Some amazing cosplay in Russia

Here's some footage from the Russian version of ComicCon this year.

All I can say is, some people take dressing up and acting out very, very seriously . . .




Peter

Canada ditches the F-35

I note that incoming Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau has already announced that Canada will cancel its order for the Lockheed F-35 Lightning II strike aircraft.

Good move.  Good, good move.  As we've said several times in these pages, the F-35 program is a boondoggle of the worst possible kind, and recent evaluations suggest that the aircraft's performance is simply not up to the standards required.  I think the US armed forces are making a grievous error by proceeding with it at all.  I think Canada will be much better off without it.

As for alternatives, Canada will want something with twin engines (for safety of flight in its huge and very remote Arctic regions), long range (ditto), and a decent warload.  Options include the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (Canada currently operates the first-generation Hornets), the Boeing F-15 Eagle in its latest updated form, and the Dassault Rafale from France (although the latter might be a bit short-ranged for the Arctic mission).  All will cost rather less than the F-35, both in purchase price and in operating costs.

A surprise candidate, which may not be up to Canada's needs but is an interesting development, is Lockheed's latest-generation F-16V fighter, which made its first flight last week.  It has a modern AESA radar and internal equipment that's said to put it (electronically, at least) in fifth-generation fighter territory, even if the airframe and engine aren't quite there.  More to the point, it can probably be bought for half the cost of the F-35.  Even though it's only got one engine, that's a pretty tempting option . . .

Peter

One of those quiet heroes

I'm devoutly grateful that a Vietnam War veteran was on hand when he was needed last week.

He’d finished his tutorial and was walking around the room to survey the children’s chess moves when a man brandishing two knives burst into the room threatening to kill them.

James Vernon, a 75-year-old Vietnam War-era veteran, who volunteers weekly teaching chess to about 16 home-schooled children at the public library in Morton, Illinois, had only one thought: “This is not going to happen.”

The children, aged 7 to 14, froze in their seats. Vernon approached the man, identified by local press as 19-year-old Dustin Brown, and calmly asked him questions in an attempt to defuse the situation. Brown stood there making shallow cuts in his own left arm. He told Vernon his whole life sucked.

. . .

He asked Brown to let the children leave and they could talk it out. A mother in the room took the cue and hurried the children out the room. It was then that Brown lunged. Vernon lifted his hand to block him and was stabbed deep into his palm and through two arteries. His blood splattered on the plastic chess pieces and on the library carpet.

Vernon fought back and overcame him, and somehow got him flipped on to one of the conference tables – he said the minute or so of hand-to-hand combat is a blur. “I was operating at the animal level for a few seconds there,” he said. “I needed to stop him from assaulting these children or their mothers with those knives.”

He’s got weak knees, a bad shoulder and high blood pressure, but his body was “adequate for the job,” he said. He credited his basic Army training from over 50 years ago for knowing what to do in a knife-fight.

There's more at the link.

Both men went to hospital, then the attacker went to jail.  I sincerely hope Mr. Vernon's courage receives official recognition . . . but I daresay the overwhelming relief and joy in the faces of the parents of the children he saved is probably all he wants or needs.

Would that there were more like him.  Thank you, Sir.

Peter

One way to deter telemarketers

In a comment to my Doofus Of The Day post yesterday, reader Guncrazy linked to this heartwarming tale of how to discombobulate an unwanted, pesky telemarketer.  I won't steal the author's thunder by re-posting it here, but I urge you to click over there and read it for yourself - and the follow-up post he made a while later, too.

It's nice when such pests get their come-uppance, isn't it?




Peter

World War One camouflage

A soon-to-be-published book lifts the veil on camouflage techniques and other secrets of World War I.

It contains pictures, reports and anecdotes from the archives of the Imperial War Museum.  The Telegraph reports:

They may not appear to be the most sophisticated of tactics. No-one, however, could argue the unusual methods of First World War soldiers to thwart the enemy were not at least innovative.

The weird and wonderful tricks adopted by servicemen to baffle the opposition have been discovered in the archives of the Imperial War Museum, from dressing up as a tree stump to painting their ponies to look like zebras.

A parachuting pigeon, intended to be dropped to agents behind enemy lines

Pictures show how soldiers made papier mache heads and cardboard cut-out soldiers as decoys, while others attempted to train seagulls to aim their droppings down the enemy’s periscope.

Royal Engineers were tasked with building dummy servicemen, as snipers were adorned with foliage to camouflage them in the field and animals were trained for all manner of bizarre missions.

A camouflaged Turkish sniper captured in the Middle East

And while many will be familiar with stories of pigeons being parachuted into occupied territory to help carry messages home, they may be surprised to hear of plans to decorate sea lions with luminous paint to swarm submarines.

The photographs and artifacts, plucked from miles of archives belonging to the museum, will next month be published in a new book, Weird War One, intended to detail the “downright eccentric” elements of the war.

There's more at the link.

I think I've found a new book to put on my shopping list . . . a shoal of luminous-paint-covered sealions pursuing a U-boat, with her captain peering back at them through the periscope and shouting "Achtung! Sealion!", sounds too funny to be true!

Peter

A terrorist massacre in China?

I was disturbed to read a report in the Seattle Times that suggests China is covering up a terrorist attack there, with possible Muslim fundamentalist associations.

Armed with only knives, the assailants struck at the coal mine in the dead of night, first killing the security guards and then setting upon the miners as they slept in their dormitory beds. Before the Sept. 18 rampage was over, more than 50 people were dead, at least five of them police officers, and dozens more had been wounded, according to victims’ relatives and residents.

Most of the victims were Han Chinese who had been lured to this desolate corner of the far west Xinjiang region by the prospect of steady work and decent pay.

The wanted posters displayed later in Baicheng suggest the attackers were ethnic Uighurs, all of whom apparently escaped into the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, not far from China’s border with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Even as Baicheng County remains in a state of siege, with an enormous manhunt under way, the Chinese news media have yet to report on the massacre, and local officials, when asked about it, have denied that it even took place.

. . .

Although much of the violence in Xinjiang goes unreported by the Chinese news media, the authorities often find it hard to conceal clashes with large death tolls, or those that provoke serious civil unrest.

Those include a clash in the nearby city of Kashgar in June that left as many as 28 people dead, and a protest near Aksu last year that followed the fatal shooting of a Uighur teenager, who was reportedly gunned down after he failed to stop at a police checkpoint.

The government invariably blames Muslim religious extremists for the violence, though analysts outside China say many attacks have little to do with jihadist ideology.

“The triggers are often locally embedded, whether it be reprisal for a woman who’s been publicly unveiled, and her family shamed, or people striking back after a relative has been detained by police,” said James Leibold, a professor of Asian studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, who is an expert on Xinjiang.

There's more at the link.

The trouble is, the Uighur people have for centuries been Muslims.  The Chinese Communist Party crackdown on religion in any shape or form has affected them as much, if not more than, Christian individuals and churches in that country (see here for a recent example and a good background survey).  Many Christians compromised by attending State-approved churches, which de-emphasize any aspects of the Gospel that conflict with Communist Party ideology;  but Chinese Muslims have had little or nothing to do with any apostate version of their faith, and increasingly appear to be turning to violence to protest efforts to suppress it.

This is how you create terrorists:  by oppressing a people so much that they see no other option but to turn to violence.  It's how the USA created its own terrorist problem in Iraq.  By disbanding the Iraqi army and sending hundreds of thousands of officers and men back to their homes, jobless and penniless, we effectively provided a fertile recruiting ground for Al Qaeda to convert thousands of them into terrorists and supporters.  ISIS is merely picking up where Al Qaeda left off.  The Taliban generated their own opposition by cracking down on less fervently fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan, leading to widespread support for the American campaign that drove them out of power;  but the corruption and mendacity of the US-supported 'warlords' that replaced the Taliban eventually generated renewed support for the fundamentalists, leading to the dire situation we currently face in that country.

Let sleeping dogs lie.  It's ancient wisdom . . . yet it's still as true today as ever it was.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #859

Today's award goes to the idiot(s) in Target Stores' management who approved and/or purchased and/or installed a system like this.

Gina Young was shopping at US superstore Target on Thursday morning - when she and the other shoppers suddenly heard a surprising announcement over the loudspeaker.

Explicit audio from a pornographic film was blasted out for all to hear. And it kept playing. And playing. For 15 minutes.

. . .

And it's not an isolated incident. According to local media, it's at least the fourth time this prank has happened since April. In one instance, a store had to be evacuated.

So what's going on? Are mischievous staff causing trouble? Have Target's systems been hacked?

Well not quite - but the cause is interesting, and yet another example of how systems are left with vulnerabilities by creators who never imagined people might have malicious intent.

An email obtained by the BBC, sent by company bosses to Target store managers across the US on Friday afternoon, outlines a weakness in the store's PA system being used to carry out the prank.

"Non-Target team members are attempting to access the intercom system by calling stores and requesting to be connected to line [xxxx]," it reads.

"If connected, callers have control of the intercom until they hang up.

"We are actively working to limit intercom access to the Guest Services phone only. In the meantime, inform all operators to not connect any calls to line [xxxx]."

So in other words, if you ring up Target and ask to be put through to a certain extension, you're suddenly live on the PA system for as long as you like.

There's more at the link.

I can only wonder why local competitors haven't already used the trick to call up Target's PA system and broadcast competitive advertising direct to their target audience . . .




Peter

Do you need 5.7x28mm ammo?

If so, my local gun shop has a huge amount in stock - 60,000 rounds, according to the sales clerk I spoke with this morning.  It's FNH's SS197SR round, topped with Hornady's 40gr. V-MAX bullet.  Price is currently $22 per 50-round box in the shop, but I've no doubt that if you buy a case or two, that can be negotiated.  Shipping is extra, of course.  Just thought I'd mention it, because several folks I know have complained they can't find 5.7x28mm. ammo easily.

(The gunshop also has several thousand rounds of .22LR in a number of top brands, including CCI MiniMags and Federal's outstanding Auto Match round, at prices that are very reasonable by today's standards.  They supplied most of the 10,000-odd rounds of .22LR that I took to our recent Blogorado gathering.)

(I should note that I get no discounts, remuneration or kickbacks for mentioning the shop - I just like good service and good prices, and go out of my way to let friends know about them when I find them.)

Peter

Will a modern 'Caspian Sea Monster' ride again?

I'm sure many readers remember how surprised Western news media were to learn during the 1980's of the existence of the Lun class ekranoplan, a ground effect vehicle developed from an earlier prototype dubbed by the CIA the 'Caspian Sea Monster'.

MD-160, the sole Lun class ekranoplan

Today MD-160 sits derelict in a Caspian Sea shipyard, covered in rust and bird droppings.  It's a sad end to what was, for its day, a very high-technology vessel indeed.

However, it looks like the ekranoplan concept is far from dead.  A Russian firm has announced plans to build a new, smaller version it calls the A-050.

The Central Design Bureau for Hydrofoil named for Alexeyev has already completed a draft design for the project. Recently, the enterprise announced that it is ready to begin construction on the first 54-ton ekranoplan in the new A-050 series. Georgy Antsev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Central Design Bureau for Hydrofoil said, “We are prepared enough to already begin construction of the prototype,” as reported by Interfax-MNA.

According to him, "The A-050 has very good aerodynamics and has been successfully tested in a wind tunnel and on hydraulic canals.”

A model of the proposed A-050 ekranoplan (click for a larger view)

Georgy Antsev noted that the A-050 ekranoplan will be entirely equipped with Russian avionics and modern navigation and piloting systems developed jointly with NIIAO, which is part of KRET.

He also said that negotiations are already underway with potential customers. According to him, the A-050 is ideal for the Federal Border Service, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Federal Security Service, and Navy for patrolling of territoritories.

The A-050 ekranoplan will have a takeoff weight of 54 tons. It is designed to carry 9 tons of cargo or 100 passengers for a distance of up to 5,000 km at a cruising speed of 350-450 km/h. The ekranoplan may be outfitted with R-195 starting engines similar to the Su-25, and TV7-117SM boosters, as on the Il-114.

There's more at the link.

China has apparently already expressed an interest in buying the A-050. If it does, expect a Chinese copy of the design to emerge within a few years - they've done that with almost all the Russian ships and aircraft they've bought before. If Russia agrees to sell the A-050 to China, I expect them to charge a premium price to take that into account. Still, the A-050 has the speed to cover large areas of ocean quickly, ideal for patrolling or resupply purposes - and China's been building all those artificial island bases in the South China Sea that would benefit from such speed.

Peter

"Howl"-o-ween?

One of the places Miss D. and I visited during our recent journey was the Colorado Wolf & Wildlife Center.  It's in the mountains about an hour's drive from Colorado Springs, at an altitude of about 8,500 feet (and yes, we were puffing and panting even getting out of the car!  When you live at only a few hundred feet above sea level, the rapid transition to a place fifteen times higher in altitude is enervating, to say the least!)

The Wolf Center came across as a little radical-environmentalist, somewhat pro-wolf without taking into consideration the needs of overall game management and other interests, but very dedicated and committed to what they're doing.  (Miss D. being from Alaska, and yours truly being from Africa, we have a rather more pragmatic and realistic approach to such things.)  Given that wolves really are an endangered species, we probably need more such people, and more such centers, to ensure that they survive.

One thing that tickled both our funnybones was their advertised Hallowe'en celebration.  Here's their advertising poster.  (Click it for a larger view.)

Yes, they fill pumpkins with raw meat and pass them out to the wolves!  That's definitely one of the more original Hallowe'en celebrations I've come across . . . and a handy-dandy fund-raiser for them, too.  Full marks for originality!

The Wolf Center is worth a visit, if you're in the area.  Just watch that altitude!

Peter

George Will highlights socialist economic stupidity

George Will has some uncomfortable home truths for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.  (They apply just as much to Hillary Clinton's campaign as well, of course.)

Today’s Democratic Party is frozen, like a fly in amber, in the New Deal preoccupation — but with less excuse than Democrats had during the Great Depression. The party believes that economic inequality is an urgent problem, and that its urgency should be understood in terms of huge disparities of wealth. Neither proposition is (to use the term Jefferson used when he wrote equality into America’s catechism) a self-evident truth.

The fundamental producer of income inequality is freedom. Individuals have different aptitudes and attitudes. Not even universal free public education, even were it well done, could equalize the ability of individuals to add value to the economy. Besides, some people want to teach, others want to run hedge funds. In an open society, rewards are set not by political power but by impersonal market forces, the rewards of which will differ dramatically but usually predictably. Beyond freedom’s valuable fecundity in producing unequal social outcomes, four other facets of today’s America fuel inequality.

First, the entitlement state exists primarily to transfer wealth regressively, from the working-age population to the retired elderly who, after a lifetime of accumulation, are the wealthiest age cohort. Second, big, regulatory government inherently exacerbates inequality because it inevitably serves the strong — those sufficiently educated, affluent, articulate and confident to influence the administrative state’s myriad redistributive actions.

Third, seven years of ZIRP — zero-interest-rate policy — have not restored the economic dynamism essential for social mobility but have had the intended effect of driving liquidity into equities in search of high yields, thereby enriching the 10 percent of Americans who own approximately 80 percent of the directly owned stocks. Also, by making big government inexpensive, low interest rates exacerbate the political class’s perennial disposition toward deficit spending. And little of the 2016 federal budget’s $283 billion for debt service will flow to individuals earning less than the median income.

Fourth, family disintegration cripples the primary transmitter of social capital — the habits, mores, customs and dispositions necessary for seizing opportunities. When 72 percent of African American children and 53 percent of Hispanic children are born to unmarried women, and 40 percent of all births are to unmarried women, and a majority of all mothers under 30 are not living with the fathers of their children, the consequences for the life chances, and lifetime earnings, of millions of children are enormous.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is doing well, if not good, by reducing the debate about equality to resentment of large fortunes. He should read Harry G. Frankfurt’s new book “On Inequality”. It is so short (89 pages) that even a peripatetic candidate can read it, and so lucid that he cannot miss its inconvenient point: “It is misguided to endorse economic egalitarianism as an authentic moral ideal.”

There's more at the link.  It's well worth reading in full.

Matt Walsh, the conservative/religious gadfly, has his own perspective on the problem.  Reviewing the first Democratic presidential candidate debate, he had this to say.

It’s comforting to project all our anger onto politicians. Lord knows, they deserve a fair amount of it. However, the difficult reality is this: America’s biggest problem is its citizens, not its politicians. Indeed, its politicians are a symptom, a reflection, of its people. They may manipulate and coerce and propagandize, but when it comes down to it, in a democratic system, if a bunch of lunatics and scoundrels are in power it’s because the people chose to put them there. The sickness originates, then, with the people. And the people’s sickness is rooted in the soul.

. . .

With the frazzled Muppet from Vermont leading the way, all of the candidates (except Jim Webb, who apparently stumbled into the wrong debate) spent the first several minutes complaining about “income inequality.” This was a theme they’d all return to incessantly throughout the evening, because there’s nothing more exhilarating than listening to old rich white people complain about old rich white people. Bernie Sanders lamented again and again that the “middle class is collapsing,” but never expressed any interest in seeing us poor middle class folk move up and out of the middle class. For Sanders and the rest of them, the “middle class” should be all we peons aspire to. Success and wealth ought to be solely possessed by the left wing ruling class. Wealth is evil, you see, so that’s why we should let our great and generous protectors carry the burden.

Middle Class! Inequality! Greed! Middle Class! Inequality! Greed! I can’t really blame them for shouting socialist catchwords all night. This is what their voters desire. They don’t desire capitalism, because capitalism means opportunity and freedom, and opportunity and freedom mean hard work. Economic freedom is so unpopular among liberals that Bernie Sanders openly disavowed it to the sound of roaring applause. Clinton was hesitant (for now) to fully label herself a socialist, so instead she said she’s a sorta-capitalist who thinks “capitalism has to be saved from itself.” This is another way of calling American people children who need to be rescued by benevolent bureaucrats, but that’s OK because Democrat voters fervently wish to be treated like children. They want their own failures and struggles in life to be the fault of “the rich” and they want a president who will magically make it better.

. . .

Naturally, nobody ever explained how a country with $18 trillion of debt and over $127 trillion of unfunded liability might manage to suddenly become Santa Claus for 320 million Americans and illegals. Indeed, along with “liberty,” the phrase “national debt” was never uttered. And if they weren’t going to explain how the government would start handing out full ride scholarships, paid vacations, “living wages,” and free medical care to every human being who happens to exist within our borders, they certainly wouldn’t attempt to explain why.

Again, more at the link, and also worth reading in full.

If any one of these bozos is elected to succeed President Obama, I suspect the New York Post's opinion that "America is due for a revolution" may come to pass, and sooner rather than later.  One wonders whether any of the Democratic candidates have even heard of, let alone read, Kipling's "The Gods of the Copybook Headings".  I suspect they need to read it . . . urgently.

Peter

Shark meets hippos. Hippos win.

This video clip brought back many happy memories.  It was taken in what is today the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, but when I visited it was known as the St. Lucia wetlands.  Bull sharks (often referred to as Zambezi sharks in Southern Africa, partly due to their habit of swimming for long distances up that river) can exist for extended periods in brackish or even fresh water, so they're often found in the river estuaries of the wetland park.

Hippos attract lots of smaller fish due to their habit of defecating in the water, using their tails to spread the dung along the river or estuary bottom.  The fish feed on the waste.  The shark was obviously after those fish (it's far too small to take a hippo, even a young one), but in trying to get at the fish, it began to bump into the hippo.  This is not recommended for any species whatsoever, because hippo are more than a little paranoid about being bumped by things they can't see in the murky water.

The shark was lucky to get away unscathed.  Sometimes they don't.

Peter

When a DNA match ... isn't

Wired reports on a case that should worry us all.

The three men who showed up at Michael Usry’s door last December were unfailingly polite. They told him they were cops investigating a hit-and-run that had occurred a few blocks away, near New Orleans City Park, and they invited Usry to accompany them to a police station so he could answer some questions. Certain that he hadn’t committed any crime, the 36-year-old filmmaker agreed to make the trip.

The situation got weird in the car. As they drove, the cops prodded Usry for details of a 1998 trip he’d taken to Rexburg, Idaho, where two of his sisters later attended college—a detail they’d gleaned by studying his Facebook page. “They were like, ‘We know high school kids do some crazy things—were you drinking? Did you meet anybody?’” Usry recalls. The grilling continued downtown until one of the three men—an FBI agent—told Usry he wanted to swab the inside of Usry’s cheek but wouldn’t explain his reason for doing so, though he emphasized that their warrant meant Usry could not refuse.

The bewildered Usry soon learned that he was a suspect in the 1996 murder of an Idaho Falls teenager named Angie Dodge. Though a man had been convicted of that crime after giving an iffy confession, his DNA didn’t match what was found at the crime scene. Detectives had focused on Usry after running a familial DNA search, a technique that allows investigators to identify suspects who don’t have DNA in a law enforcement database but whose close relatives have had their genetic profiles cataloged. In Usry’s case the crime scene DNA bore numerous similarities to that of Usry’s father, who years earlier had donated a DNA sample to a genealogy project through his Mormon church in Mississippi. That project’s database was later purchased by Ancestry, which made it publicly searchable—a decision that didn’t take into account the possibility that cops might someday use it to hunt for genetic leads.

Usry, whose story was first reported in The New Orleans Advocate, was finally cleared after a nerve-racking 33-day wait—the DNA extracted from his cheek cells didn’t match that of Dodge’s killer, whom detectives still seek. But the fact that he fell under suspicion in the first place is the latest sign that it’s time to set ground rules for familial DNA searching, before misuse of the imperfect technology starts ruining lives.

. . .

... familial DNA searches can generate more noise than signal. “Anyone who knows the science understands that there’s a high rate of false positives,” says Erin Murphy, a New York University law professor ... The searches, after all, look for DNA profiles that are similar to the perpetrator’s but by no means identical, a scattershot approach that yields many fruitless leads, and for limited benefit. In the United Kingdom, a 2014 study found that just 17 percent of familial DNA searches “resulted in the identification of a relative of the true offender.”

There's more at the link.

What's most worrying about this is that no search warrant was needed to access the familial DNA database.  The police used that warrantless search to get a search warrant that authorized them to take a DNA sample from Mr. Usry.  In other words, a criminal warrant was issued on the basis of incorrect information.

I suspect most of my readers have enough problems with Big Brother, without being willing to tolerate even more overreach by law enforcement.  We need to tighten up our legal system to prevent this sort of thing, otherwise we're going to be ground under by faceless bureaucrats and their databases that simply don't care about things like civil rights and liberties.

Peter

Reminds me of some American football games . . .

Courtesy of a link at Dark Roasted Blend, I was interested to find this video of the Japanese sport Bo-taoshi.  Wikipedia describes it thus:

The game played by cadets at the National Defense Academy of Japan traditionally on its anniversary is famous for its size, wherein two teams of 150 individuals each vie for control of a single large pole. Each team is split into two groups of 75 attackers and 75 defenders. The defenders begin in a defensive orientation respective to their own pole, while the attackers assume position some measure away from the other team's pole. A team is victorious if it is able to lower the pole of the opposing team (which begins perpendicular to the ground) to a thirty-degree angle (respective to the ground), before the other team reaches this goal. Until a rule-change in 1973, the angle of victory was only forty-five degrees.

It certainly looks like a license to fold, spindle and mutilate everyone in sight!

Peter

God, St. Francis and daft humans

I had to laugh at an imagined conversation between God and St. Francis about suburban American habits.  I found it over at Musing By The Creekside.  I won't steal that blogger's thunder by reprinting it here, but I recommend clicking over there to read it for yourself.  It's a hoot!

Peter

Norwegian bodybuilders having fun

It's always nice to meet people who aren't above poking fun at themselves.

Peter

Death by drone - a moral morass

The Intercept has received a massive 'data dump' of documents concerning the USA's drone program against terrorists, including kill operations.  It's not only mind-bendingly complex, but to anyone with any sort of morality or conscience it's a terrifying illustration of what happens when faceless individuals and mindless computers make life-or-death decisions - decisions that have so far killed far more innocent bystanders than they have legitimate targets.

The Intercept's coverage can be read here.  I urge you to do so, to see what our government is doing in our name, but without our knowledge or consent.  It's frightening.

As the Telegraph pointed out in its report on the leaked documents;

Almost all of the victims of American drone strikes in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan during a five-month period were civilians, according to a leaked trove of classified intelligence documents.

. . .

The source said he had chosen to come forward because the public had a right to know about the "assassinations" that are continuing to take place:

“This outrageous explosion of watch listing - of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers, assigning them ‘baseball cards,’ assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield — it was, from the very first instance, wrong," he said.

“We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.”

The documents show how drone strikes are often based on thin intelligence, and have an incalculable civilian toll. Accidental victims are then labelled “enemies killed in action”, even if there is no immediate evidence of to suggest that they were hostile to the US government.

Details of a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, drone stikes killed more than 200 people, of which only 35 were intended.

During one five-month period of the operation, the documents show, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.

In Yemen and Somalia, where the US has much more limited intelligence gathering capabilities, those running the drone programme are often unable confirm the identities of the people killed by it.

“Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association,” the source said. When “a drone strike kills more than one person, there is no guarantee that those persons deserved their fate.”

. . .

US intelligence agents use information from government watch lists and other military agencies to begin tracking potential targets. The leaked documents show that those thought eligible for the kill list are then profiled, with their information then crammed onto a small document “known as a baseball card” according to the source.

More “operational information” is added, before the file goes into a “target information folder” that is passed up the chain of command. The president must then sign off on chosen targets.

The process by which people are considered eligible for a baseball card is a complex and nebulous method.

“You’re relying on the fact that you do have all these very powerful machines, capable of collecting extraordinary amounts of data and information,” sometimes giving personnel “godlike powers” the source said.

Moreover, according to a separate investigative report, many of the people helping compile this information are private contractors, who may not be bound by the same rules or accountability structure as members of the United States military.

There's more at the link.

This is truly frightening.  The life of human beings is literally being decided by bureaucrats, without a shred of actual evidence being presented to a court of law to decide whether a death sentence is actually justified.  The victims include US citizens.  I've no doubt at all that some of them deserved their fate . . . but if the documents are correct, they're a small minority of those who are still, to this day, being killed in our name, but without our knowledge or sanction.

The next question, of course, is this:  if it's acceptable for nameless, faceless bureaucrats to do this to people in other countries, what's to stop them doing the same thing in this country to citizens whom they regard as a threat to their policies or powers?

Peter

Catching up

I went to the car wash first thing this morning, to have a couple of thousand miles' worth of bugs and dust cleaned off our rental car before returning it.  (Yes, I know the rental company will clean it themselves if necessary, but it really was spectacularly insect-encrusted around the nose.  I wanted to make sure they wouldn't object to renting us another car for the next trip!)  The local car wash employs homeless people, offering them a chance to earn a living, so Miss D. and I try to support them whenever possible.  Their faces when they saw their first car of the day were priceless!  At any rate, I was able to hand in a car that at least looked to be in good shape.

Now we've got to catch up on all that happened while we were away.  There's mail to collect, shopping to be done (the cat's annoyed because we aren't able to give her any milk until we've bought some), and messages to be listened to and acted upon.  That'll keep us busy for most of the weekend.  I've got to get over a light dose of travel crud (I'm running a mild fever), then buckle down to finish of Maxwell Volume 5.  I want to publish it by the end of November, if possible.

I'll put up more blog articles during the day.  Thanks for being patient while we were away.  Normal service will pick up again soon.

Peter

Safely home

Miss D. and I arrived home safe and sound at about four this afternoon, to be met by an ecstatically purring cat.  She'd been cared for by our friends during our absence, but clearly they were no substitute for her real Mommy and Daddy.  She's been insatiable ever since we came in, winding herself around our ankles, demanding attention and pettin's, being reassured that we still love her.  It's cute.

The rented car looks much the worse for wear.  We washed it in Colorado Springs, but that was 2,000-odd miles ago, and it's now covered in insect remains and dust.  I'll try to run it through a car wash early tomorrow morning before I return it.  I wouldn't want the rental company to think we don't take care of their vehicles.  It returned very good fuel economy, averaging well into the 30+ miles per gallon range over the course of the trip.  Miss D. and I were both impressed with it, and the experience will probably influence our future car buying habits - not in terms of brand, but features that are worth having.  We'll certainly rent a similar car for future trips of this kind.

I'm exhausted.  I did almost all the driving this trip (which, of course, I don't mind), and it's caught up with me.  I'm not as young as I once was, and even in a very comfortable car, covering almost 4,000 miles in two weeks takes its toll.  I've already napped for a few hours, and in a short while I'll fall back into bed for some more rest.  (The cat is delighted at the prospect.  I can be properly attacked when I'm lying down - or, at least, that seems to be her perspective on the situation!)

I'll put up more posts tomorrow.  Meanwhile, thanks to all who offered prayers for traveling safety.  They really helped, I'm sure.  Now to wash all the dirty clothes, unpack all the bags, clean the guns that got thoroughly dirty at Blogorado (in particular the torture-tested .44 Magnum revolvers, which need it very badly!), and catch up with two weeks of missed mail.

Sleep well, y'all.  I intend to!

Peter

Blue Screens of Death - they're everywhere!

I'm highly amused to find that there's a special sub-forum on Reddit highlighting very public displays of BSOD - the Blue Screen of Death, displayed when something goes catastrophically wrong with Microsoft Windows.  A couple of examples from the many listed:

A New York City subway station notification board

A giant outdoor display in Kursk, Russia (blamed on 'mallware', of course!)

There are many more at the link.  Interesting (and sometimes amusing) reading for tech geeks and those who like to see public displays of things going wrong.

Peter