Clone Wars category archive

. . . but you wouldn’t know it in Apple’s walled orchard.

Tracking the number of deaths caused by US drone strikes in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia? There are apps for that. Or rather, there were – until Apple removed them from its app store.

(Link fixed.)

Via Job’s Anger.

Nutshell:

The thing about autonomous weapons that really appeals to the major military powers is that, like the current generation of remote-piloted drones, they can be used with impunity in poor countries.

More at the link.

Firing in the skies:

Prosecutors charged a 33-year-old Cape May County man in the shooting down of a drone with a shotgun.

Russell Percenti allegedly shot at the remote-control aircraft as it flew over his neighbor’s home on the 1000 block of Seaside Drive in Erma, Lower Township, in September of last year, according to the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office.

Boys and their toys.

My brother sent me this link from a publication for the agricultural industry, which hopes to use small drones to monitor irrigation, crop growth and health, and the like.

How in the world are we going to receive agricultural use approval for drones/unmanned aerial vehicles with all the knuckleheads buying small UAVs over the internet or at the hobby store and flying them around like kids playing with Matchbox toy cars?

UAVs can have important uses in agriculture, law enforcement and many industries, but Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials are worried about drones whizzing around airports and over high-security sites across the nation.

Kevin Drum reflects on boys and their toys.

Boys (you know it’s boys) and their toys:

The Federal Aviation Administration says crews on four commercial flights spotted a drone while prepping for landing at Newark Liberty International Airport over the weekend.

Expect more of this as stupid takes to the air.

Seattle police say that a two-pound drone knocked a woman unconscious Sunday while she watched the Pride parade downtown.

The 25-year-old woman stood among the crowd near Fourth Avenue and Madison Street when the 18-by-18-inches drone crashed into a building and dropped into the mass of spectators, hitting the woman in the head, police reports say.

Listen to persons who have lived with it describe the reign of remote-controlled robotic death raining from the skies.

Who could have predicted?

Police in a Mexican border city said Wednesday that a drone overloaess ded with illicit methamphetamine crashed into a supermarket parking lot.

Guess it wasn’t high enough.

Expensive toys:

In a report that could undermine political support for adding more drones to secure the nation’s borders, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found “little or no evidence” that the existing fleet had met expectations or was effective in conducting surveillance.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been flying surveillance drones for nearly a decade, launching them from bases in Texas, Florida, North Dakota and Arizona. It currently has nine Predator B models — a modified version of the MQ-9 Reaper drone flown by the Air Force — and has plans to more than double the size of its drone fleet to 24 as part of a $443 million expansion.

I sty with my little spy . . . .

Using a drone, North Carolina filmmaker Mark Devries has filmed what he says are cesspools of pig waste at farms in the state that supply hogs to Smithfield Foods Inc. His footage can be seen at factoryfarmdrones.com.

Some of the pools of waste, he says in the video, are the size of four football fields. Devries also said some of the waste is sprayed in the air, contaminating adjacent neighborhoods.

It occured to me last night that that jingoistic chestnut, The Green Berets, from the Viet Nam era needs updating. Here’s a try at it:

Flying robots in the sky,
Raining death as they spy,
Making war the American way,
Flown by gamers a world away.

Air power, robotic or not, will succeed in today’s Middle East, whatever the hell “succeed” means there, as thoroughly as it did in Viet Nam, whatever the hell “success” would have meant there. The war in Iraq, like the one in Viet Nam, was based on a lie, and our falling for the lie is not a reason to keep fighting for the lie.

Give me a freaking break.

I found out when I was a teen-aged boy that “because you can” is not a good reason for doing something.

It would appear that “drone” is becoming a generic term for “radio-controlled aircraft.” Some yo-yo in Florida (yeah, I know, oxymoron) lost control of his little helicopter.

A woman at the Renninger’s Antique and Flea Market in Mount Dora was hit by a drone Saturday afternoon.

Lake County Assistant Fire Chief Jack Fillman said the woman suffered cuts from the drone’s spinning propellers, but did not suffer serious injuries.

I’m fine with that. The more bad publicity those things get, the better.

Also, get off my lawn.

Like this will do any good.

Australia faces another serious bush fire season and authorities have warned that fire-fighting helicopters may have to be grounded if drone-owners can’t resist the temptation to fly over fire-grounds.

Colbert drones on about “self-aware flying Roombas.”

Below the fold in case it autoplays.

Read more »

France’s state-run power company EDF rang alarm bells last week when it announced it had filed a complaint with police after detecting the small unmanned aerial vehicles zipping over not one, not two, but seven atomic plants in October.

Since then, more have been spotted and there have been at least 16 fly-overs throughout France, usually at night . . . .

France’s minister for the environment Ségolène Royal admitted this week that authorities didn’t have a clue who might be flying drones over power stations, which is illegal in France.

According to the story, these are not quad-copters from a hobby shop, but devices that cost as much as a car; the report concludes with a bunch of random theories that make it clear that the authorities have no idea what’s going on.