Epiphany to Write

I get up.

It's damn early, the sun isn't even up. I check the clock and it's ten minutes to four. I turn on my laptop and make a bowl of cereal. I turn on my NETSTUMBLER and it comes alive with signals. @home is not there, 23311e is. I hit it just for shits and giggles and she carries the load of the browser. Poof, I'm back online.

I read email and do my thing, including my exercise. I keep one eye on the clock, because before the ass crack of dawn I plan on going downstairs to Daddy Day Care and get online. I dress heavy, because I don't know what the morning weather will be like. The open window in the room is a poor barometer because it opens out to an alleyway. I have a lovely view of a brick wall and other windows. There is no breeze between these structures. The same hot air that goes out of my room, comes back in.

I'm the first one inside Daddy Day Care, so I guess that means that I get the coveted 'fuck you' prize. The Barrister ignores me for two minutes while I'm standing in front of her, until I wished her death. She must have read it on my face, because she piped up and took my order. But still her and her friend, two little rolly poly motherfuckers, that look like a pair of Oompa Loompas, cast nasty glances and handed over my breakfast as if it was a grenade.

Subsequent guests were treated with at least a hello and a smile. But I don't care. I sit down and unpack. Shortly a rowdy man and woman come in, boisterous and hopping about, they start the fun and games in Day Care. Two people acting like children. Soon I hope to see them chasing each other around the tables.

Next comes in the Dawn of the Dead. A biker type, leather jacket under a wool coat, with a napkin...just kidding, a bandana on his bald head, and jeans with holes at the knees, comes staggering in. He makes it to the counter as if he's walking a tightrope. Later, I see him working his way back to a table and chair, and crash landed his ass in the seat. I turn the sound up in my headsets just as the first Daddy walked through the door. Now I ask you: Really, what the FUCK have you got a little baby up and dressed at 6:30 in the morning for?? I mean, what? Maybe the kid can't sleep and you're walking him around to knock his ass out? But he has this little two year old in a stroller.

And then I get a epiphany. As if the cloudy skies opened and a bolt of light sliced down through the darkness and illuminated my face.

I love to write.

I have to describe my world and put it on paper, and describe it so that I can practically see it clearly through words... why?? Because I'm a writer. I have to. I love to. I must. That's not crazy, that's focused. Blind, white hot, naked focus. I'm always typing. Always. When I get home, I sit down at my desk and knock away, so fucking busy doing so many things that I have no time to worry about being lonely, destitute, uneducated, whatever. Such thoughts are unnecessary and useless to me. I have work to do. Suddenly I love my privacy, I am a man rich in character, I have a hundred skills, whatever. I fit into this world because I'm a writer, and not because of anything else.

Talking through e-mail with a friend of mine, who has just about started their own business, reminds me so much of when I had mine, that it gave me the spark of an idea. I need to market my skills as a writer more, and push it like I would push a computer service. Shoot for articles in magazines, book publishers, anthologies...whatever. I've got all that I need, and I have a base of operations now. I need to get started. I am pleased with myself suddenly. I am happy to be sitting in Daddy Day Care, typing on my laptop.

Now, back to my problem. Those signals in the room. I surf the web, learning more and more about how Window's manages WIFI signals and what terms like SSID and BSSID and all those fucking SSIDS whatever, are. I find that I need a new Connection Manager. That the Connection Manager that comes with Windows is klutzy and has many flaws that make it hard to work with in certain situations. So I surf for one. I find NETSWITCHER. Supposedly a superior signal locator and Connection Manager. Once it finds a signal it bites down on it like an old man with new dentures. I download and install it.

After finishing everything that I have to be online for to finish, I close up shop and head back upstairs. I lay out my baby on my desk, boot up and then sit with my two tools. NETSTUMBLER and NETSWITCHER, along with the old, reliable Windows Zero Config.

NETSTUMBLER does it's thing, telling me what signals are bopping around in the room. I set up NETSWITCHER, and train it on @home as soon as it appears. It chomps down on the signal, locking it in. I go back to NETSTUMBLER and bring up the signal's weak sine wave, like the weak heart of someone dying fast.

NETSWITCHER holds on...until the signal dies. You can't ask the tool to save the dying, or ressurect the dead. It can't force the signal to stay around, it can only hold on to what you give it. Software tools can only do so much. What I need now is something more mechanical, something more physical. A Signal Booster! But like an antenna, it can only relay what it catches. For that to work, I would have to put the repeater on the roof or something like that. I'm not THAT crazy.

Watch me...I'll solve this one.

Hobobob

Carnival of Pain

I awaken pretty early in the morning. I get up, take a leak, take my pills, do all of that shit. I straighten up the room, do my exercise, which was a pain. I've grown noticeably weaker. I groan out twenty one push ups. Either I'm getting older or heavier. I believe it to be the latter. I get up and begin vacuuming food. This time, the cereal is the victim. I should just stick the bowl behind my lower lip like those African tribesmen and just pour the cereal in my face.

Pissed with myself I go over to NET- STUMBLER to find it quiet as ever. Then an eerie feeling creeps into my head. Reboot the system. Yeah, rule number one with technicians, when you are not getting the output that you expect from a system...when in doubt...reboot. My baby came back up and I threw up NETSTUMBLER immediately. The signals came back, whole and hearty, ringing off the walls. Damn.

I check out at @home. She is weak, crawling in like a bullet holed dog. There is nothing that I can do. I just look around at the other signals, my connection jumping from one to the other, like a jockey in a geriatric horse race, changing horses in mid-race. Nothing helps at all. Just as I grow bored of the motherfucker, up pops @home like a teenage erection. Her signal turns green all over the place, as if she was poked in the ass.

I jump on her and suddenly ride the shit out of a pretty strong Internet connection. Strangely though, all of the fireworks began all of a sudden, at 10:27:35, and she stays steady. I surf, but now it's so late that I have to get ready. It's time for me to call Social Services about the rent check for this glorious room. I know to expect shit, so I really don't care. I'm numb to the hoopla that I'm about to experience. It's going to be a long, hard day, and I am no help either. I have a way of fucking up myself at times like this. I dread today.

First step in the carnival of pain is to follow the instructions left me: "For Checks Infor- mation, please call the numbers below on 11/28/08 after 11:00am to find out whether your checks are ready on the first floor." I grab a shower in the wheelchair accessible shower, because it's nice and spacious in there. I think that I will make this bathroom 'mine', like the guy did the one on the left. I get dressed, clean up the apartment a little more, and then head downstairs to a phone booth on the corner where I make my first call of the day. I get an answering machine, which tells me to leave my name, case number and a number for them to call me back. What?? How the fuck am I going to do that? I have no phone.

Don't panic I tell myself. I head upstairs and find my case number in a bunch of papers that I'm continually handed by Social Services, which was a source of annoyance when one is a Streeter, because, really, where do you put all of that shit?? Then I rifle off an email to a friend upstate if I could use her cell phone number, and if she gets the call, can she email me back? My plan, go to the library, make the calls and monitor the Internet for the email. I'm going to get these checks today if it kills me. I should watch what I wish for.

I pack up my gear and head downstairs to the corner phone booth and try once more to call, but a nearby garbage truck comes alive with an inhumanly loud machine howl, drowning out the phone call. But it sounded like the damn answering machine again. Fuck it. I'm off!

I hop the Way down to 33rd street, and head for the library. Upon walking in, I remember that I have several books waiting for me on order. Three books and a video to be exact. I stop and pick them up. My new plan, leave everything with Electra as I run down to Duffield Street for the checks. To my surprise, Electra is not there. I then look for my brother OBSIDIAN, and he can't be found. Fuck. I go to a telephone booth and dial the number for the checks and sure enough someone answers. They tell me that my checks are ready.

Now here I am, a stack of books under one arm, and a heavy back pack. Par for the course, I say. I leave the library, stuffing the books into the backpack and head back to the Way. The ride into Brooklyn is torturous, as the MTA is working on the track lines, and getting into the largest borough is nothing more than a series of train switching and waiting until I make it to Nevins street.

To make a long story short, because you already know what happens when someone walks into the lovely Riverview Job Center, which I call THE NIGHTMARISH PIT OF DOOM!!! You wait on lines. You wait on lines and then lines that you don't have to wait on, because there aren't enough signs to steer you in the proper direction. Which is also what happened to me. But before I knew it, I was standing with two checks in my hand. One for one months rent, the other for furniture for my room. To you, probably not a king's fortune. Both checks no more than a hundred dollars apiece, but to me a pirate's treasure.

I was sent to the most seediest check cashing place to cash the checks, which should have been called the 'check robbery' place. All in the front of the establishment were these thug types, loitering; good for nothing men, doing just that, nothing. With great reservations, I enter in, and with even greater relief, I exit.

I shoot back uptown and the first thing that I purchase with my newfound furniture money? A broom and a dustpan.

Shit, you gotta sweep the floor you know.

Hobobob

Of Dropped Pings and Dingalings

I wake to the sound of the fucking door buzzer again.

Some kind of garbled response comes from the speaker. I don't move to answer it. I've long come to realize that the only people who can activate the stupid thing is security downstairs. No one can come in by ringing the bell. So what did I care about security? They were probably letting people know that there was some function going on downstairs. I don't like arbitrary groups, so I stay where I am.

I stay in bed for a moment, thinking about going back to sleep when I noticed that NET- STUMBLER was no longing pinging out a lovely tune. I jump up and check out my screen. The software was on full scan, sweeping the room vigorously but the status kept reading NO AP's ACTIVE. AP meaning Access Points or channels that the signals ride upon. But the problem wasn't that @home was down, which would have been logical, but that they were ALL down. It's like having sixteen dancing, naked women hopping up and down in your room, and you take a nap, and awake to find them all gone. I mean, I know that I have that kind of luck, but DAMN. Not one stray signal passed through my silent tomb.

Interference. But it had to be the mother of all interference to knock down sixteen signals. I instantly looked at my microwave. These things are notorious for fucking with communications. It just hung there from my cabinet, it's digital face saying: "Not Me Boss," with an obscene yawn. Well, if it wasn't my microwave, then it had to be something outside. I look out my window, which opens into a back alley, a narrow passage for a signal to make its way though. I guess that I'm just fucking lucky to have a signal at all.

Something out there, something that someone likes to turn on, like a microwave, cordless phone, or ham radio, was making my life miserable. These things wreak havoc with WIFI signals. Someone in that fucking alleyway, had something on that put the kibosh on my surfing. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!!! Let's say I spent that $79.00 for that WIFI antenna...that bitch would be having the same problem! There is absolutely no signal to amplify. That would have been good money down the drain. What I needed now was a GPS adapter for my laptop, which would allow NETSTUMBLER to pinpoint where and how far the interference was, go there and when I find the character with the offending device, AIR HIS ASS OUT! Fill'em full'a lead.

I sit down like Jabba the Hut and eat snacks.

I drink 800ml of water to fill myself up. Now that's a lot of water; close to five cups. That keeps me from stuffing my face, but I'll pay for it the minute that I take my evening water pill. I check the NETSTUMBLER, and it's still stumbling. The signals are down like a clown. Depressing to say the least, to have had such a lively afternoon of nothing but pings from signals bouncing around in my room, to abject silence. Nothing. As if someone landed a large glass, upside down, over my apartment like a dome. I am shut down solid. Deaf to the world outside.

I turn everything off and grab my book, The Night of the Gun, stretch out across my bed and read. I read until my eyelids grow heavy and my head bobs and my lights go out.

Hobobob

Happy Thanksgiving

I rise anew.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Like the Mummy, I can't stay dead. I will continue to rise as long as my heart beats blood.

I feel like the star of a horror movie. I look at the clock. It's Two in the morning. The body is resetting it's clock. It's picking this and that time to wake or sleep. It wants to stay awake for a few hours now. I rise and the first thing that I do is turn on the computer. The second thing is to make a bowl of cereal.

I try to find a signal, but to no avail. So I blog offline while pounding the airwaves around my room for any stray frequency. There is nothing that I can pick up. I'm jammed. I work offline instead; so what? Then, there is a grumbling in my stomach, deep and mean. Yeah, I know what that means. I get up, grab a roll of ass wipe and head for the Can. Yes, my good friend loose stool finally came through, which means no more COLCHICINE for me.

Around Five O'clock I go back to bed.

Only to wake up a few minutes before Eight. I pack up and head out, after hitting the head again, and go downstairs to Starbucks, which from this point on I'm calling Daddy Daycare. Fucking place is filled with Yuppie larvae and their parents. I love kids, I really do...well done. NO! I'm kidding. I love children, just as long as I can send them to their parents when I'm done playing with them. Yet, I can't stand their cavorting about while I'm trying to work on my laptop. They are annoying with their screams, cries or yells. Makes me want to pack up and head back upstairs. This is just not worth the aggravation.

But there is nothing upstairs for me but food. Not good.

I concentrate, my mind leaving Daddy Daycare and searching the web for a WIFI booster antenna. Soon I find a WIFI antenna for $79.00 at circuit city, but that is definitely bullshit. Then I scanned for something called CANTENNA which is another signal booster. Inexpensive, but needs tons of shit to connect it to your laptop. It's THESE THINGS that cost money. Hmmmm. There is nothing electronic that can hold me back. I'll solve this motherfucker, watch me. I just need to do a little more research.

I'm surprised at the number of people in Daddy Day Care on Thanksgiving Day. I was thinking that it would be partially empty, and there are still empty tables and chairs, but there is also a long fucking line all the way to the door. Too many people have nowhere to go in this city I see. Listen to me. Like I do.

I soon grow tired of surfing. No one is online, no one is emailing. I can write offline upstairs in my apartment away from the cacophony of tiny voices an little running legs. I pack up my gear and head to Duane Reade, snag a Turkey and Mashed Potato microwaveable dinner and other little odds and ends. I look forward to being alone and eating Thanksgiving dinner. You just can't imagine the joy I feel to not have to deal with Twenty or so men talking, walking, shouting, moving shit around. It's a sheer pleasure to be able to close and door and have instant privacy, closing off the entire world behind a door. As long as it's locked, no one can enter. That's a strange feeling hard to describe unless you have been without it for a period of time. It's completely spiritual. Something everyone should appreciate.

But now, back to our show. I downloaded a program called NETSTUMBLER and it's a gem of a program. It does for WIFI what a 'sniffer' does to a LAN. Namely find all active users on the Wireless LAN, or finds wireless signals. Hmmmmm. I can set it up to scan my room and single out these weak signals and maybe 'amp' them up a little. Worth a try. I install the rather large but easy to install program and turn that motherfucker on. Right away it started to identify all of the WIFI signals in the room. Like a fucking pit bull, it routed out something like fifteen or sixteen signals bouncing around whereas before I could only 'see' four or five from the Windows Wireless Zero Config.

I started to read the manual that came with NET- STUMBLER, which is no big deal, but then I came across "Wireless LAN Auditing" which basically said YES a hacker can lurk on your Wireless LAN. It's called 'Rogue Wireless', and these unseen users CAN penetrate a corporate LAN through the weakest security point, which is someone not using WEP encryption. SOOOO, Hobobob has to eat crow again. Crow along with my turkey dinner. What a Thanksgiving!!

But I still can't see someone going through all the trouble to lurk on a WIFI signal, and enter someone's home computer. Well, whatever, I swallowed my crow for the day and returned to the task at hand. That NETSTUMBLER found @home in some corner of my room, and rode it like a prized pony. I was online in moments after finding the signal, surfing, reading email, printing out reports on FEMA...yeah I do that too. And generally having a grand old time. I heat up my Thanksgiving dinner, and make a glass of NESQUICK, strawberry, just in case you wanted to know, and settle down for a comfortable evening. It was so comfortable that after dinner, my eyes grew heavy and I crawled into bed for a nap. It's three O'clock in the afternoon.

I slept like a champ.
NETSTUMBLER pinging off the many network signals bouncing around my room. I told you I'd solve the motherfucker.

Goodnight.

Hobobob

Translatable Languages

I head downstairs to Starbucks.

I chose not to wear my coat because it was not all that cold outside and the walk to the establishment is too short. If you were leaving my building, when you step out of the elevator, you'll have to make a quick right down a long hall. Some distance down this hall the rec room opens on the right, an office on the left. Before you, several more feet down are the double doors, otherwise known as a 'mantrap'. Once between the double doors of the mantrap you are standing before the large glass window of the guard station. All this about the layout is for description purposes. I know that I'll have to explain it once more in the near future.

I blow through all of this as I hit the sidewalk and the cold afternoon. I'm not much bothered by the weather, I slip into Starbucks and find a table near an outlet.

I'm back with the three most dangerous things in the world. I quickly got started with e-mail, blogging and sending out my article to my online magazine. One of the e-mails that I receive is from my coordinator. She will not be coming today. That's fucking great. Because I couldn't get a decent Internet connection all morning in my room, so I didn't get this email until late. That just about tears it. I'm going to cheat for the first time in my life. I'm not just going to surf on WIFI signals that aren't mine, I'm going to find a WIFI booster antenna and see if that shit works. A booster antenna increases your effective range of reception of WIFI signals. I'll dangle the little motherfucker out the window and see if I can latch onto those signals that the administrator told me is here and that they use freely, no doubt in the front of the building. Those further back, behind many and cold and lifeless walls, like me, can go straight to bat shit Hell.

The sun sets and I get the bright idea to go food shopping. Remember now, I left my home without my coat, and the sun has already set. I set out up the block to Amsterdam Avenue, the wind beginning to whip and punish me for being so stupid. Once reaching Amsterdam, it's two blocks downtown to 96th Street where the Associated Supermarket is. I enter in, completely forgetting how cramped and small the fucking place is. Instantly there is a woman behind me working her shopping cart up my ass. Easy lady! I'll get out of your way! I slip into the cramped aisles, negotiating around other shoppers, moving shoulder to shoulder sometimes to get where we want to go. This is truly a ridiculous store that needs another thousand square feet for people to use. It must have been built for a much smaller crowd of users, but this is pathetic. The place is literally cramped and packed. I can't fucking wait to get out of here. I buy a microwaveable turkey and gravy dinner, and a mac and cheese entree. Fucking A. Also, a quart of milk for my Strawberry Nesquick and cereal galore. For my health, I bought some microwaveable rice. How is that healthy? I don't fucking know. It doesn't have sugar in it and it's not all that processed like the TV dinners. Who the fuck cares? My injection quotient is still what it is. Food really doesn't matter.

Blood pressure does. I'm taking my meds regularly and on time though. I'm doing better now than I was doing at the stupid Box. Maybe things will change. I'll see my doctor next week, I'll get more news from him. He knows all about these things.

I hit the cold of the night a second time, and walk like a stick figure back to The Spot, where there is nobody in front of the building or in the Mantrap. I enter in and the security guard addresses me: "May I help you?" I live here. "What room?" I tell her. "Do you want your mail?" Wha? I have mail?? Yeah, sure. The security guard passes it to me. I take it and is buzzed in. Strolling down the long hall to the elevator I notice the name on the envelope: Angel Rodriguez. Who the..? I toss it on my window sill. I'll mark it return to sender and drop it in a mail box later. Those knuckleheads downstairs will probably toss it in the trash. I head upstairs and go into my apartment, putting together my gear on my desk, putting aside my clothes, emptying my pockets...and then proceeding to make dinner, hearty and hale, and pound that shit down like it as my last meal on Earth.''

I feel like I'm getting fatter.

I fall asleep, dreaming deep dreams, and got up in the middle of the night to take a piss. I have more bottles next to my trash can.

Hobobob

It Is Time To Arm the Populace - A Proposal for How This Can Be Done

27 November & 3 December 2008

We are presently in the midst of terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India. Similar attacks were planned in Canada, but fortunately averted, due to apprehension of the conspirators. Escalating incidents of automatic-weapon fuelled piracy on the high seas are now also being reported (see this link for a report of piracy in Somalia). Gun-enabled gang violence is escalating in the urban centres of many of the world's leading nations.

Terrorists and gangsters on land - and pirates on the sea - take advantage of the fact that our world is largely a peaceful place, with the consequence that the general populace is not armed. Obviously the world is changing, and our citizenry must now also change to adapt to the new circumstances.

To be clear - I am not calling for all citizens to carry arms - this must still be a privilege, not a right. But I do wish presently to submit a proposal for how an armed citizenry might defend itself against the emerging reality - that outlaws carry guns and weapons freely, using them to terrorize citizens.

I have long been an advocate of two years of national service for all citizens. I now propose that emergency situation and weapons training be a component of that two years of service, even for those who might volunteer to perform peaceful duties of service, such as work in hospitals or with senior citizens. Those who have completed two years of supervised service (including in-depth crisis intervention and weapons training and field practice, with careful scrutiny of their competencies and with fully positive evaluations) might then be authorized to travel freely as armed citizens, a citizen militia if you will. This would greatly increase the likelihood that when gangsters or terrorists strike, they will encounter citizen adversaries who are in a position to defend themselves and those present against the criminal use of weaponry.

Similarly, the present situation appears to require that there be training and arming of the personnel of merchant ships on the high seas, as well as of persons in positions of responsibility in areas of public transportation - whether trains, buses or airlines.

Let's stop making it easy for gangsters and terrorists to ply their trade by allowing them to exploit our society's peaceful citizen environment.

My proposal would thus see a fully qualified, trained and licensed citizen militia backing up our police and military forces.

Woe be to the terrorists and gangsters who attempted to dominate citizens by force of arms in such a world. In any public setting, they would surely meet their match, and tragedies such as that in Mumbai today - or that which was narrowly averted in Canada - would no longer dominate our headlines.

Normal checks and balances must apply, and my proposal cannot proceed without careful consideration of multiple safety measures and safeguards, for example, regular reviews of the licenses of armed citizens, ongoing training, clearly spelled-out accountability mechanisms, carefully-defined guidelines for weapons use, and of course speedily-implemented sanctions for misuse of the privilege.

But who can question that advancing weapons technology and the widespread manufacture and availability of armaments has made the modern world a playground for those who practice terrorism and gangsterism? It is now time to make the world unsafe for terrorists, gangsters and pirates. The way ahead is not entirely unclear.

As is the case with all post-liberal reforms, the greatest obstacle to action is perhaps our reflexive aversion to measures which entrust citizens to exercise wise judgement in assuming responsibility for the solution of dilemmas which are apparent to all.

Peaceloving people have armed themselves to fight terrorist and criminal elements before. I regret that we now live in an era where this has again become necessary - but as I see it, bold action is what is now required. I believe that our citizens are smart enough to take on a responsibility of this kind, and that our lawmakers and judges are wise enough to hammer out the checks, balances and tests of efficacy that will assure the success of such a policy.

Restoring safety to our world must surely be possible, though as I see it now, only through an effort of rebalancing of forces, such as I have proposed. I see no way through to this goal without provision for professionally qualified and accountable citizen militias.

Let us debate the matter publicly and work out the checks and balances that will be needed, but then let us get on with the business of creating a world that is unsafe for the perpetrators of crime and of terror - because criminals and terrorists will no longer hold a position of unfair advantage over the general citizenry.

Note (3 December 2008): John R. Lott has a proposal much simpler than mine. He advocates that concealed handguns be worn on a discretionary basis for self-defense by citizens who do not have criminal records or a history of mental illness. Mr. Lott marshals extensive statistics in his book, More Guns, Less Crime, to support his argument that this simple practice makes the general population safer. Why? Because criminals are deterred by the prospect of costly consequences of their decision to engage in violence against law-abiding citizens. When their unfair advantage is removed, criminals are less motivated to engage in gun-based crimes. A brief summary of arguments against his view can also be found on the Amazon.com website. I believe my proposal is substantially different than that of Mr. Lott, though I think that his arguments are worthy of further examination.

On to the matter of arming citizens against terrorist attacks. Clearly terrorists take advantage of the fact that their vicious attacks against noncombatants are statistically infrequent and therefore unlikely to involve most citizens at any time. What therefore is the sense of arming the citizenry against low probability events?

The statistical answer lies on the other side of the equation.

For the terrorist storming a railroad station, for example, the low probabilities work very much to his or her favour. That is, if there is a low likelihood of encountering armed resistance, then only two gunmen can kill dozens and maim many more, as was recently the case in multiple locations in Mumbai. To increase the likelihood that terrorists will encounter armed opposition in response to one of their low probability attacks, there must be a very high probability of armed opposition in most public places at most times of the day.

That is, the real statistical question does not concern the likelihood that if I carry arms, I will happen to be in a position to repel a terrorist attack. The likelihood is that I will never encounter such a situation. However, the key question has to do with the chances that a terrorist storming a public transportation terminal or a hotel will encounter armed opposition among those citizens present. In order to assure that this will occur, a very significant component of the population should be bearing arms.

The plain fact is that we are living in a world out of balance. I know what it feels like to sit back as an observer in a position of powerlessness while terrorists carry out their heartless attacks against innocents. I do not know what it will feel like when a terrorist raids a school, movie theatre, airport, restaurant or hotel and is shot down - or, better still, disarmed and captured - as he draws and prepares to use his weapon - before harm to innocent civilians can occur.

I do know that it will be better still if terrorists can be apprehended before carrying out their planned attacks, as occurred in Toronto in 2006 (though I'm not sure that the general population appreciates fully the seriousness of the attack that was averted in this case).

If we can learn to prevent the conditions that breed new terrorists, that will be yet again more preferable - and the key to this may actually lie in easing the massive flow of funds to unstable Middle Eastern and South Asian countries, as well as, of course, in forming friendships with individuals in such unstable circumstances who are open to alliances with the peoples of the West.

Let me also speak to the general question of the prevention and detection of terrorist action. I am very impressed with the British video surveillance system which has made apprehension of many terrorists possible. Certainly further harm to innocent persons has been prevented due to the use of such measures. We also require more sophisticated systems to prevent suicide bombings and the transportation of explosive materials. This is well beyond my area of knowledge. I'd certainly be happy to have widely dispersed and ideally unobtrusive scanning systems for explosives so as to prevent their further exploitation by terrorist or criminal elements.

Until the likelihood of the apprehension of terrorists becomes reasonably high, it is unlikely that terrorists will be dissuaded from plotting harm against civilians around the world. Until the odds of survival and success are in favour of civilians and to the disadvantage of terrorists, we will not truly be inhabiting a world that is unsafe for terrorists. And until we have learned to dissuade young people in vulnerable areas from looking up to terrorists as role models and heroes, the possibility of returning to a way of life free of the intrusion of weapons of violence will not be available to us.

There is much more to consider before our actions in response to this problem are complete.
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