zephyreks

"democracy is good because it allows for freedom of speech"

This article starts with talking about the spy balloon that wasn't a spy balloon: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bizarre-secret-behind-chinas-spy-balloon/

"The intelligence community, their assessment – and it's a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon,"

After the Navy raised the wreckage from the bottom of the Atlantic, technical experts discovered the balloon's sensors had never been activated while over the Continental United States.

So, why was it over the United States? There are various theories, with at least one leading theory that it was blown off-track.

So... The only reason people even consider this a spy balloon is because some guy in China launched it? Wonderful.

Russia, North Korea, Iran have no reason to launch cyberattacks on China. Neither does Israel, really (their capability is far more oriented towards, y'know, their immediate vicinity). We're left with the US and UK, but as we all know, the UK doesn't really have international power anymore and as a result has little reason to provoke China.

Anyone surprised by this is kidding themselves. Only a few countries have developed sophisticated cyberattack capabilities and even fewer are actually interested in China.

Plus, ever since China went around and started executing CIA operatives in China, the US has been operating rather blind with regards to China.

Maybe drop one to show that Russia still has the capability, then another on a different city to show that Russia can keep dropping bombs for as long as it takes?

To what extent? Greater than healthcare? Greater than the flagging economy? The government has limited money.

Why would they? There's only 535 people in Congress. Giving each of them a million dollars in "donations" every four years is basically a rounding error.

China dumped $180b into solar?

Danielle Smith is the opposite of a fiscal conservative. Dumping $330m on the new Saddledome? Cleaning up for oil companies?

US policy at the time was that a quarantine was obviously not a blockade and thus not a declaration of war. Obviously.

The US and UK will lose some credibility internationally if they pull out now, but they'll have more flexibility to address domestic issues that can help them in the next election. Given the relative strength of the opposition this election, they'll need all the help they can get.

Zelensky buddy...