I'm not the warrior poet.

A chain of thoughts.

Once were warriors is a film about Maori in a modern New Zealand. The sequel is called What becomes of the broken hearted. I remember the titles, not so much the plot, except that they were good. I think I used to be a warrior, when I was young. I'm certainly not a Maori, but maybe my ancestors were Vikings. They were warriors. And proud. I used to fight a lot, when I was little. Not so much these days. There is no more fight in me. My grandmother on my father's side was from Poland. She was probably not from a Viking line. I don't remember much of my fighting days, my memories of childhood are like Swizz cheese, full of holes. But maybe I was proud in my youth. It would be nice to think I fought from pride from time to time, and not always from necessity. Don't know why fighting because of pride is better than other reasons to fight, except it would be nice to have some. Pride, I mean. We are not Vikings any more. Maybe we are broken hearted. I think I am. The world isn't the promise you once were given, and no matter how much you fight, you cannot change that. The time to put your boat to the waves, sail to distant shores and claim new land, is gone. I'm not a Maori nor a Viking, and I don't have a boat. I do have a heart. It pumps blood through my body, every day, every minute until I die. It works quite well. It only feels like it's broken.

Hellblazer is a comic from DC. In one issue, a homeless man shouts "I don't want your money, I want your love", then throws himself in front of a train. I think I would like to have both. My own money and my own love, but maybe yours would be good too. I've been spending a lot of money lately. Not so much love. The results have not been optimal, but maybe satisfactory. It is hard to be a loving person, so I try to settle for decent instead. Maybe I should give more of my money to charity, instead of spending them on myself. I like to believe I spread the wealth to my friends and family. Not sure I do. Keyword is believe. Besides, I'm not a rich man. Poor men seldom change the world, at least not for the better. It is easier for a poor man with a rifle to change the world for the worse, than it is for a poor man with a pen to change it for the better. Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword, but never bring a pen to gunfight. The age of noble warriors is gone. Pens are mostly used to sign documents these days. My weapon of choice is the pen. In my mind it has become a symbol of corruption, politics and secret trade agreements. Maybe I should get a sword instead. I do all my writing on my computer, so much for the pen.

Pray Nightfall is a song by Paradise Lost. The lyrics are sparse. Sometimes less is more, though this seems a blatant lie and a trick of the mind. I always feel my words are small, little. They don't have meaning, they have no weight. I don't know how to say what needs to be said, be it on screen, paper or by mouth. In my head this all is is repeated throughout the song. That feels about right to me. It wouldn't be so bad, if other people would say what needed saying. Maybe I should stop expecting things from my environment, but I think the day I do that, is the day my heart becomes broken in the real meaning of the word. Words are cheap. It is like I lessen myself  and the world every time I say something meaningless.  Maybe I once was a warrior. Maybe I'm broken hearted. I'm not a Viking and I don't have a boat. What will become of me is a an open question. I would like both money and love, but it is hard to figure out which one is more sparsely handed out in this day and age. I'm not a warrior and I'm not a poet.  This is all in my head, where words are not cheap until they are spoken.

Smoking weed, steam or cigarettes? Follow the money straight to the deathtrap. (Bigger than Jesus meeting between Illuminati and big pharma)

“Here is my final point...About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography...What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, or take into my body as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet? And for those who are having a little moral dilemma in your head about how to answer that question, I'll answer it for you. NONE of your fucking business. Take that to the bank, cash it, and go fucking on a vacation out of my life.”   - Bill Hicks



Who benefits? Follow the money. If you haven't learned to ask this important question and the very important follow-up anywhere else, then you can learn it right now, as I take it straight from Commander Vimes' mouth, courtesy of Terry Pratchett. In this case we shall apply said question to our lovely smoking habits.

Today's trigger is the ongoing debate about electronic cigarettes/vaping/steaming. Whatever you want to call it, I will call them ECs. These wonderful gadgets allow smokers and nicotine addicts to inhale as much nicotine-filled, or indeed nicotine-free, steam as they wish, without all that tar, smoke, benzene and various poisonous fumes slowly killing them. Hooray, right? Shame on you, you are dead wrong. The powers that be are doing everything they can to stop this from happening. 

Why? Follow the money.

But first let's have a look at what this is. Without being an expert, it seems to me that liquid or crystalized nicotine is heated and then inhaled as steam. There are flavors that can be added, gadgets that can customize the EC experience in whatever way you wish. You can even inhale flavored steam totally without nicotine. All this without destroying you lungs or getting all sorts of cancer. Yes, sure this is relatively new thing, but everyone agree that it is much healthier than regular smoking. Yes, there has been a couple of studies done saying that the use of ECs is extremely bad. These have been thoroughly discredited and/or debunked. Some say that there are possible long-term effects that are yet to be observed. This is of course possible, the point is that the same people usually state that there is no question about ECs being less harmful than traditional cigarettes by miles.
And let's face it, if they could've proved that regular use of ECs would harm you significantly or just plain kill you any time soon, they would've been all over it a long time ago, the big money would've dropped the other shoe before you could exhale.

My personal experience with ECs is great. I'm a raging nicotine addict. Using ECs I'm down to two cigarettes a day when at work. And ok, some more when at parties and festivals, but I don't need the cigarettes any more. I know many people who have stopped smoking regular cigarettes all together with the help of ECs.

So why is this not recognized world wide and celebrated? Follow the money. Who has a lot of money to gain or lose?

First off, there is the tobacco industry. They have a lot of money to lose. They also have a lot of money to begin with, and have their own tobacco lobbyists to discredit ECs. I mean, come on, if correctly marketed and priced, ECs could take over the entire tobacco market in the western world, of course the tobacco people are worried. Tobacco industry wants ECs dead.

Then there is Big Pharma. They don't necessarily hate the idea of ECs, but they want them all for themselves. So to them the idea is that ECs should be regulated as medicine and only sold by pharmacies. Who could blame them for wanting the ECmoney, right? But that would kill off a lot of competition and make ECs a more expensive and exclusive product, not so great for the consumer.

So there is a tug-of-war between those two industries and their evil as hell lobby groups. The EC companies are new and small time compared to these industrial behemoths, so it seems like a rather one-sided battle. On top of that, there are the various health departments and organizations of various countries and the world in general*. One could think that they would embrace new products that are a healthier alternative to one of the most health-damaging products for years and years? One would be terribly wrong in thinking that. They drag their feet, ask for more tests, side with one lobby or the other and look for what taxation opportunities there are to be capitalized on. They are either ignorant and behind the times, buried in bureaucracy, fanatical health-freaks or grabbing money. Possibly all of the alternatives. Weep and despair, folks.

Now, let's have a look at the war on drugs. Possibly not the best tie-in ever, but I don't care, this has pissed me off for years, and both topics involve smoking and Potatobeak HateCat gave me the go-ahead.

First of all. If this is indeed a war, has anybody ever won it? Has any nation ever declared victory in the war on drugs and just celebrated victory and made peace? No. Or possibly some nations proclaim "We have no drugs nor problems with drugs." Those are the places you don't want to live. No, not because you can't get your drugs of choice, you damned hippie, but because those are places with a dictator or militaristic or possibly religious regime that will lock you up if you blink in a funny way, and they probably have drugs, they just won't admit it to the rest of the world and join in on our ongoing war of stupidity. Anyways, if this is a war, when do we count the casualties, the expenses and consequences? And if we do those things, where do we draw the line and say "Enough, it is time to pull out our troops and cut our losses."? Because there are casualties, both the obvious and the more subtle ones, but the numbers, if you add them up, are HUGHE!

 In Mexico there is an actual war, with cartels and private armies fighting the regular army with thousands of deaths. This is not an unknown situation throughout the rest of Central and South America neither.
The more subtle casualties are the overdoses, the lives ruined because of drug-related crime and the very criminalization of people whose only crime is to do recreational drugs.

But drugs are bad, or so I've heard it said.  Well, so is alcohol and smoking, yet we don't declare war on beer and cigarettes. The casualties from alcohol and cigarettes are already humongous, imagine the death tolls of the infamous "Cigs and beer-war of '15"? Holy crap, what a bad idea.
But I digress.
Sure, some drugs are super-bad for you, they won't kill you slowly, they will kill you instantly or at least ruin your life. A question not often asked in public is - would they have ruined said life they were legal? I'm just saying.
Anyways, I'm not suggesting to legalize everything and shouting everything goes from the rooftops, nope, I'm flat out saying that legalizing all variations of marihuana would benefit the world in general greatly. I would also suggest that doctors should be able to prescribe heavy drugs like heroin to long time addicts. I see very few cons and oh so many pros.

Let's see now.

You would take the money away from criminal gangs and organizations, and the government would actually be able to tax now illegal drugs and make money. This would be an effective way to hamper organized crime as opposed to what we are doing now.
Look at the prohibition time in USA, talk about generating crime.
People who occasionally enjoy weed but otherwise are perfectly well behaved, wouldn't be criminals. This means that regular people who wouldn't hurt a fly, would not have to live in fear of the police. This only breeds unnecessary animosity between law enforcement and the populace.
Besides, if you know that you are a criminal in the eyes of the law, isn't it that much easier to go ahead and be a little more criminal?
One might even go so far as to say that it would shorten the increasing divide between the classes. Involving a lawyer in anything greatly reduces the amount of penalty, if any, one receives for minor crimes, meaning if you have money, you might pay a small fine or go Scott free, whereas poorer people seldom have a decent lawyer at hand. Paying the fine can potentially seriously harm their economy and not paying land them in jail, and so it could be argued that current policies on drugs are enforcing the divide between rich and poor in any nation. 
Drawing a clearer line between heavy drugs and lighter drugs, and officially making some legal and others illegal, would help to set dangerous drugs aside and make a more conscious and clear divide between these.
Various green stuff has shown its worth in medicine, and new uses are being discovered continuously. I'm not saying it is a wonder drug, but it is in many cases a beneficial drug.

So why should doctors give junkies heroin? Well, if you've tried rehab four times, have to be a criminal in order to raise the money you need for drugs and live on the street, I would argue that the best option for everyone involved would be to give this person heroin. Yes, it is, don't argue.
Said person's quality of life is just about zero. Said person would not be forced into prostitution or stealing, but would in fact might be able to produce something of value to society and actually manage to hold some sort of job or at least not be a criminal. No scratch that. The argument to do this is really about giving someone who has tried every other option a chance to have an actual life. All other gains are secondary.

So what is going on with this so called war on drugs? Some countries and American states have surrendered, at least in part, and arranged a tenuous peace. They seem to be still functional, no anarchy or Armageddon has broken out. Yet governments and various law-enforcement agencies across the globe seems to be fighting to keep the status quo, tooth and nail. Why?

It could be the money. Some places have laws that allow the police to seize any assets that are in any way linked to illegal drugs and trade of such. That is a huge bonus for any department. The thousands of yearly fines paid for petty possessions must be astronomical.  There is also employment to be considered. What will all those people who are employed in a useless war do, if the war is suddenly massively scaled down? Well, their general and employer could either make the troops crack down harder on the drugs that are still illegal, but I suspect many soldiers would have to look elsewhere for jobs. Jobs are currently, as always, a big deal everywhere. We might also consider this war in the way it tends to target the poor rather than the rich. This could potentially blow the mind of any fan of Illuminati-conspiracies**. It is undeniable that the war on drugs is a great tool for any government to wield against its population. If money = power, then we can still follow the money, in any form the cash might take.
But it is also a question of having the political balls to oppose the values of the conservative, religious, traditional, small-minded side that will butcher anyone who suggests such a move. You will potentially lose your career and power and gain nothing. It is a stupid old world, and it needs to change, yes, but not at my expense, you know?

Do I have point? NO! No great point to be made. Except that the war on drugs do more bad than good such as it is now, I mean if you want drugs you will get them, right? That points to the war being lost on a daily basis, and that isn't going to change, so why the blog bother? Oh yeah, and that smoking ECs is a hell of a lot better for you than regular cigarettes.

 Maybe I should make some sort of statement in the name of responsibility?

So, uhm.
Don't do bad drugs and don't drive while under the influence of drugs.






*No chance of them being corrupt or following the money at all, is there?
** You morons.

Don't give in to stupidity and fear - part 2 (History repeating.)

"In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment." - George W. Bush


Surely you read part 1? Good.

It is time to Stock up on canned food for humans and cats alike, according to media we are heading for a new cold war. Well, color me impressed, I really didn't think we would let it get that far. But I like to be prepared, and I've got very little faith in people in general, so I actually have a small stockpile of durable foodstuffs. I'm not a survivalist nutcase, I'm a realist, or so my cat keeps telling me. When everything goes wrong, I will be stuffing my face with delicious baked beans. I also have canned ham if the zombies come before the Russians.*
I'm not actually worried, the headlines are always dramatic, or someone wouldn't be doing their job very well, but there is some truth to it, the situation between Russia and, well, the world**, isn't cheerful. But as they say, it takes two to move their bodies together to a complicated early 20th century Latino rhythm. Meaning, what the hell are you all up to, what on earth are you thinking and what can I do to make you stop being stupid? These are not rhetorical questions. Somehow, we let this happen, ignore the problem or just grumble about evil Russians.
This will certainly help just as much as the good old "duck and cover". If only the Japanese had heard this phrase, thousands would've been saved. But then again, I suppose the point was to kill them.

The point of a cold war is not to kill anyone, as opposed to the famous hot wars. Well, isn't that a good thing, not killing each other, I hear no one in particular ask. Yes, I answer, and most people manage that every day without entering a verbal agreement with his neighbor that neither part will firebomb the other's house.
I sometimes talk with people in Eastern Europe, and they tell me the tanks are rolling through the streets where they live. At first I was surprised, now it seems commonplace. NATO is showing muscles, just in case Russia invades anyone they shouldn't. And I'm totally confused as to why we are entering this particular scenario again. Surely, the Russians love their children too. I mean, come on, here I was, thinking the nuclear arms race was more or less over, and we could worry about other things. But no, of course not, let us worry some more about nuclear holocaust. Our parents had such a blast digging token shelters in their gardens, we simply need to bring that back. We can pretend we live in Vault 13, it will be amusing, haha.

But wait a second. I just said the point of a cold war is to not kill anybody. Where is the danger, and what exactly is the point? Well, the danger comes from the politicians, corporations and international organizations that stoke the fires. They are clearly not good people. They might even be slightly unstable, have substance abuse problems or just be plain evil. For the most part, they just tend to prioritize money and power over everything else. And these people are the same people with the finger on the big, red nuclear buttons, or  maybe they just control said finger, it doesn't really matter. What really gets me, is that these are the same people with access to fallout shelters that might actually work. Do not for a second believe that this brewing conflict is about difference in ideologies, politics or even ethics. If the world cared even the slightest about Putin knocking off the political competition by making them dead, protecting Russians in other countries by invasion, promoting hate crime against gays or just being insanely macho, we wouldn't have given him the Olympics. The point of a new cold war would only be about money. And possibly power for the sake of power.
I hate to say this, but the damn hippies and conspiracy theorists were right on this.

USA has had a wartime economy ever since WW2. They spend insane amounts of money on defense contracts, new hardware, ships, planes and gadgets. More than any other country in the world, probably more than most other countries combined. If you hadn't noticed, the American economy hasn't been all that hot lately, neither has that of many European countries who happen to be a part of NATO, for that matter. It would be impossible for USA to change gears to peacetime economy at this point. They have used small and big wars to fuel their economy for 70 years. If the war wasn't hot, then the cold war would work just as fine until something better came along. You think I'm making this up? Use the internets, google it. War all the time. Reagan even made his own Star Wars project for blogs sake. Russia now being somewhat a lesser threat than back in the glorious USSR times, it seems the threat rests more firmly on the European countries. This works even better for USA, it's even a boon for Russia. All the better if this is mostly a regional conflict. The region still needs loans, equipment and suitable cultural entertainment.***

So why do I insist that everybody are stupid? Except for the obvious reasons (and fear), we live in democracies.**** This means we elect representatives to carry out our will. I love the term "public servants", that is exactly what they are, at  least in theory. So in a way, we are responsible - No, I don't care if you didn't vote for this or that person or didn't vote at all, you are still responsible as a human blogging being. Please, please use your grey matter, be aware of what is actually going on, question the news and don't give in to fear. The fear-dollar is big enough as it is.


*It's a classic. Zombie apocalypse and ham are like hand and glove. For some reason.
**Except those countries not bordering to Russia, not a close partner to USA or a part of NATO, so we are mainly talking about USA and Europe. You know, the world.
***See, I said everything was connected!
****If you, the reader, somehow has managed to read this from North-Korea or similar, I salute you.

Don't give in to stupidity - part 1 (We have nothing to fear but fear itself.)

"In the late 1930s, as Britain refused to adapt to the new realities of war, Winston Churchill observed, "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."

- George W. Bush


Today, while I was at work, I was hearing all sorts of news.
First of all, the supreme court of USA legalized gay marriage nationwide. Good for them. Seriously.

Second, IS seems to have let all hell loose, wherever they had the opportunity. This worries me, because it worries other people. The news these days, are mostly bad. Religious fanatics, cold war, racism, it is a hell of a stew. People get frightened. Fright is contagious. It makes people stupid. It makes people do stupid things. Like throwing their freedom out the window.
I'm of course talking about the Patriot Act, the famous piece of American legislation, where people in power capitalized on the fear of the powerless. The personal freedom and rights of any and all citizens was greatly reduced. Fear mongering also let them start a couple of wars against people they had previously trained and armed themselves.*
Europe has had it's own share of terrorism, both religious and political motivated, but so far we've not gone totally overboard on cutting civil rights. Sure, we've got new security routines at airports and we had to join said wars, but hey, a deal is a deal, and we are all members of the club called NATO and so on.
But as the threats increase, we seem to mess up. The police in Norway are now armed with firearms in most situations.  We recently cut down on transparency in political processes. This seems to be solely for the sake of bureaucracy, but it doesn't make it any better. Damn you world, you are making me smoke actual cigarettes at home again. Anyways, I predict that terrorism will be a prevalent story in the news for some time. There will be speculations about threats to Norway. There will be questions about how well we are prepared for worst case scenarios. All this at a time where our prime minister already is worried about Russian spies,*** and an elevated threat level in Europe because of the situation in the Ukraine. More about that in part 2. Point is, people will be stupid. I implore people to not be so. Let the media and politicians rant and rave about the dangers of the world, but for blogs sake, let's not buy into it  ourselves. Please don't believe the hype, and don't let your political representative misrepresent you. When the government limits your liberty, the terrorists win.**** When you are afraid, the terrorists win. When we bomb the shit out of some country to kill the terrorists, we generate more terrorists and the terrorists win yet again. When we arm the rebels to overthrow the regime we don't like, we end up arming IS. Terrorists win. This is not counterstrike. This is the real world. Only damn way to beat this is by not being afraid and therefor not stupid.

Anyways, gay marriage, eyh? Textbook example of people being unafraid from the supreme court. Use your brain if you are going to hate something, it is a big decision. Don't use your heart or guts for hate, those are for loving and eating.


*This will be another case of everything is connected to everything else, as you will see in part 2**
**If you bother to read it that is. But take my word for it, everything is connected to everything else.
***Of all things to worry about....
****And so does the government.  Yes, they do, don't argue.

Spoilers gallore! (will contain spoilers, for real)

Yes, so... Due to mental lethargy, I've not been producing these last months. That may or may not change, but as of right now, this here moment in time and space as I am occupying it,* I am producing this here big list of spoilers to punish you. I would like to punish the film industry and their promotion-people, but let's face it, they will not read this, so I punish you. Also - thank you Scrubs.

I am in my prime. That means I remember VHS. These splendid magnetic tapes held movie magic in their spools. After the movie, you had something sort of trailing after the main attraction, some small promotional teasers for future attractions - trailers.

Trailers are no longer to be found after a movie. If you are a slightly out of touch and still use DVDs and blu-rays and such, they are to be found before the stuff you actually would like to see. If you just download everything or stream it, you dodge that stuff altogether.
But then there is the internets. Oh yes, YouTube, Imdb and Facebook will show you all the latest trailers, teasers, promos and featurettes. Sometimes, that is ok. About 70% of the time, it is NOT ok, as they will contain so much of the plot and potential spoilers, that you might as well just watch the trailer and don't bother with the rest hour and a half of film, as you've already know what will happen.

All right, so you stay away from these digital spoiler-factories, then you should be good, all fresh and oblivious to what the latest blockbuster or your favorite show has in store for you? Of course not. Because people are basically bad at keeping their mouth shut.** They will happily tell you all about the Red wedding, long before it comes up, because they read the books (as they should), and they will post RIP Opie all over their facewall while you are still on season two.

So here is the deal. As a public service, I will go ahead and give you all the spoilers I can come up with, without actually telling what show, franchise or movie it is from. It will be done solely with the help of my spotty memory. You will have to find out if you've seen it and know the reference. It's a game. It will be fun. Come on.

Spoilers ahoy!


Bruce Willis was dead for most of the time. The kid sees dead people, remember?

Other than that, Bruce Willies never dies. Oh, except for when he saves mankind from asteroids.

The literal hand of god comes out of the sky and detonates the nuke, while transporting the good guy away from Vegas. Shittiest ending to a great story ever.

Darth Vader is indeed Luke's father, but despite the handicap of having been Hayden Christensen in his youth, he saves Luke in a last ditch effort of parenting.

The spooky voodoo ritual she performs will not save her, it will transport her soul into the old gals body and vice versa. Surprise!

I don't know about the movie, but in the comic, Batman beats the shit out of Superman with a little help from his friends.

Ryan makes it home. 90% of the guys who are sent to rescue him die. Someone didn't think this through.

The outlander kills the vengeful alien with a little help from his Viking friends. He also gets the girl.
Poor alien.

Speaking of aliens, Ripley will always survive, even when she dies.

Sofia Coppola dies, leaving her father as an old, broken man who falls dead on his face thinking it was all for nothing.

They were not dead the whole time. You will never understand the island!

Dicaprio is not a federal marshal, he's just crazy.

Matt Damon is the informant. Wahlberg kills him in the end. The Asian original is hereby spoiled too.

Is there a Keyser Soze or is there only Kevin Spacey?

Speaking of Spacey: He has Gwyneth Paltrow's head sent to Brad Pitt, forcing him to kill him.

The Sopranos don't do so well in cars.

William Shatner and James Spader marry each other in the last episode. 

Samurais are awesome, but not even Tom Cruise can save them from a Gatling gun.

Bob the demon possessed Laura Palmer's father. He killed her. Bob takes over agent Cooper in the end.

In the comics, Glenn gets beaten to death. Andrea is still alive though, so you never know.

Ozymandias saves the world by killing thousands. Dr. Manhattan kills Rorschach. Rorschach destroys plot to save world from beyond the grave.

Lenny Nero is not paranoid, his best friend is trying to kill and frame him. Juliette Lewis is very pretty.

Sam and Frodo marry each other and live happily ever after. So does Legolas And Gimli. No, I lie, everyone has a bad time and then die sooner or later. Legolas and Gimli have a good time, though.

A broke tank can't handle hundreds of axis. Everyone dies except new guy.

The guy from Spain kills the emperor, then bleeds out in the arena.

Spartacus dies. So do everyone who claim to be him.

Riddick is super-ninja-cool. He survives monsters and bounty hunters, he keeps what he kills, gets betrayed and kills more monsters and bounty hunters. Yes!

There is no Earth, except Earth is what you make it. The cylons do whatever they do and most of the cast die before they get there anyway. Angels exist and they are very fond of sex. Starbuck pulls a Jesus.

Lucy Lawless always gets shafted. Mhm.

Wash and Shepherd die. The rest of the lot continues to misbehave. Don't expect any sequels.

Doctor Holiday kills people who aren't daisies, then succumb to consumption. Mr. Earp lives on room service and love 'til the day he dies.

Gene kills Morgan, Clint kills gene. No one were forgiven that day.

The Ship hits an iceberg and sinks. Leo drowns. Winslet has spectacular bosoms.

Kong goes to the city, climbs a bit, gets shot by planes, falls down and dies. Depending on what timeline you are on, of course.

Roland enters the Dark Tower to save the rose. The journey continues ad infinitum.

Hugh Jackman cheats with the help of David Bowie. Christian Bale has a twin.

Bilbo goes there and back again. The hunky dwarves die.

It is not futile to resist the Borg.

Vic Mackey gets immunity. The rest of the squad, not so much.

Hawkeye gets the girl. The penultimate Mohican and his girl die. 

Troy gets burned to the ground. Legolas shoots Achilles in the heel. Everyone are retards.

He is not the messiah, just a very naughty boy. He still gets crucified. Mel Gibson directs.


















 

 





































*You, the reader, will be at somewhere completely different location on the time/space cake chart, not unlike Matthew McConaughey in the movie Interstellar, where he knocks down stuff from a bookshelf.
**And soooo many other things. Like Dennis Quaid in Pandorum. The cap has issues.

The Age of Denial. (Guatemalan goats will kill us all.)

"Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see Armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of freaks" - Ænema, Tool


So.
Happy new year everybody, and congratulations. You survived to celebrate life in a giant feast of fireworks, food and alcohol. I know I did. We didn't blog up and die. Our bodies didn't go all wonky and betray us with a random heart attack. The titans of the world didn't cause any wars or catastrophes that killed us. Lots of other people, but not us in particular.  Congratulations.
Now I'm going to tell you why we are all doomed.

Early morning on the first day of the year 2015, I had a long conversation, some of it about this blog. Normally, I don't remember much of anything after drinking for 12 hours, but sometimes I come out at the other side, with a alcohol fueled brain and a clearness of thought that's denied me on most days. You are reading the result.

The reason we are doomed is money.
I've touched the subject before, but I'll do it in detail now*. 

In the good old days, when things were really crappy, we didn't have money. We bartered. Then we got kings, emperors and pharaohs. They made money, which is great. Money means you don't have to trade sexual services, manual labor, food or trinkets for those exact same things from others. Coins were soon minted in various precious minerals, like copper, brass, gold and silver**.
It became a bit of a hassle to walk around with heaps of gold and silver in your pocket when you wanted to go shopping, so we collectively agreed we could make symbolic trade tokens of very specific values instead. And there you have modern paper money and coins.

But really, say you were the monarch of Guatemala or some such person. You couldn't just declare your paper tokens to be worth 5000 goats a piece.  You still went by the gold standard. Your country had this much gold and silver and such? Well, that's what your money represented and was worth.
Simple enough. But not very convenient if you were the monarch of Guatemala and had no gold but lots of goats. So we agreed that your country's currency could have a relative value. This relative value would be directly linked to some big solid currency, backed by lots of gold, goats and other natural resources. A currency everyone could trust. The mighty dollar. Your goat-backed Guatemalan lire is worth this much compared to the American dollar. Simple enough.***

Let's fast forward through some wars, and presidential assassinations to our old friend and all time favorite Tricky Dick Nixon, creator of masks, slogans and president of the USA. Also a fine magician. His greatest magic trick, was this. He told the world that USA would no longer base the worth of a single dollar on how much gold it would get you from Fort Knox. And the world said "Fine." We all went along with this idea of make-believe value of money, and an entire economical system that only works IF YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT IT. That is quite some trick.

So the next question is, what does the president of USA do, when his nation needs more money. Unlike his friend from Guatemala, he can't just ask the farmers to get more goats. We are no longer on a goat standard. We are on NO STANDARD. The president simply asks the big bank called the federal reserve to make him more money. He will promise to pay them back. This is a promise he cannot keep, but we all pretend otherwise. While the Americans are sticking their head in the sand, what do the rest of the international community do? We invest in their operation to ram our heads our asses and DON'T THINK, by buying USA's national debt to the federal reserve. I have frankly no idea why. It is like gentleman's agreement to not see what is in front of you and piling denial on top of that. There is an old idea that the dollar and capitalism cannot fail, maybe it just force of habit - invest in USA, invest in dollars, it cannot fail. It cannot fail. Holy crap. You remember when those big banks failed in 08? Because of bad debt? They were considered too big to fail. Remember the shit-storm that followed? We are still feeling consequences world wide from that. That was a cozy walk in the park compared to what is coming. Society as we know it might blogging end. We are FUCKING DOOMED. I'M NOT JOKING!****  We are all depending on everyone else not telling the king that his clothes are invisible and in fact not there at all. And you can tell that that one little kid with the stupid look on his face is about to start yelling. The signs that the age of denial is coming to an end. Maybe the crack in 08 paved the way for new thoughts. Authors, journalists and standup comedians are comfortably dropping references to the dollar being hollow in their material and books. The thought has made its way to popular culture.

American government  neither can nor will pay their debt to the federal reserve. Not a snowball's chance in hell. We are buying their debt. We are basing the world's economy on this debt. The sums are gargantuan.

We have an economical system that is based on eternal growth. Show me one single example of a closed system that can keep growing eternally. No? This is why nations have a license to print money. This is why we have inflation. This is why the smaller denominations of currency keep on disappearing and the numbers on the bills are getting higher.
We are clinging to a trickle down system of money that makes very, very few people richer and the rest is in fact getting poorer, in terms of divide. All this is of course false, because the money is not actually there.

Current world debt: 55 000 000 000 000$.
Over 95% of all systemized value in the world is debt. We are getting by on IOUs and money that don't exist other that theoretical numbers on screens and bits of paper. There are not enough goats in the world to barter you out of this mess, my friend. We are, in fact, utterly blogged.

I still fear I fail to make the point clear. This is because this issue is so spectacularly grand in scale, that I can't fathom it myself. I am myself a victim of this age of denial. My only weapon, the written word, isn't sufficient.. My disappointment in the powers that be, 99% of every person with a degree in economy, and people in general is too great a thing to put in words.
This cake is the biggest collective lie in our history.
Google is your friend.
Good night and good luck.




*General, vague details.
**Also, salt has been popular.
***Not really.
****Seriously.