Didn't Trump reportedly rape his ex wife because she recommended the guy who inserted his stupid hair into his head sockets?

So I guess that story tracks.

I really needed a laugh. and for my sins, I got one. I just never dreamed it would come from these guys, but of course the element of surprise is one of Humor's most effective assets. 

So, everyone's excited about these Chinese balloons. To be clear, I detest the CCP, I take this flying baozi as an affront and would like to see it shot down as much as anybody else. So what's so funny about that? 

What's so funny is that we're now being told we most likely can't shoot it down, and not just because of the risks to people on the ground. The word is that our weapons systems may actually be unable to shoot it at all, because it's flying far above the altitude our planes and missiles are designed to handle, and it's not shaped like the kinds of things our missiles are designed to shoot at, but rather like something the missiles are designed to ignore (such as clouds). They could still try to shoot it, but then we've got a sky raining 20mm caliber rounds, or medium range air–to–air missiles that might not be able to hit it. "It's very difficult with what we have, because what we have was not meant to shoot down balloons."

They are taunting the most advanced military the planet has ever known, with balloons. 

This appears to be a win–win–win scenario for the Chinese government. If we shoot at it, we risk raining debris and bullets onto our cities, and if we miss, it's a major PR embarrassment. If we do have some secret capability that can hit it, then using that capability would tip our hand. If we leave the thing alone, it gets to spy on us unchallenged, not only potentially gathering intel, but also causing similar embarrassment by the appearance of our ceding sovereign airspace, mainland sovereign airspace, to the PRC. 

Remember that joke about the Russian space pencil? NASA spends a fortune for a team of scientists and engineers to develop a pen that astronauts can use in zero–gravity conditions, meanwhile Russian cosmonauts just use a pencil? 

Now we have two hundred million–dollar fighter jets, equipped with one million–dollar missiles, humiliated by a balloon. 

It’s an insult, and it's a good one. I detest the CCP, but I gotta hand it to ‘em this time. Nice one, guys.

Wookout! Bawoons! Awwwmageddon! 
 

Rampop II wrote:

For or against?

For, but this is weighed against mainstream coverage.  Conspiracists love a long shot against the sheeple.

At this point, I think the only embarrassment here is the one Republicans are trying to use against Biden for getting caught with his pants down.  It's pure PR.  I don't know anything more than anyone else, but because I don't see a lot of sweat on our military guys, I have to assume that the reason why we didn't raise the alarm when the balloon entered our airspace is because our miltary determined it was harmless, and chose to track it to see what it was up to.  It was like "Oh, isn't this cute".  But, of course, the spin on the story will always take other directions, and for Republicans, it's an opportunity.  And I like how no one is even really worried about the balloon over South America.  Oh well.  They don't have missle silos down there.

Because I've elected to become an ignorant political know nothing these last couple of years (due to the strain learning about the rest of the world was causing me), I only recently saw mention of these balloons and my first reaction was....what information can these balloons possibly be gathering that isn't available to gather in a number of other ways?? It seemed at worst, a deliberate and childish provocation of some sort, but a mostly benign one. The sort of thing best left ignored. China are cunts. No news alert there.

I find it disturbing that even knowing absolutely nothing about this issue beyond glancing through a few articles, that not even those in charge of making serious decisions, who should be tremendously smarter than me, have seemed to have explored the possibility that this didn't really matter. That maybe acting against it was either stupidly symbolic or emotionally based.

But, yeah, what do I know. I'm much more concerned with the shower mat covered with vomit that has been hanging on my neighbours porch railings for two weeks than world politics.


 

crumbsroom wrote:

I'm much more concerned with the shower mat covered with vomit that has been hanging on my neighbours porch railings for two weeks than world politics.

Excellent geopolitical analogy, though.

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

I'm much more concerned with the shower mat covered with vomit that has been hanging on my neighbours porch railings for two weeks than world politics.

Excellent geopolitical analogy, though.

Ditto haaaa

Rampop II wrote:

this admittedly satisfying sortie

For whom is it satisfying though?  The only ones I see profitting off of it are the Republicans using it to attack the Biden administration.  Like you said, it happens all of the time, so I don't see any real value to China on the matter, other than to point to our broken partisan media (which, atta boy, like that's been some obscure mystery this whole time).

I dunno.  To me it all feels like another example of something out of nothing.

But at least China didn't claim to have a boy in that balloon.
 

Rampop II wrote:

Wookout! Bawoons! Awwwmageddon! 
 

I should clarify, I don't intend that comment as a swipe at Mandarin–speakers. I taught ESL and got my creds in TESOL, which is linguistics–based. The "r" sound is legitimately challenging for a "native" Mandarin tongue, just as Mandarin's tonal qualities are extremely challenging for "native" speakers of English, or of any non–tonal language. No, I'm specifically making fun of Victor Gao. Former interpreter for Deng Xiaoping, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization think tank, and described as Beijing's unofficial mouthpiece, he's featured here in an interview on 60 Minutes Australia trying to scare viewers away from supporting an independent Taiwan. "Think of all the nightmares you can think of, and what will happen will be ten times more than your worst nightmare!" The whole piece is about a ridiculous hypothetical of an actual shooting war with China. Australian media holds its own in the world of sensationalism and alarmist hype.

Maybe I should cut Gao some slack, since he probably has little choice but to spew this stuff at Beijing's behest. Or maybe I shouldn't. As a Yale graduate who touts the Fort Derrick COVID–19 origin story, supports the Hong Kong National Security Law, and claims that Peng Shuai's athleticism means she could not possibly have been assaulted by Zhang Gaoli (as she claimed before she disappeared), he just makes it too easy for me to call him a fucking first–rate dickhead. It's not like a guy of his stature and connections couldn't defect with his family if he wanted to. I think he's just too comfortable in the guanxi with all those sweet Beijing perks. In fairness, I should probably be just as hard on the producers of 60 Minutes Australia for leeching off of this kind of chickenhawk rhetoric, so, fuck them, too.

But this is News Balm, so fuck them with love. 




Poking the Panda, indeed. With love. 

 

Last edited by Rampop II (2/06/2023 2:58 am)

Since this seems to be the all-purpose news thread, here's something which wouldn't fit into any other topic.

I think we all agree that it's endlessly annoying hearing conservatives complain (without irony) about the "grievance industry", which is the idea that women and minorities complaining about inequality and systemic discrimination is actually a liberal media invention as a kind of counterculture-war gambit to exploit both historic resentments and white guilt for clicks and ratings, and also possibly the end of the republic as we know it.  This is obviously an organized deflection by those who want to avoid acknowledging these hierarchal problems in our society.

But you know what else is endlessly annoying?  When you see certain examples in news media which looks an awful lot like the exploitative parody of grievance that seems to confirm conservatives' suspicions.  Sometimes, people on the left are dumb enough to play along with conservative narratives.

Last night (apparently) were the Grammy Awards (I think I last watched them in about 2006 or so).  So I see a headline about Beyonce losing in the Album of the Year category which read "When Will Black Women Get Their Due?"  Much like the hysteria over this year's Oscars, an awards show has turned into a mandate on social justice.  Now the headline is ridiculous, and patronizingly insulting, for a number of reasons which are evident in the article.  The most prominent problem is that several black women, including Beyonce!, won Grammys last night, so it seems that at the very least several black women are getting thier due.  And that's just this year, because another ridiculous issue with the headline is its implication that black women have yet to get their due at these awards shows, which is an absurdity beyond my patience to illustrate.  To be clear, Beyonce won 4 Grammys last night, and, in fact, has now become the most Grammy winning artist of all time!  But because she lost one of the awards that she was up for?  Suddenly "black women", in toto, are now being denied their due.

I don't want to sound like a conservative.  I really don't.  I want to celebrate the achievements of these black female artists (Samara Joy, in particular, is a qualified talent) rather than use the occasion for catastrophic hyperbole and insinuations of racism and misogyny.  People, you people, white women on twitter, whoever, calm the fuck down and realize that this is the kind of bullshit that is being used against your progressive movement.