may be rude

yeah... though you set me up to make the point: raising awareness is possible, and consequential. your posts here are an example. if an individual spends one year making a point to try to reach individuals on a given topic, either going out of their way or just doing so when the opportunity presents itself, the impact is more than just the sum of those direct recipients of that person's messages. it is important to remember the carry-on effect. you may stop someone from going on to be a loud and misleading shithead. you may inspire someone to do more activism. you also contribute to awakening people to their responsibility in the modern world to keep watch on the information sanitation in their various social circles. we are still awakening to a different information regime. we're no longer consumers, we are active (or passive) contributors.

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. you know we just got burgled with 2 hours of mystical techno right https://rolandosimmons.bandcamp.com/

In dramatic shift, national intelligence director does not rule out 'extraterrestrial' origins for UFOs https://thehill.com/opinion/international/581710-in-dramatic-shift-national-intelligence-director-does-not-rule-out For seven decades, government officials systematically dismissed, ignored and belittled any mention of UFOs. Indeed, despite mind-boggling intelligence assessments, Cold War-era national security fears led the U.S. government to apply scientifically absurd explanations to highly credible UFO encounters. In short, the prospect of a sitting high-level national security official openly discussing otherworldly origins for UFOs was long unthinkable — until last week. Asked about a recent report in which the government admitted that it could not explain 143 out of 144 military encounters with mysterious flying objects – including several which appeared to demonstrate extraordinary technology – director of national intelligence Avril Haines said, “There’s always the question of ‘is there something else that we simply do not understand, that might come extraterrestrially?’” Haines’s comment is the latest sign that a seismic shift in the government’s official stance on UFOs is underway. Just a few weeks before Haines’s groundbreaking statement, NASA administrator Bill Nelson made waves by speculating publicly that UFOs might have otherworldly origins. Indeed, after meeting with the naval aviators who encountered objects that appeared to move in ways that defied physics and aerodynamics, Nelson is convinced that the pilots saw something truly extraordinary. Moreover, after reading a classified government report on the military’s recent UFO encounters, Nelson – an Army veteran, former senator and ex-astronaut – said, “The hair stood up on the back of my neck.” Clearly, something has NASA’s chief spooked. Like Nelson, former Presidents Obama and Clinton both speculated openly about the likelihood of alien life when asked about UFOs in June. Obama went on to state that “There’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.” Obama was likely referring to mysterious flying craft that, according to the government, appear to “remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernible means of propulsion.” Queried about these seemingly physics-defying movements, former CIA director John Brennan made a jaw-dropping statement, suggesting that “a different form of life” might be behind the phenomena. Similarly, another former CIA director (and long-time UFO skeptic), James Woolsey, signaled a new openness to otherworldly explanations for UFOs. John Ratcliffe, Haines’s predecessor as director of national intelligence, injected eyebrow-raising context to the military’s recent UFO encounters. According to Ratcliffe, U.S. intelligence analysts have “high confidence” that foreign adversaries – such as China or Russia – are not behind the most extraordinary UFO sightings. In a stark summation of the government’s assessment of the phenomenon, Ratcliffe stated that some UFOs exhibit “technologies that we don’t have and, frankly, that we are not capable of defending against.” After reading the classified version of the government’s recent UFO report, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) echoed Ratcliffe’s comments, ruling out highly advanced Chinese or Russian aircraft as likely explanations for the mysterious objects. In an interview about the military’s UFO encounters, Romney referred to “technology which is in a whole different sphere than anything we understand.” But sightings of unknown craft exhibiting highly advanced technology are not a recent phenomenon. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA, said that objects “operating under intelligent control” displayed extraordinary technology in the decades after World War II. Mirroring recent government assessments, Hillenkoetter stated that neither the United States nor any other nation could have developed such advanced aircraft. Indeed, declassified documents from the late 1940s and early 1950s show that intelligence analysts systematically ruled out ultra-secret U.S. technology and foreign competitors as plausible explanations for the most compelling UFO encounters. Despite these jaw-dropping assessments, a series of bizarre – and still unexplained – 1952 UFO sightings in the skies above Washington, D.C. alarmed America’s defense planners. As UFO reports and public queries about the incidents overwhelmed the military’s communications channels, national security officials grew concerned that the Soviet Union could exploit public interest in UFOs to cause mass panic and gain an advantage in a surprise attack. As a result, the Air Force’s 20-year project to catalogue UFO sightings quickly devolved into an exercise in “debunking” and discrediting even the most credible encounters. As renowned atmospheric physicist James McDonald made clear, the Air Force began applying “meteorologically, chemically and optically absurd” explanations to UFO sightings. McDonald’s assessment was corroborated by astronomer J. Allen Hynek, who served for two decades as the Air Force UFO project’s civilian scientific consultant. In a stark – and refreshing – break from the government’s record of foisting bizarre, unscientific explanations onto highly credible UFO cases, Haines stated last week that “we don’t understand everything we’re seeing.” Thankfully, the glaring deficiencies in UFO reporting and analysis identified by Haines may soon be addressed. If historic legislation proposed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is adopted by Congress, the government will be forced to conduct the comprehensive, objective and science-based assessment that the UFO phenomenon has long demanded.

sign (-) is the negative songs plus (+) is the songs that do not have negative vibe

i listened to the mcconaughey interview with kara swisher and it's insanely cringe. good odds he ends up just backing beto. he doesn't know what party he is or what his positions are. the poll shows that abbott is weak. there's a big difference between a state race and a national race. beto didn't fare horribly in the 2020 primaries, he was a serious candidate for a minute. iowa and new hampshire whittle it down to a top few and the rest fall away. glad to hear you plan to vote there. i think beto has an activist organization. you may be interested to help and knock doors or something. political activism is fun. it's kind of funny that not only are we allowed to walk around knocking on people's doors and talking to them about politics, but it's actually an important part of the country. i won't pretend to see the future. yeah if a republican governor wins then it won't be a shock. what i see in texas is that 1) the republicans are nervous 2) there is a mountain of persuasive arguments at the ready for Democratic activists 3) people are malnourished with good information 4) there is a very sizable Democratic movement that has the potential to make tx purple my understanding is that beto is something of a phenomenon in texas. i hear that people get excited about him in a way that is surprising.

that's a string that the right will pull. beto knows how to talk about it. the 2nd amendment includes the words "well regulated." what is the pro assault rifle argument? they're cool? it's fun to unload a clip into a bunch of pines and pretend you're rambo? or overthrow the government in some kind of steven seagal movie plot? the 2nd amendment is not meant to shield militias from regulation so they can overthrow the government. there's a popular misconception that this is somehow a check and balance, but i don't think that the guns-for-freedom argument is the established interpretation of the 2nd amendment. i think that's some folklore that gets kicked around. the best argument gun nuts have is that they're fun. anyway, let's compare priorities. (a) assault rifles are fun (b) democracy is under assault (by the right) (c) houston may be submerged in a thousand years because we're breaking the planet in reality, the gun issue is not at the top of the list of significant issues. and, come on. how hard is it to understand that homicide devices call for regulation? 90% of americans are onboard with background checks. beto will speak to his platform better than i can, but i'm sure he is interested in more important and and substantial issues than extended clips and automatic rifles.

beto came close to beating cruz. abbott has been hurting after putting bounties on women getting abortions. beto has a shot and this is a great thing for democrats of texas to organize under.

haha. i figured that you were not (you know i meant john and bob). your stuff is great, i am a big fan.

this is good

yes, 100% you know my position on nonviolence. i don't know a lot about the black panthers. i will have to learn more about this. haha. democracy, the worst form of government, except for all the others. i actually like a lot of these people. it's the theory i like. definitely just part of a big complex system though. we would live in a different world if congressional majorities were different over the last 20 years. dis & misinfo have been around but the internet from 1995 - 2010 just changed information flows completely. the new capabilities are exploited by bad actors and then defenses are developed in response, eventually. i think it's actually a big adjustment that people will understand better, looking back. right now we're in the midst of a collective schizophrenia. hehe. i am not going to agree on the messaging "this whole thing is rigged"... and i don't think it is. but, yeah, strengthen the good.

it would be cool to have a government that runs well. i think we got to this place by disengagement, and the way out is engagement. that's why i don't miss a chance to refute defeatist attitudes.

yeah, it's nuts. the mixed up fascist contingent seem like a bunch of manipulated fools. so, in a sense, this means they are weaker than they seem. they do not have the courage of their convictions. maybe hitler's supporters were, too, but they had the wounds of ww1 to fuel them. but this also speaks to the real nature of the situation, which is just informational mayhem, and the effectiveness of political manipulation in the modern info space. the situation forces a move: we either evolve to a higher level that can withstand modernity, or we don't. in terms of where we are now, i'm worried about elections continuing to leave the left stymied by the right. the right need to take the back seat for a while. that's the shot. but yeah smart money may not take even odds on american democracy surviving 10 years. we came way way too close.

i just think i should stand up for what i believe in here because such generalizations are used for political manipulation. i could run and take (campaign) money and not gaf when it comes to my voting on bills. i think plenty do. some certainly navigate grey area, but i don't find it logically compelling to conclude that all do. i see plenty of righteous folks devoting their lives to public service and the ideals of representative democracy. honestly

i certainly would not say "they all" do. with sinema, yes, i think she is motivated by making deals for personal wealth. though i'd still take her over jeff flake.

i am just trying to keep an eye on the neighborhood, and report my findings. i'm not seeing that. manchin represents a coal state and his son took a coal job and they got manchin to invest in the company and he made a half mil on it last year. because of the filibuster, dems had to pass everything budget related through reconciliation, which means the whole dem/biden agenda is in this reconciliation bill. so that bill has climate stuff along with everything else. his plan was to front that his objection was over the price tag, and to act like he needed to haggle it down. jayapal & the progs smelled that he was trying to get the reconciliation aka build back better bill to fall by the wayside, so they used their leverage to ensure it passed (the BBB bill was agreed to be attached to the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and he tried to decouple them, after originally agreeing). he had to play out his pretext for the voters, haggling down the dem agenda. it looks like the climate stuff remaining in the bill is still good and sizable, at least. sinema seems like a greedy jerk. honestly. pretty sure all her friends are lobbyists, and she loves getting their takes on things. she is raising a lot of money all of a sudden, at this time when she is shielding corporate influencers, with the repubs. i think she thinks she can get away with the cash grab. pols care about getting reelected and they all want the dem agenda to pass.

no, ig. schumer did not tell senema and man chin to be chumps. they are just chumps. and no, the dems don't have enough votes to pass whatever, they have the slimmest possible majority, which is seriously hampered by the filibuster. sorry, but people will believe stuff if you say it to them. the dems are not a nefarious cabal. it's possible to watch the slow-mo play-by-play and it's just a circus of fallible humans.

yes or in a podcast lmao... an animal that wasn't happy anymore to live on the surface of the earth, so they decided to dig toward the center of the earth. cool to confirm that it's not sam or froto. my specualtion disorder gets me wondering, sometimes. played it in the bath with a weekend wake and bake and a book and it delivered. still learning the tracks but i can say that i like the album. a few definitely stood out and the overall flow was great. now that i know the story, that's just more awesome. don't dig toward the center of the earth, exm. finally learn his workflow. had been wondering. such an interesting musician.

this is a grower and my favorite album to put on these days. rtr made a comment on sc about a possible lp on af this fall. sc uploads has slowed which makes me think rtr is polishing up another one. hoping 11111111111111111111111 and lemno are on it. and xor. and fxhead. and vast. ?

meanwhile, today is election day, though an off year. the 2 state-wide seats that were up were governorships in VA and NJ. the VA race was competitve and is viewed as a bellweather for how things may go in the midterms, next year. results are coming in and it looks like fox turned voters out with critical race theory (which is not actually taught in schools). the republican looks likely to win, youngkin, who is a trumpist. the GOP is now the orange party. the information situation is bad. the dems need a lot of help, next year, to not lose the house.