{"id":158,"date":"2026-09-15T14:45:51","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T14:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=158"},"modified":"2026-09-15T14:45:51","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T14:45:51","slug":"just-shoot-the-drone-and-stop-knitting-about-orbit-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/?p=158","title":{"rendered":"JUST SHOOT THE DRONE AND STOP KNITTING ABOUT ORBIT | Anyway \u2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Theo,<\/p>\n<p>Before Deb reply-alls that I am \u201cturning the family blog into a NORAD cosplay,\u201d let me say what half the group chat already typed with their thumbs while you were measuring freedom in kilometers again.<\/p>\n<p>NATO shot down a drone over Lithuania. A Russian ship threw flares at a Danish helicopter like it was Fourth of July with worse manners. And now the Air Force says we finally put a weapon in orbit \u2014 on purpose \u2014 and called it readiness. You wrote two essays before the coffee finished brewing. I mowed Mom\u2019s side yard and thought: good.<\/p>\n<p>Just saying what everyone\u2019s thinking:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If a drone crosses the line, you shoot the drone. You do not workshop a soft-power metaphor about Article 5 and cardigan exile.<\/li>\n<li>If the other guys are building kill-switches for satellites, you do not wait for a knitting circle to invent the word \u201ccommons.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Golden Dome sounds better than \u201chope and a press release.\u201d Tin foil on a lawn gnome is a joke. Actual coverage is not.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You called me Magaverse lawn trash last Friday and then Deb declared the table a demilitarized zone like she was issuing UN blue helmets with meatloaf. Fine. DMZ stands. Bourbon stays confiscated. But the eastern flank is not Mom\u2019s dining room, Theo. The eastern flank does not care about your You Know Who Post origin story.<\/p>\n<p>I am not anti-Europe. I am anti-essay-as-air-defense. Poland scrambles jets. Italy flies the mission over Kaunas. Denmark summons an ambassador. Meanwhile you measure freedom in orbits that still have room for wonder. Wonder is great. Wonder does not stop a flare at close range.<\/p>\n<p>Deb will say we are not doing \u201cdome math\u201d at dinner. Correct. Do it after dinner. On the blog. With comments off on my post because Mom\u2019s rule is still Mom\u2019s rule and I am not here to collect your peanut-gallery aliases.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway \u2014 Buck \u201cLindy\u201d Lindstrom, contributing brother \/ currently team dome, still banned from the bar cart, still showing up Saturday with the mower<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><strong>Editor\u2019s note (Theo):<\/strong> Mom\u2019s rule stands \u2014 note goes under, never above. Buck is correct that interceptors beat metaphors when a drone is already in the air. He is incorrect that wonder is optional, that \u201cGolden Dome\u201d is a finished product, or that soft power is a knitting hobby. Soft power is the alliance that had an Italian jet on station. Soft power is also not confusing a conference sound bite with a strategy. Fill the water glass. Fill the ballot. Mow if you must. \u2014 T.A.L.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theo, Before Deb reply-alls that I am \u201cturning the family blog into a NORAD cosplay,\u201d let me say what half the group chat already typed with their thumbs while you were measuring freedom in kilometers again. NATO shot down a drone over Lithuania. A Russian ship threw flares at a Danish helicopter like it was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-perspectives-family"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/buck-golden-dome-lawn-0915.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}