“Would you like to ride in my Chinese spy balloon….”

Yep. The Killer Tomato.

Those are designed with a self-sealing capability, similar to what was added to helicopter and aircraft fuel tanks (especially in Vietnam).

That’s why the Killer Tomatoes were so tough to sink.

Plus, it wouldn’t be much fun for it to sink after the first few enlisted got a few shots in.

 

TMNT?

 

Spot on.

I loved when it was my turn on the Ma Deuce.

 

Smooth brained Scotch Irish trash that I am, yeah it does piss me off a fair bit. If this thing can’t be brought down practically speaking, then I expect to see our version taking the tour of China in the coming weeks. If the best thing the Pentagon has to offer is a shoulder shrug then maybe we need to scrape a few billion back off the table.

 

We don't have a spy balloon capacity, probably because they're too cheap to interest Lockheed Martin or congressional appropriations committees. But rest assured our spy satellite capacity is vast, first rate, and has been operating over China for decades. In the meantime, when the balloon comes down, it will be snaffled up and studied by the DOD at great length.

 

We must not allow a balloon craft gap!!!

 

To the extent possible we want to avoid reprisal and counter-reprisals like this:

U.S. SAYS SOVIET DOWNED KOREAN AIRLINER; 269 LOST; REAGAN DENOUNCES 'WANTON' ACT (Published 1983)

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/uss-pueblo-captured

 

Yes and I’m sure their satellites do a similar bang-up job in this hemisphere. This is more about sending a message, or more properly a reply. It doesn’t have to be a high-tech job either. Load the thing up with Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons for that matter. Then have a little Lou Brown diplomacy behind the scenes.

 

While it pisses me off that we are letting this thing cross the country with impunity, I'm honestly not too concerned about it.
I wonder if the people twisting themselves into knots over the Chinese spy ballon because it gathers data and provides high quality images from above have ever heard of Google.

 

1983: KAL 007 - Russians confused it with Rivet Joint exercises that would often run racetrack orbits up that way but would never overfly.

1968: Don’t get me started about the USS Pueblo. That ship should never have been put that far up there into potential harm’s way in the first place. And there’s a very interesting potential connection of that incident to the Walker spy ring which was ongoing at the time.

 

The biggest corporations in this country— Ford, Apple, GM, Nike— use cheap Chinese labor to keep their fortunes vast. Again, we ain’t gonna do a damn thing about this. It’s a nice lesson in who has who by the balls.

 

Are we sure it’s a spy balloon? I mean, what can a balloon get that one of the thousands of satellites currently orbiting can’t get? And do people really think we don’t have have soy technology currently in orbit? Don’t we know when Xi takes a dump? Maybe it’s a political stunt? Blinken held off on a planned trip to China.