Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

abcnews.go.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 593 posts

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#201

Post by CPLX »

georgeg23 wrote: post #79
tough wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't call it the Paypal Mafia just cause

Pretty clear this guy is a key player in their mafia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career

> In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs.

They did what now?

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#202

Post by kilroy123 »

luxuryballs wrote: post #22
akmarinov wrote: post #11

Have aliens invaded and we just don’t know about it, the government holding them off lowkey? Edit: Now China’s shooting them down! https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/02/12/china-says...

even better, it’s staged! https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xx2ris

Never seen this before. I've always thought this was the case... As Sun Tzu says, "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#203

Post by LarryMullins »

analog31 wrote: post #34
georgeg23 wrote: post #6

Balloons could be a clever counter to what the US is doing with Low Earth Orbit satellites recently. SpaceX is launching tons of spy/missile defense satellites over China as part of the Space Development Agency: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Development_Agency China has been complaining to the United Nations about it. https://press.un.org/en/2022/gadis3698.doc.htm More details: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Star…

Something that puzzles me is how you specifically target China with a satellite. They can't be geostationary unless they're over the equator.

It can be done with highly eccentric and inclined geo-syncronized (not geostationary) orbits. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-Zenith_Satellite_System#...

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#204

Post by e12e »

labster wrote: post #18

I was not expecting the 99 Luftballoons song to happen so literally. This is definitely the darkest timeline.

Thank you for pointing that out - I never paid much attention to the lyrics (my German isn't great).

Fitting prelude and postlude to Alphaville - Forever Young...

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#205

Post by credit_guy »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #199
tezza wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can provide legal cover for invading countries… Bosnia, Iraq etc. The UN courts can issue judgements… Human Rights Courts: e.g. Slobodan Milosovic, Radavan Kardzich etc A lot of the global treaties are kicked around there They also enforce peace zones (poorly) like Lebanon, Israel demilitarised zone. They coordinate aid programs UNRWA etc

I don't think legal cover is the right term. My understanding that basically all nations view their domestic laws as higher than the UN. UN decisions are more like a veil or facade of moral Authority

I think you might have a typo: "you and decisions" may mean "UN decisions".

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#206

Post by thrill »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #67
cududa wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s called immature ideological purity. Like it or not, state secrets are a necessary function of any civilization.

If you don't tell people the truth about something like this, they will cheerfully make something up and accept it as truth. That's not a "necessary function of any civilization," that's dereliction of duty to the people who elected the leaders.

Even if you do tell people the "truth", they'll cheerfully make anything up that gets more clicks.

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#207

Post by rmk »

gambiting wrote: post #153
localplume wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surveillance satellites are very different to directly flying this equipment into US airspace, including the fact that this equipment could hold paylods other than ISR. Not to mention this comment implies China does not have equivalent spy satellites, which it does. Also the UN is an absolute joke. That article links has China and Russia complaining about the West being aggressors so honestly its kinda BS. Also forge…

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

This is misinformed. The UN does take a lot of 'actions', one of the most important ones being Peackeeping missions. The explicit mission of the UN is to avert violent conflict.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#208

Post by wiml »

phpisthebest wrote: post #192
gambiting wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#209

Post by unsupp0rted »

preisschild wrote: post #73
irthomasthomas wrote: post #13

"The American people don't need classified details, just that they're safe. That's it."

Just waiting for the "My fellow Americans, we have made contact with extraterrestrials" speech from Biden

… “and immediately shot at it”

Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials

#210

Post by themitigating »

handedness wrote: post #187
gambiting wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Also the UN is an absolute joke UN is literally just a forum for countries to meet and discuss matters. Nothing more nothing less. I have no idea why people expect UN to take action, when UN is explicitly not an organisation for taking any actions.

The UN is certainly something more than that, and not literally just a forum. They have an active duty peacekeeping force of approximately 81K people. While that's similar in size to the active duty forces from a nation like a Peru or Chile, the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history in places like Central Africa. For example: "Consi…

"the Blue Helmets have had a de facto quasi-blanket immunity when committing war crimes, and have some pretty horrifying history"

First, I don't think calling them "blue helmets" has the negative connotation you think it does.

Second. What's the difference between the UN peacekeepers and any other army? All have a mixed history and I'm pretty sure have let's say a high amount of immunity.

People do bad things, especially soldiers who have power and the cover of war. This will never change. Of course crimes should be prosecuted as well but I don't know much about the details of the UN peacekeepers.

Post reply on HN