Professional political columnist/analyst:
Time to send large unmanned aircraft with humanitarian aid to Ukrainian cities under siege. Worst case scenario is some food and medicine falls into the wrong hands while many innocent lives are saved.
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 11, 2022
Someone points out that, unfortunately, combatants in the middle of a shooting war are twitchy about any kind of flying vehicle crossing over disputed territory…
I’ve covered cargo drones in the last 9 years, so here’s a short answer: most drone delivery is small, parcel-sized payloads at short range. The big stuff involves full-sized helicopters like the K-MAX flying preset routes just without pilots, which just reads as military flights https://t.co/CZCxXI3ra1
— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) March 11, 2022
I realize my beat is technical solutions to political problems by other means, and “could we just do humanitarian resupply” is hardly the worst ask out there, but the tech is in early stages, the capability is limited at best, and the answer is alas more political than not.
— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) March 11, 2022
Twitter rule: When in doubt, double down!
So it’s a good idea, the technology does exist, there are humanitarian precedents & the fact people would rather misinterpret my tweet to find a way to say its impossible rather than talk about how to get food & medicine to besieged Ukrainians in any way possible is just sad.
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) March 11, 2022
If this were a better world, it would have worked!
This is not true. Drones were NOT used to deliver aid to Syria. The idea was only discussed – the highest profile effort failed. https://t.co/Sxqyk8Wd65 https://t.co/MHTBCSNPnK
— Faine Greenwood (@faineg) March 11, 2022
Another Twitter rule: If it is mockable, it will be mocked!
lots of people are making fun of my very practical, realistic suggestion that we could train monkeys to deliver essential humanitarian supplies to Ukraine wearing little backpacks. why is Twitter always full of carping and not of solutions?
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 12, 2022
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) March 12, 2022
people are unnecessarily cruel. I personally have trained two dozen silver monkeys wielding primitive clubs for Ukrainian self-defense
— Screaming Nephrectomy (@haircut_hippie) March 12, 2022
eclare
Flying monkeys have been around at least since the Wicked Witch of the West had a fleet…
Steeplejack
@eclare:
Please, I think that’s a barrel of monkeys. Although maybe that doesn’t apply to flying monkeys. ?
eclare
@Steeplejack: Hahaha…those monkeys were terrifying!
VeniceRiley
Surely Elon Musk can send some amphibious contraptions ….
m.j.
Why not a convoy?
Baud
I initially read that as Joe Rogan and was wondering when he became concerned about humanitarian problems.
NotMax
It didn’t take The Amazing Kreskin to predict this.
Entirely due to speculator market jitters, divorced from anything resembling supply constraints.
NotMax
@VeniceRiley
“Musk announces fast track initiative to develop self-driving monkeys. Plans to program routes via nanochips delivered by vaccination.”
//
eclare
@NotMax: Hahaha…
lowtechcyclist
I wonder if this guy actually read the article he cites in support of the notion that drones were used to get aid to Syrians.
It’s an article *advocating* drone use in Syria, written by someone with a nontrivial financial and professional stake in seeing them used. (It doesn’t say anything about whether they were actually used there.) From the author’s capsule bio at the end of the article:
Dear WaPo: please fire this guy, and replace him with someone who reads their cites to make sure they support their arguments. Punditry 101.
Geminid
@NotMax: Has much wind and solar electrical generation been built in the Islands yet? Geothermal?
eclare
@lowtechcyclist: So true. And also check for a financial agenda.
germy
Roger Waters has also posted an open letter in response to a Ukrainian fan letter on Facebook. The fan, 19-year-old Alina Mitrofanova, asked the singer-songwriter to speak on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I ask Roger to speak publicly about this war, because I still cannot understand how a person, who wrote a significant number of anti-war lyrics, hasn’t spoken about tragedy yet,” wrote Mitrofanova in her letter to Waters. “However, a man who speaks about risks of nuclear catastrophe and about the senselessness of the war cannot be silent in this situation.” The complete statement from Waters is below.
NotMax
@Geminid
Not nearly enough. Percentage of utility-scale generation for each still in single digits.
There’s also been pilot programs dabbling in tidal energy generation.
NotMax
@NotMax
By “each” I refer to wind and solar. Geothermal is highly problematic as by its very nature, speaking on a local geologic basis, it is super corrosive to infrastructure.
Amir Khalid
@germy:
Can Roger Waters really be that stupid?
bjacques
@germy: they’re all just gangster puppets of the Frankenstein Computer God…
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Illuminutty.
;)
Ken
@Amir Khalid: It seems unfair to judge from a single example of his work, but it’s such a long example..
(I thought the PS was a little weird too. “Hi, I’m being bombed, can you lend your voice of support?” “Got any dog pictures?”)
Geminid
@germy: Waters has at least one fact wrong here: the Sabra and Shitila massacre of September16-18 was enabled by the Israeli forces that invaded Lebanon that year. But Menachim Begin, founder of the Likud Party, was Prime Minister, not Shimon Peres.
Begin’s government fell a year or so later, partly in consequence of the invasion and it’s toll on Lebanese citizens and Israeli soldiers. Labor Party Peres then succeeded Begin as head of Labor-led coalition.
matt
@germy: She should send a pic of a dead dog in the street. Waters sounds like a Sarandon-level dummy.
Anne Laurie
There’s a totally unproven folk theory that standing in front of those arena-sized speakers for years on end leads to brain matter changes mimicking Alzheimers.
One reason it’s unproven, of course, is that the rockers said to be suffering are of an age where geriatric brain degradation is not exactly an unexpected problem…
Baud
@germy:
I have some sympathy for people who are resolutely antiwar. But when they stop just being against war and directing their ire against individual actors, then their politics are fair game.
matt
Here’s a corrected link to Waters’ piece: https://braveneweurope.com/roger-waters-the-war-profiteering-gangsters-will-kill-us-all-unless-we-unite-against-them
Basically his argument is ‘All Wars Matter’ and ‘fighting back is just as bad’.
I don’t like this guy.
Geminid
@NotMax: I guess geothermal generation requires more stability than is found in your neighborhood.
The solar and wind generation is coming. I read that Texas is running way ahead of the next state, California, in building solar and wind generation. The reason is that these are now the lowest-cost means of generating electricity.
One constraint in Hawaii may be long term contracts between producers and customers. Economist Robert Pollin discusses* the constraint that the typical ten-year contract places on a more rapid clean energy transition. You might see more rapid progress later this decade.
*Robert Pollin in his article “We need a better Green New Deal.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 2019. Pollin is a U. Mass. economist who has helped draft several state-level clean power plans. The article provides a very good overview of the challenges and potential of the clean energy transition.
evodevo
@matt: Yep…”Can’t we all just get along!!” doesn’t make any sense when Hitler is on the other side of the equation…
Baud
Also too, has Black Lives Matter said anything about the war, or is he just appropriating their name?
NotMax
@Geminid
State’s goal is to approach 100% renewable by 2045. I expect it’ll be closer to 50% by then. Rumblings of NIMBY already present.
Geminid
@NotMax: I bet Hawaii will hit 50% renewable generation by 2035, unless you guys elect a bunch of Republicans to run the state. Fossil fuel will just get more expensive, while relatively cheap wind and solar power are here to stay.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
And they thought Syd Barrett was the damaged one! //
The Thin Black Duke
I don’t expect intelligent political analysis from rich musical celebrities and nobody else should either.
NotMax
@Geminid
Bite your tongue!
;)
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Not even Ted Nugent?
Amir Khalid
@matt:
That’s just it. Waters seems to think Ukraine defending itself is just as bad as Russia invading it. That’s just … I have no words to say how dumb that is.
LadySuzy
Is there any way to convince China to intervene for the civilian population ? Ask them publicly to organize some kind of humanitarian rescue for the civilians in Mariupol, Kharkiv…
At last it could put China on the spot… They would certainly squirm … They’ve been trying to walk a fine line. They want to maintain their links with Russia, yet they don’t want to anger their customers in the West …
Probably idiotic idea, just brain-storming in desperation here…
lowtechcyclist
I got as far as the second sentence.
Wasn’t going to read any further after that bit of verbal upchuck.
Had to Google Roger Waters to find out who he was. I’d never been keen on Pink Floyd back in the day, so it wasn’t one of those groups where I knew the names of some of the members.
Miss Bianca
@Anne Laurie: I just saw a link to an article somewhere (could it have been here?) that cited *traffic noise* as an element leading to Alzheimers and dementia.
If traffic noise can do it, then yeah…I would definitely imagine that standing in front of arena-sized speakers for years on end might do it, too!
(Thank God I haven’t heard Pete Townshend come out with anything near this fatuous and stupid, or my heart would truly break.)
Kalakal
@matt: He’s not just an idiot, he’s a horrible, insensitive jerk. Here is a young woman in a terrifying situation asking for him, as an influential person with an reputation of being anti-opression, to use that influence to stregthen the response against an ongoing agression.
Instead she gets a smug, sanctimonous screed of how he cares deeply, he truly does, but she has to understand that… several paragraphs of whataboutery follow.. . and so he couldn’t possibly do anything without inconveniencing his own, supremely important self image. After all he is deeply concerned and is feeling distress, he’s a victim too!
The part that makes me hurl is his mention of his father and grandfather dying in ww1 & 2. Had he been around at the time no doubt he’d have have replied to a letter from his younger self that”While he was strongly opposed to Hitler i you have to rember that the despicable actions of… meant that he couldn’t possibly encourage doing anything to stop him”
I hope she prints out his reply and uses it for toilet paper
Cameron
@LadySuzy: Actually, I think China could do well by doing good, by offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. It has (or should have, by this point) enough clout with Russia that Putin would have to take such an offer seriously. Could even tender an olive branch to the US and offer to work jointly with us….oh, fuck, I must have taken the wrong pills this morning……
Steeplejack
@Cameron:
Don’t hold your breath waiting for China to help. Richard McGregor yesterday in The Guardian:
Jerszy
@germy: “Rock stars – is there anything they *don’t* know?” – HS
Dopey-o
Pink Floyd / Roger Waters plays Air Supply’s songs, but with heavy metal instruments.