conditional_soup

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60439802

A video, discovered on the cellphone of a paramedic who was found along with 14 other aid workers in a mass grave in Gaza in late March, shows that the ambulances and fire truck that they were traveling in were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.

Welcome to weird Wednesdays- UFO edition! Today, I'm sharing a three hour interview with one of the UAP disclosure folks. He's leading project skywatcher, which is an effort try and capture more definitive evidence surrounding UAP, and claims to have worked with people involved in the legacy crash recovery program. The interview has the level, calm pace of an intelligent discussion, and makes for good background listening, I think.

I personally don't have anything too exciting to report on the UFO/UAP front, though I had I guess what you'd call a near miss once. The story goes that I was out in my back yard, using my telescope to oggle the moon when I saw a flat disc zoom from left to right across my field of view in a fraction of a second. I've always been a UFO lore enjoyer, so I was JAZZED that I saw a literal flying saucer until I looked up from the scope to try and see it with my naked eye and saw it was a passenger jet. I was just zoomed in enough that the apparent motion of the jet was massively increased and the image appeared stretched and smoothed to my eye.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59942164

I thought it might have died in there, since I watched it for a good two minutes with no movement. It turns out that "passing out" in flowers is a thing that bees do sometimes.

I thought it might have died in there, since I watched it for a good two minutes with no movement. It turns out that "passing out" in flowers is a thing that bees do sometimes.

Hey, so, I'm interested in learning what a decolonization platform would look like in the US. Are there meaningful measures that have passed, and what were their outcomes? What are some of the more popular or more practical decolonization policies?

Hey everyone! I'm ruminating on running for my local state assembly seat or city council (leaning towards city council, I don't have any name recognition or political network to support an assembly seat run, so it'd be a hot mess probably). Around here, candidates typically run on pro-farm, pro-family, pro-cop, tough on crime platforms. I'm intending to run on a platform that focuses heavily on lowering the cost of living through policy choices. I think it can work specifically because this area is not very economically advantaged, and the cost of living has gone from bad to berserk in the last five years; meanwhile, there's really not that much crime here.

So, the platform goes like this:

• Ditch your car payment! I want to build world-class bicycle lanes and useful, predictable public transit that will help you travel in much greater comfort for a fraction of the cost of car ownership.

• • We'll achieve this goal by establishing transit-oriented zoning along our arterial streets that sets minimum density requirements, parking maximums and metered parking (60% goes to a special fund for the metered community to spend on improvements, 40% to the transit system directly, not one cent to the general fund), prioritizes pedestrian, public transit, and cyclist infrastructure, and sets up special taxes in the zone to sustainably grow our transit network.
• • No more bicycle gutters. All bike lanes will be class III or IV. The bicycle lane should be as safe for your kids to bike on as this sidewalk is for them to walk on.

• We will strive to have the most livable neighborhoods in the country. If you want bread, you won't need to spend gas to get it; if you want coffee, you won't have to drive to an overpriced big business. Buying the basic essentials or getting a small bite to eat will be no more difficult than walking to the end of your block.

• • we will do this via aggressive zoning reform. Not sexy, I know, just know three things:

1. No more parking minimums, period.
2. Allow small commercial (small grocers, small cafes) in all residential zones.
3. Re-zone the city so it's once again legal to build great places like main street.

• We're going to make sure that people can afford housing by building housing.

• • We're going to focus on tried and true historical forms of building, like over-under mid-rises, to make sure that everyone has a good place to live, whether you're a broke college kid, a family of six, or a senior on fixed income.

• We're going to balance the city budget by fighting sprawl. We will not annex one more acre until we know how that land is going to pay for the services it's going to consume. We're going to make sure that we're not wasting our valuable land burying it under parking lots and abandoned industrial parks; land will instead be used for housing, green spaces, and businesses to serve people.

Those are the key points I think will resonate most with people in my area, and align with important parts of my vision for our future. There's a few places where I've decided to be strategic about stuff so as not to scare people; most folks agree the cost of housing is too high, but most people also get freaked out when I start talking about bringing down home prices and building apartments instead of single family homes, for example. I'm still considering speaking plainly about it anyway.

Thoughts?

Esmeralda Soria (D, CA-27) has announced that she's planning to seek office in the California state Senate, leaving her assembly seat open. There's some interest from several mayors, but I'm not aware of any particularly strong left candidates seeking this office.

CA-27 includes Merced, Madera, Atwater, Los Banos, Dos Palos, Kerman, Mendota, and Coalinga.

Anybody from central California either interested in running for this seat or have a suggestion for someone we can promote for it?

Do yourself a favor, Stalkers, don't stare at rocks, not even once.

Looking like the clouds are finally going to break tonight. The moon's quickly heading towards the new moon, and we've got Virgo rising. I'm excited to get out and check some targets off my list.

It'd be nice if I could get out in time to hit Canis Major and Puppis, but I think CM might be too far west for me to have a clear view, and Puppis too deep into the southern sky to hit anything meaningful.

Tonight’s itenerary is basically a copy-paste from last time, because last Saturday fell apart on me at the last minute.

Going to hit the Leo triplet again Going to hit Bode’s Galaxy again M94 -M48 -M44 -M67 M3 if it’s high enough Gamma Leo Zeta Ursa Majoris Depending on if transparency is good, I might hit the owl nebula and Cigar Galaxy. Probably off itenerary:

Everything in Canis Major and Orion :(

I’m considering M84, M86, and M87 if they’re high enough, but given relatively low altitude, I'm not too hopeful.

Anyone else getting their scopes out? What are you going to look at?

Oh no, who could have predicted this besides anyone who was paying attention?

FTA:

The Trump administration is working tirelessly to undo the accomplishments of President Joe Biden—including the ex-president’s pardons.

“The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social within the first hour of Monday.

(Hope I'm doing this right, I don't post much news and I forget the conventions.)

I know we did Fridays last time. The weather was bad, so I kinda forgot about it. The transparency tonight is looking suboptimal, and, given my options, I might just settle for hitting some binary stars. My best view is of the eastern sky, and most everything there right now is faint fuzzies, so I don't have especially high hopes.

Tonight's itenerary:

• Going to hit the Leo triplet again
• Going to hit Bode's Galaxy again
• M94 -M48 -M44 -M67
• M3 if it's high enough
• Gamma Leo
• Zeta Ursa Majoris

Probably off itenerary:

• Going to save the owl nebula and cigar Galaxy for a night with better transparency.
• I'm considering M84, M86, and M87 if they're high enough, but given the conditions and relatively low altitude, probably not.

Anyone else getting their scopes out? What are you going to look at?

I asked ChatGPT for an image of the constellation Orion. Someone needs to let the IAU know that they need to update their charts.