Final word?

OK, can we finally draw a line under the article of fantastic imagination called "The rapture"?

 I wouldn't count on it.

Internal Monologue

     Well, here we are on 6th October, the revised date of the rapture. Nothing has happened so far, but the faithful have specified a window of 2 days, 6/7, and, with the impact of time zones it will be another 48 hours before the realisation will hit that it's not going to happen.

So why exactly do people believe so intensely that they are somehow going to float up to heaven, where they anticipate smugly and gleefully watching those of us left behind all suffer and die?

     Could it all be that they're fucking arseholes who revel in the misfortune of others and are desperately hoping that it does happen?

     A common theme is that they believe it because they have been told, directly or indirectly, by god himself. People like Joshua Mhlakela, or Mike Johnson, who sincerely convey that god speaks to them. Wow! Why do they believe this?

     DZ has a theory. 

     Like the majority of people, DZ experiences an internal monologue. In his every waking minute his mind is constantly engaged in thought. About anything and everything, from the sublime to the ridiculous, the banal to the profound. Questions, answers, reasoning, conclusions. It never stops. From the moment as a young child he was able to think. If he tries to blank out his mind, he finds himself thinking about not thinking.

     He had always assumed that everyone had this. But it also has never occurred to him that this experience was anything other than the workings of his own mind. Like having a dialogue with yourself inside your own head. Sometimes he would drift into articulating his thoughts. Yes. DZ occasionally finds himself talking to himself. No-one takes any notice these days. They all assume you're talking on the phone. 

     But he has never entertained the idea that these thoughts come from anywhere other than his own mind.

     But then he read that some people do not have this internal monologue. He was astounded. Do some people really walk around all day with nothing going on inside their head except their immediate experience. Is there really no little voice inside their head exploring the abstract, the potential, the theoretical, the fantastic, like a constant friend. 

     Apparently true.

     But once in a while, DZ postulates, a little voice does pop up in the empty mind of one of these people. This must come as a huge surprise. If your mind never normally talks to you it must be disconcerting when, rarely, it does. And it seems to DZ that it would be logical to assume that the voice has come from outside. Add in religious fervour and it's obvious what has happened. You've just had a message from god! This might account for the fact that, when god talks to these people, he invariably says what the empty head wants to hear. He lacks the experience and the insight to understand that it's just his own mind finally breaking through.

     I suppose I could have it the wrong way round. Perhaps god has always been trying to talk to me.

     

Prescience

 With regard to the predicted rapture that didn't happen, only a week ago DZ wrote "I predict that we'll all still be here on Wednesday, and that the faithful will claim to have miscalculated. And they'll give another date." 

Well we didn't have to wait long. Entirely as predicted Joshua Mhlakela has obliged. Blaming the failure of his prediction on a miscalculation he has come up with a new date. The 6 and 7 October. That's next week. Apparently it has something to do with using (or not using) the Julian calendar. 

So the failure is all the fault of this guy.

Julius Caesar

I wonder what Mhlakela will be saying on October 8th?

Wrong again

 DZ wrote a few days ago about the impending rapture. The date for this has come and gone, and nothing has happened. Sadly all the religious nutters have not floated off into the sky. Hardly surprising. People have been predicting this event  since 1830, which is when the concept was invented.

This time it was all kicked off by this guy.

Joshua Mhlakela

Mr Mhlakela claimed that he was informed of the impending event by Jesus himself, who came to Joshua in a dream.

DZ would normally regard people who claim to speak to Jesus with some scepticism. But there are lots of people out there who want it to be true, so they believe it and hope. There are scores of previous similar episodes and the credulous don't seem to learn from the experience. For the time being they've gone quiet. Some of the more fervent will now have to deal with the consequences having quit their jobs, or disposing of their possessions.

But rest assured, when the next prediction comes along, as it assuredly will, they'll believe it again.

Ophthalmology

 

Too soon??

 

What? Again?

 DZ has commented before about the numerous predictions for "The Rapture" that have come, and gone at surprisingly frequent intervals. You'd think that getting it wrong so often would dissuade the christian fanatics from perpetually repeating the practice. But not so! the latest date predicted is just two days away, Tuesday 23 September 2025.

DZ can't go. He's washing his hair.

I predict that we'll all still be here on Wednesday, and that the faithful will claim to have miscalculated. And they'll give another date. 

Osho

 

Tyrants

 

The death of Charlie Kirk has caused an eruption of argument mostly in, but not confined to, the USA. Those positioned politically on the right have become almost hysterical, on the one hand defending Kirk on the basis of free speech, while at the same time maniacally attacking anyone who attempts to use free speech to point out Kirk’s many doubtful views, as illustrated in his own words. Kirk has been painted as some sort of saintly martyr, epitomised by one truly nauseating AI generated video showing Kirk sprouting wings and ascending up to heaven. And no, I’m not going to provide a link.

Those on the left are bending over backwards to condemn the violence while hardly mentioning the fact that Kirk was a prime cunt. The fact that his death was seen live on TV is treated as particularly heinous. But is it really any different from the constant stream of violent imagery churned out on the media. If you didn’t know it was real how could you distinguish it from all the death and destruction broadcast daily as entertainment? As an example, on you tube there are a series of videos which are compilations of film clips depicting people being shot in the head. All very realistic. I’m not providing a link to that either.

And let’s not forget Kirk himself advocated actually televising real executions!

And so I’m going to come out and say what many are thinking, but not prepared to articulate.

The world is a better place without this pig.

Not because of his offensive views though. He had every right to express them and I would not advocate his death to shut him up. But I believe there is, not only a very good reason, but also a logical and unemotive reason to breathe a sigh of relief over his death.

Tyranny has existed as long as humanity. Cruel and murderous men, and it is always men, have deliberately and wilfully inflicted an unquantifiable burden of suffering and death on humanity. The deadliest conflict in history, the second world war, with a death toll of 85 million people, was caused by one man. A man who had been quite open and vociferous about his intentions. But no-one believed he would actually carry them out, they were so monstrous.

Imagine for a moment that you lived in the 1920s. Imagine also that you had a crystal ball which would allow you to see the future and all it holds. Would it be a logical act to murder Adolph Hitler? Would it be reprehensible to kill that one man to avoid all those deaths, as well as the suffering, the broken lives, the grief and despair.

I am not comparing Kirk to Hitler. But Kirk, like Hitler and Trump was quite open about what he would like to do. The televised executions he advocated were not of murderers and rapists, but political opponents. He even added “And no, I’m not kidding.”

When aspiring tyrants lay out their stall we should believe them.

It is highly likely that, had Kirk run for Congress in a red state he would have been elected. The first step on a path to power. If someone as unworthy and undesirable as Trump can become President of the USA, why not Kirk? Kirk, as president would have been as narcissistic, arrogant, vindictive, malicious, vengeful, misogynistic, racist, and sadistic as Trump, but without the stupidity, dementia, incompetence, age and infirmity.

He would have been the most powerful tyrant humanity has ever known.

And that is why we should rejoice in his death.

Motivation

 

DZ has commented in the past about doctors who subordinate their duty to their patients to their own, less worthy, priorities. Usually financial, and, more often than not, the way they conduct them selves in their private practice.

I’ll repeat an old joke of mine;

Q. What’s the difference between doctors and prostitutes?

A. There are some things prostitutes won’t do for money.

But sometimes the ulterior motivation is not financial, and two cases have been publicised that I find quite astounding.

The first is this case where a French anaesthetist is accused of killing some of his patients. Any Anaesthetist routinely uses drugs which can very easily kill. Muscle relaxants, opiates, dysrythmogenic drugs can all cause death if the patient is not closely monitored, and, where indicated, supported.

Dysfunctional relationships between Anaesthetists and their surgical colleagues are not unusual and on rare occasions tempers can flare. 

So Dr Pechier, the anaesthetist, was not unusual in having some colleagues he viewed as enemies. What was unusual , it is alleged, is that he took his revenge on the surgeons he disliked by deliberately killing their patients. Twelve of them in total.

The other case concerns a British vascular surgeon, so someone well practiced with amputating legs. This guy deliberately packed dry ice around his legs to freeze them to the point where they required amputation. He apparently did this for sexual satisfaction!! Now DZ has heard of a lot of weird and wonderful ways that people, almost invariably men, can get their rocks off. But this is a new one on me. But that wasn’t enough. He then tried to claim on an insurance policy claiming he had lost his legs due to sepsis. Although the insurance money, almost half a million pounds, was paid, he was subsequently found out, and has now been jailed for fraud.

The surgeon has a most appropriate name. Neil Hopper!!

Light relief

 A little distraction from all the insanity currently surrounding us all. And a reminder that, no matter how bad things seem, they could be worse.

Hoist by his own petard

 

The political activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot yesterday. To put that in perspective he was just one of approximately 130 people killed by firearms in the USA yesterday. And every day. Some 48,000 people every year. In addition about 75,000 people in the USA survive being shot. Every year.

No other civilised country in the world would accept this carnage with the same indifference as is seen in America. This shooting, which also occurred yesterday, has had far less publicity than Kirk. Shootings in Hungerford, and Dunblane in the UK, and in Port Arthur in Australia both resulted in public outcry and significant extra restrictions on gun ownership in countries with already strict regulation.

But Americans have a fierce attachment to the second amendment to the US constitution, the right to bear arms. Kirk himself was a strong proponent of gun ownership and is even quoted as having said "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights." Some, gun deaths? 48,000?

Invoking god in support of gun ownership is not the only example of Kirk’s faux Christianity. He once stated that said that he “wants to see Coca-Cola sponsored televised executions of Donald Trump’s political opponents if Trump returns to the White House. And, no, I'm not kidding.”

He was in addition a blatant  and shameless racist.

And a white Christian nationalist, a mysogynist, a homophobe and anti LGBGT activist.

And the true extent of his “christianity” is illustrated, again from his own mouth, in this quote, "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage."

But, ironically, Kirk got what he wanted. He was killed, in full view of the world, one of those deaths that are, in his own words, justifiable to retain the second amendment. And if he did not approve of empathy, then he should not receive it.

To quote the bible, that he shamelessly and hypocritically claimed to follow;

"He that lives by the sword shall die by the sword" Mathew 26.52

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Galations 6.7-8

Pareidolia again

 It's been a while since I put up a Pareidolia post. Here's Jesus!

Gimme!!

 This lady has hit the nail on the head.

Doom

Interesting fact. The Russian name for Alaska is "Alyaska"

Pervert

 The denial from Trump about his involvement with Epstein is becoming frantic. But every excuse, every denial, every lie, can be countered by this one picture.

Discrimination

 Yet more news from the asylum across the water with a lunatic in charge.

Trump has issued an order that medical staff in the veteran's administration, the government organisation that looks after ex servicemen, can deny treatment to any patient who supports the democratic party.

That would be like a British doctor being allowed to refuse treatment to a patient because they voted labour.

Where do I start? Trump obviously has no idea how the medical profession works. Most doctors would be bemused by the suggestion that we should even know a patient's political affiliation. In his entire career DZ never once asked a patient their political or religious views, and I don't suppose the vast majority of my colleagues would either.

I think Trump should be told "Hippocrates would like a word"

For all it's faults I can't imagine for a moment the GMC tolerating such a practice. Any doctor who did this would, rightly, find himself in hot water very quickly.

The USA doesn't have an equivalent of the GMC, a nationwide regulatory body. Such regulation is devolved to individual states as "State Medical Boards." In normal times I'm sure that these boards would oppose this idea rigorously. 

But, in case you hadn't noticed, the times we are living in are far from normal, and full of surprises.

Dumb, dumber and dumbest.

 As long ago as 1980 Isaac Asimov wrote, 

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

I don't think even he could have foreseen just how severe this was going to get. Or just how high in the political structure it would pervade.  Six years ago I wrote about this case, where an Ohio state lawmaker proposed a law mandating that ectopic pregnancies be transplanted into the uterus, displaying a level of ignorance and stupidity that should, but sadly doesn't, preclude him from office.

But then the supporters of this type of politics, the MAGAs, as they have come to be known, are no better. They, and those they have brought into government represent arguably the least qualified, least experienced, most ignorant, most incompetent and stupidest people imaginable.

Their leader has recently aired the view that Joe Biden was executed in 2020, and replaced by a clone, or a robot, depending on which version of this conspiracy theory you embrace. And his followers assert that climate change is not happening because only god can control climate, and in the same breath will tell you that hurricanes in the USA are man made, with the objective of acquiring the land formerly occupied by houses so that they can mine the Lithium beneath. It's only cervical spondylosis that stops my head from spinning.

And yet, in the USA these people represent 40% of the electorate! You could spend all day on Youtube descending into this hellish world where up is down and black is white. all presided over a man who claims to be the healthiest the man alive. Not only does he wear a diaper to cope with his faecal incontinence, but more recently he has been found to wear a catheter to prevent him pissing himself, and calipers to stop him falling over. They're not working!

 And it goes on and on. Most recently is a proposed law to ban chemtrails. What next? Unicorns?

But we shouldn't get too complacent in the UK, sitting here chortling with our popcorn at the bizarre and absurd antics of our transatlantic cousins. We have our own village idiots here. Anti vaxers, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists of every kind. People who, in preinternet days would have lived out their village idiot existences isolated and humored by the community. Now they all get together on line, sharing their idiocy and conspiracy theories amongst each other like a huge international village idiots convention. 

And they have their political wing here in the UK too. A disparate bunch of ultra right wing, fundamentalist religious xenophobes, misogynists, racists, homophobes and the like, just as in the USA. And we have our own little wannabee Donny working his way through the political system. A man with a worrying amount of support among the electorate. We like to think the shit show in the USA could not be replicated here. That would be our first mistake.

Nigel Farage

Another man with his head up his arse.

 

This is Mike Johnson, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America. He's also an utter and deluded loon. This is the man who states that Donald Trump is "The most respected President of the modern era" 

He's also a fundamentalist christian, who wants the USA to become a christian nationalist state, ruled in accordance with biblical law. A sort of christian taliban if you like. 

It gets worse.

He also believes that god talks to him, and wants him to become a modern day Moses. Fuck me!

Actually, that last bit about being Moses is something I could get behind. If he wants to take all of his followers and fuck off into the desert for forty years then that's just fine by me.

WTF

 So. We have the two worlds' nuclear superpowers both currently ruled by deranged megalomanic lunatics.

What could possibly go wrong? 

Allies?!

 Some of you may have seen a recent interview where the Vice President of the USA, J D (couch shagger) Vance was somewhat disparaging about the armed forces of the UK, claiming they've not fought a war in over 40 years, as if their own record of seeking out, or even starting conflicts at the drop of a hat is something to be proud of.

Well hold my beer!

UK forces have consistently stood and fought side by side with US soldiers in all most every conflict involving the USA since World War 2. We supported the US militarily during the Korean war, both Gulf wars, the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, in case Mr Vance hadn't noticed.

On only two notable occasions have the US or UK been in a conflict without the other. One was in the South Atlantic, when the UK fought Argentina for the liberation of the Falkland Islands. The US was conspicuous by it's absence there and left the UK to fight it out alone 8000 miles from home. Nonetheless UK forces delivered a decisive victory there in just 10 weeks, managing without the US perfectly well. The other occasion was the Vietnam war, which the UK wisely decided not to get involved. It lasted nearly twenty years and ended when the US withdrew in disarray, panic and chaos. They lost that one.

Same game, different result.

And now it looks as if the USA won't support Ukraine unless they can make a profit out of it. This time, hopefully, not just the UK, but the whole of Europe will step up to protect their neighbour. I think we can manage.

Slava Ukraini

Chaos

 The shitshow going on across the Atlantic is becoming so massive and multifaceted that it's becoming difficult to follow. Imagine what it's like living there.

But make no mistake, it's going to affect us in the UK too. Take just these two aspects which could be plots from a comedy show if they weren't serious.

Firstly gynaecomast Elon Musk wants to rename the English Channel the "George Washington channel"! Good luck with that. Have they not noticed that our neighbours in Europe all have different names for the channel. Nobody seems to care.

Secondly it looks as if Trump is about to impose tariffs on the EU and UK next, claiming that the hefty trade deficit that exists between us is somehow unfair. Listen fat boy, we can't help it if you don't make anything we want to buy. It might help if you didn't fill all your consumables with a mix of toxic chemicals that are banned over here. Astoundingly he feels that it's outrageous that that we pay far less for our pharmaceuticals than they do. Well that's because of entirely internal factors that allow US drug companies to massively price gouge.

DZ has hardly ever bought anything that comes from the USA, not deliberately, but simply because not much american stuff seems to make it's way over here. There is Budweiser I suppose, if you like beer that tastes like creosote. (Unlike Czech Budweiser, which is simply divine.)

So buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Hopefully things will work out OK in the end.

Pharmacology

 

This picture is doing the rounds at the moment, in which Elon Musk can be seen clearly exhibiting gynaecomastia. 

He is known to have had male pattern hair loss from quite a young age. He's also known to have had hair transplant, so the hair loss is assuredly something he's sensitive about. It's likely that he is, in view of this, also taking Finasteride. 

Finasteride is a drug that has been around for a long time, having originally been developed to treat Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy. It is a long term treatment. It was discovered that it can counter male pattern baldness with up to 80% of affected men seeing some hair regeneration with long term use.

But in pharmacology there's no such thing as a free lunch. Finasteride is a Testosterone inhibitor and there are potential side effects. These include loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, and gynaecomastia.

The late Chuck Jones once said, "A fanatic is one who redoubles his efforts when he has lost sight of the original objective." In his efforts to project an image of youth and vitality Mr Musk may well have been hoist by his own petard.

Quote for today, 21 January

 "Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars."

Martin Luther King

Coincidence

 While we're on the subject of Christmas.

New year

 Somewhat belatedly, Merry Christmas, and happy new year to anyone who reads this page.