I keep thinking of a “joke” that I came across some time ago, it goes like this:

Two astronomers on a far distant planet were conversing and one said, “Did you see that the planet called Earth on that distant solar system had blown up into smithereens?”

“Yes, I saw that; it proves that intelligent life existed there,” the other said.

But does it really prove that my friends? I sometimes wonder whether our astrophysics community should focus their search for intelligent life to this planet Earth, and not concern themselves with far off galaxies.

Such thoughts are, of course, brought on by reading about the behavior of Messrs. Trump and Un, which seems to me to be very similar to that of a pair of little boys screaming insults and threats at each other across the school yard. My fear is that once they have worn their throats dry they will start lobbing rocks at each other and bring us into the condition expressed by the aforementioned joke. In real life, a parent or a teacher would box their ears and send them crying for their mothers. Unfortunately that parent/teacher is missing from the scene, unless Mr. Putin might take up the role. Maybe he could threaten to reduce the one who cast the first stone to ashes; after all, he would be less concerned about the presence of several thousand US military personnel in Korea, or the proximity of US friends Japan, S. Korea, Guam, etc. to the emergent ash pit; and if it was the US who struck first, he should be able to hit enough Trump Towers and presidential golf courses with his nuke-tipped ICBMs until the Donald cried Uncle.

Maybe this scenario is good reason for us all to relocate to Sochi or St. Petersburg? Neither of the two idiots seems to be concerned by Russia as of now. In fact, turning this around, this could be an opportune moment for Mr. Putin to march into the Baltic republics and other states that he has been enviously eying for some time. I can’t imagine that the US, the only force capable of dissuading him, has the capacity for thinking of two things at the same time!

I have often thought that nations that unceasingly arm themselves are like dinosaurs, animals that had impressive body armor but tiny brains; we all know what happened to the dinosaurs-they exist today only in museums. On that note I shall return to my bunker.