"This disaster was an ideological choice. If states are the laboratories of democracy, cities had become its meth labs."

"San Francisco spent the covid era limiting the tools and tactics available to law enforcement. In 2019, it became the first major U.S. city to ban police from using facial recognition technology. The 8-1 vote was a knee-jerk response to an innovation that has since become a ubiquitous feature on phones and in airports and office lobbies. Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who sponsored the bill, said the city had an 'outsize responsibility to regulate the excesses of technology' because San Francisco was viewed as the headquarters of U.S. innovation. The posturing led to an outsize increase in the crime rate and an outsize population exodus from the Bay Area."

I'm reading "Why is Trump backing off San Francisco? These results. Democrat Daniel Lurie is using technology to make the city safe again" (WaPo).

"Last year, by some estimates, Ukraine’s factories turned out more than three million drones...."

"The drones that I examined were remarkably simple: a lightweight square frame, four propellers, a video camera, a battery-powered motor, and room for a bomb. The attack drones, known as F.P.V.s, for 'first-person view,' are guided by an operator watching a video screen that shows what the drone is seeing; other members of the unit monitor feeds from reconnaissance drones.... The Russians are terrorizing the Ukrainians with drone attacks of their own. Towns and hamlets have been largely pulverized along the front lines and for miles beyond; even American air defenses are mostly useless, because setting them up invites an immediate Russian attack. Iranian-made Shahed drones, capable of carrying large warheads long distances, have pummelled Kyiv and other cities with hundreds of strikes. Under the constant threat of attack, the Ukrainians have found it difficult to supply their front lines, and evacuation is sometimes impossible. The prevalence of drones appears to have given the advantage to the defense. Along the seven-hundred-mile front, soldiers on both sides are huddled in fortified trenches, separated by a no man’s land known as the 'gray zone.' With drones circling day and night, surprise attack is impossible, movement suicidal. If soldiers venture out, they are attacked immediately by drones or artillery...."

Writes Dexter Filkins, in "Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War With global conflicts increasingly shaped by drones and A.I., the American military risks losing its dominance" (The New Yorker).

Transcending conspiracy theory: "We should instead be figuring out what they’re trying to distract us from with all this conspiracy catnip."

From Bret Weinstein, at X:

These attacks are connected to each other through Fort Bragg, and to the NJ drones, which are connected to gravity manipulation, which connects it all to UAPs for the alien inclined. And it’s all happening between the election and inauguration. It’s clearly designed to be irresistible to “conspiracy theorists.” The smart money is on the Deep State and its partners preparing to vacate their offices and switch modes. They want us chasing our tails, and we are obliging them. We should instead be figuring out what they’re trying to distract us from with all this conspiracy catnip.

Trump reveals something of what he knows/thinks about the drones (but declines to talk about whether he's received an intelligence briefing).

From a long press conference today: "The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don't want to comment, and I think they'd be better off saying what it is our military knows and our our president knows, and for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because it was the enemy they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people, and they should, because the people are really — I mean they happen to be over Bedminster... they're very they're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip."

He's asked, "Have you received an intelligence briefing on the drones?" and, unsurprisingly, he says, "I don't want to comment on that." But I think he has...

"Last night, the runways at Stewart Airfield were shut down for approximately one hour due to drone activity in the airspace. This has gone too far."

A statement from New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

In mid-November, I directed the New York State Intelligence Center to actively investigate drone sightings and coordinate with federal law enforcement to address this issue, and those efforts are ongoing. But in order to allow state law enforcement to work on this issue, I am now calling on Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act.... Until those powers are granted to state and local officials, the Biden Administration must step in by directing additional federal law enforcement to New York and the surrounding region to ensure the safety of our critical infrastructure and our people.

"The comment from the Feds is absurd. These are car-sized drones that have flown over New Jersey, New York, and military bases in Virginia."

"If the Feds know who is doing this, they should say so. If they don't know, they should say that. To say that they 'pose no threat,' but we can't tell you what they are is the height of bureaucratic arrogance."

That's the most sensible comment at the WaPo column "New Jersey needs to get a grip. But our drone defenses need work. There’s no need to panic about drones." The column — not the comment, the column — is by Max Boot.

And here's the statement from the Feds the commenter is reacting to: "We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus."

And then there's this:

Yes father, use grok to generate an image of the New Jersey drones delivering McDonalds to that fat slob Chris Christie.

Perfect, now post it on 𝕏 https://t.co/gvnetk4faA pic.twitter.com/JbRCvjRgDo

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) December 14, 2024

I got hit by a drone the other day.

I was walking in my very quiet neighborhood, wearing a long wool coat, listening to an audiobook in my usual there-but-also-somewhere-else manner, and suddenly I'm hit in the leg with what I thought was a rock. Is someone throwing a rock at me? I turn and see a rather pathetic man holding a controller of some sort in his two hands and glance down at the ground and see the stupid drone toy of his that hit me. I give him a look that must have expressed my opinion that this is the dumbest loser I have had to interact with in a long time, said nothing, and moved on. I was glad nobody threw a rock at me and glad I didn't express my sense of relief but only my opinion of his loserhood when I had to look at him.

Also, recently: We were walking down a quiet residential street near where we live, and suddenly BANG! — a big car crash. On a street with practically zero traffic, a black car made a left turn into the path of a red car going straight. No one seemed to be hurt, but the black car spun around and had its whole passenger's side crushed in. I realized how situationally unaware I am when I'm walking. I had my eyes open and looking straight in the direction where it happened, but I don't feel that I saw it. The sound of the crash got my attention, and I looked at the aftermath and deduced what happened, but I really did not see the hit. I think I get caught up in my thoughts and I'm somehow blind without being aware of how blind I am.

Obama said he was "really good at killing people," and now Trump has the drone power.

"Suspected US drone strikes have killed three alleged al-Qaida operatives in Yemen’s south-western Bayda province, security and tribal officials said, the first such killings reported in the country since Donald Trump assumed the presidency on Friday."

(Here's a source for the Obama quote.)

Headline I completely misread: "Air Wars Favor Clinton."

That's at ABC News, for an item by Michael Falcone that turns out to be about the money spent on advertising. Hillary spent 12 times as much as Trump this month.

I clicked through thinking I was going to read an interesting theory about how the Obama administration's military strategy of keeping drones in the air and boots off the ground would redound to Clinton's benefit.

"I see little difference between a drone hovering near my window, and someone standing across the street with a pair of binoculars."

"Both can peer into my office. But I may be in the minority here. When I mentioned it to my wife, she was outraged by the intrusion and briefly contemplated buying a shotgun, should my neighbor’s drone reappear near our bedroom window. Unlike binoculars, she argued, a drone can actually enter your property and see from more invasive vantage points...."

From a NYT column (in the "Style" section for some reason), "When Your Neighbor’s Drone Pays an Unwelcome Visit." The author, Nick Bilton, refers to a recent Kentucky case in which a judge dismissed charges against a man who shot down a drone that came into his property where his 16-year-old daughter was sunbathing.

Bilton takes a stab at the legal issues, but doesn't get very far. Can you destroy someone else's property when it trespasses into the air above your land? I wrote the question that way to exclude the distinct issue of discharging a firearm. Assume you have a device that catches the drone and you smash it with a hammer or drive your car over it. What if you just capture it and sequester it (or call the police)?

Here's another NYT article about a bill in Congress aimed at regulating drones:

Hobby groups are trying to peel back recreational registration rules, while airline pilots are pushing for more mandates that drone makers like DJI and GoPro put safety technology on machines. Amazon and Google, which want to use drones for delivery, are asking permission to test their technology....

Here's a CNN article from last fall: "Is it OK to shoot down a drone over your backyard?"

[Lawprof Michael Froomkin]... argues that self-defense should be permissible against drones simply because you don't know their capabilities....

And here's an article in The Atlantic: "If I Fly a UAV Over My Neighbor's House, Is It Trespassing?":

Drones -- as flying, seeing objects -- scramble our 2D sense of property boundaries....

"This idea of a reasonable expectation of privacy has always been accepted as the standard and the interface of that privacy right and emerging UAV technology is fascinating," [said aviation lawyer Timothy Ravich]. "There is not an answer. The best we can do is arrive at laws and practices of the then-existing sensibilities of the population."

Ravich said that in 2012, when "the then-existing sensibilities of the population" were whatever existed then. Who knows what the now-existing sensibilities of the population are? Wait a few more years and there won't be any at all.

AND: Those who, like Nick Bilton's wife, care about privacy, tend to appear late in the time line. First come the tech fans with their toys and devices, figuring out new things to do, becoming interested and invested. It's hard for the privacy people even to understand what's going on, let alone jump into the regulatory process and make themselves heard. That's why I cringe at the Ravich's "then-existing sensibilities of the population"... and why, I think, we're seeing the defenders of privacy going for a self-help, self-defense approach.

IN THE COMMENTS: robother said:

I'm always struck by the geeky proposition that because it's a new, cool technology using wifi or the internet, that makes it different, automatically exempt from prior legal categories. Uber isn't gypsy cabs because...it's an app!

Drones are cool tech-toys, so using them to take pictures of neighbors sunbathing in their backyards or taking showers isn't the same as a peeping tom.

Downloading free music from an app isn't the same as stealing a CD from a music store because... The Internet! 

Obama bombed a hospital.

Where is the outrage?

ADDED: At the link, which goes to my son John's Facebook page, I said: "Imagine if Bush had done this." And John said: "We don't have to imagine..." and linked to a NYT article from 2008: "Evidence Points to Civilian Toll in Afghan Raid."

From Amy Davidson at The New Yorker: "Five Questions About the Bombing of a Hospital in Kunduz":

What did the Afghan forces want us to bomb? This is the fundamental issue: Was the hospital the target, or was the target something or someone “in the vicinity”?...

Why didn’t the bombing stop? It went on for an hour, in multiple waves, although [Doctors Without Borders, which runs the hospital] has said that it immediately called contacts in Afghanistan, Washington, D.C., and wherever else it could think of—it is used to operating in war zones, and has the phone numbers for calls like that—to try to get the attack stopped. Who was on the other end of the line? Did those interlocutors make further calls, to Afghans or Americans? General Campbell, asked by reporters if the Pentagon knew about the calls, said that it was a question for investigators. But, in this instance, the matter of communications gets to questions larger than logistics, such as... Do we understand our allies’ motives and priorities in Afghanistan?

ALSO: My phrase "Where is the outrage?" sounds like a stock phrase with a particular reference point, but what? Meade says it's from the 1996 presidential campaign. Bob Dole said it:

Sounding like a crusader, Bob Dole implored his audiences today to ''rise up'' against the nation's news organizations, which he said were protecting the Clinton Administration, and be outraged that President Clinton had, in Mr. Dole's words, violated the public trust....

Listing a string of questionable practices by the Administration, including accepting what he called laundered cash from foreigners and obtaining confidential F.B.I. files, Mr. Dole demanded repeatedly in Houston earlier in the day, ''Where is the outrage?''

Appearing at downtown performing arts center, where he stood before a giant mural depicting the glory days of the Lone Star State, Mr. Dole continued: ''Can you imagine former President Bush doing one of those things? No! And you never imagine Bob Dole doing one of those things either. So where's the outrage? Where's the outrage? When will the voters start to focus?''

"I'm glad Obama is taking prison rape seriously, but the president shouldn't be telling comedians what kind of jokes they are and aren't allowed to tell."

"Would he tell comedians not to joke about murder? How about drone strikes that kill innocent people?"

Do you believe the drone policy really is: "Before any strike is taken, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured"?

That's what Obama said last week, but I don't see how it can possibly be true, and I don't really understand why he would state a policy in terms that are so plainly unbelievable. If that were the standard, how he could use drones at all — let alone carry out hundreds of attacks? And if that's not the standard, why say it's the standard, since (if it's believed) it's encouraging the enemy to defend itself by keeping hostages and other innocents in their midst? If it's not believed — and I think it's on its face unbelievable — it wrecks his credibility.

These questions occurred to me as I listened to the panel discussion on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, which began with a clip of Obama saying the words that appear in the post title:

[AP reporter JULIE] PACE: [W]hen he said that we were not going to take strikes unless there was a near certainty that civilians would not be killed[:] How can you -- how can you be sure of that?...

[National Journal reporter RON] FOURNIER: ... I think anybody who... has a problem like I do with this drone strategy, still has a problem. And maybe more so, the fact that the president promised that... he was going to be transparent, about how, about why and how we conduct war from a robot in the air blowing people away.... [W]hen the president of the United States says we're going to deal with near certainty, really? How do you come up with near certainty? Is that just a talking point that you say two years ago and then we find out that you can't do it? Let's put some meat on the bones, Mr. President.

[Fox News political analyst BRIT] HUME: It seems to me that they probably had near certainty. What they didn't have was actual certainty. And that's always going to be the case....

So one answer to my questions is: It depends on what the meaning of "near" is.

The drone policy was also questioned because of the way it kills people who could be captured and used for intelligence, which is related to the question of near certainty, because intelligence is needed to get to near certainty. If you keep killing everyone, how do they know whom they're killing? I suspect that after the fact they deem everyone who was there an enemy, at least as far as they can (and they couldn't in the case of the 2 specific hostages). And they don't want the trouble of detainees.

"Every weapons system, from the bow and arrow to the intercontinental ballistic missile, sometimes kills the wrong people."

"So why has the revelation that a U.S. drone strike accidentally killed two al-Qaeda hostages ­— a U.S. citizen and an Italian aid worker — created such a storm of drone 'rethinking'?" asks lawprof Noah Feldman.

I haven't read his answer yet, but mine is: People aren't good at thinking in the abstract. A problem seems different when you know the story of one individual. That's why Steven Spielberg had the little girl in the red coat, and why Joseph Stalin said: "When one person dies, it's a tragedy, but when a million people die, it's a statistic."

Now, I'm reading Feldman. He observes that there has been a "fantasy of precision has been at the heart of the political and tactical appeal for U.S. President Barack Obama." But:

The real military advantage of the armed-drone strike over a conventional airstrike... isn't the precision of the hit. It’s the fact that a pilot isn’t being put in jeopardy. Yet somehow the idea that drone strikes are more precisely targeted has lingered, giving the technique greater public appeal....

When it comes to drones, the fantasy of precision is just that, a fantasy. Killing innocent civilians, whether they’re Americans or Pakistanis or Yemenis, is an inevitable reality of war....

Feldman doesn't directly address why hearing about 2 specific innocent victims causes people to rethink anything. Is it too obvious?

"Part of being a student is the freedom to hold all manner of idealistic stances with the tenacity of a petty commissar."

"Every arguably 'moral' conflict is an all-or-nothing proposition within the Ivory Tower because there’s pretty much no downside to ranting about every slight, real or perceived. And that’s generally a good thing. It lets students work out the kinks in their personal ethics — learning to pick and choose their battles — so they won’t grow up to be hopeless, untethered rage-aholics. But part of that learning process is smacking down that unfettered idealism from time to time and forcing the students to get some perspective. That time has come for the assembled NYU Law students throwing a fit over the school letting Harold Koh teach an international law course...."

Writes Joe Patrice at Above the Law in a piece titled "NYU Law Students Need To Get Off Their High Horse."

From the law students' letter:

While we believe that NYU Law should remain committed to academic freedom, we take issue not with Mr. Koh’s opinions but rather with his actions — that is, his direct facilitation of the U.S. government’s extrajudicial imposition of death sentences on U.S. citizens along with civilians of other nationalities....

"White House Drone Crash Is Tied to Drinking by Intelligence Worker."

"A man who says he operated a drone that crashed on the White House grounds early Monday is an employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, according to law enforcement officials. He told Secret Service investigators that he had been drinking at an apartment nearby before he lost control of the craft, the officials said."

The NYT reports.

"A small aerial drone was found on the grounds of the White House but poses no threat...."

The NYT reports.

While drones are commonly thought of in the context of missile-firing, unmanned vehicles used against terrorists, there is a wide variety of devices that would qualify. Many small flying drones are available on the commercial market and are used as toys.

Mr. Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, are on a three-day visit to India, but their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are in Washington....

Yes, this drone might just be some toy, and yes, the President wasn't there, but this shows it can be done.

"Snipers are cowards. They don't believe in a fair fight. Like someone coming up from behind you and coldcocking you."

"Just isn't right. It's cowardly to shoot a person in the back. Only a coward will shoot someone who can't shoot back."

Michael Moore quotes his father, whose brother, an Army paratrooper in WWII, was killed by a Japanese sniper. That's part of the back and forth over a tweet Moore made that was taken to be about the movie "American Sniper."

Wouldn't virtually all of our military techniques be classified as cowardly by the standard set by Michael Moore's father? Only a coward would drop a bomb from the air?

Maybe some day they'll make a movie about President Obama pointing to the list of targets for a drone attack, and Michael Moore will still be around to quote his father.

Maybe the problem is making a movie from the point of view of the person who is in the position of killing from a devastating advantage. A movie affects the minds of viewers who have not themselves gone through the real world experience that gets a human being into that position. They're just sitting there, safely watching, and getting charged up according to whatever manipulations the filmmaker sees fit to impose on these pliable spectators.

That's something Michael Moore knows a lot about. Michael Moore... and Clint Eastwood.

Looking — from the air — for 200 schoolgirls somewhere in jungle the size of West Virginia.

"I don’t think anybody’s underestimating the level of difficulty in both finding them and then being able to launch some kind of recovery mission," said the Pentagon press secretary.

I have no idea how much connection there is between what they say they are doing and what they are actually doing. Why say it before it's done unless that's not what you are doing? Disinformation. Propaganda. To bamboozle them... or us?

How bad was Joel McHale, the (official) comedian at last night's White House Correspondents Dinner?

At last night's White House Correspondents Dinner, the official comedian — insert typical joke about how they're all comedians — was Joel McHale, whose comic gimmick seemed to be reading bad jokes off cards and then ad-libbing about how that was a poor joke. For example:

I am a big fan of President Obama. I think he’s one of the all-time great presidents, definitely in the top 50. Please explain that to Jessica Simpson. You’re right, that was low.

That came early on and was followed by what might have been his only rough treatment of Obama:

All right, how about the president’s performance tonight, everyone? Sir, it’s amazing that you can still bring it with fresh, hilarious material. My favorite bit of yours was when you said you would close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. That was a classic. That was hilarious, hilarious. Still going.

Detainee Obamedy. Obama laughed and laughed. I think he mouthed something like "I'm still workin' on it."