So...no talk bout the UFO we shot down?

Mike I'm starting to think an alien labor camp might be more interesting to live in than a retirement home or a fascist run dystopia.  

Apparently, the aliens have retaliated:

"An uncrewed Russian spacecraft docked at the International Space Station has lost cabin pressure, but the incident does not pose a danger to the station's crew, the Russian space corporation said on Saturday....

NASA said its specialists are working with their Russian counterparts to investigate the cause for the unexpected depressurization. Roscosmos added that the incident should not affect the station's future flight program."

^ Jaz - What the hell is that thing...a sturgeon with a glow-stick wrapped around its nose in a bag strapped to the side of the James Webb Telescope? Do I have it upside down or something?

aaahhhhhh NYE - I thought it was a weird Japanese bondage pic from inside a kid's bouncy tent .... thanks, it all makes sense now.

Yeah well, ya gotta be creative when you start with a block of cold stone and havta make art outta it.

Here's my latest, straight from a gallery in Annapolis. It's called BetaFish. All from a single block of alabaster.

50 lbs. (The base is part of the carved rock, just stained brown to look ike wood.)

MarkD - beautiful raised bed by the way. That thing ain't going anywhere. Where did you get all that great wood?

BetaFish because 1) We had a die-off in the fishtank and lost our Beta when I started carving that rock and 2) I couldn't think of any Grateful Dead related names to call it. BUT JUST AS I WROTE THAT, I just thought "KINGFISH." That might do. Thank you for the inspiration. Kingfish.

(I try to  give all my pieces Dead-related names as an "inside joke" to the viewers as it helps me spot the kindred spirits during an art opening or craft show.)

That rock started out just tan, by the way. Never saw those colors until I wet it down during the carving process and they didn't really show until the sanding stage. Unusual to find yellow streaks.

I will next show Kingfish at a pop up stone sculpture show I'm putting on at / during the local Los Lobos show. I figure I'll have 500 people milling about the lobby with northing to do but mingle with the dozen or so pieces that will be on display. Maybe a rich music fan will be there and want to buy some visual art.

Speaking of fish, this sounds fishy:

"F-35 fighter jets were sent up to investigate after the object was first detected on Thursday, according to a US official. Kirby told reporters that the first fly-by of US fighter aircraft happened Thursday night, and the second happened Friday morning. Both brought back “limited” information about the object.

But the pilots later gave differing reports of what they observed, the source briefed on the intelligence said.

Some pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors” on the planes, but not all pilots reported experiencing that.

Some pilots also claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object, and could not explain how it was staying in the air, despite the object cruising at an altitude of 40,000 feet.

The conflicting eyewitness accounts are partly why the Pentagon has been unable to fully explain what the object is, the source briefed on the matter said."

So, they don't have pictures and video to look at? Also weird: This doesn't make much sense...is it on our turf or Canada's? Why are they leading recovery efforts if it's on our territory?

"Trudeau said he spoke with President Joe Biden on Saturday and that Canadian forces will lead the object recovery operation...

The object taken down Friday, which officials have not characterized as a balloon, was shot down at 1:45 p.m. EST, according to Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, who said recovery teams are now collecting the debris that is sitting on top of ice in US territorial waters. The object “came inside our territorial waters – and those waters right now are frozen – but inside territorial airspace and over territorial waters,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters on Friday."

So we got limited information and we sent up an F-35 fighter. With highly trained pilots. I mean, WTF?  It jammed all our sensors? And the pilots who saw it can't agree on what they saw? 

"The F-35 has the most advanced sensor suite of any fighter in history, including the Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESA) radar, Distributed Aperture System (DAS), Electro Optical Targeting System (EOTS) and Helmet Mounted Display System."

Has the invasion begun? Number 3. Nice knowing all you guys. Hopefully, people that have taken psychedelics will be spared. 

CNN: A new “high-altitude airborne object” has been spotted and shot down over Canada’s Yukon territory, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday evening, as U.S. personnel continued efforts to recover the remnants of two other craft shot down over Alaska and South Carolina within the last week.

All I know is that Presidents and Prime Ministers usually don't get on conference calls about routine military matters.

Friday (shoot down): The North American Aerospace Defense Command detected the object Feb. 9 using ground radar and sent aircraft to identify the object. The pilots ascertained the object was unmanned.  CNN reported an anonymous source with knowledge of the briefing said the pilots shared conflicting observations about the object, including that it had interfered with their systems and that they could not explain how it stayed in the air.U.S. officials declined to speculate about what the object might be, even after a day of observation, raising questions about what kind of object could be so difficult to identify by experienced U.S. pilots and intelligence officials.The object was about the size of a small car, the general said, and does not resemble in any way the Chinese surveillance balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina. Military helicopters are on scene to collect debris from the object, resting on ice.After a U.S. Air Force fighter jet shot down an unidentified object over Alaska’s North Slope on Friday, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said several other similar objects have traveled over the state in recent weeks. “There were things that were seen on radar but weren’t explained,” he said, “so I don’t know what they were, but I think our military is trying to figure that out as well.” “But this had similar signatures,” he said, comparing Friday’s object to the prior ones. He said it was moving at about 40 knots — about 46 mph — and had no wings. The object was somewhere “between a 55 gallon drum and a small Volkswagen” in size, Sullivan said.It entered Alaskan airspace near Nome and moved northeast, he said. Other officials said the object didn’t appear to have any ability to maneuver itself. https://alaskapublic.org/2023/02/10/sullivan-several-other-unidentified-...

Sat (1st shoot down)The Pentagon said NORAD detected the object over Alaska late on Friday.U.S. fighter jets from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, monitored the object as it crossed over into Canadian airspace, where Canadian CF-18 and CP-140 aircraft joined the formation."A U.S. F-22 shot down the object in Canadian territory, using an AIM 9X missile following close co-ordination between U.S. and Canadian authorities," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement.Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand declined to speculate about the origin of the object, which she said was cylindrical in shape

.Sat (2nd sighting over Montana): Airspace over Montana was also briefly restricted on Saturday after reports of radar anomalies in the region, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement posted to Twitter, but after an investigation, no additional object was found. "Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate the radar hits," the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.

^ ha

They will never recover debris from the three "weather balloons" because they never got hit with missiles. Where's the video of them being struck? All this stuff is recorded with video and multiple sensors.

Maybe these things have the technology to "disappear"  when threatened. Just like they have always done.

And I'm certainly no expert on Air Force munitions, but how does a half million dollar Sidewinder missile with all its advanced tracking technology miss a target just floating there, not taking evasive action? If these targets had any heat signatures at all, these missiles shouldn't mss, like admittedly happened over Michigan. Makes ya wonder.