h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There will not be any big war anymore. Nobody wants to be killed. China knows that if it begins a war it will be destroyed and it does not want that. I am speaking of a war with the use of nuclear weapon. North Corea is like a very small coq. If it tried to use an atomic bomb its bomb would be destroyed in the air before arriving at any place. After that with conventional arms North Corea would be destroyed. From now on it is better to speak about peace.

I wish I could be so optimistic. A launch of nuclear warheads or WMD's in anger is dependent on two crucial ingredients - the capability of using them, and the mad desire to use them. Given that there are plenty of examples of mad dictators currently in existence - Mugabe, el-Bashir, Kim Jong Il, etc; and given that whether we like it or not, nuclear proliferation is happening and probably cannot be stopped, it is only a matter of time before the two vital ingredients come together. Even world-wide democracy is not necessarily sufficient to prevent this - no prizes for remembering who was democratically elected the head of Germany in 1933...

I really hope I am wrong on this, by the way.

" North Corea is like a very small coq. If it tried to use an atomic bomb its bomb would be destroyed in the air before arriving at any place."

You have a wildly over-optimistic view of how efficient anti-missile systems are. To date, unfortunately, they just don't work, simple as that. And in any case, even if there were a workable missile defence, the country it would be defending would be the USA. North Korea has no realistic prospect of lobbing a missile that far. But they COULD hit the completely undefended Japan - they've ALREADY fired a missile, which was not intercepted, which overflew Japan and landed in the sea beyond. All they need to do is attach a warhead to one of those, and world's second largest economy would be toast.

Let's not even get into what the military consequences might be - can anyone here imagine the dire economic consequences of one of the great centres of world finance and industry suddenly being destroyed? Not pretty...

H.

<>

Whales breathing a sigh of relief and possibly The Nolans being over there at the same time?

I do find it quite humorous when people start talking about making weapons more humane and less dangerous. Maybe a bit of AI in them so they scream towards a target at 1000m/sec stopping in a fraction of a second just in front of it target and shouting "enemy combatant or innocent civilian?" before ploughing onwards.

I can see the point of *trying* to ban landmines as they hang around for years. The problem there is that they are damn effective. Dum-dum bullets well I always thought they were an excellent weapon of war and did there job very well. But politicians have now decided you can't fire those bullets at people...but you can still fire *those* bullets at people. Why not go the whole hog and ban all bullets apart from piant ball and spud guns.

On a similar note there is a passivist group in the UK who are trying to get the Tax Return form to include a page to allow you to say that you do not want your tax spent on the military. Bravo I say. But how will they know whether their tax money has been spent on the military or not has it got their names on the notes? The point they were tryig to get to was to say if everyone said no to military expenditure the government cold not support a military and it would fold and they would have to follow a peaceful route to settling arguments etc. Hmmm, this is whre I do not agree as it will mean the enemy also not having an army and thus having to negotiate...I have a feeling they WILL have an army and at this point the pacifist in me runs behind the big gun and starts firing...ack ack ack.

>>"Dum-dum bullets well I always thought they were an excellent weapon of war and did there job very well. But politicians have now decided you can't fire those bullets at people...but you can still fire *those* bullets at people."

Politicians have decided you can't use those weapons in *warfare*, but I understand the police *can* use soft-nosed bullets, partly to reduce the risk to bystanders, but presumably also to improve the stopping power of their weapons when dealing with people at close range.
The police want to be able to reliably kill targets and not nearby non-targets, the miltary wants to cause casualties.
Both get what they want. I'm not sure where the 'humantity' really comes in to displace practicalities.

Also in a 'situation' a police officer can shoot you autonomously of their superior, but a soldier can't here in the UK, great huh?

So don't carry about paint ball or spud gun that looks like a real gun, pointing it at people.



Land mines, I surgested a GPS locator. Re-reading, I neclected to say, the mine would have to be capable of sending a 'telling' radio signal to a sweeping aircraft. Though thinking about it, battery life is a problem. Same for the persons idea of time related self-destucting; they might decide to 'go safe' just as the wrong moment. So failing that, something in the mines that responds well to a close inductive system, sending a don't blow-up rolling keycode. Mine unit cost going up, no bad thing. Plus a contolled physical external means or detonation is safer from any hacking your radio broadcast codes, to set them of from afar.

Never thought about making miness better before, only how 'devloping nations' still find funds for them, before real infrastructure.

Anyway, if they are 'cheap' a high failure rate of saftey features would be seen as a plus to those that deploy mines. - Aim to look good on the international arena, yet not rell fussy about the 'scorched earth' of a previous enemy. I could mean *el'banana republic*, or *any UN member* with that one.

It was Pedro7 (post: 318) that asked about a shelf-life for mines.


Here are some 'pub' resonses about on how to make a mine better...

Drinker #1: "Solar power."
* They are mostly buried. *

Drinker #2: "Kinetic, like them watches."
* Power them by shaking the thing with high explosive in? *

Drinker #1: "Yeah, but they have new kinetic ones that sleep until you move them."
* And? *

"Passivist"? Surely, you mean pacifist, or is that just a silly dig?

<>

The important thing is to make the point, not necessarily to achieve very much, as no government would ever allow any such tax revolt. There was a group in the USA back in the 1980s, which simply worked out the proportion of tax that went on 'defence' () and deducted it from their tax bill (which would not work with a PAYE system such as we have here.)All they achieved was to be arrested and charged, but they made a point, it was an a very effective form of protest as far as publicity went.

<>

I meant pacifist - I spelt it right further on! Explain the silly dig comment please - can;t see that anywhere.

The group in the UK does not want to reduce their tax payments or break the law they just do not want their tax spent on the military. We have law-abiding pacifists over here.

Yeah but no but...

As taxpayers are generally employed, how much would they elect to give to the DSS if they had a choice? (The DSS used to be the only government department to spend more than the MoD in the UK). A large proportion of the population would starve to death.

Methinks many people would also refuse to fund the military in times of peace, and then change their tune when some tangible conflict flares up. We'd have to persuade the enemy to wait for 15 years or so while we built some more ships and planes etc, but it'd save money in the long run .

Re: post 328 and 329.

*Who am I* U179697 the text in post 328 by *Vicky Adelaide* U179697

>>>
Passivist"? Surely, you mean pacifist, or is that just a silly dig?
<<<

*Who*, your post 329 can be aswered with she was asking if it was thought what she had just put was "a silly dig" not the origonal misspelling. *Vicky*, yes it was. We could always do some more *testing*.

I can only say read A1146917 by *Acid Override* U222477

DaveBlackeye: What would you recon to National Service?

* Two years of your life, a comprehensive education, to make-up for comprehnsive education. * - Thinking of an episode of *Yes (/Prime) Minister* here.

Don't think that's a good idea in general. Far better leave it to those who actually chose to do it. That's a pretty simplistic attitude though; would probably have lost us the WWII. Why d'you ask?

I asked for a few reasons, one of them being curious to what people would spend money on, by way of disciplined thinking; with a view to caring more for the big sperical like thing we're stood on.

<>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1405811,00.html

<>

Another end of the world scare, or another nail in the coffin?

Noggin

It is necessary to change people mentality, MORE in countries where there is no democracy. To do that the largest democratic countries should make a great campaign in newspapers, TVs, and in any way of communication, to all people in the world, with the finality of combating CORRUPTION. Dictatorial countries dominate their people by force. People need to be free. Election for democratic countries should be different. Many candidates should be presented to the people of democratic countries so that people could choose. If the candidates were no good according to people's will, new candidates should be presented, and in this way so forth, up to the moment good candidates could be chosen. People's will must prevail. Presidents of republics, Senators, and Deputies, generally do not work correctly. There should be an easy way for people to take ACTIONS, rapidly, and with the protetion of laws for elimination of the bad 'governors'.

This is the scariest thing I have read in years. I have posted the full text, because it relates to the views posted on this thread by Kid.

It is essential reading if you want to know what beliefs drive GWB and his cronies.

Cheers,

C \|/
_________________________________________________________________

Are We Doomed? Insanity Now Mainstream
There Is No Tomorrow

By Bill Moyers
The Star Tribune
2-1-05

[Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "Now with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.]

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony, he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true - one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

That's right - the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.

As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed - an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 - just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer - "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed - even hastened - as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election - 231 legislators in total and more since the election - are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece."

However, "the Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.

It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market? "I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."

I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that - it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:

a.. That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.

b.. That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.

c.. That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.

d.. That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

e.. That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million - $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council - to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.

I read all this in the news.

I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."

I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon;
a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer - pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?

What has happened to our moral imagination?

On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"

I see it feelingly.

The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free - not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma - the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.
Believe me, it does.

Thanks for posting this Chaiwallah. Its darn depressing . What can you say? I guess I take the view that nothing is forever, and that even though administrations and public views can sometimes lurch towards irrationality and extremism, there tends to be powerful counteracting forces in place that sooner or later gain the upper hand. It might be a long time, it might be a thoroughly awful time before it happens, it might even get worse, but sooner or later people have to start to smell the coffee.

There is one contradiction that I just can't get, however. I have travelled to the US on numerous occasions. I am a regular visitor there, and by and large the people that I have met are similar to me or you. Friendly, complex, intelligent, perceptive - just normal folk. I am happy to count some of them as good, solid friends. I can't see how such irrational beliefs have taken such a hold in middle America, and I wonder if it is really as predominant as some of the statistics make us believe. Even within the White House I wonder if there is more complexity and pragmatism present than we might be lead to believe.

So things may seem bad, but I would have a hard time believing that it is as bad as this, based purely on my experience of the country. Perhaps only time will tell.

Woodpigeon

Indeed, Woodpigeon, my own experience of America and Americans is similar to yours, though I haven't actually been over there for years. But I am in email contact with several friends in the USA.

We have to remember that although GWB and his cronies won decisively in the last election, they're still not a huge majority in terms of actual numbers. The US voting system of electoral colleges gives a partial view because it's winner-takes-all in the presidential stakes.

Proportional representation might well throw up a very different picture. What's worrying is the hold the nutters have in Congress and the Senate where the actual legislation is passed.