Splendid Isolation

Tag: Stupid people

Here Comes Another One

Advice, Freaks & Loonies

It will help if while reading this piece, you hum the tune to the above title (as recorded by Monty Python on their final album).

It was only last week when I slotted this little item into a News Roundup:

…and here’s an update, with a younger member of the Nostradamus Tribe being a little more cagey, timewise:

A man who has been dubbed the ‘living Nostradamus’ claims ‘the worst is yet to come’, suggesting the world is teetering on the edge of WWIII.  

Athos Salomé, 36, who is a trained parapsychologist from Brazil, is often referred to as a psychic due to the accuracy of his insights and predictions, after previously foreseeing the coronavirus pandemic, Elon Musk buying Twitter, now called X, and even Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

Now, as people worry about the escalation of conflicts and humanitarian crises, he warns that ‘a small incident’ could set off a series of terrifying events. 

Key phrase:  “trained parapsychologist” (one could be snarky and add “Brazil”, but if we’ve learned anything, it’s that these loons can pop up anywhere).

If these Nostradami actually worked as advertised, they wouldn’t be hammering on about global catastrophes — at least, I wouldn’t, if endowed with these magical powers.

I certainly wouldn’t be blathering on vaguely about nonsense like “And there shall be a great pestilence come upon the land” [at some unmentioned date, in some unmentioned country].

No, I would be ensconced in the Presidential Suite at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo, paying for my accommodation (not to mention more than a few unsavory indulgences) by plonking a grand or so on 27 at the Casino’s roulette wheel each night.  That’s at least a useful application of the magic power, and not providing fodder for some crappy newspaper’s This Week’s Things To Panic About! section.

But perhaps I’m being too dismissive.

Sarajevo, anyone?  As Bismarck once said, it will be just some damn thing in the Balkans… now that was an accurate prediction.

Next Week: Armageddon

Elections, Mocking Furriners

…for the Brits, anyway, as they are going to vote the Communist Labour Party into power because reasons.

After Bill Clinton was elected President, I remember expressing my amazement to a friend that almost the very first thing he did was increase taxes.  My friend’s response was withering:  “Of course he raised taxes:  he’s a fucking Democrat, and that’s what they do.”

Now back over The Pond…

Here’s the opinion of the Greatest Living Englishman on the topic:

Anyone who thinks that Labour will behave in any way differently to what Clarkson says needs to jump off a cliff.  And in fact Labour may do worse, much worse.

I’m not taking any bets on that.

Never Again

Entertainment

Watched the Oppenheimer  movie the other night with New Wife.  I of course was familiar with the whole Trinity/Manhattan Project/Oppenheimer story, so I was able to follow the plot reasonably well.

New Wife knew very little about the topic, and as a result she fell asleep about a third of the way through;  she couldn’t make head or tail of the thing because the dialogue was indistinct and often obscured by the ambient noise of the movie set, so boredom set in and off into dreamland she went, the lucky girl..

The fault is mine because I should have paid more attention to the opening credits.

Director:  Christopher Nolan.

FFS, when is this pretentious asshole going to be tossed onto the garbage heap of cinematic history?

I have complained — often — about the current moviemaking trend of mumbled dialogue and over-loud soundtracks.  Nolan doesn’t just fall into the trap of this trendy nonsense:  he positively revels in it, and is proud of the fact that his movies are profoundly indistinct, both in terms of his characters’ dialogue and in the lack of lighting.

Oppenheimer  was a fine example of all his nonsense.  And it was a shit movie.

I’m never going to watch another of Nolan’s movies, ever again.  Fuck him, the arrogant swine.

Wrong Word, Used Stupidly

Health, Lies and Untruths

I’ve come to the point where unless the word “equity” is used in a financial sense — e.g. the increase in your house’s value = higher equity in your personal financial value — I see the word (especially when applied in a social context) and just know what follows is going to be utter bullshit.

Hence this crappy piece of “research” at Tufts University which, as Glenn pointed out, loses me at the “health equity” phrase right there in its sub-head:

American Diets Have a Long Way To Go To Achieve Health Equity

Au fond, its underlying supposition is racist — i.e. that the underclass (specifically, the Black population) — is at greater risk because their diet choices are “bad”.

“Oh noes, Kim,”  you say, “that’s not what they’re implying at all!”

Really?  Here’s the pic at the top of the piece:

In an even bigger tell, note that the proffered plate of (yummy!) food is being held in a White hand, the implication being, of course, that Whitey is driving Blacks to make poor dietary choices.

As a piece of racial propaganda, I can hear Josef Goebbels applauding in the background.

If Black people want true “health equity” with White people — i.e. improve their mortality rate — they should ignore bullshit like this article, eat whatever they want to eat, and instead quit letting their kids kill each other in the inner cities.

Overreaction?

Psychos

From Reader Mike L. comes this little tale from (where else?) Floriduh:

Police responded to a home in reference to a shooting Thursday morning.  When officers arrived, they found a man with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators determined that the suspect, Patricia Whitehead, and the victim shared a residence.  She became angry with the man, saying he “did not clean up after himself,” police said.

Authorities said the victim was leaving the home when Whitehead heard him slam the door. She then went and grabbed her gun from her bedroom, left out of the door, and shot the man multiple times, according to police.

I guess that was just one slam too many.

I’m not taking this loony old tart’s side, but I bet there’s more to this story than is being reported.

Or she’s just a loony old tart.