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Friday's Most Active Threads

by Jeff Steele last modified Feb 09, 2023 10:45 PM

The topics with the most engagement yesterday included the Chinese balloon, returning to the office, a drug overdose at a Virginia high school, and drug use at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Chinese balloon flying" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Obviously this thread is about the Chinese surveillance balloon that has been flying over the US the past couple of days. The most revealing aspect of this thread is the large number of Chinese surveillance balloon experts that post on DCUM. The thread is literally full of them. Every single one of these "experts" blames the Biden administration for not immediately shooting down the balloon. The Biden administration's explanation that the military has disabled the balloon's ability to transmit any information of value and that shooting it down would present dangers to people and property on the ground is far from satisfactory to this group. China would not allow a US balloon to float unmolested over its territory they argue. Probably true. China does not share the US's concerns about the safety of its citizens and would likely be willing to sacrifice a few in order to make a political gesture. For many posters, this was simply further evidence that President Joe Biden is in the pocket of Chinese communists. For others it provided evidence for their latest conspiracy theory. For all the hyperventilating going on in this thread, the balloon didn't elicit much more than a shoulder shrug from actual experts — some of whom are quoted in the thread. Those experts were mostly  confused given that China could obtain equally good intelligence from its satellites. One salient topic that did come up in the thread was the amount of US farmland China has been purchasing. A number of posters found this to be much more concerning than the balloon.

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