TAKE OFF THE GLOVES

Once again this week, the world awakens to another series of atrocities.  Suicide bombers doing their thing against mostly innocent civilians, the last time it was women who blew themselves up.  Not that it should make much difference, there are plenty of women in the worlds military.

I remember I became aware of this type of warfare – the killing of innocent people — during the 1972 Munich Olympics when the group known as Black September, aligned with Yasar Arafat,  took hostages: eleven members of the Israeli athletic contingent.  All the Israelis were killed and most of the Palestinians as it turned out.  It was a very messy affair from beginning to end.

Strapping explosives to ones body and detonating them or driving a vehicle packed with the equivalent of XX tons of TNT burst into vogue when the first really big attack came — 240 American Marines and 60 French military blown up in their barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.

The world was shaken again on December 21, 1988 when a 747 jetliner blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland killing hundreds in the air and on the ground.  No … not a suicide bombing but it drew attention to the vulnerability to terrorism aboard aircraft while in flight.

Terrorism, as a form of battle was off and running: the Cult gassings in the Tokyo Subway; grievous terrorism in Sri Lanka; indiscriminate killing of civilians in Israel and more throughout the world.

On November 17, 1998, one year after the Luxor Hotel terrorist attack in Egypt, the Japanese Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs presented a release which contained the phrase: “Unfortunately, acts of terrorism that make sport of the precious lives of innocent people have been occurring in every part of the world despite the efforts of many countries to prevent them.”  

That was in 1998. 

Ten years have elapsed in which we have seen the destruction of the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya; the attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemini; two attacks on the World Trade Center; the second killing 3,000 on September 11^th 2001 when people from dozens of nations lost their lives along with US personnel in the Pentagon and on a field in Pennsylvania. 

In 2002 countless innocent people lost their lives, mainly in Israel and Colombia; there were attacks in Russia and at a night club on Bali in Indonesia filled with mostly Australian tourists.  All were attributable to terrorism as was the Turkish truck bombing in 2003; the Madrid train bombing in 2004. 

Then came the London subway and bus bombings, designated 7/7 in 2005.  Terror gripped another huge metropolis.  Hardly a week goes by without another attack.  The story is the same.  Except now it has become more fashionable, has been for some time, to take one’s own life along with the victims in this cowardly, hideous form of warfare.  Few countries where conflict flourishes have escaped. 

–

Is there a way out?  How can the world put an end to such repulsive conflict?  The answer is that it cannot — not by using the terms of the Geneva Convention or the accepted rules of warfare.

I have a friend in a nearby country and we discuss ways and means to crush terrorism and just about the only way to do so is by a creating a force — a “Group” so contemptable as to make a common individual cringe and blame those involved  for joining the terrorism game;  of becoming terrorists themselves.  Of forsaking God and making a bargain with the devil – or a lot of similar accusations dismissed out of hand — in the time it takes to sweep spilled salt off the table. 

Also be aware that we, my friend and I, are not advocating this but we acknowledge it as a likely way of ridding the world of its most heinous of practices.  We are not advocating it — because to do so would be against the law.   So having said that, read on.

The first thing to do would be to form a group of clandestine warriors who are aligned to no country, no agency, no-one but a cause – that being the routing of terrorism from the face of the Earth.  This would not be a group of people you would want to have over for dinner, a couple of glasses of wine and some general conversation.

You have seen them in the guise of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan or Steven Seagal.  But the group I am speaking of would be real. Men and women who want to end terrorism.  Unscrupulous, intelligent, strong, dedicated and without much feeling for their fellow man.  Like I said: unscrupulous.  Such people do exist.

There is such a group but it is aligned to a country and follows a code.  It’s called Delta Force and when put to the test — these people can make pussycats of battle-worn military; highly trained fighting personnel to put it in simple language.  The group we envision is un-aligned and what they do is not “nice”.  Let’s set up a scenario….

…. a group of 6 terrorists arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport equiped with a chemical substance capable of causing a horrific explosion — never mind how they do it – they have figured out a way.  The explosion kills many hundreds and maims and injures thousands more.  The chemical has a way of disguising itself in human blood and is virtually untraceable.

British authorities have had a lead on these guys; dossiers have been created and something is expected but the time and the method of the terrorist act is, as is often the situation, unknown, and in this case, it works.

Sitting in a city somewhere in the world are “The Group” I spoke of earlier.  They are financed by individuals who feel as they do.  They slaughter every single member of every single family of every terrorist that could have been linked to the group who blew up Heathrow:  men women and children, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers and sisters right down to the second generation.  Over 100 people die.  Many are innocent, many are not.

An explosion rips apart a theatre in Miami, Florida.  Within six months the families of the perpetrators are earmarked and every last one of them is killed.  Two escape by taking their own lives.

Six innocent people are blown to bits on a street in Bogota by a bomber with explosives strapped to his body and riding a bicycle.   Within a month 43 members of the man’s family are killed.

A child of a brother of a terrorist is killed while walking home from school.  The wife of a terrorist is killed within hours of her identity being discovered.  An enfeebled old man in a wheelchair whose son is a helpful friend of a terrorist dies with a bullet hole to the back of his head as his nurse takes him for an outing in Sapporo, Japan. 

At the end of a year over 6,000 family members and those aligned with terrorist movements who have carried out bombings are murdered in their sleep, at their place of work, as they go to the store for a bottle of milk, or as they prepare to catch a bus. 

This happens anywhere and everywhere.  There is no mercy.  There are no fancy gimmicks.  The killing is quick and as painless as possible but it is stamped with finality.  Everyone.  No excuses. Some of “The Group” are unlucky and die but always by their own hand.  Each carries the means to end his life in a second.  And each is replaced by a trained killer upon his demise. 

Where does “The Group” live?  Nobody has a clue; nobody knows who they are and those who want to are thwarted because great caution has been exercised.

–

If it takes 100,000 people associated with terrorists to die then so be it.  Long before the dead-count reaches that figure, no terrorist will be safe.  He or she won’t have to worry about “The Group” – he will have to worry about just who are and who are not his friends.

And in case you are disgusted with this scenario, please keep in mind that many, many more than 100,000 innocent people have died at the hands of these terrorist cowards.  That’s the secret, you see.  They are cowards and cowards………. 

 

A RED MARBLE IN THE GLASS

I heard a television commentator remark this morning that Barack Obama is getting a lot more media attention than John McCain.  Buckin’ for a Pulitzer are you, my friend?

It’s not the first time I’ve heard the same remark.

Look, if you place a red marble in a jar of clear marbles, the eye is going to gravitate towards the red one and the question will arise: I wonder why the red marble’s there in the first place.  Answer: It doesn’t matter.  It’s there and that’s where the focus of attention is directed.  To be brief – it sticks out.  

I doubt whether any other United States Election campaign has been so overloaded with Political Correctness in history as this year’s vote.   Political Correctness (PC) wasn’t even invented, or at least named as such before 1970 or so.  It existed but it didn’t have a name and so it was not front and center as it is today. 

Items with names always draw more attention.  Example: That machine works 24 hours a day seven days a week has become 24/7 and has now reached the stage as to whether or not the term will pass muster – will it remain in the English vernacular permanently? or will it fade, such as other metaphorical exclamations such as “not” and “hang on kitty” — expressed only to emphasize the point that the user is “hip”.  

Let’s throw PC out the window for a few minutes.  Media, mass media I speak of: newspapers, television, periodicals, radio – all are bound by certain “laws” to maintain PC-ness.  However people writing blogs can say anything they want and I’m saying that Barack Obama sticks out because he’s black.  He’s the red marble.

–

Now let me hasten to say that his colour is not the only reason he stands out, but it is the most noticeable.  Stand him next to John McCain and what do you see? — a youngish, reasonably attractive, athletically slim guy wearing the face of authority (the set lips).  Next to him is a balding, aged, pleasant rather than attractive looking individual wearing the face of hope.  And then, of course, the red marble example:  Senator Obama is dark skinned, Senator McCain is Caucasian.

The fact that Barack Obama will likely become the next president of the United States is not because he is black but it is the reason why he gets more attention than John McCain.  He doesn’t fit the mold.  Plus Obama is a more dynamic speaker, he is more positive in relation to his policies; he appears, and this is the most important point, more confident.  Colour aside, Obama is Kennedyesque, McCain is Hubert Humphrey.

Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe caused a stir which made McCain’s trips to the same part of the world seem like the latter was taking a stroll to the nearest Burger King.  Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are the Brangolina of politics.  McCain and Cindy bring to mind Gary Cooper and Veronica Balf.  The former are red carpet material, the latter look like they belong on the path to the outdoor patio.

Which brings up another interesting point….

–

…..Is this really the time for politics?  The Republicans would like you to think so but they have a great weight around their collective necks in the personage of George W. Bush, who, while probably not as bad as he is made out to be, ranks among the worst, and certainly the most disliked of all his forbears.

However looking back to the last Democrat we find Bill Clinton — less a shining star today — but in the 1990’s he stood as a charismatic leader whose followers were more than willing to overlook his oval-office hi-jinks and rate him in the top 70 percentile of popularity and job well done. 

That is why this article has little to do with politics and a lot to do with popularity.  In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt told Americans they had “little to fear except fear itself”.  A non-political statement if there ever was one.

In 2008, Barack Obama is asking Americans to believe — referring to a time for change.  And he is speaking not just of politics but of the whole shootin’ match – the way the country is run.  And without being over specific he echoes FDR by using an idiom that has caught on: “Yes We Can”.

Politics alone cannot rid the USA of its bank failures, housing crisis and fuel costs but the man at the reigns of the winning political team can direct a resurgence much as did FDR with his “New Deal” to steer clear from the specter of the black abyss that faced Americans and much of the rest of the world 76 years ago.  It matters little that Roosevelt was a Democrat or a Republican; he was the right man at the right time.  In all that he is saying and doing, Obama seems to be the right man three-quarters of a century later.

People are willing to give the Senator from Illinois a chance because he IS different.  He’ll have many enemies because of the colour of his skin but he will offset them with friends because he is certain to do whatever it takes to bring the USA out of its malaise.  This is not to say that John McCain would not, but John McCain lacks the image and too many people align him, and his policies, with his predecessor. 

Image allows a person to take on challenges simply because he is incumbent to live up to that image.

–

Lastly we have a winner versus a not-so-winner-winner.  Obama was a successful community organizer; head of the Harvard law Review and an eight year senator representing a major state.  John McCain has had his military and state political triumphs but one sees him defeated by Bush in 2000; written off a year ago as a presidential cipher, yet somehow rose triumphant from the fall.  

As they enter the final months of campaigning, there is no question as to which man has the more persuasive image.

So this brings us back around to the media.  Yes they are giving Obama the ink and the footage far more than his rival.  The media has a way of smelling out success, as well as disaster, but this time it has the ‘whiff of win’ and it’s following what it feels will be the triumphant candidate.

Having said all that let me remind you of the year 1948.  Two names: Dewey and Truman.  But all the media personnel who covered that campaign are either dead or long retired – some longer retired than others.

HOW DID THEY GET HERE?

Larry King had a program on UFO’s earlier.  He had several guests who felt that much could be accomplished if they all talked at once.  The worst offender — the guy who was always butting in — was the skeptic.  Most of the other gentlemen were supposedly experts with degrees and ex-pilot references.  It got kinda heated.

There were a lot of clips shown.  Most looked like either white cigars flitting around or saucer shaped objects.

There is, apparently, buried somewhere in military vaults, evidence that Flying saucers (let’s call them UFO’s) – were important enough to be investigated.  The clips shown were nothing new.  We’ve all seen identical film strips or still photos but they are usually so fuzzy and devoid of detail that no real sense can be made of any of them. 

Most of the material shown on the Larry King show was vintage.  1950’s and late 1940’s — back in the days of film.  It seems there has been very little video tape shown of these UFO’s.  Maybe that’s because there are thousands of people who own video cameras these days and therefore proving a UFO’s existence would be far easier if everyone with a digital camera could shoot them for posterity.  Maybe that made their pilots wary of being seen so often.

Most of the sightings have been down in New Mexico and Arizona and today’s tourists in that part of the USA would be expected to carry video cameras, in hopes they may spot one of these objects and get some photographic evidence.

–

Make no bones about it, the pro-UFO types who appeared on the Larry King show were stern faced implacable men leaving no doubt that Unidentified Flying Objects were real and furthermore came from outer space.  They also made it plain that other countries, especially Russia which was then part of the Soviet Union, had had similar instances  

Much of the activity seems to centre on Roswell, New Mexico a few miles West of the Pecos River and not far from the Mexican border – the lower south-east part of the State.  It is Roswell where people were said to have been taken for rides in the UFO’s and returned home safely although what happened while they were away is none too clear.    

There was an extensive amount of research done by the US military, primarily the Air Force and eventually the case was closed because they reached the conclusion that UFO’s were not real, only a figment of the imagination.  That has not stopped private citizens from believing in the things and some reports say more than 1,000 people bear witness to their authenticity.

Explanations abound; everything from Russian spy ships to weather balloons … but all the tales are riddled with holes.  The strongest evidence against UFO’s is the lack of distinct photography.  Be that as it may, millions of dollars has been circulated about them both fictional and “factual” — from Hollywood to bestselling novels.  UFO’s spill into that category where dwells religion and politics: if someone’s mind is made up – closed to all non believers — no-one is going to change it. “They’re there, by gum, ain’t nobody gonna tell me what I seen with these here eyes.”  Period.

Certainly nothing could have been gained from watching the Larry King show I mentioned.  I can’t recall if anyone got out more than half a sentence without being interrupted.

–

The problem lies in the immense distance of space one would have to travel to get here.  And this would mean that such space travelers would possess knowledge of a technology far ahead of what we know.  A beam of light, a photon — can travel at 300,000 kilometers per second and to our knowledge that’s the limit.  An object any larger than a minute photon would not be able to reach that speed – the larger an object becomes the slower it travels.  Scientists have said, if mankind could reach even one-tenth the speed of light we would be able to reach nearby stars, possibly within a person’s lifetime.

Time does travel at many different speeds. The example of 300K is in relatively empty space.  I say relatively because space is not as empty as it seems.  A rule of thumb states that, on average, in each square centimeter of outer space, there can be found one atom of hydrogen … but that has little to do with what we are talking about here.  

So the pilots of these UFO’s would use an advanced technology.  They would have to travel faster than the speed of light.  An example: even at 300K per second it would take a long time to reach Alpha Proxima, the nearest star to planet Earth which is a about three light years away.  (A light year is the distance a photon of light travels in one year at 300, 000 klicks per second) and as I have said, that speed is limited to a photon. Big bulky objects like spaceships would not travel at anywhere near that speed.

So if UFO’s are real, those aboard them, supposing they are populated with extraterrestrials, would have learned how to fold space like you would fold a piece of paper.  If you draw a dot at each end of a piece of 8×10 paper – call them dot A and dot B — then fold the paper so the dots are together this would allow a traveler a lot less time to get from A to B.  Folding space is not within the realm of our ability.  However, strangely enough, physics allows for such a phenomenon as folding space. We just don’t know how — living as we do within a four dimensional world – three spatial dimensions and one time. 

Physics postulates that there are many more dimensions of which we are unaware.  Which stands to reason that we don’t have the ability to utilize them.  Put another way those dimensions, at present involve forces beyond our comprehension.  We deal with, only four forces:  Gravity, electromagnetic energy and two more called the strong force and the weak force.  We can watch an apple drop to the ground — that’s gravity; we can turn on a light bulb — that’s electromagnetic energy but these other two forces at work are invisible — the “strong force”, which binds together the nuclei of  atoms and ”the weak force” which causes decay in certain atoms, are not out there waving flags.

It is somewhere in this strong force where extra dimensions lurk and if we were able to utilize them we may indeed fold space and hop over to another solar system, another galaxy, or even a parallel universe.  Keep in mind that we, as ordinary individuals, do not understand much of what we use every day — the computer, cell-phones, space-flight — but they are a big part of our world.  It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to accept the fact that scientists could come up with a way to accomplish that which is utterly unbelievable today. Example: Julius Caesar and television.  More on this subject another day.