…tempting as it is to think we know more than they did way back when…the folks back in the day had some ways & means

Faced with that reality, Spanish farmers, volunteers and researchers have reached deep into history for solutions, turning to a sprawling network of irrigation canals built by the Moors, the Muslim population that conquered and settled in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages.

The channels — called “acequias,” from the Arabic “as-saqiya,” which means water conduit — have made life possible in one of Europe’s driest regions, supplying the fountains of the majestic Alhambra palace and turning the region, Andalusia, into an agricultural powerhouse.

Many acequias fell into disuse around the 1960s, when Spain turned to an agricultural model that favored reservoirs and pushed many Spaniards to leave rural areas for cities. As use of the network faded, so did the ancient knowledge and traditions that had brought water to the remotest corners of Andalusia.

Now, the intricate system, seen as a low-cost and effective tool for mitigating drought, is being revived, one abandoned acequia at a time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/world/europe/spain-drought-acequias.html

…&…well…some of the newer ideas some people have…can make even the peaceful kinds of opposition look…dicey?

In temperatures that were at times close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, hundreds of the demonstrators had been marching since Tuesday night from Tel Aviv, a coastal city roughly 40 miles away, and had camped for four nights along the route. Many more joined them on subsequent days, and by Saturday the number of marchers had swelled to at least 20,000, despite the scorching heat.

By the time the march reached the outskirts of Jerusalem on Saturday, the marchers were walking 10 abreast, forcing cars into a single lane of traffic. The column stretched for at least two miles and included people in motorized wheelchairs and at least one person on crutches.
[…]
The unusual spectacle reflected the intensity of emotion coursing through Israeli society this weekend, as the ruling coalition prepares to pass a law in the coming days that would limit the ways in which the Supreme Court can overturn government decisions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/world/middleeast/jerusalem-protest-march-israel.html

…but…those emergent properties can be a bitch

The eternal question, though, is: What comes next? When do sanctions stop working? Or worse, when do they start working against the United States’ best interests?

These are important questions because, over the past two decades, economic sanctions have become a tool of first resort for U.S. policymakers, used for disrupting terrorist networks, trying to stop the development of nuclear weapons and punishing dictators. The number of names on the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list has risen steadily, from 912 in 2000 to 9,421 in 2021, largely because of the growing use of banking sanctions against individuals. The Trump administration added about three names a day to the list — a rate surpassed last year with the flurry of sanctions that President Biden announced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Given their increasing use, then, it is useful to understand not only how sanctions can be a tool for successful diplomacy but also how, when not employed well, they can ultimately undermine American efforts to promote peace, human rights and democratic norms across the globe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/opinion/sanctions-biden-venezuela.html

…some things are…well…probably just costly gestures

Elon Musk’s legal team on Thursday disclosed plans to force Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to turn over communications with regulators about his ownership of Twitter, days after the lawmaker urged an agency to investigate him for potential conflicts of interest.
[…]
The move comes after Warren wrote a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday calling for an investigation into Musk’s “apparent conflicts” owning both Tesla and Twitter.

Warren cited reports that Musk enlisted Tesla staff to help with his Twitter takeover, and “Twitter’s reliance on advertising revenue” from Tesla competitors as evidence of conflicts.

Musk mocked the efforts on Wednesday, tweeting a slew of messages at Warren reading: “What’s your favorite Hallowen outfit?”, “Not you again” and “Can we please be friends please please.”

Musk also endorsed a tweet calling the move a “personal vendetta” and “a massive waste of taxpayer dollars due to you being a human turd.”

…I mean…between the husk of musk & liz warren…”massive waste of taxpayer dollars due to […] being a human turd” seems like a description vastly more fitting for the former than the latter…but…here we find ourselves

Musk’s attorneys are now seeking Warren’s contacts with the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission as part of the company’s bid to scrap a data privacy pact with authorities.

Legal experts said Musk’s effort is likely to fail.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/21/elon-musk-trolls-another-prominent-democrat/

…one way or another, though…some dues due to be paid look like they’re in arrears

Canada’s fight echoes frustrations in places around the world, from Indonesia to California, about power imbalances resulting from the tech giants’ dominance. And so how the dispute plays out here — who, if anyone, blinks first — is being closely watched.

At issue is Bill C-18, passed last month as Canada’s Online News Act, which aims to shore up a struggling media industry by requiring tech firms to compensate domestic news publishers for the content shared on their platforms.

The tech companies have responded with threats and retaliatory moves. Meta reiterated a commitment to block news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada before the law goes into effect, and the company canceled a $4-million fellowship program for emerging journalists.

“The Online News Act is fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers,” Meta said in a statement. “As the Minister of Canadian Heritage has said, how we choose to comply with the legislation is a business decision we must make, and we have made our choice.”

Google, for its part, objected to the “unworkable” legislation that requires “two companies to pay for simply showing links to news, something that everyone else does for free.” The company pledged to nix Canadian news articles from its search function.

…&…well…on the one hand I’d like to think there’s a substantial difference between expecting a bankable bunch like google or meta or…depending how you squint…twitter…to pay a few dues for helping themselves to the news…&…me throwing one of these up where it can be found by the likes of you

The companies’ “scorched earth” approach is an effort “to communicate to the rest of world that ‘if you touch this third rail — the formal institutionalized regulatory framework that covers our operations — this is what we’re going to,’” said Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton University’s journalism and communications school in Ottawa. “This is a little warning shot.”
[…]
“Threats to pull news instead of complying with the laws in our country only highlight the power that platforms hold over news organizations, both big and small,” Pablo Rodriguez, Canada’s heritage minister, said in a statement to The Washington Post.

The tech companies contend that they drive valuable traffic to news websites and that being able to link freely to content is a key part of an open internet. And yet news publishers around the world have been laboring to offset lost advertising dollars — and blame the tech giants’ dominance in the digital ad sector.

“There’s global momentum for these laws,” said Anya Schiffrin, director of the technology, media and communications specialization at Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs. “I don’t think they’re going to save journalism permanently, but I think they’re a long overdue attempt to get what is owed to these publishers.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/22/canada-facebook-google-law-c18/

…though…they’d be welcome to a share in the zero sum of revenue these generate, I suppose…so…I suppose we could lay claim to some sort of moral high ground on principle…but…well…people do seem to profoundly misunderstand how that works?

Ms. Peterson, who has run the library branch since 2012 and highlighted books for Pride Month for the better part of a decade, was taken aback when she read an email last month from two neighborhood residents. They informed her that they had gotten nearly all of the books in the Pride display checked out and would not return them unless the library permanently removed what they considered “inappropriate content.”

“It was just kind of like, ‘Whoa, curveball,’” Ms. Peterson said. “I began to wonder, ‘Oh, have I been misunderstanding our community?’”

Soon, she would get her answer: Stacks of Amazon boxes containing new copies of the books the protesters checked out started to arrive at the library after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported on the protest. Roughly 180 people, mostly San Diegans, gave more than $15,000 to the library system, which after a city match will provide over $30,000 toward more L.G.B.T.Q.-themed materials and programming, including an expansion of the system’s already popular drag queen story hours.

Right-wing activists have challenged the recognition of June as Pride Month and have sought to remove textbooks from schools and L.G.B.T.Q.-affirming picture books from libraries. In Republican-led states, those in office have used their power to change policy and ban materials contested by conservatives.
[…]
Conservative groups nationwide have pushed to ban books that discuss L.G.B.T.Q. issues from libraries and schools, saying that parents should be able to control what their children are being taught.

The San Diego residents who sent the email to the Rancho Peñasquitos Library, Amy M. Vance and Martha Martin, did not respond to requests for comment. City officials said they have not heard since from the library patrons.

The text of their email was identical to a template posted online by a right-wing group called CatholicVote, which has an office in Indiana and is not affiliated with the Catholic church. The group has promoted a “Hide the Pride” campaign that encourages supporters to check out or move books that depict L.G.B.T.Q. characters and families. Organizers have described such material as pornographic and obscene and said it should not be available to young library patrons.
[…]
Last year, 2,571 unique titles faced censorship attempts — a 38 percent increase over 2021 and a record high, according to the American Library Association. The A.L.A. also documented 1,269 demands to censor library books or materials, the highest number since the association started collecting data more than two decades ago.
[…]
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who serves as director of the association’s office of intellectual freedom, said that the protesters in San Diego and elsewhere have taken advantage of relaxed policies intended to make books more accessible to patrons who cannot afford hefty fines.

In the San Diego Public Library system, card holders get five renewals for materials as long as no one else has requested them. Then, once a book is overdue, library patrons have two more months to return it before it is considered lost, and then they will be billed for it.
[…]
At the Rancho Peñasquitos Library, the Pride display has since been replenished. As for the books checked out last month?

They were recently returned.

They Checked Out Pride Books in Protest. It Backfired. [NYT]

…do people really have such impoverished attention spans that they don’t hear the backfires echo?

“‘You won’t believe what happened,’” she said he told her. Months before Covid vaccines would become available, Gov. Ron DeSantis had decided that the worst was over for Florida, he said. Mr. DeSantis had begun listening to doctors who believed the virus’s threat was overstated, and he no longer supported preventive measures like limiting indoor dining.
[…]
Nearly three years later, the governor now presents his Covid strategy not only as his biggest accomplishment, but as the foundation for his presidential campaign. Mr. DeSantis argues that “Florida got it right” because he was willing to stand up for the rights of individuals despite pressure from health “bureaucrats.” On the campaign trail, he says liberal bastions like New York and California needlessly traded away freedoms while Florida preserved jobs, in-person schooling and quality of life.

But a close review by The New York Times of Florida’s pandemic response, including a new analysis of the data on deaths, hospitalizations and vaccination rates in the state, suggests that Mr. DeSantis’s account of his record leaves much out.
[…]
Tapping into suspicion of public health authorities, which the Republican right was fanning, he effectively stopped preaching the virtues of Covid vaccines. Instead, he emphasized his opposition to requiring anyone to get shots, from hospital workers to cruise ship guests.
[…]
While Florida was an early leader in the share of over-65 residents who were vaccinated, it had fallen to the middle of the pack by the end of July 2021. When it came to younger residents, Florida lagged behind the national average in every age group.

That left the state particularly vulnerable when the Delta variant hit that month. Floridians died at a higher rate, adjusted for age, than residents of almost any other state during the Delta wave, according to the Times analysis. With less than 7 percent of the nation’s population, Florida accounted for 14 percent of deaths between the start of July and the end of October.

Of the 23,000 Floridians who died, 9,000 were younger than 65. Despite the governor’s insistence at the time that “our entire vulnerable population has basically been vaccinated,” a vast majority of the 23,000 were either unvaccinated or had not yet completed the two-dose regimen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/us/politics/ron-desantis-covid.html

…that cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is intensifying his efforts to de-emphasize racism in his state’s public school curriculum by arguing that some Black people benefited from being enslaved and defending his state’s new African American history standards that civil rights leaders and scholars say misrepresents centuries of U.S. reality.
[…]
Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who announced last month that he was joining the race for the GOP nomination, blasted the idea that enslaved people were able to use slavery as some kind of training program.

Unfortunately, it has to be said – slavery wasn't a jobs program that taught beneficial skills. It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.https://t.co/4JjIgeDhKX

— Will Hurd (@WillHurd) July 21, 2023

DeSantis, however, is continuing to defend Florida’s new curriculum, which covers a broad range of topics and includes the assertion for middle school instruction that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

DeSantis doubles down on claim that some Blacks benefited from slavery [WaPo]

…makes you wonder

That spring, a flurry of opinion articles defending Thomas and railing against the film appeared in news outlets, penned by a D.C. lawyer who had worked in the George H.W. Bush White House during the confirmation. Websites celebrating Thomas’s career — and attacking his onetime accuser — popped up. And on Twitter, a new account using the name “Justice Thomas Fan Account” began serving up flattering commentary.

“Justice Thomas: The most open & personable of Justices, intimate in sharing his feelings, easily moved to laughter,” read one early tweet on the account.

It was not apparent at the time, but the rush of favorable content was part of a coordinated and sophisticated public relations campaign to defend and celebrate Thomas, according to a Washington Post examination of public and internal records and interviews with people familiar with the effort. The campaign would stretch on for years and include the creation and promotion of a laudatory film about Thomas, advertising to boost positive content about him during internet searches and publication of a book about his life. It was financed with at least $1.8 million from conservative nonprofit groups steered by the judicial activist Leonard Leo, the examination found.

Leo, a longtime executive of the Federalist Society, the influential nonprofit organization for conservative and libertarian lawyers, is well-known for his efforts to push the judiciary to the right. Using a network of closely related nonprofits over which he holds sway, Leo has led advocacy campaigns to help confirm every conservative Supreme Court justice over the past two decades. He advised President Donald Trump on his selection of three justices.

The public relations campaign shows how he has continued to exert influence in support of right-leaning justices after helping them secure lifetime appointments. It adds to an emerging portrait of Leo as a behind-the-scenes benefactor, defending the justices from public criticism and exalting their jurisprudence while tending to personal matters including private travel and a spouse’s employment.

Leo steered tens of thousands of dollars in consulting payments to Thomas’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, in 2012, The Post reported recently. He also arranged a fishing trip to Alaska for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2008, a vacation that included a free ride on the private jet of a billionaire businessman who later had interests before the court, ProPublica reported. Those and other revelations about wealthy conservative donors gaining access to justices outside the public eye have brought scrutiny to the court in recent months.

The resources available to Leo expanded vastly in 2020, when a nonprofit organization he chairs received a $1.6 billion contribution from the Chicago businessman Barre Seid.

The extent of Leo’s involvement in the public relations campaign, including the financial backing for websites and articles defending Thomas, has not been previously disclosed. Leo declined to answer detailed questions from The Post about his role in the campaign. In a statement, he praised the film he helped finance about Thomas, titled “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.”

Influential activist Leonard Leo helped fund media campaign lionizing Clarence Thomas [WaPo]

…it’s…like there’s some sort of…pattern…& a dark one at that

For the reporter Matt K Lewis, the story is part of an ever-increasing problem: the outsized role of wealth in Washington. The Daily Beast journalist has written a book, Filthy Rich Politicians, that was published in the US this week. The extent of the problem is reflected by Lewis’s subtitle: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America.

“Rich people get elected, and people, when elected, tend to get richer,” Lewis says. “Over time, it has gotten worse.”
[…]
“I think it’s just an irony that I wrote the book Filthy Rich Politicians in a moment when all the politicians in America … one thing almost all have in common is trying to position themselves as being populist outsiders attacking elites,” Lewis says.
[…]
“That, I think, is one of the most interesting and disturbing parts of the book. Everybody kind of knows politicians are rich and some of what they do is sketchy. This, I think, most Americans don’t fully appreciate.”
[…]
The House of Representatives has become a flashpoint. In the lower chamber, where members are ostensibly closer to average Americans, incomes have climbed quite high. The average member of Congress is now 12 times wealthier than the typical US household.

“In the last four decades, the gap has demonstrably widened between politicians and ‘We, the people,’” Lewis says.

Causes range from insider trading to book deals to lobbying, family members and friends getting in on the action through paid positions as campaign or office staffers. Lewis cites numerous examples.
[…]
Lewis planned his book as a survey of America’s 100 richest politicians. It evolved into a more substantive project, although the original idea is reflected by two lists in the appendix: the 25 wealthiest members of Congress and the 10 richest presidents.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/22/filthy-rich-politicians-matt-k-lewis-congress-book

…& while money continues to make our world go round

AI is threatening jobs across many sectors, from doctors and lawyers to data scientists and journalists. But Hollywood actors and writers, currently united in their first “double strike” in more than 60 years, are fighting back in an unprecedented way, vowing to protect every worker in their industry, from the extras to the stars, from being replaced by new technologies. The dual strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) have forced the major studios to halt production, resulting in a standoff that is expected to drag on for months.

If actors don’t win serious protections against being replaced by AI, “it ends the profession,” Zeke Alton, a member of the Sag-Aftra negotiating committee, said. “They’re forcing us to negotiate and bargain for our very existence.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/22/sag-aftra-wga-strike-artificial-intelligence

…some metaphors are…less abstract than others when it comes to the world turning

Italy hit by tennis-ball-size hailstones after heatwave, officials say [WaPo]

Parts of Asia and southern Europe braced for scorching temperatures and violent storms Tuesday as world weather experts warned of increased risk of deaths caused by extreme weather across the globe.
[…]
Parts of Spain, Italy and Greece were in “very extreme danger” of fires, the European Union’s emergency management service said in a tweet.

Over the weekend, temperatures across China’s arid northwest set a national record, hitting a high of almost 126 degrees on Sunday in the Xinjiang region. The capital city of Beijing is enduring one of its hottest summers in its half a century of record keeping, with mercury soaring over 104 degrees for three days straight in June.

Experts warned that the worst was not over, with climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions that has affected almost every part of the world.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/soaring-temperatures-weather-asia-china-italy-france-greece-spain

This prolonged spell of heat has led to wildfires in southern Europe that have caused extensive damage. It has also caused some intense hail storms, particularly in northern Italy. On 19 July, hail the size of large grapefruits came down near Treviso, smashing windows and damaging cars. Some of the hailstones were estimated to have been about 15cm in diameter. If verified, they could break the European record, which is 15cm, and fell in Romania on 26 May 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/weather-tracker-records-fall-europe-heatwave-wildfires-hailstones-philippines-typhoon

‘A bad perfect storm’: the US cities where temperatures have sizzled for 70 days [Guardian]

How brutal heat is breaking records everywhere from the US to Japan [Guardian]

Rampant heatwaves threaten food security of entire planet, scientists warn [Guardian]

…it’s…funny…in a bleak sort of way…how some people look at this stuff

Longtermism is a relatively new branch of moral philosophy that has proved particularly popular in Silicon Valley – Elon Musk, for example, has said that it is a close match to his philosophy. Its proponents include Nick Bostrom, who set up the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at Oxford, Toby Ord, author of The Precipice, and William MacAskill, author of What We Owe the Future, both of whom have connections to the FHI.

These philosophers argue that we should focus our attention on the deep future and act according to its needs. The idea is that the potential size of humanity in the millions of years to come is almost infinitely larger than the world’s current population and we ought to prioritise those trillions of unborn humans over the more short-term needs of the billions actually alive today.
[…]
Earlier this year, the AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky, who is associated with longtermist thinking, wrote an op-ed for Time magazine in which he argued that the world should not just institute a moratorium on artificial intelligence development but also be prepared to use nuclear arms to shut down large rogue computer farms that flouted the moratorium.

“That sets a precedent,” says Torres. “And you’ve also got people who are less well-known in the longtermist community who nonetheless could be dangerous if they take this techno-utopian vision seriously.”

The reason Yudkowsky advocates the theoretical use of nuclear arms against AI is that he believes AI, on its current course, will lead to the complete extinction of humanity and all other biological life. It’s an article of faith among longtermists that an event that led to the loss of 99% of humanity would be vastly preferable to one that kills off 100%. There is not a 1% difference, but the difference between a future filled with human flourishing and no future at all. That’s what’s known as the “opportunity cost”. And almost any action can be considered acceptable to avoid paying it.

It’s this kind of unapologetic utilitarianism that Torres believes is the most dangerous aspect of the longtermist perspective. They cite the tendency of longtermists to underplay the significance of the climate emergency because it’s not seen as likely to be the cause of total extinction. In Human Extinction, Torres quotes the philosopher Peter Singer, arguably the godfather of effective altruism, who has also been sympathetic to longtermism but guards against its most radical interpretations.
[…]
One example of radical longtermism, Torres offers, is what’s known as the “repugnant conclusion”, a phrase coined by the late British philosopher Derek Parfit. It refers to the way wellbeing can be evaluated by quantity over quality. Torres sets out the relevant thought experiment in their book. If we imagine a population of 1 billion people, each with a wellbeing value of 100 (ie supremely well and happy) then it yields a total wellbeing of 100bn units. But if there is a population of 1 trillion each with a wellbeing value of only 1 (a life scarcely worth living), then it yields a total wellbeing value of 1tn. As 1tn is larger than 100bn, a totalist utilitarian would consider it a better outcome, although 1 trillion people would be living in misery instead of 100 billion in bliss.

Many longtermists, including MacAskill, reject the repugnant conclusion, but Torres argues that any projection deep into the future will tend towards seeing people “not as ends but as means of maximising value”, an understanding, they note, that gets things exactly backwards: “happiness should matter for the sake of people, not people for the sake of happiness”.
[…]

“I am, tentatively, inclined to agree with Schopenhauer’s sentiment that Being Never Existent would have been best. Those who disagree with this find themselves in the uncomfortable position of arguing that all the good things that have happened throughout human history can somehow compensate for, or counterbalance, all the bad things that have happened – a claim that, I believe, most people would find difficult or impossible to justify after a few minutes of reflecting on the most horrific crimes and atrocities of our past.”

If longtermism can be characterised as dangerously utopian then it’s also easy to see how Torres’s position could be viewed as worryingly nihilistic. They reject that label, pointing out that their concern is the avoidance of human suffering, including any suffering that would occur through humanity’s extinction. While they can appreciate the theoretical benefits of not existing, in practice it’s not an end they wish to see or promote.

In a sense, then, we’re back to old-fashioned philosophising, in which people of differing opinions robustly test the logic of their positions without vicious enmity. Except that has not been the case in this debate. For Torres, the effective altruists and longtermists are part of a sinister cult with an elitist agenda hidden behind a benign and charitable front, whereas many in that community have accused Torres of factual misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/22/pro-extinctionis-longtermim-effective-altruism-human-extinction-emile-torres

…existential threats that aren’t the kind of imminent we’re used to…well…can throw us for a loop

Why aren’t we more scared of the climate crisis? It’s complicated [Guardian]

…whereas some signs…are more straightforward

A 13-year-old Texas girl was kidnapped, driven across multiple state lines and then rescued after she held up a handmade “Help Me!” sign in a California parking lot, the authorities said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/22/us/kidnapped-girl-help-me-sign-texas-california.html

…are we…gonna need a bigger sign?

After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.
[…]
The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.

Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.
[…]
It is doubtful that the hearing on Wednesday will prove conclusively whether or not aliens exist. It is also unlikely the public will find out whether aliens, with their charcoal-briquette capable weaponry, have visited Earth.

But still, the desire of politicians, of both sides, to wade into UFO discourse suggests that a corner has been turned, and Pope suggested Republicans’ and Democrats’ willingness to investigate could mean they are beginning to believe.

“I think these politicians are doing it because they either know, or more likely strongly suspect that some of this is true,” [Nick] Pope [who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD)] said.

“I don’t think you would go all in – and they are going all in on this – if they weren’t pretty darn sure of themselves. Because the egg on the face if this all turns out to be drones – it would be staggering.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/21/ufos-congress-alien-house-committee-whistleblower

…stranger things, folks

Well maybe we'll be lucky and it's some sterility/dentistry programme?!

Maybe they come down, castrate you, straighten your teeth and then split!

— Bill Hicks (@Bill_Hicks_RIP) November 7, 2022

…but that’s about enough out of me & this is late as it is…I’ll scare up a tune or two to go below & then maybe get around to figuring out which of the slots for posts I doubt my ability to get done I still need to beg for cover for…no rest for the wicked, I suppose…but the rest of you can rest up…monday ain’t here yet

…all the same…one man’s alien?

…who knows…maybe we’ll get lucky?