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The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 11:38 am
So there is a spy balloon over Montana and it seems like the army can not bring it down because it is too high up, and, being a balloon, you can not lock rockets on it.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 2:47 pm
Maybe they could send a balloon to catch the Chinese balloon.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 3:04 pm
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RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 3:25 pm
Apparently, it’s Biden’s fault.
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RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 3:49 pm
Either it's a weather balloon, or we can pack it all up and cede the world to china, because they figured out how to drive weather balloons.
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RE: The Balloon
February 3, 2023 at 4:17 pm
(This post was last modified: February 3, 2023 at 5:10 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It’s not necessarily a wayward weather balloon. Pentagon’s claim that the balloon provides China with no additional reconnaissance capability over satellites is incorrect. Balloons can sample air and detect isotope traces of buffered nuclear tests, leakages from chemical weapon tests, etc in a way no satellite can. And it is easy to release the balloon into the right jet stream and predict reasonable well where it would go. A more sophisticated balloon with satellite link can maneuver by changing altitude to take advantage of different wind direction.
The reason not to shoot it down, and down play its potential reconnaissance value is probably political. There is not reason to escalate this into a situation analogous to 1960 U-2 shoot down until China’s exact intention is clear. Shooting it down as a threat would unavoidably create a crisis that causes any negotiation or diplomatic interplay between China and the U.S. to seize up, In exactly the same way as the Soviet shoot down of U-2 in 1960s scuttled the Paris disarmament summit talk scheduled for that year.
If the balloon is a surveillance air sniffer, there maybe reason to let it keep sniffing because sometimes you do want to let your adversary know that you are not cheating or doing nefarious things under the table because if they think you are, they might respond by taking steps that you would not like.
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RE: The Balloon
February 4, 2023 at 1:38 am
Maybe it is not that good to let it float because it is creating hysteria. Like Fox News is claiming that the balloon is spreading new Covid.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: The Balloon
February 4, 2023 at 11:29 am
(February 3, 2023 at 11:38 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: [...] the army can not bring it down because it is too high up, and, being a balloon, you can not lock rockets on it.
1) The Air Force is responsible for defending American air space. The Army wouldn't be tasked with bringing it down except in a tactical- or operational-level combat.
2) You can certainly lock missiles onto a balloon. The gondola on this one will return usable radar image, and I'd be willing to bet it throws a sharp infrared gradient in the cold air that high.
3) I'd bet the AMRAAM would be able to hit it if fired inside a good envelope, i.e. supersonic climb.
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RE: The Balloon
February 4, 2023 at 1:17 pm
ohdearcountriesmightbespyingoneachotherwhateverwillwedo
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RE: The Balloon
February 4, 2023 at 1:33 pm
^  I'd rather balloons than cyberspace.
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