The Jokes:
Today is 12/13/12! Doesn’t sound impressive, but it’s just as rare as 12/12/12.
The one plus with the world ending in about a week is I don’t have to worry about Christmas shopping.
New York City plans to introduce an app to hail taxis. Don’t forget to also install a language translation app so you can tell the driver where you want to go.
Attack by balloon:
Japan’s attack on Pear Harbor in 1941 was the biggest attack at the time on US Soil.
Japan’s sequel wasn’t as impressive.
Japan has discovered a wind current that flowed from their country to the US (this would later be known as the Jet Stream). Someone came up with the brilliant idea of launching
paper balloons that would be carried by the wind to America. The balloons carried explosives which they hoped in explode in America and cause fatalities.
Although simple sounding, there was some thought put into the process. The balloons were equipped with mechanisms that would automatically release helium if the balloon got too high or drop sandbags if they got too low. Also, since they flew so high it was very hard for them to be shot down by planes.
Still there was no navigation method other than the wind. There was no telling where they
would land. The explosives were set to go off three days after they were launched when they were assumed to have reached America. Out of over 9,000 balloons launched, only about 300 were known to ever reach the United States. And out of those 300 balloons, only one of them successfully killed. Unfortunately that one balloon killed a pregnant Sunday school teacher and five of her students. While devastating, it was hardly the results Japan was hoping for. Six deaths by 9,000 balloons compared to the 200,000 casualties caused by the two atomic bombs dropped by America on Japan isn’t much of a contest.
If your worried about a repeat of such an event, you can take solace in the fact they we are currently in the middle of a helium shortage.The balloons did succeed in one aspect, as it did cause fear. Americans did worry about the death from the sky and large fires. The military also feared that Japan could equip the balloons with biological weapons, which had the chance of being much more devastating.
Watch These:
Neither of these videos are funny, but if your a sci-fi geek like me, this is a good week for movie trailers, as new trailers have been released for both Man of Steel and Star Trek Into Darkness.
