We Need An Anti-Fat Pogrom

Every day, you see them, carelessly walking the streets.

Great big, hulking parasites, their belts straining against their bulging waistlines, a drain on our great society.

There can be no doubt the sort of person to whom I refer.

 It is time, meine herren, we underwent this kampf.  It is time to settle this issue once and for all.

A 'final solution' to the obesity question, if you will.

I propose we form an organisation. We shall call it the "National Association of Skinny Individuals".

Gathering under cover of darkness in the nearest 24 hour gym, we shall greet each other with a quick arm wrestle, to ensure our continued vitality.

Then our campaign begins.

It shall start with the night of the long fries.

Angry mobs will converge on the nearest McDonalds, smashing in the windows and beating up any overweight patrons. Soon afterwards, there will be a mysterious fire at the local mall, targeting all the fast food shops.

This we shall blame on vegans.

Fat people will slowly begin to lose their rights.

First they will be banned from office jobs…and any other occupations that involve a lot of sitting down. They will be forbidden to drive…in the hopes they will walk more.

Train or plane tickets will have to be bought in pairs in order to accommodate their greater girth. Meat pies and chocolate bars will be taken off supermarket shelves. Crowds will gather for fast food menu burnings.

Soon, anyone with a BMI over 30 shall be forced to wear a badge on the front of their clothing. This shall be in the shape of a cream bun.

Then, once they are good and cowed, the true cleansing shall begin.

I understand that our foes are legion, over 1 in 3 Americans and 1 in 5 Europeans. However, from a purely academic point of view, I note that such resourceful individuals as Stalin and Mao worked against odds at least as great.

The constitution shall be amended. Arnold Schwarzenegger shall be elected president, with Paul Ryan as his deputy.

Police shall be stationed outside polling booths, equipped with tape measures, to bar anyone with a waist measurement over 40 inches from entering.

Congressional candidates will be forced to perform at least three chin ups before they can run for office. Presidential debates will be replaced with nationally televised rounds of chess-boxing.

Announcements will be made for the relocation of all obese people. They shall be told they are on a train for a never ending all-you-can-eat buffet.

Once they arrive at the fat camps, they shall be herded through the gates, the wrought-iron sign above proclaiming "Dieting Macht Frei".

Six months - that is the deadline.

They shall be worked night and day, toiling in our broccoli fields and apple orchards. They will eat only what they can sow, until they have lost weight.

Those who drop their BMI into the low 20s shall be set free. Those with a genetic excuse may be spared, but inter-marriage of the healthy and obese shall be strictly forbidden thereafter. Free sterilizations will be offered to the latter.

Those who fail shall be led to the cinnamon-scented gas chambers.

Now I understand, some may raise objections to Generalplan Fat.

I can very well imagine some wannabe Oskar Schindler sheltering 600 overweight people in his celery factory, or a little fat girl, hidden away by her family up in the attic, slowly writing a diary of her experiences -

Day 37 - I have not have a donut in over a month, I am starting to lose hope

Day 48 - Tried to go on a diet, but my parents found me last night gnawing on the floorboards

Day 69 - The days are all starting to blur together. I lie nearly comatose on my bed. When I squint, the light fitting almost resembles a Twisler...so hungry

Day 78 - A group of joggers went past this morning, I hid under the blankets in fear

Day 102 - Oh God, there's an ice cream van! Could it be a trap? I don't know, can't...resist...

Nonetheless, this is a scourge that must be eliminated. Causing 300,000 deaths a year in the US alone, our justification is clear. One massive shock, and the system will surely crumble, like so many Moon Pies.

Then, once all fatties have been scourged from the land, our overseas campaigns shall begin -

Starting with Mexico, and then the UK, we shall target every country by its rank in the obesity list...Poland being no. 20.

The Japanese, as the slimmest nation in the world, shall be our natural allies.

None shall resist our healthy-eating blitzkrieg. Together, we shall forge a new world order, and finally overthrow the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy that is fast food.

Heil Healthy!

Observations From Two Weeks in America

After years of watching this strange land from afar, I finally had the opportunity to visit America recently. It was a short trip - a week in Washington and another in New York, then home, but it was illuminating in more ways than one. I had a few ideas in my head already as to what the country would be like, many of them negative, and I'm sad to say most of my suspicions seem to have been confirmed.

Nothing goes smoothly here

Within a few days of arriving, I was already thinking of that old children's book that goes "Fortunately, Unfortunately." Every day we'd go out and see something new - but always something would go wrong. Like, we fly into JFK airport, one of the busiest in the world...and the airtrain isn't working.

Our worst day there was the very first. It was a quadruple whammy of failures. First, the airline lost some of our luggage (though it was a Hong Kong airline, so that's not your fault) then we had to stand in line for an hour to go through customs and be fingerprinted (unlike 11 million illegal immigrants) then we had to take the bus to replace the above-mentioned airtrain.

The worst moment was when we got to the car rental place. We'd booked a car months ago with "Dollar Rent A Car". Firstly, when we got there, they added on all these extra charges despite explicitly promising they'd be none. There was this very bitchy black woman at the desk who said something about "taxes". Dad grumbled ("its sounds like a scam to me") but we were going to take the car anyway.

Then when they brought it out we found one side was all dented. We didn't particularly care about that either but when we asked for the damage report they just looked at us blankly. "We don't do that around here..."

Complete rip-off, full of assholes, do not buy under any circumstances

By this point its about 3 in the morning and we're seriously pissed. We insist on something written down to say the car is already damaged. Eventually we ask the security guard on the gate, who obliges, but at this point bitchy black woman comes out and says the contract is cancelled. The scene that follows looks a lot like this -

In short - Dad refuses to give up the car without our money back and bitchy black woman calls the police.

Seriously, we haven't been in America three hours and are already having the police called on us. For a group of Australian tourists, I think this must be a new record.

So up turns this fat, bald Port Authority Police officer who looks like he couldn't catch a fucking cold, but he's fairly reasonable. He says the company can cancel the contract, but they have to give our money back. Bitchy black woman still tries to weasel out of this, returning the $150 or so she'd charged us that night, but the other $800 we'd already paid apparently went to a "third party" and we'd have to get it off them.

Eventually, we go over to Budget and hire another car, but as its last minute, it costs us about 2 grand.

In short - bitchy black woman cost us nearly three grand. As we finally got in the car to drive to Washington, the phrase "chewed up and spat out" kept coming to me, but at least we're on our way.

Oh - and if you ever pass by the Dollar Rent A Car place at JFK, please throw a brick through the window for me.

That was the worst night, but the maddening thing was that shit like this kept happening every single day. Now I understand why there are so many crazy people in America, because nothing around here seems to work smoothly.

The freeways we saw were huge, like ten or twelve lanes across (I believe more than any in Australia) but were often potholed worse than any I've ever seen back home. We hop on the NY subway, it seems to be running smoothly, but the announcements are so distorted we literally couldn't understand a word. We go to buy a ticket...and the machines aren't working. We go to use advertised "free-wifi" hotspots...and they aren't working either. We try and use the public toilets...and they're closed, in the middle of the day. There are plenty of hotels everywhere, but the taxes are so ridiculous we always did Airbnb. We went to watch a show on Broadway...and I found myself sitting next to an enormous fat guy the whole time.

One of the strangest moments was the first time we bought a loaf of bread and tried putting it in the toaster. We burnt it twice before we realized something odd was going on. The next time we watched it carefully. To our astonishment, we found the bread would cook almost instantly. Like, you've got an uncooked bit of bread one moment, then about twenty seconds later its burning.

To those who had grown up in a country that still eats real food, this was astonishing to watch. I realized, chewing on it thoughtfully, that we weren't actually eating bread - we were eating a giant sack of sugar someone had cunningly disguised as bread.

Nobody has any common sense

This was just as great a source of frustration. At least twice a day I had to resist the urge to gouge my eyes out at people's stupidity.

One example was when we went to the holocaust museum in Washington. It was great, but it turns out there's a rule at this particular museum. You are only allowed to go through the revolving door at its entrance one at a time.

As annoying as this is, what's worse is that there was a woman there, who's entire job seemed to consist of giving this "safety briefing" so that everyone knew it in advance and ensured none would enter these jaws of death unprepared.

Duuuun Dun...Duuuun Dun

This was particularly annoying the second time we went in (the first was to get our tickets). There was no one in front of the door except an elderly couple the girl was explaining this to, so we went to walk right in. This prompted the girl to turn to us and say, in the sweetest, politest, most how-dare-you-ignore-me-at-your-own-peril voice "Um, excuse me! Excuse me sir!" and explain that she hadn't finished giving the safety briefing to the old couple and we'd have to wait our turn.

For a split second, I honestly thought my dad was going to murder her, and I'd have happily joined him behind bars. Shortly afterward, we also drew the wrath of a security guard when we stepped over a knee-high fence and walked across the lawn near the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.

But I think the worst example of all was at the Empire State Building. There was a security guard there who's entire job consisted of policing the ramp at the entrance of the observation deck. He couldn't go thirty seconds without telling someone off for some minor infraction ("no leaning on the ramp! No stopping on the ramp! No taking pictures on the ramp! No sticking your head out beyond the ramp!")

In my mind, I like to think of him as the "Warrior of the Ramp". I feel I could devote a whole article to him.

People love lording their power over others

I don't know how to describe it exactly, but in America, its like everyone's absolutely aching for a fight, particularly if they know they have the government backing them up. I've already mentioned bitchy black woman from Dollar Rent A Car, but she wasn't the only one, and far from the only black female one.

At the entrance of the Natural History Museum, a black female security guard kept coming out and telling off any kids for sitting down on the steps while waiting in line. They weren't blocking anyone, and I can't conceive of any real reason for this other than simple assholery, and never mind the reason the line was so long was because of the ridiculous security checks.

This sort of behavior felt very common in America. On another occasion in Washington, we were driving back to our apartment through a narrow street. A black women, who looked to be a parking inspector or something, was standing by a parked car writing in a notepad. She was standing in the middle of the road, blocking our lane.

As there was traffic coming the other way, we had to stop and wait for her. This prompted her to look up. My dad stared at her. She stared back. Dad waved for her to get out of the way. She kept staring at us, until eventually the traffic cleared and we were able to go around her.

Once we'd gone past, everyone looked at each other, trying to understand what had just happened. I found myself trying to emphasize with her, to reach out across the gulf of space and understand what she was thinking making us wait there for no good reason. My best guess is this -

"Oh no you don't, white boy! You enslaved my ancestors. I'm gonna make you wait! Oh yes I am white boy! Just you watch. I'm gonna make you wait!" - bitchy black woman no. #3

In fact...look, I hate to write this, but my god, how do you run a country full of black people? I don't know if its because they really do have an average IQ of 85 or due to severe cultural collapse, but Jesus Christ does this society look fucked.

Washington was the worst. The apartment we were staying at was only a mile or so from the capitol, but to walk five minutes to the nearest supermarket we'd go down a street that seemed to be populated by little other than idle black people standing around swearing at each other all day.

I thought visiting America might dispel some stereotypical notions of its people, but it actually confirmed them. My favorite was an enormous, fat African woman who was waggling her finger at another black guy and shouting at him (word for word) "Oh no! You are not cheating on me! I'm gonna get my ass, all in your face!"

I honestly didn't know there were people in America who talked like that. Does everyone secretly think they're getting filmed for a reality TV show or something? (Then again, you kind of are...)

Another time, getting on the subway in New York, someone bumped up against an old black guy. He started screaming about something (he was hard to understand) and a few other black guys nearby needed to calm him down ("On no man! You are too old for that shit! Let it go!")

Then again, there were a fair few crazy white assholes as well. At the same Broadway show, my mother apparently bumped the chair in front of her when she shifted her knees. This immediately prompted the dumpy-looking woman in front to turn around and say "Excuse me! Will you stop kicking my seat?" Even on the way out, two hours later, she cried "Excuse me!" when I happened to bump into her - the same woman.

Honestly, America seems to be the sort of place where people will turn to you and say "Excuse me! I'm talking!" with a straight face...outside of a kindergarten.

Having said all that, there were some perfectly nice people as well, even a black train driver who gave us directions on the NY subway, or a couple who let us use their phone when we became separated in Central Park (though I think they might have been tourists). I also didn't feel particularly unsafe at any point. People had advised me to watch my wallet and not hold a camera out where someone could snatch it, but New York seems to have been thoroughly cleaned up since crime peaked in the 1980s.

Everyone's trying to scam you

This one almost goes without saying. Aside from the accursed Dollar Rent A Car, we encountered a girl in Times Square trying to sell comedy tickets. They seemed cheap, but upon further questioning she had to admit there was a "two drink minimum" and that the drinks would be around $10.

Another guy was hanging around the base of the Empire State. We had the New York City Passes (which some have called a scam, but as we went to pretty much everything I think they did save us a little) and he told us we should upgrade to a better pass or else there'd be a "two hour wait" to get the top...it took us about twenty minutes.

One other observation I'd make is that, somewhat to my surprise, the women around here were actually quite beautiful. This observation might cause some to choke on their hot pockets. Maybe Australian women are just worse by comparison, but there seemed to be an unusual density of 8s and 9s, particularly in New York.

Then again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. A city full of rich, arrogant assholes is bound to attract a swarm of thieves, swindlers and whores.

In conclusion

I'll preempt the inevitable comments that I only had two weeks to form these impressions, and only visited six states up in the North-East. Maybe people in California or Texas are perfectly nice, but these observations seem to apply anywhere near New York or Washington, and there are plenty of other anecdotes of weird, crazy shit I didn't have room to mention.

So far, the place looks about as I thought it would. America seems to be a country that's still immensely prosperous - but just generally dysfunctional. Its the sort of place where they would deliberately neglect to build public toilets in a park...then fine people for peeing in public.

But it wasn't all bad either. In many areas you actually have less regulation than Australia. About the only people we saw wearing bike helmets were police officers for instance. It was refreshing to drive 70 in a 55 zone and still be getting overtaken. In Australia everyone sticks 5km/h below the speed limit because speed cameras are everywhere. It was also nice to do things like buy alcohol in a supermarket or turn right at a red light, and the 4th of July was crazy as well.

So yes, there are still many awesome things about America, but there seems to be a definite strain on its people that you see everywhere, and I think I'd go mad in about six months if I lived there.

The #1 Problem With the Left

I'm pretty much a leftie when it comes to politics. I support higher taxes on the rich, universal healthcare, the welfare state, drug legalisation, access to abortion, a carbox tax, and so on.

However, I still try my best to be impartial, and try and judge issues on their merits, rather than based on who's arguing for who.

Tribalism is rampant in politics. I'm guessing it was probably worse in the past, but you can still see it everywhere. For anyone who doesn't know, 'tribalism' could be defined as judging people not based on what they say, but simply on who they are. Despite their lofty promises, I notice the left does this just as much as the right.

Please, lets not even try and deny this. Conservative politicians, from Margaret Thatcher to George Bush to Tony Abbott, are constantly (and often unfairly) ridiculed by various figures on the left. If Tony Abbott came out tomorrow and declared that 'the sky is blue' there'd immediately be a flood of posts in my Facebook newsfeed saying 'OMG! Doesn't Tony Abbott know that the sky is red or orange at sunset? WTF? Tony is sooo stupid!'

But even this hypocrisy is not the biggest problem with the left side of politics. No, here's the real biggest problem.

They're not FOR anything.

Now the left is against plenty of things, sure. They're against racism, sexism, big business, corruption, pseudoscience, war, poverty, pollution and a whole lot of other bad things, yes.

But what are they actually for?

Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson highlighted this recently when he said he'd challenged the Greens to name one place in Australia where they would support the building of a mine.

Apparently, he's yet to get a response.

Now the right, there's no denying, is actually for plenty of things. They're for building factories and mines and smelters and digging stuff out of the ground. They're for fracking, for drilling in the ground everywhere between the Gulf of Mexico and Hudson Bay. They're for waging wars in the Middle East, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq or any other country full of brown people.

They're for plenty of things - often stupid, twisted, evil, moronic things - but at least they're for things.

When you think responsible governance, when you think of statesmenship, of tough, dedicated people of integrity who rationally argue for a cause, I tend to think of people on the right rather than the left. Tony Abbott and his government may be seen as callous by a lot of people in Australia, but arguably they're preferable to the incoherent joke that was the Rudd-Gillard government.

Labor, it seems, would rather hundreds of people die at sea than implement something as 'cruel' as offshore processing, even if it turns out the latter probably harms fewer people. Even now they won't admit they were wrong, for fear their base would tear them to shreds for a lack of sufficient idealism.

So to the left, I say this.

Grow a backbone. Come up with a vision for the future, one based on logic and fairness, and stick to it. Stop just dogmatically opposing everything the right comes out with. Stop with the childish name-calling and start coming up with serious arguments. Pretend you're arguing in a court perhaps, in front of a judge, who will call you out on your bullshit if you stray too far off-topic.

The left needs to stop being so reactionary. Righteous hysteria will only take you so far.

ISIS in Context

People I spoke to today

An odd idea for a post perhaps, but for some reason this occurred to me today.

When I say 'spoke to' the definition could vary a bit. It doesn't necessarily mean they replied and we had a full conversation, but merely that something was spoken one way or the other and acknowledged in some way. Some people I obviously spoke to more than once, but they're only listed once in the running tally.

So here goes -

1/2. My parents, this morning, when I realized the shower was out of soap and had to look in the upstairs bathroom for some more

3. A guy on the train who I said 'excuse me' to when I got to my station

4/5. Two fellow classmates at uni at the start of the lecture when we were looking for the light switch

6. The lecturer at the end, when I asked for the unit guide as I'd missed the first lecture that semester

7/8/9 - At least three people sitting at my table in the tute after the lecture

10/11 - A couple of other people when we had a discussion in class about asylum seekers (it was a politics class today)

12/13 - Two people serving food at the canteen when I asked for the fish'n'chips and they said it would be a couple of minutes

14 - A girl while I was having lunch asking if I knew where a room was

15 - A friend who walked in just as I was finishing lunch

16 - A woman at the uni bookstore

17 - Another woman at the other uni bookstore (at a different campus, where I finally found the book I needed...)

18/19 - Two women in the hairdressers when I went to get a haircut afterwards, one who told me to sit down when I entered and the other who actually cut my hair

20 - Saying 'hey' to a friend of my dad's as I got home while they were loading up the trailer for a camping trip this weekend

20 - My sister briefly at home on where the soap holder went (as in the ceramic bit attached to the wall, which appears to have gone the same way as the soap...)

21-29 - Then went to work, where nine fellow staff members were present. I'm pretty sure I exchanged at least a few words with all of them

30-43+ - I took 14 deliveries while at work (I deliver pizzas) so I spoke to at least that many people, maybe a few more when multiple people came to the door

44+ - My other sister after I got home on what pizza I'd brought back (we get a free one with every shift, its compensation for the sh*tty pay)

So there you go, I spoke with at least 44 people today, maybe a few more.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Futuregeopoliticalscenarios.blogspot.com.au HAS MOVED

My other blog, due to it always having an overly long and cumbersome name (all the good ones seem to be taken here on blogspot) has moved to a new address.

It is now called http://futuredemons.blogspot.com.au/

Please update your Google searches and Favorites lists accordingly.

Sincerely,

Dan

This fits surprisingly well...

What X-Men: Days of Future Past says about the Muggles vs Wizards debate

Its one of the longest running debates on the internet. Quite simply, who would win - muggles vs wizards?

I've had FB conversations running into the hundreds of comments on this topic, with opinion typically divided about 50:50. Some are adamant that the wizards would 'obviously' win, while others, including myself, caution that in the long-term the Muggles would likely dominate.

Part of the reason this debate goes on so long is that it hasn't ever really been depicted in fiction. We haven't seen a film or book about it (though admittedly I'd love to try writing some fanfiction along those lines someday). However, there are other proxies in media we can draw upon as supporting evidence.

X-Men Days of Future Past came out a few weeks ago, and depicts a scenario quite similar to a hypothetical Muggles vs wizards war (spoiler alert). In the near future, mutants have been hunted down to the brink of extinction. One must immediately wonder - how did this happen? With members of their kind having the ability to shoot fire, control people's minds, teleport, transform their bodies, telekinetically control metal or the weather, phase through walls, heal from almost any injury, and so on, what could possibly defeat them?

There is an answer however -

Despite their powers, the mutants are badly outmatched by the 'Sentinels' - a class of newly built machines designed to detect and kill mutants. Relentless, all-but numberless and very hard to destroy, before long the mutants can only keep running. Ultimately there is nowhere to hide.

We see in the film how the various superpowers the mutants have prove ineffective against the Sentinels. Flames that would easily boil a human alive hardly bother them, while freezing them will only keep them are bay temporarily. They can't be mind controlled, confused or otherwise attacked telepathically. Even Magneto struggles against them, as they are made of a composite material without any metals. Here's a clip here -

While admittedly the technology required to build them is said to involve 'tissue samples taken from Mystique' so that they can rapidly adapt their bodies to new conditions, we can assume this is just a handy plot device. There's no reason to believe that advanced machines of this nature aren't just around the corner in real life. They're essentially terminators after all, and given how quickly robotics and drone technology are advancing, its not hard to believe we'll be able to build similar creations within a few decades.

The point I am making is this - most of the superpowers and special abilities you see among the X-Men have strong parallels in Harry Potter. Sentinel-like machines would be immune to most curses. They couldn't be imperiused, or tortured with the cruciatos curse, while Avada Kedavra would presumably be useless. Like inferi, they don't bleed, rendering Sectumsempra ineffective. You couldn't perform memory or confundus charms on them, or any of the other little tricks wizards use to hide from Muggles.

Sure there are some spells the wizards could still use. Wingardium Leviosa could perhaps be used to levitate them away, while violent curses like Confringo or Reducto could still blast them apart, but how many times will that be good for? A skilled wizard could take out a few, but given our advanced industrial society, we could surely make many millions of them. Almost half a million tanks were built by the warring sides in WW2 for instance, and that was back in the 1940s. Some 60 million cars are now built every year, and in a wartime situation that number could be multiplied quite a few times over.

The exact demographics of the wizarding world are somewhat in dispute, but the wizards appear to consist of somewhere between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people worldwide. This comes to a total population of around 1-5 million. It seems we could easily build a hundred Sentinels, or even a thousand, for every wizard alive within a few short years.

Looking at some elements of the wider debate, and thinking it through logically, most wizarding defenses could be penetrated one way or another. An invisibility cloak might hide you (presuming it blocks all forms of radiation, including infrared) but it doesn't omit sound. A person's footsteps, or even their heartbeat, would give them away instantly to a sensitive microphone, with which the Sentinels would surely be equipped.

Alternatively, a wizard could perhaps conjure up a box around themselves, and perform an unbreakable charm on it. Assuming that 'unbreakable' is meant literally (i.e. you could drop a nuke on it, or fling it into a black hole, and it still wouldn't break) this doesn't meant that the contents on the box would still be safe. Try picking up the box and dropping it from a tall cliff. The box may not break - but the people inside will.

A demonstration of precisely this occurs in the movie The Incredibles. Superpowered Violet is able to project shields around herself. These easily stop bullets and other small objects, but at one point Syndrome's Robot - which clearly weighs many hundreds of tonnes, flings itself down on top of her, knocking her down and almost killing her when she crashes against her own shield.

It also says nowhere that an unbreakable barrier doesn't permit heat to pass through it for instance, or other forms of radiation. Try lighting a fire under the wizard's unbreakable hidey-hole, or target a laser on it, to boil them alive inside. A flame-freezing charm might avert this, but one wonders how powerful such charms really are. There are obvious limits to magic. A wizard can easily levitate a feather, but not a mountain. They can presumably survive a fire, which burns at around 1,000C, but could they survive a nuclear explosion, where the temperature can get into the millions of degrees?

Wizards can also apparate, giving them a very handy method of escape, but one wonders exactly how many times it could be used. Eventually even wizards have to sleep, and it only requires one mistake out of a thousand to let the Sentinels catch you. Then there is the question of how you'd be alerted to their presence in the first place. Accurate guns can target an enemy kilometers away, before they even know you're there. Check out this video of an American helicopter attacking insurgents in Iraq for instance. Its hovering in the dark miles away before it opens fire. How does a wizard deflect a bullet they can't even hear coming? (fast forward to 2 minutes in)

One further point would be the question of how the Muggles would even find the wizards in the first place. Refuges like Hogwarts and Diagon Alley have presumably gone undetected for centuries. There are likely ways around this however. It is repeatedly said that electronics don't work around Hogwarts. This would actually seem to be quite a vulnerability however. This means that, like sending a canary down a coal mine, an inexplicably malfunctioning machine would be a sure sign of magic nearby. There are said to be further charms on Hogwarts to ward off muggles - including making the castle look like an old ruin, making intruders forget why they are there, or alternatively causing them to suddenly remember urgent appointments and compel them to leave.

These would seem fairly weak in the face of the modern world however. It might have been enough to prevent the odd peasant from wondering onto Hogwarts' grounds back in the Middle Ages, but how does it affect aerial or satellite surveillance? Here's what you do - spot the ruin, send in a few scouts, and if they come back looking somewhat bamboozled (as if by magic) try dropping a nuclear bomb on it.

There's also the unmistable genetic trace of wizarding blood. The way it's depicted in the books, the ability to use magic is obviously a recessive gene, one passed down through the generations. The Harry Potter books occur in the 1990s, which is before the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. As of 2014 it should have been possible by now, or would be soon, to detect these genes through routine DNA tests. Indeed - this same mechanism is used by the sentinels to detect mutants, as well as people who might one day give birth to mutants. X-Men again delivers.

Now there are some possible methods of the wizards causing mass death and destruction among the Muggle populace that I've seen suggested. They could infiltrate the Whitehouse and the Kremlin, imperiuse a number of world leaders, and spark a nuclear war killing billions. Even this wouldn't be an end-all however. The world's nuclear arsenals have been steadily shrinking for decades, and even a successful strike would only kill a large chunk of the world's population. Muggles would still outnumber wizards by a hundred or thousand to one. Hell even if only New Zealand survived - with its four million people, the wizards would still be outnumbered.

There are other suggestions, like putting large batches of sleeping potion in the water supply, or broadcasting a TV image of a Basilisk's face. These could certainly kill (or in the latter case - incurably petrify) millions of people, but far from everyone. Many people already get their water supplies from rainwater, and of course not everyone would be watching TV at any given time.

Even major losses like these the Muggles could easily recover from. Our population is exploding at a rate of almost 100 million people a year. We've survived world wars, bubonic plagues, famines, earthquakes, hurricanes...more than a million of us die in traffic accidents alone every year and no one bats an eye.

The bottom line is this - no matter how hard they tried, wizards would be unlikely to ever compete with cancer, malaria, AIDS or heart disease as a leading cause of death among the human population.

There is one possible caveat to all this however, though it is by no means a trump card. The X-Men in Days of Future Past do eventually escape the Sentinels. This is by sending a message back through time to prevent their creation in the first place, which is the real subject of the film. Time travel does exist in the Wizarding World, however J.K Rowling herself has stated that Time Turners can only safely be used to go back a few hours -

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Time-Turner#Nature

There are further problems with this. If wizards can utilize time travel, then why couldn't Muggles? As far as I'm aware, its never been said that a Muggle couldn't use a Time Turner if they stumbled across one. For a wizard to go back a significant time period, i.e. to make more than a tactical difference to their situation, they would risk preventing themselves from ever being born in the first place, making it a case of Mutually Assured Destruction. This is probably the best the wizards could hope for.

Other than that however, in a full-on war against the Muggle world, the wizards probably wouldn't have a hope of winning in the long run. At the rate our population is expanding, and our technology is advancing, we're rapidly leaving them behind. Think Nazi Germany invading the Soviet Union. The German armies were devastating at first, but the Soviet's numberless reserves eventually wore them down. An old quote by Von Clausewitz also comes to mind - 'Never fight the same enermy too long, or he will learn all your tricks...'

Think also of the sorts of technology we'll likely have access to in the near future, everything from interstellar travel and antimatter bombs to being able to upload our consciousness into machines. Before long its no longer a question of Muggles vs Wizards, but every devastating hard sci-fi weapon you've ever heard of...vs a few wizards.

It'd be a slaughter.

To conclude - the wizards can run, but they can't hide.