The Solar Wind Is the Lowest I Have Seen in More Than 8 Years of Reporting on It. Mere

The solar wind is the lowest I have seen in more than 8 years of reporting on it. Mere 280 km/sec. Barely a breeze. The Sun is effectively blank. Not a single noteworthy magnetic anomaly on the surface facing Earth. High above thunderstorms in the American west, red sprites are dancing across the cloudtops, reaching up to the edge of space itself. These are lighting bolts that go from Earth into space and emit X-rays. Sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, or cumulonimbus, giving rise to a quite varied range of visual shapes flickering in the night sky. They are triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground.

Sprites appear as luminous reddish-orange flashes. They often occur in clusters within the altitude range 50–90 km (31–56 mi) above the Earth's surface. Sporadic visual reports of sprites go back at least to 1886, but they were first photographed on July 6, 1989 by scientists from the University of Minnesota and have subsequently been captured in video recordings many thousands of times.

Sprites are sometimes inaccurately called upper-atmospheric lightning. However, sprites are cold plasma phenomena that lack the hot channel temperatures of tropospheric lightning, so they are more akin to fluorescent tube discharges than to lightning discharges.

Also in the news, a real breakthrough in cancer research. Yes, very good news for beer and deviled egg consumers. It turns out that researchers have gathered enough data to prove that smelling a flatulent will significantly reduce your chances of getting cancer. I know. Families all over America who travel in minivans are even more joyful at this news. Of course, there were two key pieces of information withheld by the scientists who conducted the study, for fear their patent rights would not be secure. It is left unclear whether the farts have to be stinky or just fresh air. Also, no information discriminating between the benefits of one’s own farts compared to those of others. I know for sure mine have been beneficial in many ways my entire life.

Obama's Pentagon is cutting thousands of officers from the military, citing the demands of sequestration. Those being "laid off" include a number of officers on active duty, with "some receiving pink slips while on the battlefield."

According to Fox News, "Roughly 2,600 captains or other officers have or will be laid off, with more expected."

Defense Department officials say the layoffs are "the result of mandatory spending cuts imposed by sequestration" and are being handled with "a balanced approach that maintains readiness while trying to minimize turbulence within the officer corps."

But retired Major General Robert Scales does not agree. He says, "It puts the soldier, the soldier's family, and the men under his command at risk. Young officers look at each and wonder who is next."

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) said:

Once again [President Obama] is putting domestic politics ahead of the security of our nation. The Army captains and majors receiving pink slips while on the battlefield is just the latest example.

My heart goes out to these men and women who are risking their lives and making great sacrifices, yet are now being told they are being separated from the Army and will have no job when they return to their families.

Obama signed sequestration into law on August 2, 2011.

Flight MH17: The facts as I see them

While it is too early to know who shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 over Ukraine yesterday - and while it could have been a false flag - it would be good to remember that airlines have accidentally been shot down numerous times in the past.

After all, the Malaysian airlines plane was way off course:

The plane flew over a war zone, which was well-known to be a “no fly zone” with “restricted airspace”.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was cruising just 1,000 feet above restricted airspace when it was struck by a missile in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to aviation and intelligence officials.

Despite ongoing violence in eastern Ukraine, including the recent downing of two military aircraft, Ukrainian aviation officials had closed the region’s airspace only below 32,000 feet in altitude.

The Boeing 777, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, with 298 people aboard, was at 33,000 feet when it vanished from radar screens, according to European aviation authorities.

In recent days, though, military aircraft were downed by antiaircraft munitions, which should have concerned aviation authorities, he said.

Reuters notes:

Malaysia Airlines filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000 feet throughout Ukraine airspace but was instructed by Ukraine air traffic control to fly at 33,000 feet upon entry ….

CBS writes in an article entitled “‘Big Question’ Is Why Plane Was Flying Over War Zone”:

During a phone interview with CBS News Thursday morning, Captain Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was questioned why Malaysia Airlines flight 17 would be flying over Ukraine’s border with Russia despite ongoing political unrest in the area.

Sullenberger, the veteran of the 2009 Miracle on the Hudson landing, is an aviation expert for CBS News….

“That is one of the big questions right now,” said Sully. “The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has barred U.S. Airlines from flying over this area for some time.”

The Atlantic points out:

Did aviation authorities know that this was a dangerous area?

Yes, they most certainly did. Nearly three months ago, on the “Special Rules” section of its site, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration put out an order prohibiting American pilots, airlines, charter carriers, and everyone else over whom the FAA has direct jurisdiction, from flying over parts of Ukraine.

Bloomberg adds:

Qantas hasn’t used the route for a few months, said Andrew McGinnes, a spokesman for the Australian carrier, while Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific said it has been detouring for “quite some time.” Korean Air Lines Co. and Asiana Airlines Inc. said in statements they have been avoiding the area since March 3.

This is not the first time such an incident has occurred …

Numerous Previous Accidental Shootdowns ... By Russia, Ukraine, and Other Countries

In 1954, mainland China's Army shot down a Cathay Pacific Airways airplane, killing 10 out of the 19 passengers. Cathay Pacific was the airline of Hong Kong, then under British control). In apologizing for the attack to Britain, the Chinese government said that they had thought the plane was a military aircraft from the Taiwan on an attack mission.

In 1973, a Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 flying from Tripoli to Cairo got lost and flew over the Sinai peninsula, under Israeli control since the Six-Day War in 1967. After giving signals to land and firing warning shots, Israeli jets shot down the plane, killing 108 of the 113 people on board. The chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces took responsibility for ordering the shoot-down, the Defense Minister called the event an "error of judgment", and the Israeli government compensated the families of victims (Libya condemned the attack as "a criminal act" while the Soviets called it a "monstrous new crime").

In 1983, a Korean airlines passenger airline was shot down by a Soviet pilot killing all 269 passengers. The pilot had accidentally deviated from the normal flight path:

The Soviets believed it was likely a military aircraft. Transcripts quote the shootdown order from Soviet General Kornukov:

What civilian? [It] has flown over Kamchatka! It [came] from the ocean without identification. I am giving the order to attack if it crosses the State border.

The Washington Post reported in 1988:

A U.S. warship fighting gunboats in the Persian Gulf yesterday mistook an Iranian civilian jetliner for an attacking Iranian F14 fighter plane and blew it out of the hazy sky with a heat-seeking missile, the Pentagon announced. Iran said 290 persons were aboard the European-made A300 Airbus and that all had perished.

“The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident,” Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

Navy officials said the Vincennes’ combat teams believed the airliner to be an Iranian F14 jet fighter.

Ukraine admitted to accidentally shooting down a Russian airliner in 2001, killing all 78 on board as the aircraft plunged into the Black Sea:

Ukraine finally admitted yesterday that its military shot down a Russian airliner that crashed into the Black Sea last week, killing all 78 passengers and crew.

Evhen Marchuk, the chairman of Ukraine’s security council, conceded that the plane had probably been brought down by “an accidental hit from an S-200 rocket fired during exercises”.

And – according to several government investigators tasked with determining what happened – an American missile test which went astray may have accidentally brought down TWA 800, killing all 230 on board.

The Way Aircraft are Tracked

The control of airspace is done by two completely different networks: a civilian and a military one. The civilian one is the one people think of when they hear ATC (air traffic control). These are the folks who manage flight plans, who talk to pilots on different altitudes, who track the aircraft during the flight and make sure that there is enough distance between them. Depending on an airplane's altitude and what it is doing, it remains in contact with different ATCs but they all work together. One more thing: the radars used by civilian ATC are very primitive, all they can "see" is a bearing. What helps them is that all aircraft have a so-called "transponder" to transmit a special message which indicates their ID, speed, altitude and course. The ATC then superimposes that info on his screen to get a pretty accurate idea of what the aircraft is doing. The important thing about all this is that the military is normally patched straight into that data and that it can use it to supplement the data military radars acquire by themselves. In other words, a military air defense network "sees" and "knows" everything that a civilians ATC knows and sees.
The task of military air defenses is dramatically different from the civilians ATC: the military expects to deal with aircraft who will do their utmost to remain undetected and once detected, the military air defense network has to figure out a way to hopefully shoot-down the enemy aircraft. As a result, the kind of technology used by the military is very different.
The first "layer" of a military air defense network will be long range detection radars. Their task is to try to detect an airborne target as far as possible. Although one type of radar can do this alone, typically data from different radars (including airborne ones) is fused to create a single picture. Already at this point the air defense command post will be patched in into the civilians ATC and it will have all the flight plans, airline names, aircraft types and expected flight routes. The air defense command post's first task is to separate civilians (considered neutral) from possible hostiles. These 99% of flights are routine and regular, the folks in charge have a very good idea of what a normal sky looks like, they see the scheduled civilians aircraft doing their thing and they easily track them. Some military radars even have the capability to detect the kind of aircraft they are seeing on their radar simply by analyzing the radar signal bounced back (typically by the aircraft's engine).

If a target is ambiguous, the military can use a very different type of radar to track that target: this target acquisition radar will operate on a different frequency, it will have a much narrower beam, and it will provide the operator with much more info about the aircraft even if the aircraft does not have a working transponder (which would be most unusual for a civilian airliner). Again, modern armed forces have the means to fuse the data from any different radar types (including airborne radars) to calculate a solution to identify and track a target. The next step is the send a special signal, like a password, to check if aircraft might not be one of your own.

Civilian aircraft are not capable of this kind if "electronic handshake". Finally, if the military air defense command post believes that the target his hostile, it selects the best radar and missile combination to engage the target. Typically, this is done yet again by a highly specialized radar which sends a burst of energy to the target which is reflected by the airborne target and which is then caught either by a ground-based radar or even by the missile itself (that is called TVM track-via-missile) which then can guide itself to the target without emitting any signal (alternatively, the missile can use his own active guidance system which sends and receives radar signals).

Advanced air defense networks, such as Russia's, can automatically chose the best radar for each task, the missile most likely to hit, the number of missiles needed for the task, the most threatening target, the mode of engagement, etc. These systems are highly integrated and highly automated, which also means that they are much safer than more primitive systems (more about that later). They are also highly redundant which in practical terms means that if, say, in an ideal environment a missile system like the Buk M1 is just one part of a much bigger network of systems, it can also operate almost autonomously if needed (again, more about that later).

The one undeniable fact is that this disaster happened in Ukrainian ATC space and they, the Ukie ATC, had the primary responsibility to keep MH17 in a safe air corridor and not the Novorussians who had neither the technical means nor the legal obligation to do so. Also, just a few days ago the Ukies had announced that they were closing the airspace over the combat zone to an altitude of 9600m (if I remember correctly). If the Novorussians heard this, they could have easily concluded that MH17 was a military recon flight flying towards Donestk from Dnepropetrovsk. Besides, I am not at all sure that the radar on the Buk M1 can differentiate between 9'600m and 10'000m or, if it can, that the operator would have been aware of the difference this could mean.

The Hanging Chaff

The one undeniable fact is that this disaster happened in Ukrainian ATC space, but one thing everyone is missing is that the people operating the Buk M1 missile system probably did originally target a military vehicle. They did not make a mistake. The Buk M1missile system came up against anti-missile technology on board the military aircraft it was targeting. How do I know this?

Well, if you look at the pictures of the crash site sent by several people with cell phones at the site, you will notice the Chaff trails coming down from the sky. Chaff is a burning chunk of magnesium that puts out a very bright IR target designed to distract surface to air missiles.

I am the first to say this, so listen up. The Ukrainians did shoot at a military transport that was flying at perhaps 15,000 feet or less. That plane deployed its chaff decoys and the missile blasted right past the military plane up into the airspace between that plane and Malaysian flight MH-17. The missile reacquired the target three miles above and went after it. The ground-based crew rejoiced that the missile system hit a target. They did not know it was the wrong target, until about half an hour later. They were too busy moving their very expensive Russian-made BUK missile system under cover.

Now, this is out there. There is a conflict going on between Putin and Ukraine. Crimea is Russian. Everyone knows this. Some of the planet accepts this as a legitimate election held by the people of Crimea to avoid being targeted by Western economic hit men to exploit their resources. The UN and America funded and armed the riots to force them to accept the European debt loan, but Crimea refused. Keep in mind that Yukanovich was Crimean. He sided with Russia and backed away from the loan offered to them by European bankers. Within days of the refusal, rioters along with CIA operatives were transported in to disrupt the city. Of course the global press played it as government oppressing its people, but that was the great deception.

Ukraine is more western in its thinking and has far more resources than Crimea. The capital controls the money and the flow of resources to the global markets. They do not think that Putin is supposed to be president still. He has been in there for nearly 15 years, long after his elected term. He refuses to leave. No one will dare run against him, for fear of being killed. He has been following a plan between he and Obama that was put together by Valerie Jarrett years ago. Of course, Obama will do nothing to upset the plan.