Great shot! Is it me, or does it have an expression reminiscent of Chicken of Chickenthoughts?

Looks like a wasp pretending to be a fly, really. Might just be the Beedrill shape it kind of has.

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Just giving my opinion, but I did not care for the Orville. I’m a big fan of wonderment and adventure in Star Trek, with a healthy dose of exploration and philosophical consideration. In my experience, Orville spent all of its time on trying to be Star Trek: The Snark Generation and trying to make Seth MacFarlane look like a cool space captain. I think around the third or fourth time MacFarlane had said something incredibly offensive to the person he was meant to be diplomatically engaging with, but since he said it in his quick Family Guy aside voice it was apparently okay, that I got pretty tired of the show. It was way too much of a badly written ego trip for MacFarlane and not nearly enough science fiction fun. I was left feeling like the Orville was what would happen if Brian from Family Guy tried to write Star Trek, that it was more of mockery of science fiction than a positive addition, and I never went back.

In my further opinion, Lower Decks, meanwhile, is knocking it out of the park. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Strange Worlds as well, though I haven’t had opportunity to check it out yet.

EDIT: Yeah, I figured this would happen. Hooray the internet.

For a moment, I thought this was a cryptid instance and briefly wondered what level of crazy believes that Bigfoot will put you in the ground if you don’t believe in him.

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It was a common mentality there, which was amazing to me, considering it was a union job. But it turned out that was part of the problem, since unions guarantee overtime allowances.

I eventually realized it was because quite a few people were determined to take as much overtime as possible out of pure greed. They seemed to often believe they were somehow getting one over on management by working overtime. They didn’t really need the money, and they truly didn’t care about how little time they spent living their lives versus working. Getting two hours of time and a half meant more to them than any evening spent at home.

There were those that needed to pay their bills, but they were rare and completely overshadowed by the greedy. The majority of overtimers just wanted more money and less time at home.

The truth was most of the greedy were committing massive time clock fraud during their overtime and were relying on one another to keep the lie going that the overtime was needed. Then, anyone who didn’t want the overtime was considered a threat to their profit margins, and so was treated with contempt.

Management knew, but didn’t care, because employees selling their bodies was barely the cost of business. I mean, a single fastener, of which we would scrap hundreds without a care, would cost the company more than an hour of a full-time floor worker on double time and a half. It was worth more to them to keep butts in seats feet on the floor (just remembered that before I left, they took all the chairs away to keep people from sitting so much…) and eyes on the machines than it was to try and stop people from abusing the overtime system.

Overtime in manufacturing isn’t going to make anyone a millionaire, but you might be convinced otherwise from how they behave. The money was amazing for manufacturing, the best you can get really, but it will never be enough to make me willing to miss time with my family.

The 4chan UAP larper.

A fun read, even if it’s as substantial as smoke. The writer does his best to connect the dots of all the recent UAP news and sightings that have been happening. Still, his posts helped drive a fair bit of the engagement surrounding current events. The air of anonymity from places like 4chan really captures the imagination.

“You think I want to be here? You think I want to work all these hours? I have a wife and new kid at home, you think I don’t want to be spending time with them?!”

That is a direct quote from a former coworker at a well-known manufacturing company notorious for overworking their people on the floor. He was ranting about how offended he was by other people not volunteering to take overtime.

I was… confused by his statements. The overtime he was referring to was entirely voluntary, no one had to volunteer. The company was facing a nasty downturn and there was barely enough work to go around as it was. But he was furious at the idea of people refusing to work literally pointlessly, taking time away from their loved ones. The absolute contempt in his voice was striking, and I remember it clearly years later.

I wanted to turn around and tell him, “No, it doesn’t sound like you do?” but I felt he was already hurting enough.

It’s much more complicated than that, unfortunately. I’ve been following this for some time, purely for my own entertainment.

This primarily started with the Nimitz Incident, when the military released official video of what they claim is unknown technology. This received little attention, except for civilians taking interest and making it heard. Fravor, for example, was brought on talk shows to give his account.

Not much was then heard for a few years, until a new whistleblower hotline was implemented, ostensibly for the sake of digging up dirt on Democrats.

David Grusch’s story is that he has been working for UAP-adjacent programs for some time, and in his career, has heard a number of very disturbing secrets. Claiming he’s a boy scout, he has used this new whistleblower hotline to try and drag this out into the light, and he claims he has names and locations of ET material, as well as direct knowledge of the location of massive amounts of taxpayer money that the Pentagon “lost.” To use a metaphor, a net that was meant for minnows may have caught a shark, and Congress has finally taken notice.

Now others are following his lead in using the whistleblower hotline. The other two in the hearing have similar stories and testimonies, and all three have staked their reputations and careers on this, to whatever end that means. According to Grusch, he has already been targeted and is currently being protected from further retaliation.

The purpose of the hearing was to put their testimonies into official record, which is VERY interesting, given how outlandish their claims are. This is the first time such testimonies were given credence.

Also very interesting, during the hearing, Matt Gaetz weighed in with a testimony of his own. Cautiously putting politics aside, Gaetz has, at the very least, said some VERY strange things for any sitting representative to say. He has risked being labeled a full on loon for this, which while not totally devastating for a Republican these days, I don’t imagine is exactly preferred.

This is some of the most extraordinary events related to UFOs and aliens in many decades, even if you ignore the endless sea of bullshit that surrounds the UFO community.

When I trawl the net for UFO stuff, what I see more than anything is people hoping for a savior. People hoping that aliens will save us from our economy, from climate change, from religion, from fascism, from war, from nuclear weapons, from disease, from Republicans, from Democrats, from progressives, from regressives, and mostly from ourselves.

I’ve been speculating that that fear is a driving force for a lot of the current UFO craze. We’re in a dangerous time, things are only getting worse, and people are becoming desperate for a superhero to come and save the day.

I think we’re more scared that there aren’t aliens, sometimes.

Yeah. There is an increasing chance that the US government is being forced into disclosure of evidence that they have UFOs and other ET material. I would suggest looking into David Grusch and the Nimitz Incident to know more. The US military is currently claiming they have substantiated evidence of ET life on our planet.

EDIT: Despite people’s very sensible cynicism, this is the biggest UFO-related news to come out in more than 70 years. The situation is currently very complicated and there is definitely no clear answers, but it’s very interesting.

Depending on who you ask, they already are >_>

This has been the response to everything that’s come out since the Nimitz Incident. Bigger revelations have come out in the last seven years than in the last seventy. We’re tired, and we’re scared, I think. Aliens are going to need to really shake their cans if they want us to care.

I think you make a good point. Some of the humor is pretty low for a Star Trek medium. It does catch its stride as it goes along.

I firmly disagree, but I’m trying to avoid conversations that hold too much negativity, so I’m afraid I won’t engage further. I deleted my comment because honestly, it was a cheap shot.

Or you could skin your knee and go “Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!” for ten minutes, because that’s still funny, isn’t it?

After being gone from it since Star Trek Enterprise, my wife and I got back in with Star Trek Lower Decks (oddly enough). If you can handle it being animated (and goofy), it is actually a very dearly written love-letter to TNG and some of the most important moments in Star Trek lore. We appreciated that it didn’t try to reinvent characters that already exist, and did a good job of bringing on old actors for cameos. They bring on people from TNG, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all the time to reprise their roles.

There’s a live-action Star Trek currently running that I can’t attest to, but it has a crossover with Lower Decks that means I’m going to give it a try.

Rupert Murdoch, to answer your question.

EDIT; I forgot this was the internet when I wrote this comment. Hopefully editing helps remove it more thoroughly.