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From Pine View Farm by Frank Bell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.pineviewfarm.net.
From Pine View Farm

Clone Wars category archive

Making a List and Checking It Twice 2

Harry Shearer sings a song of robotic death from the skies to celebrate what he imagined Bob Dylan was unable to say at the White House Medal of Freedom ceremony.

More Harry Shearer here.

Via Attytood.

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June 26, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On, Apocalypse Pending Dept. 0

At the Chicago Tribune, Robert C. Koehler takes a critical look at the ethical implications of raining robotic death from the skies. A nugget:

While drones may represent the quintessence of soulless modernism, dehumanizing violence and making bureaucratic murder a technological reality — computer operators several thousand miles from the action, in Nevada or Ohio, California or Missouri, can take out “insurgents” in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen with no more risk than gamers face as they pursue their fantasy conquest of evildoers — drones also indulge a dark yearning to acquire godlike power, to attain omnipotence.

When we murder by drone, we may be both perpetuating an inhuman, bureaucratic control over random enemies and, at the same time, satisfying an age-old lust to play god.

If you follow only one link from this site, make it this one.

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June 18, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On, SkyNet Dept. 0

Asia Times reports:

As convenient as it is for someone in a cubicle in the Nevada desert to press a button and incinerate a Pashtun wedding party in North Waziristan, now, with only a click, anyone can download a 359 KB file available on Amazon for only $8.99 – including free wireless delivery – and learn everything there is to learn about All Things Drone.

It’s fitting that Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 has been put together by Tom Engelhardt – editor, MC of the TomDispatch website and “a national treasure”, in the correct appraisal of University of Michigan professor Juan Cole – and TomDispatch’s associate editor Nick Turse, author of the seminal 2008 study The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.

I haven’t decided whether to get it yet, but I probably shall. I know I should. And you should too.

Get it here.

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June 17, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On 0

PoliticalProf is carrying on an excellent discussion about drones and policy over at his place. The crux of his argument is that drones are not ipso facto the issue; they are the symptom.

The discussion starts here. Read it then follow the discussion in subsequent posts. (He’s behind Tumblr’s garden wall, so forget about a “comments section” as we know it.)

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June 15, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On, What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Me Dept. 0

Via TPM.

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June 14, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On, the Memo 0

Thoreau explains it all.

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June 11, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On, Two to the Nth 0

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June 7, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |

Droning On 0

Advent of the megadrone:

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June 7, 2012 | Posted by: Frank | Posted in: Clone Wars |
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