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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

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This post is in: 

Wow, no new post for nearly 12 hours.  That’s cruel and unusual punishment!

The US Just Shot Down High-Altitude Chinese ‘Spy Balloon’

Maybe we should fight about this for awhile?  The old fight is getting boring.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  5. 5.

    Alison Rose

    I was gonna say something passive aggressive in the last thread about the lack of new posts, but I decided to have one day a week where I don’t act like a bitch for no reason.

    Fare thee well, Chinese Spy Balloon. We hardly knew you. And we liked it that way.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    Also from below.

    The pilot of the jet that shot down the balloon deserves a medal.  Maybe a SOTU invite.

  7. 7.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I assumed that tweet would have picture of the big baby trump balloon from London

  13. 13.

    Scout211

    Here’s the Video.

    I didn’t read the last thread so it likely has already been posted. But it’s now posted here, too.

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Alison Rose:

    I was gonna say something passive aggressive in the last thread about the lack of new posts, but I decided to have one day a week where I don’t act like a bitch for no reason. 

    So Saturday is the day you have a reason? 😁

    (I couldn’t resist!)

  18. 18.

    Scout211

    Am I understanding correctly that the balloon boy from China was never really in the ballon? That it was all a hoax?

  20. 20.

    mrmoshpotato

    Maybe we should fight about this for awhile? The old fight is getting boring.

    Did I miss anything particularly nasty?

  21. 21.

    Dangerman

    For the love of all that is decent, have TFG obsess over a Chinese Balloon as opposed to, say, a Dutch Oven.

  22. 22.

    oldster

    @Alison Rose:

    “I decided to have one day a week where I don’t act like a bitch for no reason.”

    There is *always* a reason to act like a bitch. So many reasons. Go for it.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    I wonder what information the spy balloon was capturing. Over Montana? Bison farts?

    It was spraying defoliant on the dental floss crop, to the ruination of Americans’ teeth.

  27. 27.

    zhena gogolia

    @Alison Rose: I’m still waiting to have a day like that. I had a meltdown the other morning when I had to replace the toner in the office printer, which NO ONE OTHER THAN ME EVER DOES.

  34. 34.

    James E Powell

    The old fight is getting boring.

    I’m getting old & my memory isn’t what it used to be. What was the old fight?

  43. 43.

    Rusty

    Does the fighter pilot get to count this as a kill?  Do they put a little balloon on their helmet, or on the side of their plane?

  48. 48.

    Kent

    Any word yet on How they shot it down?  I haven’t seen any.

    Or are those details something that the military is going to want to keep secret?

  49. 49.

    Martin

    @Baud: MTG will demand a congressional investigation into the black soldier who murdered that balloon that was only exercising its constitutional rights.

  53. 53.

    kalakal

    I hope they show a bit more imagination next time and use an enormous twisty balloon. It would be cool to see a 300ft teddy bear or whatever floating along

  55. 55.

    raven

    @Kent: Nah, people on the beach saw it.

     

    Jeffrey Billie, a retired defense contractor who lives in Pawleys Island, S.C., saw the balloon being shot down. “It was two fighter jets dancing with this thing going around and around it,” Mr. Billie said. Mr. Billie said a third jet flew near the balloon and fired a missile just as the craft crossed the coastline. “Then, of course, the round big white ball that we saw — all of the sudden it looked like a shriveled Kleenex.”

  57. 57.

    Scout211

    @Kent: The video shows the military plane shooting it down. Do you mean what type of ammunition did they use?

    ETA: I posted the video at #13.

  58. 58.

    Martin

    @Kent: Gonna guess it was a boring AIM-9. I mean, the only reason Cletus couldn’t shoot it down with their AR-15 was they needed to be about 14 miles closer to it.

    Actually AIM-120 – radar, not heat seeking.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    This is where being the adult party sucks.  I’d love for Biden use the balloon to throw the military parade like Trump wanted.

  64. 64.

    JoyceH

    Open thread – a couple friends and I are planning to go to England this fall. They’ve both been several times, but I’ve never been. I’m excited – ordered a new suitcase, need to get a passport…

  65. 65.

    oldster

    I suspect that they will have removed the warhead from the missile and left it back at base.

    A missile traveling at Mach 4 or so will have no trouble popping a balloon, and adding an explosion to that would only damage any equipment we might want to recover.

    Though, even on that score, I doubt that the Chinese sent us anything very complicated. They knew that the hardware was expendable, and that we might get ahold of it.

    We have been spoofing this spy balloon with various signals for a few days, and also listening in on the info it sends back home, so that by now we already know a lot about it for that reason.

  66. 66.

    ian

    @Baud: A Triumph, with the balloon being dragged behind a chariot, and one lowly enlisted soldier whispering in the pilot’s ear “you are only a mortal”.

  73. 73.

    Redshift

    A friend of mine works at NBC, and texted this afternoon to say “We’ve become the Balloon Network.”

    I consoled her by letting her know that all the cable news channels had become the Balloon Network.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @JoyceH:

    I’ve had brief visits there and have always enjoyed it.   And the dollar has never been stronger, last time I checked.

  75. 75.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jay:

    Now of course, large swaths of the East Coast talks like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

    That would be pretty cool actually!

  77. 77.

    ian

    @zhena gogolia: It would have elements of a cheesy 60s era great moments of history film, so why not?  I do think that Ms. Taylor has passed on, so that would complicate things a little.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @kalakal:

    . It would be cool to see a 300ft teddy bear or whatever floating along

     
    They should have painted it like the white spy in Spy vs Spy. Then ours could be the black spy.

  83. 83.

    UncleEbeneezer

    For anyone interested, legendary mountain lion P-22 (RIP) sold out the Greek Theater.  You can watch the commemoration event live on Vimeo now.

  85. 85.

    UncleEbeneezer

    There’s probably a Pink Floyd balloon joke here somewhere but good lord, fascist boot-licker, Roger Waters would probably use the occasion to bash NATO/Ukraine.

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @JoyceH: We still dream of doing an Inn-To-Inn, countryside trek  over there, someday.  It’s just so bloody expensive…

  88. 88.

    Splitting Image

    What this thread needs is Graham Chapman yelling “It’s not a balloon! It’s an airship!”

  91. 91.

    UncleEbeneezer

    So how long until the GOP pivots to proposing legislation to protect foreign surveillance balloons?  Mid-week?  Monday?

  93. 93.

    StringOnAStick

    @JoyceH: Start the process to get your passport ASAP, it can take longer than they tell you it will and you don’t want the stress of worrying if it will arrive in time.  Things like a potential government shutdown or even a new pandemic can have a serious impact.

  94. 94.

    MattF

    Just to note that Yuja Wang is getting the usual rhapsodic reviews for her recent virtuoso concert. Here are some YouTube snippets with some of her gob-smacking piano playing.

  98. 98.

    JoyceH

    @Kineslaw: We’re going to do a six day tour of the south west area (with a full day in Bath since we’re all Austen freaks) and then perch in London for a few days and tour things there, British Museum etc. Doesn’t hit all the things I want to see but will do for a start – I’ll just have to go back.

  107. 107.

    p.a.

    The balloon’s navi-system screwed up.  It was carrying a section of the Hunan wet market to drop on Fox News HQ in NYC, using Sean Hannity’s cinder block head as the bull’s eye.

  109. 109.

    HumboldtBlue

    Police in Gastonia, about 20 miles from Charlotte, begged locals in a Facebook post on Friday to avoid firing their guns into the air in hopes of shooting down the balloon, which a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration model predicts could be in the area on Saturday morning.

  110. 110.

    Martin

    In all seriousness, I am glad that we’ve restored America’s military honor by shooting down a near stationary object the size of a barn by a $250M aircraft. For 3 days it was like the national dick had fallen off.

  113. 113.

    Tony G

    @Suzanne: I hadn’t realized this until I read it this afternoon, but Montana has about 150 ICBM silos.  But … so what?  They’ve been there for at least 40 years, and their warheads have enough power to kill hundreds of millions of people.  This is horrifying, but this is not news.  I wonder what the Chinese were trying to prove with this stunt.

  120. 120.

    Tony G

    @Dangerman: Apparently some of the loons in Congress are calling President Joe “Beijing Biden”.  Some kids grow up after seventh grade, and others do not.

  123. 123.

    FastEdD

    @JoyceH: London is beautiful but the air quality is terrible. Your eyes will water. Use the tube (underground) to get around. You can buy a weekly pass and not worry if you get off at the wrong stop. I stayed just outside of London at a B&B next to the station and it worked out perfectly. See a concert at the Royal Albert Hall if you can-you’ll never forget it!

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    How did they confirm it was from China?

    It said GOODYEER on the side.

    /Chinglish instruction manual humor

  138. 138.

    kalakal

    @JoyceH: Bath’s nice. Are you going to the Fashion Museum? And Brunel’s S.S. Great Britain is good.

    There’s lots of good stuff in the South West, avebury is well worth a visit

  144. 144.

    Lulymay

    @JoyceH: You will enjoy England – at least I did when I travelled there (I’m Canadian so we have a long and certainly closer relationship with the UK than American do).  A word of advice: put a high priority on getting your passport asap as there is a rigorous background check involved.

    Many folks in Canada let their passport lapse during Covid and once they were able to travel again went ahead and booked trips overseas without realizing there is a huge backlog in applications and/or renewing it.  Good luck – you will enjoy England and its rich  history.

  147. 147.

    Nelle

    @UncleEbeneezer: We did that nearly ten years ago.  We made out own itinerary,  booked the Band’s, arranged for luggage transfer.  My husband had a grand time with compass and Ordinance Survey maps.

  150. 150.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I guess high altitude balloons aren’t so hard to shoot down after all. Did it drop to lower altitude by the time it crossed the shoreline? Perhaps in a couple of weeks we will find out what kind of instruments the balloon actually carried.

    Hopefully the world can move on from this farce (intrusion into sovereign airspace in the absence of an Open Skies agreement is a serious matter, but the discourse in the US & China has been utterly nuts) to the next one.

  151. 151.

    Sally

    @jeffreyw: I read (on the internet, so it must be true) that the two Raptors involved had the call signs, “Frank01” and “Frank02”, after Frank Luke Jr who was indeed a balloon ace during WW1.  Someone put some thought into this!  Dark Brandon.

  152. 152.

    YY_Sima Qian

    You know, I was utterly confused by WG’s suggestion that we fight about the balloon for a while. The. I quickly perused the 300+ comments in the DNC Winter Meeting thread…

    Things were still congenial when I went to bed last time (here in China)!

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: It was!

    You know it’s a memorable thread when you remember what day of the week the thread was.

    I was sure this was a Friday, and I googled, and I was right.

    And the thread where Cole rolled out the avatars that were such a disaster that he un-rolled them out by the end of the day?  Certain that it was a Sunday, and it was.

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