DO YOU BELIEVE IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL ALIENS?

But first, the latest Winter Olympics medal count:

1. Norway: 24 Total (11 Gold, 6 Silver, 7 Bronze)
2. Italy: 22 Total (8 Gold, 4 Silver, 10 Bronze)
3. United States: 17 Total (5 Gold, 8 Silver, 4 Bronze)
4. Japan: 17 Total (3 Gold, 5 Silver, 9 Bronze)
5. France: 15 Total (4 Gold, 7 Silver, 4 Bronze)
5. Germany: 15 Total (4 Gold, 6 Silver, 5 Bronze)
7. Austria: 13 Total (4 Gold, 6 Silver, 3 Bronze)
8. Sweden: 11 Total (5 Gold, 5 Silver, 1 Bronze)
8. Netherlands: 11 Total (5 Gold, 5 Silver, 1 Bronze)
10. Switzerland: 9 Total (4 Gold, 2 Silver, 3 Bronze)
10. Canada: 9 Total (1 Gold, 3 Silver, 5 Bronze)
12. South Korea: 5 Total (1 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze)
12. Australia: 5 Total (3 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)
14. Czech Republic: 4 Total (2 Gold, 2 Silver, 0 Bronze)
14. China: 4 Total (0 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze)
16. Great Britain: 3 Total (3 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)
16. Slovenia: 3 Total (2 Gold, 1 Silver, 0 Bronze)
16. Poland: 3 Total (0 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze)
16. Finland: 3 Total (0 Gold, 0 Silver, 3 Bronze)
20. Latvia: 2 Total (0 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)
20. New Zealand: 2 Total (0 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)
20. Bulgaria: 2 Total (0 Gold, 0 Silver, 2 Bronze)
23. Brazil: 1 Total (1 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)
23. Kazakhstan: 1 Total (1 Gold, 0 Silver, 0 Bronze)
23. Belgium: 1 Total (0 Gold, 0 Silver, 1 Bronze)

The USA is in a rut. But that is mostly because there was only one event today that resulted in medals: Women's Large Hill Ski Jumping. I'll probably get this updated by the time I post, for at this point three Americans are in the running for medals. Then again, I might not report the final results so you can see the competition yourself.

On a lighter note, what kind of animal are the Winter Olympic mascots Tina and Milo?

First, they are siblings, with Tina white and Milo brown.
In Italy, they are called ermellini.

English-speaking fans call them stoats.
Scientically, Mustela erminea, which have brown coats, but in some species, they turn white in the winter, except for a black tail tip.

Okay, now to the story of the day: former president, Barack Obama, said in an appearance on the No Lie podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen to the query about the existence of extraterrestrial life, that "They're real." Here is a news story. Further:

"But I haven't seen them," he quickly added. Obama also addressed the enduring conspiracy theory that the U.S. government is harboring aliens and UFOs at Area 51, a top-secret United States Air Force facility located in the Nevada Desert. "They're not being kept in Area 51," he stated. "There's no underground facility - unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States."

How likely do you think it is that each of the following beings exist? (% who believe they definitely or probably exist): YouGov, November 4-9, 2025.

U.S. Adults Democrats Independents Republicans

Aliens 56 61 59 46

Bigfoot 28 27 26 32

The Yeti 23 20 24 25

Loch Ness monster 22 18 17 12

So Obama reflects the U.S. norm. Plus:

30% of Americans believe UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, are probably alien ships or life forms; 45% believe they have some other explanation. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe UFOs are probably alien in origin (34% vs. 26%).

And:

Twice as many Americans say an alien visit would have a negative effect on human civilization than a positive one

But going back to former president Barack Obama:

Twice as many Americans say an alien visit would have a negative effect on human civilization than a positive one

Want to be totally befuddled about a survey on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life and the effects of revealing expert consensus?

Read this.
When surveyed, 86.6 per cent of astrobiologists recently said they either agreed or strongly agreed that extraterrestrial life likely exists somewhere else in the Universe.
When asked the same question but for complex or intelligent life, the agreeing percentage only drops to 58.2 per cent.
For instance, our galaxy contains somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. Astronomers have already confirmed around 4,000 planets orbiting other stars – and that’s in our galaxy alone. The Milky Way itself is just a tiny fraction of the observable Universe, about one millionth of it. Scale that up, and you’re looking at roughly 100 sextillion stars (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) – each potentially hosting planets.

So if aliens likely exist out there, why haven’t we discovered them yet? And why have we never received any extraterrestrial visitors? Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.
In other words, scientists tend to believe some sort of life (might well be only microbiological) does exist somewhere else in the universe, but this sense drops for the evolution of intelligent life, and is lowered quite a bit more for alien life to actually visit Planet Earth.

HOW TO WATCH NETFLIX SHOWS

But first, maybe President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza Peace Plan is showing some progress . No one expects the Hamas to accept all of them, but they did agree to release all captives and the act of handing over administration to Palestinian technocrats. So far, in the Gaza Strip, 66,288 have been killed and 169,165 wounded. On 7October2023, almost two years ago, 1139 were killed in the initial Hamas-led attack. About my topic of the day, I've long been lamenting the overflow of watchable films and series available on Netflix and Prime. Why expand into the plethora of other streaming options when I can't keep up with what I have, which costs me around $30/month. And, of course, why venture out to a movie theater to end up watching a film that will cost me around that amount of money, when you add the popcorn, drink, gasoline cost, time it takes to get there and back, and the risk of a car accident or worse. Oh, also getting infected with ...

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