Dream Squelched

Okay, okay, the above topic is a bit melodramatic, and in no way reflects an actual sense of squelched dream despondency on my part. I had hoped, before I returned home for Christmas, to get to see an F/A-22 in flight. Alas, it does not look like that will occur.

Yesterday a F-22 crashed on take-off at Nellis Airbase in Nevada. The pilot ejected safely (the fact that he is okay is why I feel like I can joke about this, to an extent), but the Air Force has put a hold on all further F-22 flights until further notice.

Now, that may seem like an extreme reaction to one crash, but when you think about it, it makes sense. Here you have a newly-produced line of air-superiority/attack fighter craft, and one is utterly flumoxed at take-off. There are a few possible reasons for such an incident (as near as I can see, at least), most of which revolve around problems in the flight controls or propulsion systems. Time will tell and fix, I guess.

Of course, it could also be that the engines ate an unladen Nevada swallow, but I won't say that outloud, as I don't know for sure if they even have swallows in Nevada.

On a positive note, Time Magazine has named President Bush 'Person of the Year' for 2004. Love him or hate him, I'm certain you can understand why. In my case, as I say in the hood (i.e., whenever I go outside in my raincoat or heavy coat with the built-in flop-back head protection), "Dubya's my homeboy, you dig what I say, yo?".

Unless you post on the forums of The Democrat Underground, of course, as their complete and utter revilement of everything Dubya (and Republican, and I think maybe even evangelical, for that matter) produces the brand of hateful, vulgar invective that would be amusing if it were not so... sad. Right Wing News has a listing of some of the best (unintenionally funny) and worse (downright disgusting, maddening, infuriating, inducing-incredulous-stares-at-screen-and-random-exclaimations) posts from the DU forums. While you're at RWN, browse through their Quotes Section. The Patton quotes especially are well worth it.

Also, to join in with the President's PoTY award in proving that Time Magazine does have some sense, Powerline has been award the first Blog of the Year award. They rapidly became one of my favorites during the months leading up to the election (hence why they are in the blogroll), and earned a certain degree of fame for their roll (right alongside Little Green Footballs and INDC Journal) in exposing and rending twain asunder the 60 Minutes Bush Memo Fraud back in September. I highly recommend the writtings of Hinderocket, The Big Trunk, and Deacon, so go check 'em out.

I mean, even Lynne Cheney likes 'em.

Earlier tonight (as in, about a half-hour ago), I was watching a piece of "investigative reporting" (hosted by Bryant Gumbel, no less), on some UFO landing/encounter that happened near a major RAF/USAF base in England.

Ah, here it is: "UFO INVASION AT RENDLESHAM".

All in all, in was actually rather (not in the Dan sense) interesting. The story behind the case was presently fairly and fairly well, even if there were the occasional breathless references to Roswell, NM. The basic situation involved the buzzing of the base at Rendelsham (which may or may have had a few tactical nukes stored on hand; rightly, no one confirmed that) over a period of two nights by a triangular UFO. Each night, it seems, it landed.

The guy who investigated it on the first night says he actually got close enough to touch the thing, and I had no reason to disbelieve him.

The big twist came when we discover that the two witnesses,the investigator from the first landing (who also investigated the second sighting) and another airman who was taken out to see the second 'landing site' were, in their recounts of what they saw on the second night, talking about the same phenomena but AT DIFFERENT SITES.

Gives ya gooesbumps, that does.

As with all UFO specials, this one managed to build up a good bit of suspense and paranoid tension. Between government conspiracies and hypnotic regression (which has got to be one of the most unexplainably FREAKY things I've ever seen, and I don't know why or how else to describe my reaction to it), you're rendered unable to turn around for fear of seeing a "Gray" backed-up by government agents, who are going to let the "gray" take you as part of their "agreement", and then do all sorts of obscene and degrading experiments on you and it hurts and the ACLU is too far away to file a complaint and oh my goodness is that Zeta Aquilae?

Erm, where was I? Ah, yes, agreements between the US Government and the "aliens" or whatever they are. Specifically, agreements whereby the "aliens" give "advanced technology" to the US.

Now, this is the part where all tension breaks down and I JUST HAVE TO LAUGH. They have some chick on there (a UFOlogist, I suspect) who is speculating on the nature of the technology exchange. She makes the statement that perhaps some of the great breakthroughs in this past century are as a result of "alien technology."

Her prime example? "Perhaps that stealth technology." .

Stealth technology. The best you can bleeding do is stealth technology? For the love of coherence, where do they find these people?

I can order a book from AIAA on how stealth technology works. How Stuff Works has a whole section on it. It's simply a matter of airplane geometry and the use of certain materials, nothing particularly "otherworldly" about it.

Just a bunch of smart guys at Burbank doing their thing. Granted, some probably were bald after the design phase.

Whether they were were gray and had big eyes I'll leave alone: it WAS in California, after all.