A spokesman for the company that booked Nigel Farage on a speaking tour for the US reports they have "miscalculated his popularity" after only 21 people turn up to the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott on Monday evening despite tickets being free.
"Tom Chivers @TomChivers · 5h this didn't happen, stop retweeting it, this is the guy who made up the "stupid Brexit-supporting family in France" story a couple of years ago, I know you all want it to be true but it's not"
It only takes one picture from the (actually happening) tour to disprove it.
Farage's Instagram feed from the tour has some pictures of him talking (and two pictures with him with someone also called Nigel Farage), but none of the crowds at his events.
True, but anyway
ALIENS
It really is incredible this isn't bigger news in the UK. People are scared of looking crazy?
Even the most parsimonious explanations for this kerfuffle are wild
1. US military and political elites are conspiring to fool and frighten the world (why?)
2. The same US elites have all gone mad or they have been duped (how??)
3. China has developed tiny hypersonic aircraft that can do 14,000 mph no problemo
In the clip I saw (from a fighter?) there was a light green triangle which was supposedly a UAP.
Except if you watched the clip there were similar triangles around it not referred to. They all looked like a reflection of something on the camera lens.
But here's a clue. There is a non-alien explanation for every one of the "sightings".
Former President of the USA Barack Obama disagrees with you
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Obama has entered the UFO chat. “We can’t explain how they moved... their trajectory...”"
If that’s the video you posted earlier, he said no such thing. Just that they’d seen stuff they couldn’t explain.
Which is the start and finish of evidence for “technology”.
I don’t say it’s impossible, but so far the evidence is just some images. Nothing physical.
People keep saying this. But it’s not just some images is it. It’s multi point radar matching multiple eye witness, with video and infrared. And multiple incidents. And so we’re told by an ex US Cabinet member, sonar and satellite imagery.
Apparently. These are the better evidence that never gets published though. I’d also say throughout ufo history there have been multiple observer cases and cases of radar and visual contact etc etc. You may be right, and you certainly seem convinced, but I will wait to see all this great evidence.
This has an element of truth but you need to consider the rapid and massive change in the nature of the conversation in America. Senior figures from politics and the security & intelligence apparatus falling over themselves to talk about it in a serious way, and say on the record that it’s more than data collection glitches. Why?
In the same way that I am maybe guilty of normalcy bias, you are possibly falling for confirmation bias. I have an open mind, but maybe my threshold is higher than yours for this.
I concede that there may be a big hoodwinking going on. But to Leon’s point, that in itself would be a bigger story than anything else happening right now. So why is everyone ignoring it? It also starts to enter conspiracy theory territory in a way that feels less plausible to me than the alternative.
On EU opening up, some of the behaviour by individual countries seems bizarre. There are only a very few places with COVID under control, and some (eg Belgium) opening up too soon, with active single vaccine doses in 20-30% of people.
There are huge differences between COVID in circulation, and continuing death rates, and the bloody EU trying to force free travel and open borders on everyone.
Here is a sample of countries between 10 and 20 million pop.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Bullington Club sounds like gang of thugs too viscous & uncontrollable to have graduated from even a low-class, no-account Borstal.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
I'm happy enough sending mine to the local (good) comp. I'm investing in bricks and mortar and will own a decent house when I retire, whereas the council house my nan bought in Liverpool was worth only a few thousand when she died. I have my own ambitions, and I don't see how stopping others going to a school they pay for would change that. If they were banned, there would be some other club or sport or something that they would be able to pay for to get the same privilege so why get riled up about it. Hopefully my kids will be in a position to worry about that sort of thing!
Former City minister Lord Myners, a vocal public critic of the disgraced finance firm Greensill Capital, told its billionaire founder he was “at your service” and assured him negative media coverage would be forgotten and would “wrap fish and chips in no time”, newly published emails show.
Is this some huge conspiracy? Have I taken shrooms?
Hi @Leon The parallels with covid in early 2020 are startling. I saw the footage from Wuhan, I knew people in China for goodness sake. But I closed my brain off to it even as it directly affected my life in Asia, as did almost everyone on this website. It was only when Meeks and you really banged the drum that I woke up from my cognitive dissonance sometime in mid Feb about what was happening. Still early enough to make out like a bandit in the options market. But importantly, still early enough to mentally prepare myself for the pandemic and be in a position to support those around me with practical advice and psychological help, given the stunned shock for most people in late March and April.
Equally the signs for the unfolding UFO reveal were there if you were really looking since 2017. I had a bit of an AHA! moment last March but the pandemic took precedence. It was only when I belatedly listened to David Fravor in July last year that I realised something major was unfolding. I've been mentally preparing for it ever since, although I didn't write about it here because a) I knew no one would listen, and b) I assumed there was a D Notice in the UK, given the UK media silence. Since about January when the bill was passed by Congress, I've been doing my best to soften up those around me to what will be an unsettling new reality, with mixed success. That new reality could dawn really quite soon.
We've moved on so quickly from ex military personnel, to senior senators, ex CIA directors and NIDs... and now to an ex President. I have no f**** clue what more people want to wake up.
I have no clue what is happening and in that it seems I am joined by Obama, so that's OK
I overcame my normalcy bias early with Covid, I am trying to do that again, but without going mad. Aliens? Really?? Why are they here? Where from? Why do we get such crappy photos? What's the point in their watching us?
I also find it hard to believe that the biggest story since World War 2 (Covid) would be immediately followed by the biggest story in the history of the planet (aliens are here). All that in 18 months?
However, as I say, I can't find any wholly convincing non-alien explanation yet. Perhaps it is all a total head-fuck by the Americans to freak out the Chinese (as they assume hegemony) but that's an awful lot of people to conspire together, and an awful lot of sensible people risking the accusation of total insanity. Hmm
I also think some people are just scared of the alien hypothesis. It is super scary. It is meeting a deity
There could be a link with the odd weather too. It's not totally impossible.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Bullington Club sounds like gang of thugs too viscous & uncontrollable to have graduated from even a low-class, no-account Borstal.
Viscous thugs will come to a sticky end
Unless they slide out of it! As per usual with that set!!
And YOU!!! You should be . . . a proofreader . . .
Is this some huge conspiracy? Have I taken shrooms?
Hi @Leon The parallels with covid in early 2020 are startling. I saw the footage from Wuhan, I knew people in China for goodness sake. But I closed my brain off to it even as it directly affected my life in Asia, as did almost everyone on this website. It was only when Meeks and you really banged the drum that I woke up from my cognitive dissonance sometime in mid Feb about what was happening. Still early enough to make out like a bandit in the options market. But importantly, still early enough to mentally prepare myself for the pandemic and be in a position to support those around me with practical advice and psychological help, given the stunned shock for most people in late March and April.
Equally the signs for the unfolding UFO reveal were there if you were really looking since 2017. I had a bit of an AHA! moment last March but the pandemic took precedence. It was only when I belatedly listened to David Fravor in July last year that I realised something major was unfolding. I've been mentally preparing for it ever since, although I didn't write about it here because a) I knew no one would listen, and b) I assumed there was a D Notice in the UK, given the UK media silence. Since about January when the bill was passed by Congress, I've been doing my best to soften up those around me to what will be an unsettling new reality, with mixed success. That new reality could dawn really quite soon.
We've moved on so quickly from ex military personnel, to senior senators, ex CIA directors and NIDs... and now to an ex President. I have no f**** clue what more people want to wake up.
I have no clue what is happening and in that it seems I am joined by Obama, so that's OK
I overcame my normalcy bias early with Covid, I am trying to do that again, but without going mad. Aliens? Really?? Why are they here? Where from? Why do we get such crappy photos? What's the point in their watching us?
I also find it hard to believe that the biggest story since World War 2 (Covid) would be immediately followed by the biggest story in the history of the planet (aliens are here). All that in 18 months?
However, as I say, I can't find any wholly convincing non-alien explanation yet. Perhaps it is all a total head-fuck by the Americans to freak out the Chinese (as they assume hegemony) but that's an awful lot of people to conspire together, and an awful lot of sensible people risking the accusation of total insanity. Hmm
I also think some people are just scared of the alien hypothesis. It is super scary. It is meeting a deity
There could be a link with the odd weather too. It's not totally impossible.
A nurse who cared for the prime minister when he was seriously ill with coronavirus has resigned, hitting out at the government's 1% pay rise offer and what she says is its lack of respect for the profession https://trib.al/wYK4oTz
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
As a wise man once opined:
"We'd better hope there's intelligent life in space 'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth"
It might sound crazy but it’s worth considering that these objects/vehicles might be of intelligent non human terrestrial origin. It’s at least as plausible as them being interstellar or interdimensional.
This whole topic is nuts because once you get over the first hurdle that the phenomenon is a real one, it forces you to consider what they are and ask quite bananas questions. For this reason, most of the officials are only publicly saying “I don’t want to speculate on what they are but we know they’re not American and we’re pretty sure they’re not Russian or Chinese”.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five scenarios, if these recent UAPs are a) real, and b) as anomalous as claimed (i.e. capable of non-ballistic motion etc). In ascending order of awfulness:
1) They're human and they're "ours"
They are advanced technology created by and under the control of the US, with or without some of the US's leading allies. They have been concealed from the regular military, as well as the general public, for reasons. Possibly not to provoke Putin or Xi to realize that their nuclear deterrent is for naught so they might as well use it rather than lose it and hope they might just come out top from a nuclear holocaust caused by their first strike. We're getting "told" now because the US has enough of this new kit now to protect itself (and hopefully the rest of the West) from a such a use-it-or-lose-it first strike from the Russians and/or Chinese.
2) They're human and they're "theirs"
I.e. as above but they are built and controlled by Russia and/or China (or maybe Germany or France or the UK but I think that's less likely). In which case, why haven't Putin and/or Xi used the tech to further their goals? Surely Kiev if not Juneau would be back under the double-headed eagle by now if it was the Russians, and the Chinese would hardly be bothering to rain used boosters on the Maldives if was them.
3) They're not human and they're extra-terrestrial
In fact they'd have to be extra-solar. Biggest problem is that even with tech that makes FTL travel trivially easy, why would they come all this way just to troll the US Navy? Unless DNA was right about "teasers"
4) They're not human but they are terrestrial
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
5) We're in a simulation
And they script-writers we've had up to now got fired and they new ones are throwing the kitchen sink in to keep the ratings up.
None of the above scenarios make me feel very happy.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Bullington Club sounds like gang of thugs too viscous & uncontrollable to have graduated from even a low-class, no-account Borstal.
Viscous thugs will come to a sticky end
Unless they slide out of it! As per usual with that set!!
And YOU!!! You should be . . . a proofreader . . .
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Bullington Club sounds like gang of thugs too viscous & uncontrollable to have graduated from even a low-class, no-account Borstal.
Viscous thugs will come to a sticky end
Unless they slide out of it! As per usual with that set!!
And YOU!!! You should be . . . a proofreader . . .
Logically, I tend towards Carl Jung's analysis that we see something - it may be real, it may be coming from our own psyches, we don't know what it is, our interpretation in our current state is a reflection on our fears about our own advancements in technology, previously we would have interpreted the same experiences religiously or more mystically. Personally, I believe that VALIS is real.
Off topic, why does Harry find the first amendment "baffling" ?
Because he's not very bright?
Because he has been convinced all his life that the UK press are a pack of uncontrolled snarling monsters out to exploit him and his family and he now finds that they are extremely controlled by our libel and other laws compared with the press in the US? A shattering of illusions.
If only he had a US wife who could have told him what the US Constitution says ........
He's an embarrassingly stupid man who has no real understanding of just how stupid he is.
As my mother said at the weekend; he got a B and a D at A level…and one of those was in art
Confirms Eton is overcharging parents?
Also, how easy must the entrance exam be? Or has Eton gone all Harrow and let in any kid of rich feckers?
Ludgrove and Eton both recommended he went to a different school. His grandmother (who appoints the Provost of Eton as her personal representative on the board and therefore has some sway) insisted. She wanted him close - this was shortly after Diana’s death - and she had him round to stay at her pad nearby most weekends
Connections eh.
How do we remove this unelected ruler?
It is an insult to millions of working class kids in the country who do not have these connections and cannot improve their lot in life.
No, it’s not.
Yes, it is.
A private foundation offered a service to a private individual for which it was paid the rack rate.
I get you might think it’s unfair. But it’s not an insult
The majority will think it unfair.
The individual may be private but the institution they originate from is not. And I'm sure we are in opposition on this.
Why is it an insult? I get the perceived unfairness but I don’t get the personal insult
I literally couldn't give a monkeys who goes to Eton or any other public school. I won't be able to afford to send my kids there so it is not even in my frame of reference. I can't see the obsession about paying for schools. We don't van Bentley's just because all I can afford is a second hand estate car.
I wouldn't send my kids to Eton even if I could afford it given what I read about Trendy Hendy.
Bullington Club sounds like gang of thugs too viscous & uncontrollable to have graduated from even a low-class, no-account Borstal.
Viscous thugs will come to a sticky end
Unless they slide out of it! As per usual with that set!!
And YOU!!! You should be . . . a proofreader . . .
Attention to detail was hammered into me as a youngster
As to the future, I was musing on what the reaction of a Conservative activist would have been if, in the summer of 1979, you had told him or her the Party would win the next three General Elections and be in power until 1997.
I picture a rather unpleasant uninhibited bout of guffawing.
A nurse who cared for the prime minister when he was seriously ill with coronavirus has resigned, hitting out at the government's 1% pay rise offer and what she says is its lack of respect for the profession https://trib.al/wYK4oTz
And is also keen to travel and maybe go home to no, like countless other Kiwis and Aussies over the generations. It really is a free hit to blame the government for low pay, but for all those who demand higher salaries, who will stump up the extra taxes? Teresa May tried that idea for social care and it didn’t go that well...
It's gone a bit unnoticed, but there is a curious difference between most EU countries and the UK going on right now.
Simply: despite being two to three months behind the UK, as far as vaccinations go, most EU countries are removing restrictions. Denmark, for example, will is going to remove almost all Covid restrictions from Friday. Only nightclubs will remain closed.
My gut is that the UK has been far too cautious in reopening, and has therefore thrown away a good part of the benefits from its successful vaccination programme.
However... given that most of the EU still has relatively high levels of Covid (typically 2-5x the UK on a per person basis), this is a gutsy call.
However (part two), this doesn't tell the whole story. Denmark tests more than 10% of its population each day, and has managed to be pretty successful at shielding the more vulnerable. This means there are remarkably few people in hospital with Covid in the whole country (just 166, of which only 31 are in intensive care).
Anyway: it's a good reason to be cautious about reopening the borders with the EU. But it's also going to be a great counterfactual: could we have reopened the economy earlier without seeing a spike in hospitalizations.
Alternatively, being between waves. Like Mohdi declaring victory because of his brilliance a few months back. And our own jab less lull between wave 1 and 2.
No one knows for sure.
I know something. I’m going out this week. I’ve got an e ticket. My bags packed. Sunglasses, sunscreen, fleece, waterproof. I didn’t exploit lull between 1 and 2 enough, I need to push it a bit more between waves 2 and 3, I know that. Wave 3 lock down could coincide with nice summer weather. 🙁
We don't. But we'll soon find out.
My guess is that the opening up on the Continent will happen without hospitalizations going through the roof, and it will be clear that we could have moved faster to unlock.
We could have. We stopped having excess deaths months ago and we are only going back to July levels of restrictions yesterday. Farcically slow and it's pissed away months of first mover advantage we could have had economically.
And still zero covidiots wonder if we are not being cautious enough. Pathetic.
COVID idiots. For simply pointing out it does it’s business in waves?
Define what success from vaccination is? It’s pretty clear we are going to have to just get on with business at some point, and let the bodies pile up in the streets a bit for a while at least?
However, kicker for you of course, Each time someone says “it’s their own fault for turning down the vaccine when offered” it’s an extra stab of trident at some point isn’t it?
All of these "scary" models being used to urge caution just seem to continually assume an almost limitless supply of victims to infect and make seriously ill. Which is just totally at odds with a country of enormously high levels of vaccination across vulnerable, and frankly, not very vulnerable groups. Which is just not realistic short of the vaccinations offering no protection and/or suddenly becoming dramatically more dangerous for younger people. There's just a massive wall of vaccinated people standing in the way of any even semi-serious outbreak doing anything other than fizzling out pretty rapidly.
Your criticisms are justified in the context of a world with no vaccines, but that is not this world now.
It's gone a bit unnoticed, but there is a curious difference between most EU countries and the UK going on right now.
Simply: despite being two to three months behind the UK, as far as vaccinations go, most EU countries are removing restrictions. Denmark, for example, will is going to remove almost all Covid restrictions from Friday. Only nightclubs will remain closed.
My gut is that the UK has been far too cautious in reopening, and has therefore thrown away a good part of the benefits from its successful vaccination programme.
However... given that most of the EU still has relatively high levels of Covid (typically 2-5x the UK on a per person basis), this is a gutsy call.
However (part two), this doesn't tell the whole story. Denmark tests more than 10% of its population each day, and has managed to be pretty successful at shielding the more vulnerable. This means there are remarkably few people in hospital with Covid in the whole country (just 166, of which only 31 are in intensive care).
Anyway: it's a good reason to be cautious about reopening the borders with the EU. But it's also going to be a great counterfactual: could we have reopened the economy earlier without seeing a spike in hospitalizations.
Alternatively, being between waves. Like Mohdi declaring victory because of his brilliance a few months back. And our own jab less lull between wave 1 and 2.
No one knows for sure.
I know something. I’m going out this week. I’ve got an e ticket. My bags packed. Sunglasses, sunscreen, fleece, waterproof. I didn’t exploit lull between 1 and 2 enough, I need to push it a bit more between waves 2 and 3, I know that. Wave 3 lock down could coincide with nice summer weather. 🙁
We don't. But we'll soon find out.
My guess is that the opening up on the Continent will happen without hospitalizations going through the roof, and it will be clear that we could have moved faster to unlock.
We could have. We stopped having excess deaths months ago and we are only going back to July levels of restrictions yesterday. Farcically slow and it's pissed away months of first mover advantage we could have had economically.
And still zero covidiots wonder if we are not being cautious enough. Pathetic.
COVID idiots. For simply pointing out it does it’s business in waves?
Define what success from vaccination is? It’s pretty clear we are going to have to just get on with business at some point, and let the bodies pile up in the streets a bit for a while at least?
However, kicker for you of course, Each time someone says “it’s their own fault for turning down the vaccine when offered” it’s an extra stab of trident at some point isn’t it?
All of these "scary" models being used to urge caution just seem to continually assume an almost limitless supply of victims to infect and make seriously ill. Which is just totally at odds with a country of enormously high levels of vaccination across vulnerable, and frankly, not very vulnerable groups. Which is just not realistic short of the vaccinations offering no protection and/or suddenly becoming dramatically more dangerous for younger people. There's just a massive wall of vaccinated people standing in the way of any even semi-serious outbreak doing anything other than fizzling out pretty rapidly.
Your criticisms are justified in the context of a world with no vaccines, but that is not this world now.
Apologies Alex, I may have got the science wrong then.
I understood you could have two jabs and still get COVID and spread it.
I also understood you could have COVID quite mildly, but a next occurrence of getting it you could be quite ill - long COVID.
I don’t think I am wrong that these things play in waves, leaving us not 100% sure what is going to happen. 😕
That doesn’t take away from how brilliant the vaccination programme is, and the fight back is going good. 🤙
A nurse who cared for the prime minister when he was seriously ill with coronavirus has resigned, hitting out at the government's 1% pay rise offer and what she says is its lack of respect for the profession https://trib.al/wYK4oTz
And is also keen to travel and maybe go home to no, like countless other Kiwis and Aussies over the generations. It really is a free hit to blame the government for low pay, but for all those who demand higher salaries, who will stump up the extra taxes? Teresa May tried that idea for social care and it didn’t go that well...
And also said she hoped to return in the future....
I imagine many NHS staff are absolutely burned out. Dr Foxy suggestion of some bonus time off seemed better than a pay rise, but I am not sure how you cover all that, especially with the big backlogs in treating other diseases.
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
We're a backwater, relatively speaking. Any aliens are most likely to be the equivalent of some geek trying to collect the most obscure primitive civilizations visited in a galactic collecting hobby.
But I thought that it was precisely in the outer reaches of galaxies, not the centres, that life was more likely to emerge.
As to the future, I was musing on what the reaction of a Conservative activist would have been if, in the summer of 1979, you had told him or her the Party would win the next three General Elections and be in power until 1997.
I picture a rather unpleasant uninhibited bout of guffawing.
And if you'd told a Labour activist, in the summer of 1997, their Party would win the next couple of General Elections and be in power until 2010?
I'm guessing you'd find the guffawing endearing rather than unpleasant?
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
As a wise man once opined:
"We'd better hope there's intelligent life in space 'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth"
It might sound crazy but it’s worth considering that these objects/vehicles might be of intelligent non human terrestrial origin. It’s at least as plausible as them being interstellar or interdimensional.
This whole topic is nuts because once you get over the first hurdle that the phenomenon is a real one, it forces you to consider what they are and ask quite bananas questions. For this reason, most of the officials are only publicly saying “I don’t want to speculate on what they are but we know they’re not American and we’re pretty sure they’re not Russian or Chinese”.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five scenarios, if these recent UAPs are a) real, and b) as anomalous as claimed (i.e. capable of non-ballistic motion etc). In ascending order of awfulness:
1) They're human and they're "ours"
They are advanced technology created by and under the control of the US, with or without some of the US's leading allies. They have been concealed from the regular military, as well as the general public, for reasons. Possibly not to provoke Putin or Xi to realize that their nuclear deterrent is for naught so they might as well use it rather than lose it and hope they might just come out top from a nuclear holocaust caused by their first strike. We're getting "told" now because the US has enough of this new kit now to protect itself (and hopefully the rest of the West) from a such a use-it-or-lose-it first strike from the Russians and/or Chinese.
2) They're human and they're "theirs"
I.e. as above but they are built and controlled by Russia and/or China (or maybe Germany or France or the UK but I think that's less likely). In which case, why haven't Putin and/or Xi used the tech to further their goals? Surely Kiev if not Juneau would be back under the double-headed eagle by now if it was the Russians, and the Chinese would hardly be bothering to rain used boosters on the Maldives if was them.
3) They're not human and they're extra-terrestrial
In fact they'd have to be extra-solar. Biggest problem is that even with tech that makes FTL travel trivially easy, why would they come all this way just to troll the US Navy? Unless DNA was right about "teasers"
4) They're not human but they are terrestrial
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
5) We're in a simulation
And they script-writers we've had up to now got fired and they new ones are throwing the kitchen sink in to keep the ratings up.
None of the above scenarios make me feel very happy.
Yes, probabilistically I’d rather it all gets put back in the box, as my wife says “until long after anyone I’ve ever cared about is already dead”.
The recent behaviour of senior US officials indicates that won’t be happening.
Is this some huge conspiracy? Have I taken shrooms?
Hi @Leon The parallels with covid in early 2020 are startling. I saw the footage from Wuhan, I knew people in China for goodness sake. But I closed my brain off to it even as it directly affected my life in Asia, as did almost everyone on this website. It was only when Meeks and you really banged the drum that I woke up from my cognitive dissonance sometime in mid Feb about what was happening. Still early enough to make out like a bandit in the options market. But importantly, still early enough to mentally prepare myself for the pandemic and be in a position to support those around me with practical advice and psychological help, given the stunned shock for most people in late March and April.
Equally the signs for the unfolding UFO reveal were there if you were really looking since 2017. I had a bit of an AHA! moment last March but the pandemic took precedence. It was only when I belatedly listened to David Fravor in July last year that I realised something major was unfolding. I've been mentally preparing for it ever since, although I didn't write about it here because a) I knew no one would listen, and b) I assumed there was a D Notice in the UK, given the UK media silence. Since about January when the bill was passed by Congress, I've been doing my best to soften up those around me to what will be an unsettling new reality, with mixed success. That new reality could dawn really quite soon.
We've moved on so quickly from ex military personnel, to senior senators, ex CIA directors and NIDs... and now to an ex President. I have no f**** clue what more people want to wake up.
I have no clue what is happening and in that it seems I am joined by Obama, so that's OK
I overcame my normalcy bias early with Covid, I am trying to do that again, but without going mad. Aliens? Really?? Why are they here? Where from? Why do we get such crappy photos? What's the point in their watching us?
I also find it hard to believe that the biggest story since World War 2 (Covid) would be immediately followed by the biggest story in the history of the planet (aliens are here). All that in 18 months?
However, as I say, I can't find any wholly convincing non-alien explanation yet. Perhaps it is all a total head-fuck by the Americans to freak out the Chinese (as they assume hegemony) but that's an awful lot of people to conspire together, and an awful lot of sensible people risking the accusation of total insanity. Hmm
I also think some people are just scared of the alien hypothesis. It is super scary. It is meeting a deity
I think the showrunners of our simulation got to the end of their source material, and just like Benioff and Weiss with Game of Thrones, they're flailing around trying to find a good way to resolve the series.
The simulation theory is rather more seriously considers by scientists. The maths/physics is rather easier to explain than interstellar tourists.
Is this some huge conspiracy? Have I taken shrooms?
Hi @Leon The parallels with covid in early 2020 are startling. I saw the footage from Wuhan, I knew people in China for goodness sake. But I closed my brain off to it even as it directly affected my life in Asia, as did almost everyone on this website. It was only when Meeks and you really banged the drum that I woke up from my cognitive dissonance sometime in mid Feb about what was happening. Still early enough to make out like a bandit in the options market. But importantly, still early enough to mentally prepare myself for the pandemic and be in a position to support those around me with practical advice and psychological help, given the stunned shock for most people in late March and April.
Equally the signs for the unfolding UFO reveal were there if you were really looking since 2017. I had a bit of an AHA! moment last March but the pandemic took precedence. It was only when I belatedly listened to David Fravor in July last year that I realised something major was unfolding. I've been mentally preparing for it ever since, although I didn't write about it here because a) I knew no one would listen, and b) I assumed there was a D Notice in the UK, given the UK media silence. Since about January when the bill was passed by Congress, I've been doing my best to soften up those around me to what will be an unsettling new reality, with mixed success. That new reality could dawn really quite soon.
We've moved on so quickly from ex military personnel, to senior senators, ex CIA directors and NIDs... and now to an ex President. I have no f**** clue what more people want to wake up.
I have no clue what is happening and in that it seems I am joined by Obama, so that's OK
I overcame my normalcy bias early with Covid, I am trying to do that again, but without going mad. Aliens? Really?? Why are they here? Where from? Why do we get such crappy photos? What's the point in their watching us?
I also find it hard to believe that the biggest story since World War 2 (Covid) would be immediately followed by the biggest story in the history of the planet (aliens are here). All that in 18 months?
However, as I say, I can't find any wholly convincing non-alien explanation yet. Perhaps it is all a total head-fuck by the Americans to freak out the Chinese (as they assume hegemony) but that's an awful lot of people to conspire together, and an awful lot of sensible people risking the accusation of total insanity. Hmm
I also think some people are just scared of the alien hypothesis. It is super scary. It is meeting a deity
There could be a link with the odd weather too. It's not totally impossible.
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
As a wise man once opined:
"We'd better hope there's intelligent life in space 'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth"
It might sound crazy but it’s worth considering that these objects/vehicles might be of intelligent non human terrestrial origin. It’s at least as plausible as them being interstellar or interdimensional.
This whole topic is nuts because once you get over the first hurdle that the phenomenon is a real one, it forces you to consider what they are and ask quite bananas questions. For this reason, most of the officials are only publicly saying “I don’t want to speculate on what they are but we know they’re not American and we’re pretty sure they’re not Russian or Chinese”.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five scenarios, if these recent UAPs are a) real, and b) as anomalous as claimed (i.e. capable of non-ballistic motion etc). In ascending order of awfulness:
1) They're human and they're "ours"
They are advanced technology created by and under the control of the US, with or without some of the US's leading allies. They have been concealed from the regular military, as well as the general public, for reasons. Possibly not to provoke Putin or Xi to realize that their nuclear deterrent is for naught so they might as well use it rather than lose it and hope they might just come out top from a nuclear holocaust caused by their first strike. We're getting "told" now because the US has enough of this new kit now to protect itself (and hopefully the rest of the West) from a such a use-it-or-lose-it first strike from the Russians and/or Chinese.
2) They're human and they're "theirs"
I.e. as above but they are built and controlled by Russia and/or China (or maybe Germany or France or the UK but I think that's less likely). In which case, why haven't Putin and/or Xi used the tech to further their goals? Surely Kiev if not Juneau would be back under the double-headed eagle by now if it was the Russians, and the Chinese would hardly be bothering to rain used boosters on the Maldives if was them.
3) They're not human and they're extra-terrestrial
In fact they'd have to be extra-solar. Biggest problem is that even with tech that makes FTL travel trivially easy, why would they come all this way just to troll the US Navy? Unless DNA was right about "teasers"
4) They're not human but they are terrestrial
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
5) We're in a simulation
And they script-writers we've had up to now got fired and they new ones are throwing the kitchen sink in to keep the ratings up.
None of the above scenarios make me feel very happy.
Whatever it is, it’s a huge threat to life on earth. They could trigger off nuclear catastrophe
It's gone a bit unnoticed, but there is a curious difference between most EU countries and the UK going on right now.
Simply: despite being two to three months behind the UK, as far as vaccinations go, most EU countries are removing restrictions. Denmark, for example, will is going to remove almost all Covid restrictions from Friday. Only nightclubs will remain closed.
My gut is that the UK has been far too cautious in reopening, and has therefore thrown away a good part of the benefits from its successful vaccination programme.
However... given that most of the EU still has relatively high levels of Covid (typically 2-5x the UK on a per person basis), this is a gutsy call.
However (part two), this doesn't tell the whole story. Denmark tests more than 10% of its population each day, and has managed to be pretty successful at shielding the more vulnerable. This means there are remarkably few people in hospital with Covid in the whole country (just 166, of which only 31 are in intensive care).
Anyway: it's a good reason to be cautious about reopening the borders with the EU. But it's also going to be a great counterfactual: could we have reopened the economy earlier without seeing a spike in hospitalizations.
Alternatively, being between waves. Like Mohdi declaring victory because of his brilliance a few months back. And our own jab less lull between wave 1 and 2.
No one knows for sure.
I know something. I’m going out this week. I’ve got an e ticket. My bags packed. Sunglasses, sunscreen, fleece, waterproof. I didn’t exploit lull between 1 and 2 enough, I need to push it a bit more between waves 2 and 3, I know that. Wave 3 lock down could coincide with nice summer weather. 🙁
We don't. But we'll soon find out.
My guess is that the opening up on the Continent will happen without hospitalizations going through the roof, and it will be clear that we could have moved faster to unlock.
We could have. We stopped having excess deaths months ago and we are only going back to July levels of restrictions yesterday. Farcically slow and it's pissed away months of first mover advantage we could have had economically.
And still zero covidiots wonder if we are not being cautious enough. Pathetic.
COVID idiots. For simply pointing out it does it’s business in waves?
Define what success from vaccination is? It’s pretty clear we are going to have to just get on with business at some point, and let the bodies pile up in the streets a bit for a while at least?
However, kicker for you of course, Each time someone says “it’s their own fault for turning down the vaccine when offered” it’s an extra stab of trident at some point isn’t it?
All of these "scary" models being used to urge caution just seem to continually assume an almost limitless supply of victims to infect and make seriously ill. Which is just totally at odds with a country of enormously high levels of vaccination across vulnerable, and frankly, not very vulnerable groups. Which is just not realistic short of the vaccinations offering no protection and/or suddenly becoming dramatically more dangerous for younger people. There's just a massive wall of vaccinated people standing in the way of any even semi-serious outbreak doing anything other than fizzling out pretty rapidly.
Your criticisms are justified in the context of a world with no vaccines, but that is not this world now.
It's gone a bit unnoticed, but there is a curious difference between most EU countries and the UK going on right now.
Simply: despite being two to three months behind the UK, as far as vaccinations go, most EU countries are removing restrictions. Denmark, for example, will is going to remove almost all Covid restrictions from Friday. Only nightclubs will remain closed.
My gut is that the UK has been far too cautious in reopening, and has therefore thrown away a good part of the benefits from its successful vaccination programme.
However... given that most of the EU still has relatively high levels of Covid (typically 2-5x the UK on a per person basis), this is a gutsy call.
However (part two), this doesn't tell the whole story. Denmark tests more than 10% of its population each day, and has managed to be pretty successful at shielding the more vulnerable. This means there are remarkably few people in hospital with Covid in the whole country (just 166, of which only 31 are in intensive care).
Anyway: it's a good reason to be cautious about reopening the borders with the EU. But it's also going to be a great counterfactual: could we have reopened the economy earlier without seeing a spike in hospitalizations.
Alternatively, being between waves. Like Mohdi declaring victory because of his brilliance a few months back. And our own jab less lull between wave 1 and 2.
No one knows for sure.
I know something. I’m going out this week. I’ve got an e ticket. My bags packed. Sunglasses, sunscreen, fleece, waterproof. I didn’t exploit lull between 1 and 2 enough, I need to push it a bit more between waves 2 and 3, I know that. Wave 3 lock down could coincide with nice summer weather. 🙁
We don't. But we'll soon find out.
My guess is that the opening up on the Continent will happen without hospitalizations going through the roof, and it will be clear that we could have moved faster to unlock.
We could have. We stopped having excess deaths months ago and we are only going back to July levels of restrictions yesterday. Farcically slow and it's pissed away months of first mover advantage we could have had economically.
And still zero covidiots wonder if we are not being cautious enough. Pathetic.
COVID idiots. For simply pointing out it does it’s business in waves?
Define what success from vaccination is? It’s pretty clear we are going to have to just get on with business at some point, and let the bodies pile up in the streets a bit for a while at least?
However, kicker for you of course, Each time someone says “it’s their own fault for turning down the vaccine when offered” it’s an extra stab of trident at some point isn’t it?
All of these "scary" models being used to urge caution just seem to continually assume an almost limitless supply of victims to infect and make seriously ill. Which is just totally at odds with a country of enormously high levels of vaccination across vulnerable, and frankly, not very vulnerable groups. Which is just not realistic short of the vaccinations offering no protection and/or suddenly becoming dramatically more dangerous for younger people. There's just a massive wall of vaccinated people standing in the way of any even semi-serious outbreak doing anything other than fizzling out pretty rapidly.
Your criticisms are justified in the context of a world with no vaccines, but that is not this world now.
Apologies Alex, I may have got the science wrong then.
I understood you could have two jabs and still get COVID and spread it.
I also understood you could have COVID quite mildly, but a next occurrence of getting it you could be quite ill - long COVID.
I don’t think I am wrong that these things play in waves, leaving us not 100% sure what is going to happen. 😕
That doesn’t take away from how brilliant the vaccination programme is, and the fight back is going good. 🤙
We don’t really know about how much people will be able spread Covid after they have had two jabs yet. The cdc thinks not much, and has said so this week, and now in the us fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks. It’s possible some will still get ill (no vaccine will be 100%). It’s possible asymptomatic spread from vaccinated People will be significant, but I suspect it won’t be. As to getting a second, worse Covid bout, I don’t think there is much evidence of this. Long Covid is surely a spectrum of things including serious physical damage (eg lung scarring etc) and possibly other things, but I don’t believe it is linked to being a second infection. You are also right about waves, however our vaccination programme clearly interferes with the natural cycle of waves, such as would have happened with Spanish flu.
A spokesman for the company that booked Nigel Farage on a speaking tour for the US reports they have "miscalculated his popularity" after only 21 people turn up to the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott on Monday evening despite tickets being free.
"Tom Chivers @TomChivers · 5h this didn't happen, stop retweeting it, this is the guy who made up the "stupid Brexit-supporting family in France" story a couple of years ago, I know you all want it to be true but it's not"
It only takes one picture from the (actually happening) tour to disprove it.
Farage's Instagram feed from the tour has some pictures of him talking (and two pictures with him with someone also called Nigel Farage), but none of the crowds at his events.
True, but anyway
ALIENS
It really is incredible this isn't bigger news in the UK. People are scared of looking crazy?
Even the most parsimonious explanations for this kerfuffle are wild
1. US military and political elites are conspiring to fool and frighten the world (why?)
2. The same US elites have all gone mad or they have been duped (how??)
3. China has developed tiny hypersonic aircraft that can do 14,000 mph no problemo
In the clip I saw (from a fighter?) there was a light green triangle which was supposedly a UAP.
Except if you watched the clip there were similar triangles around it not referred to. They all looked like a reflection of something on the camera lens.
But here's a clue. There is a non-alien explanation for every one of the "sightings".
Former President of the USA Barack Obama disagrees with you
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Obama has entered the UFO chat. “We can’t explain how they moved... their trajectory...”"
If that’s the video you posted earlier, he said no such thing. Just that they’d seen stuff they couldn’t explain.
Which is the start and finish of evidence for “technology”.
I don’t say it’s impossible, but so far the evidence is just some images. Nothing physical.
People keep saying this. But it’s not just some images is it. It’s multi point radar matching multiple eye witness, with video and infrared. And multiple incidents. And so we’re told by an ex US Cabinet member, sonar and satellite imagery.
Were you not claiming the existence of physical evidence recently ?
I've found 12 of my father's 16 great granparents. He knew of none of them a week ago. And I've found his family line back to Ireland, through three generations of fishmongers that he knew nothing about.
It turns out that his Clan Macdonald of Clanranald lineaged Scottish grandmother might have married another Irishman and died in Ireland, so I might have helped my Dad on his quest for an Irish passport..
On my mother's side I've managed to find the maternal line all the way back to an Eliza Roberts born in 1816, through nine women. And I've just let all the women who continue that line know on facebook.
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
As a wise man once opined:
"We'd better hope there's intelligent life in space 'Cos there's bugger all down here on Earth"
It might sound crazy but it’s worth considering that these objects/vehicles might be of intelligent non human terrestrial origin. It’s at least as plausible as them being interstellar or interdimensional.
This whole topic is nuts because once you get over the first hurdle that the phenomenon is a real one, it forces you to consider what they are and ask quite bananas questions. For this reason, most of the officials are only publicly saying “I don’t want to speculate on what they are but we know they’re not American and we’re pretty sure they’re not Russian or Chinese”.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five scenarios, if these recent UAPs are a) real, and b) as anomalous as claimed (i.e. capable of non-ballistic motion etc). In ascending order of awfulness:
1) They're human and they're "ours"
They are advanced technology created by and under the control of the US, with or without some of the US's leading allies. They have been concealed from the regular military, as well as the general public, for reasons. Possibly not to provoke Putin or Xi to realize that their nuclear deterrent is for naught so they might as well use it rather than lose it and hope they might just come out top from a nuclear holocaust caused by their first strike. We're getting "told" now because the US has enough of this new kit now to protect itself (and hopefully the rest of the West) from a such a use-it-or-lose-it first strike from the Russians and/or Chinese.
2) They're human and they're "theirs"
I.e. as above but they are built and controlled by Russia and/or China (or maybe Germany or France or the UK but I think that's less likely). In which case, why haven't Putin and/or Xi used the tech to further their goals? Surely Kiev if not Juneau would be back under the double-headed eagle by now if it was the Russians, and the Chinese would hardly be bothering to rain used boosters on the Maldives if was them.
3) They're not human and they're extra-terrestrial
In fact they'd have to be extra-solar. Biggest problem is that even with tech that makes FTL travel trivially easy, why would they come all this way just to troll the US Navy? Unless DNA was right about "teasers"
4) They're not human but they are terrestrial
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
5) We're in a simulation
And they script-writers we've had up to now got fired and they new ones are throwing the kitchen sink in to keep the ratings up.
None of the above scenarios make me feel very happy.
A very good summary. Yes the first explanation is the most "comforting".... but I just don't buy it.
Have we really developed brilliant hypersonic technology on the quiet, over decades, and did we master it as long ago as 2004? Or the 1990s? Or the 1970s?
How did they keep it a secret? From everyone? Why has the US not flexed this mighty power, to keep China in check, instead allowing China to rise to equality, and assume supremacy?
And, also, why employ this truly bizarre media technique of faking lots of UAP videos and persuading pilots to lie on camera and speculating about ET in a manner that makes everyone look mad
I don't buy it. But then it's very hard to buy all the other scenarios, too
Mass hallucination? They are known during plagues. Popular delusions and fearful portents in the skie
Logically, I tend towards Carl Jung's analysis that we see something - it may be real, it may be coming from our own psyches, we don't know what it is, our interpretation in our current state is a reflection on our fears about our own advancements in technology, previously we would have interpreted the same experiences religiously or more mystically. Personally, I believe that VALIS is real.
A spokesman for the company that booked Nigel Farage on a speaking tour for the US reports they have "miscalculated his popularity" after only 21 people turn up to the Pittsburgh Airport Marriott on Monday evening despite tickets being free.
"Tom Chivers @TomChivers · 5h this didn't happen, stop retweeting it, this is the guy who made up the "stupid Brexit-supporting family in France" story a couple of years ago, I know you all want it to be true but it's not"
It only takes one picture from the (actually happening) tour to disprove it.
Farage's Instagram feed from the tour has some pictures of him talking (and two pictures with him with someone also called Nigel Farage), but none of the crowds at his events.
True, but anyway
ALIENS
It really is incredible this isn't bigger news in the UK. People are scared of looking crazy?
Even the most parsimonious explanations for this kerfuffle are wild
1. US military and political elites are conspiring to fool and frighten the world (why?)
2. The same US elites have all gone mad or they have been duped (how??)
3. China has developed tiny hypersonic aircraft that can do 14,000 mph no problemo
In the clip I saw (from a fighter?) there was a light green triangle which was supposedly a UAP.
Except if you watched the clip there were similar triangles around it not referred to. They all looked like a reflection of something on the camera lens.
But here's a clue. There is a non-alien explanation for every one of the "sightings".
Former President of the USA Barack Obama disagrees with you
"Gadi Schwartz @GadiNBC Obama has entered the UFO chat. “We can’t explain how they moved... their trajectory...”"
If that’s the video you posted earlier, he said no such thing. Just that they’d seen stuff they couldn’t explain.
Which is the start and finish of evidence for “technology”.
I don’t say it’s impossible, but so far the evidence is just some images. Nothing physical.
People keep saying this. But it’s not just some images is it. It’s multi point radar matching multiple eye witness, with video and infrared. And multiple incidents. And so we’re told by an ex US Cabinet member, sonar and satellite imagery.
Apparently. These are the better evidence that never gets published though. I’d also say throughout ufo history there have been multiple observer cases and cases of radar and visual contact etc etc. You may be right, and you certainly seem convinced, but I will wait to see all this great evidence.
This has an element of truth but you need to consider the rapid and massive change in the nature of the conversation in America. Senior figures from politics and the security & intelligence apparatus falling over themselves to talk about it in a serious way, and say on the record that it’s more than data collection glitches. Why?
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
The descriptions of "aliens" by UFO-abductees are uncannily similar to the descriptions of "fairies" or "elves" dating from the middle ages.
As to the future, I was musing on what the reaction of a Conservative activist would have been if, in the summer of 1979, you had told him or her the Party would win the next three General Elections and be in power until 1997.
I picture a rather unpleasant uninhibited bout of guffawing.
And if you'd told a Labour activist, in the summer of 1997, their Party would win the next couple of General Elections and be in power until 2010?
I'm guessing you'd find the guffawing endearing rather than unpleasant?
No, they wouldn't guffaw. More of a warm grin but tempered by a sense of burden. The responsibility of having to deliver for working people.
As to the future, I was musing on what the reaction of a Conservative activist would have been if, in the summer of 1979, you had told him or her the Party would win the next three General Elections and be in power until 1997.
I picture a rather unpleasant uninhibited bout of guffawing.
And if you'd told a Labour activist, in the summer of 1997, their Party would win the next couple of General Elections and be in power until 2010?
I'm guessing you'd find the guffawing endearing rather than unpleasant?
No, they wouldn't guffaw. More of a warm grin but tempered by a sense of burden. The responsibility of having to deliver for working people.
Yebbut, is it an ET type of alien, the Vulcans or a xenomorph?
That's what I want to know.
If we're really, really lucky, it'll be the Culture.
The one Iain M. Banks that always sat a bit awkwardly with me was the one where the Culture are on Earth observing. It's the main short(ish) story in the short story collection The State Of The Art. I think it was an early thing Banks wrote.
I found I had to sort of mentally block it from my memory records of the Culture novels because I just didn't ever really want to connect the two in my head ever for reasons I could never quite verbalise.
On the flipside I always was impressed at his idea in The Algebraist, if i remember rightly, that basically the big alien civilisational players would deliberately cherry pick sections of population from primitive planets and embed them into the great galactic culture, so that when the primitive planet did finally bootstrap itself into the big civilisational game they would always find better, more advanced and more knowledgeable examples of their species already out there, as a sort of subtle psychological put-down reminder of their place in the grand scheme of things.
Is this some huge conspiracy? Have I taken shrooms?
Hi @Leon The parallels with covid in early 2020 are startling. I saw the footage from Wuhan, I knew people in China for goodness sake. But I closed my brain off to it even as it directly affected my life in Asia, as did almost everyone on this website. It was only when Meeks and you really banged the drum that I woke up from my cognitive dissonance sometime in mid Feb about what was happening. Still early enough to make out like a bandit in the options market. But importantly, still early enough to mentally prepare myself for the pandemic and be in a position to support those around me with practical advice and psychological help, given the stunned shock for most people in late March and April.
Equally the signs for the unfolding UFO reveal were there if you were really looking since 2017. I had a bit of an AHA! moment last March but the pandemic took precedence. It was only when I belatedly listened to David Fravor in July last year that I realised something major was unfolding. I've been mentally preparing for it ever since, although I didn't write about it here because a) I knew no one would listen, and b) I assumed there was a D Notice in the UK, given the UK media silence. Since about January when the bill was passed by Congress, I've been doing my best to soften up those around me to what will be an unsettling new reality, with mixed success. That new reality could dawn really quite soon.
We've moved on so quickly from ex military personnel, to senior senators, ex CIA directors and NIDs... and now to an ex President. I have no f**** clue what more people want to wake up.
I have no clue what is happening and in that it seems I am joined by Obama, so that's OK
I overcame my normalcy bias early with Covid, I am trying to do that again, but without going mad. Aliens? Really?? Why are they here? Where from? Why do we get such crappy photos? What's the point in their watching us?
I also find it hard to believe that the biggest story since World War 2 (Covid) would be immediately followed by the biggest story in the history of the planet (aliens are here). All that in 18 months?
However, as I say, I can't find any wholly convincing non-alien explanation yet. Perhaps it is all a total head-fuck by the Americans to freak out the Chinese (as they assume hegemony) but that's an awful lot of people to conspire together, and an awful lot of sensible people risking the accusation of total insanity. Hmm
I also think some people are just scared of the alien hypothesis. It is super scary. It is meeting a deity
There could be a link with the odd weather too. It's not totally impossible.
AND the lab leak theory AND GPT-3 and Gaza.
A Grand Unified Theory of Dystopian Weirdness
Yes. And how privileged we would be to live - or not - through it.
Comments
There are huge differences between COVID in circulation, and continuing death rates, and the bloody EU trying to force free travel and open borders on everyone.
Here is a sample of countries between 10 and 20 million pop.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/18/i-am-at-your-service-emails-reveal-myners-link-to-lex-greensill
And YOU!!! You should be . . . a proofreader . . .
A Grand Unified Theory of Dystopian Weirdness
https://trib.al/wYK4oTz
1) They're human and they're "ours"
They are advanced technology created by and under the control of the US, with or without some of the US's leading allies. They have been concealed from the regular military, as well as the general public, for reasons. Possibly not to provoke Putin or Xi to realize that their nuclear deterrent is for naught so they might as well use it rather than lose it and hope they might just come out top from a nuclear holocaust caused by their first strike. We're getting "told" now because the US has enough of this new kit now to protect itself (and hopefully the rest of the West) from a such a use-it-or-lose-it first strike from the Russians and/or Chinese.
2) They're human and they're "theirs"
I.e. as above but they are built and controlled by Russia and/or China (or maybe Germany or France or the UK but I think that's less likely). In which case, why haven't Putin and/or Xi used the tech to further their goals? Surely Kiev if not Juneau would be back under the double-headed eagle by now if it was the Russians, and the Chinese would hardly be bothering to rain used boosters on the Maldives if was them.
3) They're not human and they're extra-terrestrial
In fact they'd have to be extra-solar. Biggest problem is that even with tech that makes FTL travel trivially easy, why would they come all this way just to troll the US Navy? Unless DNA was right about "teasers"
4) They're not human but they are terrestrial
Elves or demons anyone? Stories of extra-dimensional, supernatural beings living alongside us but not exactly with us go back to the roots of human folklore. Given how these entities seem to behave in those stories, I think I'd prefer the aliens.
5) We're in a simulation
And they script-writers we've had up to now got fired and they new ones are throwing the kitchen sink in to keep the ratings up.
None of the above scenarios make me feel very happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDom6wNYb9w
Logically, I tend towards Carl Jung's analysis that we see something - it may be real, it may be coming from our own psyches, we don't know what it is, our interpretation in our current state is a reflection on our fears about our own advancements in technology, previously we would have interpreted the same experiences religiously or more mystically. Personally, I believe that VALIS is real.
Blimey!
I understood you could have two jabs and still get COVID and spread it.
I also understood you could have COVID quite mildly, but a next occurrence of getting it you could be quite ill - long COVID.
I don’t think I am wrong that these things play in waves, leaving us not 100% sure what is going to happen. 😕
That doesn’t take away from how brilliant the vaccination programme is, and the fight back is going good. 🤙
I imagine many NHS staff are absolutely burned out. Dr Foxy suggestion of some bonus time off seemed better than a pay rise, but I am not sure how you cover all that, especially with the big backlogs in treating other diseases.
I'm guessing you'd find the guffawing endearing rather than unpleasant?
The recent behaviour of senior US officials indicates that won’t be happening.
Imagine particularly the police officer is very confused, take the knee for BLM, absolutely fine, say free palestine, and you are under investigation.
I've found 12 of my father's 16 great granparents. He knew of none of them a week ago. And I've found his family line back to Ireland, through three generations of fishmongers that he knew nothing about.
It turns out that his Clan Macdonald of Clanranald lineaged Scottish grandmother might have married another Irishman and died in Ireland, so I might have helped my Dad on his quest for an Irish passport..
On my mother's side I've managed to find the maternal line all the way back to an Eliza Roberts born in 1816, through nine women. And I've just let all the women who continue that line know on facebook.
It seems to be a win.
Have we really developed brilliant hypersonic technology on the quiet, over decades, and did we master it as long ago as 2004? Or the 1990s? Or the 1970s?
How did they keep it a secret? From everyone? Why has the US not flexed this mighty power, to keep China in check, instead allowing China to rise to equality, and assume supremacy?
And, also, why employ this truly bizarre media technique of faking lots of UAP videos and persuading pilots to lie on camera and speculating about ET in a manner that makes everyone look mad
I don't buy it. But then it's very hard to buy all the other scenarios, too
Mass hallucination? They are known during plagues. Popular delusions and fearful portents in the skie
I found I had to sort of mentally block it from my memory records of the Culture novels because I just didn't ever really want to connect the two in my head ever for reasons I could never quite verbalise.
On the flipside I always was impressed at his idea in The Algebraist, if i remember rightly, that basically the big alien civilisational players would deliberately cherry pick sections of population from primitive planets and embed them into the great galactic culture, so that when the primitive planet did finally bootstrap itself into the big civilisational game they would always find better, more advanced and more knowledgeable examples of their species already out there, as a sort of subtle psychological put-down reminder of their place in the grand scheme of things.