PREDATOR DRONES

SCIENCE NON-FICTION WARFARE

I am a science buff with eleven undergraduate hours in physics. It is not the same as being a nerd, because I don’t carry a cell phone or an i-pad, and I am not cognitive of or concerned for the latest electronic gismos.


Most of my interest in theoretical physics, however I am always intrigued by science technology developed to real world uses.


I have recently run across a book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century by P.W. Singer.   It is a fascinating book that covers Predator Drones and robotics that has been developed for the military.

Under President Obama our drone strikes have been surgically precise and deadly.   We hear occasional mention of them and most lately they were highlighted in the takedown of Kadafi.   However, there are hundreds of strikes and surveillance flights that have taken place in the Middle-East and in Africa that we never hear of.

The Predator Drones are remarkable.   The newer ones can take off and land by themselves.   They can see through clouds and even operate in total darkness; and they can remain airborne for hours or even days over selected targets.

These unmanned Predator Drones are the weapon of the future and presently the Air Force is training more drone operators than conventional pilots.

The U.S Customs service is beginning to use UAV’s (unmanned airborne vehicles) and within the next few years we can probably expect to see them as tools of civilian police departments.




Drown warfare is no longer a figment of science fiction.   The U.S. army has a number of mechanical soldiers on the drawing board and presently they are testing some versions in the field.

The DOG in a mechanical quadruped designed to help soldiers transport heavy loads across difficult terrain.

The BEAR is a somewhat humanoid track vehicle that is capable of gently lifting and carrying loads of up to 500 pounds across extremely difficult terrain.

The SWORD is a small track vehicle with telescopic eyesight that can be armed with a 50 caliber machine gun, ground-to-air rockets or anti-tank rockets.   In all test this super deadly killing machine has scored 100% in accuracy.

Even more intriguing are the micro-drones.   The old adage of “a fly on the wall” has become a reality, for a micro-drone could be programmed to fly into a room and attach itself to a wall or ceiling, and broadcast video and audio.

There is even speculation about micro-micro drones that could each be programmed for a specific reconnaissance objective and flown in a swarm, sharing information like a hive.   The possible uses of these mechanical insect clouds are limited only by the imagination.

It is not only land and air, for the Navy is developing unmanned submarines, and surface vehicles capable of protecting surface ships, tracking enemy submarines or being used for search and rescue at sea.

I find all this interesting, but also a sad comment on our nation: can you imagine what we could accomplish if our priorities were to channel federal money into technology and research for the benefit of human kind rather than for war and killing.

the Ol'Buzzard

HE' BACK

Well hell, for what it’s worth the Ol’Buzzard is back.

Perhaps it's what all bloggers go through – like mid-blog crisis – it seems you’ve said it all and it’s a repeat of the same old shit. You’re sick of the same political crap – it just rehashes and becomes the same theme with different names. Nothing changes and nothing is going to change.



Facts we must live with:

1) All senators and congresspersons are primarily interested in reelection – the only way to truly move the government toward serving the people would be TERM LIMITS…and it ain’t going to happen. Just as there is a test for teachers, lawyers and doctors, there should be a test for political office – most would never pass it.

2) Education is the only way to seriously address the long term unemployment crisis – and the government doesn’t have a clue how to do it. If you truly want to know how to effectively educate the population: ask a teacher. A one size fits all policy and standards for a diverse population is ludicrous. However, government will never relinquish education to the educators – it is to good of a platform to run for reelection on. (never end a sentence with a preposition – fuck it.)

3) One half of the American population falls on the back side of the intellectual bell curve, and one quarter of the population is functional but borderline retarded.

4) Education credentials are not an indicator of intelligence: look at the Republican Presidential candidates.

5) Religion is the archenemy of civilization: It is the base of almost all intolerance and bigotry. Religion would choose to move civilization backwards toward the dark ages and away from science and enlightenment.

6) Gender equality doesn’t exist. Males and females are two alien creatures that must exist in a symbiotic relationship; but, we don’t have the same aggressive tendencies, the same emotions, the same physical abilities, the same sex drives, the same outlooks or the same priorities.

7) Growing old doesn’t suck. It is just the expectation of disability and death that sucks. The main problem with growing old is that young women don’t want to fuck you any more.

The Ol’Buzzard


Oct. 26, 2011

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

A CULTURAL LANDMARK

As of midnight last night the law preventing gay men and women in the military from serving openly was repealed. Like the repeal of segregation this social change will take some time before all prejudice and resentment can be eradicated – and among southern, redneck, Christian fundamentalist and the Catholics Church in general the resentment and violence toward someone with a different lifestyle will never relinquish.

However, in the military it will soon be a non-starter. The military is a unique organization and conforming to regulations and orders is an accepted way of life.

Many don’t know that during the Viet Nam war there was high racial tension and there was often violence between black and white service men. It got to the point that mission readiness was affected. After the war racial tension still existed in many commands. In the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations decreed that the any racial conflicts would be dealt with swiftly and firmly by commands and he established a training mission to bring about a better understanding between races. All active duty Navy personnel were required to attend a series of rights and responsibilities lectures and activities. There were those among the white sailors that tagged the training “Watermelon U.” I was a facilitator (instructor) for this training, which, along with the zero tolerance decreed by commanding officers of all Naval commands, brought about an end to both covert and overt displays of intolerance.

In a short time gay service in the military will be a non-issue for service personnel; however, outside the military the contention will continue – especially among military retirees continuing to live in their self-constructed past glories and among the far right Christian activist; and again, the Catholic Church.

The world moves on and many refuse to move with it.

the Ol’Buzzard

USN Ret.

DEATH AND FUNERALS

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ENHANCED INTERROGATION

THE GREATER GOOD

Dick Cheney has been all over the news lately justifying the atrocities committed during the Bush administration: Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, enhanced interrogation and the death of thousands due to an unnecessary rush to war. He keeps posing the administrations action as for the greater good. Unfortunately many conservatives blindly buy into this philosophy.

The problem is that propounding the greater good of a society always leads to the sacrifice of rights and liberties of a few. Using the argument of the greater good we could justify slavery: a situation where a few slaves are worked for the pleasure and well being of the rest.

Deductive reasoning is an essential component of logical argument. Deductive reasoning simplified states: A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, therefore A is greater than C.

An argument can be logically valid but unsound if it contains false premises; in such a case it will lead to a false conclusion.

Republicans are masters of false premise: their political arguments have always been premised by the manipulation of facts: half truths, false statements, innuendoes and appeals to patriotism. They spin every situation with sound bites meant to enrage their uninformed base to illogical protest. (We have witnessed that the whole purpose of the tea party was to be outraged.)

Morality is a complicated issue: it boils down to how we treat each other. Cheney argues that the ends justify the means. He constantly poses the quandary of the terrorist bomb set to explode as justification for enhanced interrogation. However, it has been documented that there was no eminent attack concerned with the water boarded victims – it was a fishing expedition to confirm information already in CIA possession.

Cheney hides the dirty secret of U.S. torture with the noble sounding phrase “enhanced interrogation.” But, once you cross the line into torture of prisoners where do you draw the line? The progression is unimaginable for most civilians: isolation, white noise, sleep deprivation, stress positions, beatings, water boarding, psychotic drugs, rape, electric shock, surgery, amputations, burning…

Using deductive reasoning, if we can justify enhanced interrogation techniques in one case we can logically carry that scenario further: enhanced interrogation techniques could be used by police on criminal suspects and anyone suspected of contemplating or having knowledge of a crime (the optimum word here is suspect.) Once a government justifies this type of action it tends to become normal ops.


A post script by the Ol’Buzzard


For eight years of my military career I was a U.S. Navy S.E.R.E instructor; so, I am familiar with enhanced interrogation techniques (torture) of which all are outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

ORWELLIAN PARALLEL

IS IT ME OR AM I JUST PARANOID

The're coming to get you Barbara!



On the whole, I am not a conspiracy theorist; I don’t look for underlying contrivances beyond the overt insanity of government and the human race in general. However, the Republican house has proposed a bill requiring internet providers to maintain records of all activity by subscribers for one year. This, along with other information we are required to give to participate in on-line activities lays us more vulnerable to a lot of information gathering.


As bloggers, Face Book, twitter etc. users we often voluntarily publish too much of our personal information.

I have had a friend advise me to use an online storage sight for my computer instead of purchasing a separate hard drive to safely back up my computer. Now I am wondering who controls the information I would be downloading.

We know the government has extended their right to wire tap citizens through the Patriot Act; that the NSA regularly collects information and the laws of search and seizure have been relaxed in the name of terrorism prevention. Parents are encouraged to have their children fingerprinted, DNA collection is and has been done without consent and people can be arrested and detained without due process.

There are already so many similarities to George Orwell’s 1984; what if these online sites that store your personal pictures and information were actually fronted to collect information on citizens by Homeland Security?

I’m just asking.
the Ol'Buzzard

EVALUATING THIS BLOG AFTER ONE YEAR

OVER THE LAST TWO WEEKS I have been asking myself  'Why am I writing a blog?"   I have also wondered what I have accomplished by spending time, almost daily for the last twelve months, in the bloggisphere.

To answer the first question I am resurrecting my very first blog:  

Physicist speak of the beginning of creation as the Big Bang, a time when an indescribably dense point of nothingness explodes, throwing out matter which creates an expanding universe. I suppose we could describe the end of creation as the Big Suck. This would be a time when all matter returns in upon itself, forming a gigantic black hole and finally shrinks again to some minuscule point of nothingness.


The time of the Big Suck is really not far away. As a matter of fact, I have come to believe it is at the end of MY foreseeable future. You see, this is the way it works: It's like Schrodinger's cat. When I die, you people are gone - there is nothing left. If I can't see you, you don't exist. My death is the Big Suck. As my reality shrinks like a heavy star into a cognitive black hole from which nothing returns, so goes creation. You're snuffed. Time and space converge into nothing.


It isn't anything to get concerned about, because nothing is the natural state of things. String theory speaks of many dimensions so our little time space continuum is like a fart bubble in the ocean - insignificant and brief in cosmic time.


With this entire heavy nothingness in our foreseeable future you might wonder why I feel the need to sit down and write my take on this paltry existence that we call human life. The only explanation I can offer is because I have an orderly mind. I plan before I act; I weigh consequences and look at contingencies. I even make a list and keep a diary. Therefore it follows, as the night the day, that I feel the need to place my sev71enty-one years on this earth into some sort of order by cataloging my observations and experiences.


Franz Kafka said that the meaning of life is that it stops. Monty Python said that the meaning of life is - there is no meaning of life. Victor Emil Frank said the meaning of life is suffering. Abraham Maslow said it is experience. Then, if you really want to cloud the water, you throw religion into the mix. It's confusing.


My favorite explanation comes from Buddhism Plain and Simple, by Steve Hagen (thank you Steve.) Steve poses the question that perhaps we are intelligent creatures living in a meaningless world. The answer, of course, is yes... to the meaningless world.


However, I find it a real stretch to imagine any life-form that could twice elect George W. as the leader of the free world, as intelligent; and then there is the Tea Party.   If you have illusions of man as an intelligent creature just attend a Pentecostal church meeting in Kentucky or West Virginia where they pass around the poisonous snakes; or, check out the glazed looks on the faces of the congregation of any television evangelical program; tune into any political convention; go into the Bible belt and talk about the origins of mankind; or, watch young Arabs throwing rocks at Israeli soldier armed with automatic weapons. Suicide bombers, war and genocide - the list can go on and on. Can we link intelligence with our species? I think not.


Where am I going with this? Hell, I don't know. My intention is to look at all the aspects of human existence that came into being with my birth and will demise with my demise. I feel, because I see my own demise as imminent, I have the enlightened detachment described by the Buddha: the ability to view existence from an empty space, a place without prejudice, religion conviction, or political correctness. In other words: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...I'll call it a duck.

To answer the second question, this blog really hasn't accomplished anything for me other than a chance for me to actually publish something; though, I think the act of writing has probably been cathartic for me and having been read is a real bonus (and I thank those of you that check in on me for that.)   In the scheme of things,however, this blog has become an obligation and has tended to cut back on my reading of real books - an avocation I greatly value.    

So where does that leave me?   The question is still unanswered: IS THE HOOKEY POOKEY REALLY WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?

You honestly don't ponder your mortality until the end is forseeable; and then you tend to take stock of who you are and where you have been.   For me, life has been a blast - I have crammed at least two lifetimes of adventure and accomplishment into my seventy-one years.   If it is true that your life flashes before your eyes at the moment of death, then mine will be a double feature.  

Don't get me wrong; for the moment I am still healthy (just old.)  I ride my motorcycle, make love to my young wife, eat what I want, drink beer and wine and whiskey, and enjoy the outdoors.  

BUT,  I live in the woods and I was sitting outside the other night at sundown and marveling at the sky above the dark spruce trees: the background ranged from light blue to dark purple with florescent clouds in shades from pink to orange; I listening to the sound of the first cries of night birds; and I deeply felt that it has been a wonderful privilege to have spent a brief existence on this beautiful planet.  

It will come to an end for me , as it will for you, and eventually for the universe.   And is there meaning for our existence?  I would have to say no - but we are fortunate to have been here.

My advise: don't get to hung up on all the annoyances created by the cretins of our race - sit outside and watch a sunset and realize that life is not about nationalism, politics or religion, but about a chance to live in and enjoy a brief moment in time.

Just put your right foot out
Put your right foot in 
Put your right foot out
And shake it all about
Do the Hookey Pookey 
And turn yourself around
That's what it's all about.

The Ol'Buzzard

I will occasionally post if there is something worth saying.
In the mean time, there is coffee when the whiskeys gone, but there is whiskey for tonight. - (Dave Mallet)