A Rock And A Fascist Hard Place

Today is the American Election and 162 million Americans registered to vote will elect either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris to President or in their own words, that woman who is 'slow' and, 'low IQ' who changed her identity from Indian and 'became black' and the unhinged, unstable fascist guy.  
Usually, by election day voters have long since made their minds up and bewilderingly tens of millions will vote for a man increasingly compared to Hitler, the heir to Adolf if you will.
It could happen that America chooses faux-fascism and the erosion of it's civil and human rights which would splinter the cohesion of the country, its place in the world and its economy but there you go, it's their country and they can do whatever the hell they want with it but doesn't mean we can't all have an opinion on it as we would the elections in France, India, Japan or anywhere else.
Indeed, in my (admittedly irrelevant) view, come January America could have the nearest thing to a fascist as a president that they have ever had but even if he doesn't win, he will have come uncomfortably close to doing so despite their being every reason to believe that someone very much like him couldn't.
It is hard for some of us who aren’t American to understand why so many Americans are so enthused by Trump and what he stands for but they certainly know what they’re voting for from his last stint where almost everyone he worked with now despise and disown him, even warning that he should be the very last person anyone votes for.
They know he wants his generals to be more like Hitler’s, and to be loyal to him, that he is a draft dodger who dishonours veterans as 'suckers and losers', has 34 criminal convictions against him for fraud and are aware of his behaviour towards women as the Court Case which found him guilty of sexual assault attests to.
American women will suffer from further abortion bans, he will restrict the freedom of the media while abusing the judicial system to go after his enemies and will use the military against American citizens.
In Foreign policy he will let his friend in Israel finish the murderous and genocidal job in Gaza and inflict horrific wars in Lebanon and possibly Iran, continue to cuddle up to Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin and reignite a cold war on China and reverse any gains on Climate Change and take America back out of the Paris Climate Accord and whack tariffs onto imports but that's your choice Americans and if you are happy to accept all that, then good luck to you but your nations will be a very different place in 4 years time and the rest of the World won't wait for you, having no option but to write you off and put ourselves first also.
As for what Kamala offers, whatever it is it can't be worse than what her opponent is offering so it could be a choice between a rock and a hard place or to our overseas eyes, a rock and a wannabe fascist hard place but maybe you need to be outside looking in to see it, but if you don't then enjoy the company of your new friends in Pyongyang, Moscow, and Tel Aviv.  

Are You Gruntled?

The English language is a movable feast and i recently found out that the words 'gruntled', 'have ruth', 'feck' and 'gormful' are actual things meaning 'Happy', 'compassionate', 'effective' and 'enlightened' but their more pessimistic antonym's are more familiar as in disgruntled, ruthless, feckless and gormless.  
Back in the 17th Century you could feel 'respair' and have hope but now we seem to feel 'despair' and it's opposite has fallen out of the Dictionary.
There is an 'eucatastrophe' or a sudden and unexpected turn of events for the good which is the direct opposite of a catastrophe and 'eustress' is a situation with a benefit rather than a situation with a bad outcome which is distress.
Where i thought the words were examples of an unpaired word, they aren't and its just that the positive opposites have fallen away so we should bring them back again as we may feel a little more consolate and grunted.

Nothing To Gain Except Killing Your Brain

I have always been staunchly anti-drugs and have seen many, many lives wrecked and ended by them so it is depressing to read that deaths from drug use in England and Wales have risen by 11% according to the latest annual data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) with 5,448 fatalities in 2023 which is the highest number of drug-related deaths since records began in 1993.
Over half these deaths involved opiate misuse, such as heroin which accounted for the most deaths in the 40 to 49 age range.
The figures show that those born in the 1970s (Generation X) are more likely to die from drug misuse than any other age group and it is thought that the aging body is less able to handle the depressant effect on the body leading to a fatal overdose.
Men of any age outnumber women two-to-one in deaths from drug misuse as they always have since records began and men are more likely to use drugs than women and most deaths come from a single, fatal overdose.
Cocaine is the second-most used drug in England after cannabis and the ONS recorded the 12th consecutive rise in deaths due to the drug, 1,118 with deaths rising year-on-year which has been blamed on the purity of cocaine increasing which makes cocaine more potent.
Cannabis, which some countries are starting to legalise and is considered by some to be harmless, resulted in 32 deaths in 2023 and medical opinion is that cannabis comes with the risk of developing mental health issues and increases the risk of psychosis in some people and in 2023 a quarter of mental health cases were linked to cannabis use.
The UK government is funding research to explore reducing drug overdoses including wearable devices that would alert emergency services if an overdose is detected but the mdiea has a role to play as when a celebrity dies from drug abuse, their addiction is barely mentioned but it should be because it could drive home the message that taking drugs can be addictive and fatal, a lesson that needs repeating constantly.
We should highlight the pathetic way the famous die for their addiction, Whitney Houston and Matthew Perry drowning in their bathtubs, Prince slumped in an elevator, Michael Jackson and Tom Petty both alone in their beds, River Phoenix  and the ultimate in Elvis whose drug addled body was found dead on his toilet floor.
As one addict friend said to me as things spiraled away from him: 'When i could stop i didn’t want to and now that i want to stop, i can’t'.
He was found dead a few months later on Boxing Day having laid dead on his kitchen floor since Christmas Eve, tragically being unable to stop killed him.

Trump or Harris: Who Do Other Countries Prefer?

Many World leaders are keeping a diplomatic silence over who they want to win next weeks US Election out of the necessity of having to maintain a working relationship with whichever side takes power but some have subtly signaled their preferences.
Moscow and Vladimir Putin are obviously team Trump as they had a warm relationship during his first term and Trump has said that he would look for a quick resolution to the Ukraine conflict which is widely expected to be the withdrawal of arms to Ukraine which will force them to 'negotiate' and allow Russia to hold the swathes of East Ukraine they presently occupy as well as push for an end of sanctions that the US and others has imposed on Moscow since the invasion
Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orbán has said he will open: 'several bottles of champagne' if Donald Trump returns to the White House so safe to assume who he has his fingers cross for and in Israel Benjamin Netanyahu must feel buoyed by Trump saying that the Jewish state has never had a better friend in the White House than him and as Trump moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem which rode roughshod over the Palestinian's and international community who opposed the move, a Trump Presidency would allow Israel to do what it wants without consequences in Palestine.   
As for North Korea, a  high profile defector for the leaders inner circle told the BBC that Kim Jung Un views Trump as someone he can negotiate with over it's nuclear weapons program and in return the US lifting sanctions.
Officially China is staying silent but the BBC Foreign Correspondent has an interesting insight that within Xi's Government they are hoping for a Trump victory as they believe it would further erode the soft power of the US and in turn allow them to increase their own.
In India, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump four years ago as they saw him as a balance to China's growing power and as India has close links with Russia, and Trump is a keen fan of all things Putin, they would be a benefactor of a Trump 'friend of my friend' attitude.
As for for Europe, with the exception of Hungary, it’s Harris all the way with the UK leadership getting into a royal mess when it sent Party members to 'help' the Harris campaign but the EU see potential policies such as trade interrupted  and the Western backed war effort against Moscow at serious risk, especially as Trump campaigned against the US foreign aid package to Ukraine.
In a Yougov poll of why they wanted to win the US Presidency, it was a clean sweep for Harris with 81% going for her in Denmark, 73% in Sweden, 71% in Germany, 65% in Spain, 62% in France and 61% in Britain so no love for the Trumpian way in Europe.
As for the Middle East, the Democrats strong support for Israel during the Gaza war has generated widespread disapproval among Arab governments and communities but Trumps support for Israel only offers deeper resentment but although the Iranian administration is no fan, it is a little dirty secret that many Iranians believe he could topple the regime in Iran so are (quietly) keeping their fingers crossed for him.
Overall then most of the World are hoping it's Kamala Harris celebrating and Donald Trump trying to organise another storming of the Capitol Building and bleating about being cheated again.

Kemi Badenoch To Kemi Badenough

When amusingly James Cleverley done himself out of a place in the last two for Conservative leader to leave just the two very right wing contenders to battle it out in the leadership battle, a Party source said that Labour would be 'dancing on the tables' on the prospect of either of them becoming the official opposition, and so with the announcement that Kemi Badenoch is the winner, the tables of Labour supporters must be covered in footprints this morning because in Kemi, it's like turning up to an interview and seeing your only rival is wearing a tracksuit and has dribbled over their CV.   
Keir Starmer admirably kept a straight face when he said: 'I look forward to working with you and your party' and we all thought i bet you are because for journalists, the fact that the name 'Badenoch' turns into 'Badenough' with such little effort is a given but she is not what could charitably called 'a safe pair of hands'.
Only 42 of the 121 of her remaining Conservative colleagues voted for her in the Leadership campaign which means almost two thirds of them didn't want her in the first place because of her very right views views which include criticising maternity pay for mothers and  that 50,000 civil servants were so bad they should be jailed and 'not all cultures are equally valid' and made some strange link between people being free to marry who they want and men using women’s bathroom which must have made some sort of sense to her if nobody else.
In her first interview you said that the Partygate row was 'overblown' which immediately saw her condemned by almost everyone so thankfully the Conservative membership didn't learn from electing dullards such as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss as their leader and have elected another one even further to the right who is to Politics what Harold Shipman was to the Medical Profession.
Nice one Tories because if nothing else, your efforts to support the table manufacturers of Britain is admirable.

Trump Looking More Orange Than Usual

When i saw Donald Trump do his rubbish truck stunt the other day the first thing i noticed was he looks a lot more Orange than usual but i assumed it was down to the contrast on the camera or even done in the editing (for some geeky reason American colour on TV is different to ours, NTSC v PAL whatever that means) but he was like an extreme Oompah Loompah on every channel and in the press so it must have been him overdoing the fake tan that morning.  
At work it was discussed and someone suggested it could be a psychological thing, like wearing a mask to hide behind which makes sense, the lying sex pest has a lot to be worried about, most pressing the fact that if he doesn't somehow win the Election next week and be able to quash the looming Court cases he could well be in the clink by next Christmas so we dug out some previous pictures of the twerp and its true, he does vary on just how much he overdoes the bottle tan.
Psychology Today states that wearing a mask (and makeup or fake tan is basically a mask to cover up your face) can change an individual's state by physically concealing and psychologically protecting themselves from others and when i asked the local Psychologist she said it was true that for most women (or overweight Presidents caught breaking the law and sexually abusing women): 'The more stressed, the more makeup' .
Looking through photo's and TV appearances and using a Paint Colour Palette, in July 2024 after the Biden debate Donald Trump was more of a Melon colour but this week he has gone Dark Amber.
When he took office in 2017, he was a Cider Colour but but as his term wore on the more tan was applied and by the time he urged his supporters to storm the Capitol building he had a distinct Clay hue to his skin and then when he was out of office and between court cases he was back to being Melon coloured.
Obviously now that he is back in the thick of things and facing a direct choice between being President and staying out of prison or not being President and doing time for an assortment of reasons, he has gone Rust coloured with the stress of it all or maybe despite all the bluster, he knows that the American's are not so stupid to vote for him, or rather not enough of them to let him back into power, so he is reaching for the industrial strength Nivea Self Tanner.  

Water Cycle Breaking Down

If you think back to your School science lessons you’ll probably remember the water cycle and words like evaporation and precipitation with arrows showing a circular motion and just how important it is to life on Earth as moisture get's moved around so would be pretty scary if that broke down, well guess what, it could very well be.
Scientists  at the Global Commission on the Economics of Water were tasked with assessing the state of Earth’s hydrological systems and the results are not encouraging as they found that demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by more than 40% by the end of the decade, mostly due to stresses caused by human activity and climate change and our Water cycle has started to break down.
Yep, another one of my scary Environmental posts i have been told scares people to which i say good, it should because  for the first time in human history, that system is breaking down due to our warming world which means more moisture in the atmosphere and less of it where it should be.
The 194-page report highlights  how every 1 degree Celsius increases moisture in the atmosphere which leads to increasing the power of hurricanes, typhoons, and other tropical storms and the regions most impacted by a looming water shortage will be northwestern Indian, northeastern China, and southern and eastern Europe.
They suggest we start to make plans now to transport water from areas with abundant supplies to those where the well is literally running dry and as no living thing can survive without water, it is life’s most precious necessity so for the survival of humanity, we can’t put out heads in the sands like we have done for the last 100 years with Climate Change where even extreme weather phenomenons like we have seen increasing over the last decade and has killed tens of thousands each year shamefully isn't enough for us to actually do something about it.

Religion Slowly Dying Out

All people are born Atheist and then taught to believe in some sort of Creator but you would need to go back thousands of years to try and work out how the ideas of religion began.
It is perfectly plausible that the first God's were invented by early man to help make sense of the inexplicable world around him they did not understand.
They would have seen a bright orb of light and heat in the sky and thought it must be a supernatural spirit watching over them.
When the Earth shook under their feet they thought obviously some mighty spirit living in the Earth must be stirring and why is that mountain spitting out liquid fire? Must be an angry spirit that needs to be appeased.
Over time, as man’s knowledge grew, those old spirits ran out of reasons to stick around but the idea of gods just took on different forms.
Countless gods, and at the last count there have been over 4,000 of them are known, have been lost to time as cultures and peoples died out, but the concept remained generally the same.
The Gods of today are just the latest incarnation of an archaic suggestion that has seen many gods rolled into on and imbued with even greater powers over people's lives and even into the afterlife which is either to be spent in paradise or in eternal damnation which has been used by innumerable leaders to try and control the masses.
Once the initial concept of god was created, all it required was for it to be handed down from parent to child, generation after generation, to be accepted as true and factual.
All God's are nothing more than a persistent idea which has been perpetrated and passed on to the next generation but the question is if you were not told all this and you were also not told of the science of how things work, how would you fill the gaps in your knowledge?
I assume you would go down the same route as the early humans but in the modern world we do have science, education and widely available and detailed explanations of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and the Sun so why are the mythologies of the past not dying out quicker than it is?
It may take many generations before religion is forgotten as future generations find religion to be an unimportant aspect of every day life despite the indoctrination of beliefs and the constant reinforcement from older generations but it means that the age of religion will slowly but surely come to and end as the number of indoctrinated children passing on their 'knowledge' grow fewer.

Thank You Dead People

The World can seem an awful place what with wars, economic crashes and global pandemics but who should we blame for it all?
Dead people of course because a lot of long-dead famous people actually caused such massive and negative changes in their lifetimes that we still feel the ill-effect of their existence today.
Obviously Adolf Hitler (died 1945) is a main player because the atrocities he committed with the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930 and 40's made a great impact society, there are neo-Nazi parties and supporters still now despite knowing how horrific as the Holocaust was and because of his Genocide, Israel came about and and now being accused of performed their own against the Palestinians.
Marcion of Sinope (died 160ad) gathered together stories from all other religions at the time, copy and pasted the name of Jesus and God into them and created the Bible which has been used by some to vilify, denounce, condemn and murder millions and continues still today.
Charles Darwin (died 1882) made groundbreaking work on evolution in 1859 but religious groups still today, despite all the evidence, continue to deny and debate it and in some American schools it has been pushed for creation science and not evolution to be taught in schools.
Henry VIII (died 1547)  is famous for many things but beheading wives didn't make their lasting impact of his decision to break away from the Catholic Church and set in motion the conflict Between Catholics And Protestants In Ireland which continues today.
James Madison (died 1836) was the the US President and his bright idea was to proposed and then write the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution back in 1791 and now America has more gun dealers than McDonald's & Starbucks combined and not by accident, the most mass gun shootings with 40,000 gun deaths each year.   
Dr. John Smith Pemberton (died 1888) gave the world Coca-Cola which also led to an increase in obesity, tooth loss and chronic illnesses related to sugar over consumption but the worst legacy from a  long dead person has to be Thomas Midgley Jnr who died in 1944 after leaving us not only with the decision to put lead in petrol but came up with the bright idea of CFC's for air conditioning and refrigeration systems which depleted the Ozone layer so badly that the World had to ban both his inventions and the Ozone layer, that thing which shields all living things from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation,
After 70 years of every car in the world using lead petrol which threw thousands of millions tonnes of lead into the atmosphere and then depleting the ozone layer with CFC's, the argument could be made that Thomas Midgely, through environmental changing actions, has been responsible for more human deaths than any other single person in history.

A New You Every Seven Years?

I once heard that your body replaces itself every seven years what with shedding skin, growing new hair and cells dying and being replaced but how true is it?
'That old chestnut' said the medical researcher i asked who then went on to explain that if it was true nobody would ever age which my mirror shows each morning is abundantly not true.  
According to research, the body has 30 trillion human cells and around 330 billion of those cells are replaced every day while other cells renew each week and some, such as our muscles, renew every 70 years while some such as the ones in our brain, heart and eyes are with us for our entire lives.
Stomach and intestines typically last only up to five days, skin cells  rejuvenate every two to four weeks, hair has a life span of about six years for women and three years for men, the Liver renews itself with new cells every 150 to 500 days and  the cells in our bones takes a full 10 years and slow down as we age.
Despite all this regeneration, the average age of all our cells is about seven years (hence the Old Wives Tale) and the sad truth is that we still get old and die because of mutations every time our cells renew so if you think you're going to look young and beautiful forever, you'll will have to find the Fountain of Youth.

Christmas Creep

Now that Halloween has passed and the strange mix of Santa and the Grim Reaper side by side on the shop shelves has gone it is full steam ahead to December 25th but along with cute snowmen and hearing Noddy Holder yelling that it's Christmas, so too are the Grinch-like grumbles that Christmas is getting earlier every year, and you know what, they are right, it is.
The autumn leaves may still be clinging on to trees but the Christmas music has begun already so we are being asked if you are hanging up your stocking on the wall and humming about chestnuts roasting on an open fire and rockin’ around the Christmas tree and the UK Top 40 singles show that the first Christmas songs in the charts last year entered 10 November when going back to 1967 when the UK charts began and through until 2004 Christmas songs only made an entry 2 weeks before the big day.
The first Mince Pies hit the Supermarket shelves 7 September , down from 9 September in 2023, and 28 September in 2020 and amusingly came with best before dates before December 25th.
Christmas markets are a fixture in cities and towns across the UK and the one in Birmingham opened its gates today, on the 1st November  and the Christmas light switch-on in Oxford Street 5th November which is 3 days later than last year so there may be hope for the miserable amongst us yet.
Personally, i'm with Wizzard and wish it could be Christmas Everyday and when i am supreme ruler of the World i will make it law that Christmas lights have to be on, Trees have to be up and Christmas songs have to be played all year round.