A gas pipeline (“Baltic connector”, 50 cm diameter) and an optical fiber between Finland and Estonia has broken.
Link to Wikileaks
Sounds as if a ship has drawn an anchor along the sea bed, across the pipeline. But in these times one never knows.

Posted by: Passerby | Oct 12 2023 11:13 utc | 3

US, Morocco Renew Determination to Boost Trade
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2023/10/358244/us-morocco-renew-determination-to-boost-trade
Excerpt-
“Minister of Equipment Nizar Baraka attended a closed door meeting organized by the US embassy to discuss trade on the sidelines of the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today. [Oct.11]
The event, which marked the attendance of Moroccan companies, served as a platform to explore the various possibilities offered by the American Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in terms of the development and enhancement of commercial relations between Morocco and the US, with a focus on the means to be implemented to promote shared prosperity.”
Also Oct.11 – King of Jordan inaugurates 19th Parliament’s third ordinary session, delivers Speech from the Throne — “There can be no security, no peace, and no stability without a just and comprehensive peace, to which the only way can be through the two-state solution,” His Majesty said.
https://jordantimes.com/news/local/king-%E2%80%98there-can-be-no-security-no-peace-and-no-stability-without-just-and-comprehensive
From Geopolitica analyst in Mexico, Carlos Aguiar
Chavez spoke about Israel
https://x.com/aguiar_tm/status/1712316070969725022
Talk on Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum
https://x.com/marcoanselmorom/status/1711035850115486126
Iran launches ballistic missiles
https://x.com/aguiar_tm/status/1712246443895861550
Kamikaze drones
https://x.com/aguiar_tm/status/1712179401927118978
Pakistan warns Israel
https://x.com/aguiar_tm/status/1712178384086978820
Army of Jordan moves towards border with Palestine
https://x.com/aguiar_tm/status/1712072918169952619

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 12 2023 11:29 utc | 5

I forgot to add to my last post, b, you rock. Thanks for the generous servings of commentary.
And with talk of Argentine soccer fans and Mexico’s Jewish candidate for President, it’s hard to believe this is not at least partly about … avocados. Okay, cocaine, and other narcotics.

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 12 2023 11:41 utc | 7

If Hezbollah launches a war against Israel does that automatically mean there will be attacks on the Al-Tanf garrison because it blocks Iranian resupplies for Hezbollah?
Also why does the US have forces in Northeast Syria? Al-Tanf is very important for protecting Israel which is the most important interest for US powerbrokers. But I can’t imagine holding Northeast Syria will affect Israel all that much?

Posted by: quuiop | Oct 12 2023 13:01 utc | 9

Posted by: Colin | Oct 12 2023 8:41 utc | 1
This is what happens when interest rates aren’t unnaturally low – capital needs to make a return. So bad investments either go broke (or won’t get made in the first place).
The entire corporate world is swimming in debt, thanks to Central banks dropping interest rates to (essentially) zero. Companies borrowed at 0.1% to buy their own shares to push up the prices and juice their own share options packages, and now most companies are up to their eyebrows in debt and having to refinance their loans at 5% or more… it ain’t pretty

Posted by: observer | Oct 12 2023 13:20 utc | 11

Syrian local sources reported that the Aleppo International Airport and Damascus International Airport were targeted by the Israeli regime.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/207041/Damascus-Aleppo-airports-attacked-by-Israeli-regime-VIDEO

Posted by: ld | Oct 12 2023 14:21 utc | 13

What is going on with UFOs and Peter Thiel? And who is Jesse Michels?
While I was looking for anything intelligent to watch, I came across a five part series by National Geographic, UFOs: Investigating the Unknown UFOs: Investigating the Unknown
It was the NatGeo provenance that got me to take a look. It was not what I was expecting. They began with the 2017 government release of military aircraft gun cameras and acknowledgment that the government had been running an updated, secret version of Project Bluebook. OK, so far, no big deal.
But then they started wheeling out the politicos behind the change in government policy. Kirsten Gillibrand, Blue Dog Democrat and HRC’s senate campaign manager and successor to her Senate seat. John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and infamous target of Pizzagate. The late senator, Harry Reid.
More worrisome was the fact that Peter Thiel has turned into the big money backer of this private UFO investigators.

More evidence of his increasing involvement in the UFO issue is the recent about face by Eric Weinsten on UFOs and his subsequent decision to join the Galileo Project’s research team. Weinstein is the managing director at Thiel Capital, Thiel’s venture capital firm.
Taking it even further, Jesse Michels is another employee at Thiel Capital. You may know Jesse from his recent interviews of Dr. Garry Nolan and Deep Prasad on his Youtube channel American Alchemy. Jesse apparently has an interview with Hal Puthoff coming out in the next few weeks where they will talk about the materials science that the private aerospace community has been keeping from the American public.
So, what does this all mean?
I don’t know.
Peter Thiel and Big Data

In a reference I lost, it was conjectured that Thiel’s interest is based on his previous interest in life extension/immortality. One of the conjectures about UFOs is that they come from our future, where Mr. Thiel might get knowledge to live forever. Or, its just another grift to rip off the public.
—-
This Jesse Michels seems to be at the center of the new wave of UFO/UAP propaganda. He has a website called American Alchemy with over 150 podcasts, showcasing all the celebrities of the new UFO world. Interestingly, googling Michels turns up nothing more than his podcasts and his website. I can’t find any biographical data except a resume from 2012, which has no corroboration. The resume claims he worked for the Daily Show, Charlie Rose, and Google; but those sites have no info about him.
Nevertheless, this spooky guy sounds very intelligent and his podcasts are slick and professional. But he interviews the same small circle of new UFO devotees. That includes some old famous names like Jacques Vallee and Hal Puthoff (SRI – remote viewing – and ex-scientologist), plus the new stars: one Lue Elizondo who supposedly resigned his top secret job to push for the release of this data.
Intertestingly, one of Michels podcasts is an interview with Sam Bankman-Fried that has been taken down. Someone reposted it and commented that Michels family and SBFs family are both crooks.

In this interview, both Jesse Michels and Sam Bankman Fried spout all kinds of self-congratulatory nonsense, all while being fully away of the theft and dishonesty that both families are deeply involved with.
The Scotsman Technology Reviews

That’s all the info on that topic. Strangely, this is the only non-nuts-and-bolts-tech podcast on this site. Is this just some random disinfo?
—-
There is pushback about a new funding bill for UFO/UAP research from the community of anti-alien debunkers, who are just as committed as the UFO squad. Plus, they get published in the corporate media.

Congress Is About to Send the Pentagon on a Wild Flying-Saucer Chase
The long lobbying campaign of a handful of UFO obsessives and crank pseudoscientists is finally paying off.
Congress only too happy to pay the same people who supposedly can’t tell a balloon from an alien invasion to conduct research into sci-fi possibilities anyway—or, rather, to use what the NDAA calls the “special expertise of persons outside the Federal Government” to hunt UFOs, a key indicator that the real beneficiaries of this law are likely to be same small group of pseudoscientists and cable TV personalities who have perverted government research for half a century by steering Congress in the direction of their boutique paranormal obsessions.
Congress Is About to Send the Pentagon on a Wild Flying-Saucer Chase

——
Another worrying thing about UFO 3.0 is the acknowledged fact that a lot of the research is being done in secret by private companies. Its claimed that major defense contractors are trying to duplicate alien tech. At the same time that Jesse Michels is warning about privatized UFO research, he brings on Gary Nolan – a centi-millionaire biotech biologiist – to talk about his private research. It just makes your head spin.
Michels interviews Jaques Vallee, a longtime proponent of the idea that UFOs are not physical, but energy based, and a new version of elementals/fairies/leprechauns/poltergeists. What do they discuss? The alien “technology” and how the UFOs are “leaking” it slowly to us. The contradictions are ridiculous. But that has always been the case with UFO phenomena.
BOTTOM LINE: I don’t care about the UFOs. I care about the politics, the money, and the top secret world of defense contractors. Does anyone have some info on this?

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 12 2023 15:18 utc | 15

I don’t care about the UFOs.
@ john brewster | Oct 12 2023 15:18 utc | 8
Me neither. Call me small-minded, but imho physical laws make interstellar travel much too expensive. Imagine a culture advanced enough to skirt basic temporal constraints (the speed of light, for instance?), but stupid enough to invest mega-quadzillions into pranks like Kansas crop-circles.
Something intensely, irrationally commercial and military is going on here. Sign of the times. We humans think so much of ourselves — we can scarcely imagine that, to interstellar voyagers, we’d just be another kind of moss on the big rock.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Oct 12 2023 15:31 utc | 17

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Oct 12 2023 15:31 utc | 9

Something intensely, irrationally commercial and military is going on here.

—-
I totally agree. After taking a look at the phenomena thirty years ago, I steer clear of it. I agree with John Keel (Mothman Prophecy) that the phenomena are tricksters, pranksters, crazy makers. The more you engage, the more messed up you get.
That’s why I agree that what is going on is irrational. Haven’t these people read what I read? Don’t they get the phenomena will feed your own BS right back to you?
I think Peter Thiel is evil in a bottle, but he is not crazy. WhyTF has he assumed a lead role in this – to the point of pushing it on the politicos he is funding?

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 12 2023 15:44 utc | 19

@john brewster | Oct 12 2023 15:18 utc | 8

BOTTOM LINE: I don’t care about the UFOs. I care about the politics, the money, and the top secret world of defense contractors.

Sure, but remember that any assumption that UFOs are extraterrestrial are just that, assumptions. I agree that interstellar travel is, shall we say, impractical. The U stands for “unidentified”. It could be anything. You know, the russians could have something up their sleeve 🙂

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 12 2023 16:02 utc | 21

UFO = Unprecedented Financial Opportunity!

Posted by: lester | Oct 12 2023 16:44 utc | 23

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 12 2023 16:02 utc | 11
any assumption that UFOs are extraterrestrial are just that, assumptions. I agree that interstellar travel is, shall we say, impractical…The U stands for “unidentified”. It could be anything.
—-
Yes. There is no motivation for someone to come here from light years away to play stupid tricks on us.
That said, the phenomena are real, and have been around since ancient times. In each era, they are mapped onto the prevailing consciousness. In the religious past, they were angels and demons. In the 19th century they were airships. In the 20th century UFOs.
But the phenomena is reflexive. You interact with it, and it changes. And it is not necessarily friendly.
Given those characteristics, what is Thiel doing? Is this some crazy political angle to discredit the government? Is this some “Outer Limits” style plot where we will make up a phony alien and use it to create a world government?

Posted by: j | Oct 12 2023 16:44 utc | 25

Sorry. Number 13 was me.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 12 2023 16:45 utc | 27

UFO = Unprecedented Financial Opportunity!
Posted by: lester | Oct 12 2023 16:44 utc | 12
—-
I think you are onto something. 🙂
—-
One further thought. Is this an attempt to take the aerospace part of the DoD private, the same way BlackWater took the army and State Dept security private?

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 12 2023 16:47 utc | 29

*IF* space aliens are visiting us, it’s like whalers visiting Hawaii or Tahiti, around 1800. They’d be here for R&R, food, drink, sex. Maybe some like to bet on the outcomes of our wars, etc.
Polynesians didn’t understand the world whale oil industry and we wouldn’t understand what any space aliens were really up to, either.

Posted by: lester | Oct 12 2023 17:05 utc | 31

Posted by: lester | Oct 12 2023 17:05 utc | 16
visiting a zoo?

Posted by: pretzelattack | Oct 12 2023 17:08 utc | 33

ZH: Stocks Plunge, Yields Soar After Horrific 30Y Auction Tails Most In Two Years
After two ugly, Dealer-heavy auctions, moments ago the Treasury concluded the week’s coupon issuance with the sale of $20 billion in 30Y paper, and boy was it ugly.
The auction, a reopening of 29-Year 10-month cusip TT5, priced at a high yield of 4.837%, which was almost 50bps higher than just last month’s 30Y auction (which priced at 4.345%). This was not only the highest stop on a 30Y auction since August 2007, but it tailed the When Issued 4.800% by 3.7bps, the 4th consecutive tail and the biggest since Nov 2021 when we saw a record 5.1bps tail, and the 3rd biggest tail on record.
The bid to cover was ugly, coming at 2.349, the lowest since February. and well below the six-auction average of 2.44%.
The internals were also ugly, with Indirects awarded 65.125%, up modestly from last month’s 64.487%. But since Directs dipped down to 16.7%, the lowest since January, Dealers were left holding a whopping 18.2%, the most since Dec 2021. As a reminder, the last time Dealers saw such a build-up in unwanted duration “awards” was right before the Fed’s “NOT QE” started, so look for an “credit event” in the next few days.
Bottom line, this was the ugliest 30Y auction in years, and the market reacted accordingly with yields surging to session highs, 10Y surging almost 20bps from session lows to 4.70%…

Posted by: Mog5R | Oct 12 2023 17:40 utc | 35

Posted by: lester | Oct 12 2023 17:05 utc | 16
Posted by: pretzelattack | Oct 12 2023 17:08 utc | 17
I had hoped the discussion would be about Peter Thiel, politics, and the Pentagon. Instead, people are dragging in the so-called EXTRA-terrestials. Granted that Peter Thiel could be mistaken for someone from another planet – Libertarmania, but does anybody understand why all this money and influence is being thrown around?
To be clear about my stance:

Rejection of Extraterrestrial hypothesis
Like contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow validate the prevailing extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis. However, after one year of investigations, Keel concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed, both Hynek and Vallée eventually arrived at a similar conclusion. As Keel himself wrote:

I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs… The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs.

“>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keel

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 12 2023 17:41 utc | 37

Any ultra-advanced society willing to spend gazillions and flaunt their mastery of physics over us with pranks in our food fields (in the guise of cryptic art messages) has got to be a hoot and a half to party with. Imagine how bitchin’ must be their light shows? They probably have the best party drugs, too. I for one welcome our merry pranksters! 8)

Posted by: titmouse | Oct 12 2023 18:16 utc | 39

John Brewster:
Did they mention or include Robert Bigelow? He has spent a decent amount money on this kind of thing over the last decades according to other people.
Anyway as for Thiel I’m guessing there’s never any shortage of profit in improving or mastering any kind of “mind control” or manipulation so maybe that’s an angle or at any rate reason enough for any money flows.
Only speculating, he could simply be intrigued for all I know, I have no idea or opinion on his motivations.
To bring things into perspective afaik (no links at the ready) we live in a world where the technological techniques or approaches for making voices appear inside your head is openly published science. Same for using standing waves to produce the impression of experiencing ghostly presences and fear. No shortage of real yet weird stuff.
The new x-plane looks pretty funky too, much like a flying hollow triangle.
· · · ·
Monkey business and no shortage of monkeys 😀 (including me of course; I consider everyone part of the trouser-wearing monkey tribe).

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 13 2023 1:26 utc | 41

Also since this the open “anything” thread I’ll throw out something entirely different but yet imo vaguely connected (for perspective, again) by referencing the Collatz conjecture with a small explanation that the issue is “mathematical proof” rather than any non-proven “sure, it’s very likely so-and-so” guessing (which is to assume everything reaches 1 and that there are no other loops in the plain Collatz conjecture except for the tiny 1-4-2-1 one —which could easily be the case).
The (must be old now) Numberphile videos on it on YouTube are quite nice including their “Collatz Conjecture in Color” video and the “extra footage” one.
Someone somewhere on YouTube also has a video of animating and/or rotating that kind of representation of it in 3D which is quite beautiful.
All just to get our feet on the ground so to speak; to put us in our place and realize we have a lot to learn 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 13 2023 1:45 utc | 43

On September 25th, a Chinese journalist based in the U.S. revealed that Xi Jinping is developing a huge, nefarious plan of strange maneuvers, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin is also involved. Nobody, including the journalist himself, knew what the plan is until Hamas’ attack on October 7th. This journalist’ claim and the CCP’s disclosed Middle Eastern strategy seem to support the belief that China and Russia are behind Hamas. Even more striking is the revelation that PLA’s internal purging isn’t related to corruption or coup but preparation for this “odd, unusual maneuver.” As we wonder why Israeli intelligence missed the signals of a Hamas attack, this revelation helps us understand CCP’s misinformation tactic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sUGbYdDwEo

Posted by: Antonym | Oct 13 2023 2:18 utc | 45

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 13 2023 1:26 utc | 21

Did they mention or include Robert Bigelow? He has spent a decent amount money on this kind of thing over the last decades according to other people.

—-
Yes. The NatGeo docu talked about Bigelow and the guy from BLINK-182 founding To The Stars. But a later article said that TTS had folded and that Thiel had replaced Bigelow as the money man.
—-

we live in a world where the technological techniques or approaches for making voices appear inside your head is openly published science. Same for using standing waves to produce the impression of experiencing ghostly presences and fear. No shortage of real yet weird stuff.

Yes. Its getting harder to differentiate reality from some psyop. Since I am automatically suspicious of well-funded documentaries starring famous politicos shilling for UFOs, its hard to evaluate this topic.
Then there is the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Stuff, which also produces feelings of ghostly presence.
Thanks for responding to the Big Green Money instead of the little green men aspect of this.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2023 2:33 utc | 47

Peter Thiel is evil in a bottle
True – spend a few minutes checking out his Palantir ‘business’ for confirmation.

Posted by: Exile | Oct 13 2023 4:05 utc | 49

Re: De-Dollarization
Chinese import-export data for Sept. show a continued decrease in both. Their businesses are exiting slowly but steadily.

Posted by: Exile | Oct 13 2023 4:10 utc | 51

Posted by: Exile | Oct 13 2023 4:10 utc | 26

True – spend a few minutes checking out his Palantir ‘business’ for confirmation.

Palantir – the above-ground business arm of the CIA. I’d be afraid that searching for them would put me on a watch list.
Thiel is yet another sociopath brought forth by the degradation of community, society, and careers that has been foisted on us since the 1980s.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2023 4:30 utc | 53

On the UFO idea, see
https://www.gigapan.com/profiles/KeithLaney
Interesting! (Not images of UFOs but related)

Posted by: nazcalito | Oct 13 2023 4:44 utc | 55

A few brief remarks on our Alien visitors hypothesis.
1 – The Drake equation attempts a guesstimate on the numbers of civilizations out there, and how far they may have expanded by now. It turns out they should have long been around – indeed, several of them should. I prefer the argument that they perhaps ARE, but somehow decided not to establish contact.
2 – They’d have a good reason for this. I believe that the actual nature of our universe is that of noetic entanglement, and that the basic principle – call it nous as God-Nature – is the singular quality that connects us with nature (Gaia). Therefore, our true aspiration is necessarily the empathic and respectful encounter with other beings, who all are essentially just as we are, yet different, “each to their own kind” (Plotin). The Aliens would know this, of course, as they had lots of time to figure it out, and they would face in us a species who is yet to realize their position in the cosmos. As of now, we are about as attractive to them as spoiled children from another race who keep shitting into their own sandbox.
3 – Weirdly enough, the argument that “everything is connected with everything” appears in some of the colorful fringe articles on UFO phenomena, ascribed as a motive to the Alien visitors. I don’t know of any report that is on itself truly convincing, but the whole thing does make some (hypothetical) sense. Also it’s conceivable that they do interact with us, though on a level below that of establishing diplomatic relations. I have no idea if their presence is physical or merely telepathic, and if they would intervene as guardian angels to save us from self destruction, or let us proceed with our self-chosen destiny.
4 – I had a dream once in which two beings presented me with an absolutely unexpected piece of information/insight. They said that not just man, beast and tree are sentient and “longing”, but the stones are as well. WTF?! I thought, but it was so impressive that I started to seriously consider this, and (believe it or not) this soon became an important guiding idea in my own developing understanding of metaphysics. A couple years later, I discovered in a tome on the topic of alien encounters that my dream closely resembles a type of experience that is sometimes perceived (“integrated” as the psychologists say) as alien abduction.
Sorry to Mr. Brewster for going full alu cap. On ghostly presences, I recommend doing a dive into parapsychology, which is a lot more convincing than one could imagine – they have serious empirical data galore.

Posted by: persiflo | Oct 13 2023 9:02 utc | 57

On noetic entanglement – for @juliana.

Posted by: persiflo | Oct 13 2023 9:44 utc | 59

Public service announcements from Canada’s spy agency, CSIS
1) a thread detailing a specific procedure the People’s Republic of China’s Intelligence Services use to target Canadians, inside & outside China [… the manoeuvres of any major intelligence agency might be worth a perusal, some consideration??]
https://x.com/csiscanada/status/1671224330359799817
2) CSIS warning Inuit leaders about covert foreign investment in Arctic, documents show
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-arctic-obed-russia-china-1.6993128
Russians in Israel/Palastine on organized tours will return by Sunday
https://tass.com/economy/1689985
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI addresses message to participants in World Bank Group and IMF Annual Meetings (full text included)
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2023/10/358275/king-mohammed-vi-addresses-message-to-participants-in-world-bank-group-and-imf-annual-meetings

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Oct 13 2023 11:26 utc | 61

Nice to have someone say it aloud.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/67918

Lukashenko: The main goal of the CIS was to prevent the breakdown of ties after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This did not suit and still does not suit our competitors, the West, who to this day do not give up their attempts to shake us in different directions, weaken us and subordinate us to their interests. First Georgia left our association, de facto Ukraine is not with us. There are big questions about Moldova. Unfortunately, Armenia does not always behave like a partner.
We cannot watch this calmly from the sidelines, otherwise we will simply be torn apart. And ordinary people – the peoples of our countries – will suffer first of all.
Note: dictator, they say he is.

Posted by: anon2020 | Oct 13 2023 14:07 utc | 63

Your interpretation of the Drake equation is incomplete. There should be many aliens somewhere and sometime – and there is a whole lot of time and space. So the chance of life is quite high but the chances of it happening in the same time and place is exceptionally low.

Posted by: Rae | Oct 13 2023 15:58 utc | 65

@Rae – it’s not really my interpretation there, the “where is everybody?” is called the Fermi paradox.

Posted by: persiflo | Oct 13 2023 16:56 utc | 67

Oh, well. I thought that people on a political board would be interested in Peter Thiel and the Pentagon. Turns out they just want to talk about little green men, Fermi Paradoxes, and other unresolvable conundrums. (Sunny Runny Burger is the only exception.)
As I said in my first post:

I don’t care about the UFOs. I care about the politics, the money, and the top secret world of defense contractors. Does anyone have some info on this?

As i said in response to the first few responses, I do not believe any of this involves “aliens” from distant planets.
To be clear about my stance:

Rejection of Extraterrestrial hypothesis
Like contemporary 1960s researchers such as J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallée, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow validate the prevailing extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis. However, after one year of investigations, Keel concluded that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed, both Hynek and Vallée eventually arrived at a similar conclusion. As Keel himself wrote:

I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs… The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs.

“>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keel

——
One last call for anyone who wants to add some politically relevant facts.
Here are a few links that I found (neither mentions Peter Thiel; they are all focused on completely debunking all aspects of UAP):

UFO skeptics have an alternative narrative for how this discourse has unfolded over the past several years. They think a cabal of grifters, the gullible, and the delusional have effectively managed to hoodwink the New York Times and key members of Congress into believing wild nonsense. They think the supposed UFO videos are not that weird or have alternative explanations…
The journalist Garrett Graff, who’s writing a book on the government’s UFO programs, told Vanity Fair that specifics and evidence always seem to be what’s missing from these claims. Instead, as ever, there’s a lot of people passing on fantastical claims they’ve heard from others, which Graff suggested makes it feel like a “game of telephone.”
UFO congressional hearing: Alien spacecraft recovery claims, explained

An extensive report on all the shenanigans of stacking the deck at the Pentagon and in Congress:

As exclusively reported by the Post, the Pentagon didn’t actually have an official UFO program called AATIP and Elizondo was not its director.
In 2019, the Pentagon released a statement saying Elizondo had “no responsibilities” with AATIP, a program which they also said wasn’t created to investigate UFOs.
This official statement contradicted the claims of The New York Times and Elizondo, but hardly any outlets bothered to report it.
Documents released via the Freedom of Information Act reveal that AAWSAP/Skinwalker Ranch alum Jay Stratton provided UFO information to a Pentagon press office responsible for crafting official statements to the media.
And who was in charge, during the Trump administration, when the Pentagon created a UFO Task Force to investigate incursions of unknown objects over America?
Stratton — who believes the ghosts and creatures of Skinwalker Ranch are real — officially headed up these Pentagon investigations for years.
The “chief scientist” of this Pentagon task force was Travis Taylor, who is and was a co-star of “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel. He currently stars on “The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch” on the same network.
‘Crazy’ UFO-believing Pentagon bosses missed spy craft for years

That is, these articles want to throw out the baby (the phenomenon) with the bathwater (aliens from outer space and advanced tech). This kind of deliberate missing the point is exactly the behavior of the phenomenon from day one (in whatever century that was).

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2023 17:48 utc | 69

A good friend of mine has worked at Palantir almost since its inception, yet has no clue what he is contributing to. I gave him an earful about them when he tried to recruit me once, and he brushed it all aside with breathtaking naïvete, saying they didn’t have any government contracts anymore so obviously everything is above board now(!). He’s a bright, driven, talented guy but has apparently never given it a second thought. I suspect his colleagues are exactly the same that way.
Re: the Drake equation, as of now it is still effectively unconstrained because nobody has any data on the last term, “L”, the average lifetime of a technological civilization. Consequently, the answer that the equation yields can be anywhere from <1 to a huge number. If "L" is small, there is no Fermi paradox.
And then of course there's the expanded version: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_drake_equation.png

Posted by: Planner | Oct 13 2023 18:16 utc | 71

I have seen an alien ship!
I can confirm that I and my wife have both seen an alien ship.
It happened in 2001 or 2002, unfortunately do not recall now the exact date.
We live in a very large north-american city with metro area of 6-7-8 million people.
It happened close to midnight. My wife was already asleep, but I was watching the news in 11 pm, followed by the local news at 11:30.
Then I went to the bedroom and as my side is close to the window I took a peak before going to bed and I froze.
I saw it! It was a very large flying saucer in blue and yellow lights. It covered perhaps 20-25% of my observable view. (standing at 1 meter away from the windows)
I started calling on my wife to wake her up. She got very angry and at one point she said “I am going to kill you if you are lying to me” but when told “do not accuse me tomorrow that I did not wake you up when they are showing it on TVs” finally got up and came standing beside me. We watched in awe for some time and then one of us said “lets take some pictures” – we had a digital camera, but it was not in the bedroom.
And that was it – the flying saucer disappeared in an instant like they were able to read our minds…
Interestingly – we could not see which direction they took – left, right, up or even down towards the lake. They were there and then they were gone, like covered with invisible shield…
I could not sleep than night. Woke up at 5:30 am and started swapping the channels to see if someone will mention the event – must have been observed by tens of thousand of people. Then bough every newspaper… even stayed late for work to watch if this will be mentioned.
NADA – not a single beep. (just to remind the people that google was not a big thing at that time)
This is my story and I have accomplished one of the two items in my bucket list!
And I do not care if you believe or not!

Posted by: IHaveSeenanAlienShip | Oct 13 2023 18:23 utc | 73

Posted by: IHaveSeenanAlienShip | Oct 13 2023 18:23 utc | 37

This is my story and I have accomplished one of the two items in my bucket list!
And I do not care if you believe or not!

—-
I believe that you believe it. It is the classic, unprovable, pointless contactee story that has been recited tens of thousands of times.
It is utterly irrelevant to the topic I was trying to discuss.
I give up. I have asked three times for people not to post UFO stories, but only stories about Peter Thiel, the Pentagon, and Congress. Your story is about none of the above.
If you care to have any insight about your experience, I suggest you get your hands on a copy of John Keel’s “Why UFOs?”

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2023 19:23 utc | 75

Posted by: Planner | Oct 13 2023 18:16 utc | 36
LOL. Have a beer on me for the XKCD comic!
Yes, techies are so silo-ed that they can easily be veal penned into defense work. The pay is good, the benefits are good, the working conditions are excellent. You just have to check your conscience at the door.
Almost half a century ago, I interviewed at E-Systems (now Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems). It was all hush-hush. I had to play the twenty questions game to find out what the job was. That is, you ask questions. If the answer is “no”, that is truthful. If the answer is something non-commmital but not “yes”; the answer is “yes”. Proceeding that way, I discovered the job was at that shithole satelite download station in the Australian outback, Alice Springs. I turned the job down.
Another interview at Center for Naval Analysis was more of the same. They had some Ollie North-esque Marine colonel take me to lunch at Joe Montana’s restaurant, where he was introduced to me – trying to impress me. Like I cared about pro football. But glamorous it was. Turned that one down as well.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2023 19:33 utc | 77

IMPOSSIBLE TO FLOLLOW DISCUSSION on moonofalabama
Beginning on 24.02.2022 I follow daily most discussions on MOA, both from my desktop/ubuntu Firefox as from SailfoshOS Smartphone. The latter uses an own spinoff of an older Firefox, with its own updates. This browser is an own project of sailfishOS, and the official browser of the project. In my case it is as freshly updated as an user can keep it.
Since about one Month the reading of any comments on SailfishOS is made impossible by intervention of Cloudflare: I get ALLWAYS a page from Cloudflare saying:
“www.moonofalabama.org
Es wird geprüft, ob die Site-Verbindung sicher ist.
(here BEGINS an intermittent inquiry by Cloudflare:)
[ ] Bestätigen Sie, dass Sie
ein Mensch sind – ( CLOUDFLARE Logo/Links=>Privaspshere/Nutzunsbedingungen)
(here ENDS inquiry by Cloudflare)
http://www.moonofalabama.org muss die Sicherheit Ihrer Verbindung überprüfen, bevor Sie fortfahren können.
”
Cloudflare repats here this test every 10 seconds, and never comes to an end. It seems that Cloudflare is unable to test successfully the connection – while my browser checks everything and finds all ok.
Can please Your Admin – or anyone competent – help me to solve this problem?
*** I am sure that many on our security sensitive community follow moonofalabama.
*** And I am also sure that this first post of mine has hurt many many forum rules of technical and of other nature. I apologize for that.

Posted by: prometheos | Oct 13 2023 20:53 utc | 79

ZH has a posting up with the title
US Sanctions Two Tanker Owners For Breaching Russian Oil Price Cap
The price of oil went up 5.8% today…..wonder how the Whack-a-mole approach will work?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 13 2023 23:40 utc | 81

Near clash between the Philippines Navy and the PLA at the Tennai reef/ second Thomas shoal. Location less than 200 km from big Philippines Palawan island but around 1150 km from the huge Chinese island of Hainan. Makes sense only through expansionist CPC eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiPhnB-dGzM
Similarly a shoal 120 nm west of Subic bay on Luzon is disputed by the PLA based 500 nm away.
The CCP’s version of International law is as biased as that of the US.

Posted by: Antonym | Oct 14 2023 0:06 utc | 83

I had been musing how an US version of “The Master and Margarita” would begin, with the owner of a corporate newspaper and a poet named Homeless taking a stroll through the field below the Washington monument…didn’t get very far with that, but thanks to a good day at nakedcapitalism.org, here’s an article I sent my sister as it is right up her and my alley:
https://daily.jstor.org/walkers-in-the-city-and-everywhere/
Not Ukraine, and Not Gaza. Oh Israel, what have you done? We have an eclipse of the sun here tomorrow morning. But it has been the blackest of Fridays.
Lord, have mercy on us sinners

Posted by: juliania | Oct 14 2023 3:58 utc | 85

Not everyone thinks highly of Western culture.
In parts of Belgium, sex ed at school has become compulsory. Eight schools have burned. Islamic organisations are working to repeal the law.

Posted by: Passerby | Oct 14 2023 6:38 utc | 87

@prometheos #40
I don’t think b can do anything about it. MoA uses the Typepad blogging platform, and Typepad uses Cloudflare for protection against DDoS attacks. Cloudflare is picky about some old browsers, Firefox variants and the Sailfish OS default browser, too. Filing bug reports with them doesn’t seem to have any effect. We live in a world where a 100% standards-compliant browser may not be served a response because DDoS protection services only care about popular browsers. The only way to change this is to start class action lawsuits against them.

Posted by: S | Oct 14 2023 9:25 utc | 89

Australia has voted no in a referendum giving aboriginal people a “voice to parliament” (i.e. not actual guaranteed seats, only a powerless advisory body).
Suicide is the leading cause of death for aboriginal youth (1/3 of deaths).
I can’t think of anything constructive or useful to say to my aboriginal friends so I’m whinging in an anonymous online forum. Seriously, what could I even say?!?!

Posted by: Rae | Oct 14 2023 9:44 utc | 91

@Rae #46
What you can do is devote your time to understanding the drivers of aboriginal youth suicides, propose a plan for mitigating these drivers and organize people to advocate for it.

Posted by: S | Oct 14 2023 11:10 utc | 93

Live pro Palestinian protests in Paris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBxVtyay8Us
The police are grabbing tranquil peaceful people even from the side lines while people yelling and insulting them are ignored, First thing that comes to mind are agent provocateurs, but the really clear thing is Battle of Algiers. Police are trying to build an organizational map. Shows how far off the deep end the EU has gone, they think everyone protesting in France, the 99%, are part of an organized conspiracy.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Oct 14 2023 15:49 utc | 95

NATO members were more interested in excluding Russia than accepting Russia as an equal partner in NATO.

Putin had begun his presidency ready to find a way to reconcile Russia’s profound differences with the West and develop friendly relations. As they did with his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, the policies of NATO would become an irritant for Putin. When the West, in the 1990s, began proceedings to absorb Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Baltic states into its military alliance, Russia objected. In nationalist circles, the NATO expansion was seen as a potential move to blackmail Moscow militarily should it mount any serious challenge to Western aims in the region. But Putin regarded the NATO dispute differently. He thought Washington simply didn’t understand the basis for Moscow’s opposition, according to a Kremlin insider I consulted who asked not to be identified so he would not jeopardize his access. I’ll call him Viktor. If he was patient and made every effort to explain, Putin told his aides, “they’ll see we’re normal people, and we’ll have a different relationship,” Viktor recalled. So Putin sat for hours with major and minor Western visitors—a government minister, a vice-minister, whoever was willing to hear his thoughts on Chechnya, NATO, and energy.
By the beginning of 2000 the NATO expansion was well under way. Putin met with President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, and floated a question: What would be the West’s attitude toward Russia’s applying to join NATO? Putin was serious, according to Viktor. He saw dual benefits to NATO membership: Russia could integrate more tightly with the West, and, more important from Moscow’s point of view, have an opportunity to “reform” the Cold War-era organization from within. Like the other 19 NATO members, Moscow would wield a veto. Among other things, it could stop the alliance from repeating acts Russia opposed, such as the bombing of Serbia.
As Viktor recalled the strained moment, Berger suddenly found a fly on the window to be extremely intriguing. Albright looked straight ahead. Clinton glanced at his advisers and finally responded with a diplomatically phrased brush-off. It was something on the order of, If it were up to me, I would welcome that.
Not dissuaded, Putin’s entourage raised the idea again with visiting congressmen. They reacted similarly, getting “this tricky expression on their faces and saying, ‘Ah, you want to destroy NATO from within,'” Viktor recalled. The congressmen had a point, of course. If Russia had been a NATO member in 1999, for example, Serbia would have simply overrun Kosovo as it and its surrogates had previously done with Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Viktor was offended by the U.S. suggestion that Russia’s motives were disingenuous. So, too, apparently, was Putin.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-06-30/putins-labyrinth

REHM: “And welcome back as we talk about what’s happening in Russia, in Crimea and possibly in Ukraine, as well as the president’s recent trip to Europe. Let’s open the phones now first to Michael in Kingston, R.I. Hi, you’re on the air. Go right ahead.”
MICHAEL: “Good morning, Diane. Thank you. Mr. Haass, with respect to NATO, you were in President Bush’s administration, George H.W. Bush. You know more than anyone in this country the question I’m about to ask. Was there nuanced reason or a specific reason why the Western powers, specifically NATO, did not, after the fall of the Soviet Union — why didn’t we specifically extend an invitation to Russia to become a part of NATO? And if we had, would we be looking at a Crimea crisis today”?
REHM: “Richard”?
HAASS: “Look, it’s a great question. The issue did come up at various times. I, at one point, to be honest, advocated it. I wrote a memo when I was the head of policy planning — so this was not under H.W. Bush, but George W. Bush, the 43rd president — suggesting that this was something that we could (do) for two reasons.”
“One is I didn’t think it would really impair the functioning of NATO, as we just discussed. I think NATO had already become, if you will, what I described as an a la carte relationship. So it wasn’t all or nothing. Coalitions of the willing had increasingly become the norm. And, second of all, I thought it would take some of the sting out of NATO enlargement and it would remove the argument that the post-war order was somehow built against Russia. So it would take away the kind of humiliation or rant we heard the other day from France and Putin.”
REHM: “And why was the suggestion denied”?
HAASS: “Those who doubted the wisdom of it, besides the possibility that Russia might not accept, which was a side argument, worried that it would impair the continuing military effectiveness of NATO, that Russia, essentially as an insider, would become obstructive and would work against NATO’s continuing viability.”

Western Powers Weigh Responses To Russia’s Next Moves – The Diane Rehm Show
Haass is the former director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

After the Russian financial crisis of 1998, in which Moscow defaulted on its debt, many in western Europe believed that the country’s transition had failed and that it would soon enter a new period of chaos. In public, Western leaders continued to suggest that Russia was too big and too unique to be offered anything beyond a special relationship. In private, many started to write Russia off as irrelevant and began to envision a global system that would exclude it.
More prescient Western leaders, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, reasoned differently. Whether weak or strong, they maintained, Russia would refuse the first condition of Western integration: the unquestioning acceptance of U.S. leadership. Even when its power reached its nadir, Moscow demanded an effectively coequal status with the United States, or at least a position as Washington’s deputy, which did not bode well for the U.S-led NATO alliance in the event that Russia were allowed in.
This line of thinking suggested that, whether or not Europe welcomed Russia into its institutions, Moscow would never accept a subordinate position in the regional order. So rather than integrating Russia into the Euro-Atlantic system, Americans and western Europeans began to hedge against the potential rebirth of Moscow’s great-power ambitions. That was one reason that NATO and the EU opened their doors to the Soviet Union’s former satellites and republics.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2016-12-25/russias-post-soviet-journey

Posted by: Mitleser | Oct 14 2023 17:56 utc | 97

Ever since forever, I’ve watched NASA-GISS’s tracking of monthly global temperature anomalies since 1880:
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
For some reason the October 2023 update was about a week late (usually appearing around the 5th), perhaps while they doublechecked their math and instruments, because 2023 is actually frightening on this chart. After the hottest recorded June, July, and August, last September scored 147 (1.47 C above the 1951-1980 base) — the biggest anomaly yet, for any month, by far.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Oct 14 2023 18:14 utc | 99