From: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/23/despite-faa-ban-us-spy-aircraft-patro... "Even though the Federal Aviation Administration has banned the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), the Department of Homeland Security currently has a US spy aircraft patrolling the northern border of New York for the month of June. ... While unmanned aircraft systems can be armed, the one flying over upstate New York has no weapons, according to John Stanton, director of CPBbs Office of Air and Marine." OK, so killer robots are now being deployed in the state I live in (NY) but they are "unarmed". So, I should not mind? It's not like the military ever makes mistakes about this sort of stuff, right? "B-52 carried nuclear missiles over US by mistake: military" http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gmqA7P-MPnRJzQ5v9Xi6M5zdr9IA "The US military said on Wednesday it was investigating an alarming security lapse when a B-52 bomber flew the length of the country last week loaded with six nuclear-armed cruise missiles." Well, just be safe, I had better avoid funerals: "U.S. Drone Strike Said to Kill 60 in Pakistan (at funeral)" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/world/asia/24pstan.html "An airstrike believed to have been carried out by a United States drone killed at least 60 people at a funeral for a Taliban fighter in South Waziristan on Tuesday, residents of the area and local news reports said. Details of the attack, which occurred in Makeen, remained unclear, but the reported death toll was exceptionally high. If the reports are indeed accurate and if the attack was carried out by a drone, the strike could be the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The United States carried out 22 previous drone strikes this year, as the Obama administration has intensified a policy inherited from the Bush administration." At least there is no mention of children being killed that time in the supposedly just about half civilian casualties, so likely just some kids are left without parents, which presumably is better? Nothing there to breed a lifelong hatred of everyone in the USA, right? Of course, maybe breeding terrorists is what it is really all about? Every great country needs a great enemy to give meaning to its society, right? And if you can't find one, you need to make one right? Where would Castro have been without the USA to rail against? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is a 2002 nonfiction book by Chris Hedges. In the book, Hedges draws on classical literature and his experiences as a war correspondent to argue that war seduces entire societies, creating fictions that the public believes and relies on to continue to support conflicts. He also describes how those who experience war may find it exhilarating and addicting. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year, as well as a national bestseller." Still, if there are strikes for the each of the supposed not-civilians' funerals, and then strikes at the funerals of those people, one can at least see the potential for an exponential growth of funerals. Until the US government runs out of suspected terrorists to blow up, of course. Some numbers on that, you can presumably subtract one from the other: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html Just another example of post-scarcity technology being used by those obsessed with conflicts over scarcity -- but now deployed as a "test" in my state, within about a hundred miles of my home. Don't want those socialist Canadians sneaking over the border for some of our health care, right? "Inside HAARM: Late Night Brainstorming Session" http://haarm.org/ Or bringing all that Canadian weed with them? "How the war on drugs doesnbt work" http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/06/17/how-the-war-on-drugs-doesnt-work/ ""Webve spent a trillion dollars prosecuting the war on drugs," Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, told me. "What do we have to show for it? Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels of potency. Itbs a dismal failure."" I feel much safer already, knowing that "unarmed" drones are keeping those evil socialist drug abusers in their place. And, hey, the military already uses a nearby large building as a landmark for low altitude maneuvers (or so we suppose from the regular flights in the past), so what's some automated stuff flying around in the state too? Just because it is unmanned, why should I be more worried? After all, there's presumably some teenager somewhere on the planet giving the thing orders. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/6/wired_for_war_the_robotics_revolution "He was actually a high school dropout who wanted to join the military to make his father proud. He wanted to be a helicopter mechanic. And they said, b Well, you failed your high school English course, so youbre not qualified to be a mechanic. But would you like to be a drone pilot?b And he said, b Sure.b And it turned out, because of playing on video games, he was already good at it. He was naturally trained up. And he turned out to be so good that they brought him back from Iraq and made him an instructor in the training academy, even though hebs an enlisted man and hebs stillbhe was nineteen." Sorry, just venting. I don't know what to do about this beyond what I am doing. There is already a border checkpoint not too far from my home which is 75 miles south of the border, where any car can be stopped and search, any laptop computer search or confiscated, and so on. And that one has already caused multiple deaths and is still there: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/nyregion/23crashes.html?oref=login&th "But on Interstate 87 north of here there have been two major crashes on the southbound approach to one of those checkpoints, including a pileup on Sept. 19, which killed four people as drivers failed to slow down for the lines of stopped cars." But they say it has been successful in catching some people with Canadian weed. So, we're all that much safer, right? "Remove Marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act" http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3191-4049 Such an issue for so long... But it justifies anything... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse It is indeed a race towards Utopia or Oblivion, as Bucky Fuller said, depending on how these post-scarcity technologies are shaped. --Paul Fernhout --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Manufacturing" group. To post to this group, send email to openmanufacturing@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to openmanufacturing+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE