Thank goodness we are not in Denver now. Science fiction conventions tend to attract all sorts of odd people, and there are some fairly crazy folks in town at the moment. Yes, the Libertarian Party convention has just started. And one of the guest speakers is “Richard Hoagland—an author who argues that NASA is covering up evidence of dead civilizations found with their probes”. It is good to know that the guardians of Freedom are out there protecting our right to know about alien civilizations, and at least one Libertarian candidate is raising Hoagland’s concerns in his campaigns, though sadly such issues don’t appear to be going down well at the polls:

Latham read my expression: I was wincing. “You’ll meet him,” Latham said. “He’s not a kook. He talks about this as a secrecy issue, in a relatable way.”

“No matter how he talks about it,” I said, “can’t the two parties use it to marginalize him? I mean, how is it playing.”

“It’s playing pretty well!” Latham thought about it. “The polls aren’t great, though. We just got the first one in from the district and we’ve got… zero percent. I was hoping to start off better than that.”

More here, for those of you who find such things amusing. (Thanks Alex!)