Global thermonuclear war starting because a bunch of weather balloons drift off course is a :chefs-kiss: perfect way to cap off these past few years
Chinese state-affiliated media reported over the weekend that an unidentified flying object had been spotted off the country’s east coast, with the military preparing to shoot it down.
Probably defensive saber-rattleing, but concerning nonetheless. Exactly how many minutes left on the Doomsday clock? Do we get halftime?
A US military commander, General Glen VanHerck, said that there was no indication of any threat from the latest object.
He said it could be a “gaseous type of balloon” or “some type of a propulsion system” - adding he could not rule out that the objects were extra-terrestrials.
:scared: :posad:
99 Luftballons was an excellent jam and really captured a moment that, while obscured for a time, is now right back in our fucking faces: maybe we will all be vaporized by our leaders for nothing.
trivia: the german version hit #1 in the charts in the US, but the english version did not even chart in the US.
anyway, i don’t speak german, but i liked the crisp english&german version by goldfinger in the 90s, especially as it gets to the part where we’re hearing the thoughts and orders of the militant
99 red balloons floating in the summer sky
panic bells, it’s red alert
there’s something here from somewhere else
the war machine, it springs to life
opens up one eager eye
focusing it on the sky
as 99 red balloons go by
99 decisions treat, 99 ministers meet
to worry, worry, super-scurry
call out the troops now in a hurry
this is what we’ve waited for
this is it boys, this is war
the president is on the line
as 99 red balloons go by
Bro there was a song about this! There was a song!
This is what a lot of arms control and early warning experts have been saying, there are a ton of high altitude balloons drifting around the upper atmosphere. Until the US freaked out about the Chinese balloon last week, everyone had just been ignoring them. The US early warning radar even had speed gates to filter out balloons (just like they filter out birds and civilian planes).
And now we are wasting millions everyday to shoot down completely harmless weather balloons and trying to use them to justify war with China.
Cold War 1: chill Soviet minuteman calmly ignores launch detected alarms because the system sometimes acts funny
Cold War 2: some kid had a birthday party and now there’s no more Shanghai
Some of the big brain reddit takes I’ve seen on this include folks literally not believing that any country but the US has spy satellites in orbit. I hope they are trolls.
