"These aren’t like some vague hallucinations, these are like three-dimensionally-rendered, highly-detailed figures inhabiting your exterior world."

"And they’re also interacting with objects in the real world — like crawling up chairs and tables or under doorways.... The little people are said to typically like teasing, playing with or harassing the person seeing them.... Everyone knows that this mushroom has this property and can make you see little people, but they’ll continue to eat it anyway, because they’re just not afraid of that effect."

Said University of Utah researcher Colin Domnauer, quoted in "New magic mushroom makes users see tiny ‘gnome’ people — scientists have no idea how it’s doing that" (NY Post).

The mushroom is L. asiatica.

Would you want to see little people running around everywhere?

I remember hearing Joe Rogan talk about this and speculate that the people are somehow really there....

"You know the thing is like is it teaching us something about the human brain or is it allowing you to see something that's actually there all the time?"

"In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Central Asian governments have drawn closer together as a bloc, while welcoming Mr. Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy."

"They are seeking opportunities to reduce their reliance on Moscow, even as they tread lightly so as not to cross the Kremlin or antagonize China. 'For the business relationship, it has never been better,' said Jeff Erlich, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kazakhstan, who has worked in and around the region since the late 1990s. 'In my experience, that is clear.'"

From "Kazakhstan’s Leader Deepens U.S. Ties, Saying Trump Was ‘Sent by Heaven’/The Central Asian nation is aggressively courting President Trump’s Washington to counterbalance its powerful neighbors, Russia and China" (NYT)(gift link, so you can try to figure it out for yourself).

That's one of 2 stories about Kazakhstan at the top of the front page of the NYT right now. The other is: "Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit. An agreement between the U.S. and Kazakhstan has given a group of American investors with ties to the president and the commerce secretary access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten."

"Installing AC simply wasn’t the British thing to do. He’d have to break a stiff-upper-lip mentality and make peace with a trade-off..."

".. that Europeans tend to view as taboo: Air-con accelerates global warming. Still, his mind kept wandering back to a Starbucks he had visited in Los Angeles. 'It was so temperate,' he moaned. 'So beautiful.'... In Europe, where homes tend to be older and climes fairer, residents mainly favored cross-ventilation over machines that leaders cast as pricey spewers of greenhouse gas emissions. 'It’s like living in a sealed jar,' one French columnist complained of AC in 1994. 'It’s unbearable.'"

From "European soccer fans enjoy a brief fling with America’s air-conditioned culture/Despite a deadly heat wave at home, many say they won’t permanently embrace Americans’ electricity-guzzling amenity" (WaPo).

Questions: 1. Who says "air-con"? 2. Wasn't that a movie with Nicolas Cage? 3. What would Americans do if they found themselves wrangling with guilt about global warming whenever they indulged in air conditioning.

Answers: 1. The British. 2. No, it was not. 3. Do what half their compatriots have already done and decide global warming is a hoax.

Bonus question: "'Con Air' won a Golden Raspberry Award in what category? Answer: "Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property."