When will these thick-headed politicians get it through their heads that these weren't drones -- just regularly scheduled commercial aircraft flights at night.

Seriously, what they're doing is somewhat akin to banning pedestrians because cars are crashing on the freeway.

Let me repeat:

Drones are not the problem -- idiots who can't tell the difference between a drone and a freaking airliner are the problem!

I live on the other side of the world from the USA but I pointed out *exactly* what was going on long before the penny finally dropped in the USAA.

New Jersy Drone Mystery Solved (from December 10th).

Fantastic... it's great too see that useful nuclear fusion reactors are now just a decade away -- as they have been ever since the 1970s.

Oh the joy!

Why can't the two astronauts simply dress as bananas and then SpaceX could send Starship up to return them safely to a pyre in the Indian Ocean? It worked last time.

Not in New Zealand. I received an email from The Civil Aviation Authority (our version of the FAA) that told me "you are a pilot" because you fly a dorne.

I kid you not -- here's video evidence.

Those "radical maneuvers" often turn out to be people moving the camera which results in the *apparent* movement of the object in unusual ways.

Remember, these are aircraft at significant distance so the footage is often highly zoomed and every small hand movement is reflected in what appears to be a sudden movement of the object being filmed.

Occam's Razor should be applied here.

The explanation is mass, media-induced hysteria.

The explanation for the vast majority of these sightings is, as the John Kirby clearly stated, people simply mis-identifying manned aircraft in the night skies.

This video posted earlier this week (before the White House acknowledgement) clearly demonstrates how people are getting it wrong.

That we now have politicians calling for these "drones" to be shot down is a worrying twist. What happens if/when they bring down an innocent airliner just because someone mis-identifies it as a drone?

And haven't you wondered, just for a second, why it is that nobody can get a decent picture of these "drones as big as an SUV" that they claim have hovered at just 50 feet over their houses for ten minutes or more? Go outside and use your smartphone to take a picture of a car at night from 50 feet and you'll see just how much detail is revealed -- yet all the pictures posted to date of "drones" from allegedly the same distance, are a blury mess of sensor-noise.

Most people can't tell the difference between something that's BIG and a long way away or something that's smaller and closer -- at least not at night when there are no frames of reference and all you can see are some flashing lights.

Seriously, you don't expect a politician to have an understanding of the sciences do you? Most of them can barely tie their own shoelaces.

So true. It's like the news publishers are saying "we want you to read our news but we don't want your computers to read our news".

Can't have it both ways boys!

To the news media: Just focus on getting back to the basic tenets of the Fourth Estate instead of plastering by-lines on press releases and pitching them as "news" or publishing dross with click-bait headines and calling it "journalism".

There is only one industry that is resonsible for the decline in the fortunes of the news media -- and it's the news media.

Besides which... we *know* that an increasing number of our "news" stories are either all or significantly AI generated so don't be so damned hypicritical!

Oh... I'm offended. I identify as Gen-Z. I might cry!

Pfffft!

No duct-tape either.

Ah... who remembers the glorious days of usenet eh?

Simply trying to sheild kids from social media won't solve this problem.

I"m 72 years old and bullying was a problem when I was a kid. Some kids picked on other kids and made them feel bad about themselves. Suicides resulted from such abuse even way back then.

How did our parents deal with the problem?

They taught us that "sticks and stones may break your bones but names can never hurt you" -- ie: ignore those who seek to bring you down.

That may sound glib and unhelpful but trust me, it was incredibly helpful. As kids, when we were bullied we just took a teaspoon of cement and hardened up.

These days however, we live in a society where being a "victim" is encouraged and accepted as the norm. Some folk actually thrive on the attention that being a victim creates.

So instead of simply trying to pretend that social media doesn't exist... how about we teach parents and kids about how to better deal with the effects of bullying in a way that empowers them?

Too hard?

Not congruent with the current narrative that we are all victims of some kind?

The "ban hammer" is the crudest form of problem solving and never actually solves problems anyway. It's usually a sign that other agendas are at play or that those charged with coming up with a solution are just too lazy or stupid to think of anything better.

We all know that any 12-year-old worth their salt will figure out ways around the road-blocks that dullard politicians attempt to create between them and Tiktok or their other favourite social media platform so how about they focus instead on equipping those kids to better deal with the effects of cyberbullying and other negative elements of the internet?

This law is a trojan horse. "How are social media companies supposed to enforce this?"

The only way they can enforce it is to take advantage of the Australian Government's Digital ID. In effect, if you want to access social media in Australia you'll have to sign up to this government-issued digital ID so that the social media companies can authenticate your age.

This isn't about protecting kids -- it's about effectively mandating the Digital ID for every man, woman, child and VISITOR to Australia.

If it was about protecting kids then why doesn't the ban include hardcore pornography sites such as PornHub?

Yeah, that's right... under this law PornHub will be exempt from its provisions but YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok etc won't.

Asutralians should be marching in the streets to show their opposition to the way they've been shafted.

Did you watch the multi-million dollar Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson boxing match on Netflix?

That's the real crime -- all hype, no delivery.

If streaming services want our money they need to lift their game.