Let Cooler Heads Prevail

Thursday: Solve The World's Problems

"What a difference a day makes."

"The first thing you do, when you get up in the morning, is: make your bed.."

I used to find myself humming that song in the past, after I had gone from having a lousy day to feeling on top of the world 24 hours later.

The table was set for me to have a lousy day, today (Wednesday -although it's already "tomorrow" now).

I didn't wake up until about 2 in the afternoon and with a brain fog that I attribute to the "non dairy" Cherry Garcia flavored Ben & Jerry's ice cream I had eaten the night before, in the course of being sucked into watching "just one more" video, over and over until the sun was up.

At this point I am wondering if I should just try to start nurturing more healthy addictions, rather than trying to become totally free of them. Addicted to jogging...

The Youtube videos are becoming like a book I can't put down. Only one that never ends because, as soon as I turn a page, another one appears at the back of it.

I'm pretty sure the artificial intelligence (AI) that is being developed by the media platforms is behind this.

I have my doubts that there is even a war in the Ukraine. I have never seen any videos shot on the phones of any of the participants in that engagement. It would probably be impossible for me to fly over there and check out the situation for myself.

I can picture a travel agent: "Right now we are offering a special package to Buenos Aires which includes a round trip ticket, plus a coupon for 3 days and 4 nights in a fine hotel. It's our "Carnival Season Special!"

"Any flights to Ukraine available?"

"What about Belarus?"

A guy I met in Saint Augustine was an Iraqi War veteran and he had all kinds of stuff on his phone that he shot right in the middle of battle. In one (which he told me was hard for him to watch) another soldier about 20 feet away from him was seen getting hit by, I'm guessing a bullet, then becoming motionless. "He was was one of my best friends," the guy had said. And now, you can whip out your phone and watch him die whenever you want? Hmmm...

So, with everyone carrying a smartphone these days, why are there not countless videos like that, with click-bait titles like: "Soldier was on Zoom call with girlfriend when killed by shrapnel"?

I guess that is because "violence" isn't allowed on Youtube. Maybe there is plenty of stuff like that on X that I just don't know about. 

But I became suspicious after seeing the same artillery ravaged buildings over and over in "news" reports on the Murdoch-owned outlets. Then the same people being carried on stretchers into the same hospitals -the same rockets being launched from the same fields, etc.

It would be clever of the parties involved to just fake everything, and keep a tight lid on it, then continue to bilk the U.S. and other taxpayers out of billions of dollars, to be divvied up amongst the elites. On the same idea as that fake moon voyage movie. That might explain why Hollywood is on strike; they're all over there, writing and directing for CNN...

As far as the Hamas thing... I can understand the sentiment of people wanting revenge. I've heard enough drunken macho men in bars saying things like: "if anyone ever messed with one of my kids, I'd be in jail for murder right now!" to be able to fathom the emotions.

Israel can't bring back the dead, but they can make things worse for the living.. 

First, they can re-assess their "most sophisticated intelligence network in the world," after admitting that they had been "had," and then upgrade the system to incorporate detection of metallic flying objects the size of horses coming into their airspace.

"Stop wiggling; this is a video, not a still-shot!"

Hesitating to act would frustrate, and maybe even lay bare the plans of whomever masterminded the attack, taking for granted, most likely, that the Israeli response would be what we are seeing now. You don't want to play into their hands...

Then, they could open a gate into a section of Israel, in order to admit any Palestinian civilians seeking to evacuate the Gaza Strip. They could pat them down for weapons, then house them there (perhaps it might resemble an "open air prison" but...). After about 3 weeks without electricity, water nor Internet (but not particularly in that order of priority) a large portion of the Palestinians (am I even supposed to capitalize that, given there is no such nation?) would become amenable to this arrangement.

How large a percentage of them would Hamas be able to physically stop from escaping through this Gate of Amnesty? Trying to gun them down before they left would put the Hamas guys (a.k.a. the other team") out in the open; for Israeli snipers.

Then, with very few civilians left in the territory,, blockades could be set up to starve Hamas in their tunnels. Soon, they would be out of rockets, their cellphone batteries would be dead, they would start to fight amongst themselves in their tunnels over the last morsels of food. Biden, et. al. wouldn't have to keep appealing for more "humanitarian aid," and the mission of the Israeli soldiers could then entail honing the skill of shooting the Hamas guy's head while missing the head of the child he is holding in front of him like a medieval era shield -not too challenging for a sharpshooter.

The entrances to the tunnels could eventually be uncovered and then a page taken out of the "extermination using noxious gasses" handbook of the Nazis, in order to turn those tunnels into quick, painless and humane gas chambers. Seems apropos in some sense...

And, what of the Palestinian children caught in the crossfire?

Well, once I was in the Walmart in Gretna and there was a large woman of color in there shopping. She had with her a couple boys around 7 or 9 years old. The circumstance of them both being shirtless revealed them to be on the road to obesity. One of them was barefooted. Despite their pudginess, they still possessed enough energy to run amok, up and down the aisles of the store; often out of sight of whom I'm guessing was their mother. 

Up and down the aisles they ran, pulling things off shelves, leaving them laying on the floor, Never a word of reproach from the large woman of color.

I was one of only a handful of white people in the store, which is the norm in the Gretna Walmart. 

Spotting me, the kids seemed to begin concentrating their mischief especially where I would be able to observe them, Their faces were kind of blank as they made a mess of the aisle around me. Then, one of them ran up and slapped the box out of my hands that I was reading the ingredients of. At that point both of the boys assumed an attitude of: "what are you gonna do, you wanna fight?" as they bounced around in front of me with scowls on their faces. Then appeared the mother, whom I expected, wrongly, was going to tell her kids something like: "Stop bothering that man!" She only gave me the family scowl when I appealed to her by looking her way.

Am I writing this for mere catharsis?

No, the point I want to make is: Let's say, at some point a grenade with its pin pulled out slid across the floor and came to rest at my feet, thrown by a terrorist. If, in the split second that I had to try to save my own life, I glanced around, looking for a place to throw it where there were no people, but didn't see any. The choice I would probably make would be to toss it towards the scowling woman and her unruly kids. Then, I might position myself so as to shield any better behaved people who might be towards the other end of the aisle.

So, you have these Palestinian kids, whose first words might have been "Gas the Jews!" and who, by all reports, are being raised to be terrorists -being taught to play games like "stab the Jew," in lieu of kick-ball, by parents who (overwhelmingly) voted Hamas into power -Your vote; your choice, type of thing- and you have this choice between throwing a cyanide canister into a tunnel, where some of these kids might be, or letting Hamas live, that they might murder you and your own (well behaved) kids some day.

I often think about how, if I'm ever on a commercial jet flight and the plane is hijacked and set on a course to crash into a heavily populated area, the United States Air Force is instructed to shoot it down before it reaches its intended target. That would really suck for the few being sacrificed for the welfare of the many.

And, what if I was still alive for the 4 minutes or so of falling to earth. That's a long time to think about what your government just did...

What if it was my nation that was being targeted by Hamas? I think I would have to shoot down the plane, so to speak.

Maybe if they starve Hamas long enough, so they look like Auschwitz inmates after a couple months, they will hardly be able to lift a rifle to defend themselves, and the Israeli army will find them easy pickings in a close combat situation. Then, they can rescue the human shields and nurse them back to health -give them something like Field of Greens™nutritional supplement, and they will be back in the pink in short order. Their chances of such would certainly be better than mine of landing on a huge pile of hay, in the hijacked plane analogy above.

This idea of being patient (because nothing will bring back the dead; the hostages are like the hijacked plane's passengers, and there is no urgency to act while still pissed off...cool, calm and calculated will win the day, in my opinion) has the added benefit that it might expose the Military Industrial Complex as the greedy S.O.B.s that many believe them to be. Biden won't have to ask congress for all those billions, as this would be a cheaper solution (leave it to the Jews to come up with a frugal battle plan is what you're thinking, right?) to just place Gaza under siege, and starve them. All that ammunition they have stored away isn't going to help the cause if they are wielding it against each other, over the last can of mackerel. Let's see how evident Biden's disappointment will be when billions in weaponry is not needed. Just some World War II era cyanide dispensers.   

Right now, the barrage of rockets slicing through the air might as well be sky-writing: "Send money,!" in various languages. Not a good look for a country that is taking this seriously, and can afford to be patient. What would another few months be for a people who have been dealing with this crap for centuries?

Alternatively, they could detonate a couple strategically placed atomic bombs, Hiroshima-style over "the strip," after having patiently waiting for the winds to shift so that the fallout would be primarily on Arab nations (a west wind, appropriately enough). That's what I'd do if anyone ever messed with one of my kids.