The New ‘Bombing’ Of Guam

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It is twenty-five years since I visited Guam, though I can’t say that I saw much more of it than the quay to which the ship I happened to be on was tethered.

I did wander ashore in the morning and walked along the quayside to visit a Japanese cruise ship for a couple of hours. Afterwards, I recall taking a shady seat on the quay and having a cigarette while watching the Japanese ship sail. Had I known that Guam was infested with brown tree snakes, I might not have done that.

It seems that brown tree snakes were introduced to the otherwise snake-free island as stowaways from a cargo ship that called there in the 1940s. The invasive snakes quickly multiplied and are responsible for killing off many of the island’s native birds, lizards and fruit bats as well as causing major power outages when they coil themselves around power lines.

This piece of information comes to light with the bizarre news that the US Navy are planning to ‘bomb’ the island with frozen dead mice stuffed with paracetamol, a chemical that is poisonous to the snakes. Even more bizarrely, the plan is to attach cardboard wings and green streamers to the dead mice, dropping them from helicopters and letting them float down to catch on the tree branches where the snakes will find them while, at the same time, avoiding poisoning other jungle-floor creatures.

I’m not keen on snakes and wish the US Navy well with their plan.

But I shudder to think I might have had one of these critters fall on my head that hot day I sat in the shade of Guam and watched a ship sail!
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Hacked Off

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Suppose an American hacked into the computer system of the MoD or MI5 and caused half a million pound’s worth of damage. Would the British public support the government if it sought the extradition and trial of the young man concerned.? Very probably.

Why then is there so much fuss over the American government’s bid to extradite Gary McKinnon who is said to have hacked into 97 US computer systems, including those of the US Navy and NASA, causing $800,000 worth of damage? Is it because he is said to have Asperger's syndrome and/or because he faces up to 70 years in jail if convicted?

As it happens, though the High Court has rejected an appeal against the decision of the Home Secretary to allow Mr McKinnon’s deportation, the appeal process will doubtless keep the man safe for some time to come.

The case brings to mind the 1983 movie ‘War Games’, starring Matthew Broderick, whose character hacked into the US military’s central computer system and so started off a war game which threatened to initiate a real thermonuclear war. In the end, of course, he managed to stop the game and so avert disaster.

Perhaps the Americans should pay Mr McKinnon to show them exactly how he managed to hack into their computers and so make them a little safer from such attacks?
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