The Guardian yesterday, February 17 2023:
A group of amateur balloon enthusiasts in Illinois might have solved the mystery of one of the unknown flying objects shot down by the US military last week, a saga that had captivated the nation.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade says one of its hobby craft went “missing in action” over Alaska on 11 February, the same day a US F-22 jet downed an unidentified airborne entity not far away above Canada’s Yukon territory.
In a blogpost, the group did not link the two events. But the trajectory of the pico balloon before its last recorded electronic check-in at 12.48am that day suggests a connection – as well as a fiery demise at the hands of a sidewinder missile on the 124th day of its journey, three days before it was set to complete its seventh circumnavigation.
If that is what happened, it would mean the US military expended a missile costing $439,000 (£365,000) to fell an innocuous hobby balloon worth about $12 (£10) …
On her blog today, Caitlin Johnstone comments:
These are the people who rule our world. They are not wise. They are not insightful. They are not even particularly intelligent. The US empire is a Yosemite Sam cartoon character who at any time can just flip out and start firing Sidewinder missiles at random pieces of junk in the sky, screaming “I’ll blast yer head off ya varmint!” If the US war machine was a civilian human, the family would be quietly talking amongst themselves about the possibility of conservatorship.
These are the last people in the world who should be running things, and they are the last people in the world who should be armed with nuclear weapons. But that’s exactly where we find ourselves in this bizarre slice of spacetime. God help us all.
See in this regard my post yesterday: Did the Crazies capture the USA? How?
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Hmmm. Dylan’s John Birch Talkin’ Blues springs to mind. The bit where he ends up investigating himself.
It can’t be too much longer before the incompetent freaks do a Wylie Coyote on themselves and start firing missiles at themselves.
I’ll get the popcorn in. You can bring the beer.
You’re right! I’d all but forgotten that Dylan once wrote such songs.