I disagree this is calling someone dumb. Intelligence and knowledge works atop axioms. Knowing the correct axioms on which to reason is not something where it’s easy to find objective truth.
I haven’t been logged in to Twitter in two weeks now. Feels great.
This is also one of the rare times where the CPI read would have been *lower* under the previous methodology, as the revised one increased the weighting of energy and shelter.
Look, it’s either aliens or it isn’t. Also, it’s never aliens.
Yeah. Don't do that. You'll cook your brain.
Air defense radars are much more sensitive than general aviation radars, though.
+100 for the Dune reference.
My guess would be China. Potentially Russia, as well. But to be clear, there is no evidence of that right now.
These are likely signals intelligence balloons for recording radio communications on the ground (including civilian mobile phone calls) — which cannot be done from orbital satellites.
I’ll be interested in whatever I want to be interest in, whenever I want to be interested in it, and however I want to be interested in it. You’re welcome.
This seems like a pretty good theory at this point: China found a very dumb hole in US/Canadian air defenses and they have aggressively exploited it. They likely have been intercepting mobile phone communications, among other things, from these balloons.
One fact has come to light which seems important. NORAD’s defense radars have been programmed to automatically filter-out slow-moving objects. Apparently they have removed this filter in recent days, and that’s how they’re finding them. Seems like the making of a big domestic scandal and intelligence failure, in addition to the makings of a very worrying international incident, with escalatory potential.
Your speculation is going a lot further than mine!
I can’t see it. Viewing video would involve me logging into Twitter. :(
I must emphasize the fact that I am guessing based on very limited data.
I’d place the likelihood that this is an elaborate plot by the Biden Administration involving thousands of government officials and the defense department, to avoid have people pay attention to economic issues — infintesimely low. The likelihood such a plot would be exposed (especially in a military where Biden is intensely unpopular after the botched Afghan withdrawal) is insanely high.
Would be wild! But the preponderance of evidence is they are all balloons.
I don't literally think it will be treated as an act of war. But it will create a major diplomatic incident.
Re: the balloon shoot-downs.
I see a lot of people have decided this is a nakedly-stupid wagging of the dog by the US that is worthy of mockery for the obvious stupidity of it. But I'm not so sure. If I was forced to guess, and I'm just guessing here, is China has produced a fleet of hard-to-detect signals intelligence balloons that may have been floating around for months, if not years, and what we are seeing is the consequence of the military figuring out what to look for and tracking them down. Likely by figuring out the signatures of their radio communications -- likely back to satellites.