February 3, 2023
"The object flew over Alaska's Aleutian Islands and through Canada before appearing over the city of Billings in Montana on Wednesday..."
"... US officials said.
Montana is home to some of the US's nuclear missile silos.
The US decided not to shoot down the balloon because of the danger posed by falling debris, and the limited use of any intelligence the device could gather, the US defence official said."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
104 comments:
It's a balloon. It's literally blown by the wind wherever the wind blows. It's big and round. It first drifted over Alaska and Canada before getting to the 48 states -- this has long been the patrol zone of B-52 bombers in defense from the USSR and Russia. The US had plenty of guns and missiles nearby.
A balloon is not an effective spy device.
Don't trust drones. Don't trust those spy satellites up so high that you cannot see them. Don't worry much about balloons.
If this Chinese spy balloon drifts south and east to Nebraska, I’m shooting it down myself!
As Insty says, embrace the healing power of "and" - weather and spy.
Google up “it is balloon,” from F-Troop for a bit of a giggle.
Yeah, it's a weather balloon. That seems plausible. Swamp gas as an explanation seemed like a jape too far I guess? At first they claimed they couldn't shoot it down for fear the bits would land in a populated area and hurt someone, in Montana...
Japanese had balloons attack the US with incendiary devices in an attempt to start forest fires. Several picnickers were killed in SE Oregon by one of these.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb
What makes anyone think that this could be a method to aerosolize viruses and drop them over the US. This device should have been detected and destroyed ever before it got here
Heard this on the news earlier -- 25 years ago, would not a spy vehicle have been shot down almost instantly?
Making the rounds today...
Ya can’t shoot down the Chinese Spy Balloon because Eric Swalwell will just inflate it again.
..and...
In 1945, the crew of USS New York spotted a silver sphere flying high overhead that they thought might be a Japanese balloon weapon. The captain ordered it shot down but none of the guns could score a hit. Finally, a navigator realized they were attacking Venus.
Bullshit.
A) Montana is very sparsely populated.
B) High altitude balloons are made from lightweight fabric.
Either they think the balloon is carrying a dangerous payload, in which case it should be shot down over a sparsely populated area like Montana, or, Biden is simply doing the bidding of his paymasters, and the balloon should be shot down over a sparsely populated are like Montana.
"The US decided not to shoot down the balloon because of the danger posed by falling debris, and the limited use of any intelligence the device could gather[.]"
Perhaps, but they should just do it on principle.
How much did the ChiComs pay the Biden’s for a “we can’t shoot it down, let them look” trip? More to the point - what general has not resigned over the failure of this administration to enforce territorial sovereignty? Or are they too busy being woke?
Good thing I was wearin' my tinfoil hat that day.
I don't want them commies agatherin' my intelligence cause Ima it for...some things I got goin' right now.
Wear yer hats, boys. That tinfoil ain't gonna do you no good hangin' on a peg.
Maybe it’s just delivering some egg drop soup.
I love coincidences. Don't you?
Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition.
"Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition."
What is crazy is that this IS a legitimate question..
The only thing certain here is that everybody is lying. The Chinese don't need a balloon to do surveillance. So what is its real payload and its real purpose? Some possibilities.
1. There's nothing in them, and they're testing our ability to discover and track them. Also possibly to embarrass the Administration/US military prior to upcoming talks.
2. There's nothing in them, and they're checking their directional patterns and hovering persistence to see how possible future aerosols might be dispersed across the US.
3. There are viral or toxic compounds aboard and they are slowly being dispersed in what otherwise looks like an unthreatening device. This would answer why Washington, Oregon, and California have gone completely batty lately.
Serious question: what's the over-under on whether General Milley is really on our side?
Ann Althouse said, "Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition."
Both. Both is your friend. It heals.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn the damn thing is here to drop them heater buttons to pinko Tik Tokkers in the heartland.
Ann Althouse said, "Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition."
Both. Both is your friend. It heals.
[...]silver sphere flying high overhead[...] a navigator realized they were attacking Venus.
A goddess on a mountain top
Burning like a silver flame
This thing is at 100,000 feet. I'd be surprised if U.S.has a weapon designed to attack at that altitude. A missile could be repurposed, but then you'd have to deal with the falling debris, not so much of the balloon, but of the weapon.
China WANTS us to shoot it down. It's a probe designed to test our latest anti-balloon technology.
" Ann Althouse said...
Who's less believable here?"
I wish the answer were obvious, but it is not.
The Chinese were smart enough to not fly the balloon over southern Ohio: https://www.facebook.com/portsmouthofficial/photos/a.295433318045659/354784548777202/?type=3
Balloons 🎈 are known to come from seafood markets.
It would be xenophobic to suggest that balloon in particular was created in a lab as a weapon.
That’s an irresponsible Qanon conspiracy theory.
If the balloon was indeed from China, it was a pre-happy birthday USA celebratory gesture from the peoples republic.
I don’t want to hear any other conspiracy theories.
Kate Hyde (@KateHydeNY) tweeted:
Nobody saw the Chinese spy balloon rolling in because they were all looking down at TikTok.
Well, is the balloon powered or not? This is the only question that matters to determine the balloon's purpose. If it isn't powered, and is only controlled by the upper level winds, then I believe the Chinese statement that it is a weather balloon off course. If it is powered, then I don't believe the Chinese.
The photos I have seen indicated no means of propulsion.
I blame Banksy ...
After the gavel fell Friday at Sotheby's auction house in London, Banksy's Girl with Balloon was reduced to shreds -- another apparent act in the disruptive career of the anonymous British graffiti artist.
CNN
The balloon is not drifting, it is hovering in a more or less fixed location. Sounded wrong to me but last night my son showed me some articles about Google internet balloons from 10 or so years back.
I don't understand it well but the Google balloon went up and down depending on wind direction and could hold an approximate lateral position indefinitely.
This has been over Montana for a few days now. It's positioning is controlled.
Apparently there have been others as well.
John Henry
Boy is that really sneaky! We'll never see that. Please use your brain.
“Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition.”
The utter unbelievability of both is causing me to seriously think that there really is collusion between Biden and the Chinese.
Hard to believe that China didn't look at weather patterns before sending up the ballon(s). Hard to believe China is telling us it would be bad for us to shoot it down if it's just a harmless ballon. Hard to believe China would let an "errant" balloon from the US drift over their country no matter how much we told them it had no nefarious purpose. Hard to believe the ballon wasn't taken down the minute it entered US airspace.
So, the same military that is presently stirring the pot to start WWIII in eastern Europe, is also terrified of a slow-moving Chinese balloon over the homeland forests. "It'll blow into a million pieces and kill thousands" they maintain. Dunno, I woulda thought they might could fly a little military hover-drone up there and just poke a hole in it, let it drift down. But what do I know.
"The first casualty of war is truth." Winston Churchill
Much as I hate to say it but, the news I've read said Biden told them to shoot it down & the DoD demurred and convinced him not to.
Given what we have learned, I don't believe a word out of our government's mouth. For all I know, this is some hobbyist. But it seems like national security would dictate that we retrieve it to find out what it is, but instead we are fed absurd stories. At a minimum shoot it down over the ocean.
I know we don't have planes with guns that can fly that high, but if we don't retrieve it, that stinks on ice.
That's just some low-lying fog that diffracted sunlight of some adjacent swamp gas creating an atmospheric hologram. Weather balloon my ass...
Remember, Gary Powers was just doing weather research in the U-2.
It is weird they are using a free floating ballon. Other than changing altitude to catch different airstreams they can’t have much directional control. It does seem to have a large frame underneath that may have solar panels, instruments and/or antennas. My guess it is doing signal intelligence and it is sends encrypted readings back via satellite communications.
The Japanese did this in WWII and sent balloons to start forest fires. "Debris" from a balloon is air or helium.
Our government is now just a weird series of jokes.
Right now, they're running two robots on the far side of the Moon. They don't need a fucking balloon to spy on us.
But the fact that the Chinese have gigantic balloons that either our government doesn't know jack shit about or our government is lying about stupidly for unknown reasons is what is disturbing.
Would Trump shoot it down?
Would China have even sent it were Trump president?
The answers are obvious to me.
How soon did our defense/intel folks know about this balloon? I would HOPE it was well before entering our airspace.
We should, at least, notify the CCP that future balloons would be splashed before they are over the US.
Then we should, if possible, study the electronics.
Falling debris?
Can't our folks just shoot a hole in the balloon itself and let it float slowly to the ground?
If we can't do that then we need better pilots/weapons.
Put the thing on the ground and reverse engineer the tech.
'Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition.'
It's very sad when the US is in competition with a bunch of fucking communists over who is telling the truth.
What can a balloon see that a satellite cannot? Perhaps some kind of audio?
If a balloon of ours somehow "drifted" into Chinese airspace, it would be shot down immediately, would it not?
I think Ironclad is on the right track here.
The superpowers are spending many billions of dollars and yuan and rubles studying each other by countless neans, and folks are in a tizzy over a single wind-directed balloon?
Will Cate said...
If a balloon of ours somehow "drifted" into Chinese airspace, it would be shot down immediately, would it not?
==========
likely ... why not capture and bring down>> is slow moving?
how high go planes chasing storms?
catching balloon good technical exercise project!
!!!?????US generals are ballooning into blimps
The Chinese spy balloon is now over the Midwest. I have it on good authority it will be over Lake Mendota soon. Meade to shoot it down!
No sentient human believes the "falling debris" bullshit. C'mon.
Tim in Vermont is right. The important question is:
What effect will this balloon have on native peoples?
The debris problem from the balloon itself is minimal but there is a large frame and the instruments onboard that is the issue. Also depending on what you use to shoot it down with it could be a a problem. A remains of a Patriot missile could do significant damage if it landed in the wrong spot.
My immediate thought upon reading this yesterday was that this was a test run for an EMP delivery device. I heard no one else saying that out loud. Until today.
Now I'm reading articles about the acknowledged best delivery method for an EMP blast: High Altitude Balloons.
Stock up, kids.
Interesting angle from the Washington Examiner: possibly a test for an EMP delivery system. I think that makes more sense and would be more likely to succeed vs. it being a biowarfare delivery system.
Or maybe it's just a weather balloon.
China is openly demonstrating their control of Joe Biden and contempt for America by this multi-state multi-day incursion on our sovereignty. The Red Moon over Montana says "I OWN YOU" to Joe and gives the rest of us the big middle finger. And of course our effeminate highly vaccinated chiefs of staff are afraid of shooting it down and I'm not buying their "but it might land on a kindergarten" bullshit statement. Really! Hiding behind little girls is a Biden family trait but I didn't realize Millie and Austin were into it now too.
Sad. Why don't we aim our big battle LASER system at it and put a pinhole that will s-l-o-w-l-y deflate it and bring it down? Fucking skirt-wearing wussies in the Pentagon.
Everyone seems to assume that we have the ability to shoot it down. I wonder if this is the case. Our anti aircraft missiles are designed to take out hot substantial targets, aircraft. Balloons are flimsy and insubstantial. Would the fuses in our missiles detonate on contact with such a thing? This is an honest question. I have no idea. Also, weather balloons tend to operate at very high altitudes, in many cases much higher than our aircraft can fly. It looks like the service ceiling for our fighters is about 65,000 feet. This could easily be twice that high, or indeed, considerably higher. I've seen 130,000 feet and 88,000 feet mentioned, so who knows what the reality is? Either way, that's pretty far above anything we (officially) have flying. Maybe we could shoot it down, but we don't want to tip our hand.
As for the logic of using balloons to spy, it seems obvious. They are much closer to the ground than satellites, and they spend much more time loitering along. Oh yes, they are also really cheap, and they expose our ability (or lack thereof) to respond. Seems like a hell of a deal from the Chinese perspective.
The balloon is loaded with a new and super-deadly virus. That's the word.
It's a violation of US airspace by a foreign power.
No one here has any idea how effective it is at spying, so there's no point in talking about it. Technology has improved since the last time we tried this.
It's not a space satellite, because that's governed by the outer space treaty. Sixty thousand feet high isn't space. So, that's a stupid talking point.
Either we have national airspace, or not, and this isn't an accident. If it were, did China report it to us before it arrived? No.
If we allow this it will keep happening, and that seems like a bad idea.
Next time, splash it over the Pacific.
Years ago, there was an airborne LASER project. The idea of the project was to shoot down ballistic missiles with a LASER from an aircraft. It was a premier engineering assignment when I was Boeing employee. In fact, I left Boeing in 1998 because I couldn’t get that assignment.
When I left Boeing, there was a concern that no one would want to pilot an airplane with YUGE firecracker on the manifest.
I’m not sure what happened to that project.
To the geniuses spouting the "it floated here on the wind" crap, take note it has been hovering over Montana, not floating by. One report said we're on day three. Perhaps one reason our spineless elite are watching it rather than taking it immediately is to see how the Chinese are directing its movements. It does not appear to have a means of propulsion yet it is holding position. I'm sure the NSA has some great signals going to and from it that they are capturing and analyzing.
The Airborne LASER project was cancelled in 2014.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Laser
It's a fuckin' balloon fer chrisakes. Back in the 50s ad 60s we had a way of snagging them right out of the air. The only way you're going to find out what its carrying is to get it on the ground and examine it.
Why is this so difficult?
Readering: "The superpowers are spending many billions of dollars and yuan and rubles studying each other by countless neans, and folks are in a tizzy over a single wind-directed balloon?"
It's not wind directed.
You have no idea what's on it.
It could be another "reaction test" just to see what we'd do, or not do, in accordance with the kompromat the ChiComs have on the Bidens.
But its nice to see readering out here white knighting for the ChiComs. Kind of removes all doubt where the dems are these days.
Oh Yea: "Remember, Gary Powers was just doing weather research in the U-2."
That would be Francis Gary Powers.
I remain far, far, FAR more concerned about DJI's apparent detailed daily tracking of 1,000s of small drone flights all across the country.
DJI is kind enough to have a website for sharing your aerial photos (Skypixel). Let those silly Americans collect regular data for us on all their most interesting sites and construction activity.
https://www.skypixel.com/
Time Magazine today discusses the relative threats of spy balloons versus spy satellites. Balloon do involve risks, but a balloon draws way too much attention to be the best spy device. Satellites get no reaction from anyone. US people and local governments use Chinese Drones for legit US interests...but then US data gets passed back to China...
https://time.com/6252673/chinese-spy-balloon-satellite/
Maybe it's not a Chinese balloon at all. Maybe Zelensky is up there with his binoculars, double checking the remote corners of the nation, looking for any last, stray piece of US military hardware that may have been overlooked by the Flag-In-The-Bio crowd.
Perhaps Biden thought that if he waited long enough to make a decision it would just blow over.
Perhaps the military doesn't wish to trigger the Chinese into shooting down all of our devices up above China.
I did notice somewhere that a meteorologist put the level/location of the balloon sighting and backtraced the trajectory to someplace in northern China. (Goes rummaging around to look: yep! link)
It seems as if we would have a number of ways of taking down the balloon. There are variable reports of its altitude, which makes sense because balloons navigate by doing the one thing they can do; gain and lose altitude.
The Patriot missile can reach to 85 thousand feet and the THAD can reach to 120 thousand feet. But what about a plain vanilla F-15 armed with a 20 mm cannon? The F-15 can itself reach 65,000 feet, the muzzle velocity of the M61A1 20 mm cannon is 3,380 feet/second. The air's pretty thin at 65,000 feet, but in a vacuum it would take a projectile at that speed (which doesn't count the 1,000 fps speed of the plane) over 100 seconds to come to a stop, if fired straight up. If the average speed of the 20 mm projectiles was 1,600 fps, 100 seconds would be 160,000 feet. The balloon would have to be well above 200,000 feet to be out of range.
It's a balloon. It's literally blown by the wind wherever the wind blows.
I haven't heard what altitude this thing is at, but it certainly is above 60,000 feet, because in the US, that is the top of Class-A airspace. It is a *very* big deal to have something in that airspace that does not have a flight plan and is not under IFR control.
Above 60,000 feet, aside from the occasional very energetic thunderstorm, there is no weather, and little wind.
It seems likely that solar cells provide current to electric motors to propel the thing, slowly but surely.
The problem with shooting it down boils down to: what with?
Aside from the unarmed U-2, no operational US aircraft has a service ceiling above 50,000 feet. It is true that radar guided air-air missiles have the energy to reach a target in the mid-60's, but (and I hope my knowledge isn't dated here) air-air radars are Pulse-Doppler, which rejects stationary returns. Advantage: eliminates ground clutter. Disadvantage: can't see balloons.
So, can't get close enough for guns, there is no IR signature for heat seeking missiles, and radar missiles can't see what is otherwise readily apparent.
Norms restored.
My thoughts:
See Enigma at 1:56p. I own one of those drones, but yeah, it is likely worse than Tik Tok, and the tracking and relaying of data is required by the FAA.
As long as the balloon is above commercial flight levels (most planes fly about below 42,000 feet, but private jets can do 55,000, so say 55,000), then it is neither a threat nor any different from any other spy satellite. Should we shoot down all the spy satellites flying over us? What is the low altitude of a satellite for when it becomes fair game to shoot down? I think learning this is not what the DoD wants to find out by shooting down the balloon.
The notion that it falling from the sky could harm people on the ground is a dumb argument, because it could easily be shot down in a location that lowers that risk to near zero, plus it has to come down eventually.
Spying on communications (yeah marybeth at 11:38am) would be more likely than imagery.
It is a fun story for Friday, but don't let the media fear mongering cause any lost sleep. Make fun of it. Make fun of the silly arguments for inaction put out by the government. But don't worry about it, because:
Better than shooting it down would be to disable any optics by burn out from a laser or disrupt its electronics with a military grade jammer. Nobody but China and the DoD would know that it was disabled, and neither would have a reason to admit anything.
I know! Hu Jintao's friends quietly removed him from house arrest, put him on/in the balloon and released him to freedom! We can't shoot it down for the sake of poor Hu! Hope he's got lots of liners and coats. It gets really cold at 100 thousand feet. My main concern, as I live in NW Montana, is that Hu will accidentally exit the balloon and fall to earth in my direction. Maybe his friends gave him a parachute!
To call this "incident" a tempest in a teapot is to exaggerate teapots.
Back in the early days of the Cold War, the United States made numerous attempts to gather intel on the Russians, mostly unsuccessful until the debut of the Lockheed U-2, the high-altitude, long-range photo reconnaissance jet commissioned by the CIA because most of their Joes (agents on the ground) were quickly captured, interrogated and shot. (They didn't know our British friend Kim Philby was blowing them almost as fast as they could be landed on Soviet territory.)
One of the more absurd attempts involved floating cameras over the Russkies suspended by helium balloons. Most of those cameras and their film were lost at sea or to the Commies themselves. They didn't shoot them down, they couldn't. But balloons frequently spring leaks. The few balloon cameras that were recovered intact showed little of importance -- just miles and miles of miles and miles.
The U-2 was highly successful for a while, long enough to reveal the missile gap was a Democrat fraud -- not the first of many. Unfortunately for Francis Gary Powers, the U-2's utility (see what I did there?) came to an abrupt end after the Soviets introduced a new SAM powered by fuel developed by Thiokol. (Courtesy of Mr. Philby, again.) However, it wasn't too unfortunate for the CIA, which was already operating Project Corona, the first and brilliantly successful spy satellite system. Many scholars believe that Power's mission was intended to convince the Russians that the Americans still relied on the U-2 in 1960, thus distracting them from Corona.
Now that I've demolished the notion of spy balloons, allow me to backtrack slightly. One intelligence-gathering balloon project did bear fruit -- one important, the other frivolous. This was Project Mogul, an intelligence effort aimed at detecting a Russian atomic bomb test. The beauty of Mogul was the fact that the balloon did not need to violate Russian airspace to work. Mogul worked by detecting the extremely low-frequency sounds that can only be produced by a multi-kiloton explosion in the atmosphere, a phenomenon discovered in acoustic research performed as part of the Operation Crossroads a-bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in July 1946. These infrasonic waves propagate around the globe and can be detected using rather simple recording wiring technology, the only unsimple requirement was height, your sound recorder needs to be pretty high up, about 65,000 feet, about 20,000 feet higher than most aircraft could reach in 1946, thus the balloon. Project Mogul started in 1947 and continued for several years, successfully detecting Stalin's Bomb in 1949.
Recall I mentioned a frivolous accomplishment? Well, here it is: In 1947, the fourth Mogul balloon sprung a leak and crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, producing a standing wave of stupidity almost as boneheaded as this fervor of the wayward ChiCom gasbag.
Golly, I hope Blinken is getting the correct pronouns ready for the meeting. However I think he'll more realistically be needing KY Jelly for this meeting.
Biden squats to piss.
Chinese have already won.
ZH reports
A suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over the US was spotted in the skies of north Kansas City on Friday afternoon.
=======
to the oft asked question 'what is wrong with Kansas' chinese say wochida [I know]; but just in case - so they flew over Kansas to verify!
"Oh the inanity!"
What if it's nota "spy" balloon? What if it is carrying a nuclear, EMP, or bio weapon? There's gonna be a lot of soiled underwear if that thing parks itself over DC or NYC...
It doesn't make any difference what the balloon's capability or purpose is. All that matters is that is in our airspace without permission. Splash it.
Blinken cancelled his trip to China. Why do that if the balloon is non-consequential? Splash it.
Compare and contrast: Trump fires missiles on Syrian airfields while serving dessert to Xi. Biden can't figure out what to do when a CCP balloon of unknown capability enters our airspace. Splash it.
W.W.K.D.?
What Would Kyle Do?
"The problem with shooting it down boils down to: what with?"
A laser or other directed energy weapon.
Another super power. An avowed enemy of the United States, has invaded our country. But Readering is fine with that. One of the 81 million Biden voters.
Ann Althouse said...
Who's less believable here? China or the U.S.? It's some kind of crazy competition.
Serious question. Has the White House/Department of Defense/U.S. Government said anything about this situation that is not credible? What, exactly?
****
dbp said...
It seems as if we would have a number of ways of taking down the balloon. There are variable reports of its altitude, which makes sense because balloons navigate by doing the one thing they can do; gain and lose altitude.
The Patriot missile can reach to 85 thousand feet and the THAD can reach to 120 thousand feet. But what about a plain vanilla F-15 armed with a 20 mm cannon? The F-15 can itself reach 65,000 feet, the muzzle velocity of the M61A1 20 mm cannon is 3,380 feet/second. The air's pretty thin at 65,000 feet, but in a vacuum it would take a projectile at that speed (which doesn't count the 1,000 fps speed of the plane) over 100 seconds to come to a stop, if fired straight up. If the average speed of the 20 mm projectiles was 1,600 fps, 100 seconds would be 160,000 feet. The balloon would have to be well above 200,000 feet to be out of range.
No, we actually don't have a lot of easy or safe ways to take down a balloon at the altitude of this Chinese balloon, which is reported to be at >90,000 feet and perhaps a lot higher.
It is well above commercial aviation altitudes, so there is no urgency there. If it were at commercial aviation altitude, everything that follows would be different.
Our highest-altitude advanced fighter/interceptor is the F-22. Max cruising altitude 65,000 feet.
The last reported attempted fighter interception of a balloon of this size was attempted many years ago by Canadian F-18's. They were able to get close to a large balloon out in the North Atlantic, and armed with guns, they let loose with more than 1,000 rounds. It didn't do much to bring the balloon down quickly.
Our main air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles would be the AIM 9x or AIM 120. They both need a radar signature and/or an infrared signature to track the target. They aren't designed to attack targets like balloons (with next to nothing in terms of metallic structure, no radar reflection and no heat signature), and they aren't intended for use at heights above 90,000 feet, where their guidance fins don't really work in the thin atmosphere.
And of course, what about Americans living on the ground below where the stratospheric firefight might take place? What about the 20 mm rounds from an F-22's M61A2 Gatling Gun? What about the AIM 120 debris? AIM 9 Sidewinders that don't strike the balloon?
"SHOOT IT DOWN" is what Trumpists in February of 2023 say to prove that they are as stupid and as Trumpy as they were in 2020.
It don't take no weather balloon to know which way the wind blows.
Rt41Rebel said...
"What if it's nota "spy" balloon? What if it is carrying a nuclear, EMP, or bio weapon?"
I don't care if it's filled with candy. It has no business being here and I guess it's been wandering around the united States since Tuesday.
81 million morons.
The F15 Streak Eagle program has claimed over 100,000 feet, but that plane was stripped of everything possible, including paint IIRC. And that was in 1975. (The program was Cold War games. There are various "time to climb" records, and the U.S. and Soviets traded them back and forth for a decade at least.)
I think it may be a ploy to get everyone on twitter to reveal just how fucking stupid they really are. No, there is no need for that sort of Trojan horse, as the comments here prove, we are a nation of bloviating morons.
Chuck said:
"SHOOT IT DOWN" is what Trumpists in February of 2023 say to prove that they are as stupid and as Trumpy as they were in 2020.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
We can always count on Chuck to favor our national Chicom enemy over his personal enemy, the Trumpists. He's always got his priorities in order!
Here he offers a detailed analysis of the American military's ability to shoot down a high-altitude balloon, using a 25-year-old Canadain example, and dismissing the performance envelopes of cannon, missiles deployed on modern jet fighters.
isn't it odd...that Chuck has so much information on hand to make such a rebuttal? Does it sound like something a Chicom agent would use to engage in pushback? Odder still that he ignores Soviet plans back in the 80's to send their MIG-31 up to take down the SR-71 Blackbird flying at Mach 3+ at 85,000 feet. But a wind-borne balloon? No way!!
To Chuck, it's all good if the Chinese make us look impotent to deal with their incursion over our sovereign airspace.
The "tell" is, he offers no justification for the PRC's actions and mocks our insecurity.
And he assumes in his bigoted way that only Trumpists want to shoot the thing down.
Democrats, on the other hand, are all fine with it.
But not the Pentagon, which calls it a surveillance balloon:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/politics/us-monitoring-chinese-balloon/index.html
Quaestor said...
Now that I've demolished the notion of spy balloons, allow me to backtrack slightly.
****************
Without citations you've "demolished" nothing.
Don't backtrack---start over.
Oh Yea said...
Remember, Gary Powers was just doing weather research in the U-2.
*****************
Snort. What a stupid and ahistorical claim.
Why would Powers have been doing "weather' research over the USSR w/o its knowledge or permission?
The US never made that argument. It just denied the flight.
But the Russkis could see previous flights on radar they couldn't shoot down.
Until they could.
That's when Ike had to come clean and admit we were overflying their territory.
LLR and Whitmer Fanboy Chuck: ""SHOOT IT DOWN" is what Trumpists in February of 2023 say to prove that they are as stupid and as Trumpy as they were in 2020."
Oh look, LLR Chuck is once again pretending he understands military matters!
While also going to bat for Biden and the ChiComs.
Must be a day ending in "y".
Remember, LLR Chuck, by his own loud and proud admission, only posts at Althouse to:
1) Lie about and smear Trump
2) Drive a wedge between Althouse and her readers
That's all the context one needs to understand LLR Chuck's lie-filled posts.
Drago said...
Chuck is just another one of those 81 million chuckleheads that couldn't stomach another four years of prosperity and peace so they voted for the corrupt pedophile the rest of us are now burdened with.
People with public sector jobs shouldn't be allowed to vote.
From The Economist ...
How a balloon burst Sino-American talks
America’s top diplomat cancels his trip to Beijing
Of all the things that could have upended the first trip to China by an American secretary of state since 2018, few would have bet on a Chinese balloon over Montana.
The Economist
"SHOOT IT DOWN" is what Trumpists in February of 2023 say to prove that they are as stupid and as Trumpy as they were in 2020."
"Leave it up there" would be the alternative. "We don't have the capability to destroy it safely" seems to be the reasoning to do nothing when it comes to protecting our airspace. Follow those two statements to their logical conclusion. Stupid is as stupid does Chuck.
Who knew that you don't need expensive nuclear deterrence delivery systems in place when cheap weather balloons can do the job. I think we can just scrap all the outdated IBMs we have and upgrade them to balloons. JHC.
Post a Comment