Waco Texas explosion

The tragedy resulting from the explosion of the fertiliser factory exposes the dangers of large explosions.
Buildings were destroyed at a considerable distance from the factory. The blast could be heard 45 miles away and the power of the explosion registered 2.1 on the Richter scale; it created a minor earthquake. Had the explosion happened in the middle of a city hundreds if not thousands of people could have died.

But this explosion is nothing compared to a thermonuclear one. If an H Bomb exploded in NewYork, Moscow or London millions would die. It makes me wonder why we had to invent such weapons in the first place.

A stable and democratic nation was the first to use the less powerful A bombs with the result that hundreds of thousands of civilians died. If Adolf Hitler  had developed the A bomb first there is no doubt in my mind that he would have used them without mercy to obliterate Russian and British cities. We must hope that an unstable nation is never able to deploy such weapons. But I fear that sometime in the future this could happen.

We cannot reverse history and "un-invent" nuclear weapons. The Western powers did little to stop Israel from obtaining nuclear weapons and the Eastern powers have also been unable to restrain North Korea. This could lead to the possibility of another arm race where Iran feels no moral restraint to creating a nuclear weapon. Japan also has the the ability to quickly develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.

I doubt that the human species has the sense to impose nuclear disarmament on itself so I fear it is only a matter of time before nuclear weapons are used again.

Death of a Famous Person

I can see no reason why anyone should celebrate the death of Mrs Thatcher. With regard to politics you should always separate the policies from the person. If she had not become Prime Minister someone else would have probably introduced similar policies as, rightly or wrongly, the UK population were in the mood for a change.

I see no reason for violent demonstrations during her funeral and I hope everyone shows restraint.

You can probably infer from my opinions that I am of a liberal frame of mind and I disagreed with most of her policies. Not everything that she did was bad, however, and she was one of the first world leaders to recognise the problems of climate change and global warming but I doubt if she will be remembered for that.

Everyone should remember that she has close family and friends who want to grieve her passing and they deserve some peace of mind.

I could never understand how anyone could grieve for somebody who was not a really close family member or friend. I could not grieve for John Lennon, when he died, even though I loved his music so much. I said to myself it is a shame that such a great musician will no longer be composing or performing. I just played one of his records in his memory. I felt the same when Patrick Moore died and I treated myself to reading some of his work in his honour.

I shall not watch the funeral or mourn her death but I shall not be celebrating either. That is the most rational way for me to react.