Beat Your Daisy
Cutters into Daisies
by Mickey Z.
Seed bombs
are compressed balls of soil and compost that have been impregnated
with wildflower seeds. When jettisoned onto construction sites,
abandoned lots, etc. seed bombs become a method of protesting and
combating urban sprawl.
The BLU-82B or “Daisy Cutter” bomb
has been described
as "the largest conventional bomb in existence and is 17 feet long and 5
feet in diameter, about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle but much
heavier. It contains 12,600 pounds of GX slurry (ammonium nitrate,
aluminum powder, and polystyrene) … the ammonium nitrate in just one
Daisy Cutter bomb is about six times the amount used in the bombing of
the federal building in Oklahoma City."
Seed bombs are used to turn forsaken parcels of urban land into gardens.
The Daisy Cutter—first used in Vietnam to clear helicopter landing
sites and more recently employed with devastating effects in both Iraq
and Afghanistan—is extremely lethal but due to the intense magnitude of
its impact (and ensuing shock waves), became increasingly utilized as a
"psychological tool" (shock and awe, remember?).
"The Daisy Cutter has an explosion similar to a small nuclear or atomic bomb," writes Ridhwan Saleem.
"They say that when one was dropped in Iraq, the explosion lit up the
entire front. Many Iraqi soldiers defected after seeing that bomb."
Green-spirited seed bombs and mean-spirited Daisy Cutters. Take a
wild guess which one is illegal here in the land of the free. Yep, seed
bombing could get you arrested or sued, but could also result in real daisies, as in the family Asteraceae (from the Greek aster or star)—a family of plants roughly 50 million years old.
The Daisy Cutter bomb, on the other hand, was used to destroy anything and everything in a 600-yard radius.
The daisy family has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera, and 12 subfamilies.
The Daisy Cutter generated pressures in excess of 1,000 pounds per
square inch near the point of impact, and the shock waves could be felt
miles away.
Daisies include not only the familiar flowers, but also valuable
medicinal herbs like Echinacea and arnica, and edible plants like
artichokes and endive.
The Daisy Cutter was the product of an institution—the US military—that is funded by 54 percent of American tax dollars and owns the dubious distinction of being the planet's worst polluter.
Daisies make up 10 percent of all flowering plants on Earth.
The Daisy Cutter has already been retired and replaced with an even
more destructive version, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb
(known as The Mother of All Bombs or MOAB). The largest non-nuclear bomb
in the US arsenal, the MOAB is very similar to the Daisy Cutter, except
it is larger and uses a guidance system which makes it one of those
"smart" bombs.
Daisies are found everywhere on the planet except Antarctica.
In 2007, the Russians announced they'd tested the "Father of All Bombs." Described
as "the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered munition, the
Russian military claimed it was four times more powerful" than the MOAB.
Both the "father" and "mother" of all bombs are legal and have become popular fodder for YouTube addicts.
Seed bombing remains a crime.
Any questions?
