My Easter Post

I wasn't going to write an Easter post this year out of respect for the dog collar wearing partner of this blog because I know he posts my religio bashing posts with a wince and because Easter is pretty much the only Religious Holiday they have left.
Although it wasn't theirs to start with, Christmas and the Baby Jesus is gone, lost to the big fat man in the North Pole and his reindeer but they have successfully fended off the Easter Bunny to keep Easter as a Christian Festival.
Interestingly, that wasn't theirs to start with either, they copied and pasted their beardy guy over the Germanic Godess Eostre who was very popular with the Anglo-Saxon pagan brigade who worshiped her as the Goddess of the dawn but the Christians lazily kept her eggs which was her symbol of fertile purity and the bunny which was her sacred animal.
I say i wasn't going to write a post and to leave the Religio's alone but then today in Town I was hassled by some many Churchy people trying to engage me in discussions about God and hand me leaflets that if i could have reverse engineered all the paper thrust at me i could have made a tree but i politely shook my head said: 'No Thank You' and continued on my way.
If this was just this weekend i could accept it but the Religious do seem keen to stop strangers and force their beliefs on shoppers going about their own business which it quite rude, i wouldn't dream of stopping anyone and pushing my Atheism down their throat but they don't seem to have any qualms about it and I do sometimes question them on their beliefs and why they hold them if they are particularly badgering which usually ends with them ignoring me and waffling on about something or other they have prepared ready and then walking off when i refuse to accept it and delve into why they believe what they do.
Anyway, Happy/Merry Easter if that is your bent and hope you didn't eat too much Chocolate.

The Dark Side Of The Moon

Interesting that NASA are referring to the 'Dark' side of the moon and not the 'Far' Side because it does give the impression that the side we don't see is completely dark, which it isn't and receives as much light as the side facing us.
I was listening to a phone in show on the Radio and a discussion of how they will illuminate the surface to take the pictures which made me smile but it is understandable because they keep hearing is it Dark.   
The word 'Dark' is used in the same way that we refer to the Dark Ages as in not much is know about it and the first time we saw the Far Side of the Moon was when the Soviet's Luna 3 sent back sketchy pictures in 1959 although we have had many photographs of it since including the 1972 one from Apollo 16 above.
Interestingly, the Chinese have been sending probes to that side because the far side of the Moon provides a good environment for radio astronomy and listening to the sounds of the Cosmos as interferences from the Earth are blocked by the Moon, which makes sense.
No mention yet of the Artemis 3 and  4 mission which, on the successful completion of Artemis 2, is pencilled in for 2027 and 2028 and will land astronauts on the surface of the Moon with the Lunar South Pole the likeliest destination but as i own a piece of the Moon, I am keeping a keen eye on it just in case they land in my patch and then i can claim Owner Rights and take NASA for trillions (or a free t-shirt at least).  

Reigning Or Raining?

Donald Trump threatened to 'reign down hell' on Iran within 48 hours unless Strait of Hormuz is opened and peace deal is made and the use of 'Reign' can mean one of two things.
Either he means he will bring Hell to Iran once he is reigning in Hell and to be fair, that is exactly where Pedophiles, sex pests and liars go so that is very much a possibility but unless he dies within the next 48 hours, which again is possible as he is morbidly obese and has an unhealthy diet and god knows what all those weird bruises on him are, so those so if those two things come together then he very much could be reigning in Hell and bringing it to Iran.
The other thing is that he is a blithering idiot who used the wrong 'Reign/Rain' and as he has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, this is far more likely what his teeny tiny little fingers typed out and the sycophants around him were too afraid to point it out to him.
Either way, i assume he means he will follow through with his threat to bomb the Iranian Power Plants and other civilian infrastructure which is of course a war crime but as America and Israel have been bombing schools, health centers and civilian homes, they are well into the War Crime territory anyway and Israel is already waiting to be hauled before a Court for their abhorrent murders in Gaza so we could see Trump beside him i the next cell.
That is unless he is dead by then and reigning down Hell of course, sending down Hell from Dante's Seventh Circle (Circle 7, Ring 3) which is reserved specifically for rapists and sex pests.

USA Leaving NATO

After almost every nation in the World answered the American Administrations request for help in the War they started against Iran with a big fat raspberry, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been pouting and said that: 'Washington may need to reconsider its relationship with NATO once the war against Iran is over' which echos the Mango Morons comments about leaving NATO.   
Unfortunately for the sex pest President and his hapless goons, going out through the exit door from NATO was made more difficult when in 2023 the Senate passed a Bill that meant any US President wanting to withdraw from NATO would require two thirds Congressional approval which would be unlikely to achieve.
The Sponsor of the Bill wrote that: 'No U.S. President should be able to withdraw from NATO without Senate approval' and 'We must ensure we are protecting our national interests and protecting the security of our democratic allies'.
So who was the sponsor of the Bill who wrote such wise words? Have a guess, go on, see if you can work it out.
Yep, rather brilliantly, the man who made it almost impossible for Trump to withdraw from NATO was the then Florida senator himself, Marco Rubio. Bit Awkward!

Special Guest Blogger: Stede Bonnet

Ahoy, ye curious scallywags! Gather ‘round the fire, pass the grog, and let me spin ye a yarn that’ll make ye chuckle, wince, and ponder whether you’ve got what it takes to be a pirate. Or a lunatic. The line’s thinner than a cutlass blade, I swear.
I’m Stede Bonnet, once known as the Gentleman Pirate. You see, me life was a comedy of errors and beginning in the posh drawing rooms of Barbados, ending with a noose and a last meal of bread pudding. And somewhere in between, I tried to be a pirate. It didn’t end well but by the sea gods, it was a doozy.
I was the son of a wealthy planter, a man made for gardens, not gunpowder. I had silks, servants and a parrot named George yet there I was, a pirate captain. How did it happen? Simple. I read a book.
See, in my youth, I devoured tales of derring-do by privateers, tales of pirate legends and the very romantic notion that piracy was freedom so I sold half my estate, bought a ship called the Revenge and declared, 'Avast! I seek fortune!'
My crew? A mix of disgruntled sailors, one guy named Black Dick who may or may not have been a spy, and George my parrot. My first raid? A merchant vessel, its captain so bewildered by my powdered wig and floral coat that he surrendered before I could wave a sword. I took the ship and renamed it The Flower of the Sea.
Now, I’ll admit I was no Blackbeard. The man had a beard like a tumbleweed hurricane and a crew that could pillage a village before the mayor could remember to panic while i meanwhile, once mistook cannon fire for a thunderstorm and ordered the crew to fetch the smelling salts.
But Blackbeard took pity on me. Or pity on himself for being stuck with me. One day, we crossed paths in the Carolina sounds, and the brute asked, “What’s yer business?” I replied, To steal treasures and terrify the masses. He roared with laughter and gave me the advice that I should go home.
I didn’t. Obviously. Because what pirate listens when told to go back to the life of leisure, tea, and polite conversation? But Blackbeard’s disdain stuck with me. If I couldn’t be a real pirate, I’d at least become a memorable one.
Alas, my crowning glory came in a most undignified form. In 1718, I commandeered the Sloop Industry, a snazzy little craft with the idea of raiding Spanish ships in the West Indies but the actual result was to get captured by the British and hanged along with me crew.
While I failed to amass gold, I succeeded in becoming a footnote in history books and a meme among sailors. Why? Because I was me. A man who wore silk shirts under armor, quoted Shakespeare before battles and once tried to ransom a captured ship by demanding a bottle of port and a decent dessert.
So, what’s the takeaway, ye landlubbers? Piracy isn’t for the faint of heart so Yarrr keep yer compass handy, yer spirits high, and aye, aye, matey.

Soooo Funny

I saw something on Social Media this morning which had me laughing so much that if i was drinking milk at the time it would have been coming out of my nose.
Unfortunately, despite looking, i have been unable to find it again so i could post it here but it was a pretend negotiation between the Iranian Ayatollahs and the American President and went something like:

Trump: Do You Surrender?
Ayatollah: Not to you fat boy
Trump: DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!!
Ayatollah: Sorry Fatty Fat Fat
Trump: Surrender to me or I will bomb you back to the Stone Age!!!
Ayatollah: You won't Chubbs, you got bone spurs remember.
Trump: THE AMERICAN MILITARY IS THE GREATEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!!!!
Ayatollah: So you keep saying Chubbster.
Trump: DO NOT CALL ME THAT, I WILL DECIMATE YOU EVEN MORE!!!!!
Ayatollah: You want our oil lardo?
Trump: Yes, give me all your oil.
Ayatollah: You want to rub it all over your obese body? Even we don't have that much oil Fatso.
Trump: WE WILL OBLITERATE YOU AGAIN IF YOU KEEP CALLING ME FAT!!!
Ayatollah: You prefer we made this about you wanting to hide you being a pedophile?
Trump: On second thoughts, you know, i probably could lose a few pounds....
Ayatolla: Ha Ha, Fatty Fat Chubby Blobby.

It was much longer than that and this was only the jist of it but wow it made me laugh and i don't know if it was a proper Iranian Government trolling or who it was but well done, brilliant. 

Will Ai End Capitalism?

A fellow blogger asked me if I use Ai to write my posts and when i said no i type out every word myself they were surprised, turns out that over the past few months they have been using it themselves (only sanity checking what the AI produced) to write their blog posts which while applauding their honesty, not only disappointed me but also got me wondering just how much we read is not by the hand and mind of the blogger.
My blog writing is thick with sarcasm and humour (aka piss taking) so i'm not even sure Ai could duplicate 'my style' but it is a scary thought that i didn't even notice and assumed it was their own work.
This does lead me to the point of this post which is the implications for Capitalism itself which is based on the premise that we work and then get paid for that work.
Ai is still in it's infancy and yet we are hearing of jobs being lost and replaced by Ai because a machine is doing it faster, cheaper and without complaint or the need for breaks or annual leave.
Back to the 19th Century Luddites, we have been warned that new inventions will replace us but each time the doomsayers have been proven wrong but the fast improving artificial intelligence is the first real technology that can do what we do, only better and faster and for the the price of a few kilowatts of electricity which looks so much better on profit spreadsheets for the business.
We have heard the warnings that that AI could eliminate half of all jobs within the next decade by writing newspaper pieces, diagnosing illness, bookkeeping, generating art and videos, teach, writing code, driving and performing most administration jobs  and this isn't far-fetched, it is already beginning to replace real work while the technology is still in its infancy.
This presents Capitalism with the paradox of delivering what Capitalism has always pursued in efficiency, lower costs and higher productivity while removing human wages which Capitalism depends on to keep itself going.
If enough jobs disappear and the income for those jobs go with them, who, then, buys the products to keep the wheels of the system turning?
Ai will pretty much replace everything including any new jobs that Ai create which will free humans to follow other things freed from 'working' but also freed from wages as billions find themselves economically redundant and that could spark a new Luddite movement against the machines or worse, the collapse of society itself.
At some point in the future we will have to debate how the gains from Ai productivity will be distributed which leads us directly to the idea of a Universal Basic Income but maybe someone has thought all this through and there are plans to be put in place but at some point in the not so far future, all of those people like me who has been urging an end to Capitalism, may well get it although we may not like what it is replaced with.

Absolute Best And Worst Of Us

Within a couple of hours last night we saw the absolute best and the absolute worst of us.
The best was the Artemis II Mission which saw a rocket lift off to spend the next 10 days in space circling the Moon and NASA and the Astronauts telling us that they were doing it for humanity and that is a concept which i wholeheartedly agree with because when it comes to the various Global Space Agencies, whether it is America's NASA, the European ESA, Chinese CNSA, Russian Roscosmos, India's ISRO or the Japanese JAXA, they are progressing human kind with every launch and every lesson learnt.
Then, hours later the absolute worst when Donald Trump, the man who chose to start a war while in the midst of negotiating to prevent it, said that he wanted to bomb a country: 'Back to the Stone Ages, where they belong'.
The War, conducted alongside a nation already complicit in War Crimes and a genocide against its neighbour, has so far seen 1,900 people killed in Iran, 1,320 in Lebanon, 30 in various Gulf States, 19 in Israel and 13 U.S. service members as well as the economic turmoil it has unleashed, rather than seek to try and end the war he started, spoke of causing further harm to 90 million people and is speaking of destroying the very infrastructure they need to live.
Those few hours summed up for me that us Human's are capable of creating things of immense beauty and making brilliant innovations and discovery's which drive us forward while at the same time also being capable of horrific, depraved and unbelievable cruelty to each other.

Special Guest Blogger: Jean-Marie Le Pen

Buckle up, mes amis because this is going to be as spicy as a Marie-Antoinette profiterole.
If you ever find yourself scrolling through the labyrinth of French politics looking for a souvenir of the far right and perhaps, for those who love a good scandal, a dash of racist notoriety, then welcome!
Picture it, a young Jean-Marie, all fire and perm, storming the political arena like a French Bridget Jones who’s had one too many espressos and decided the EU is the real villain.
I was born in 1928 in a small town that smelled of coal and ambition. Even as a child I was fascinated by the idea of order, the kind you get when you line up your toys in perfect, militaristic rows.
When the French army called, I answered, more out of a sense of duty than any desire to become famous. My time in the army gave me a taste of hierarchy and the smell of freshly polished boots, which later proved useful in politics.
In 1972, after a series of jobs that included a brief stint as a civil servant (which I left because bureaucracy is for the weak), I co-founded the National Front. The moment I saw our first poster I felt the rush of a rock star’s debut. This was my first genuine far-right brand-building exercise, and I was proud of the fact that my name was now on every billboard from Marseille to Lille.
My early years in politics were marked by a series of très memorable gaffes. Did I compare Nazis to French resistance heroes? Oui. Did I blame immigrants for everything from unemployment to bad croissants? Yep.  I first earned the racist label in the 1980s after a televised interview in which I, perhaps too candidly, referred to people of non-European origin as a “danger to French identity.
Perhaps my most entertaining highlight was the avalanche of lawsuits that followed my incendiary remarks, in 1992, I was convicted for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not particularly inhumane and i got a three-month suspended prison sentence and €10,000 (£8,283) fine.
In 2004, I took my show on the road to the European Parliament. My highlight here was an impromptu, flamboyant speech in which I compared the EU to a giant bureaucratic nightmare that eats French cheese and culture. I was subsequently banned from certain parliamentary sessions, a move I consider a badge of honor.
I made five attempts to become president of France and failed five times also but  sacre bleu, I am the ghost of French politics past.
My daughter Marine inherited the family business, and let me tell you, she’s so much prettier, and it was fun watching her try to re-brand the National Front into a more respectable party although that did include expelling me from my own party for anti-Semitic remarks and denying the Holocaust whilst praising Nazi war collaborators.
I pioneering the art of saying whatever’s most offensive in the room,  Controversy sells and a good scandal keeps you in the news. I made political incorrectness a brand, a lifestyle, a fashion statement. And let’s not forget the trials! Getting hauled before judges for defending the indefensible? It was like The Mask of Zorro, but with more lawyers and less ziplining. Moi, j’adooore a good courtroom drama. Especially when the prosecution’s arguments are as flimsy as a Frenchman’s excuse for not doing the dishes.
A quiet Sunday in Provence, the kind where the sun lingers  and I’m sipping a glass of Château Whatever, surrounded by my family (well, the ones who still speak to me), when my brain and my heart ganged up on me but neither the stroke or the heart attack killed me outright, they played a much longer game and  i died from them a year later.

A Problem For Future Space Travellers

I am away this week for my Birthday so I am pre-posting this a few days before the proposed plan to send Artemis 2 on its 4 day trip to the Moon where it will circle it for 2 days and then make the 4 day trip back today.
The delayed mission which will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon and back is pencilled in for countdown between April 1 and April 6 but NASA have yet to confirm the date as the weather on the day could scupper any plans but NASA have said that today is the preferred date with liftoff scheduled between 22:24 and 00:24
Artemis 2 is a test run for Artemis 3 which will see humans return to the moon and establish a long-term presence there and further afield but that's where it gets messy, and i mean literally messy because at some point building a sustainable human presence in space or other Planets such as Mars will require not just solving engineering problems, but also understanding how reduced gravity will affect sex and reproduction.
As yet, no one has had sex in space (as far as I am aware) but it will have to be considered the actual logistics of performing this docking maneuver in microgravity where weightless objects that come into contact repel one another so i can forsee weights or very strong Velcro but that's for the future scientists and astronauts to worry about.
Hopefully today we will see the first steps to rekindling our Space Exploration story, weather and me being able to find a TV and being sober enough to turn it on at 22:24 tonight permitting.