If I thought of this, so has someone else

How many shipping containers would 600 of this mix of drones fit in?

We've plenty of space in the country where you could buy land and build a barn to keep satellites from seeing anything out of the ordinary, well within range of air bases. Assembling enough people to manage the rapid unpacking and launches without having an informer in the group might be a problem, depending on the group doing the attacking.

Just destroying the aircraft on a few bases would be painfully expensive, though not crippling.

And there are plenty of infrastructure targets too, some fairly fragile. I gather there's redundancy for a lot of our capacity: if California is a bit messed up we've still got Texas and Louisiana. Still, oceans around us don't protect as well as they used to, unless we search everything coming in.

Overton Window

From anglican.ca: "Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying" Authorised for Trial Use, Evaluation and Feedback where permitted by the Ordinary by the Council of General Synod, June 2026

Many of the conversations around what constitutes a good death seek to enshrine dignity of the dying person as the highest value. Very often, the understanding of dignity is tied to one’s autonomy in agency – being able to think, act, and make decisions on one’s own. Human dignity, however, rests in our being created by a loving God. It is not something to be tied to a question of worth to be determined according to standards that place autonomy as the highest value of dignity. God has given us dignity and worth as part of who we are as God’s creatures. Our agency in health care decisions is, furthermore, something that we need to entrust to God in our discernment. We do not make decisions alone, but in the presence of God.

Some Anglicans have had profound experiences in which a death by MAiD has been accompanied by faithful prayer and strong pastoral care. Other Anglicans hold that MAiD does not offer any moral good, and may indeed be against God's wishes for humanity. Many of us share concerns about the potentials for abuse of the practice through coercion or in the fragilities of a health care system that is in crisis. All of us in Canada, especially clergy and other pastoral care ministers, are likely at some point in our ministries, to be met with a request for pastoral care and prayer by someone who has opted for a medically assisted death.

Our intention is to help the church’s ministers to respond pastorally to the needs before them. It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD.(1)

... (1) The General Synod has produced several resources since the legalization of medically assisted dying. In Sure and Certain Hope, 2017, presented a pastoral response with some pastoral and prayer resources, upholding the duty of pastoral care, and also holding up some key theological principles of caution with respect to MAiD. Faith Seeking Understanding: Medical Assistance in Dying: Reflections by Canadian Anglicans, 2024, gathered up over forty reflections from theological, pastoral and ethical perspectives by Canadian Anglicans, representing a wide collection of experiences and positions on the ethics of MAiD.

Yikes. True, the intro says "Human dignity, ... is not something to be tied to a question of worth to be determined according to standards that place autonomy as the highest value of dignity." And the 2017 document is " holding up some key theological principles of caution with respect to MAiD". But the 2024 document is "representing a wide collection of experiences and positions." It sounds like they don't know how to say no and stick to it.

"To some following some Dioceses’ guidance or their own consciences, it will be important to walk the challenging path in choosing and adapting prayers in this resource that do not imply that the procedure, the medical assistance in dying itself, and the decision to employ MAiD, are not being given God’s blessing." I read that as meaning that they foresee priests sometimes giving a blessing to the procedure and the decision, or picking prayers that imply that (which seems dishonest if they don't). Perhaps they mis-spoke.

They consider the possibility of having "Confession and Absolution" as part of the liturgy.

At Lambeth in 1930 the Anglicans "affirmed the permissibility of birth control for married couples who felt a moral obligation to forgo both ‘parenthood’ and ‘complete abstinence’". Shortly after, many other denominations jumped on the bandwagon, and uncounted couples decided that they met the criteria, and the Overton window shifted.

I hope that isn't going to be the case here.

FWIW, a Liturgy on the Day of an Execution doesn't seem to quite fit.

Clickers

The wildlife refuge was demonstrating a couple of hawks, one of which wasn't entirely thrilled with being indoors out of her cage. But they'd been trained (injuries meant they'd never be released to the wild again), and she settled down. The trainer clicked a clicker on her belt when the bird calmed down.

Why a clicker?

I asked. Because different trainers had different voices. They wanted a consistent sound to indicate "Good job", and they settled on clickers.

The trainer still used words "Good bird," but that was probably for her and our benefit. The clicker was for the birds.

Repairs

This story showed up yesterday: "Psychology says fathers who fix broken things instead of replacing them are not being cheap: Why repairing objects becomes their way of protecting memories, purpose and family"

It talks about being useful, sense of purpose, protection, and so on.

What came to my mind immediately was that not just people and pets, but the things we bring into the family become our responsibility. It isn't just a matter of memories associated with that old clock. It's part of our lives now, and we owe a certain care to the things we own.

We tend to look down on people who don't care for their things, don't we?

Some of us even feel a little obligation to care for the commons too.

Log Jam

I had not heard of this before: a centuries-long log jam in the Red and Atchafalya rivers. That wikipedia article's history goes back to 2021 -- yes, I wondered if this was fake. "The removal of the massive log jams hastened the capture of the Mississippi River's waters in lower Louisiana by the Atchafalaya River,"

Curiosity from Genesis

In Israel's last declarations to his sons Simeon and Levi are condemned for their anger and violence and told that they will be dispersed, albeit in the family. And the Simeon tribe seems not to have had a clear territory separable from that of Judah. The Levite tribe was, of course, scattered through the whole of Israel.

I don't see "founder effect" -- the subsequent trajectories of the two tribes was quite different despite Israel's joint curse. But it's a curious note.

Lessons for newcomers

What would you want to insist that prospective immigrants to your country learn?

An obvious first choice is "the language." We don't have an official language, though we should. If you are to be part of the society and not in an isolated huddle, you need to speak English.

Another obvious body of knowledge is the history and general culture, and the basics of how the economy and government work, and what is expected of citizens--and what is expected of guests. Immigrants who learn these things from American movies are in for surprises.

Our local cultures do not all assume the same courtesies, but we should try to assemble a set, with explanations ("How are you?" is not requesting your medical history, give up your bus seat to someone infirm, etc). Now that I think of it, quite a few of our citizens never learned some of these...

How to arrange this is another problem. But for the moment just think about what you want an immigrant to know (and practice as needed) to be able to fit in.

Instructions on how to thrive (e.g. ignore the ubiquitous advertisements and save your money) may overlap with this curriculum somewhat.

A student coming for college will probably be associating with an unrepresentative group of people, and not see or understand what happens in the background to provide his education. Best be explicit upfront about what is acceptable and what is not.

I suspect that I'd get very different answers to this from painters at the union hall and from the HR staff at Target.

Niche dominations

An interesting exploration of ethnic domination of niche economic sectors, or, how to develop a jati.

How do some ethnicities wind up taking over (e.g.) hotel management? Aporia discusses the hows and the side effects--not all of them are benign. One is that a number of low-status jobs are no longer available as entry level jobs to youth of other ethnicities--nail salon employment is nearly locked down in LA.

Saving face

One point I didn't make in my thoughts on negotiations with Iran was that if the IRGC was going to save face, we would have to lose face.

Ask a Grandpa

Possible youth group addition: A table for private questions.

Linen armor

Oldest Daughter spotted these attempts to solve an old mystery: how was linen armor made and made useful?

Unraveling the linothorax mystery or how linen armor came to dominate our lives. A short summary. "The only way we were ultimately able to cut the laminated linen slab was with an electric saw equipped with a blade for cutting metal. At least this confirmed our suspicion that linen armor would have been extremely tough. We also found out that linen stiffened with rabbit glue strikes dogs as in irresistibly tasty rabbit-flavored chew toy, and that our Labrador retriever should not be left alone with our research project."

linothorax for sale Authentic? Who knows. Do you make it with layers of linen boiled with salt to harden it, or glued together into a hard lump?

More linothorax at UW Green Bay. Yes, he was wearing the armor when they shot the arrow at it. A video of the same: linothorax .

A linothorax won't stop "a determined spear thrust", but does pretty well at shedding arrows.

Thank you! I don't think I'll be trying my hand at it, but ...

Academic honors

360 high school graduates.

• 40: cum laude
• 26: magna cum laude
• 76: summa cum laude
• 17: 4.0 average

You expect the distribution to have a diminishing tail to the right, don't you?

The obvious explanation is that there's a bit of gaming going on: that the cutoffs are based on GPA and not relative difficulty of the courses involved. I'd weight a B in chemistry or French III more highly than an A in PE. Perhaps I'm biased--I did horribly in PE. If you're already doing "well enough" selecting an "easy A" course would help push the average up, maybe to the next category. That wouldn't work unless there was already a bit of grade inflation, and 44% getting honors seems a trifle inflated.

I got a little grumpy with the student speeches. They were way too "change the world" You know, there are billions of other people with different ideas about that: it makes for a lot of pushback, "follow your heart," A famous shortcut to disaster, etc -- though the last one emphasized that the world wasn't friendly and you needed adaptability and willingness to get up after disasters. Bravo!

Quibbles to the contrary, the graduation went well. The graduate seemed a trifle overwhelmed, and expressed a preference for low key celebration: pizza and games at home instead of a restaurant.

Planning

Do managers ever rubber duck their proposals? (with someone who does not report to them, of course). Also see rule 12. You can think of business or government decisions with unhappy side effects that should have been forseeable.

Odd

The book is nominally to be released on 18-June, though word is that Amazon started shipping already.

But "SuperBookDeals" claims to have it available already, second hand. I assume they won't ship until they actually get a second-hand copy, and thus delivery might take a while, but that's a curious business model. "81% positive over the past 12 months"

Shattered Sword was Parshall's book on Midway.