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I think it would be a good idea to bomb Muslim nations with these.

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[Saul Wall]

Back when the cartoon freakout was going on I began to think about how extreme reactions to stimuli that challenge one's beliefs are quite a bit like phobias and as one who has had a phobia, I found that repeated exposure to the stimulus helps to reduce the phobic reaction. It is particularly effective in younger people since the brain is still quite plastic. Experts differ as to whether the exposure should be controlled, gradually increased, and over a long period of time or using a series of sudden extreme yet still somewhat controlled exposure to effectively burn the fear out of the patient (you can not be terrified of something constantly for long periods of time since you run out of adrenalin and glucose levels in the brain lower).

This lead me to the idea of purposefully inducing cartoon controversies over time to weaken the phobic like response to "blasphemy" and such. Which is kind of what Hollywood has been doing for decades by "pushing the envelope" with the Christians.

I wonder if constructing some of those custom made balloons like the Macy's parade but with buoyancy controls in the image of Mohamed with the turban bomb and float them over large Muslim cities (several would be needed per city and large enough that it would take more than a couple gunshots to bring them down). It would result in riots and probably killings but it might just save some lives too if the desensitization of some of the population worked. It is not like the situation can get much worse - is Islamic outrage in any short supply currently?

After doing it once, the West could use it as a deterrent threat. Every time we get a terrorist attack the blasphemy balloons take to the air. Hell, a new branch of the military could specialize in blasphemy; researching ways to use space-based lasers to carve giant offensive cartoons or blasphemous messages in Arabic onto the mountains of North Africa.

Of course, human rights groups will say that it is cruel to confront murder and terrorism with disrespect but then the human rights groups don't really seem to be in the human rights business these days so who cares what they think.