BALLOON HEADS

    In case nobody has already heard the news, or doesn't live in the Pacific Northwest, one---possibly two---large balloons of currently unknown origin have appeared in the skies setting off panic-attacks in various quarters. The commanders of our brave xhes in uniform have made the excitement worse by claiming---without a lot of evidence---that these are Chinese Spy Balloons which pose no real threat. Considering that the personnel in our Pacific Observation units recently had to be given incentives to stop failing drug tests and getting drunk on duty, there's reason to be skeptical of the Pentagon's assessments. 

   There are other reasons too. One is that modern armies haven't had a Balloon Corps since around the mid-1930s. IIRC. the Italians were the last ones to use them with any effect during the Abyssinian War of 1935. The Japanese tried during WW2 to send unmanned balloons with incendiaries to our West Coast to start forest fires, but it didn't work out very well. In WW1, the military learned that they were fairly easy to shoot down with even the quality of aircraft we had back then. The problem that spy balloons always had is exactly what we're seeing now: the targets of the operation can see them too, which rather defeats the purpose of spying in the first place. 

     The Chinese are denying sending such an object over here for espionage purposes. Huang Zhicheng, an aerodynamics expert in the Chinese Government, laconically said in an interview that "According to the information released by the US, the balloon is of 40 cubic meters and can 'fly from China to the US'. If the US has concrete evidence to prove this balloon belongs to China, it shows China has exceeded the US in technologies in the domain.” 

    Balloons generally are of two types: one is the low-pressure type of which we are all familiar. As we've all seen, such balloons are carried by the wind and aren't steerable. The one(s) sighted over the Pacific Northwest are of this type. The other type uses pressurized gas which is controlled by an engine---the Goodyear Blimp is an example of such an airship and some zeppelins built by the Germans in the 1930s had nearly unlimited range. In other words, flying a balloon from China to the United States over a directed target is nearly an impossible feat. Given that China has some very advanced satellites which can view our military installations from space, it makes the story even more ridiculous. In all probability, this is a harmless weather balloon blown off course. 

    However, here in the Prozac Nation, the story is dominating Friday morning's news just in time to divert public attention from the Pfizer Scandal as well as diverting Ameroboob outrage from skyrocketing utility bills which always arrive around the 1st of the month. The Domino Effect is in full swing: panic on social media, followed by media hype for ratings, followed by political finger-pointing. We're talking here about a population who seriously believes that a warmer-than-average Winter is being caused by gas stoves; and that men can become women just by putting on a wig and changing their clothes. Understanding something as complicated as a weather balloon is a real challenge for most of them. 

   Practically every headline is referring to the object as a Chinese Spy Balloon. Arch-RINO Kevin McCarthy has called on President Joe Biden to convene a meeting of the “Gang of Eight”—intelligence committee members and leadership from both parties—to deal with this threat to national security. Other members of Congress are stating words to the effect that if we only had more 'Alphas' in charge, we'd have shot the thing down by now. There are even demands to cancel Anthony Blinken's proposed diplomatic trip to China over the 'incident.'

   For whatever their words are worth, the Pentagon estimates that the object spotted over Montana is floating at an altitude of 66,000 feet, which is about twice as high as commercial jetliners go. Weather balloons are designed to rise to an altitude of 100,000 feet, where the atmospheric pressure causes them to pop. The equipment on board drops by parachute, (which these days are GPS tracked) and the information recovered. What obviously happened here is that someone in China or elsewhere under-inflated one which didn't make altitude and blew off course. It's likely not even sending information because the equipment is operated with a barometric pressure switch which has to go much higher before it turns on.

   Americans need to pull their own heads out of the clouds because right now, that's where the real problem lies.