—"Wow, easy Diss, did you just have Optimus Prime, Commander of the Autobots say that the only way to end this war was to smoke the Kaaba?⁽¹⁾"

—"Ouais, I suppose so."

—"And do you mean that, like, literally?"

—"Of course not. Yet."

After all, this is an interesting piece of historical architecture that offers a certain value as a tourist attraction. Now that under the combined efforts of the Three Musketeers of Global Warming, Al "Arnie" Gore, Nicolas Sarkozy and Kevin Rudd, the Planet will make the big switch from Oil to Carrot Juice, the Saudis — who, despite being at the receiving end of History's biggest transfer of wealth without lifting a finger, never managed to reinvest the petrodollars cash flow in the development of their own economy — will have to find another source of revenue⁽²⁾, and they will need any resource they can get.

Having said that, I remember reading a few years ago how the Israelis finally managed to bring the Egyptian leadership to their senses by pointing out, confidentially, how that big huge Aswan Dam looked quite fragile from an Air Force point of view, and how, if that dam was to meet with a few tons of falling explosive ordnance, all of Egypt's infrastructure and habitations would share a rather wet similarity with the legendary city of Atlantis.

This, as the article contended, put an end to Egyptian belligerence towards Israel.

This might be just an urban myth, I honestly don't know, but I find the concept quite compelling. Broadcast a message to both radical and moderate Muslims, and let them know that if anything — nuke or not — should happen to one of our cities and people again, or if they let anything happen or do not work hard enough towards rooting out the radicals⁽³⁾, then without warning or apology that big black cube over there is just smoking history — possibly glowing the color of Islam⁽⁴⁾ at night.

Just for a start.

Oh and Transformers was a surprisingly good entertainment, totally devoid of the usual anti-American and anti-military junk that comes out of Hollywood these days, and even going, for once, in the right way: it was very refreshing to see a Rumsfeld-like Secretary of Defense character, interpreted by John Voight, talking about US Marines and saying that for these guys "losing was not an option".