Drone Program Whistleblower Receives Harsh Sentence

I personally wrote the judge about whistleblower Daniel Hale’s case requesting leniency in his sentencing. In my letter I stated “…how could a person of conscience not speak out? The impact of carrying out orders, carrying the burden of responsibility, would certainly wear a person down, questioning right from wrong, whether the ends justify the means, etc. Drone pilots are traumatized, with drug abuse, domestic violence and even suicide being the end result.” and “This young man strikes me as being an upstanding person of conscience who has suffered the ill effects of serving as a UAV pilot for targeted assassinations. I can well imagine Daniel obviously grappled with his conscience and decided to act on what in his estimation was the right, moral and just thing to do. I ask you to drop all charges against Daniel and not punish a young man for turning humane and for his actions of attempting to cease further harm.”

Daniel is a hero having provided the public with irrefutable proof that 90% of the victims of the US military drone strike program are innocents, striking wedding, funeral parties, agricultural workers, etc. e.g.  Loved ones buried after US drone strike kills 30 pine nut pickers in Afghanistan. We now know that the claims for precision are outright lies. The program is slaughtering innocents including women and children. In addition to being illegal and immoral, the US military drone program makes US citizens less safe as it foments anger and hate and the desire to strike back at the US for their slaughtering of innocents (another 911 anyone?). This is just simple common sense. Only the out-of-control heartless, evil, and immoral military industrial complex benefits.

Future historians will look back at our species and these times as being not only parasitic (killing our host), but infinitely (and fatally) distracted by our amusements. That in our cleverness, we separated ourselves so completely from nature that we were incapable of responding to the warning signs that were all around us telling us that we were literally killing the earth’s life support systems.

DIY Solar PV Array

solar PV array

It’s been awhile since I last undertook a significant construction project (years actually). Building this superstructure for a 2.9Kw solar photovoltaic array out of simple materials for my off-grid house was a personal challenge. The design is a replica of one my neighbor up the road devised. Except for a little help from my son in the beginning (digging the shelf into the hillside and placing 4 of the 6 steel pipe columns), I did the entire project myself. With this array charging a 595 amp hour battery in sunny California weather, I expect to rarely, if ever, need to use the back up generator!