A Smooth Ball of Melted Glass

There is a point beyond which my patience wears thin. Ever since the early days of hijacking airplanes to Cuba there has been terrorism in America. Worldwide is even worse, with so many nations held hostage by various terrorists over the years that I could never do the topic justice. But this is not to narrate the history of terrorism. This is to describe my anger at the problem.

All my life I've lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation, weapons grade anthrax, super volcanoes, ice ages, global warming -- or something. The US and USSR could have reduced the world to a large pool of glowing melted glass devoid of land based life beyond ants, scorpions and microbes. A meteor strike might do something like that someday -- naturally.

But I think the first "terrorists" to really get my attention was "Sirhan Sirhan" who murdered Bobby Kennedy, and the murderers of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich back in the 70s. What made it seem terrible was that when I read various "opinion" articles about such events, there was a sense that "Oh, well -- they're just Jews. Oh,well - he was just a Democrat."

Obviously, there are hate mongers out there that share a love of terrorism -- so long as the target is one of their hatred symbols. Of course the Arabs (or Palestinians if so called) continued on, hi-jacking planes, killing innocent bystanders or even purposely killing as many civilians as possible in their mindless quest for "justice".

Having been born completely ignorant, as everyone is, I did not grow up predetermined to hate this or that group of people or symbols or religions or whatever. However, there was a great deal of brainwashing that I'd gone through via my schooling -- the Red Scare, the White Racists, the Malcolm X phenomena, etc.

Being American, I did not share the Arab hatred of the Jews, nor was it actually promoted in the schooling -- only hints of it made it to my ears. My first actual thoughts about Jews stemmed from my first having read about Auschwitz and the Death Camps in Nazi Germany. I was aghast at such brutality and prejudice.

When terrorism is mentioned, it must also include the utter terror of the Stalinists, the Maoists, the Nazis, the Police States, the KKK, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Mafia -- and so forth. It is not merely the current group of "iNuts" -- Islamic nut cases -- that have promoted terrorism, nor will that group be the last to employ their methods.

Death by suicide bombs, airplane crashes, beheadings, toxins and whatever else can be made lethal or gruesome and kill as many people as possible -- this is their tactic. It creates fear, which makes people do irrational things, making it easier yet to create more fear and more irrationality. It feeds on itself like a fire burning through steel tanks of gasoline, each explosion destroying more and more tanks of gasoline -- until it has burned out completely. It only takes one little grenade to set off a very large firestorm.

What will burn out terrorism? Do the iNuts truly believe that they can murder their way into some kind of Islamic Kingdom on Earth? If this is what they think, and it may very well be, then the world is in for yet another holocaust. No one, no country, is going to sit around patiently awaiting their death by squads of suicide bombers. Every country that has any means of fighting them will do so. And the means of fighting them will escalate as the tactics of terrorism escalate.

The Nazis rounded up all the Jews in Germany and from whatever countries they invaded, and used them as scapegoats, as slave labor, and even just as meager suppliers of stolen wealth. But this was only possible when a passive, peaceful people could be cynically deceived by the Nazis, following various Judas goats to their slaughters. The Nazis were a centralized enemy, however. If you could kill the head you could kill the Nazis completely. But even with the target firmly stuck to the map of the world -- it took massive firepower and millions of deaths to kill that Nazi head, which would actually commit suicide rather than face its victims in defeat.

The Islamist Nut Case Parties -- the iNuts -- are not stuck to a world map. You cannot just bomb some city into submission or sink all their submarines or whatever. They are hidden amongst us, in caves, behind women and children, walking amongst gasoline trucks or water supplies. You cannot kill the head to kill all the iNuts. They are like an army of ants with many queens. You must kill all the queens and kill all the ants.

How does one go about not only killing, but exterminating ants (or termites, or wasps?) If you can locate an entrance to their nest you can, with some difficulty, bait the area with slow acting toxins that they are not equipped to detect. They will carry the stuff deep into their nests, feed the eggs, feed the queen and eventually feed the toxin to all of their millions and become either dead or highly reduced in numbers.

Naturally, whenever a queen can survive such toxins, there are probabilities that more ants can evolve which are not effected by that toxin. But if there is a large enough number of such effective toxins to choose from, it may work to exterminate the entire area's ants. It is much like using antibiotics -- all or nothing. Anything less will only result in evolution.

Ants may be pests in our homes or farms, but they are actually the Earth's garbage collectors, so it isn't really so good to kill them all. Control them, perhaps, but not truly exterminate them. That would obviously backfire on us.

But what would happen if we (or a majority of nations) decided to exterminate the terrorist iNuts? Would we just kill a few hundred al Qaeda here and there? That doesn't seem to have worked before. Would we need to include the Taliban by the thousands? That didn't work, either. Or would this deadly, ghoulish operation have to actually kill their entire breeding stock indiscriminately? I would hope not, but as can be seen in the current wars with Iraq, (less overtly Iran) and other Islamic hotbeds of terrorists -- you cannot leave a single one in place or another hive of al Qaeda (or al Kabob or some other iNut group) pops up -- just as determined as ever.

We will have to drastically increase operational anti-terrorism success or we will have to scrap international air travel. I have traveled the world on Navy ships and I can attest to how slow and unbearable that would be compared to a relatively quick airplane ride. Yet, although slow, it would be much harder to detonate a suicide vest or "underpants bomb" that would blow a hole through several inches of steel on the side of a ship. Plus, passengers can be screened in a more staged process, requiring groups to be separated into less deadly sizes -- if some bomb goes off in one area it will not necessarily effect another.

With large, slow, travel ships the passengers can be sorted accordingly with detection machines built-in to the ships. The length of travel can be made up for in comfort, so that not all is lost. Sometimes a walk through the park is more pleasant than a tumultuous ride of Mr. Toad at 600 mph. For higher speed travel, passengers can agree to more invasive screening, or obtain licenses that require more expense and insurance. A corporation can hire its own jets. A travel club could charter its own jets. The question is about certainty and trust. It is not necessary to completely eliminate ALL air travel to be safe.

Yet, all these defensive techniques will only provoke them on to use ever larger weapons against us. If suicide vests don't work, then crashing fuel tankers or using nuclear devices will work. They can plant automatic bombs by hanging them underwater along the lines used for travel ships, just like the old days of mining the sea lanes. When a ship goes over it could trigger a nuclear explosion that destroys everything within several kilometers and poisons the water and air as well. Although I doubt in the early days they would waste nuclear devices in this manner, there are so many scenarios it would be difficult to predict just what they might try.

The same kind of mining can be done with balloons which hide in the clouds and can be triggered by directional radar reflections off passing planes and then detonate their nuclear or radiation spewing bombs. Even just electromagnetic pulse (EMP) devices can bring down planes and destroy electronics in cities. The technology for that is difficult, but not impossible. If they are able to obtain nuclear devices they can obtain EMP devices even more cheaply. Metal enclosed airplanes can be somewhat immune to such devices, cities filled with wooden or stucco houses cannot protect their computers and so forth whatsoever.

So there is an urgency to our attempts to counter the effects of terrorism. I cannot imagine that the tactic will ever be erased from the quivers of future warriors. And our own response to that tactic will be an even greater terrorism in itself. But is there a point to where terrorism ceases to work?

Nihilism is a kind of brinkmanship belief system, common amongst the iNuts. It just devolves to a point where "if I die we all die" kind of mutual assured destruction like was used between the US and USSR for so many decades. This is what I really meant so far as wondering if the iNuts truly believed they could "take over the world." Surely they know that their world would reduce (or be martyred) to melted glass over wide horizons should their ultimatums ever be realized.

The US is a schizophrenic society, which on the one hand wishes "can't we all just get along -- there's money to be made here", and on the other hand wishes to "utterly destroy all its enemies using particle beam weapons from space -- just to see how cool it looks." We have the technology.

The USSR does not exist anymore, but Russia, China, India, Europe (as Nato), and even Pakistan and Israel have joined the N-club. N. Korea and Iran are like angry children -- banging on the doors to get in, but having only empty threats and scorpions to fling at the world. Nevertheless, it is Iran that bothers me the most.

I do not consider any culture on Earth to be literally "stupid", and certainly not the iNuts. I do think there is a kind of blindness within their cultures, or a self-limiting reliance on mere repetition of Islamic verses, etc. Yet they will have to also use their intelligence to learn that, regardless of anything, either the US (or more likely Israel) or one of the other N-club members will not stand for some fairy story which places some iNut as the "King of the Mountain".

(This also applies to the other kingdoms and to the US, too. Each could be eliminated just as rapidly as anyone else by someone in the N-club should they become too haughty and destructive.)

But this scenario, where we use our most powerful weapons against goat herders with suicide vests, is insane. Even China has become an "ally" in the sphere of terrorism. They don't like it, we don't like it, and we share the pain and the determination to confront it. The N-club members can destroy each other, but we don't wish to. There is no money in it. There is no Jackpot to claim. Only going down in a "blaze of glory" can be won by behaving like thugs with Uzis.

How could the world come to this? How can the human race survive beyond this MAD cycle? Perhaps, technologically, some winner could emerge and the human race will continue on. But it could very well be that the winner is not one of the N-club, nor any of the iNuts, nor anyone else who pounds the Earth with wanton destruction.

Whichever humans behave the most like ants -- probably they will survive.

Terror or Terriers

Small dogs can be trained to detect things like drugs, chemicals and explosives and then to bark and yap mercilessly at the perpetrators until they give up in desperation.

Of course, this is just sarcasm, however it is probably true with the first part -- the detection of things. Already there are beagles and bloodhounds and various other dogs used for detective work, airport sniffing, etc., and dogs are also used as soldiers or police. They are much braver than humans since they don't know all the things that can hurt them so acutely as humans.

Image via Wikipedia

There are other things that dogs can do, such as mark suspects with substances that can be tracked by machines or by other dogs so that the perpetrators can be followed, hopefully to their lair. This can also be done by machines, especially when the risk to a dogs life is in the balance. A dog's life may not be worth a human's life but most people would prefer that neither humans or dogs had to be sacrificed for military or police actions.

Anyway, even if small dogs are not accurate they can still be useful. If only one in three people carrying bad chemicals in airports or other crowded locations is detected, that is all the better. So it seems that such use should be made -- there are plenty of small dogs waiting to be put to sleep. They can be put to use instead.

Indigo Out We Go.

There are so many problems nowadays. I hate to even think about them anymore. I can understand why some people are just escapists, and drink themselves into a stupor or something, just to not think about all this.

It seems obvious now, always in hindsight, that we would crash and burn. I have always written of the issues with the environment, with social ills, greed and so on. But no matter how pessimistic I was, it was Pollyannish instead. To be an optimist, I would say that at least the animals won't miss us. The planet will someday return to a quiescent state, with the normal carnivores and herbivores living their sometimes dismal lives, but with less humans to destroy the place.

No one likes to imagine that their family will be the ones who are sacrificed for the good of the planet. No one looks at their children and thinks, "they will someday starve to death," unless they are already living in a state of starvation. Around the next corner there will be a big chunk of meat to roast. Just beyond the horizon will be a crystal clear lake full of clean water. Next week there will be a scientific discovery that eliminates all disadvantages of technological progress. All the pollution will be solved somehow, and energy will be free.

Somehow, I don't think so. As I look around, in my vantage point upon a hill, I see a world that is drilling deeper and scraping the bottom. It takes more and more money to get a barrel of oil, and the average person makes less and less money. That can't last too long. So, unless there really is some magic solutions in the near future, our long term future seems pretty grim.

I don't want to look at my grandchildren and think of that. I don't want them to be slaves in some dark world like the world my grandfather had to exist in. But it is a real possibility that it could even be worse. For, even in the days of World War 1 (they didn't call it that, then) and the flu pandemic that killed off so many that it made the war seem insignificant, there was a great future ahead. Many discoveries were being made even then, in science and physics and energy production, that would someday pay off -- at least for a few decades.

But, like coyotes surrounded by rabbits and birds galore, we gorged ourselves without regard for the future. And only when the rabbits and birds became scarce, we the coyotes turned to eating lizards and bugs. And only when the lizards and bugs ran out, we the coyotes could only eat other coyotes, until there was nothing but ourselves to eat. Then all us coyotes would be dead.

Then, a few birds from far away might land in the world with no coyotes, and find themselves surrounded by seeds. And more and more birds would grow, and have even more baby birds who would have even more, until all the seeds were gone. And then all the birds would die, simply because there were no coyotes to keep the birds from eating every seed.

Of course, in nature, this is a sine wave of negative feedback, and the coyotes and birds and rabbits and seeds all keep the world in some kind of equilibrium, and the complete extermination of any one species is usually avoided. Usually, but not always.

Humans, as vastly intelligent as we are, compared to the rest of life on Earth, are about to become one of those species that either completely exterminates itself, or a very large proportion of the other species on the planet.

Conspiracy of Doom

I have often written about the environment, so as to make it seem as though I am one of those "tree hugging owl fetishists" or something along that order. Well, I certainly care about the environment, since I have many grandchildren and nieces and nephews who will need it for their lives -- even if I did not care at all for my own health and welfare.

I usually don't hug trees, unless I am climbing in one and nearly fall out or something. I care about owls as much as the next guy I guess -- anything that eats rodents is probably a good thing to have around. Rodents spread diseases pretty quickly when left uncontrolled.

But all that means nothing. I think the lumber and paper industries, the energy industries and other "heavy users" of the environment are far more concerned about those things than I am -- they often make big ha ha about the dimwitted tree huggers and joke about how people are far more important than owls. Whatever. I am not so impressed by either side. Trees will die no matter what happens from now on. Owls will die. People will die. I don't see all that much to laugh about. And all those things have always died, in more or less numbers that now. There is not much to cry about, either, except for being a bit sorry for destroying the place as bad as we have.

Yet, I feel a certain sorrow that the entire propaganda system employed by industries that destroy so much of the world and profit so much by doing so, can be so successful in destroying the efforts of those who try to protect the futures of our descendants. It isn't about owls, it is about your grandchildren.

We don't need paper as much as the paper industry needs us. There are many substitutes for paper made from trees. Any kind of fibrous material can be used for various grades of paper. Paper money is not made from trees, but from linen and other plants. There are huge amounts of hemp plants -- useless for smoking but great for making rope, paper, clothing and millions of other uses. Hemp and marijuana are variations of the same plant, similar to how corn comes in many variations -- from Indian corn to cattle feed to popcorn. But relatively few varieties of hemp are useful for getting intoxicated, whereas ALL hemp is useful for its fiber.

People can argue over the relative strengths of this or that fiber, but there is really no true need for trees when making paper. Yet, the use of trees for paper is probably not that big of an issue. The trees in question can be the most useless kinds of trees for any other purpose, and be great for making paper.

You cannot build houses from hemp. This is a use of wood that needs real trees. And the better the quality of wood, the better the houses. Yet even houses do not really need to be made from so much wood. If only furniture and the inside finishing of houses used wood, rather than the entire frame, roof and so forth, then a great deal fewer trees would be needed. Wood is very handy, easy to cut, and all that, true. But there are alternatives to wood for building the structural parts of houses. Bricks, metals, plastics, and even fibers in the form of rope or cording can be used instead.

For centuries, because of the endurance of ceramics, the favored building material was stone and brick. It did not suffer termites or wet rot. It was less prone to fire, and offered protection against arrows, spears and other projectiles. Only the lessor of the piglets, who built their houses from straw or wood, were eaten by the wolf. Yet, there is a great cost and effort to building from stone, not to mention a formidable problem with earthquakes or ground movements. Brick can be more convenient, since bricks can be manufactured from fiber and mud or cement, and more easily hefted to a lofty position for assembly in pieces than stones.

Yet, here in the 21st century, we still need to kill vast forests of trees just to build houses that will rarely survive longer than the occupants. Forests do regrow, certainly, so long as they are not merely destroyed wholesale, so for controlled populations, wood can be a perfectly adequate material for housing. But, it is doubtful that wood can supply the houses of 10 billion people in the manner of American house construction.

If we were to live on the Moon, in a place completely devoid of trees, we could probably do well simply stacking rocks and melting them into an airtight seal, or compacting the powdered surface into bricks, melted in solar ovens and then solidified in the frigid shadows. The entire Moon is one giant quarry. We wouldn't need to kill a single tree. I'm sure we would kill them if they grew on the Moon, but since they don't we wouldn't. At least there would be no tree huggers on the Moon, for those who find them disagreeable.

We could do the very same thing on Earth, even using solar lenses to melt sand into bricks, and never kill another tree. The trees can be left in place for shade, oxygen, habitat for animals, etc. And certainly a few of them could be used for making furniture and so forth. Or for hugging, just to piss off the people who can't stand that.

Pictures of the Girls

A few pictures of the girls together. They get along well with their little brother. He doesn't know what to think of them, though.

More Pictures

This first one is the newest of the bunch. Blond and blue eyed. Already joined the Marines.

Pictures

These pictures are a test for making a personal photo blog. They are some from years past when Adryana was 1 or 2 years old. I will collect some more from Haley's collection when I can get to them.