Strange days

I'm not going to turn this blog into competition for the esteemed Professor Hex. But since this is the weekend, and we need not be serious all the damned time...

More on UAVs: Science writer Leonard David suspects that my thesis regarding the Kucinich sighting may have merit. Some time earlier, he wrote a fine article on the new generation of UAVs -- which, it seems, will be used by Homeland Security to patrol the border.

According to one tally put together by NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, there are some 50 U.S. companies, academic institutions, and government groups developing over 150 UAV designs. And those are just the ones stamped "unclassified", never mind a bunch of top-secret vehicles.

Obviously, many citizens who spot these devices in action will become instantly convinced that they are witnessing visitations from Out There.

Yeti: Take a look at this actual document from the National Archives (dated December 31, 1959) -- "Regulations Governing Mountain Climbing Expeditions in Nepal - Relating to Yeti."

In case “Yeti” is traced it can be photographed or caught alive but it must not be killed or shot at except in self defence.

Those were more enlightened times. Today, Dick Cheney's attitude would be quite different.