Tom Sullivan at Hullaballoo writes—Derp from Above:
As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill makes its way through the Senate this week, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have been arguing for new rules that would limit cargo pilots' flight time tonine hours between rests. We don't want any accidents.
“Fatigue is a killer,” Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the pilot who executed the 2009 emergency airliner landing in the Hudson River, told a press conference. Then again, if you are a drone pilot in the business of deliberately killing people, workingsix or seven days a week, twelve hours a day is not a problem.
The drone program remains controversial and has its detractors and defenders. Al Jazeera English this week published the confessions of former Air Force drone technician, Cian Westmoreland. He and three other former operators last year called on the president to stop the program, calling the strategy "self-defeating," one that propagates anti-US hatred. Not to mention his own nightmares:
The nightmares encompassed everything I didn't understand. I had nightmares about bombing villages, about being bombed, about killing children and trying to save them.
I was emotionally detached from loved ones and had a battle with alcoholism.
And that's just one part - there's also an insidious part - the moral injury side of things, where the more you learn, the worse it gets. You're trying to figure out what you did, why you did it and what's going on in that country.
That's what brings you to a real point of hopelessness.
Where this story intersects with the FAA reauthorization is Section 334 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012: PUBLIC UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS. For the uninitiated, that section directs the FAA to make plans for integrating law enforcement and military drones into the national air space. There has been little public discussion about safety and privacy issues. And these drones are not the little quadracopters, mind you, but the big Corellian ships. Not that anybody in Congress is paying attention, unless it's to defense contractors:
General Atomics expects to begin training Predator pilots for its overseas customers at the Grand Sky UAS aviation and business park near Grand Forks, North Dakota, in April.
“One of our tenants—General Atomics—is going to commence flight training they believe in the April timeframe,” said Tom Sowyer president of Grand Sky Development Co. “That means foreign countries—foreign militaries—are going to be sending their pilots to Grand Forks, North Dakota, to learn how to fly Predators.”
No one is suggesting the military drones flying over North Dakota, New York, Nevada, and the border with Mexico will be armed anytime soon, or that the NSA will be hacking their video feeds to spy on unsuspecting Americans. But given Sens. Boxer's and Klobuchar's concerns about long hours for cargo pilots, if realism in training is important one wonders how many hours at a stretch General Atomics' foreign customers will be flying their shiny new Predators over Grand Forks.
HIGH IMPACT STORIES • TOP COMMENTS
FSS DU JOUR
Business Apologizes for Sign Joking about Domestic Violence
Beauty Bar on Fremont East has apologized after a photo of the bar’s sign outside showing a joke about domestic violence went viral overnight.
“Beauty Bar would like to issue a formal statement of apology for the actions of one employee who has been suspended pending further investigation,” Beauty Bar posted on Facebook Friday morning. “Ownership and management did not approve of the highly inappropriate message she chose to display on the local bars’ chalkboard sign and removed it once they were made aware a few hours later. Beauty Bar has been a longtime supporter of local and national anti-domestic violence charities and in no way supported this message.”
A photo of the sign, which read “I like my beer like I like my violence: domestic” and was removed Thursday night, was posted on Facebook by Derek Noel on Thursday afternoon.
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TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Paul Ryan's 'welfare state,' everything but tax cuts for the rich:
Here's a snippet of Rep. Paul Ryan's closing remarks during the debate on his budget plan:
We don't want a welfare system that encourages people to stay on welfare. We want them to get back on their feet and lead flourishing, self-sufficient lives. So let's reform welfare for people who need it, and end it for corporate welfare for people who don't need it. Number four. Let's do the work of lifting this crushing burden of debt from our children.
And there you have it. While you thought welfare was reformed two decades ago and no longer exists for Republicans to beat up on, you were wrong. Basically, everything but tax breaks to the wealthy is welfare. Any domestic spending, welfare. Let's look at what Ryan is actually slashing, here, what he calls welfare.
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On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin & Armando offer up their reviews of the latest debate; a CT court allows the lawsuit by Sandy Hook families to go forward; more discussion on what’s next for Team Bernie; keep an eye and ear on the Internet of Industrial Spies.
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