Drones again - this time, south of the border

 

Following our discussion last week of drones and their utility for defense of life and property, I found this article about how Mexican drug cartels are weaponizing drones against each other, and against the security forces.

Last month, three drones rigged with explosives detonated outside a prosecutor’s office in Tijuana, Mexico, besieging six cars parked outside with a blast of nails, BBs and metal fragments. The attack was orchestrated by a cartel, Mexican government officials confirmed, and targeted an anti-kidnapping unit of the Baja state attorney general’s office. It is the latest high-profile example of first-person view drones being used by cartels to replicate military tactics being used in Ukraine.

Defense News previously reported that members of Latin American drug cartels had joined Ukraine’s foreign fighter volunteer units to gain FPV drone training.

Earlier this year, a cartel ambush using an explosive drone in the border state of Chihuahua sent two Mexican military service members and one police officer to the hospital. Three drones were subsequently seized.

Attacks made by explosive-equipped drones surged to over 260 in 2023. In 2024, a drone ambush was reportedly followed by an infantry-style attack in a remote community in Mexico, according to AP.

“Nonstate actors can now acquire capabilities once reserved for nation-states,” writes Stephen Honan for the Atlantic Council on cartels’ increasing use of FPV drones. “Cartels are no longer merely criminal syndicates; they increasingly resemble hybrid entities blending organized crime, paramilitary force, and terrorist tactics.”

There's more at the link.

If the cartels are getting that sophisticated in Mexico, it's surely only a matter of time before they try using drones against the US Border Patrol and/or law enforcement agencies in an effort to get more drugs into this country, or attack rivals in the drug trade.  I'd also expect to see them as a security device to guard marijuana plantations and drug "factories", detecting police raids or rival cartel operations before they strike.

There's also the question of airport security.  Drone operations have shut down airports in Europe on several occasions recently.  Nobody knows (yet) who's behind them, but suspicion centers around Russia, which is at war with Ukraine and is hostile to European nations helping the latter country.  Asymmetric warfare is nothing new, and drones merely add another string to the bow of that sort of warfare.

This makes me even more certain that it will be a good idea to learn how to use a drone, partly for reasons of local security during times of unrest, wildfire or other danger, and partly to understand how to defend against them in the hands of local gangs or drug dealers.  You can bet the gang-bangers have already realized how useful these things can be to plot crimes or keep an eye out for patrolling police, and I'm sure we'll be seeing more and more of them being used for such purposes.

My "el cheapo" drone arrived yesterday, and over the next couple of weeks I'm going to start figuring out how to use it.  If I crash it, it won't hurt my wallet too much, as drones costing less than $50 - some less than $10 - are freely available and affordable.  If the learning process goes well, I can look at upgrading to something more effective when funds are available.  If I understand the little beasts better, I can defend against them - and their operators - better as well.

Food for thought - and action.

Peter

OK, I have to try making this!

 

I've never thought of "Thanksgiving" and "pizza" in the same breath . . . but after reading this news report, that's changed.

Pino’s Pizza of Deer Park has something savory to be thankful for this Turkey Day — their viral Thanksgiving pizza pie, which is served with sliced roasted turkey breast, gravy, sausage and apple cornbread stuffing and topped off with cranberry sauce.

Barbieri has since expanded his Thanksgiving-themed offerings to include calzones, stromboli and empanadas — all stuffed with the same ingredients.

There's more at the link.

Here's a video report on the gastronomic monstrosity.

I'm hungry just looking at that thing!  It seems Americans will put anything on a pizza . . . and in this case, it looks like a winner.

What strange or alternative pizzas have you made and/or eaten, dear readers?  Surprise us with your stories and recipes in Comments.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 287

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

A fusion blast from the past this morning.  British group Colosseum were (and still are, in a new incarnation) what Wikipedia describes as "an English jazz rock band, mixing blues, rock and jazz-based improvisation".  I've seldom heard all three of those musical genres combined successfully in a single piece of music, let alone an entire repertoire, but Colosseum were pretty good.  Their jazz rock rendition of Ravel's Bolero is a standout in the field of classical music adapted to modern electronic instruments.

For this morning, I've chosen one of their original compositions, the Valentyne Suite, released on the album of the same name in 1969.  It's attracted a cult following among the group's fans.  It's in three parts:

"Theme One: January's Search" (6:20)

"Theme Two: February's Valentyne" (3:37)

"Theme Three: The Grass is Always Greener" (6:52)

Peter

A good letter

 

Kudos to CDR Salamander for sharing a letter from Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll in preparation for the holiday season.  Mr. Driscoll addresses a long-standing problem, and offers hope.  Click the image below for a larger, more readable view.

I had some experience of that sort of stress during my own military service, decades ago.  Back in 2011, I wrote in these pages about a friend.

I remember Gavin, who was a member of a patrol that found a baby, too young to walk, sitting in the middle of a dirt road in a township, crying. As the point man and a couple of others walked up to see why the baby was just sitting there, the terrorists waiting in ambush blew up the landmine they'd buried beneath her, killing the point man and savagely mutilating the other two soldiers. Bits of flesh and blood from the soldiers, and the baby, splattered all over Gavin . . . across his face . . . in his eyes, nose and mouth.

For years, Gavin would start awake in the small hours at night, a scream of horror on his lips. "They blew up a baby! A baby!" Gavin's wife eventually left him, because she couldn't handle the strain of living with his nightmares. Psychiatric treatment couldn't break the cycle; nor could alcohol, or drugs (legal and illegal). Gavin took his own life at last, too tormented by what he'd seen to endure any longer, in the small hours every night, the parade of images across his closed eyelids. He was a hero in my book . . . and I'll always remember him as such.

There's more at the link.

There are too many like Gavin who never receive the help they need - not just combat stress and trauma, but the quiet accumulation of too many incidents, too much angst, too few friends.  I hope Secretary Driscoll's letter will help to reach them before it's too late.

Peter

A new twist on personal security and defense of your property

 

Big Country Expat is experimenting with a couple of low-cost entry-level quadcopter drones.  He suggests it's a good idea for everyone to get to know at least the basics of how to operate them.

The Scout is a good practice drone, and small enough to get in and around the interior of the house (or any house for that matter) for recon pretty well.

The problem is that it’s so lightweight, ANY and ALL breezes affect its flight. One time I was working on going room-to-room in the house, and the Central Air Conditioning kicked on, and the bird ‘lurched’ across the room in the draft of the AC blowing out of the vent.

So I’m not sure of the utility of it outside in real crosswinds.

This is a standard problem for the cheap ‘practice’ drones if you will. No real weight. One of my early $30 Amazon Chinesium drones I actually lost when practicing outside with the Redhead Nukular Gran. If you recall while I was flying it, I had a BIG gust of wind show up unexpectedly, and grab it, and last I saw of it, it was headed due south towards the Publix a quarter mile away…

Never did find out what happened to that ‘un LOL.

It literally faded to a teeny-tiny dot and then >poof<

So tonight, I tried to to fly this new quad inside BUT had a minor issue. Or maybe not minor per se…

The doggos.

Chili AND Stella both seem to think that the quadcopter is something they need to ‘fetch’ out of the air… I tried to get them to leave it alone, but nope. They weren’t listening at all. In fact Stella got too close while lunging at it, and the rotor blade caught her on the nose. She yelped pretty loudly as it must have hurt, but did that stop her?

She’s a ****ing rockheaded Pittie…

What do you think?

Riiiiiiiight.

Now it’s a challenge apparently.

Must. Snatch. The. Flying. Thing.

So this means in the future, I’ll have to either practice in the bedroom for the initial ‘tuning’ of it and getting a feel for the flight characteristics, or take it down to the park at the elementary school we used to take the Grans to after school or on a Saturday and give it a try there.

When I say ‘tuning’ I mean that the controls and servos need to be dialed in for accuracy, otherwise it might have drift already in the settings, and I need to make sure that it does a steady hover, and do some other things, to include getting the 4k Cameras ‘dialed in’ as well.

Seeing that drones are the future and at least trying to learn how to use them is a good and necessary thing. Better to learn on the short $$$ models than to spend a grand on a nice DJI Drone like the Ivans and Krainians use and have that get wrecked?

I’d rather burn through a half a dozen ‘practice drones’ learning how to ‘fly’ a drone rather than buying a $$$$$Mondo-Expensivo$$$$$ one and wasting/crashing/destroying it by accident.

There's more at the link, including pictures.

I think he makes a very good point.  While cheap entry-level quadcopters are still freely available, I think it's an excellent idea to learn to use them.  They may not be Predator- or Reaper-class weaponized drones, but one can use them to fly around one's property, or up and down the street, and see what's going on in the neighborhood.  If there are reports of rioting or unrest nearby, one can keep an eye on the situation, and if one sees "undesirables" heading in one's direction, one can be proactive in responding to them, either by "getting out of Dodge" before they arrive, or getting together with neighbors to greet them, in full readiness to protect one's loved ones and property, when they arrive.

I think I have a new project for the next few weeks . . .  Finding a low-cost drone that can cope with North Texas winds might be a challenge, but I'll do my best.  If anyone sees a drone heading for the wild blue yonder, coming from my general direction, let me know, will you, please?

Peter

Another perspective on the job market

 

Mike Rowe, who's spent much of his life trying to revive interest in the skilled trades and related jobs, spoke with Ford's CEO the other day.  In the light of our discussion about jobs yesterday, I've taken the liberty of reproducing most of his interview here.

I just had a great conversation with Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, which will air Sunday night at 10pm on One Nation. (That’s Kilmeade’s show on Fox.) Jim told me that as of yesterday morning, Ford Service Departments around the country had 6,000 empty bays. Not because people’s cars and trucks didn’t need fixing, but because the shortage of technicians has become that profound.

Ford isn’t alone. Every single automotive company in America is struggling to hire technicians, and the problem – (in spite of what you’ll likely read in the comments,) has nothing to do with the pay, the benefits, or the working conditions. These jobs offer a clear path to a six-figure career, with little to no college debt. In part, the problem is mathematical – this year, 37,000 new techs were hired across the country. Unfortunately, 76,000 retired. That’s a 2:1 ration, which is actually pretty good, compared to the 5:2 ratio in most of the construction trades. But along with a lack of warm bodies, there’s a lack of interest in the work itself. A will gap, in other words, combined with a skill gap. Happily, I think that’s about to change. Unfortunately, at the expense of a colossal upheaval.

I know I’m a broken record on this, but I think our workforce is about to undergo a truly seismic change. Amazon is eliminating 14,000 corporate roles, citing both economic concerns and the impact of artificial intelligence on how the company operates. Some say the actual number will be closer to 30,000. UPS is cutting 34,000 operations roles, driven by automation. Target, Intel, Paramount, American Airlines, Starbucks…every week, another big corporation lays off thousands of people whose particular skill sets are no longer relevant. And yet, not a week goes by when some industry leader like Jim Farley doesn’t tell me about the extraordinary, unprecedented difficulty of getting skilled workers into the pipeline, and onto the jobsite.

I’ve never seen it like this. I’ve spent seventeen years trying to reinvigorate the skilled trades, by making a more persuasive case for the opportunities at hand. Typically, I’ve focused my efforts on young men and women starting their careers by offering scholarships to trade schools, and this year, I’ll redouble my efforts in that regard. But as of today, I’ll also be thinking about the hundreds of thousands of white-collar workers who are either going to retire prematurely, or hit the reset button, and learn a skill that’s in demand. Because many of those people simply don’t understand the other side of the workforce, and the myriad opportunities that exist today.

Last month, for instance, in Plano, Texas, I toured a Data Center. It was overwhelming, and in some ways, a little unsettling. But I met with a few electricians while I was there, who told me they’d all been poached from different companies at least three times in the last two years. These guys were all under 30, and all making well over $200K a year. They constantly get offers from the competition for ever-increasing salaries, because the need for electricians is acute, and their jobs are not threatened by robots or AI. (Not yet, anyway. And probably not in our lifetimes.) The same is true of welders, HVAC techs, plumbers, and so forth.

Apologies, if I sound glib. I can only imagine how scary it is for a middle-manager in a white-collar job, or a paralegal, or a coder, or a stock broker, or a graphic artist, to be told it’s time to “hit the reset button.” I know how absurd it might sound to a person in that position to be told that the ship building industry has 200,000 openings, or the energy industry has 300,000 openings, or the construction industry has 250,000 openings, or that Ford has 6,000 empty bays as of this morning.

But that’s where we are. Your jobs are not being eliminated; your industries are being eliminated. That doesn’t mean your only option is to learn a skilled trade. But the option is there, nevertheless.

I admire Mike Rowe for his tireless efforts to improve the image of skilled trades in the eyes of the average American, and highlight how critically important they are to our economy as a whole.  If I were starting over, I'd look very hard at a trade instead of the usual university-to-white-collar route that I followed.  I think I'd have a lot more fun, and I'd probably make more money, too.

Trouble is, so many First World economies have de-emphasized skilled trades as a career path that it's hard to find good training and education in the field.  In South Africa, we had so-called "technikons" as a parallel education path to universities.  One could study for a "technical degree" as easily as an "academic degree", and go all the way to a doctorate in many fields (somewhat similar to the German system of technical education, culminating in the "Dr. Ing." qualification).  Unfortunately, as part of the reorganization of South African institutions that followed the advent of democracy in 1994, the technical universities were folded into the academic system, so that today one can no longer choose which "stream" to follow.  I thought at the time that was a mistake, and I've seen nothing to make me change my mind.

Mike Rowe is doing an outstanding jobs with his Foundation to encourage and sponsor technical training.  More power to him!

Peter

No, this wasn't self-defense

 

I note the ongoing argument over whether a Michigan resident was defending himself, or acting recklessly, when he fired at intruders.

Sivan Wilson, 17, was with six other mainly teenagers when the group broke into Dayton Knapton’s garage in White Lake shortly after 1 a.m. July 8, authorities said.

Knapton, 24, got an alert from his home security system, grabbed a .9mm gun, ran outside and fired two shots into the garage through a windowless door, striking Wilson, according to prosecutors and cops.

As the group fled, Knapton fired five more shots before going back into his house, reloading his gun and returning outside, according to a statement by the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.

Another teenager in the group also was shot in the leg.

. . .

“This defendant crossed the line by firing outside his home at fleeing persons,” prosecutor Karen McDonald said of Knapton. “His actions not only took a life but potentially endangered the surrounding community by firing his weapon into the night.”

There's more at the link.

Laws differ in the 50 States, but legally there's one principle that generally has to be clearly visible before a shooting can be ruled self-defense:  namely, that there has to be a clear, imminent and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or serious injury to the person defending himself.  In this case, it's immediately obvious that this did not exist, because:

1. The shooter could not actually see the people at whom he was shooting.  He fired through a closed door without any windows.  He could not have known whether his targets were armed, or whether they intended to pose any physical threat to him at all.
2. The shooter went on to fire at fleeing people - their backs to him, running away as fast as they could, presumably with their hands clearly visible.  They could not have posed a threat to him under those circumstances.

Mr. Knapton may have been angry at having been repeatedly burgled in the past, and may have been afraid or upset at finding it happening again:  but there's no evidence at all that he was actually threatened, or faced any real danger of assault, injury or death.  Under the circumstances, I don't see how a claim of self-defense can be made to stick.

Some states (for example, Texas) allow one to use lethal force in defense of one's property, not just one's life, under certain circumstances.  However, one has to be very careful not to take that as a carte blanche to do whatever one wishes with intruders, whether they're accidental or deliberate.  If there is no physical threat, one has every chance of being indicted for using more force than necessary to remove them.  Frankly, I think that's the way it should be.  Our response should be proportionate to the threat.  Tragedies occur every year when a homeowner's response is not proportionate, such as this case in Indiana or this one in Texas.  One has to draw a line, and in most cases our laws do just that.  We can't use a firearm when our lives are not in danger (for example, to stop a fleeing thief who's not a threat, and is only trying to get away).

Those of us who espouse the right to self-defense, and the right to keep and bear arms, need to think about this often.  Our actions and reactions may provide ammunition to those wanting to take away those rights.

Peter