Drones 2

Even more buzz bombs to fill the air above our heads doing unspecified robotic services for the powers that be. They're just too good to be true and no agency or institution can bear the thought of being without them.  After so much nifty murdering by remote the rush is on. 

And, you can have your own little buzzer to check out what's going on upstairs at the neighbor's. 

Miraculous Wikipedia

Here's a short appreciation of Wikipedia on Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/wikipedia/

Hours of work by dedicated, unpaid mostly anonymous heroes honor the spirit of altruism.

Infested

Too many people and more on the way.

Here's the evidence.

Bull market for drones

Drones are out front today, probably energized by an in-depth article “The Drone Wars” by Michael Hastings, in the current Rolling Stone (subscribers only , for now) and a Washington Post article  “CIA seeks new authority to expand Yemen drone campaign. (link)

In the Rolling Stone article, Pakistani teenager, clearly not a terrorist, describes living in fear as the drones are a constant, buzzing presence in the night.  Nobody’s perfect, not even the CIA, and sometimes these drones kill innocents. While these mistakes may fall within our government’s margins of acceptable error, for those terrified in the night, listening to the drones above, those margins are obscene.  

Our future (and everyone’s) could look a lot like the present lives of teenaged Pakistanis. Soon, we may all live with the constant buzz of drones and  the anxious fear of operator errors. 

Drone wars will be the ultimate video game, with enemy drones being hijacked and turned against their owners and innocents being regularly targeted. (We still don’t know what brought down the drone in Iran.)  It could also be hard to resist and keep in check the lure of sanitary, digitized, remote murder of real and imagined enemies. 

No idea who's running the show

If you're into conspiracies here's some great fuel to fire things up. Little peepers like us will never know what really goes on behind the curtains and all we can do is speculate and grope around in the twilight keeping our little lives stable in the murk.

Secret Service and whores

Two agents brought one prostitute to the hotel and had her to do both.  They wanted to split the fee for one. She wanted to be paid for two services and when they refused she went to the police. The agents attempt to cheat the whore made the shit hit the fan.

So much for the Secret Service being a class act.  Hard to get much lower than trying to cheat a whore.

Bush and National Guard

A good summary and some new details in an article covering George Bush and the National Guard (and the downfall of Dan Rather) in Texas Monthly linked this morning on The Huffington Post. 

The short of it is (no surprise) Bush skated and covered it up. 

Surviving Prostate Cancer

In 2006 I was diagnosed with stage, locally advanced prostate cancer. My Gleason Scores were 8's and 9's.  I had a little more than 2 years of hormone suppression via Zoladex shots every 3 months and daily Casodex tabs.  I completed 43 (I think) radiation treatments around Christmas of 2006. Since then in every exam the cancer as been undetectable.  I attribute these good results, so far, to the skills of my doctors and technicians and to a positive attitude, thanks mostly to what I learn in AA. Also, I developed what may have been an effective imaging practice based on a dream.  I am considering giving the details of all of the above in future posts on this blog.

My cancer experience is on my mind now because my annual blood work, exam and visit to the Radiation Oncologist who treated me comes up next month

The short of it

I don't know if what I hear is generated inside my head or picked up from outside. 

I could say the same thing about what I see.

Noise

On the 10 hour drive back from the Outer Banks I discovered an annoying squeak somewhere on the driver's side of the car.  I couldn't find the source. Finally at home, in a few hours I realized the noise came inside with me and was in my head.

I've lost much of my hearing, I think mainly from loud jobs especially on older tugboats.  What hearing has been lost is replaced with a constant blend of peepers, cicadas, and rushing water, all punctuated with intermittent beeps and squeaks.

To keep what peace I have I cannot fight these sounds or try consciously to ignore them. What works best is to welcome them, occasionally be amazed they are there and always be aware that sounds I hear may or may not be actually out there or only in my head.

Is this it?

The stream behind my house is a now fragile trickle, the lowest it has been in any Spring. The little trout are struggling to find food and places to hide from the herons.   There is no news of future rain.  Maybe it will never again rain enough to bring the stream back.  This could be it and we are ignoring the evidence.