USG WANTS TO HACK THE WEATHER

Hm... not sure how to feel about this one. As a writer and, specifically, a scifi writer, I like to check out blogs that stretch the imagination a bit more than you might expect from even some of the more extreme blogs on the right. My favorite "paranormal" type blog would have to be DailyGrail.com. It's run by good people who have open minds about the universe, which is very cool and there are a lot of things in this universe that don't make a heckuva lot of sense. DG.c will cover it.

I don't mean any respect when I say the following: For more of a laugh, I check out Richard C. Hoagland's www.enterprisemission.com and specifically [http://www.enterprisemission.com/weblog/weblog.htm|Hoagland's blog] which for some idiotic reason isn't on his site's main page. Now, I mean no disrespect towards Hoagland or his followers. The guy used to be a NASA scientist (if memory serves) and there are quite a few things he says that I find completely plausible. However, when the dude gets into his whole hyperdimensional physics routine it's enough to make you hurt your neck from shaking your head so much.

Being one with an open mind, I have tried to learn about hyperdimensional physics but I found it to be frankly, incredibly perplexing and complex. It seems to me that while the universe may seem very complicated, it's actually quite simple. The explanation of HD physics seems anything but simple. I'm a college graduate and I can't get my head around it.

Regardless, Hoagland is convinced that Katrina was a hyperdimensional hurricane. Yep, you read it right. He says it meets up with all of this sacred geometry and that Katrina was also controlled by human beings...

...yeah.

But keeping an open mind, have a read of a clip from [http://www.enterprisemission.com/weblog/2005/09/hyperdimensional-katrina-new-evidence.html|a blog post] on the HDH, Katrina:

Another of the astonishing, bold-faced lies which deserves to be investigated by a full Congressional panel -- in this expanding National catastrophe -- is the continuing myth "we can't control the weather." That Katrina "was just an act of God ...."

One of our most pointed issues -- asked even before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, precisely a week ago, last Sunday night/Monday morning -- was this essential question:

"Was Katrina another 'Hyperdimensional Hurricane!?'"

Sources have confirmed to The Enterprise Mission all this past week that Katrina was, indeed, both "maneuvered and enhanced" ... by one secret group deliberately intending to cause the devastating National catastrophe we have been witnessing on all our TV screens for the past horrifying week!!

While another group worked feverishly (after much delay ... and "at the last minute") to divert it.

This, we were told, was the reason for the last-minute "jog" to the east ... which spared New Orleans the brunt of the storm, but subjected other sections of the Gulf Coast -- in Mississippi and in Alabama -- to total destruction ... for tens of miles inland rom the Coast!

Wow, that's some seriously contrived BS. I mean, if I ever tried to write a scenario like that in a novel or a script I'd have myself neutered. I mean, come on--it didn't hit New Orleans because of weather patterns, not because of two groups battling it out for Katrina-control.

So, that's a good example of why I hit his site for laughs--well, that's not all I hit his site for. With a lot of these so-called "conspiracy" or "paranormal" sites you can sometimes stumble across some great little facts that make you stop and wonder just how outlandish a controlling the weather really is. Here is an example of one such little fact from Hoagland's blog:

The amazing, documented evidence is actually a formal Bill -- quietly introduced into the House and Senate of the United States Congress, this past Spring -- calling for the establishment of a "Weather Modification Operations and Research Board" by October 1, 2005 ... in just a few short weeks!!

HUH??!!

Introduced by Senator Kay Hutchison (R-TX), on March 3, 2005 (more "33's" anyone ...?) -- Senate Bill 517 is formally termed:

"Weather Modification Research and Technology Transfer Authorization Act of 2005."

Think he made it up? Sadly, he didn't. [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s109-517|read the bill for yourself here]. Here's a quote to whet your appetite:

It is the purpose of this Act to develop and implement a comprehensive and coordinated national weather modification policy and a national cooperative Federal and State program of weather modification research and development.

You don't have research and development on anything but technology. Does this mean that the USG is sponsoring R&D on tech that can "mod" storms? That's a good question.

One possible explanation I could come up with just off the top of my head was that they could be talking about doing R&D into tech that would help modify weather patterns in general, perhaps to generally change the type of weather that hits a certain part of the world. This could be like trying to convert an area that is hurricane country to an area that has more mild weather. Tech like this could be used to help minimize monsoon seasons and such by permanently modding weather patterns.

Such tech could be used to change the way the environment is polluted or something similar.

The point is, I don't think they the USG is developing some sort of weather-control raygun. They're more interested in finding imaginary WMD and in forcing teachers to instruct students on intelligent design.

From LiveScience.com:

Schemes to Control the Weather Clouded by Failure

By Robin Lloyd
Special to LiveScience
posted: 03 October 2005
11:12 am ET

Scientists agree they can't totally control the weather. But some experts think they can tame it a bit.

Schemes are wide-ranging, with proposals to throttle everything from fog to global warming. Results have been mixed and the controversy constant.

Nature's most powerful storms, hurricanes, are another matter. Hurricanes rely on warm water for fuel. Experts disavow schemes from ocean plowing (to cool the water and remove the energy source) to dragging icebergs into the path of a storm.

Smaller-scale weather systems might be more open to change.

One idea floated a few years back was to beam microwave energy from a satellite to disrupt the convection that drives a tornado. Another idea that remains alive after decades of research is cloud-seeding to increase or decrease rain, fog or hail in certain locations.

Give it a try

Despite a lack of firm evidence that the efforts work, states such as California, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada have recently spent money on cloud seeding to increase precipitation or reduce hail or fog.

Cloud seeding puts chemicals, usually silver iodide, into clouds to condense their moisture into ice, which falls down as snow or rain. The chemicals are either fired up from the ground or dropped from aircraft.

Some research shows that cloud seeding works best on clouds that form as moist air cools when it moves across mountain ranges. These are called orographic clouds and mainly form in the winter. It's trickier with the billowy cumulus clouds that are the main source of rainfall in all seasons.

Federal officials were enthusiastic about cloud seeding research in the 1960s and '70s.

Joanne Simpson, a UCLA professor who later worked for the National Weather Bureau (which became NOAA), was the first person to develop a computer model for cloud behavior. She went on to investigate cloud seeding to test her models and to try to reduce the strength of hurricanes. Though she had successes, the overall results were inconclusive and the projects fizzled.

Get used to it

A 2003 report published by the National Research Council (NRC) put a damper on the idea of weather modification, saying there was no convincing scientific proof that cloud seeding works.

The Weather Modification Association (WMA) differs, saying the NRC's standard for proof was so high that the same standard would disprove global warming, humans' less intentional weather modification effort.

(A far-out scheme to slow global warming has also been proposed. It involves ringing Earth with tiny satellites to shade the planet.)

The WMA also favors more efforts to seed and thus clear fog by injecting it with dry ice, liquid nitrogen, liquid propane or silver iodide, especially to clear airport runways for take-offs and landings. This works better with cool fog than with warm fog, research suggests.

Efforts to reduce the size of hailstones are progressing too, according to the WMA. Adding silver iodide smoke into storms appears to limit the growth of hailstones.

But many scientists think research dollars are better spent on improved storm preparation and reaction plans.

"My research is grounded in the practical application of science and logic, which tells me it is far better to work with nature rather than trying to control or to change her," Clemson University civil engineer David Prevatt told LiveScience.

Extreme weather is inevitable, Prevatt says, and our best bet is to use science and engineering to study extreme winds and floods, to predict the consequences, and to focus on more weather-resistant buildings and levees and smart development policy.

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