Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Friday, February 03, 2023

Balloon Schmalloon

Mark Sumner is absolutely 100% right about this. The "Chinese spy balloon" that's got everyone's knickers in a twist from CNN to Kevin McCarthy to -- wait for it - Anthony Blinken is just a weather balloon that was accidentally underinflated so it didn't get to a high enough altitude to pop the way it was supposed to.


Fact: It is impossible to know where a weather balloon is going over a distance of 100 miles, let alone halfway around the world. 

Fact: There is absolutely no intelligence gathering capability that a balloon could have that the Chinese don't already have from their spy satellites. Yes, they have spy satellites.

Fact: Any instrumentation on a balloon would no longer be operable after such a long period and there is no way it could send information back to China anyway.

 

So the question is, since this is such obvious, ludicrous bullshit, why doesn't the DoD just say so? And what the fuck is Blinken doing cancelling his trip to China? This is really bizarre. 


Update: Well, maybe there's more to it. The Pentagon insists that they have classified information that it's maneuverable and has some sort of surveillance capability. But they also say it can't do anything that Chinese spy satellites can't do. So what's the point? Why would the Chinese do this? It really makes no sense.


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