Exploding aprons

I ran across some of the history regarding the one of the events in the discovery of 'guncotton'/nitroglycerine. In 1846, a chemist named Christian Schönbein, cleans up a spill of nitric acid with a cotton apron, lets it dry on the stove, then kablamo! Makes you think a little bit about letting clothed people on airplanes, let alone liquids. Of course its not like it is really all that practical to turn ordinary T-shirts in flash paper. One slap on the back then poof! Problem solved..... But give it time.

It seems like most of our approaches to terrorism involve technological, physical, orbureaucraticc solutions. This seems like a temporary approach that is doomed to failure. Human ingenuity is unsurpassed. It is far easier to come up with a means to destroy something than create it. Its a cruel twist of fate that technology was developed capable of annihilating everything on the planet yet we cannot come up with an effective solutions to long term basic problems. It is understandable that we continue the same (direct) methods that have served us well in the past. But in this war if we only cut the head off one hydra, two more grow back. The solution is to win the hearts and minds of the oppressed. Engage the hopeless and the hated. Prevent the spread of hatred and propaganda that passes for truth. It is only thorough philosophy can we truly succeed. After all, it was neither guns nor bombs nor rhetoric that won the cold war, but liberty and capitalism.