Young at heart

 

A young Doreen Virtue when she promoted "New Age occultism" at the Oprah Winfrey Show. 

Cyberpunk

 

Is this really existing cyberpunk? We assumed we would be living in cyber-utopia by now. Or at the very least a very interesting cyber-dystopia (think "Blade Runner"). Instead, we got...this.

A humanoid robot named Edward chases invasive boars in Warsaw, Poland. Yes, really. Boars. Wild pigs. Suids. 

"I have seen the fire birds of Orion, the space ships at Tannenberg Gate, the suids of Warsaw". HA HA HA!  

Trump can´t meme

 

Claim: there are two versions of the infamous Trump meme showing the Don as Jesus (or is it Geezus a.k.a. Brian). The one to the left is the original one (original source unknown), the one to the right is the meme that was actually published on Truth Social. 

Before the meme was posted by the POTUS, somebody changed one of the soldiers in the sky to a winged creature with apparent horns. I´m not the only person who thinks it looks like a demon or the Devil himself. Did Trump change it? Did somebody else? If so, why? Is some of Trump´s advisors secretely undermining him? 

I suppose the most charitable interpretation is that the "soldiers" really are demons and that Trump opposes them by healing the sick man. But if so, it contradicts the "pro-military" atmosphere in the rest of the meme. Maybe it´s pointless to analyze memes (ironic or otherwise), but the picture was deleted from the Trump account after an unprecedented backlash from American Christians (many of whom presumably voted Republican).

On to the next scandal...   

Wednesday night

 

"Welcome, stranger, we are only here for your protection." 

Ambition noll

 

Några avhoppade SD-are har tydligen bildat ett nytt parti, Ambition Sverige. En snabbtitt på hemsidan ger vid handen att partiet försöker profilera sig som "det riktiga SD". Alltså med "riktig" SD-politik, inte alla urvattnade kompromisser. Oklart varför de inte går till Alternativ för Sverige? Men min ambition att botanisera i detta är rätt nära nollpunkten. Kommer såklart inte att bli (åter)invalda i riksdagen (några av "vildarna" har tydligen gått över till Ambition Sverige).

Bordlägges! 

Wednesday

 

"Yeah, so I have original friends. What´s that to you, boy? And no, I won´t give you no sweets."

Alla tiders

 

Har kollat lite på Fria Tider. De är så där härligt onyktra som bara högerextremister kan vara. Nu igen. Stöd till den shia-muslimska teokratin i Iran. För att de likviderar judar? Reza Pahlavi kallas "diktatorsonen" och hans far shahen "skänkte bort Irans olja till USA". Okej, vem stödjer Fria Tider i kalla kriget? Sovjet? Röda Kina, kanske? Kanske har de uppdämda nationalsocialistiska sympatierna nu äntligen börjat krypa fram. 

Eller inte. För Fria Tider verkar även vara motståndare till allmän värnplikt i Tyskland. LOL! Fast det kanske beror på att de tänker på Tyskland som *Väst*tyskland. Snarare än Hitler-Tyskland, då. FT har förresten fortfarande en bild av Karl XII i tidningshuvudet, trots att de alltså är pro-ryska. Till skillnad från Hitler, som ju "stödde Ukraina" och invaderade Ryssland.

Många nubbar blir det!

The Golden Child

 

"The Creator" is a 2023 science fiction movie. It comes across as a peculiar hybrid between "Blade Runner", "Star Wars" and the US war in Vietnam. The first portion of the film is interesting. In the second half, the Vietnam War analogies and Buddhist savior-complex becomes downright cringey. 

The story begins with a technological breakthrough: humanoid robots with Artificial Intelligence. Something goes wrong and the robots detonate a nuclear bomb that wipes out Los Angeles. The United States promptly stops all AI development, but a competing nation known as New Asia refuses. The American military builds a space station called NOMAD to wipe out the Asiatic robots (and all human Asians who stand in the way). This may be an allegory for the fact that China is supposedly a world leader in AI technology. But as already noted, the similarity with the US intervention in Vietnam 1965-73 are also obvious. New Asia is clearly located in Indochina. 

The main characters have religiously inspired names: Joshua (compare Joshua or Jesus in the Bible), Maya (compare Buddha´s mother) and the robot "Alpha and Omega" (compare God or Jesus). A mysterious character is named Nirmata, apparently the Nepalese word for creator - according to ChatGPT, the term has no metaphysical connotations, but in the context of this film, it presumably does. New Asia turns out to be a strange place in which humans and robots live in peaceful harmony with each other, both apparently being Buddhists (or something like it). It´s clear that the robots are a stand-in for the Other, the excluded, the marginalized, and their armed rebel movements. The good guys are almost all colored, while the bad guys seem to be exclusively White (including a White female). Naturally, it turns out that the nuclear blast which destroyed LA might not have been the work of the AI, after all. 

"Alpha and Omega" (nicknamed Alphie) is a child, but also a Messiah-like savior with paranormal powers. She can control all technology and hence might wipe out NOMAD, which explains why the Americans want to kill/de-activate her. Note again that Alphie´s "mother" or creator is named Maya, suggesting that the child might be the Buddha. Note also that Alphie is artifically engineered by Maya, perhaps a reference to a virgin birth. It further struck me that there could be a weird parallel to the Biblical story of Joshua and the harlot Rahab, since the character Joshua in the film is tasked with infiltrating New Asia before NOMAD (= the nomadic Israelites?) wipes them out (like Jericho?). Note that he meets "Rahab"/Maya in an apparent strip club!

OK, so I´m a nerd...

Despite all the above, "The Creator" nevertheless feels like a self-parodic low budget production. Perhaps because the left-liberal message is too obvious. These days, films apparently *must* be like explicit pamphlets, otherwise the Woke autists don´t get it. Or something. Well, at least the religious allegories were *somewhat* hidden. One intriguing feature of "The Creator" is that the White Evil Empire isn´t really evil. The atomic explosion in California seems to have been an accident, rather than the result of a conspiracy. Thus, the US are misguided rather than actively malevolent. The worldview of the film turns out to be a form of milktoast liberalism in which everyone might at least potentially get along, rather than the hardline Marxism you expect from a "pro-Viet Cong" allegory. It´s all so "unproblematic".

OK, so I didn´t like this production. Or did I simply misunderstand its intended demographic? *Is* it a film for very young middle schoolers? Or for 24-year olds who think like 14-year olds?     

Not sure how many stars to give "The Creator". Perhaps two-and-a-half out of five. 

Wow, Trump gets his way

 

About a dozen European nations, headed by France and the UK, will appearently have a conference to discuss how the Strait of Hormuz should be secured once the Iran War is over. Catch: the United States isn´t invited. In other words: the Europeans are doing exactly what Trump said they should do. You know, sort out the Hormuz situation all by themselves. 

Something tells me he won´t like it, however. But then, I doubt much will come out of it anyway... 

Galaxy *cluster* brain?

 

Has MOND finally been proven? Sabine is skeptical, but if true, then we don´t need "dark matter" to explain the behavior of galaxy clusters. Since galaxies apparently contain twice as much normal matter than previously expected! Interesting, to be sure.