Well, that was an unproductive day, blog-wise. On this site anyway. Then again, good things have happened elsewhere, including my mother getting a brand new front door that will leak much less heat in the winter.

However, you good folks do expect some blogging, so here’s a quick one. Over at Crooked Timber it appears that political analysts have finally discovered that civilian contractors in the US and UK are being used to pilot drone aircraft in Afghanistan remotely from their offices, and kill suspected enemy fighters. It is an ugly business. Chris Bertram notes:

if the Taliban contrived a way to blow up one of these operators on their daily commute in Nevada or Surrey, would it be a terrorist murder of a non-combatant or a legitimate act of war?

There may well be a lot said on this topic, but actually I think that Amanda Palmer has said most of it already. Lyrics here.