Flying Objects over North America

Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs for their last minute 38-35 win over the Eagles with a field goal. But for once, the football wasn’t the inflated flying object that most Americans were talking about this weekend.

As of this writing, we’re up to four flying objects that have been shot down in the past week. First was the Chinese spy balloon that was allowed to drift eastward over at least three of our sensitive nuclear installations before being shot down over the Atlantic. Then two smaller objects believed to be balloons and carrying payloads were shot down over Alaska and Canada.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/us-offers-first-description-unknown-object-shot-down-canada

Then a fourth unidentified object was shot down over Lake Huron in northern Michigan.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawmakers-demand-accountability-biden-admin-4th-flying-object-shot-down-military

The White House is not being forthcoming about what the objects are, which has sparked demands for more transparency and fewer mixed signals (are they or aren’t they balloons?) from Congress members of both parties. It’s also fueling wild Internet rumors, not helped by a briefing on the Lake Huron downing given by Air Force General Glen VanHerck. He said the Pentagon doesn’t know what keeps these objects aloft or what their propulsion system is, and “we’re calling them objects, not balloons, for a reason.” When asked, “Have you ruled out aliens or extraterrestrials?” VanHerck replied, “I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”

You might think that comment from a Pentagon spokesman would set off an uproar among UFO buffs, and you’re right. But it was interesting to see the even bigger reaction in the opposite direction. Instead of running with the “Aliens are here!” narrative, many conspiracy sites instead went with the theory that the government is trying to gaslight people into thinking aliens are invading so they can continue the panic and control they gained during the COVID pandemic.

I think this illustrates just how much of its credibility with the public the government has blown. For years, rumors circulated that they were lying to cover up proof of aliens. Now, they say they won’t rule out aliens, and people suspect they’re creating fake aliens to scare everyone into going along with more government power. I guess the good news is that they’ve increased public skepticism enough that it’s now easier to believe the government is lying to us than to believe in little green men. That could be a good thing, and for some people, a big step forward.

For those less inclined to believe in the “War of the Worlds” scenario, it’s been reported that the first Chinese balloon was a spy balloon, not a weather balloon. The government assures us that they jammed its signal to keep it from sending back information about our nuclear and military sites to the Chinese, but how they knew to do that before they shot it down and found out what it was is anybody’s guess. They did reportedly find that it contained tech parts from six US-based companies and that had English writing on them, so I guess they were not made on Mars, unless American companies are outsourcing manufacturing even further than I thought.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/02/12/some-chinese-spy-balloon-parts-were-made-in-the-usa-six-companies-placed-on-trade-blacklist-n702738

Those companies have been placed on a Commerce Department blacklist called the Entity List that regulates the export of products that have both civilian and military functions. It’s hard to believe that all-American companies operating on American soil, such as Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology Co. or Dongguan Lingkong Remote Sensing Technology Company, would be doing business with China’s government. It must be due to some sort of oversight. Or a total lack of oversight.

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/02/12/some-chinese-spy-balloon-parts-were-made-in-the-usa-six-companies-placed-on-trade-blacklist-n702738

This is a developing story. I will let you know if aliens get mad at us for shooting down their craft and turn off our power to teach us a lesson, as in "The Day The Earth Stood Still." Although in California, I doubt people would notice.

Reassuring Update! The Biden Administration is reportedly privately assuring top Democrats that the flying objects he’s shooting down are not extraterrestrial.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/02/12/how-bad-is-it-biden-team-issuing-private-assurances-its-not-aliens-n702781

It is reassuring to know that we’re not being invaded by Martians, just communist China, probably. However, it’s not particularly reassuring to learn that the White House spokesman doesn’t seem to know what NORAD is and thinks our neighbor to the north is called “Canadia.”

Conservative or Liberal

You can often tell whether someone is conservative or liberal by what they find offensive. For instance, many conservatives were offended by the sexualized Super Bowl halftime show put on by Rihanna, with the bleeped words and crotch-grabbing (there was also a lot of that at the Grammy Awards; is the music industry suffering from an epidemic of Tourette's Syndrome and body lice?)

https://nypost.com/2023/02/13/rihanna-grabs-crotch-smells-fingers-during-super-bowl-halftime-show/

Meanwhile, the leftist Twitter brigades claim to be offended by Chris Berman remarking that two black quarterbacks were facing off in the Super Bowl on Abe Lincoln’s birthday…

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/espns-chris-berman-raises-eyebrows-abraham-lincoln-remark-talking-patrick-mahomes-jalen-hurts

And that Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake didn’t stand up during the singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which some call the “Black National Anthem.” And some conservatives were offended that it was sung at all because we are all Americans and it’s divisive to have a “national anthem” for every ethnic group.

https://thepostmillennial.com/hero-kari-lake-refuses-to-stand-for-black-national-anthem-at-super-bowl

My take: I wish they’d remember families are watching and have more wholesome halftime fare. I also don’t care so much what else they sing before the game, as long as they sing the real National Anthem and everyone stands and shows respect for that. As for the people criticizing Kari Lake, if you defended the players’ right to kneel during the real National Anthem, I don’t want to hear your hypocritical whining about Kari Lake or anyone else not standing during the fake National Anthem.

Least Surprising News of the Day

The Media Research Center studied five months of late night TV shows (excluding the #1 show, “Gutfeld!,” of course – hey, if all the other media outlets exclude it, why should they include it?) They discovered that Colbert, Kimmel, Noah, Fallon, et. al. booked 94 guests with political leanings from the worlds of politics and media. Of those, 93 were liberal and one was conservative. That was Mike Lindell, whom Jimmy Kimmel forced to appear inside a claw machine during their interview so he could mock him and make him look ridiculous.

https://thepostmillennial.com/hero-kari-lake-refuses-to-stand-for-black-national-anthem-at-super-bowl

As this study shows, the hosts themselves need no goofy props to make themselves look ridiculous.

Time once again to spin the Big Wheel of Random Racism! There it goes!...And it comes to…a…stop……on…….

Wild animals! Mark it down, the uneven distribution of wild animals in various areas is now due to systemic racism!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11738875/Now-systemic-racism-driving-ANIMALS-deprived-urban-areas-creatures-ditch-poor-areas.html

I eagerly await the Biden Administration's new program to bus more possums and raccoons into varmint-deprived minority neighborhoods. In fact, they can have all the ones who keep knocking over my garbage cans.

It is crazy

I’ve been taking groups of people to Israel since 1981 to experience the land of the Bible and I’ll be there the next several days.  The toughest part of the trip is always the long flight, but this year I was thinking about taking a more scenic albeit slower form of travel—I thought about going in a Chinese balloon!  Maybe it wouldn’t be so fast, but I’d get to see and hear things from that balloon that could make it pretty fascinating.  And I know I’d have a week or two to be in it before Joe Biden sent a plane to knock it down.  On the other hand, if he knew I was in it, it would probably warrant an immediate scrambling of Air Force fighters and I’d be hurtling toward earth within minutes.

This week Joe Biden gave his State of the Union message, but I was pretty disappointed.  I was sure hoping Kevin McCarthy would take the speech in rip it in two from the Speaker’s chair just like Nancy Pelosi, but he’s a nicer person than Pelosi.  I really didn’t get into the Presiden’t speech that much in part because I thought the real important speech of the night came from that new Governor of Arkansas who gave the Republican response to the State of the Union.  Now THAT was a speech!  Of course, I say that with the utmost of objectivity!

Seriously, of course I like the speech my daughter gave even better than the President’s speech.  But only in part because she is related to me.  I thought she covered the most important observation about the challenge in America today—not Democrat vs. Republican as much as common sense vs. crazy. 

It’s crazy when we send a 27 member SWAT Team armed with fully automatic weapons to conduct a pre-dawn raid on former President Trump’s home to look for some papers, but we let the Communist Chinese government float a balloon over the heartland of America, including some of our military installations and don’t bother to knock it down until it’s finished going across the entire country and is over the Atlantic Ocean.  This is as crazy as tearing down barriers at the borders and giving a green light to millions of illegal immigrants including drug dealers and human sex-traffickers to come right in and make themselves at home.

It's crazy when the Marxists in our own government tell us that we ought to get rid of gas stoves and fossil fuel cars.  That’s just great when you tell a factory worker making $40K a year that he ought to buy an $80,000 electric car even though he can’t charge it enough to get to work every day.  It’s crazy when people running our Health and Human Services Department say they don’t know what a woman is.  It reminds me that it’s not the first time people in government have been confused.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLzvQraXw6k

What we now realize is that Andy Griffith playing the role of Will Stockdale in “No Time For Sergeants” was the beginning of wokeness in the military and maybe was the father of insanity in our government!  And we thought it was all something brand new…but come to think of it, in the day of the film, it was played for laughs and was all comedy.  The loons in our culture now are serious and it’s not funny anymore!  It really is crazy vs. common sense.  And I sure hope common sense will win!