Happy Thanksgiving

UFO Oregon Style

Cue the weird music because on October 25 during daylight hours a UFO cruised northbound up the west spine of the Cascades over Oregon at commercial airliner flight levels and speeds with no transponder to show Air Traffic Control (ATC) its speed, direction and altitude and with only intermittent and broken primary radar coverage. The object was tracked by several commercial flights who had "eyes on" so Seattle ATC Center, which handles flights en route in the Pacific NW, had a general idea of where it was and the direction and speed. Center warned several commercial flights to keep a lookout giving reported positions. I listened to the 40 minute ATC Seattle Center audio tape and there was definitely something out there. Eventually two F-15s were scrambled from PDX to intercept but they never connected. So what was this UFO?

My best guess is that the military was having guidance problems with one of its drones (current or X-series) used on intercontinental missions. There are several bases in the California desert and Nevada (Edwards, Nellis, Area 51, China Lake) that routinely send these out on missions around the world. On a trans-Pacific routing they fly across Oregon on a Great Circle route to Asia. I saw what I believe was an inbound drone heading to one of the above bases on a crossing course high over an inbound trans-Pacific airliner for San Francisco. This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that although NORAD (responsible for defending North America) confirmed the incident initially, later the commander of the PDX fighter base called the FAA's Seattle Center and dropped the cone of silence on the whole affair. The Air Force would certainly be more than a little red-faced to admit that one of its drones was "lost" and plowing through  commercial airliner flight space. 

Perhaps there is more to the story that will still come out. It is troubling that the F-15s could not lock up this target since both Russia and China now have similar drones. It looks like we will still have to wait, though, for a close encounter of the third kind. 

www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/16079/airliners-and-f-15s-involved-in-bizzare-encounter-with-mystery-aircraft-over-oregon

(Tip o' the hat to Jenny Samples)

Whatcha Doin?

Amazing! Pope Francis just issued a statement urging Catholic faithful - even bishops and priests - to put away their darned cell phones during Mass. Talk about an addiction - these things are worse than opioids. His Eminence commented:

“At a certain point in the Mass the priest says, ‘Lift up your hearts,’ He does not say, ‘Lift up your cell phones to take some pictures.’ No, that’s terrible!”

Amen and amen.
www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/11/09/pope-francis-tells-priests-bishops-to-put-away-cell-phones-during-mass/

London More Dangerous Than NYC?

Apparently. In raw numbers, rapes are up +22%, knife attacks +26% and gun crime +27%. Comparing the numbers to New York, which has a roughly equivalent sized police force, there are 3 times more rapes reported in London, you are 6 times more likely to be burglarized, and 1.5 times more likely to be robbed in London, the former bastion of civility. Singapore anyone?

www.breitbart.com/london/2017/10/21/london-falling-uk-capital-now-dangerous-nyc-rape-robbery-violence/

Congress to Oversee All Traffic Lights

Well, not really, but Walter Williams makes an excellent point when he analogizes Congress doing this and the ensuing problems to the infinitely more complex task of it trying to manage all U.S. healthcare. Dr. Williams lays out the scenario:

According to some estimates, there are roughly 100 million traffic signals in the U.S. How many of us would like the U.S. Congress, in the name of public health and safety, to be in charge of their actual operation? Congress or a committee it authorizes would determine the length of time traffic lights stay red, yellow and green and what hours of the day and at what intersections lights flash red or yellow. One can only imagine the mess Congress would create in the 40,000 cities, towns and other incorporated places in the U.S. But managing traffic lights and getting good results is a far less complex task than managing the nation's health care system and getting good results, which Congress tries to do.

Quoting fellow economist the late Nobel laureate Friedrich August von Hayek, Williams makes his central point, "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."  Precisely. We don't yet know what we don't know and what you don't know can kill you. A little more humility and caution in public policy would be a good thing. 

townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2017/11/08/ignorance-versus-stupidity-n2405433

California Pegs Out My Meter

California has just asked for $7.4B in Federal aid to rebuild from the disastrous fires in Northern California. This follows a February requests for the Feds to send dollars for the Oroville Dam near-disaster. I am glad to give it to them but, under the heading of "Cake and Eat it Too", I have to say that all the continuing talk about California seceding from the Union and going it alone, blah, blah, blah is wearisome, especially in light of these requests. Get it together CA!

www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article182559211.html

Bopping the Gopher

Trump's time of testing may well be nigh. Yemen's Houthi rebels just shot a short-range ballistic missile (like the infamous Scud of Desert Storm notoriety) at Saudi Arabia's international airport. The Saudis shot it down with an American Patriot missile system. They have also bought the newer U.S. THAAD anti-missile system, though it has not yet been delivered. 

We can reasonably assume that these ragtag rebels do not possess the native know-how or facilities to build ballistic missiles. Accordingly, they had to come from their Iranian patrons who have supplied them with pretty much everything else. A definite upping of the ante but potentially connected to events in Korea.

The Norks have been quietly working with the Iranians to develop long range ballistic missiles as well as nuclear warheads. We have seen the missiles and there is now informed speculation that the North Koreans may have even developed a hydrogen bomb. President Trump is presumably aware of this and has much better information than the rest of us and has been making some fairly aggressive gestures toward the Norks. Look for the Iranians to try to distract the U.S. by heating things up in the Middle East and away from the Korean penninsula - sort of a "bop the gopher" strategy but with deadly stakes. We will see if the President and his team can guess accurately where this nasty "gopher" will pop up next. Whacking these guys hard but behind the scenes would be instructive to all sides.

www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/11/04/saudi-arabia-intercepts-missile-targeting-main-airport/