I live in an apartment with my mother and father. My father and I are both tenants, my mom is not on the lease. My mother moved in with us and we have allowed her to stay here for over 3 years because she's had nowhere else to go. In the time she's been here, she has only been paying rent for 6 months (Nov 2022 to April 2023). We agreed she would only pay $200 despite the rent being $1400. Even though she wasn't paying rent for the majority of her stay, she has her mailing address set as my apartment. She was just approved for public housing towards the end of May and as of June 1st she has a lease for it in her name.
I have been helping her move her things over there (she doesn't have her own car) but she has been reluctant to move all of her things. Most of her belongings have been moved over, besides her clothes and her bed. She has appointments set up for someone to give her rides to her doctor's appointments for the next two weeks through a medical service. I told her to call them to see if she can get it set up where they can pick her up at her new place. She's refusing to call them and does not want me to help her move anymore of her things until her the two weeks are over. I told her that from now on she needs to set it up so her service can pick her up from her new address, because it's a reasonable length of time for her to get her clothes and bed moved over. She didn't really seem happy about this and told me 'I can do whatever the fuck I want' and said she'll continue to set up appointments for them to pick her up at my apartment until she feels ready. My mom has been very abusive to me and my father during the last few months, and it's gotten to the point where she's been threatening us everyday if we decide to take action on her. I just can't stand to live with her anymore.
Even though she has her mailing address set to my apartment and paid rent for six months during her 3+ year stay, she still is not and never was a tenant of this apartment. Can I still call the cops and have her removed after the two weeks notice I gave her is up? I live in North Carolina if that helps.

I recently moved out of my family’s house and into my own apartment about a month ago. It was really hard at first because I had to adjust to being alone, but I actually enjoy it now. The only thing is I’ve gotten so bored being in my apartment all day. I work as a teacher so I’m on break until August so I have a ton of free time. But I just don’t what to do. There’s no nature around me or even areas to take a walk/bike. If I want to take a walk, I have to get in my car and drive somewhere because of the way my apartment’s situated. I used to love college because I would take walks, go study in the library, or just spend time in public around other people, but there’s nothing like that around me. The only public places are cafes and clothing stores and it’s just awkward going there alone and I also have to spend money. Somebody suggested to join the meetup website but when I joined there was barely any events (95% of them were also online) and none of them were of interest to me. I have two friends but they have pretty intensive jobs and boyfriends and thus never really have time to do stuff with me.
So I just don’t know what to do with my free time. I am introvert but despite that I’m just so bored being holed up in my room all day. I can see why people like living in cities because at least they can walk around and explore. I can’t really do that when I live in a north Texas suburb. I’m 23, I just feel like my daily life should feel more eventful than it is
Anyway.. if anybody has the same living situation as me, what do y’all do in your free time (preferably stuff that you can do by yourself)

I'm a graphic designer trying to apply for entry level. I recently move to the u.s , i have been applying for 4 months , more than 100 applications and nothing.
Is anything wrong with my resume?
Im having a mental break down, i really don't know what else to do.
I feel hopeless, but still looking for improvement, if there is any advice pleas let me know.

I live and work in the Boston metro area. I make 97k a year.
In Boston, I pay just about 3k a month for my one bedroom apartment and have a bit of money saved up for a down payment but homes and even condos here are much more than I can afford. I have 3 years work experience and will be receiving a 5% raise next month! Main downsides are the traffic, slow public transit and and that I’m pretty stuck renting (I have worked with a great realtor and the Boston housing market is just not in my current budget).
I was just offered a job in Pittsburgh with a salary of 77k. The salary is completely fixed and they are unwilling to negotiate further. Both are solid companies! The manager for the Pittsburgh position noted there was potential for a 10% raise after working for the company for 2 years.
I am very conflicted! Do I stay in Boston making 97k+ a year or move to Pittsburgh (where I can likely afford a starter home) for 77k a year!
What would you do? What do you think is the better move financially long-term?

TRAILS AND TALES
You reading this means only one thing, you are looking for a new home, well I'm Zerolarity one of the founders of the PlanB MC SMP server, and let me tell you about our disfunctional household. Our family comes from all over the globe, with each their own specialty and interests. We have redstoners, builders, adventurers, storytellers and more. Like most gamers we also enjoy others games and do find each other on our discord to play those.
Now let me sweeten the pot, with the release of 1.20 we'll start a brand new map!
We plan to launch our new map as soon as the 9th of June.
We feature quality of life data packs and plugins such as (these might not be live on the initial 1.20 release depending on needed updates):
· One person sleeping
· Armour Statues
· Anti CreepeEnderman grief
· Custom Crafting Tweaks
· Mob/Player Heads
· Decorative Head Shop
· Complete Player Statistics Website
· Dynmap
· Core Protect
· and more.
​
ORIGIN OF PLAN B
(cause every good server needs an origin story)
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."- H.P. Lovecraft
..And so may great Minecraft servers, it seems. What seems like forever ago, Lovecraft, a vanilla Minecraft community still early in its existence, disappeared into the void together with its owner. We, a dedicated group of players and friends that played on it, have no clue where it went, but it left us without a home. We decided to not let that setback get to us and to continue its legacy in the form of a new server, where we could continue to express our creativity and unleash our wildest ideas. We decided it was time for PlanB!
​
THE SERVER(S)
Our humble network of servers boasts game modes and features requested from within the community. Including not only Survival and Creative servers but the occasional Modpack, vanilla Skyblock, games nights on public servers and more.
By carefully maintaining our own dedicated hardware exclusive to PlanB, we do not rely on the poorly maintained or oversold shared servers typically used in small communities. Alongside carefully handpicked or custom-written plugins, healthy RAM and CPU allocation, regular backups, and restarts help to ensure we provide the smoothest gameplay we can.
​
RULES
· No Griefing, stealing, or un-invited PVP
· No harassment, bullying, hate speech, or verbal abuse
· Be polite and treat others as you'd want to be treated
· Ask before building near someone
· House etiquette: do NOT look through other's chests without asking, please leave if asked to do so
· Keep the environment tidy, no half-chopped trees
· Reply to this thread, mentioning how you applied
· No cheating or hacked clients
· No spamming or advertising
​
HOW TO APPLY!
💡 PLEASE NOTE:
Due to our extensive vetting process, applications may take around 24 hours to be accepted/declined. When accepted an admin will add you on Discord so don't be alarmed by the friend request.
We welcome all applications from anyone 18+, you can apply here:
Via our website: https://planb-mc.com/apply
Looking forward to you joining us and creating new tales and trails together!

Anyone catch the Esther Manheimer episode of The Overlook? Pretty special. Don't get me wrong, I voted for Esther over Kim, but dang it was some low-charisma stuff.
Some paraphrased highlights:

1. Question: what did you want to solve when you ran for office? Esther: I just thought I deserved it.
2. What do you think about public safety? Esther: I didn't really care about Asheville going down the tubes until it did seem like the tourists were having a bad time. We couldn't possibly fix APD, so we're basically going to band-aid it and protect downtown so the tourists can keep having fun. The rest y'all can pound sand.

romesentinel.com /stories/guest-column-olmsted-city-whats-in-a-name-plenty-for-city-of-utica,182927

GUEST COLUMN: 'Olmsted City?' What’s in a name? Plenty for city of Utica

Phil Bean, chair of Olmsted City7-8 minutes
People sometimes ask why we call our nonprofit group “Olmsted City” rather than something like “Utica Olmsted Parks.”
That’s understandable; we are currently focused on East Utica’s 62-acre Frederick T. Proctor Park. Still, we aim to do much more.
Four years ago, I returned after 23 years in Boston and Philadelphia and bought a home in the city of Utica. I wanted to contribute to Utica’s increasingly promising redevelopment efforts. Convinced that our parks are among our most important quality-of-life assets — they certainly made a difference in my life — I began working in 2019 to rejuvenate them, and two years ago I founded Olmsted City partly to promote that work.
It’s not enough simply to say we have parks — for decades, we’ve had too much talk and not enough sustained action to restore and maintain them. In contrast, by the end of 2022-23, Olmsted City will have spent over $250,000 on F.T. Proctor Park. Last year, we also recruited 150 volunteers who invested 1,100 hours in the park.
This is not a hobby for the amusement of the privileged or just a historic preservation project. Olmsted City is driven by the conviction that everyone, including the least fortunate, deserves beautiful recreational spaces. Indeed, such ideas drove Thomas R. Proctor to embark on a park-building binge more than 120 years ago. And today, a much higher proportion of our underprivileged neighbors live within a 10-minute walk of our Olmsted parks than do the most fortunate in this region.
This reality is at the forefront of everything we do.
Public health research has proven that visiting urban parks confers significant physical and mental health benefits. The local diabetes and blood pressure rates are higher than the state average, and a disproportionate number of Uticans (notably but not exclusively refugees) have experienced trauma.
For many such Uticans, parks have medicinal power. Healthy park tree canopies also cool temperatures and reduce pollution for those who live nearby.
Despite our dedication to parks, however, we call ourselves “Olmsted City” because we are also trying to rebrand Utica — not just one institution in it, but the entire city. “Olmsted” is by far the most nationally recognizable name to which Utica can attach itself. Very few outsiders have heard of Munson, Williams, or Proctor, and not many more know who Conkling or Seymour were.
For over a century, in contrast, the Olmsted family fundamentally transformed the American landscape. This fact recently inspired a highly successful, year-long nationwide celebration of the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., the inventor of the American urban park, the co-designer of Central Park and innumerable others, and the first person to call for a national park system.
His son, who did so much in Utica, designed the landscaping for the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, and many other nationally famous sites. He also helped save the California giant redwoods and start the National Park Service.
People from major metropolitan areas celebrate the name “Olmsted” because their lives are enriched by Olmsted family creations like not just Central Park, but Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace system, Philadelphia’s FDR Park, Montreal’s Mount Royal Park, the Seattle parks system — and on and on it goes.
So, who cares about what people in big cities think? Uticans should. Utica is definitely on an upswing, but it’s still an under-resourced city. We need more outside capital. Big-city money and talent are helping to transform other small cities. Many people who might bring these goods here are accustomed to parks like F.T. Proctor … but they also expect them to be well-maintained.
In addition, the businesses we’d like to attract are interested in quality of life for their workers, increasingly many of whom value the outdoors. Mention that we have an Olmsted-designed park, and it makes many such people see Utica in a different light — and so should we.
However, we don’t have just one Olmsted park. We are the smallest U.S. city with an Olmsted parks and parkway system that’s over 70% the size of Central Park and comprises about 90% of Utica’s public parkland.
It offers diverse opportunities to engage with nature and healthful exercise: miles of wooded paths; tennis, basketball and (soon) pickleball courts; baseball and soccer fields; ice skating (coming next season); swimming pools; biking paths; picnic areas; a golf course; a skate park; dramatic vistas of the valley.
We also have five beautiful Olmsted-designed neighborhoods: Brookside, Proctor Boulevard, Talcott Road, Sherman Gardens, Ridgewood … and in New Hartford, there’s Hoffman Road.
About a tenth of the landmass of the city of Utica — more if you exclude our vast wetlands — was designed by Olmsted and his firm, Olmsted Brothers.
Olmsted City is dedicated to our green spaces, and we have an impressive record of commitment to them — but we are also dedicated to promoting a story for a new Utica, a story that is positive, true, and compelling to outsiders.
It is about having the sort of local pride that attracts opportunity. It is about elevating perceptions of Utica to promote our economic development. The message in our name is that there is something special here: Utica is an Olmsted city, and we should celebrate and protect our Olmsted heritage.
Toward this end, last year alone we planted 27 trees and more than 2,100 other perennial plants, installed five benches, repaired a historic stone staircase, created two new destinations, and cleaned up the long-neglected park gate at F.T. Proctor Park. Unlike many other organizations, we have no paid staff or a multimillion-dollar endowment — our work is dependent on civic-minded volunteers and donors who share our vision and appreciate our track record of getting things done.
We are currently in the midst of reconstructing the park’s previously deteriorated Lily Pond, a 1913 Olmsted creation that’s one of the region’s most iconic spots. It should be running again later this month. Come see it then, but in the meantime, please begin thinking and speaking proudly of Utica as an Olmsted city.
Editor’s note — Phil Bean is chair of Olmsted City; the president of the Utica Public Library Board of Trustees, and a Proctor graduate. He is a former college dean and author of “The Urban Colonists: Italian American Identity and Politics in Utica, New York,” published by Syracuse University Press, and other works about Utica’s political and ethnic history. He is also the co-creator, with Dennis Dewey, of a series of well-received, short YouTube videos called “Utica: An Olmsted City.”

The Big List Disney codes are split & do not include the GP portion, but the DMI points are included. All Sony titles include points as long as the title is eligible. Please only redeem the portion of a code you are paying for. Prices are firm for now. I accept Cashapp, Venmo, Zelle, Fb pay & PayPal F&F. Comment & pm if interested. Thanks!

🦝

MISC

Bram Stoker's Dracula + Mary Shelly's Frankenstein double feature HD $6 (MA)
Will Ferrell 3-Film Collection SD [Talladega Nights, The Other Guys & Step Brothers] $3 (MA)

🦝

$5 4K UHD
House With A Clock In It's Walls, The (MA)
Mortal Kombat [2021] (MA)
Sonic The Hedgehog (Vudu or iTunes)
Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, The (Vudu or iTunes)
🦝

$4 4K UHD

Alien [1979] (iTunes/ports)
Allied [2016] (Vudu)
Ant Man & The Wasp (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Beauty & The Beast [1991] (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Captain America: Civil War (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Despicable Me [2010] (iTunes/ports)
Guardians Of The Galaxy (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Halloween [2018] (MA)
Hell Or High Water (Vudu)
Scream [2022] (iTunes)
Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (iTunes)
Spiral: From The Book Of Saw (Vudu or iTunes)
Sting, The [1973] (iTunes/ports)
Terminator: Dark Fate (Vudu)
Top Gun (iTunes)
Toy Story (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
🦝

$5 HD

Dentist 1 & 2, The (Vudu)
Elysium & District 9 bundle (MA)
Inside Llewyn Davis (MA)
Jerry & Marge Go Large (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Rescuers: Down Under, The (MA + 150 points)
🦝

$4 HD

Alien3 [Theatrical] (MA, iTunes or Google Play/ports)
Alien: Resurrection (MA, iTunes or Google Play/ports)
Company Of Heroes [2013] (MA)
Ever After: A Cinderella Story [1998] (MA)
How To Train Your Dragon 1 & 2 bundle (MA)
Jungle Book, The [1967] (MA + 150 points)
Legion Of Super-Heroes (MA)
Lilo & Stitch (MA + 150 points)
Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch (MA + 150 points)
Lion King 1 & ½, The (MA + 150 points)
Men [A24] (Vudu or Google Play)
Minions + Minions: The Rise Of Gru double feature (MA)
Nightmare Before Christmas, The (MA + 150 points)
Step Brothers [Theatrical & Unrated] (MA)
Transporter, The [2002] (MA or Google Play/ports)
🦝

$3️⃣ Movies

#$3 4K UHD
American Assassin (Vudu)
Apollo 13 (iTunes/ports)
Avengers: Age Of Ultron (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Big Hero 6 (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Birth Of A Nation, The (iTunes/ports)
Captain Marvel (MA + 200 points)
Doctor Strange (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Everest [2015] (iTunes/ports)
Frozen II (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Hocus Pocus (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Interstellar (iTunes)
Midway [2019] (Vudu or iTunes)
Moana (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Rambo: First Blood (iTunes)
Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (iTunes)
Transformers: The Last Knight (Vudu)
Zootopia (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
🦝

$3 HD

Batman & Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons (MA)
Black Widow [2021] (MA + 150 points)
Book Of Life, The [2014] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Chicago [2002] (Vudu, iTunes or Google Play)
Cosmic Sin (Vudu or iTunes)
Cruella (MA + 150 points)
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (MA + 150 points)
Dolittle [2020] (MA)
Drive [2011] (MA + Sony points)
Encanto (MA + 150 points)
Eternals [2021] (MA + 150 points)
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (MA)
Joe [2014] (Vudu)
Jungle Book, The [1967] (MA only/no points)
Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return (MA)
Les Misérables [1998] (MA)
Lightyear [2022] (MA + 150 points)
Lilo & Stitch (Google Play/ports)
Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has A (Google Play/ports) or both for $5
London Has Fallen (iTunes/ports)
Moonlight [A24] (Vudu)
Night At The Museum [2006] (MA)
Northman, The [2022] (MA)
Peter Pan [1953] (MA + 150 points)
Phantom Thread (MA)
Place Beyond The Pines, The (iTunes/ports)
Rescuers, The (Google Play/ports)
Rescuers: Down Under, The (Google Play/ports)
Shang Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings (MA + 150 points)
Sleight [2017] (iTunes/ports)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (MA + Sony points)
Still Alice (MA + Sony points)
This Is The End (MA + Sony points)
Thor: Love & Thunder (MA + 150 points)
Top Gun (Vudu)
Unholy, The [2021] (MA + Sony points)
Wedding Ringer, The (MA + Sony points)
🦝
All codes are $2. Prices are firm for now. Please only redeem the you are paying for. Any Disney codes are split. MA/iTunes Disney will include points but not the GP redeem. All Sony titles include points as long as the title is eligible. If you have any questions feel free to ask. I accept Cashapp, Venmo, Zelle, Fb pay or PayPal F&F. Comment & pm if interested. Thanks for checking out my list.
🦝

💲2️⃣ HDX

12 Years A Slave (MA)
21 Jump Street (MA + Sony points)
2 Guns (MA or iTunes/ports)
Action Point (iTunes 4K)
Adventures Of Tintin, The (Vudu or iTunes)
Age Of Adaline, The (Vudu, iTunes or Google Play)
Alien Covenant (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA/GP)
All Eyez On Me (iTunes)
Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Road Chip (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Amazing Spider-Man, The (MA)
Amazing Spider-Man 2, The (MA + Sony points)
American Girl: McKenna Shoots For The Stars (MA or iTunes/ports)
American Reunion [Unrated] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Vudu or iTunes)
Annihilation [2018] (Vudu)
Ant Man (Google Play/ports)
Arrival [2016] (Vudu)
Assassin's Creed (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Bad Boys For Life (MA + Sony points)
Bad Grandpa (iTunes)
Batman, The [2022] (MA)
Battleship [2012] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Beauty & The Beast [2017] (MA + 150 points/iTunes option is expired)
Beguiled, The [2017] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Big Wedding, The (iTunes)
Black Panther (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Black Widow [2021] (Google Play/ports)
Book Club (Vudu)
Boss Baby, The (MA)
Bourne Identity, The (MA)
Bourne Legacy, The (iTunes/ports 4K)
Brian Banks (MA)
Bridge Of Spies (Google Play/ports)
Cabin In The Woods, The (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (MA)
Case For Christ, The (iTunes/ports)
Chi-Raq (Vudu)
Choice, The [2016] (Vudu)
Contraband (iTunes/ports)
Cruella (Google Play/ports)
Daddy's Home (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Darkest Hour [2017] (MA)
Deepwater Horizon (iTunes 4K)
Despicable Me [2010] (MA)
Despicable Me 2 (iTunes/ports 4K)
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (MA)
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (MA or iTunes/ports)
Divergent (iTunes 4K)
Divergent Series: Insurgent (iTunes 4K)
Django Unchained (Vudu)
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (Google Play/ports)
Dragonheart: Battle For The Heartfire (MA)
Duff, The (iTunes)
Dying Of The Light (Vudu)
Edward Scissorhands (MA)
Emoji Movie, The (MA + Sony points)
Ender's Game (iTunes 4K or Google Play HD)
Epic [2013] (MA or iTunes/ports)
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (MA)
Ex Machina (Vudu)
Expendables 3, The (Vudu 4K)
Fast & Furious 6, The [Extended] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Fifty Shades Darker [Unrated] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Fifty Shades Of Grey [Unrated] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Finding Dory (iTunes/ports 4K or HD + 150 points)
Flight [2012] (Vudu or iTunes)
Frozen (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Gambler, The [2015] (Vudu or iTunes)
Gemini Man (iTunes 4K or Vudu HD)
Ghostbusters [2016] [Theatrical & Extended] (MA + Sony points)
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Girl On The Train, The [2016] (iTunes/ports 4K)
God's Not Dead 2 (iTunes/ports)
God's Not Dead: A Light In Darkness (MA)
Gods Of Egypt (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Good Day To Die Hard, A [Extended] (MA or Google Play/ports)
Grace Unplugged (Vudu)
Greatest Showman, The (MA)
Grey, The [2012] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Hacksaw Ridge (Vudu or Google Play)
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters [Unrated] (Vudu or iTunes)
Hardcore Henry (MA or iTunes/ports)
Hateful Eight, The (Vudu or Google Play)
Haunting In Connecticut 2: The Ghosts Of Georgia, The (Vudu)
Heat, The [2013] (MA)
Heaven Is For Real (MA + Sony points)
Hell Or High Water (Vudu or Google Play)
Hercules [2014] (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Hidden Figures (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Hitman's Bodyguard, The (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Home [2015] (MA)
Home Alone (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA/GP)
Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (MA, iTunes or Google Play/ports)
Hope Springs [2012] (MA)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (MA)
Hugo (Vudu or iTunes)
Hunger Games, The (iTunes 4K)
Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The (iTunes 4K or Google Play HD)
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part, The (iTunes 4K)
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (iTunes 4K)
Huntsman: Winter's War, The [Extended] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Hustlers [2019] (iTunes 4K)
I Can Only Imagine (Vudu, iTunes or Google Play)
Ice Age: Continental Drift (MA)
Independence Day: Resurgence (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA/GP)
Instant Family (iTunes 4K)
Interstellar (Vudu or Google Play)
It's A Wonderful Life [1947] (Vudu)
Jackass 3 [Theatrical] (Vudu or iTunes)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (Vudu)
Jarhead 2: Field Of Fire [Unrated] (MA)
Jason Bourne (iTunes/ports 4K)
Jaws (MA)
John Wick (iTunes 4K or Vudu/GP HD)
John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (iTunes 4K)
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (MA + Sony points)
Jungle Cruise (MA + 150 points)
Jurassic Park III [2001] (MA)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (MA)
Kick-Ass 2 (MA or iTunes/ports)
Killer Elite (iTunes/ports)
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Kingsman: The Secret Service (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Kung Fu Panda 3 (MA)
Last Stand, The [2013] (Vudu, iTunes or Google Play)
Last Witch Hunter, The (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Lee Daniels' The Butler (Vudu)
Legend Of Hercules, The (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Little Mermaid, The (Google Play/ports)
Logan (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Lone Survivor (iTunes/ports 4K)
Longest Ride, The (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Lorax, The [2012] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Love & Mercy [2015] (Vudu)
Luca (Google Play/ports)
Lucy (iTunes/ports 4K)
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (MA)
Maggie (Vudu)
Marauders (Vudu)
Marvel's The Avengers [2012] (Google Play/ports)
Mechanic: Resurrection (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Mindgamers (MA)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (iTunes 4K)
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (iTunes 4K)
Mountain Between Us, The (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Mr. Peabody & Sherman (MA)
Mud (Vudu)
Mummy, The [2017] (iTunes/ports)
Murder On The Orient Express [2017] (MA)
Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Noah [2014] (Vudu or iTunes)
Non-Stop [2014] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Now You See Me 2 (iTunes 4K)
Other Woman, The [2014] (MA, iTunes or Google Play/ports)
Overlord [2019] (Vudu)
Oz The Great & Powerful (MA + 100 points)
Pain & Gain (Vudu)
Paper Towns (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Paranormal Activity [Theatrical] (Vudu or iTunes)
Paranormal Activity 3 [Extended] (iTunes)
Paul [2011] [Unrated] (iTunes/ports)
Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (MA or Google Play/ports)
Peter Pan [1953] (Google Play/ports)
Pet Sematary [2019] (Vudu)
Pirate Fairy, The (Google Play/ports
Pitch Perfect (iTunes/ports 4K)
Pitch Perfect 2 (iTunes/ports 4K)
Planes [2013] (MA + 150 points)
Possession, The [2012] (iTunes)
Prometheus (MA)
Purge: Anarchy, The (iTunes/ports 4K)
Purge: Election Year, The (iTunes/ports 4K)
Quiet Place, A [2018] (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Riddick [2013] [Unrated] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Ride Along (MA or iTunes/ports)
Ride Along 2 (iTunes/ports)
Risen [2016] (MA + Sony points)
Rise Of The Guardians [2011] (MA)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Russell Madness (MA or Google Play/ports)
Safe [2012] (Vudu or Google Play)
Safe House [2012] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Saving Mr. Banks (Google Play/ports)
Secret Life Of Pets, The (iTunes/ports 4K)
Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, The (MA)
Selma (Vudu or iTunes)
Sicario (Vudu 4K, iTunes 4K or Google Play HD)
Silver Linings Playbook (Vudu or Google Play)
Sing [2016] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Sinister (iTunes)
Sleepless [2017] (iTunes/ports)
Snatched [2017] (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Snitch (iTunes 4K or Google Play HD)
Snow White & The Huntsman [Extended] (iTunes/ports 4K)
Space Between Us, The (MA or iTunes/ports)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (MA + Sony points)
Star Trek [2009] (iTunes 4K)
Star Trek Beyond (iTunes 4K)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (iTunes/ports + 150 points)
Straight Outta Compton (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
Super Buddies [2013] (MA + 100 points)
Ted [Unrated] (MA)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Terminator: Genisys (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
This Is 40 [Theatrical] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Thor: Love & Thunder (Google Play/ports)
Thor: Ragnarok (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Total Recall [2012] [Theatrical & Extended Unrated] (MA + Sony points)
Toy Story 4 (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA + 150 points)
Trolls (MA)
True Blood: Season 4 (iTunes)
True Grit [2010] (Vudu or iTunes)
Turbo [2013] (MA)
Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions Of A Marriage Counselor (Google Play)
Valerian & The City Of A Thousand Planets (Vudu)
Venom (MA + Sony points)
Walk Among The Tombstones, A (iTunes/ports)
War For The Planet Of The Apes (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA/GP)
Warm Bodies (iTunes 4K or GP HD)
War Room [2015] (MA + Sony points)
When The Game Stands Tall (MA + Sony points)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Vudu)
Wild Card (Vudu or Google Play)
Woman In Black, The [2012] (MA)
Woman In Gold (Vudu)
Wonder [2017] (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Won't Back Down [2012] (MA)
X-Men: Days Of Future Past (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA)
XXX: Return Of Xander Cage (iTunes 4K)
🦝

💲2️⃣ SD

All About Steve (iTunes/ports)
Descendants, The (iTunes/ports)
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who! (iTunes/ports)
Inside Llewyn Davis (MA)
Juno (iTunes/ports)
Marley & Me (iTunes/ports)
Mr. Popper's Penguins (iTunes/ports)
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (iTunes/ports)
Rocker, The [2008] (iTunes/ports)
Tree Of Life, The (iTunes/ports)
We Bought A Zoo (iTunes/ports)
🦝

$1 Codes

💲1️⃣ HD

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi (Vudu)
Alex Cross (Vudu)
Avengers: Age Of Ultron (Google Play/ports)
Avengers: Endgame (Google Play/ports)
Avengers: Infinity War (Google Play/ports)
Beauty & The Beast [2017] (Google Play/ports)
Big Hero 6 (Google Play/ports)
Black Panther (MA without points or Google Play/ports)
Bourne Ultimatum, The (MA)
Captain America: Winter Soldier (Google Play/ports)
Captain Marvel (Google Play/ports)
Choice, The [2016] (iTunes)
Deadpool (iTunes/ports 4K or HD MA/GP)
Divergent (Vudu)
Divergent Series: Insurgent, The (Vudu or Google Play)
Doctor Strange (Google Play/ports)
Dog's Purpose, A (iTunes/ports)
Ender's Game (Vudu)
Escape Plan (Vudu)
Expendables 2, The (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Expendables 3, The [Theatrical] (iTunes 4K)
Expendables 3, The [Unrated] (Vudu, iTunes or Google Play)
Fast & Furious 6 [Extended] (MA)
Fast Five [Extended] (MA or iTunes/ports)
Fate Of The Furious, The [8] [Theatrical] (HD MA)
Fifty Shades Darker [Unrated] (MA)
Finding Dory (Google Play/ports)
Furious 7 [Extended] (MA)
Girls Trip (MA or iTunes/ports)
Guardians Of The Galaxy (Google Play/ports)
Hillsong: Let Hope Rise (iTunes/ports)
Hocus Pocus (Google Play/ports)
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The (Vudu)
I Feel Pretty (iTunes)
Inside Out (Google Play/ports)
Iron Man 3 (MA only/no points or Google Play/ports)
John Wick 3 (Google Play)
Jungle Cruise [2021] (Google Play/ports)
Jurassic World (MA)
Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (Vudu)
Kidnap [2017] (iTunes/ports)
Lightyear [2022] (Google Play/ports)
Lion King, The [2019] (Google Play/ports)
Lone Survivor (MA)
Maleficent (Google Play/ports)
Mission Impossible: Fallout (Vudu)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (Vudu)
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Vudu)
Moana (Google Play/ports)
Norm Of The North (Vudu)
Now You See Me (Vudu)
Oz: The Great & Powerful (Google Play/ports)
Pitch Perfect 2 (MA)
Planes (Google Play/ports)
Purge, The [2013] (MA)
Red 2 (Vudu/GP HD or iTunes 4K)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Google Play/ports)
Secret Life Of Pets, The (MA)
Snitch (Vudu)
Snow White & The Huntsman [Extended] (MA)
Star Trek Beyond (Vudu)
Star Trek: Into Darkness (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker (Google Play/ports)
Super Buddies (Google Play/ports)
Taken 2 (MA or Google Play/ports)
Ted [Theatrical] (iTunes/ports)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2014] (Vudu)
Thor: Ragnarok (Google Play/ports)
Toy Story 4 (Google Play/ports)
Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (Vudu)
Transformers: The Last Knight (Vudu HD or iTunes 4K)
Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection (Vudu)
Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions Of A Marriage Counselor (Vudu)
Unbroken [2014] (MA)
World War Z (Vudu)
XXX: Return Of Xander Cage (Vudu)
Zootopia (Google Play/ports)
🦝

💲1️⃣ SD

22 Jump Street (MA + Sony points)
Act Of Valor (iTunes)
Amazing Spider-Man, The (MA)
Annie [2014] (MA + Sony points)
Call Me By Your Name [2017] (MA + Sony points)
Captain Phillips (MA + Sony points)
Concussion (MA + Sony points)
Despicable Me (iTunes/ports)
Devil Inside, The [2012] (Vudu)
Elysium (MA + Sony points)
Equalizer, The (MA + Sony points)
Family Guy: Blue Harvest (iTunes)
Family Guy: It's A Trap! (iTunes)
Fury [2014] (MA + Sony points)
Glee: The Concert (iTunes/ports)
Goosebumps [2015] (MA + Sony points)
Grown Ups 2 (MA + Sony points)
Haunting In Connecticut, The (iTunes)
Haywire (iTunes)
Heaven Is For Real (MA + Sony points)
Hobo With A Shotgun (iTunes)
Hope Springs [2012] (MA)
Hours [2013] (Vudu)
Hugo (Vudu)
Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (iTunes/ports)
Immortals [2011] (iTunes)
Judy Moody & The Not Bummer Summer (iTunes)
Jumanji: The Next Level (MA + Sony points)
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (MA + Sony points)
Life As We Know It (iTunes)
Magnificent Seven, The [2016] (Vudu)
Mama Mia! The Movie (iTunes/ports)
Monuments Men, The (MA + Sony points)
Mortal Instruments : City Of Bones, The (MA + Sony points)
No Good Deed [2014] (MA + Sony points)
One For The Money (iTunes)
Ong Bak 3 (iTunes)
Peter Rabbit (MA)
Predators [2010] (iTunes/ports)
Public Enemies (iTunes/ports)
Rio (iTunes/ports)
Robin Hood [2010] [Unrated] (iTunes/ports)
Safe Haven (iTunes)
Something Borrowed (iTunes/ports)
Star, The [2017] (MA + Sony points)
Think Like A Man (MA + Sony points)
This Is The End (MA + Sony points)
Total Recall [2012] (MA + Sony points)
When The Game Stands Tall (MA + Sony points)
X-Men: First Class (iTunes/ports)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (iTunes/ports)
🦝

Super Cheap SD & HD Codes

All movies are 3 for $1 each/must spend at least $1 total
Expendables 2, The (Vudu SD only or iTunes SD only)
Frozen (Google Play/ports HD)
Hunger Games, The (Vudu SD or iTunes SD)
Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The (Vudu HD)
Perks Of Being A Wallflower, The (iTunes SD only)
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (iTunes/ports SD)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Google Play/ports HD)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Google Play/ports HD)
Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection (iTunes HD only)
What To Expect When You're Expecting (iTunes SD only)

Part 2 of 2: All constructive criticism is welcome and the more specific, the better.

Bringing a pitchfork to an android fight

This leaves the ruled with the sole strategic deterrent of their collective potential for violence. The deterrent is twofold:

1. Their potential as agents of coercive violence on the part of intra-class competitors
2. Their collective power as a ‘mob’ or mass movement that if necessary can overwhelm through numbers (a la Bastille)

In societies, where the institutions of legitimacy are hereditary, intra-class rivalries are more likely given the largely unconditional and irrevocable nature of legitimacy conferred by birth. No effective mechanism can remove class membership without challenging the legitimacy of the institution conferring membership.
Privileges and special treatment are often accorded to members of the same class in external societies with matching institutions of legitimacy. These privileges can even hold in wartime where either special treatment during capture or prohibitions against shedding ‘royal’ or ‘noble’ blood set class members apart from the ruled populace of either society.
This irrevocability of status limits the ability of a class to neutralize rogue members. Even if rejected by other class members, rogue members are often able to still garner support internally and externally based on their claim to legitimacy as in the case of James Francis Edward Stuart.
This inherent instability results in the courting of the ruled by competing members of the ruling elite as agents of violence. It can be as gross as the direct financing of the Clodian and Milonian gangs by Caesar and his opponents or the actual bidding war for the Roman Imperial purple by Didius Julianus. Or it can be as professional as purchasing the services of condottieri during the Italian city-state conflicts. The commonality is gathering enough of the ruled to bludgeon other members of the ruling elite into submission.
The 20th century saw the beginning of the end for hereditary institutions of legitimacy. The Chinese and Russian Communist revolutions as well as the ascent of Nazism in Germany represented the rise to power of ideologies that were fatally antagonistic to the aristocracy) and royalty. The post World II breakup of the British Empire - especially in India - saw the removal of more hereditary rulers as former colonies coalesced into independent modern nation-states. Even the former imperial leader saw radical institutional shakeups. The Labour Party’s victory in the 1945 elections started Great Britain’s transition from hereditary legitimacy as well culminating in the House of Lords Act 1999 and its following updates. In less than 100 years, a substantial portion of humanity transitioned their institutions of legitimacy and the basis of ruling elite power.

The end of elite intra-class conflict

Modernity has seen the irrevocable legitimacy of birth and descent replaced with the conditional legitimacy of intellectual compliance with the ruling elite’s philosophy or ideology. This phenomenon is most easily discerned in the Soviet Union, Communist China and other formecurrent Communist countries.
Elites were subject to constant surveillance and purged for even small infractions of ideological deviation. Surveillance was pervasive - so pervasive that in East Germany it was estimated that there was one Stasi (secret police) informer for every 6.5 citizens. Once identified as deviants, purged members were de-legitimized prior to removal in tightly controlled trials where ‘extracted’ confessions were presented as damning evidence of ideological nonconformity. This ‘delegitimization’ was so effective that popular uprisings on behalf of purged members were/are virtually nonexistent. With no legitimate claim or access to energy in the system, the purged members are rendered powerless to raise groups of the ruled to save them.
In Western Europe and the vast majority of the Anglosphere, credentialism is the preferred institution of legitimacy and can be revoked unlike inherited nobility or spiritual superiority. Credentialism (nominal meritocracy coupled with ideological compliance) forms a framework of class control slightly less punitive, yet every bit as pervasive as the Communist regimes.
In a credentials-based system, the institutions that bestow credentials - such as elite universities - represent a significant chokepoint of control over ruling elite members.
Attendance has its privileges. In the United States, Ivy League and Ivy League plus graduates are overrepresented in the upper echelons of US government, business and non-profit institutions. Currently 8 out of 9 US Supreme Court justices are graduates of just two law schools: Yale and Harvard Law. 4 out 5 of the last US Presidents graduated from Ivy League schools.
However, despite representation as a ‘meritocracy’, admission to and attendance at these institutions are not contingent solely on merit. The most obvious exceptions being legacy preferences and affirmative action. Legacy preferences and affirmative action are non-merit criteria for admission that enables ruling elites to play gatekeeper and prefer members of their class or preferred candidates for addition to the class.
Less obvious though is the implied ideological conformity to become a member of these credential granting institutions. During the 1950s and 1960s, the whiff of Communist sympathies could blacklist an individual from these institutions. In present times, differing views on gender, race, immigration or even ‘lack of personality’ can bar an individual from admission, cause rescission of admission or expulsion from these credential granting institutions. Earned credentials can be revoked for academic disagreement if it buts against the class consensus as is the case in California where disagreement with the ‘consensus’ over COVID now allows medical license revocation.
Technology makes possible the ubiquitous yet decentralized class policing to maintain conformity in the West. Stray comments from years in the past during literal childhood are now grounds for exclusion or ‘cancellation’. Social media and cancel culture allows class coordination in real-time with everything captured on phones and immediately shared on Twitter, Tiktok, Instagram to generate instant class outrage and cancellation - all without recourse to a government institution. There’s no longer a need to ‘eliminate’ someone when a bot can post inciting content that results in the loss of credentials, employment and social status for the problematic individual.
Whether the punitive Communist system or the slightly less punitive yet every bit as controlling Western system, the revocable nature of legitimacy in both systems enables modern elites to resolve intraclass disputes without having to resort to mass violence. Expulsion from the institutions of legitimacy is possible without death and can be instantaneous since unlike birth-descent legitimacy which only ends upon death, removal of a credential or Party membership doesn’t require the individual to be found, seized and killed. A few keystrokes and boom! - virtual death.
This ease and swiftness of delegitimization means class dissidents are less likely to be able to garner and maintain enough popular support necessary to violently contest for supremacy.
While beneficial to the ruling class, this removes participation in the informal violence of intraclass conflict within the ruling elite as a path of advancement or accommodation for the ruled. The ruled are no longer needed to maintain the intra-class balance.

We need pitchforks. Lots of pitchforks.

The ruled populace’s sole remaining leverage is to act as members of the formal security institutions of the society such as the armed forces or law enforcement.
The structure of the armed forces mimics the same control structure as other social institutions with the officers corps overpopulated with members of the ruling elites and the bulk of recruits from the other strata of society.
In the US, the bulk of the enlisted recruits - 80% - 90% of the total - are from households under $100k annual income. With an average income of slightly over $50,000, these recruits’ household incomes are significantly below the top 10% annual income average of $173,000 .
Doing the bulk of the fighting and dying has meant that the ruled populace has enough strategic value to the ruling elite as violent counterbalances to external elites that accommodations in energy distribution and class membership are a grudging but recurring feature of political history.
There’s a roughly direct relationship between conflict severity and the level of accommodation. The violent global paroxysms of the 20th century (WWI, WW2, the Korean War) saw the advent of socialized medicine), the GI Bill and other concessions throughout Western Europe and the Anglosphere. The Cold War saw the further growth of the welfare state in the societies of the West as well the advent of a series of development/aid programs directed towards the developing world. The ruling elites of the West and the Communist bloc competed with accommodations to shore up their popular support domestically and globally in case of another world conflict that might be nuclear and apocalyptic in nature.
The Vietnam War represented the beginning of the end of this type of popular accommodation in the United States. The usual inequities of socioeconomic status vs combat exposure were hyper-magnified as college and health related exemptions allowed many scions and aspiring members of the ruling elite to avoid the conflict altogether.
This left the armed forces composed of draftees - disproportionately from the lower socioeconomic classes - commanded by the few volunteer members of the ruling elite. The results were disastrous. Social justice protests, McNamara’s Morons, ‘fragging’ and other disciplinary and performance issues - caused by the imbalanced force structure - proved such a toxic stew that the US moved to an all-volunteer force in 1973.
The move to a professional army removed the need for broad-based popular consent to ensure force cohesion during conflict (or so the theory went). And with the decreased need for broad-based support, the US ruling elites began to contract the post-World War accommodations and welfare-state.
First to suffer was veteran treatment as the soldiers exposed to Agent Orange were denied compensation and care for the myriad health problems resulting from their exposure. The 1980s saw the beginning of the end for The Great Society welfare state and culminated with the ‘end of welfare as we know it’ being signed into law by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Offshoring began in the 1980s and accelerated with NAFTA and China’s accession to the WTO. This coupled with the Reagan-Bush-Trump tax cuts further eviscerated the middle class which typically provides the bulk of armed forces recruits.
Initial impacts on operational readiness appeared during the first Gulf War, Afghanistan and the second Gulf War but were ameliorated by extended and repetitive use of reserve forces. However, recruiting has plummeted across the board and the soldiers that fought the last three American conflicts are aging out of service eligibility. In 2022 and 2023, it is projected that all branches except the Space Force will have failed to meet recruitment goals.
The likelihood that new recruitment techniques will improve the situation are grim as the Army estimates that only 23% of the 17-to-24 year olds in the US would even qualify as recruits. The other 77% are unable to pass the basic armed forces entrance exam or are too overweight/obese to meet minimum fitness requirements.
A shrinking pool of recruits has not impaired the ruling elites’ willingness to engage in armed conflict to achieve their geopolitical goals. Currently, the United States and its NATO allies are engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. The United States, Taiwan, Australia, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines stand on the verge of conflict over Taiwan and access to the South China Sea.
All of the actors in these brewing or ongoing conflicts are experiencing some degree of demographic decline with severe population declines projected for Russia, Ukraine, China, South Korea, Japan and much of Europe. The United States is projected to be buoyed by immigration however the native birth rate has already plummeted below replacement levels.
This leaves the ruling elites with the confounding situation where the current economic and political institutions they control have ennervated the ruled populace to the point it impairs their ability to project power externally. Rebuilding the middle class that provides the bulk of recruits would necessitate major structural changes that would greatly lessen their class’ control and at least a generation of time for enough children to be born to erase the recruitment deficit.
Reversing 40-years of rigged economic and political policy alone would represent a Herculean task. But couple this with natural class resistance to any loss of control egged on by the psychopathy of the class leaders, the necessary changes are improbable to the point of impossible.
With no change and conflicts on the immediate horizon, the ruling elites have one solution left to them to replace the dispossessed recruitment pools of the middle class - artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons.

Move over humans. It’s time for something scarier.

A.I. powered weapons offer a number of advantages over human combatants. Not only does A.I. already demonstrate tactical superiority against human opponents in simulation, but its unique nature is particularly appealing to the ruling elites.
Without conscience or kinship ties or moral safeguards, the A.I. soldiers will pursue any objective regardless of the dubious nature of the orders. History would have been markedly different if A.I. soldiers had been present in the Soviet Union during the hardline coup against Gorbachev or available to the Arab rulers during the Arab Spring. Implementing Asimov’s Laws of Robotics would be foolhardy in a combat android but even if implemented, the noted problems of AI control could result in unintended casualties.
Additionally, as non-humans, casualties no longer equal declining morale in the armed forces and society as a whole. The Vietnam War demonstrated the impact of seeing body bags of soldiers returned home. During the Afghanistan, Gulf and Iraq wars, this type of footage was banned (until 2009) to stop the type of social unrest that occurred during the Vietnam War when the public was faced with the direct cost of conflict. It is doubtful that humans will see injured or killed A.I. soldiers in the same empathetic light as they do human casualties. Risky missions start to have acceptable loss levels and this change enables more aggression on the part of ruling elites.
But the greatest advantage of the new A.I. soldier is that there is absolutely no need for accommodation by the ruling elites to the ruled populace to maintain their base of power. A newer, remorseless and completely obedient purveyor of violence is now available to the ruling elite. It makes no demands beyond bare functioning and feels no emotional remorse for immoral acts.
These A.I. soldiers that are capable of maintaining the developed world’s strategic parity to the global masses’ numbers can be also used internally to quell any possible dissent or mass movement. A.I. generally offers unlimited potential for surveillance and internal class discipline but coupled with advances in robotics, it will offer an ethics-free physical enforcer to combat protests like Sri Lanka, Canada, the Netherlands and the United States. There are no repercussions available for the A.I. soldier since they have no personhood or control so even the spotty administration of ICC justice isn’t a deterrent. Already law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, New York and other jurisdictions are deploying robotic dogs - which is eerily reminiscent of the usage of attack dogs by oppressors through history. An A.I. soldier that was used for similar purposes would have no fear of punishment or injury or fear at all unlike the officer or even the dog in past situations.
Attempts to control this new technology and A.I. soldiers are manifesting in calls for A.I. regulation and licensing by the ruling elites of the US and Western Europe. The potential for positive change through a human-A.I. partnership is tremendous and widespread availability has the potential to provide the ruled populace with substantial technical and economic advancements without the overhead of the ruling elite. Citing the danger of extinction by A.I. while simultaneously continuing development of the technology highlights how disingenuous the call for regulation is by the ruling elites. In reality this is a call to restrict any dangers presented to their institutional control of education, finance and healthcare as well as their monopoly of violence within society.
The future is grim for the ruled populaces of humanity. At a time that technology could power the solutions to climate change, economic collapse and space exploration, the technology is being evolved and restricted to prop up the ruling class’ domination. And with no bargaining chips left - whether as producers or gangs or soldiers - the real extinction crisis may not be for humanity as a whole but for the ruled.

Appendix: A Classical Case of Control

Pre-Marian reforms

In the pre-Marian reform Roman Republic, strict divisions were made between patricians )and plebeians with severe restrictions on political and religious participation placed on the plebeian class. Military service was strictly limited to property owners to ensure that the landowning class maintained a monopoly on violence. A credo of tribal superiority ranking Roman -> Latin -> Italian -> non-peninsulars was embodied legally in tiered political membership of Citizen -> Latin Rights holder -> Foreigner. Membership was zealously policed by officials called censors who were initially exclusively patrician.
The patricians of Rome were successful in maintaining their monopoly of power until a series of secessio plebis (Latin: withdrawal of the commoners or secession of the plebs) or general strikes by the plebeian class forced the patricians to cede some power, privileges and land to the plebeian class. Faced with complete economic standstill, a series of accommodations were made to maintain the viability of the power structure itself.
This cession of power was largely illusory though. While technical class distinctions were removed, the old patrician class and the wealthiest of the plebeian class merged through co-option and intermarriage to form a new nobility that enforced their new collective will through property qualifications restricting political participation.
This new nobility fought any further accommodations to middle and lower classes such as the Gracchan, Marian and Livian reforms. The brothers Gracchi and Livius Drusus) were killed and Marius died in the middle of a civil war with Sulla and his noble adherents.
Conquest and the resulting ubiquity of slavery destroyed any further economic leverage the lower classes had. With literally millions of slaves now cheaply available, laborers, craftspeople, shopkeepers and domestic employees were dispossessed of their livelihoods as slaves replaced them in their jobs. Small landholders were driven off their farms and into the urban stews as the treasure of conquest inflated the price of real estate astronomically.

Post-Marian reforms

The Marian reforms left one avenue for the lower classes - the military. As the rich and powerful (Marius v Sulla, Pompey v Caesar, Augustus v Antony) fought each other for supremacy within their own class, the poor were courted with numerous concessions and bonuses to serve as soldiers for the powerful.
While always at the whim of the commander (barring assassination) who was always a member of the ruling class, military necessity served as a check on the ruler's ambitions. Armies need soldiers and another ambitious member of the same class could always bribe or recruit soldiers with better terms to topple the current leader. A degree of class balance was a necessity to preserve the power structure.
For those who couldn’t or wouldn’t join the army, panem et circenses (bread and circuses) dulled the need for rebellion. Gladiator games, free food distributions and occasional money distributions maintained a docile subsistence-based population that remained fairly quiescent until the late Western Empire despite depredations by the landed elite and nobility.
The system despite all its inequities suffered along for multiple centuries until external pressures and the depredations of the nobility overwhelmed the economic and military capacity of the Empire and resulted in its fall in 476 CE. But it’s important to note that the system wasn’t overthrown from within but overwhelmed from the outside.

Single mom + new disability = eviction (and total ruin) 😃
We’re moving from an affluent ‘suburb’ Brookline where kids grew up, to Public Housing in Boston because affluent town says affordable housing doesn’t really fit their brand.
Entering Boston Public schools at grades 9th and 10th in Fall. My kids are smart, spectrumy, D&D and anime dorks who like art and queerity. They call themselves The Weirdos. One is on a 504, one is on an IEP, both Ex Ec function issues, motor skills and slow processing issues. They currently despise school and are floundering in Brookline, manly because they have trauma and are atypical, also they are way outside the zeitgeist of wealth and competition, or social media and hot looks. My youngest won a ‘DESE award’ for exceeding test expectations in all areas of MCAS. 🥳 Both missed ton of school, one missed over 50 days and now has to repeat 10th.
So… any options? All the ‘good’ high schools are gone, chosen, and currently waitlisted at 800-1200 names.
Do I:

1. Go to the randomly assigned leftover school they get and just see what happens?
2. Scrabble, scratch, and attempt to tear my way into an off-limits school, possibly leveraging special needs and maybe sad shreds of legacied white sympathy to do it? (Which I suspect isn’t actually viable since I’ve worked in BPS, where get-what-you-get is the rule).
3. Homeschool or bust— they’re already weird, i.e. socially awkward, borderline mainstream-resentful, homeschooled types anyway? Build on that and go with it until they become supervillains?
4. Apply for Metco claiming Native American status? 😂 Okay that option isn’t real. The rest are.
5. other…?

Any chance Tyler will escape Michelle and JB’s house as more and more damage to their reputation occurs? Did they officially adopt him in an irrevocable way, or might their guardianship of him be reevaluated at some point? At this point the general public knows their house is just objectively unsafe.

Advent Home
trigger warnings
rape, suicide, physical abuse, emotional abuse.
https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/legal_affairs/more-former-students-sue-over-alleged-abuse-at-boarding-school/article_db70c152-c8db-5711-82dc-52e3d26303ab.html
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/WEST-VIRGINIA.pdf
note: Several organizations share a name with the Advent Home. I am specifically referring to the now defunct group home near Calhoun, Tennessee.
We talk a lot today about trauma in a way I don't remember it being discussed even in the broader cultural consciousness when I was young. Mental health was just viewed differently. Adventists have always had a weird relationship with mental health, but I think rarely more strange and harmful than the ideas of Dr. Senior and the Advent home. Through most of this I will use fake names but as Dr. Senior's name is intrinsically and publicly tied to the school he is my one exception. Also, if any reading this had the misfortune of also attending the school, you will know we were told to call him Dr. B or Dr. Blondel but we are adults and his title was Dr. Senior.
I've wanted to write about this for some time and this will likely be a first draft of a larger discussion. Psychology isn't my field of expertise and I've never felt I found the right platform to talk about such a niche subject but finding the Ex Adventist sub and with more being said about mental health I at least feel qualified to discuss where I feel Adventism was used to twist psychology into something harmful by Dr. Senior.
Before I continue, I wasn't there for the worst of what was to happen nor did I receive the worst of what happened in my time there. I also cannot entirely claim innocence of some of the emotional bullying that was tolerated if not encouraged. I hope I have grown since then and have learned from mistakes I made when I was 13 and do believe I am largely innocent of the physical bullying and certainly the sexual assault.
First, I want to address the lawsuit. As I say, I wasn't there for most of this as by 2014 the Advent Home and Miracle Meadows seem to have become much more closely related, swapping students to hide them from law enforcement and deposition. The school closed around 2014 , the time a lawsuit was filed. More lawsuits have since been filed and the director of the sister school miracle meadows was imprisoned. I will link the lawsuit and articles above. As the events detailed in it represent a massive escalation from what was happening while I was there, but I do think the events described are merely the codification of the policies being unofficially implemented on a smaller scale in my time. In short it lays out regular forced sexual assault by students and staff, duct taping students in rooms for days if they were violent and forcing them to study the bible for days at a time as punishment. Thinking back, I can see how the deference to authority and refusal to treat mental health as anything other than a religious failing could lead to the behavior detailed in these allegations. To be clear I am linking the allegation and articles below though I wasn't part of any of these trials and don't know which charges exactly stuck.
Even though the school is closed and from what I can tell Dr. Senior is retired, I think there is a larger discussion to be had about how the Adventist Church handles mental health and firebrands. So, what was the Advent Home? The Advent Home was a young men's reform school begun by Dr. Blondel Senior in Calhoun, Tennessee. There isn't much left to find on it as it shut down around 2014 and never had a great online presence. I suspect a lawsuit around the same time was to blame, as, if any of its allegations were proven, it would have cost the advent home, Dr Senior, and the conference a lot of money and embarrassment. More on this later.
The Advent Home advertised a range of services from treating ADHD and general misbehavior to serious developmental disorders and outright criminals. Basicall, he wanted it to be everything from a more structured middle school to a juvenile detention center, and predictably, it would fail at both.
I don't know how my mom found out about the Advent Home, but I know her reasons for sending me. A nasty divorce between my parents caused me to lose interest in schoo, so I barely passed 8th grade, and I had started listening to Eminem. That's it. it seems so laughably tame but that's all it took for Dr. Senior to be able to convince my mom that this behavior would escalate and the only recourse was his school which was built on and advertised correction through a strict adherence to Adventist principles. Every student came with fundamentally different problems. Some, like me were struggling scholastically while several had been ordered there by courts for violent offenses and several had what I cannot give another name other than a complete stall in mental development (one student thought and acted like a toddler, mentally and emotionally well below his age).
We were all, however, given the same treatment regimen, Maturation Therapy. This I will argue is the root of the problem. Dr. Senior claimed to have gotten his PHD in psychology from the University of Jamaica. I am not going to cast aspersions on this institution, but if he did have this degree he missed some crucial lessons and did not keep up on developments in the field. Dr. Senior had identified 70 ideals he believed every young man should emulate as he matures. I could not possibly list them, but they ranged from keeping a clean room, respect for staff to whether you used harsh language to how often you prayed. These would have made for fine rules for a religious correctional facility, but this was the entire treatment plan. Each of the 70 points would have you ranked 1-5, and you graduated by achieving a 4.5 average. 230 points overall. An important note here is all of these points were external. There was no mention of healing trauma or discussion of past actions. We were seen as immature children and by forcing mature behavior our other issues would right themselves. Right? In short, Dr. Seniors idea of therapy was entirely about becoming presentable, respect for authority, and respect for God. I want to go through these because in each I see a failing not only of the school but Adventism's handling of mental health in general. Also while I cannot speak to the lawsuit I will be linking it below as I believe sexual assault survivors and I want to say what these points contribute to how this environment may have developed.
His entire idea of personal growth was based on becoming outwardly his idea of a respectable man. He was willing to cross any number of boundaries violating others' religious taboos, disregarding the desires of the parents and showing no interest in the students as individuals. We were broken and needed only to be put in his mold and recast. One student was Rastafarian and his father wrote a letter explaining their faith and why he shouldn't cut his hair. His father had barely left town when the boy was forced to get his hair shorn off. Our 'civilian' clothes were confiscated on arrival and sorted for how appropriate he felt they were. Anything he didn't like we would get back when we left. I never did. As for speech we were strictly regulated on what words we could say. Cuss words, and even adjacent words like darn, would result in a loss of points and thus longer before we would be able to go home. Instead of psychological healing, his priority was always to make us look healed on the outside.
The most egregious example of this was a boy I will call Zach. Zach had a severe developmental disorder that in my opinion Dr. Senior was woefully ill-equipped to treat but that never dulled his confidence. Because of his neurodivergence Zach was habitually unpresentable. Zach would frequently have food dripped down his shirt, throw temper tantrums in public areas and speak loudly about bodily functions that would have been amusing from a four year old but Zach was almost 14 and just beginning puberty if you get my meaning. At every turn, Zach was not met with treatment but ridicule. To the Advent Home staff, he wasn't sick, he was misbehaved and punished severely for it. We all had to run up to 3 laps of 1/3 of a mile as discipline regularly, but Zach's condition often racked him up more laps than could be humanly run. at one point, a new staff member refused to allow Zach to eat at all until he completed a number of laps I doubt would be humanly possible, let alone for a confused neurodivergent. One of the proudest moments of my life is that I stood up for Zach and pointed out, whatever punishment was meted out, food was an illegal method of punishment in the state. My shame, however, is how often I joined in the ridicule and bullying of Zach when the staff made punishments for his misbehavior punishments for all of us. As I say, I hope I have grown.
Dr. Senior saw scruffiness and cultural differences very much the way the Dursleys from Harry Potter did. These were not the markers of young men expressing themselves or of cultural differences but of moral failings to be stamped out or hidden until they faded into normalcy. We didn't need to discover ourselves, we needed to learn the joy of conformity
The real problems would come with his reliance on authoritative structures. Both the staff and students had clear hierarchies within them. New students would be Group Members, GM, while you could be promoted to Assistant Group Leader, AGL, a Group Leader, GL, with a possible Super Group Leader SGL at the top All leaders had the authority to report misbehavior and physically restrain violent students. Here, we start to see the problems. What constituted violent behavior was entirely up to the authority figure, and unless there were witnesses who ranked equally, Dr. Senior would implicitly believe the higher ranked individual. Keep in mind that some of these kids had real criminal records, and as I've established, we were not getting our problems treated.
I want to use one student as an example. I'll give him a fake name (James) as I hope he's reformed and also should not be judged entirely on his actions when he was 16 but these are actions I either witnessed or saw the fall out of so believer their veracity. I was walking by him one day. he had been given a job he didn't want to do. Instead, he was sitting talking to a group he bullied but passed for his friends. He called out to me to do the job for him. I laughed and kept walking. he took offense and deciding I had disrespected him, chased me down, hit me, tackled me into the gravel road, and held me there until I begged to be released. Those words; I beg you to release me. I was cut, bruised, crying and bleeding. James was unharmed, but when I told Dr. Senior, he believed James because he was a group leader and I a lowly Group member.
One of the students who had been sitting on the steps with James, who I will call Sam, would get caught performing oral sex on James only a few months later. James assured Dr. Senior Sam had asked practically begged to do it, and here again, James authority had him taken at this word. They both received punishment, but Sam got the lion's share as he had initiated and must be gay. I firmly believe James pressured Sam into this, and likely not just this once.
Dr. Senior said the word "manipulative" more than anyone i have ever known. often as we lowly students tried to explain actions or avoid discipline for petty offences, he would accuse us of manipulating. In hindsight, this is how he viewed the relationship between those with power and those without. There were those the system had put in power and those below who now would try to manipulate those who had the power. from the bottom of the ladder, he was incapable of seeing sincerity or pain. only manipulation. To be clear, I don't know how much of the reality reached Dr. Senior's ears, but enough had to he had to be actively ignoring warning signs in favor of authority. I talk about this to show how Dr. Senior felt strongly that respect for authority was essential regardless how abusive the authority figure might be. Hold on to that too.
The final point is religion. It should not need said, but Dr. Senior wanted all of us studying the bible and practicing a very conservative faith even for SDA. This is fine(ish), but he also believed that Christ had predictable healing powers and that mental health was only a failing of the individual to have the faith necessary for healing.
We were all encouraged to discontinue any medications we might be taking. For me, with ADHD and Ritalin this was probably fine, but for one student with borderline schizophrenia this led to several violent episodes he was blamed for despite the staff convincing him to get off his meds. A diabetic student was eventually pulled from the program after his 4th hospitalization when he was allowed to opt out of his insulin/ blood sugar checker. Christ, as a placebo alongside medicine, is silly but fine, but as a replacement for lifesaving drugs, it can have dangerous consequences, and Dr. Senior refused to see this. In Dr Senior's mind, I believe, these boys weren't sick, they were failing to let Jesus in to heal them and that's what needed to change.
Furthermore, behavioral incidents were often met with explicitly Christiaan remedies. Issues of bullying and cursing would require not time out but a scripture reading. sometimes alone sometimes publicly, along with a public admission of what we did. This was done at a weekly meeting when Dr. Senior came down from his literal house on the hill to play mediator and in no metaphorical sense moral arbiter of our actions. in essence, he got to play God for 2 hours a week.
The most heinous example of the use of religion however was, Mr. V who I believe saw jail time. This man was a thousand walking red flags. He went to boys' rooms to pray alone, and he insisted on a separate bible study with a group of boys he was particularly close to. Outwardly, however, he was fanatically religious, and this was enough to assuage Dr. Senior of concerns. Mr. V was the guy who when the pastor said kneel for prayer he would stand with his arms to heaven, when the pastor asked for a moment of silent reflection he would exclaim AMEN! every five seconds, He played moral police intervening in behavioral issues after considering a matter settled if a student agreed to a private prayer session (yup, nothing sus here). Dr, Senior employed and sung the praises of Mr. V's work even as this concerning behavior began to escalate to the point that some students, formerly in his inner circle, began to actively distance themselves from him but were unwilling to discuss why.
Dr. Senior could not, however, ignore when Mr. V took a kid off campus without telling anyone to a small mountain cabin to "diet" for three days. Only once the police were involved could Mr. V. 's behavior no longer be ignored and his religious authority be given priority. If you are wondering Mr. V gets a fake name because, while I am telling the truth to the best of my knowledge, we were never told the full story. The student in question was withdrawn before he was willing to talk about it, and Mr. V was not seen again. I don't know what he was charged with or what stuck but I think we can put the pieces together.
Fortunately, other than some more bullying and getting through a nasty flu with nothing more than pepper water as medicine, I graduated. Yeah, shocker, he also didn't like doctors. The shock of seeing how normal people practiced Adventism after a year of this cult like fanaticism has a lot to do with why I'm on this sub and not the SDA sub, but I got off easy. For the criminals and really troubled kids recidivism was high, with several being in a proper prison weeks or months after. Several would turn around and be back at the Advent Home in months because the behavior never stopped, they just learned to act like it did. But the real harm was a boy I'll call Dan. He had depression when he arrived, it was never treated but pushed down. He pushed it down so far he became the best of us. he was very nice and a bit of a mentor to me. he worked hard and became SGL (the highest one remember) with one of the highest scores that an Advent home graduate had had. One year after leaving the school, he committed suicide by diving into an empty pool. Only then, did I realize he wasn't fine. He was never fine. He had mastered acting fine. The furthest I got in Psychology was a single college course and some youtubers (and the small bit of real therapy I've had) but even with this, I can see how Dr. Senior was out of step with the psychological practices even of the early 2000s. He was so much more focused on appearance and behavior than he was ever interested in the root cause, his system often became a new trauma rather than treating an old one. An excessive respect for authority led to abusive behavior being overlooked if not encouraged, and Jesus was treated in a professional setting as a supreme healer despite real medical issues. I saw these issues in the church I left, and my mom and extended family still practice in. This is why I really feel compelled to write this. People like Dr. Senior may seem like an Adventist version of Godwin's law. "Oh, yeah? If we can look at Jesus to heal, it'll end up like the Advent Home!" (Or Miracle Meadows) I know this sentence has never been uttered by anyone but me and maybe Sam, hope you're ok buddy, but the fact is Dr. Senior is the end stage of the ideas put into their most harmful practice, and some like Dan paid with their life.
Finally, through all of this, I remember how Dr. Senior was treated by outsiders. Entire churches prayed for his good work to continue, meetings were held for him to teach others to copy his program, he was featured multiple times in the herald and other Adventist publications. Like Mr. V his religiosity was a shield despite all the red flags, and like Mr. V he was given the respect and admiration that came with his position all the way up until there were consequences. It isn't that no one could see there were problems. He flew his red flags high. Its that the church didn't want to see the problem and didn't care until the outside world took action.
Please, if you take anything from this, look out for your SDA relatives who struggle with mental health. The church sure won't. But on a larger note, I hope this to be part of a larger discussion about bringing awareness to the churches failing on mental health and how they overlook monsters in their ranks who just haven't embarrassed them yet. Dr. Senior never sexually assaulted a kid as far as I'm aware, but he enabled and protected abusers in service of pushing his ideology all while the church sang his praises. Disclaimer: At no point in this do I feel I deliberately lied or exaggerated, but these are 20 year old memories of a traumatized 13 year old who was never given the full story. I tried to leave hearsay out, but I did find out what happened to Dan through the grapevine, though from someone I believe completely. If there are minor inaccuracies, I do apologize, but I believe I have been accurate in the larger points.
Names are changed for obvious reasons, though my change style switched cause I am bad at coming up with names when stressed, my D&D group will confirm, and this is stressful to write about even now.
The Advent Home I attended is shut and a very attractive hotel now. My research showed he partnered closely with miracle meadows, which is also now shut. If by chance Dr. Senior is still practicing somewhere, or has appointed a successor, please persuade family to look closely and critically at his practices before signing anything. He used to complain kids were manipulative but, as with all projectors, he was the master manipulator. He convinced people to consent to incredible things. I believe everyone can change if they want and as far as I know he had the education to do good work. Instead, he chose to ignore that education in service of his biases. Unless he has updated his treatment, please at the very least accompany his work with another well regarded psychologist.

Hey. My heart feels like it's about to beat out of my chest, adrenaline no doubt. Recently, my 5 year old daughter and 3 year old son met some neighbor kids, another 5 year old girl and her 12 year old brother who is autistic, but vocal. They came over today to play with my kiddos on the front porch, which is enclosed aside from the stairs that go down to the landing. The last few times the neighbor kids came by, they had no problem staying on the porch while I was cleaning the house & constantly checking on them and bringing them all snacks. I have a dollhouse, cushion pillows, and orbeez out there for them to play with to have stuff to do. I take these opportunities to get a quick clean up on the house, dishes, vacuum, toys put away, and every few minutes I am peeking at them through the door or window. I have also let them know to never ever leave the porch without either me, or their dad, with them. I'm in the middle of talking to my 12 year old son, right next to the door of the porch, while cleaning the living room up. Then, noticed that there was no longer loud kid chatter. Silence. I immediately run out to find my kids & neighbor kids are nowhere!!
Of course, I immediately freak out, and start yelling their names out. Silence. No answers. I run around the apartment complex, checking the park, our garage, the neighbor kids house, everywhere. They did not answer and at this point, I'm panicking. The 5 year old neighbor girls' older brother is just sitting on his porch when I yelled up to him if the kids had gone up there, he shook his head, looking around for them too. Frustrated, I continue yelling for them, and listening quietly for any kind of kid noises. Then I see my 5 year old daughter, leading the crusade, running as fast as she can away from me along the back fence of the apartment building. I'm frantic.
She's instructing the 5 year old neighbor girl, and her brother to keep running away from me, smirk on her face while she's running. I book it towards her (thank goodness I am a fast runner) bc she started running through the parking lot where people drive their cars WAY too fast through, and I picked her up in one arm. Her 3 year old brother runs up to me, and her 5 year old friend follows behind. "Run! Keep running!" She yelled at her friend and her brother. "No! Not safe! You aren't supposed to leave the porch." I stated sternly. I have had the outside safety talk with her, many times. She was doing great for a while, but we have always had issues with her taking off outside and convincing her baby brother to follow.
I took her and her brother upstairs, and now they're grounded in their room while I am sitting in here with them. "Go away! Don't talk to me!" She kept saying when I'd ask her what I had told her, mere minutes before she took off on the porch and unsafely convinced her small friend and baby brother to follow, and to not answer me when i called out to them. I told her how many dangers she put not only herself, but her new friend and her baby brother into. How she had ignored all of what I had said about outside safety, about leaving the porch without me or her dad, about how she cannot play on the porch anymore because she convinces everyone to do unsafe things that I specifically told her not to do.
She's a smart girl, started talking in sentences at around 1.5 years old, can rationalize, and understand what is told to her very well. She knows how to load the dish washer, sweep the floor and vacuum with efficiency (she begged me to start doing chores around 4, they say if they wanna learn to teach them) and I know she understood me when I explained to her multiple times today to NOT go anywhere except stay on that porch unless me or her dad was with her.
Even though I was diligent about watching and listening and within eyesight and earshot, all it took was 2 seconds for her to convince her friend and brother to blatantly disobey me, and deliberately do every single thing I told her not to do.
She has ALWAYS taken off on me, to the point where I dreaded taking her in public unless I had her strapped into a stroller or a backpack leash on. She's too big for either of those methods now, and has shown some serious responsibility lately and I really really thought I could trust her for just a few minutes in between checking on her and her brother & friend.
I am in disbelief, shaking and at a loss.
Have any of you dealt with kiddos like this? What can I do to get her to understand just how dangerous this was for her, her new friend and brother?? Holy cow, I am at my wits end. Please, some advice would be so greatly appreciated 😭

Background and severity of my illness:
I lived with severe ME/CFS for almost 2 years that left me not only housebound but largely bedbound. For months at a time the most I could do was get to the bathroom – sometimes having to take a break on the way. The illness fitted all the criteria of ME/CFS and was defined by post-exertional malaise which occurred if I tried to do a great number of things, including watching films, chatting for any length of time on the phone etc. Even sitting at a table to eat would trigger the malaise. I was only able to tolerate visits from a friend rarely and was cared for by my mum who cooked all meals etc. (I am an adult who previously lived independently and was going to the gym 2 hours a day etc.) Doctors I talked to were not helpful and had no insight into the condition other than diagnosing it as ME/CFS. I had many rounds of blood tests which were basically clear and even a brain MRI which was also clear. The only ‘treatment’ I was offered was CBT therapy which I refused because I was not depressed (other than sometimes struggling with my feelings about being ill) and in any case would not have had the energy to do therapy, even if it was available over zoom from my bed. Aside from the general crushing fatigue and post-exertional malaise I also had difficultly sleeping, which is another typical symptom. I suffered from some cognitive dysfunction during the illness which left me struggling to read things of any length or respond to written messages from friends. Often I also suffered from light and noise sensitivity. Anyone who has suffered from this condition will know how very lonely it can feel and how frightening it can be to not know how long it might go on for, especially when one believes there is no treatment. While ill I got most of my information about ME/CFS from the ME Association who collate research on a regular basis that supports a ‘medical model’ of the illness: that is, it flags up and sometimes funds research relating to finding an underlying biological/physical cause with the hope that one day a drug based treatment (or something akin to that) will be available to sufferers.
When things started to look more hopeful:
At some point, I became disheartened with the healthcare system as a whole since I felt so abandoned by doctors and I thought to myself that even if they eventually found a physical cause for ME/CFS that it would probably mean getting put on a drug with lots of side effects that I would have to take for the rest of my life… It was at this point that I started looking into alternatives that were not based in mainstream medicine. I looked up ‘functional medicine’ which is a more holistic approach to the mainstream medical model with functional-medicine-practioners considering the body as a whole system, rather than a bunch of individual organs and limbs, and the mind and body as being connected. Something that had been repeatedly dismissed by NHS Drs I’d spoken to was that I had mildly raised ALT levels (this relates to liver function). I had been told that this wouldn’t have anything to do with my ME/CFS and was not unusual. However, after looking into functional medicine, I decided to take a supplement to support my liver function since it is part of the body’s ‘system’. I took artichoke extract which I believe was helpful. I also noted that I had been suffering from mild constipation for some time and started taking a digestive enzyme supplement with meals: it took about 24 hours for my tummy to get used to this but after the short adjustment period my digestion seemed much healthier. It seems very important to me in the treatment of ME/CFS to consider the body as a whole system and not ignore minor issues, as they can be clues to what your body needs.
The Importance of Environment to Healing:
While ill I’d had to leave my flat and had moved into a spare bedroom at my mum’s place. Unfortunately this room was quite sparsely decorated, with not very much daylight and it looked out onto a public walkway where local youths often gathered and engaged in anti-social behaviour. In short, it was not a particularly relaxing space to be in. I was lucky that eventually, after many months, another room in the house was made available and this room was nice, quiet and had a lovely view of trees, as well as access to a balcony. Before this, I had not been able to get outside at all. I remember thinking to myself when I moved into the new room ‘this feels like a space I could heal in’. Since the mind and body are, after all, connected this was very important.
The Beginning of Recovery:
In almost two years of being ill I’d never spoken to a chronic fatigue specialist since I could only get to see one privately and this was expensive. However, it came about that I did talk to a private specialist over zoom – a Dr from a fatigue clinic in London – and he said to me that he had treated people over zoom and they had made a full recovery. He seemed credible to me but I was completely baffled as to how this could be true, seeing as my understanding was that it was an incurable condition. He said he had seen recovery in people with ME/CFS as severe as mine and that it was important to be hopeful. For some reason, this simple thing resonated with me and I reflected to myself that I did believe that I could get better… He also told me, which really confused me, that nobody gets better from ME/CFS just by resting and that he would advise me to sit on a chair on the balcony for a few minutes each day and build up tolerance. After our conversation I was still really confused as to why that advice would work to build up tolerance, but thought to myself that it must be both physical and mental tolerance. Following his advice, I went to sit in a chair – noticing that my symptoms were rising – and thought to myself that his advice sounded a bit like the way you would treat a phobia – by exposure therapy… It was then that I experienced a kind of eureka moment! What if, I asked myself, your body had decided for whatever reason that everything in the world was dangerous? I thought about various ways in which that might potentially come about. What if you’d had a virus and your body decided that to protect you it would maintain the symptoms of illness rather than risk you going out and being exposed to more viruses? What if you’d been so burnt out at work or struggling in a relationship or been just ‘keeping going’ for so long that your body decided to force you to stop after you had repeatedly ignored warning signs that you were becoming overwhelmed? What if you were a really high achiever, someone who didn’t let life get in the way of your ambitions, or an athlete who worked passed pain – and your body decided it needed you to stop and give yourself time? I can understand if this doesn’t resonate with you, but all I can say, is that while I was having these thoughts I realised that my symptoms were abating. For the first time in almost 2 years I felt that I could sit in a chair for as long as I wanted.
Ongoing Recovery:
At first I was really incredulous that just telling myself when symptoms arose, "It’s ok. You are safe. It’s ok to stand up and walk across the room. It’s ok to go into the kitchen. You are safe" etc. was really helping. But after a few days of saying this to myself every time symptoms arose, the progress was undeniable. I was able to do things that I hadn’t been able to do for all the duration of the illness. Within 3 days of reassuring myself that I was safe every time symptoms arose I was able to leave the house by myself, get a taxi and go visit my brother. It was astonishing. Now, here comes a hitch… soon after these big leaps forward in what I could do… and the really huge rush of excitement that came with it, I began to feel manic: I now had too much energy and couldn’t sleep at all! After the mania had passed, with some helpful medical support, I began to experience anxiety: my anxiety related to the relationship I was now well enough to go back to, and other family relationships, and the worries I had about how I was going to cope with various things in my life that I hadn’t had to think about while I was ill. It was at this point that I realised that in fact the illness had been ‘protecting’ me from dealing with certain aspects of my life which I found overwhelming. That’s not to say that it wasn’t a physical illness: it very much was in my experience of it. The illness was in fact the result of being overwhelmed in some respect. These things had not been conscious before and I had not greatly worried about them during my illness, but now they had come into consciousness. I share this because I am certainly in a better position now, supported by a therapist and working through my issues, which are not insurmountable, than when I was ill and bedbound. It’s been about 6 weeks now since I first regained most of my mobility and I have been visiting friends and going for proper walks and even doing active yoga from home while I work on my fitness. I am also pacing myself more sensibly than when I first realised I could engage with my condition on a mental level with efficacy. I now know that being kind to myself as I adjust and going at a slower pace is important.
Now that my perspective has shifted away from the purely medical model, I have found it interesting to watch videos about other people’s recovery stories. Everyone’s seems to be a bit different while they find what works for them. My recovery story is only my experience and obviously everyone’s journey towards ME/CFS recovery is unique to them and totally valid. It’s about finding what works.
Here is a link to a channel where lots of people share their recovery stories, in case you find it of interest: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNX_MIJ_pJAa_wpF1y9p9acM3cn443B0t
I’d also like to share this meditation link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiMQBfetkFbY6wuEptrmODXv50s-mKpjx These are guided meditations facilitated by a woman who lived with ME/CFS for 10 years and it is clear to me that she fully understands the mind-body connection and how deeply we can be unsettled without realising it. Her meditations offer support to healing, body and mind.
If you are reading this because you are living with this condition, I send you all my love and hope. Recovery is possible.

Hola! I am going to CDMX soon. I will fly in to the international airport just before 8 in the evening. I'd like to just catch the bus or go with the metro downtown to my hostel. I read that big luggage is not allowed on the metro, is this correct? I will be carrying a big backpack and a small personal item.
Thanks :-)

Background
Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago of volcanic nature located in the eastern Atlantic ocean, just west of southern Morocco. The chain of islands extends for approximately 490 kilometers (300 miles).
Canary Islands is both geologically and climatologically almost identical to Hawaii, and as such, international tourism has been the main pillar of its economy since the 1960s.
The Event
At around 10:15 PM of June 22nd, 1976, emergency services in all the main seven islands received a flood of calls, with people reporting having seen a strange and frightening phenomenon taking place in the night sky. Most of these callers described what they were seeing as 'a gigantic explosion of light' or 'a massive ball of fire', and all of them said the phenomenon seemed to be taking place somewhere far in the west. These accounts were quickly confirmed true by local authorities, since the 'explosion of light' in question shone for several minutes before dissipating.
Many witnesses also added having seen one or two much smaller red lights moving strangely before the 'explosion' took place -rising from the horizon or from behind the mountains at very high speed, although others added that the lights flew following 'a zig-zag trajectory'.
No sound was heard or reported regarding the phenomenon, and no consequences seemed to follow except for a frightened population.
A foreign tourist vacationing in the island of Gran Canaria took the only known legit picture available of the phenomenon, from the balcony of his hotel room in Maspalomas. Here you can see a bigger version of the picture with enhanced contrast.
Here's a drawing extracted from an official report made by the Spanish Air Force. The drawing depicts a description of the event made with the information gathered from witnesses reports in the western coast of Gran Canaria. The mountains in the drawing are a depiction of the silhouette of Tenerife, the island immediately west of Gran Canaria. In order to understand the extreme magnitude of the 'explosion of light', please take into account that Tenerife is 70 kilometers (44 miles) away and its tallest peak -Mount Teide, which is in fact Spain's tallest mountain- is 3,718 meters tall (12,198 feet). Here's a real picture of the landscape depicted in the drawing, for a better perspective.
Hong Kong's bulk carrier vessel Osaka Bay was sailing from Capetown (South Africa) to Southampton (United Kingdom). The event took place when she was some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of the island of La Gomera, and her crew did also witness the phenomenon. Here's a drawing made out of their witness reports.
The crew of the Spanish Navy's corvette Atrevida (F-61) observed the phenomenon as she was sailing just south of the island of Fuerteventura. Her captain's account of the event;
"At 22:27 local time of June 22nd it was seen, for the first time, a bright light of an intense bluish yellow color, taking off and rising in altitude towards our position... Once it reached certain height (15º-18º) it stood still, turning its light projection and showing its light source. It remained like that for approximately two minutes, before bursting into a large circle of bright bluish yellow light that remained in that position for forty minutes even after the original preceding phenomenon had faded away.
Two minutes later the light source split, its lower half being smaller and standing in the middle of the circle of light, turning into a bluish cloud as the split half that had originated this bluish mass faded away. The upper half gained altitude while describing a fast but irregular spiraling trajectory, vanishing afterwards. None of these movements had any effect whatsoever on the initial circle of light, whose features remained the same, partially illuminating land and sea, which leads to believe that it wasn't an object far in the distance, but rather close".
Here's the translation of local newspaper excerpts detailing the event;
"It was spotted between 10:15 and 10:30 PM and, according to one of our journalists who has his residence at Valle de Aridane (La Palma island), at that time he observed something that looked like a rocket emerging from the sea and flying towards El Time peak shining with an intense red light. The same phenomenon was spotted in Tazacorte (in La Palma island too). The ferry Villa de Agaete, sailing from Las Palmas, could observe a great shining at exactly 10:20 PM, shortly before docking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The shining, which lasted about five minutes, appeared like a rocket that had come out of the sea". - El Día (June 23rd, 1976)
"Last night, at around half past ten, a strange object was spotted from several points of our region, especially in the areas of Gáldar and Telde (Gran Canaria), where most phone calls we received in that regard were from. Our callers explained to us that it was a round object that grew massively in size as it rose, clearly defined before it began to fade.
The aforementioned phenomenon began as a couple of red objects that moved in zig-zag, forming into some sort of spiral whose lower half ended in three clearly differentiated but overlaying stripes with some degree of separation between them. They were of a very bright red color and faded gradually. On top of these stripes there was what looked like two powerful blue focal lights, which began to diminish in intensity too before turning into a thin haze afterwards". - La Provincia (June 23rd, 1976)
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Thanks to these accounts and description of the events, calculations could be made in order to ascertain the phenomenon's origins. At the moment of its beginning (which many witnesses described as a rocket taking off) the sun was already 13.7º under the horizon and its azimuth angle was 307º (northwest). Setting a hypothetical POV in the geographical center of the archipelago (28.50º N, 15.75º W, just north of Gran Canaria, it was calculated that during it's first phase (the 'rocket lights') the phenomenon was located some 762 kilometers (473 miles) straight west, at an approximate altitude of 46 kilometers (28 miles). By the end of its final phase (the 'explosion of light') it had traveled to a point located at around 1,062 kilometers (662 miles) west and had risen to a final altitude of 90 kilometers (56 miles).
These calculations became a very important piece of data, we'll get back to them later.
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The UFO/Aliens narrative (AKA the press cherry-picks the statement of one particularly imaginative witness in order to sell a story of very questionable credibility)
Being the 1970s, almost immediately certain sectors of the press began talking about UFO -and subsequently about aliens, even though there was no further evidence to suggest such thing. The local authorities (the Army especially) focused their efforts into reassuring the population that there was nothing to fear, while at the same time gathering all the information they could gather in order to investigate the phenomenon.
In June of 1994, exactly eighteen years after that night, the Spanish Army declassified the 107-pages long investigation report of what by then it had been baptized as the "OVNI de Canarias 22/06/1976" ("Canary Islands' 06/22/1976 UFO"). Back then very few people in Spain had internet access, and as such the release of these documents went unnoticed for most people. However, many journalists rushed to get a copy of the report, and many of these worked for UFO/paranormal magazines of dubious scientific accuracy. And, aware of the kind of reaction they wanted to generate from the public they target, they focused in just one part of the report; Dr. Padrón's story.
Francisco Julio Padrón León (who passed away in 2013) was a general practitioner that lived and had his office in the rural municipality of Gáldar, which is located precisely in the northwestern part of the island of Gran Canaria (and precisely, where a lot of people reported witnessing the phenomenon. Unlike most witnessed, however, Padrón told Spanish authorities a much more extravagant version of the events.
That night he had been called in person to check on a local patient at her home, and the doctor had called a taxi in order to reach the patient's residence; Padrón lived in the town of Guía, and the patient lived at a small parish some 10 kilometers away (6 miles) named Las Rosas. Padrón, his companion and the taxi driver claimed having observed the phenomenon when the car was covering the last two kilometers of the route (at that point, a very narrow and barely paved rural road). Or more specifically, Padrón and the taxi driver claimed having bumped into it; because, according to the statement, at that moment the car's headlights illuminated a sphere that was floating right in front of them. The Padrón and the taxi driver described it as measuring some 30 meters (98 feet), slightly bright and slightly translucent. They (the doctor, especially) described seeing two humanoid entities inside the sphere, surrounded by what looked to be inner aluminum structural parts of the sphere. These figures were, per their statements, between 2.5 and 3 meters tall (8'2" to 9'10"), one taller than the other, and they were dressed in red skin-tight suits. Padrón claimed that these beings stood facing each other, apparently interacting among them but didn't seem to notice his or the taxi driver's presence. It then began to grow in size until (his words) "becoming as big as a 20-story building" and began ascending. At this point of his statement he said he went to check on her patient, after which he told all people present at the patients' home, inviting everyone to go outside and check by themselves what he claimed he had seen. By the time everyone joined Dr. Padrón to watch, the sphere was already very big, standing high in the sky and then it flew away at extreme speed ("faster than any aircraft I've seen in my life", Padrón said in the report) leaving a trail of blue smoke behind before vanishing in the distance, towards Tenerife island.
In his individual report, the taxi driver made just a very skimp corroboration of Padrón's statement, omitting most details of his version of the phenomenon. It was just a few sentences long. The taxi driver was a man in his sixties (and wore glasses) of very little formal education -in fact, his preliminary handwritten statement had to be redacted to correct numerous grammar and spelling mistakes.
As for the companion (a relative of the patient, who was traveling in the backseat), this man only describes seeing "intense bright light everywhere" and noticing "both the doctor and the taxi driver's agitation". He claimed the amount of light, plus the fact that by sitting in the backseat the taxi driver and the doctor's bodies blocked his view, hadn't allowed him to see what Padrón claimed having witnessed.
The declassified document contained many more witness reports gathered from the same area, but none of them matched Dr. Padrón's story about a sphere with two humanoids figures in it; every other description -most of them provided by locals- mentions the same enormous disc of light in the west night sky. A car mechanic and his wife described it as "a car's headlight thrice as large as the full moon". A school teacher mentioned having seen it from his house's window through a pair of binoculars when it began to fade, noticing its "fog-like appearance, and the night stars could be seen through", and mentioning what looked like a couple of bluish beams inside. A farmer explained in his statement that it looked like "a fire spot", he too mentioned seeing "two blue lines" in it. Not even the sick woman Padrón had come to provide medical attention to nor her relatives confirmed the Dr.'s description of the phenomenon, matching instead everyone else's.
That didn't stop the journalists working for UFO/paranormal-themed magazines or even some journalists working for reputable newspapers from disregarding all these credible witnesses and instead focusing on the most outlandish one; Dr. Padrón. In summer of 1994, several of these Spanish magazines like Enigmas, Año Cero or Más Allá rushed to publish a drawing depicting Padrón's description of the 'humanoid figures dressed in red' in their articles, not only making absolutely no mention of any of the other witnesses but also claimed that the propulsion system of the alleged 'alien spacecraft' had scorched a nearby onion field -the area is full of that type of crops- and that posterior chemical analysis of the scorched terrain had yielded wildly unusual results. We'll come back to this point later.
Sketch depicting Padrón's (unique, literally) description of the event. Yes, someone from the Army - more specifically from the Air Force- was tasked with sitting down next to this guy and spending a good deal of time drawing whatever ludicrous thing Padrón felt like coming up with.
Something worth mentioning; these publications made heavy emphasis on Padrón's education -he was a GP, after all. As in, as extraordinary as his claims were, these were being made by a man of a high level of education, intelligent and therefore (in the eyes of many) automatically worth of credibility. In fact, the patient's relative traveling in the taxi's backseat -a farmhand that had never received formal schooling and was illiterate- said in his witness report that one of the reasons why he did not question Padrón's statement was precisely the abysmal difference in education between him and the doctor, and kind of assumed that if an educated man like Padrón said that such thing had indeed happened, then it must have been true.
A local newspaper interviewed Dr. Padrón shortly after the documents were declassified. And by then, eighteen years after that night, Padrón added some more details to his already bizarre account, providing these journalists with something that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The X-Files (which back in 1994 had begun to be broadcasted in Spain, with significant success). Back in 1976 Padrón had already added in his statement that he did not feel fear but 'a strange sense of wellbeing and excitement' in his encounter with the alleged spacecraft; now he was also saying that these beings -which never communicated with him in any way, per his account- had not only the ability to erase anyone's memories off their brains, but they also can "make you see whatever they want you to do for months or years, replacing an 'energy' [his word] in your brain". If these statements weren't absurd enough, Dr. Padrón warned the journalists about not taking him seriously, because in the last three years he "had observed that anyone who had been skeptical of my statements and hurt my credibility in public has passed away within six or seven months, all of them to cancer, eight people in total so far".
Although the documents that included the description of his ludicrous story hadn't been declassified until 1994, ever since 1976 many journalists had managed to get in touch with Padrón and hear his story -the doctor himself wasn't exactly quiet about it either -and some of these are allegedly the cancer victims Padrón would've been referring to. There's no way to check the veracity of that, since the only source of that statement was Padrón himself.
Between 1976 and 1994 the doctor's story circulated in a somewhat obscure manner, being referred to in some UFO articles here and there -and adding their own artistic depictions of his outlandish story. Padrón was already telling any 'paranormal' journalist willing to listen about the scorched onion field. Turned out, back in June of 1976 a farmer in the municipality of Guía did indeed notice an area in one of his onion crops that seemed to have been burned, but that man had specified that that hadn't happened until the morning of June 24th, a good day and half after Padrón's alleged 'alien encounter'. What is more, although the cause of these burns couldn't be ascertained, they were indistinguishable from fire damage. To this day it's thought that these burnt onion plants were nothing but the result of vandalism or a prank. Some UFO skepticism authors have raised the possibility of the doctor himself being responsible.
Picture of one of the many onion fields in Guía and Gáldar. To this day, Dr. Padrón's 'scorched onion field' remains a running joke among the older residents in these municipalities.
At the time Padrón even managed, out of sheer insistence, to get that soil tested. Surprisingly to no one, all chemical, physical and radiological analyses performed yielded no unusual results. The sampling and testing was conducted by Hungarian-Spanish physician Alejandro Carlos de Gyorko-Gyorkos, who at the time was curious about paranormal phenomena and had interviewed Padrón many times in 1976. According to a journalist for Naukas (A Spanish online science and technology magazine that specializes in skepticism and debunking of pseudoscience), in 1992 Gyorko-Gyorkos described Padrón as a man that "interprets everything he comes up with as real". By 1994 Padrón was also claiming that the Spanish Air Force had threatened him with legal action to silence him, and that Gyorko-Gyorkos was a man whose "ethics he'd rather not talk about". Padrón had never mentioned these alleged legal threats at any point before June of that year, precisely once the documents were declassified, a coincidence that hadn't gone unnoticed.
Some skepticism authors have elucubrated about the possible inspiration for Padrón's 'tall men in dressed in red spacesuits'. Not exactly very original.
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Explanation (1994 and 2001)
The 1976 document concludes that the origen of the 22/06/976 UFO -although in reality the Spanish Air force used then the acronym FANI (Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado', 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon') when referring to it- was unknown. In 1994 these paranormal journalists presented such conclusion as an automatic evidence of aliens, or at least UFOs in the sense popular culture depicts then. In reality, as anyone can notice upon checking the report, 'unknown' means precisely that; unknown. At no point in the report the authors bring up rebuttals for any possible logical or rational explanation, but rather they conclude that back in 1976 there was just not enough evidence to provide an accurate explanation of its origin.
The same report contains the transcription of precisely Dr. Gyorko-Gyorkos's opinion about Dr. Padrón's reasoning (safe to assume, by then had already made up his mind about the man) in a military court. In the transcription, and in what looks like a generous maneuver to dismiss Padrón's claims without going as far to humiliate him, Gyorko-Gyorkos explains a military judge that that night Dr. Padrón, possibly overworked and sleep-deprived, misremembered what had seen and his fatigued psyche had create a mixed recollection with what he had seen and what had crossed his mind. As for the taxi driver, this man was probably highly impressionable -apparently the Dr. had behaved in a very excited manner during the phenomenon- and thus in a way Padrón had 'passed' his delusional belief onto him. The military court ruled that "Padrón's credibility could not, for the time being, be corroborated".
Of course, at this point of this writeup a question still lingers; what was whatever thing close to a million and half people saw in the night sky back on June 22nd, 1976? First, let's go over the world's state of affairs at the time, because this is one of these 'mysteries' in which history had been hinting at the answer almost from the beginning;
In 1976 the world was still amidst of a low-key conflict between two superpowers with lots of political tensions; the United States (plus NATO) versus the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (plus other members of the Warsaw Pact). AKA, Cold War. As part of the Western Bloc, at the time Spain had been a long-time ally of NATO. However, the country wouldn't become a NATO member itself until 1982 -which was so controversial within Spain that a referendum would be held in 1986 questioning Spanish people's desire to remain in the military alliance.
As such, while Spain was a Western ally, back in 1976 it was not really 'in the game' yet, especially when taking into account that, unlike in other countries, NATO membership wasn't that welcome. Please notice the year the Spanish army declassified the documents; 1994. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (and with it , the fall of the Iron Curtain) helped lower the stakes this international poker game, and as such the world would learn about all sorts of crazy things that had been going on at both sides of the conflict in absolute secrecy.
Earlier in this writeup there is a data-based description of the phenomenon's behavior, but most importantly, it's ballistic trajectory. Adding to that, countless witnesses had described seeing either one or a couple of lights 'taking off like a rocket'. Let's remember; it had been ascertained that it originated at about 700 kilometers west and had moved further west in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while reaching an altitude of 90 kilometers -which is about the lower thermosphere. This had already raised the first suspicions among the members of the Spanish intelligence services, suspicions that gained weight in 1994 -and that likely led to the declassification of the report- when much clearer and straightforward communication between the United States' government and Spain's allowed for a more open investigation of the sort of testing the Americans were engaging in. In 2001 an article of research journalism, coauthored by science journalists Ricardo Campo and Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos finally identified what was behind the 1976 aerial phenomenon.
Campo and Ballester had already noticed its ballistic trajectory calculated in 1976. In 1999, suspecting already who (country) was the 'culprit', they accessed Jonathan McDowell's database of ballistic missile launches. Previous to that Campo and Ballester had failed to find any useful information in NASA's archives, as none of the launches in their registry matched the evidence, and prior to that -right after the 1994 declassification, in fact- they had traveled to Moscow looking for the possible explanation there. Russian military authorities had adamantly denied their involvement in the phenomena, which directed the investigators towards other leads (while at the same time not disregarding the possibility of Russia being behind it after all.
Finally, Campo and Ballester bumped into these two rows of the database. First column indicates the launch identification number. Second and third, the date (in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Fourth is GMT time (which, adjusting for a compilation error, coincides with Canary Islands' GMT+1 local time when the phenomenon took place). The fifth column tells the type of missile, the sixth on identifies the launch platform and finally the seventh one indicates who was responsible for the launch.
Simply put, the information in these rows means; on June 22nd, 1976, two Poseidon C3 thermonuclear missiles were launched from US Navy's submarine USS Von Steuben), at 20:16 and 20:17 GTM.
The database does not include location (that information remains classified) but during their research Campo and Ballester learned from McDowell himself that the US Navy's eastern test range covers from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) all the way Ascension Island. The location of the 1976's phenomenon falls well within such range.
From here, Campos and Ballester offered an explanation of its optics. The Poseidon C3 missile carries several 40-kiloton nuclear warheads (normally ten) -for comparison, Little Boy was a single 15-kiloton bomb. Once the two 400-kiloton missiles detonated in the thermosphere, the quick expansion of extremely hot atmospheric gases reflected the sunlight back to Earth, even though by then in Canary Islands the sun was already well below the horizon and the sky was pitch black; at 90 kilometers of altitude, these expanding gases were still in direct path of the sunlight. This reflection is what made the phenomenon appear so bright and big in spite of the 700+ kilometers of distance between witnesses and its source.
Campo and Ballester's article provided also an explanation for other similar events -albeit not that espectacular as the one pertaining this writeup- that had taken place in the islands between 1973 and 1979. All except one were found to be the result of other American thermonuclear tests, with the exception of this one seen south of the archipelago in 1979 -and finally acknowledged by Russia in 2017, although they did not explain what exactly it was.
Conclusion
TL;DR: It was a couple of thermonuclear missiles launched in secrecy by the US Navy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The 'aliens' witness was, to put it mildy, an individual with an extreme tendency to make ludicrous statements and a marked need to be the centre of attention.
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Campo and Ballester's work is available online for free, and anyone who speak Spanish can check the story of their investigation for themselves.
This is not to say that the whole 'aliens' narrative died down. To this day, the story of the 1976 phenomenon continues to be shared sometimes in media as 'proof' of UFO/aliens, even though it's literally neither -coincidentally, failing to mention the vast amount of evidence pointing at a thermonuclear test. In June of 2016 several newspapers published articles remembering the phenomenon in its 40th anniversary, and pretty much all of them reminded the reader right from the headline that the 'mystery' had long been solved.
Links and Sources
"Two red giants riding a missile" - Excellent article in the aforementioned online magazine Naukas written by Ricardo Campo himself on the phenomenon (Spanish)
The Spanish Army's declassified document on the event. It can be downloaded for free as a 107-pages long PDF
2016 Article (Spanish)

Now that Biden has signed the deal into law, what can we expect in the next 17 months leading up to the 2024 election?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/05/five-things-the-debt-ceiling-deal-suggests-about-the-future
1. House MAGA Republicans will be less of a force
It was supposed to be their ace in the hole, their single biggest bargaining leverage. But in the end, House Maga Republicans got surprisingly little out of their agreement to increase the debt ceiling.
Yes, they were irresponsible. They manufactured a debt crisis out of whole cloth. They played a reckless hostage-taking game. They could have wrecked the full faith and credit of the United States. They demanded spending cuts that would have hurt lots of vulnerable Americans.
Yet in the end, they got almost zilch. They’ve been shown to be paper tigers.
The final deal leaves Biden’s economic agenda mainly untouched (except for a limited rollback of some IRS funds and the ending of a pause on federal student loan payments expected to expire anyway).
And although it imposes new work requirements for the beneficiaries of some federal aid, including childless adults who receive food stamps, it increases spending in the program (and is expected to cover more people) while sparing Medicaid.
I very much doubt that Kevin McCarthy has suddenly discovered the virtues of compromise and bipartisanship. His speakership continues to depend on the support of Maga crazies in the House, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Lauren Boebert.
I expect that in coming months the House Magas will try all sorts of outrageous things – trying to impeach Biden, drag Hunter Biden through muddy hearings, pass bills prioritizing freedom of religion above all other values, even flirt with a national abortion ban.
Their hearings will get lots of play on Fox News and Newsmax but they’ll lead nowhere, and their bills will die in the Senate.
2. Biden’s quiet diplomacy is working, at least for now
Biden didn’t try to rally the public behind him. He might have told the nation why the very existence of the debt ceiling was an affront to both the constitution and the nation’s standing. He could have threatened to use the 14th amendment and publicly invited the court to rule on it.
But this was not Biden. In his 50 years of public service, he has never delivered a speech with the power to alter the public’s understanding of a major issue.
Over the next 17 months, Biden won’t take on Maga Republicans openly and vociferously, no matter how outrageously they act. Instead, he’ll quietly work away at implementing his infrastructure, technology, and climate legislation.
3. The Trump factor wasn’t in play, but it will be
As in Sherlock Holmes’s mystery The Adventure of Silver Blaze, about the dog that didn’t bark, one of the most revealing aspects of the deal was the silence of Donald Trump during its critical final weeks of negotiation.
Had Trump weighed in loudly against it, House Republicans would not have gone along.
Biden’s behind-the-scenes strategy of compromise will work less well closer to the election, as America is subjected to full-bore Trump. And it’s certainly no match for a growing White Christian nationalist movement that Trump has enabled, which threatens the very essence of American democracy.
Some commentators argue that the debt-ceiling deal begins to “reestablish a broad bipartisan political center.”
But there can be no center to American politics as long as most Republican voters support Trump and most Republican lawmakers follow Trump’s lead. In other words, there’s no “center” between democracy and authoritarianism.
4. The debt will continue to soar, but that may not be a problem
The debt agreement will cut expected increases in federal spending by $1.5tn over a decade, mainly by freezing some funding and limiting spending to 1% growth in 2025.
Yet the national debt as a percentage of the total economy will continue to grow.
This is largely due to the inevitable demographics of baby boomers – who will be retiring and collecting Social Security and Medicare. ("Will be"? The baby boomer generation has already started retiring. The earliest baby boomers began retiring in 2010. - Joadzilla)
Republicans will almost certainly take their debt savings as an invitation for more tax cuts on the wealthy and big corporations, just as they turned savings from their 2011 deal into the 2017 tax cut.
Democrats should resist this and continue to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Democrats must also advocate for more generous safety nets and public investments.
There’s no good reason why the US remains the only rich nation without paid family leave, paid vacations, universal health care, affordable college, child and elder care. These are all hugely popular with voters. Make them issues for 2024.
As to the debt itself, neither party really cares about it. Although doubling from $15tn in 2011 to $31.4tn now, it has not had any obvious negative effect on the economy.
5. The federal budget will become little more than social security, Medicare, and defense
Perhaps the biggest single shift in Republican strategy as revealed in the debt deal is the Republican party’s newfound willingness to protect social security and Medicare.
Think how far we’ve come from 2005 when George W Bush tried to privatize social security. This time around, Maga Republicans went out of their way to wall off these popular programs. (Trump warned Magas not to touch them.)
In a few years, if present trends continue, the federal budget will essentially be social security, Medicare, and national defense – with a few odds-and-ends tacked on. Non-defense discretionary spending has been falling as a share of the economy for several years and it will now fall even further.
I don’t want to minimize the significance of what just occurred. America has dodged a lethal bullet. Biden played it about as well as it could have been played, given who he is and who they are. Had the debt ceiling not been lifted, we’d be facing economic Armageddon within days.
But in terms of the factors contributing to that lethal bullet, little has changed. The Maga Republicans have been stymied for now, but they’re still dangerous as hell.

First off, some embarrassing background because its relevant. One of my kinks is that I like to have sex when I'm very drunk, intoxicated, tired, half asleep, out of it etc. I don't know, something about the lack of control, just turning my brain off and letting a trusted partner complete take the reins and just go to town, my only role is to just enjoy, it works for me ok, don't judge. It actually took a decent amount of convincing to get my current BF to do this with me as he was very uncomfortable with the concept at first. Having sex with me semi-incapacitated made him uncomfortable but eventual he realized how much I like it and that its a trust thing/he's not taking advantage and he's embraced it. I've also been trying to get him to do some discrete semi-public stuff. I guess my point is he's never pushed my boundaries sexually at all, if anything it's quite the opposite.
Ok so, the main story. We were at a house party together with mostly my friend group (he and his friends are mostly, hanging out in a small group or doing outdoor activities type of people, while my friends are more the partying type). The night was winding down some people had left and those still there were kinda chillin, making out, whatever. He was a little drunk, I was VERY drunk. He was sitting on the couch and I was kinda half passed out laying on top of him. He was kinda just sitting there with one hand sorta up my shirt (not showing anyone anything) and occasionally bending forward and kissing my forehead/face. Nothing I would have any problem with at all.
Anyway, a guy I've met briefly a few times and that my boyfriend has never met was apparently watching this. Lets call him G. G comes by and starts telling my BF she's drunk leave her alone, you can't do that, etc. My BF tells him it's fine, we're a couple, we're dating, its not a problem. After a little back and forth G leaves. I didn't really say anything I was pretty out of it and not really paying attention, I'm getting the details of this convo from BF. So apparently he goes off and tells some people enough is enough, he can't watch this "sexual assault" and he's going to call me an Uber and have it take me home. Keep in mind my BF and I don't know any of this.
So sometime later, once the Uber has arrived, G comes back over to us and starts yelling at my BF. He says some stuff like, "Enough is enough" "She's coming with me" "You're done". My boyfriend is starting to protest but G physically grabs me away from him and starts dragging me out the door towards the Uber. BF is following him now kinda yelling at him to stop and I remember sorta mumbling stop or I don't wanna go or something. Now keep in mind, my BF doesn't know about the Uber or anything he just knows some stranger has physically ripped his GF off him and is dragging her against his and her will towards some random car with the door open. This whole thing is also happening really fast, it's a suburban house, it's not far from the couch, out the front door, and down the driveway, this is all happening in like probably 30 secs. So at this point my BF clearly thinks I'm in danger and he just attacks G while he's trying to get me into the car. I didn't really see the fight, apparently he got the better of him pretty quick and kinda beat him up/pushed him over (G's totally fine, maybe scratches and bruises). BF then grabs me and gets the fuck out, goes down the street, around a corner or two, and then calls a good friend of his who picks us up and takes us home.
It's been two days and shit is weird. Apparently a lot was said after we left and rumors are being spread because BF has gotten hateful messages and I've been getting messages from people saying he's violent and dangerous and I should leave him or that they can help me if he's abusive. My BF is so not violent. He has never been in any kind of fight in his entire life. He barely slept that night and he felt horrible the next morning. That morning he even wanted to go to the police station to like, "turn himself in" and I had to convince him not to and that he didn't do anything wrong. I've tried to explain to my friends it was just a misunderstanding and that he was just defending me. My closest friends are sorta convinced but a lot of my friends don't really know him that well and are now kinda convinced he's violent.
I really think G made some stuff up or changed the story after we left. Maybe its an ego thing too because G is big guy, like 6' 2" - 6' 4" and not lanky, and my BF is only like 5' 9"-10" and skinny even though he is very athletic. I don't know, are we in the wrong here? What do we even do? I don't want all my friends to hate him.
EDIT: Just want to add based on some comments, that pretty much everyone left at the party at this point knew each other pretty well and knew that BF and I were in a long term committed relationship. Also we were by far not the only ones getting a little physical, many couples were making out fairly heavily. And also there seems to be some confusion. I was not being groped or having public sex, BF just sitting there with his hand resting on my chest and occasionally kissing my forehead/face. My point about the kink was just to illustrate that my boundaries were not being pushed at all.

Started S1 rewatch (3 eps) - some observations:

• they are short!! The pilot must be like 15 mins. Barely a set up. Hard to scratch that itch. To everyone who complains about the S3 episode lengths I’d say S1’s way too short!!
  
• Ted said “ain’t in Kansas anymore” right off the plane. It’s clear from the very first episode how they are going to end it. Beard is absolutely Toto
  
• The parallels to the finale (and set up) are all there (they’re convo on the plane about being nuts, Ussie Guy, not able to sleep etc.)
  
• Ted really acted and sounded like Ned Flanders - now I can see it’s all an act… kinda overcompensating
  
• Ted sees Nate immediately. It’s very telling when Nate said “No one knows my name”. The bullying is very obvious. And Roy only spoke out because Ted mentioned it and Roy hated that.
  
• A Winkle in Time…. It’s all about Roy coming to become a leader. It took 3 seasons.
  
• Roy and Colin shower scene - Yup Colin looked down and thought of global warming.
  
• Roy hated public speaking. In fact S1 Roy is VERY soft spoken (I had to turn the vol up) except when he swears. (Oh damn Phoebe 3 years ago was cuuuuuuute like a button)
  
• Rebecca is full on wicked witch and Higgins doesn’t have a spine. Jamie is absolutely horrible. Sam is still Sam. Colin and Issac are house bullies. The rest of the team is mostly in the background.
  
• Future callbacks: be a gold fish, Espy play. No one gets Nate’s name right, Keely and Roy’s banters, ICON hat, Rebecca using PI to spy on Ted, Nate’s homemade boxes…. Can’t believe how much they packed all that in 3 very short episodes
  
• Keely obsessing over Rebecca’s breasts (we didn’t know she is bi yet, but hint hint)
  
• I’m surprised the Indian restaurant and waiter isn’t in the rest of the show
  
• Trent’s arc was set up right from the start (press conference)… TBH Trent was kinda a dick and we can see why Roy hated him
  
• the Lasso Way was immediately mentioned
  
• Ted coped with everything with a joke and we really don’t know what he’s about in S1 until the panic attack episode. He has a lot of facade (and again act and talk like Ned Flanders a lot!!!). Convo with Michelle clued us in - Michelle asked for some space and Ted moved all the way to London. Michelle was pissed. Ted said I love you and clearly Michelle didn’t say it back. Yikes.
  
• Beard is Toto. Beard is Toto.
  

I start on 6/20 as a Contact Rep. 🎉
My IRS office is in downtown Pittsburgh. Parking isn't cheap or plentiful so I'll take public transit.
Would new remote workers receive their computer equipment at the office to bring home? Or is equipment shipped to our home.
Thanks!