Respect The Military, Peace-Mongers, They Make Your Existence Possible

Despite the fact that in the 60 years that NORAD has been tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve each year Santa has received a fighter jet escort through Canada and the U.S., the animations this year actually show the fighter jets, and the peace-mongers are all up in arms about how seeing the fighter jets are going to traumatize America’s children. Oh, the children….Won’t somebody please think of the children!

First off, when you wake up tomorrow morning in the safety of your secured home on land that is privately owned by you or the person you are renting from, and you use your running water and on-demand electricity, then put on your nice or comfy clothes and your warm jacket either before or after you get into your automobile that you own or the bank has leant you the money to own, and either drop the kids off at school or go straight to your job, just remember one thing….None of that would exist without the United States Military.

So if NORAD wants to give Santa Claus a fighter jet escort in its animations, then NORAD should get to give Santa Claus a fighter jet escort in its animations. NORAD is not crazy for using its military might to protect Santa Claus. These peace-mongers are crazy for not recognizing that their right to whine about Santa Claus having a fighter jet escort has been secured for them by well over two hundred years of the United States Military.

Peace-mongers, be thankful that you have a military that lives in the shadows of your life; one that stays on its bases and airfields and is not roaming through the streets picking people up and bringing them in for questioning. Be thankful that you have a military that fights overseas and never here at home among us, or with us. Be thankful that we have the damned fighter jets to protect Santa Claus (and you) in the first place!

Trust me, America, your kids know guns exists. They know we have a military. They know there are fighter jets, and the role they play in this world. They also know there are threats out there in the world to their safety. It is not a foreign concept to them. They do what you tell them because they are afraid of you – either what you will do to them, or what you will take away from them. There are challenges in their young lives of which they are afraid, and there are bullies at their school that strike fear into their little hearts. They might not tell you about it, but trust me, there are things of which they are afraid, so a fighter jet escort for Santa as a security measure is very practical and non-life-altering concept for your little ones to understand and process, despite what you might think or choose to believe, peace-mongers.

If you have not yet leveled with your children about Santa Claus, and they think he’s real and visits the house of every good child in the world in a single night, then do you not think it is a very practical measure with all the threats to our safety out there in the world, that the United States Air Force protect Santa Claus as he flew over the United States? I bet your kids would think it is a good idea.

If any one even sneezes the wrong way on a commercial plane these days, we call in a fighter jet escort. If Santa Claus were real, would he not be a fantastic target for a terrorist organization? Think of the damage to the economy and the mental strife shooting Santa out of the sky would have on all of us if he were real.

So, if your kids think Santa is real and they are going to hear about Santa being tracked by NORAD this year, take comfort in knowing your kids are going to know Santa is completely safe with the highly-sensitive, bomb-detecting, gift-scanning x-ray machine all the presents go through before they get put on the sleigh, the top-notch security screening and background checks all of the elves and supporting personnel have gone through before being allowed to pass through the metal detectors and body scan machines at the entrance to the North Pole Compound, and two of the most deadly and accurate aerial weapons ever created by man escorting him through the sky.

I, for one, am just glad we have the ability to track Santa Claus and his fighter jet escort throughout his journey right on a website. Maybe once they are done tracking Santa for the year, the people who are running www.noradsanta.org could go to Washington to help President What’s-His-Name with that Don't-Name-It-After-Me-Anymore-Care website.

3-11-11

I recorded the following for posterity during the 3-11-11 Japan earthquake and tsunami:

11:24 PM (3/10/2011) - News footage coming from Japan is completely astounding. Footage shows an airport terminal that looks like an island with the entire surrounding area underwater - little compact cars floating like debris on a lake. Refineries and industrial plants are engulfed in flames. Japan says 7.9, but we are saying 8.9. This one looks really bad.

12:19 AM - The footage of those initial surging waves overtaking the land is really hard to watch, but I don't think anything like it has ever been captured on video before. The Japanese government has issued a statement that they are mobilizing, but are basically asking people to do what they can until help arrives. Proof positive that no matter how advanced we are as a society, when disasters strike, you will be own your own for the first three days.

12:21 AM - Tsunami warning sirens are sounding in Hawaii. If there is a tsunami heading west, it is expected to hit there 3:00 AM Hawaii time.

12:33 AM - A tsunami watch for the West Coast of the United States has been issued. Landfall would be about 7:00 AM for us.

12:50 AM - An update to the U.S. West Coast watch has been issued: 7:20 AM Crescent City, CA and 8:00 AM San Francisco. Japan is saying that at least one coastal town has been completely destroyed. Hawaii's tsunami warning was just updated to an evacuation order for low-lying coastal areas.

12:58 AM - Some news sources are reporting SoCal in the clear, while some sources are saying it is too early to tell.

1:11 AM - A new tsunami watch info has been issued - Santa Monica would be hit at 8:49 AM and La Jolla at 9:00 AM. Some sources are reporting the California watch has been upgraded to a warning. The Orange County Sheriff will be closing beaches and not opening piers in the morning.

1:18 AM - Amazing to watch this unfold. Evacuation orders have been issued for the Philippines and Guam and a warning has been issued for everywhere along the U.S. West Coast north of Point Concepcion.

2:15 AM - I am going to get a few hours sleep. Setting alarm for 5:00 AM when tsunami is expected to hit western-most part of Hawaii

5:07 AM - The tsunami is reaching Hawaii, but waves seem much smaller than expected.

6:18 AM - Looks like more realistic numbers are starting to come out of Japan. Apparently, they've evacuated the area around one of the nuclear plants. Rescuers are starting to find hundreds of bodies in the coastal areas. Looks like the early waves in Hawaii were not as high as expected, though some areas are still expected to be hit harder. Some reports are warning of significant damage being possible in Northern and Central California. We are just under an advisory down here in Southern California for now.

7:14 AM - No serious damage in Hawaii, though there will be some large post-surge clean-ups. Water is six inches to a foot deep along some coastal areas, blocks in from the beach. Some Hawaiian areas did have water come in 12 feet higher than normal and move 100 feet inland. Officials in Hawaii warn that second and third waves may be higher. 2 to 3 foot swells are possible on U.S. West Coast. Warnings still in effect - even in Southern Pacific. West Coast coastal communities still under advisory.

8:35AM - Small tsunami waves have begun to hit the Oregon coast. They are much smaller than originally expected. Reports from Japan continue with more and more bad news and loss of life. A dam break in Fukushima has washed away homes and there is an entire train with an unknown number of people missing. A ship that had somewhere between 80 - 100 people is also missing. People in Japan are still being urged to stay away from the coast and evacuate coastal communities. All U.S. Navy personnel are accounted for. U.S. military is mobilizing to help. Seven U.S. ships are being re-routed to assist with rescue and humanitarian support.

10:05 AM - We are passed the initial warning and advisory times for landfall of the tsunami now and there really isn't much damage on the west coast of the U.S. to report, though a number of boats along the coast have broken free of moorings, some being pulled out to sea, some being bounced around harbors or dashed against break waters. Witnesses along the coast are saying that large areas of ocean floor are being exposed before the swells come in. Wave swells are expected to land through afternoon and evening.

12:25 PM - Reports about boats and boat docks all long the California coast being drug out to sea or scuttled after the water first rushes out then rushes back in are prevalent. There is one confirmed report of a person in California being swept out to sea. A number of nuclear power plants in Japan are being forced to shut down. Death tolls are still being listed in the hundreds, but some estimates of as many as 88,000 missing people are starting to circulate.

1:30 PM - Orange County Sheriff is beginning to re-open beaches and piers. Advisories remain in place.

2:34 PM - Reports are coming out of Japan that radiation around the nuclear plant that had a coolant failure is 1,000 times higher then normal and evacuations are being expanded. Japan's early warning system supposedly did work and despite the loss of life may have ended up saving lives. Officials in Hawaii stand by their decision to evacuation, also claiming that the evacuation most likely saved lives as well. No damage reports from Southern California. Santa Cruz and Crescent City harbors suffered significant damage, though, and one 25 year-old photographer in Crescent City was killed when he was swept out to sea while taking pictures of surging waves by the mouth of the Klamath River. Four people in Oregon who were also taking pictures of waves had to be rescued. Officials across the Pacific continue to warn that more destructive waves could still follow.

3:00 PM - News coverage remains heavily focused on the tsunami, but some sources are starting to report other news as well. All new covered has been solely focused on the quake and tsunami for the past 18 hours.

7:33 PM - Rescuers are starting to reach areas hit by tsunami in Northern Japan. States of emergency are in effects at the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, about 150 miles away from central Tokyo. Some people are choosing to leave Tokyo out of fear of nuclear fallout. The Japanese government is trying to reassure people that workers will be able to prevent meltdowns. Some rail services are being restored, but most airports are still closed. Japanese travelers are stranded abroad.

7:59 PM - Death toll has been set to about 1,000 now. People in submerged areas are awaiting rescue on rooftops. Hundreds are still missing. These numbers still seem so low compared to the footage that we have seen. People are still trapped in debris from the earthquake that occurred almost 24 hours ago. Large areas of Japan are still without electricity.

11:50 PM - Rescue efforts in Japan continue. Reports are coming in that as many as 9,500 people are missing from a single coastal town hit by the tsunami. Nuclear power plants in Fukushima sound like they are in real trouble. There is not enough power to cool the cores at two plants. Japanese officials seem to be trying to downplay the danger, but both plants are only about 150 miles from the center of Tokyo. Financial markets are expected to take heavy losses on Monday. Trading in Japan will resume on Monday. Japan is the second largest purchaser of U.S. debt. There is speculation if Japan will be able to continue to fund the U.S. in this manner. There is speculation that rebuilding might create growth, but that could be far into the future.

Hitler's Ho 229 Could Have Had Us All Speaking German By 1950...

I have always said that you go through school, and they teach you some of the facts, but they certainly do not teach you the whole story. When they taught us that we were the first to land on the moon, they definitely did not tell us that it was thanks to the Nazi V-2 rocket program and a team of SS scientists that we pardoned and gave asylum to after World War II. Here is another piece of technology that the mythical "they" never want us to know about. It is the precursor to our own Stealth Bomber, Stealth Fighter, and even Cold War-era flying wing experimental aircraft. It is the Nazi Ho 229 bomber. The following is from an email that has been circulating on the internet, sent to me by my good friend Captain Hooker:

"Keep in mind, this aircraft was built in the 1940's. It resembles our Stealth bombers of today. Had Hitler got these into production sooner, the world wouldn't be what it is today.



With its smooth and elegant lines, this could be a prototype for some future successor to the stealth bomber. But this flying wing was actually designed by the Nazis 30 years before the Americans successfully developed radar-invisible technology. Now an engineering team has reconstructed the Horten Ho 229 from blueprints, with startling results.



Blast from the past: The full-scale replica of the Ho 229 bomber was made with materials available in the 40s.



Futuristic: The stealth plane design was years ahead of its time. It was faster and more efficient than any other plane of the period and its stealth powers did work against radar. Experts are now convinced that given a little bit more time, the mass deployment of this aircraft could have changed the course of the war.



The plane could have helped Adolf Hitler win the war. First built and tested in the air in March 1944, it was designed with a greater range and speed than any plane previously built and was the first aircraft to use the stealth technology now deployed by the U.S. in its B-2 bombers. Thankfully Hitler's engineers only made three prototypes, tested by being dragged behind a glider, and were not able to build them on an industrial scale before the Allied forces invaded.

From Panzer tanks through to the V-2 rocket, it has long been recognized that Germany's technological expertise during the war was years ahead of the Allies.
But by 1943, Nazi high command feared that the war was beginning to turn against them, and were desperate to develop new weapons to help turn the tide.
Nazi bombers were suffering badly when faced with the speed and maneuverability of the Spitfire and other Allied fighters. Hitler was also desperate to develop a bomber with the range and capacity to reach the United States .

In 1943 Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering demanded that designers come up with a bomber that would meet his requirements, one that could carry 1,000 kg over 1,000km flying at 1,000km/h.

A full scale replica of the Ho 229 bomber made with materials available in the 1940s at preflight.



A wing section of the stealth bomber. The jet intakes were years ahead of their time. Two pilot brothers in their thirties, Reimar and Walter Horten, suggested a flying wing design they had been working on for years. They were convinced that with its drag and lack of wind resistance such a plane would meet Goering's requirements.

Construction on a prototype was begun in Goettingen in Germany in 1944.

The center pod was made from a welded steel tube, and was designed to be powered by a BMW 003 engine. The most important innovation was Reimar Horten's idea to coat it in a mix of charcoal dust and wood glue.



Vengeful: Inventors Reimar and Walter Horten were inspired to build the Ho 229 by the deaths of thousands of Luftwaffe pilots in the Battle of Britain.

The 142-foot wingspan bomber was submitted for approval in 1944, and it would have been able to fly from Berlin to NYC and back without refueling, thanks to the same blended wing design and six BMW 003A or eight Junker Jumo 004B turbojets. They thought the electromagnetic waves of radar would be absorbed, and in conjunction with the aircraft's sculpted surfaces the craft would be rendered almost invisible to radar detectors. The plane was covered in radar absorbent paint with a high graphite content, which has a similar chemical make-up to charcoal. This was the same method eventually used by the U.S. in its first stealth aircraft in the early 1980s, the F-117A Nighthawk.

After the war the Americans captured the prototype Ho 229s along with the blueprints and used some of their technological advances to aid their own designs. But experts always doubted claims that the Horten could actually function as a stealth aircraft.

Now using the blueprints and the only remaining prototype craft, Northrop-Grumman (the defense firm behind the B-2) built a full-size replica of a Horten Ho 229.



Luckily for Britain, the Horten flying wing fighter-bomber never got much further than the blueprint stage above.



Thanks to the use of wood and carbon, jet engines integrated into the fuselage, and its blended surfaces, the plane could have been in London eight minutes after the radar system detected it. It took them 2,500 man-hours and $250,000 to construct, and although their replica cannot fly, it was radar-tested by placing it on a 50 ft articulating pole and exposing it to electromagnetic waves. The team demonstrated that although the aircraft is not completely invisible to the type of radar used in the war, it would have been stealthy enough and fast enough to ensure that it could reach London before Spitfires could be scrambled to intercept it.

If the Germans had had time to develop this aircraft, it could well have had an impact, says Peter Murton, aviation expert from the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, in Cambridgeshire.

In theory the flying wing was a very efficient aircraft design, which minimized drag. It is one of the reasons that it could reach very high speeds in dive and glide modes and had such an incredibly long range.

The research was filmed for a forthcoming documentary on the National Geographic Channel."