 30 years and more than $85,000 in donations, according to OpenSecrets data, there has only been one cycle (2004) in which Republicans received more in campaign contributions than Democrats from PBS employees.
Among NPR employees, the imbalance is even worse. OpenSecets NPR data of nearly $60,000 in donations goes back 33 years to 1992. There has never been an election in that period in which NPR employees donated more to Republicans than Democrats. OpenSecrets states in fact, in those 16 political cycles, Republicans only received any funding at all in just two cycles, and that includes a paltry $1 — yes, one buck — last year to then GOP presidential candidate Doug Burgum.
Do you think something is amiss? NPR/PBS are Democrat political propaganda arms and have been forever.
I come from a journalism background in newspapers. I don’t think any newspapers ever were supported with tax dollars from the government — state or federal. Newspapers in their day were supported by subscription dollars and dollars from advertisers. The lived by being relevant to their subscriber readers. Their time passed for several reasons, which I intend to write about in the future, and new media, primarily electronic, means are and have been emerging.
It is long past time, again, for tax dollars to stop going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, and PBS. If they are to live, they must earn the support of listeners and advertisers. If enough want the kind of biased news and messages they broadcast and will pay for it, they will prosper. If not, they will fold up and fade away.
Our nation is in a financial crisis and this funding is certainly one that is no longer justified, if it ever was. And this is not over. The next look needs to be at the “Voice of America” which received over $250 million in 2023. It needs to be axed as well.
Water, Water, Water!
Dear (Kokomo Tribune) Editor:
We the people of Kokomo, Indiana (www.wethepeoplekokomo.com) are concerned that some groups are using propaganda to try to make us think that we have “ample” water in our county. There have been two newspaper articles (Kokomo Tribune) in the past few months citing the same Indiana Finance Authority studies. The March 15th article states, “A state water plan would be used in similar fashion to a municipal comprehensive plan, with collected data being used to make decisions about how Indiana’s water resources are tapped.”
The reason we are concerned about any of our officials saying we have plenty of water is because we do NOT. Period. Howard County is not drinking water rich — even from the IFA studies which, according to several analysts, is a flawed study. Currently, 60% of Kokomo City water comes from the Wildcat Creek. Indiana American Water would not be using that source IF there was abundant ground water available. This is very important because the water needed for the Electric battery projects here in Kokomo are huge (3 million gallons per day) and has to be extremely pure — even exceeding drinking water needs.
The flaws in the IFA requested studies are major because they don’t separate out drinking water from what is called “brown” water. Sure you can clean up any water, but it becomes EXPENSIVE. The better the source water, the less expensive the clean up. Our suggestions to the city are to require major water hogs to recycle and pay more per unit will help with how much the rest of us have to pay for our water usage.
Never take water for granted. It is invaluable. Never take clean water for granted. It is a HUGE blessing. Indiana is blessed to have this natural resource in abundance, but that does not mean there is “ample’ water for pet projects that could destroy this natural resource forever.
Mr. Mike Day has done an extraordinary job of evaluating the IFA studies and here are his three key statements:
- A reduction of non-consumptive water withdrawals provides ZERO justification for water grabs (redistributions) or regional planning.
- A reduction of water at the tail of a river provides ZERO justification for water grabs (redistributions) up stream.
- A reduction of brown surface water provides ZERO justification for taking pure ground drinking water.
Lots more to discuss about all this. Please ask our officials about what companies they are giving tax abatements to and why and if these companies are protecting our (water) resources rather than sucking them dry.
Very Sincerely,
We the People Kokomo
A Prayer for You Today
[I ran across this prayer a friend of my mother had sent to her many years ago. Thought I would share it with you.]
I said a prayer for you today
And I know God must have heard~
I felt the answer in my heart
Although He spoke no word.
I didn’t ask for wealth or fame,~
I knew you wouldn’t mind,
I asked Him to send treasures
Of a far more lasting kind.
I asked that He’d be near you
At the start of each new day
To grant you health and blessings
And friends to share your way.
I asked for happiness for you
In all things great and small~
But it was for His loving care~
I prayed the most of all.
Blessings, Kent
The Penalty of Leadership
In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity.
Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work.
In art, in literature, in music, in industry; the reward and the punishment are always the same.
The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.
When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone — if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging.
Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting.
Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build; no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius.
Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done.
Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius.
Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all.
The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.
The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership.
Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy — but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant.
There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions — envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass.
And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader.
Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman; each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages.
That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial.
That which deserves to live — lives.
[From an advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post, January 2nd, 1915, by the Cadillac Motor Car Company]
The Rise of “Immigrant” Culture in France
France is dying. It is a piecemeal death. One business district at a time. One neighborhood at a time. A restaurant, a business, a theater, a hotel here and there. Each death so sad but survivable. But as the piecemeal deaths mount, they become an aggregate, and now France is dying.
Jean Raspail, a French writer, warned the French in clear language in 1973 that the open borders acceptance of immigrant-invaders meant the death of France.
Enoch Powell, a British politician and writer, warned the British. It proved to be impossible to warn the indifferent populations imbued with racist guilt from decades of propagandistic indoctrination. Enoch Powell was denounced and Jean Raspail ignored. Marine Le Pen, the only politician in France who stands for the French people, may be headed to prison for standing up for French ethnics against the immigrant-invaders.
The same destruction of nation is happening all over Europe, especially in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the UK, countries in which the ethnic female population has no protection against gang rape by immigrant invaders. Women are discouraged from reporting their gang rapes, because it is considered racist against immigrants.
This is Europe today. A cultural dead zone or a rising new culture based on immigrant, largely Muslim mores.
European and English friends friends say: “Don’t come back. It will break your heart. It is not like you remember it.” But still the tourists go. They are shown around the still safe areas and kept from seeing the encroaching barbarity. It is like a sponsored trip to Israel. You are not shown the bad stuff, only the good stuff.
Trump is right. Europe is a basket case. Why are Americans supporting an alien culture in Europe to the point of possibly having nuclear war with Russia, a Christian nation that protects its citizens even though under a dictatorship? The United States should no longer align with the decadent and declining countries. None in Europe are any longer ethnic nations.
European governments, who refuse to protect their citizens from immigrant-invaders, appear to want war with Russia. Any war won’t last long. Europe is dead just like the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico, or is it the Gulf of America, where the Mississippi River dumps chemical fertilizer runoff from commercial agribusiness and other pollutants killing life.
The United States has the same anti-Western intellectual class as Europe. How can Trump address our vulnerability from our internal enemies, which is where our vulnerability lies? With an estimated 20 million illegal aliens (foreign invaders) in the United States, the potential for very negative social and cultural change is here.
The United States of America is a melting pot with tradition, history, common values and loyalty to the Constitution. It must not allow the changes seen in Europe to infect this country. All illegal immigrants (aliens) must be sent home. For any chance of resurrection, Europe should do the same.
[Revised and Edited from the Internet]
The War Goes On
Contrary to the claim by columnist Brian Howey in his March 1st writing, the United States is not preparing “to switch sides to Russia”. That is a ridiculous claim.
President Trump wants the war to stop. He wants the killing of the young on both sides to end. This was a war never started when Trump was last President. It began under the US regime of President Joe Biden. Old Joe may have even given the green light to military action with his remarks on January 20, 2022. I quote: “I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades (Ukraine). And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do.”
President Putin has always wanted as much of Ukraine as he could get. The fighting now has become a standoff with little movement east by Ukraine troops or west by Russian troops. And President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has become an overbearing tyrant for that country. For example, he banned all independent TV media with a collapse of all media into one state controlled one. He suspended multiple opposition political parties. He has banned the Russian Orthodox Church which has had a century’s long presence in Ukraine.
Then when President Trump thought there was an agreement for the United States to have access to Ukraine rare earth minerals which would both benefit Ukraine and the United States, Zelenskyy queered the deal when demanding more from Trump. We all saw that on national TV.
And, again contrary to Tribune reporting, President Trump did not “walk out” of the meeting with Zelenskyy. Trump threw Zelenskyy out of the White House and sent him and his entourage packing. No lunch.
All Zelenskyy had to do was agree to what had been negotiated by others ahead of the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting. This would have given the United States access to much desired rare earth minerals and other natural resources in Ukraine. This would have meant both a financial interest of the US in Ukraine and the presence of people from the United States there in significant numbers. Clearly, this would be an enormous deterrent to Russia to do anything more militarily.
President Putin is not going to give up the territory it currently occupies which reportedly contains largely Russian speaking people. This is a given. So, if fighting stops with lines as they are, the killing stops and the Ukraine-US mining agreement becomes an indirect way of stopping any further incursions by Russia into Ukraine.
One more thing — we learned that the USA has funded multiple biological laboratories in Ukraine. Why? One has to wonder if this is yet another evil action taken by Dr. Anthony Fauci. That is a whole other possible story.
Confused
It seems that Johnnie Walker in his “Sound Off” letter to the Tribune on February 27th is a little confused. He starts right off suggesting DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) should continue when President Trump wants job applicants, college applicants, and any applying for a position to be considered on merit against the requirements for whatever is being applied for rather than upon race, color, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Merit considers education and skills as the reasons for qualification.
Choosing merit over DEI does not degenerate African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants or any other identities including European Americans. Everyone starts out equal with no “group” having an advantage over another. Seems pretty straight forward and honest.
As for immigrants, no one is suggesting legal immigration is not OK. Those that came to this country in the late 1800s and early 1900s came legally. They were greeted by the Statue of Liberty as were and will be all legal immigrants. Illegal aliens are criminals according to US law and are not welcome. They need to return to home countries rather than largely be a drag on the US economy.
And concerning cutting federal government spending significantly, that has to happen or the USA will go bankrupt. It is that simple. Already Elon Musk and the Musketeers have found massive corruption and fraud in the way US taxpayer dollars have been handed out. That must be rooted out and stopped and even more spending must be cut. Yes, this will be painful, but so is surgery to fix health issues, which is what this really is.
Our country is in trouble. Left that way by the four year Democrat regime of President Joe Biden with the help of Senator Chuck Schumer and RINO Senator Mitch McConnell…. And many more.
We have one chance to make America great again. I hope we don’t blow it.
Small Nukes
The February 24th editorial in the Tribune from the Anderson Herald Bulletin that knocks small scale nuclear power is both short sighted and in instances inaccurate. The writer suggests why would Hoosiers want the “bane of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl in our backyard, when technologies for wind and solar power are much cheaper, more stable and less dangerous?”
Of course, no one wants a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl anywhere. Both were large scale nuclear power plants. The Three Mile Island incident in 1979 was pretty minor in scope. The American Nuclear Society concluded that average local radiation exposure was equivalent to a chest X-ray and maximum local exposure equivalent to less than a year’s background radiation. In short, the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere was too small to result in discernible direct health effects to the population in the vicinity of the plant.
The Chernobyl accident in 1986 is another matter. From the very beginning, experts knew of design flaws and risks of this Russian designed plant. The results were catastrophic with consequences still ongoing. This one is way off base for any comparison.
However, neither of these incidents has anything to do with small scale nuclear power plants. It behooves us to explore what possibilities there may be with such plants. Think about it. The United States Navy has submarines and air craft carriers powered for years by small scale nuclear power plants. I cannot think of a single adverse incident reported from any. So, engineers do have significant experience with small scale design.
Yes, nuclear technology does need to be advanced, but turning ones back on possibilities is not wise. Already we have been told that electric power generation in the United States is lacking and will become even more so with large data centers coming, electric vehicles, and manufacturing moving back to the United States…. and the decommissioning of coal plants.
One of the major advantages of nuclear power generation over both wind and solar generation is that it is full time. Wind depends upon unpredictable wind. Solar depends upon unpredictable sun and even then only half the time. Users of electricity cannot bank on erratic energy sources. Full time availability is essential. Oh… and wind and solar are not cheaper and surely not more stable.
For historical accuracy, Indiana’s Marble Hill nuclear plant (a large scale plant) construction began in 1977 and was terminated in 1984. It never got close to operation and that was about 45 years or so ago. Nuclear technology has advanced since then.
So, small scale nuclear generation of electricity may be the way of the future. It must be explored.