Just as well that I am not in the US then.

Easy. If I was trapped in a recently abandoned pickle factory, then I would survive on the food in the staff canteen, starting with what had just been prepared, such as pizza and sandwiches; after a day or so I would move on to see what was in the refrigerators, and finally work my way up to the frozen food. Oh, by the way, when they abandoned the factory, they forgot to turn off the power, so all the perishables are still nicely preserved.

Also, lots of things can be pickled, not just cucumbers. The word “pickles” makes me immediately think of pickled onions. There is usually quite a bit of sugar in the picking vinegar.

“Protect the Kindgom [sic]”.

I started using Chrome instead of IE11, which was crap for standards, and before Edge was a thing. When Edge came along, I got really ticked off by the constant nagging to use it, which made me hate it without even trying it. I will probably carry on with Chrome for now, whist I can still turn off all the ad tracking stuff.

“I remain skeptical until I see proof, I respectfully ask you to do the same. I'm using the word skeptical as its actual meaning: I have imperfect knowledge so I have not made a decision.”

I totally agree with that. Until there is generally accepted scientific evidence of alien artifacts on Earth, I think it is irrational to believe otherwise. The burden of proof is on those making the claims, not the other way round, so my default position is not to believe without evidence, anything else is not rational.

I strongly suspect, however, that such evidence will not be forthcoming in the near future. There appears to be a lot of political pressure and motivations behind the current investigations, which does not bode well for objective scientific enquiry.

I am glad that you agree with me now. After all, it seems far more likely that politicians will be politicking, compared to the alternative, that there is big, cross-party conspiracy to hide first contact with alien intelligences.

“Chuck Schumer is introducing legislation to compel private business and individual who have artifacts of non-human intelligences to release them to the government under eminent domain.”

Absolutely pointless - it has never been proven that there are any such artifacts. What there are, are lots of baseless conspiracy theories which various politicians are pandering to, for their own political agenda.

It is an after market mod.

You may think of them as children, but they are almost old enough (18) to be conscripted to fight in Ukraine.

Too much ham, no mayo or dressing, and nothing green like lettuce.

I live in the UK and I disagree with you. Assuming this right wing bias is true, how does it evidenced itself in the BBC’s programming and news coverage? Because I don’t see it. Especially their news, which seems very even-handed to me.

No, this is a common problem, something to do with web browsers.