#daniel blumenthal

[ivovynckier]

The making of Dirk Brossé's album "Seven Nocturnes".

[realjediverse]

The Equalizer 3 Movie Review!

The Equalizer 3 is a 2023 American action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk. It is the third installment in the Equalizer film series and stars Denzel Washington as Robert McCall, a former government agent who becomes a vigilante. The film also stars Dakota Fanning, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, and Pedro Pascal. The film follows McCall as he settles into a quiet…

[tryingadifferentsong]

Kleiner Podcast Tipp zum Wochenende: Karsten Blumenthal (Kika Moderator & Rolle Herr Fabian in Seelitz) im Podcast von Philipp Gerstner und Daniel Wachowiak (Sven & Leon aus Seelitz)

Geht nicht nur um SE, sondern auch allgemein um Kinderfernsehen bzw. den Kika in den 90ern/ frühen 2000ern, also auch daher ganz interessant :)

Singa, Juri und Karsten sind bis heute befreundet

Karsten war dafür vorgesehenen Peter Lustig bei Löwenzahn zu beerben, hat aber abgelehnt

Auch er hat wohl erst spät vom Umzug von SE nach Erfurt erfahren und war unglücklich über die Kommunikation

Er selbst konnte mit Mathe, Chemie, Physik wenig anfangen und tat sich daher zum Teil schwer damit die Texte zu lernen

Er hat sich mit Wilfried Loll (Herr Stollberg) und Shirin Soraya (Frau Klawitter) besonders gut verstanden, unter den erwachsenen Darsteller:innen gab es aber keine engen Freundschaften

Die Regisseurin Renata Kaye wird von allen sehr gelobt

Das einzige Mal, dass er sich bei den Autor:innen über eine Story "beschwert" hat, war die Story, in der Herr Fabian in einem anonymen Chatroom unbekannterweise mit Iris flirtet, da das als "Kavaliersdelikt" abgetan wird, aber Potenzial gehabt hätte, Jugendliche stärker zu sensibilisieren

Die Nachnamen der Rollen waren z. T. von realen Mitarbeitenden der Produktion inspiriert (Herr Hecht und Familie Fabri werden als Beispiele genannt)

[lesser-known-composers]

Joseph Marx (1882-1964) - Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano (1913): I. Bewegt und frei im Vortrag

Tobias Ringborg, violin

Daniel Blumenthal, piano

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Villarreal at LGBTQ Nation:

The Senate has passed the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children’s and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) in 91-3 votes. While the bipartisan bills seek to reduce the harmful impact of social media on young people, advocates worry that KOSA in particular will enable Republicans to block queer youth from seeing age-appropriate LGBTQ+ content online.

Only three senators voted against the bills: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — all three made statements explaining why. The bill will soon head to the House for a vote. Some advocates hope the House will amend or block the bill to reduce the likelihood of Republicans abusing it. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), authored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), mandates that social media companies take measures to prevent recommending any content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. KOSA also requires platforms to limit features that result in compulsive usage — like autoplay and infinite scroll — or features that allow adults to contact young users or track their location. The bill says platforms must notify parents if their kids are exposed to potentially hazardous materials or interactions.

COPPA 2.0, crafted by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), aims to establish robust online privacy protections for minors under 17. Among its provisions, the legislation would prohibit targeted advertising directed at children and teenagers and introduce an “eraser button,” enabling parents and kids to delete personal information from company databases.

KOSA is supported by groups like Common Sense Media, Fairplay, Design It For Us, Accountable Tech, Eating Disorders Coalition, American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Many other groups oppose the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, Fight for the Future, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states. Because KOSA makes social media platforms legally liable for suggesting content that may harm kids’ mental health, the aforementioned opposition groups worry that Republican attorneys general who see LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness will use KOSA to censor queer web content and prosecute platforms that provide access it. To avoid lawsuits, social media platforms may just censor such content altogether.

[...] Supporters of KOSA point out that the legislation explicitly states that social media companies must only suppress content that encourages suicidal behaviors, eating disorders, substance use, sexual exploitation, and ads for tobacco and alcohol. The legislation allows social users of all ages to access any material that they deliberately search for, and the legislation excludes many organizational websites from possible lawsuits, including government platforms, libraries, and non-profits.

The Senate passed the highly controversial KOSA and COPPA 2.0 91-3, with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Mike Lee (R-UT) voted against.

KOSA has some alarming provisions that could be used to censor age-appropriate LGBTQ+ content.

[rladpeps]

all the books I read in 2024

 “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand

“The Do-Over” by Lynn Painter

 “Ash House” by Angharad Walker

“The Prince and the Pauper” by Mark Twain

 “Jane Against the World: Roe V. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights” by Karen Blumenthal - ⭐️

 “The Ghosts of Rose Hill” by R. M. Romeo

“Scattered Showers: Nine Beautiful Short Stories” by Rainbow Rowell - ❤️

 “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka - ❤️

 “Salt to the Sea” by Ruta Sepetys - ⭐️

 “The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power” by Deirdre Mask - ⭐️

 “The Ghost of Midnight Lake” by Lucy Strange

 “Again, But Better: A Novel” by Christine Riccio

 “Emma” by Jane Austen - ❤️

 “The Shame” by Makenna Goodman - ❤️

 “Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted” by Daniel Sokatch - ❤️

 “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett - ⭐️

 “Far from the Tree” by Robin Benway - ❤️

 “The Lost Property Office” by James R. Hannibal

“A Little Princess” by  Frances Hodgson Burnett - ⭐️

 “Instant Karma” by Marissa Meyer

 “Once Upon a Broken Heart” trilogy by Stephanie Garber - ❤️

 “Rosehead” by Ksenia Anske

 “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” by Victor Hugo - 7/10 (❤️)

 “Sorcery of Thorns series” by Margaret Rogerson - 5/10

 “The Fountains of Silence" by Ruta Sepetys - 7.8/10 (❤️)

 “Gumiho” series by Kat Cho - 5/10

 “Caraval” trilogy by Stephanie Garber - 2/10

 “Realm Breaker” trilogy by Victoria Aveyard - 7/10 (❤️)

“Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy - 8.5/10 (⭐️)

 “Mansfield Park” by Jane Austen - 6/10 (❤️)

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin - 6.8/10 (❤️)

 “Gilded” duology by Marissa Meyer - 7/10 (❤️)

 “The Midnight Lie” (Forgotten Gods series) by Marie Rutkoski - 7/10 (❤️) 

 “Afterlife” by Julia Alvarez - 6.5/10 

 “When We Had Summer” by Jennifer Castle - 5/10

“Yolk” by Mary H.K. Choi - 9/10 (⭐️)

“How It Feels to Float” by Helena Fox - 7/10 (❤️)

 “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding - 7/10 (❤️)

“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens - 7/10 (❤️)

 “14 Ways to Die” by Vincent Ralph - 4/10

“The Brothers Hawthorne” by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - 7/10 (❤️)

“Family of Liars” by E. Lockhart - 4/10

“I Am Not Okay With This” by Charles Forsman - 6.5/10 (❤️)

 “The Tatami” series by Tomihiko Morimi - 7.5/10 (❤️)

“Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers - 6/10

“The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus” by Lee Strobel - 8/10 (❤️)

“Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis - 6.5/10

 "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan - 7/10

 "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath - 8/10 (⭐️)

 “What Do We Know About Atlantis?” by Emma Carlson Berne - 5/10

 “Blue Period 1-9” by Tsubasa Yamaguchi - 8/10

“What Do We Know About Bigfoot?” by Steve Korté - 5/10

 “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman - 6.8/10 (❤️)

 “Children of the Whales 1-15” by Abi Umeda - 8/10

“Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov - 7/10 (❤️)

“Blue Period 10-14” by Tsubasa Yamaguchi - 10/10 (⭐️) 

"More Happy Than Not” by Adam Silvera - 7/10 (❤️)

“The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place” by Julie Berry - 6/10 (❤️)

“Dragonslayer (Wings of Fire: Legends) by Tui T. Sutherland - 6.5/10 (❤️)

 “Monsters of Verity” series by V.E. Schwab - 7.5/10 (❤️)

“The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig - 7.5/10 (❤️)

“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V. E. Schwab - 8/10 (⭐️)

 “Two Roads from Here” by Teddy Steinkellner - 4.5/10

“History Is All You Left Me” by Adam Silvera - 8/10 (⭐️)

 “Good Omens” by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - 9/10 (⭐️)

“The Hollow Heart” by Marie Rutkoski - 7/10 (❤️)

“Qualia Under the Snow” by Kanna Kii - 9/10 (⭐️)

“The Setting Sun” by Osamu Dazai - 9/10 (⭐️)

“Vicious” & “Vengeful” (part of Villains series) by V. E. Schwab  - 7/10 (❤)

“Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Chalice of the Gods” by Rick Riordan - 7/10 (❤️)

“American Gods” by Neil Gaiman - 7/10 (❤️)

“Iron Widow” by Xiran Jay Zhao - 7.5/10 (⭐️)

“Our Dreams at Dusk” manga series by Shimanami Tasogare - 8/10 (⭐️)

“When the Angels Left the Old Country” by Sacha Lamb - 7/10 (❤️)

“Aristotle and Dante” series by Benjamin Alire Sáenz - 9.5/10 (⭐️)

“The Gilded Wolves” by Roshani Chokshi - 3/10

“Hearts Overboard” by Becky Dean - 6/10 (❤️)

“The Poppy War” trilogy by R. F. Kuang - 10/10 (⭐️)

“Yellowface” by R. F. Kuang - 10/10 (⭐️)

“Babel” by R. F. Kuang - 10/10 (⭐️)

“If You Could See the Sun” by Ann Liang - 7/10 (❤️)

“Permanent Record” by Mary H. K. Choi - 6.5/10 

“The Book of Tea” duology by Judy I. Lin - 7/10 (❤️)

“Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury - 6.5/10 (❤️)

“1Q84” by Haruki Murakami - 7/10

“Six Crimson Cranes” duology by Elizabeth Lim - 7/10 (❤️)

“Her Radiant Curse” by Elizabeth Lim - 7/10 (❤️)

“The Folk of the Air” series by Holly Black - 6.5/10 (❤️)

“The Stolen Heir” duology by Holly Black - 6.5/10 (❤️)

“Girl Made of Stars” by Ashley Herring Blake - 7.5/10 (❤️)

“Dry” by Jarrod and Neal Shusterman - 8.5/10 (⭐️)

“Remarkably Ruby” by Terri Libenson - 7/10 (���️)

“Surprisingly Sarah” by Terri Libenson - 6.5/10 (⭐️)

“Always Anthony” by Terri Libenson - 7/10 (⭐️)

“Demon in the Wood” by Leigh Bardugo - 6/10

“The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic” by Leigh Bardugo - 7/10

“Letters of Enchantment” duology by Rebecca Ross - 7.5/10 (❤️)

“Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett - 8/10 (⭐️)

“Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands” Heather Fawcett - 8/10 (⭐️)

“Song of the Six Realms” by Judy I. Lin - 6.8/10 (❤️)

“These Violent Delights” duet by Chloe Gong - 7/10 (❤️)

“I Must Betray You” by Ruta Sepetys - 8/10 (⭐️)

“Wrath of the Triple Goddess” by Rick Riordan - 6/10

“When Haru Was Here” by Dustin Thao - 6/10

“Rise of the School for Good and Evil” & “Fall of the School for Good and Evil” by Soman Chainani - 6.5/10

“The School for Good and Evil” #1-3 by Soman Chainani - 6/10

“An Enchantment of Ravens” by Margaret Rogerson - 6/10

[pseudonym-lux]

THE CAST OF DEAD RINGER (ACT ONE)

MORRIGAN BAUDELAIRE portrayed by lily james

ELIJAH MIKAELSON portrayed by daniel gillies

LIN BAUDELAIRE portrayed by daniel dae kim

MARA BAUDELAIRE portrayed by brie larson

DIANA BAUDELAIRE portrayed by zoey deutch

TERESA BAUDELAIRE portrayed by britt robertson

JULIET BAUDELAIRE portrayed by maia mitchell

ALAN BAUDELAIRE portrayed by michiel huisman

DAISY BLUMENTHAL portrayed by samantha logan

HANNA MIKAELSON portrayed by crystal reed

KLAUS MIKAELSON portrayed by joseph morgan

REBEKAH MIKAELSON portrayed by claire holt

DAMON SALVATORE portrayed by ian somerhalder

STEFAN SALVATORE portrayed by paul wesley

ELENA GILBERT portrayed by nina dobrev

JEREMY GILBERT portrayed by steven r. mcqueen

BONNIE BENNETT portrayed by kat graham

CAROLINE FORBES portrayed by candice king

reading links wattpad | ao3

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Sidney Blumenthal on the iconography of the Trump-era GOP. It's weird, but it really seems to work on the white Evangelicals who are the wellspring for MAGAdom. "All told, so far, Trump faces 91 criminal counts in four jurisdictions. Three other elaborate trials will follow his January 6 case, if it is scheduled any time in January or February. His trial date in New York is tentatively on the calendar for 25 March 2024. In that case, he is charged by the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg “for falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election. During the election, Trump and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. Trump then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.” But Bragg has suggested he would postpone this trial to allow the January 6 federal case to be first.

Trump’s trial in the Mar-a-Lago presidential records case is on the calendar in Florida for 20 May 2024, where he is charged with the illegal and willful theft of national security documents and obstruction of justice. Even more than during the gripping performance of his various indictments, the theatre of his trials will subsume politics. There will not be another campaign, some semblance of a normal campaign of the past, a fantasy campaign, separate from Trump’s trials. The scenes from courtroom to courtroom will overlap with the primaries – the final ones taking place on 4 June 2024 – only intensifying the zeal of his base. And then Trump’s battle with the law will engulf the general election. The trials are a continuous spectacle, featuring an all-star cast in far-flung locations. Political reporters are barely heard from, while legal analysts fill the airwaves. Every twist and turn, every motion, every argument is the breathless lead story. Everyone, from prosecutors to co-conspirators, named and unnamed, indicted and unindicted, are characters in Trump’s new reality show – part violent action movie (the insurrection), part sleazy porn flick (Stormy Daniels), part conspiracy thriller (Mar-a-Lago), and part mafia drama (the fake elector racket).

But the Trump trials are more than his means; they are his ends. The trials are not the sideshow, but the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign. They have become his essential fundraising tool to finance his defense, his platform for whipping up his followers into a constant state of excitement, and his instrument for dominating the media to make himself the center of attention and blot out coverage of anyone else. The trials are the message. They are the drama around which Trump plays his role as the unjustly accused victim, whose rights are trampled and who is the martyr for his oppressed “deplorables”. He is taking the slings and arrows for them. The narcissist is the self-sacrificing saint. The criminal is the angel. The liar is the truth-teller. If any Republican lapses in faithfulness, they are more than a mere doubter or skeptic, but a betrayer and traitor. Trump’s trials are the rigorous trial of his followers’ faith. Rejection of temptation in an encounter with an impertinent fact that might raise a qualm shows purity of heart. Seduction by fact must be resisted. The siren song of critical thinking must be cast out as sin. Trump’s convictions are the supreme test of his followers’ strength of conviction."

[universomovie]

Will Smith estrelará o thriller de ficção científica 'Resistor', da Sony Pictures

Por Ethan Shanfeld Imagens Getty Após o sucesso de “Bad Boys: Ride or Die”, Will Smith está se unindo novamente à Sony Pictures para o thriller de ficção científica “Resistor”, baseado no romance de 2014 de Daniel Suarez, “Influx”. O filme é de Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Steve Tisch e Tony Shaw da Escape Artists, que desenvolve o projeto há anos ao lado de Smith e Jon Mone através de…

[ivovynckier]

What a lovely surprise this turned out to be!

Belgian (film) composer Dirk Brossé’s album “Seven Nocturnes” was inspired was by the days of the week - they all have a different vibe, don’t they?

Brossé composed 7 pieces to be played during the golden hour at the end of each day.

Each piece has two versions: the original version for the piano (played by Daniel Blumenthal) and another orchestration played by the chamber orchestra Prima La Musica.

[kiaraalmanzar]

THANK YOU!

Mrs. España-Tait, Jazlyn, Lydia, Binish, Tiffany, Edrica, Jennifer, Valentina, Emily, Jamie, Miller, Mary, Christine, Andrea Mowery, Allison Blumenthal, Kelsey Fleury, Maggie Dowling, Mallory, Alex, Mina, Maria Alejandra, Nicole, Lindsay Hudock, Joan McCain, Wes Davenport, Rebecca, Paree, Remi, Bailey, Caitlin, Katalina, Sophie, Mike, Brittany Hoydich, Ally, Amanda, Tina Flemming, Danielle Irigoyen, Jasmine, Mia, Melanie, Carlos, Orchee, Victoria Stokel, Mandi, Pricila, Zaynab, Katherine, Alex, Sofia, Julia, Alissa, Olutosin, Mami, Papi, Abuela, Emely, JACK, Ginger, and Doof

The journey so far would be abysmal if it weren't for the wonderful humans that held my hand along the way. Thank you to these individuals for all their support, guidance, laughter, and friendship. I would definitely split my orange with you.

[lesser-known-composers]

Sandro Blumenthal (1874–1919) - Piano Quintet No. 1 in D major, Op. 2 (1898) Dedication: "A mio padre."

1. Allegro moderato (0:00) 2. Adagio espressivo (11:04) 3. Scherzo. Prestissimo (17:39) 4. Finale. Molto lento - Allegro con fuoco (21:44)

Daniel Giglberger and Hélène Maréchaux, violin I & 2

Corinna Golomoz, viola

Bridget MacRae, cello

Olivier Triendl, piano

[weil-weil-lautre]

Full story below break:

By Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean

WASHINGTON — In the $600 billion annual Defense Department budgets, the $22 million spent on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was almost impossible to find.

Which was how the Pentagon wanted it.

For years, the program investigated reports of unidentified flying objects, according to Defense Department officials, interviews with program participants and records obtained by The New York Times. It was run by a military intelligence official, Luis Elizondo, on the fifth floor of the Pentagon’s C Ring, deep within the building’s maze.

The Defense Department has never before acknowledged the existence of the program, which it says it shut down in 2012. But its backers say that, while the Pentagon ended funding for the effort at that time, the program remains in existence. For the past five years, they say, officials with the program have continued to investigate episodes brought to them by service members, while also carrying out their other Defense Department duties.

The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena. Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space.

On CBS’s “60 Minutes” in May, Mr. Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that U.F.O.s have visited Earth.

Working with Mr. Bigelow’s Las Vegas-based company, the program produced documents that describe sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift.

Officials with the program have also studied videos of encounters between unknown objects and American military aircraft — including one released in August of a whitish oval object, about the size of a commercial plane, chased by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Nimitz off the coast of San Diego in 2004.

Mr. Reid, who retired from Congress this year, said he was proud of the program. “I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Mr. Reid said in a recent interview in Nevada. “I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before.”

Two other former senators and top members of a defense spending subcommittee — Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat — also supported the program. Mr. Stevens died in 2010, and Mr. Inouye in 2012.

While not addressing the merits of the program, Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at M.I.T., cautioned that not knowing the origin of an object does not mean that it is from another planet or galaxy. “When people claim to observe truly unusual phenomena, sometimes it’s worth investigating seriously,” she said. But, she added, “what people sometimes don’t get about science is that we often have phenomena that remain unexplained.”

James E. Oberg, a former NASA space shuttle engineer and the author of 10 books on spaceflight who often debunks U.F.O. sightings, was also doubtful. “There are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can account for these stories,” Mr. Oberg said. “Lots of people are active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as camouflage.”

Still, Mr. Oberg said he welcomed research. “There could well be a pearl there,” he said.

In response to questions from The Times, Pentagon officials this month acknowledged the existence of the program, which began as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Officials insisted that the effort had ended after five years, in 2012.

“It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,” a Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Crosson, said in an email, referring to the Department of Defense.

But Mr. Elizondo said the only thing that had ended was the effort’s government funding, which dried up in 2012. From then on, Mr. Elizondo said in an interview, he worked with officials from the Navy and the C.I.A. He continued to work out of his Pentagon office until this past October, when he resigned to protest what he characterized as excessive secrecy and internal opposition.

“Why aren’t we spending more time and effort on this issue?” Mr. Elizondo wrote in a resignation letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Mr. Elizondo said that the effort continued and that he had a successor, whom he declined to name.

U.F.O.s have been repeatedly investigated over the decades in the United States, including by the American military. In 1947, the Air Force began a series of studies that investigated more than 12,000 claimed U.F.O. sightings before it was officially ended in 1969. The project, which included a study code-named Project Blue Book, started in 1952, concluded that most sightings involved stars, clouds, conventional aircraft or spy planes, although 701 remained unexplained.

Robert C. Seamans Jr., the secretary of the Air Force at the time, said in a memorandum announcing the end of Project Blue Book that it “no longer can be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”

Mr. Reid said his interest in U.F.O.s came from Mr. Bigelow. In 2007, Mr. Reid said in the interview, Mr. Bigelow told him that an official with the Defense Intelligence Agency had approached him wanting to visit Mr. Bigelow’s ranch in Utah, where he conducted research.

Mr. Reid said he met with agency officials shortly after his meeting with Mr. Bigelow and learned that they wanted to start a research program on U.F.O.s. Mr. Reid then summoned Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye to a secure room in the Capitol.

“I had talked to John Glenn a number of years before,” Mr. Reid said, referring to the astronaut and former senator from Ohio, who died in 2016. Mr. Glenn, Mr. Reid said, had told him he thought that the federal government should be looking seriously into U.F.O.s, and should be talking to military service members, particularly pilots, who had reported seeing aircraft they could not identify or explain.

The sightings were not often reported up the military’s chain of command, Mr. Reid said, because service members were afraid they would be laughed at or stigmatized.

The meeting with Mr. Stevens and Mr. Inouye, Mr. Reid said, “was one of the easiest meetings I ever had.”

He added, “Ted Stevens said, ‘I’ve been waiting to do this since I was in the Air Force.’” (The Alaska senator had been a pilot in the Army’s air force, flying transport missions over China during World War II.)

During the meeting, Mr. Reid said, Mr. Stevens recounted being tailed by a strange aircraft with no known origin, which he said had followed his plane for miles.

None of the three senators wanted a public debate on the Senate floor about the funding for the program, Mr. Reid said. “This was so-called black money,” he said. “Stevens knows about it, Inouye knows about it. But that was it, and that’s how we wanted it.” Mr. Reid was referring to the Pentagon budget for classified programs.

Contracts obtained by The Times show a congressional appropriation of just under $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011. The money was used for management of the program, research and assessments of the threat posed by the objects.

The funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program.

Under Mr. Bigelow’s direction, the company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of metal alloys and other materials that Mr. Elizondo and program contractors said had been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena. Researchers also studied people who said they had experienced physical effects from encounters with the objects and examined them for any physiological changes. In addition, researchers spoke to military service members who had reported sightings of strange aircraft.

“We’re sort of in the position of what would happen if you gave Leonardo da Vinci a garage-door opener,” said Harold E. Puthoff, an engineer who has conducted research on extrasensory perception for the C.I.A. and later worked as a contractor for the program. “First of all, he’d try to figure out what is this plastic stuff. He wouldn’t know anything about the electromagnetic signals involved or its function.”

The program collected video and audio recordings of reported U.F.O. incidents, including footage from a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet showing an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves. The Navy pilots can be heard trying to understand what they are seeing. “There’s a whole fleet of them,” one exclaims. Defense officials declined to release the location and date of the incident.

“Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Mr. Bigelow said in an interview. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma. China and Russia are much more open and work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”

By 2009, Mr. Reid decided that the program had made such extraordinary discoveries that he argued for heightened security to protect it. “Much progress has been made with the identification of several highly sensitive, unconventional aerospace-related findings,” Mr. Reid said in a letter to William Lynn III, a deputy defense secretary at the time, requesting that it be designated a “restricted special access program” limited to a few listed officials.

A 2009 Pentagon briefing summary of the program prepared by its director at the time asserted that “what was considered science fiction is now science fact,” and that the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered. Mr. Reid’s request for the special designation was denied.

Mr. Elizondo, in his resignation letter of Oct. 4, said there was a need for more serious attention to “the many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities.” He expressed his frustration with the limitations placed on the program, telling Mr. Mattis that “there remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”

Mr. Elizondo has now joined Mr. Puthoff and another former Defense Department official, Christopher K. Mellon, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence, in a new commercial venture called To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. They are speaking publicly about their efforts as their venture aims to raise money for research into U.F.O.s.

In the interview, Mr. Elizondo said he and his government colleagues had determined that the phenomena they had studied did not seem to originate from any country. “That fact is not something any government or institution should classify in order to keep secret from the people,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Reid said he did not know where the objects had come from. “If anyone says they have the answers now, they’re fooling themselves,” he said. “We do not know.”

But, he said, “we have to start someplace.”

[meditating-dog-lover]

I just started watching this podcast a few days ago and I enjoy it. Funny and goofy at some points, yet serious and informative. It's great for people who want to learn more about Palestine/Israel coming from the POV of 2 anti-zionist Jewish men - Matt Lieb and Daniel Maté (son of Dr. Gabor Maté and brother of Aaron Maté who hosts The Gray Zone with Max Blumenthal).

'Bad Hasbara' Is Good

'Hasbara' means essentially 'to explain' in Hebrew though Matt Lieb (and his very informative guests) are only informing you about what you should already know (or at the very least, suspect).

[already-14]

(via Marie-Nicole Lemieux - Opéra national de Paris)

Marie-Nicole Lemieux — "À Chloris" (Reynaldo Hahn)

Marie-Nicole Lemieux, contralto & Daniel Blumenthal, piano

https://youtu.be/nrnCmGI9rnc