So I read something...: extraterrestrial life

Showing posts with label extraterrestrial life. Show all posts

Friday, January 30, 2026

Reading archive 2026-01-29

How Battlefield Tech Was Used in Minneapolis: Our reporter Thomas Gibbons-Neff, who deployed twice to Afghanistan as a Marine and later was our Kabul bureau chief, looks at the battlefield technology used for an immigration arrest at a home in Minneapolis. [ed. note: video]

The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters: Biometric trackers, cellphone location databases and drones are among the surveillance technologies that federal agents are tapping in their deportation campaign. [ed. note: horrifying]

Removal of flags for fallen Danish soldiers at U.S. Embassy sparks backlash: There was no malicious intent in removing the flags, said a State Department spokesperson, who added that the flags had been replaced.

Anthropic Is at War With Itself: The AI company shouting about AI’s dangers can’t quite bring itself to slow down.

If You Tax Them, Will They Leave?: A California wealth-tax proposal makes a high-stakes bet on billionaire psychology.

The Program That’s Turning Schools Around: The key to closing the achievement gap may lie outside the classroom.

Russia’s top diplomat rejects key part of deal to end war with Ukraine: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismisses security guarantees demanded by Ukraine for any deal, once again saying the current regime in Kyiv should end. - "It is precisely the lack of high level officials in the Abu Dhabi talks that show they aren’t serious, said European Union foreign policy head Kaja Kallas, noting that the Russian delegation consisted of military and intelligence officials."

Trump faces fresh MAGA blowback for efforts to ‘de-escalate’ in Minnesota: The president’s response to widespread public dismay over the shooting death of another Minnesotan has put him in a bind with his own base.

Handling of Pretti investigation has some prosecutors on verge of quitting: Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis, frustrated by the response to the shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, have suggested they could resign en masse.

I’ve reported on UFO sightings for decades — and come to this conclusion

What the Neocons Got Right: David Brooks on moral collapse, the limits of politics, and what the neocons got right about America. Plus: Another ICE shooting in Minneapolis and Netflix’s Death by Lightning. - "And so what you have in the Trump administration is people with the same profile as the Dartmouth Review crowd: They went to elite schools, but they hated what they found there. That's Steven Miller, who went to Duke. That's Pete Hegseth, who went to Princeton. That's J. D. Vance, who went to Yale Law. Now, you can go down the list. It's Elon Musk and Donald Trump went to Penn. And so these are not pro-conservative. These are oppositional nihilists who hate the liberal establishment. And I found it easy, when I was saying college, to be more conservative than my professors but still have reverence for their learning. But these people do not have reverence for learning; they just want to offend the bourgeoisie. And so that's what it's become. And then they've produced spawn of young people who just think, That's cool. That's edgy. And of course, you have to up the dosage when you're giving people edgy nihilism - it just has to get worse and worse and worse. And as Richard Weaver, a philosopher from the 1950s, said, The problem with the younger generation is they haven't read the minutes to the last meeting. And so you get a group of people who, when they see fascistic behavior, don't understand where that eventually leads." [edit: also a bit on Reconstructions vs. modernization in the 1880s via Death by Lightning]

A case that lets billionaires spend big on elections never reached Supreme Court: While Citizens United became shorthand for unlimited political spending, a less-recognized campaign finance case made super PACs a reality. - "'SpeechNow, building upon the terrible flaws of Citizens United, has created a road map for billionaires and wealthy special interests to spend unlimited amounts of money to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens,' attorney David Kolker, who unsuccessfully argued the SpeechNow case on behalf of the FEC, told The Washington Post in an interview. 'This distorts our democratic process.'"

Why this Democrat refuses to retaliate against Trump’s GOP redistricting: Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson sank Democrats’ plan to pick up a congressional seat in Maryland, despite the rank-and-file tide seeking an aggressive fight against Trump.

America’s plan to protect pedestrians failed. A young woman’s death reveals why.: U.S. officials encouraged cities to adopt Vision Zero to save lives. Driver opposition and a lack of money derailed it.

The deadliest roads in America: The number of pedestrians killed by vehicles in the United States has surged amid neglect and lack of investment by transportation authorities.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Reading archive 2025-11-20

I love your sweater. Is it made from gay sheep wool?: Grindr organized a fashion show made from the wool of gay sheep. Wait, what?

House votes to undo law allowing senators to sue over Jan. 6 subpoenas: It faces an uncertain future in the Senate, despite most eligible senators saying they won’t sue.

Mystery Fuels Unease in Maine Woods: Who Bought Burnt Jacket Mountain?: An anonymous new owner fenced off beloved trails and put up surveillance cameras in a region with a long tradition of allowing public access on private land.

Why ‘Twin Peaks’ Still Looks Incredible Decades Later: Director of Photography Ronald Víctor García shares all the metaphorical direction Lynch would give him to nail the show's warm vibes.

It’s the ‘most important fish in the sea.’ And it’s disappearing.: If the menhaden decline continues, striped bass could be next to vanish. - "This isn’t a debate over red tape — it’s a fight over who controls the base of the Atlantic’s food chain: the public that depends on a healthy ocean or a private fleet that treats it like an industrial feedlot.

...

"Omega Protein’s dominance, however, is sustained not by biology but by politics. Although it employs fewer than 300 full-time workers, the company wields outsized influence in Richmond. Its lobbyists, including the powerhouse legal and public affairs firm McGuireWoods, have long worked both sides of the aisle — Republicans for their support of commercial interests and Democrats for their emphasis on union jobs — to block conservation efforts."

U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols: The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”

U.S. delivers peace plan for Ukraine, sparking fears of ‘capitulation’: Kyiv’s European partners said they should be involved in proposals for the security of Ukraine and Europe, indicating they hadn’t even been briefed on the plan. - "Special envoy Steve Witkoff is quietly pushing a plan that contains provisions that Ukraine has long opposed, including forcing it to cede strategic territory not yet seized by Russia in the eastern Donbas region and agreeing to significant reductions in the size and effectiveness of its military, according to two people familiar with the negotiations."

As Trump plans backfire, Democrats are ahead in House redistricting fight :After early redistricting wins, Trump faces setbacks over maps for Texas, Indiana and other Republican-led states, frustrating his allies.

Republican overseeing Alamo renovation ousted after ‘woke’ social media post: Kate Roger, a Republican, has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against state officials after a social media post and PhD dissertation led to her losing the job of overseeing a massive renovation of the Texas landmark.

CDC in turmoil after agency backpedals on debunking vaccines-autism link: The CDC’s website now says health authorities ignored evidence of a potential connection between vaccines and autism, despite dozens of studies showing no link.

What If Aliens Don’t Actually Do Science?: Daniel Whiteson and Andy Warner Consider the Many Forms Inquiry Can Take, In Our World and Others - "To make bread or swords, humans didn’t have to know what was going on at the microscopic level. People all over the globe had fantastically impressive technology long before we had our modern, mathematical, empirical science."

Democrats Finally Realize It Isn’t 2016 Anymore: Members of the left and the center seem to have concluded that, to win elections, each side needs to become more like the other.

Part 1: How I Found Out

Monday, July 28, 2025

Reading archive 2025-07-28 pt 1

The Number Go Up Rule: Why America Refuses to Fix Anything: In the Booming Twenties, all decision-making is about protecting the value of financial assets held by older people. Therefore, the number must go up. And nothing else matters. - "Increasing the capitalization of the stock market at all costs has a number of implications about how our society works. Anything hindering short-term increases in profits, whether that’s higher wages, more factory investment, ending tax loopholes, rules to block being able to unsubscribe from Planet Fitness, transitioning to different energy sources, addressing an opioid crisis, or breaking Chinese control over the necessities of life, gets pushed out of the way. American life spans have plateaued or stagnated since 2015, which you’d think would be of concern. But it’s just not. There’s also something that distinguishes standard financial capitalism from ‘number go up.’ Financial capitalism implies risk. But in our era, the government guarantees financial returns with subsidies, regulations and bailouts. It’s a form of statecraft."

Pollen exploitation by non-native, feral honey bees: Potential consequences for interspecific competition

Interrogating a cold-case killer: ‘Honey, your DNA was in the crime scene’: Police videos show Eugene Gligor, who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, being arrested and questioned for the 2001 murder of Leslie Preer in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

VOLKSWAGEN’S SECRET: History forgot the horrors endured by laborers on the automaker’s massive cattle ranch in the Brazilian Amazon. But a priest had recorded it all.

What a Democrat Could Do With Trump’s Power: America is entering an age of retributive governing cycles.

Finally, a Democrat Who Could Shine on Joe Rogan’s Show Hunter Biden is unrepentant.

Trump fumes as Epstein scandal dominates headlines, overshadows agenda: The White House and Justice Department’s response has been driven by no clear strategy other than asking the country to move on, people close to the situation told The Post.

It turns out there’s a right and wrong way to pee: Many women push to speed things along, hover over the toilet or go ‘just in case,’ but those habits may cause future problems.

845,000 dead on U.S. highways. Why not address the main cause?: We need to ramp up the standards for road tests and train people to be better drivers.

In a legacy steel town, energy is now king — just don’t call it ‘green’: Form Energy is revitalizing Weirton, West Virginia. It’s also facing skepticism in this increasingly conservative area.

‘College hazing’ or training? Amid shortage, air traffic recruits wash out.: Almost 20 percent of new hires fail to become a controller at the first facility they’re sent to. - "There is an ill-defined mystique associated with air traffic control, a belief among some controllers that people are essentially born to do the job. But the idea obscures the fact that skills controllers need can be readily taught.

"Controllers act like gatekeepers, demanding recruits prove they are worthy of entry to their club, said Linda Pierce, a retired FAA psychologist who studied how controllers are trained.

"'It’s this professional guild, but to me it also felt like a college hazing,' she said. 'It was hostile.'"

I’m a cardiologist. Here are 10 science-based ways to prevent heart disease.: Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. But about 80 percent of cases are considered preventable.

Harvard Paper Explores Possibility That Object Approaching From Beyond Solar System Is Hostile Alien Technology: "The consequences, should the... hypothesis turn out to be correct, could potentially be dire for humanity." - "Loeb is an interesting character: he's an enormously accomplished academic and the former chair of Harvard's prestigious astronomy department, but in recent years has often made headlines for suggesting that various detections in the cosmos might be alien spacecraft. In other words, he was almost bound to weigh in on this latest interstellar visitor, which is only the third ever detected."

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Reading archive 2024-01-11

Why decades of progress in cars’ fuel efficiency is ending: In the U.S., gas-powered cars have stopped making big efficiency gains. Some automakers’ offerings have gotten less efficient as they swap out sedans for SUVs.

Why many coffee shops won’t let you bring your own mug

Opinion Jack Smith’s case got stronger over the past month

Your bed is gross. Here’s how to clean it.: Expert advice on tidying up your bed — and the area around it — that will help you sleep with peace of mind.

How a Md. boy’s bout of Lyme led to a community tick research project

Humpbacks Rebound in 20th-Century Whaling Hotspot: In summer, South Georgia island’s Cumberland Bay now sees whale numbers that rival the early days of whaling.

Ancient DNA helps trace multiple sclerosis origins in European descendants

What we actually know about aliens, according to science

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Reading archive 2021-05-18

Ike and the Alien Ambassadors

WHERE ARE THEY?: WHY I HOPE THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE FINDS NOTHING - "Consider the implications of discovering that life had evolved independently on Mars (or some other planet in our solar system). That discovery would suggest that the emergence of life is not a very improbable event. If it happened independently twice here in our own back yard, it must surely have happened millions times across the galaxy. This would mean that the Great Filter is less likely to occur in the early life of planets and is therefore more likely still to come."

Let's say for whatever reason you're the first human to ever make alien contact [a graphic]

Apple’s Compromises in China: 5 Takeaways

In Gaza, grief, destruction and ‘all the anger of the universe’

How the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously: For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo. - "Such a prospect, as Hynek wrote in the mid-nineteen-eighties, “overheats the human mental circuits and blows the fuses in a protective mechanism for the mind.” Its destabilizing influence was clear. I would begin interviews with sources who seemed lucid and prudent and who insisted, like Kean, that they were interested only in vetted data, and that they used the term 'U.F.O.' in the strictly literal sense—whether the objects were spaceships or drones or clouds, we just didn’t know. An hour later, they would reveal to me that the aliens had been living in secret bases under the ocean for millions of years, had genetically altered primates to become our ancestors, and had taught accounting to the Sumerians."