I had not intended to write anything about Hurricane Harvey in this week's blogs, but felt compelled to do so because of an odd "synchronicity" that occurred as I was writing and scheduling this week's blogs. Normally, when I am scheduling blogs, I tune in to some talk radio and listen as I write, either on the radio or on the internet, just to try to "stay abreast of things." Normally, when such disasters happen, I am loathe to take them as opportunities to indulge in our trademark "high octane speculation"; people are suffering, losing their houses, assets, pets, and there is general upheaval and suffering. It's not an appropriate time to indulge in "high octane speculations." Certainly, watching this disaster unfold, we all empathize and offer good thoughts and prayers for the people - at this juncture, all of Houston and most of the southern Texas Gulf coast.

However, in this case, hoping that people will excuse my high octane speculating while the disaster is in progress, I felt compelled to do so, for as I was listening to my radio, the host in question was reporting on the situation as it was occurring, and he said two things that really grabbed my attention. I am paraphrasing his remarks as closely as I can: (1) "Harvey seems simply to have stopped moving inland and has basically parked itself over the Texas coast," and he added to this that all of the roads in and out of Houston are simply impassible due to flooding; (2) that "most of southern Texas' coastal plain in and around Houston might be uninhabitable for weeks, if not months." Yes, that will be the result if hurricanes decide to "park themselves" over an area and not move along.

But of course, hurricanes don't "decide" anything.

It's the strangeness of Harvey's behavior that caught my attention as the host made these remarks. It took me back to Hurricane Katrina which infamously moved in and struck New Orleans almost a decade ago. Again, that hurricane exhibited very unusual, very "un-hurricane-like" behavior, for if you'll recall, its path was almost due west through the Gulf of Mexico when, suddenly, reaching a point almost due south of New Orleans, it veered sharply in an almost perfect ninety degree turn, and made its way north, striking the city and surrounding environs and flooding thousands of people out of their homes and livelihoods. I recall seeing at that time - and other readers here may recall seeing this as well - the jet stream suddenly moved south in "response" to Katrina's sharp turn, as if "someone" was trying to steer the storm away from New Orleans, implying, of course, that someone was trying to steer it toward New Orleans.

In other words, my view of Katrina back then was - and still remains - that this storm was steered toward the city. It was, to be blunt, "weaponized weather."

And Harvey's stubborn refusal to move along inland, but rather to stay put, spawn tornadoes, and dump more water on Houston and the Texas Gulf coast, seems a little "odd." It seems, if I may be "country simple" once again, to be too contrived. Weaponizing weather to make an entire region of a state "uninhabitable for weeks or possibly months" behind an "act of God" like a storm is a convenient way to wage war behind the ultimate cloak of plausible deniability, for most people have difficulty believing the idea that such enormous systems, such as the weather, can actually be manipulated, steered, and engineered. More informed people will know, of course, that the ability to manipulate and weaponize weather was an objective of at least America's and Russia's militaries since the 1950s. Both countries have made round-about statements over the years that their efforts were successful. More recent statements of the US military made weather manipulation a crucial component of "force multipliers" and a component of its goal of "full spectrum dominance". Researchers such as Dr. Nick Begich and Jean Manning have also pointed out that the initial patents for ionospheric heaters taken out by Bernard Eastland for the HAARP array in Alaska also discussed weather systems steerage and manipulation as one possible application of the technology. Then there's the Globaloney crowd and their "weather derivatives," securities based on weather, a handy thing to have around; after all, if one can manipulate weather, why not make money off of it (and pick up ruined properties on the cheap besides)?

So now a hurricane is parked over southern Texas, one of the USA's few smoothly functioning state governments and economies.

Bottom line: I cannot help but think that Harvey's odd behavior is a little too odd, and that we're looking at weather warfare once again, or at the minimum, the possibility that we're looking at some sort of "blowback" from the technologies that can manipulate systems on a planetary scale, systems such as HAARP and EISCAT and other ionospheric heaters, possibly even the Large Hadron Collider with its strong, immensely powerful magnetic fields. There's an aspect of "unnaturality" here, if I may coin that word, that disturbs me.

But in the meantime, Texas suffers, and my heart is saddened for Houstonians and all the people along the coast from Galveston northward.

See you on the flip side...