Yet Another Climate Change Warning

Today, in a variety of newspapers, web sites and on TV, the "news" that global climate change is a real and serious problem -- caused primarily by human pollution -- and there is not a lot of time left for us to turn things around. I have harped on this for many posts, and I will harp on it again.

I know that we will NOT turn things around. That is not what humans do. They procrastinate until their world comes crashing down. All civilizations have failed, eventually, due to built-in human conditions that are well known to everyone -- greed, jealousy, hatred, violence and (most of all) poor planning.

Rome decayed from within, until it was easy for barbarians to finish her off. The pharaohs reined for thousands of years, but eventually the Nile could not support the population when bad times fell, such as when volcanic explosions disrupted the normal cycles of life in that region. Before them, in the Garden of Eden (or somewhere near Babylon), what was once a cradle of civilization grew barren and wasted.

In all of the cases, humans pushed the limits of their survival until the straw that broke the camel's back was all there was left to eat. In the Americas, where once there were great Incan and Mayan pyramid builders there lay only ruins overgrown by jungles after the inhabitants had overpopulated beyond the land's bounty. In their places are the scattered remnants of native tribes -- the survivors.

Later, while the Aztecs were still able to survive in a similar, grandiose manner, the Spanish ships came and the soldiers destroyed them. The Aztec religions and traditions could not fathom the effects of an outside force that could perform the impossible -- cross the ocean. The cause was not so much greed as pride -- and belief in religion rather than one's own eyes. The Spanish were guilty, greedy and pompous, but their empire fell eventually, as well.

This story has been told thousands of times with different players -- the Greeks, the Trojans, the British, the Ottomans, the Americans. All the civilizations have cracks in their foundations. All will come tumbling down.

Now, with billions living on a planet with certain limits of growth, we are once again approaching a time when our world can come crashing down. But this time there are warnings. There is history. There is science. But, unfortunately, there is human nature. We will fail again. And this time it will not be just the Egyptians or Greeks or Americans. It will be much more similar to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

I hope I am wrong. I hope that science will prevail instead of greed and religion. For my grandchildren, I hope I am wrong.

Dog Meat

There are very few dogs that won't eat a piece of meat thrown to them. One kind, however, is a trained military attack dog. They are the canine version of a British Guard at Windsor Castle, they won't budge or show any emotion (beyond a kind of intensity like that of a wound spring). Looking toward their master for reassurance, for permission to kill, to maim, to revert to the natural instincts of a wild dog -- they await wound up and ready to explode.

A small child might confront such a dog -- "Hi puppy!" and the dog would ignore it completely. The child does not fit the profile of the enemy. Yet, with one word from their Master, "Get 'em!", or a secret code meaning the same thing, the dog would tear the child to shreds. Of course, the dog may have been trained completely in code, so that only a few trainers, or just one man, might be able to control the thing.

Military dogs are primarily German Shepherds and Doberman Pincers because of their strength, dedication and shear intimidating appearance.There is no reason that other breeds would be exempt. As long as they were tough enough for the job, they could be trained.

One also applies the same traits, in a less admiral way, to skinheads, street punks, and gangsters -however I would not expect them to be as well trained. Perhaps a better example might be a special forces soldier, with the severe haircut and ability to eat scorpions, if necessary -- perhaps a necessary evil.

Yet there are other possible military attack dogs -- the larger, meaner Poodles, short but extremely devious Bull Terriers, or even the teddy bear looking Newfoundland (a big black furred St. Bernard-like thing that is able to tear your head off in a playful way -- by accident.)

The possibility of meeting the toothed end of one such dog is fairly low for most people. Yet, in today's world of terrorists and NRA machine gun enthusiasts, their naturally violent Pit Bulls and other bone crunching hyena-like pets might be living right next door.Or it may be the guy with the pet monitor lizards and Gila monsters. The trained dog is at least trained, and hopefully is under control of the unfriendly owner,but there is little to gain by training giant lizards. It may be remotely possible (to some small extent) but don't count on it.

But I do admire the skill the trainers of wilder beasts. It is difficult enough to train intelligent beings like human children, and no one would trust a human child with knives or swords.To walk amongst animals that can just as easily kill you as swat a fly takes great courage. Those who train tigers or elephants must also risk great harm if anything goes wrong.

Some of the best trainers use no violence, such as women who seem to intuitively know the inner workings of animal minds, if indeed an animal can be said to have a mind -- perhaps they have no human-like mind, but they certainly have some symbolic abstractions that comprise the world they operate within. To a cat there is a "generic bird". They do not care so much whether a bird is green or white or whatever other notable trait. So a cat operates on a symbolic abstraction that a human would label as a "bird".

One of the difficulties with training animals, however, lies in the fact that other people know how to train animals, and how to breach the training by another person. This breaches overall security where the animal is used, of course. For this reason, many animals are trained by a single person, so that no other soldier, friend or foe, can control that dangerous animal. Hopefully only the enemy is challenged by such an animal, and not some innocent noncombatant. The soldier dog "defaults" to assessing any victim as "enemy" in the event the trainer is lost, much the same way that a trained soldier behaves with the lack of a commanding officer.

It is in this light that we have released "the dogs of war" upon the world. The world can only hope the training of those dogs has been thorough, and that the dogs do not go wild, ripping to shreds every imagined enemy that they happen upon. But once trained for war, the same dogs will not make good babysitters.

Game Not A Game

Land Baron Von Daffodil

I already expanded my little 256 sq meters to 400 sq meters. This was to buy out the huge "4 sale" signs on little 16 sq meter "sign" lots, where only signs ever get posted, 9 of them. The total cost for all 400 sq meters is about $35 in Real money, about L$7000 in SL money This allowed me to build a giant sculpture that occludes most of the remaining huge "4 sale" signs, but peace can mostly return once again to Daffodiliac, Adscita, in the Cyber Citystate of Second Life.