Yes, of course the objects are from China. The only other feasible option was Russia, and they're kinda busy right now. I was three-quarters hoping I could troll out some "Truth is Out There" alien-o-philes from the lurkers' woodwork. Instead, sigh, just another well-measured response from kleinbl00 and someone pimping HVAC services in Houston.

I mostly agree, but I think it bears mentioning how asymmetric the costs probably are. Surely scrambling a pair of F-16s or -22s and burning a missile costs quite a bit more than pumping some hydrogen into a latex sphere, fastening some cheap peripheral electronics to the thing, and lettin' 'er rip into the jet stream. The variations in geometry of these objects has been pretty entertaining, though. I think it's 1. sphere, 2. cylinder, 3, dunno, and 4. octagon (a 2D octagon? is it extruded or something? funny).

Again, the politics angle; Yeah, a unanimous but toothless vote to condemn the Chinese spy balloon(s) in Congress. Who cares? This is the Trump era. The republicans are doing almost all of their federal legislating via a culture war in the court of public opinion, on Twitter and in media interviews/monologues. Obviously, there is nothing Biden can do (in this situation or others) that will elicit their public praise. So if this increase in domestic airspace shootdowns (the only time in U.S. history??) is primarily because of the Biden administration feeling bullied into it by the republican response to the initial, obviously Chinese balloon, they need to get the fuck over it.

I'd love to see the Chinese shoot our shit down, if only to see dumbdumb twitter lose their minds 10x as much as they're losing their minds right now. And to stop talking about aliens.