Perhaps.
[1] And the fifth angel sounded, and
I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of
the bottomless pit.
[2] And he opened the bottomless
pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace;
and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
[3] And there came out of the smoke
locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the
earth have power.
[4] And it was commanded them that
they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither
any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
[5] And to them it was given that
they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and
their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
[6] And in those days shall men seek
death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee
from them.
[7] And the shapes of the locusts
were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were
crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.
[8] And they had hair as the hair of
women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
[9] And they had breastplates, as it
were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of
chariots of many horses running to battle.
[10] And they had tails like unto
scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt
men five months.
[11] And they had a king over them,
which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is
Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
[12] One woe is past; and, behold,
there come two woes more hereafter.
--Revelation of St John, ch. 9, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=5379618
Is this
being fulfilled in the advent of drone swarms?
Over the course
of the past decade, Turkey has taken advantage of arms embargoes imposed by
America and others which restricted Ankara’s access to the kind of front-line
drones used by the US around the world, to instead build from scratch an indigenous
drone-manufacturing base. While Turkey has developed several drones in various
configurations, two have stood out in particular – the Anka-S and Bayraktar.
While the popular
term for the kind of drone-centric combat carried out by Turkey is “drone swarm,” the reality is that modern drone warfare, when conducted
on a large scale, is a deliberate, highly coordinated process which integrates
electronic warfare, reconnaissance and surveillance, and weapons delivery.
Turkey’s drone war over Syria was managed from the Turkish Second Army Command
Tactical Command Center, located some 400km away from the fighting
in the city of Malatya in Turkey’s Hatay Province.
. .
.
The major systems used by Turkey in this role are the KORAL
jamming system and a specially configured Anka-S drone operating as an airborne
intelligence collection platform. The Anka-S also operated as an airborne
command and control system, relaying targeting intelligence to orbiting
Bayraktar UAVs, which would then acquire the target visually before firing
highly precise onboard air-to-surface rockets, destroying the target. When
conducted in isolation, an integrated drone strike such as those carried out by
Turkey can be deadly effective; when conducted simultaneously with four or more
systems in action, each of which is capable of targeting multiple locations,
the results are devastating and, from the perspective of those on the receiving
end, might be likened to a deadly “swarm.”
--Scott Ritter, https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/11/no_author/like-horse-mounted-cavalry-against-tanks/
***
And because iniquity shall abound, the love
of many shall wax cold.
--St Matthew’s Gospel, ch. 24, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=4380943
Is this
being fulfilled in the ‘untact’ society that the COVID illness is being used to
usher in?
Like many people around the world, Lee
Ye-rin has spent most of the last few months alone at home. Due to the
coronavirus pandemic, the 32-year-old office worker now works remotely from her
apartment in Seoul; she avoids going to the gym by training at home and streams
films on her TV rather than going to the cinema. She reads e-books instead of
going to the library, which has been closed during the pandemic anyway. “I have
rarely eaten out since the outbreak,” Lee says. “Instead, I order a variety of
takeaway meals and even ice-cream for dessert on a delivery app. When I am fed
up with that, I order ingredients from the grocery store and cook at home.”
This isolated way of life has become the
‘new normal’ for many since lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders were
introduced. But for South Koreans, it’s been on its way since even before
Covid-19 hit. In fact, there’s even a word for it.
‘Untact’ – a combination of the prefix ‘un’
and the word ‘contact’ – has been floating around in marketing circles since 2017. It describes doing
things without direct contact with others, such as using self-service kiosks,
shopping online or making contactless payments. Some believe this is a natural
progression in a modern society like South Korea, which combines robotic
baristas, virtual make-up studios and digital financial transactions with an
ageing population and a shrinking labour force.
. .
.
--Julie Y. Lee, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200803-south-korea-contact-free-untact-society-after-coronavirus
--
Holy Ælfred
the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to
the Union!
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