I came across this story just an hour ago, and I'm speechless with wonder at the apparent total fucking ineptitude of not merely our government's military surveillance, but also of Washington's public-relations ability as well:
Hello? Is anybody minding the goddamn store? Somebody launches a big-ass missile 35 miles from downtown L.A., and nobody knows what the fuck it was? Nobody in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force even noticed it? Even NORAD has no clue, for chrissake??
Jesus mercy. It's 24 hours now, and still a mystery. This is not the way to run the fucking country. What, are you shitheads partying while the Boss is out of town? We need some reassurance out here, if not defense. You guys in the West Wing need to put the bong down and do your fucking job. Or rightly get your collective asses kicked by the Republicans.
As a commenter on this YouTube video remarked:
We strip-search grandma at the airport and make sure that my shampoo is in an approved container, but our Pentagon can't tell who's firing missiles around our country.
Unfuckingbelievable.
Update: There's a lot of chatter being spread around now on various news sites and blogs about its being just a jet airliner contrail. And your Head Trucker says bullshit. I've never seen a rocket launch in person, but I've been seeing them on TV ever since John Glenn went into orbit, and I've also seen uncountable jet contrails living here in North Texas, with hundreds of planes flying into or out of DFW every day of the year. None of that makes me any kind of expert, of course, and I don't have a degree in anything relevant to rocket science or optics; but I still say bullshit. That's not a goddamn plane, it's some kind of missile.
If it was merely an airliner, then why the hell hasn't somebody identified it yet for the public? You know the FAA tracks every single plane into and out of L.A., and NORAD tracks everything in the skies over the U.S. If it was a plane, they could easily tell the public exactly which flight it was, judging by the time of day and the direction of travel.
But they aren't doing that, are they? Instead, they are saying they saw nothing at all on their radars in that time and place. Now why would they withhold that very elementary piece of information - unless it wasn't an airliner at all?
Besides, if you look at the video, it seems very clear to me that the object is moving away from the camera, and I think I see the flame of a rocket exhaust, a pinpoint of flickering light. Maybe I'm wrong, sure. But the cameraman who took the video says the object was moving with a spiraling motion. So it was no plane.
Notice also the photos of a similar phenomenon last Dec. 31 in the same area, and the extended discussion in the comments section there about the plane vs. missile theories. Notice also the links in those same comments to official sources about the U.S. Navy's missile tests on San Nicholas Island, out beyond Catalina.
Using Occam's Razor, then, it seems pretty much a sure thing to your Head Trucker that this was a missile launch for some unknown purpose by our own military. Which if so, that's fine; no doubt there's a good reason for it. But why do this in broad daylight, and then pretend that our own military - which is supposed to be protecting us 24/7 from all enemies foreign and domestic, as the phrase goes - that the military is so inept and so clueless?
Instead of inspiring public confidence, that does just the opposite. A damn piss-poor way to run a country, if you ask me, whoever is in office.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
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My Story
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.