Sverige kommer inte att klara det s k vaccinmålet eftersom 3 miljoner shots saknas.
Vilken tur. Med tanke på att vaccinet verkar livsfarligt! Även de officiella medierna rapporterar om allvarliga biverkningar hos vårdpersonal som fått vaccinet.
There, I said it.
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Another link to Karl Shuker´s crypto-zoology website, this time about supposed observations of giant spiders. And I do mean huge - the size of a dinner plate, a chihuahua or...even larger.
Of course, we all "know" that such creatures are impossible in Earth´s present atmosphere, since spiders (and insects) breath through trachea, which imposes absolute physiological limitations on their size.
OR SO WE ASSUMED UNTIL KARL SHUKER DID MORE RESEARCH ON THE MATTER!!!
It turns out that one oversized arthropod, the coconut crab (a crustacean) has evolved a novel organ for breathing, since it lives exclusively on land.
So why not spiders?
My arachnophobia just got worse. Let´s hope all the reports detailed in the linked blog post below are drunken tall tales or misidentified frying pans, chihuahuas or coconut crabs...
Everytime I watch a "spiritual" clip on YouTube, a very annoying ad pops up, featuring some guy speaking with an Australian accent who claims to have solved "the human condition" (no less). So eventually I decided to check him out, and here is what I found...
Jeremy Griffith is an Australian biologist and author of several books, of which "Freedom" is freely (!) available on the web. Griffith is the leader of the World Transformation Movement (WTM), which has existed in various forms since 1983. I assume the WTM was until recently a very small group since I never heard about it before (according to "Freedom", they had 50 members during the 1990´s). Today, the WTM seems to have branches in several countries, and are conducting a sustained propaganda offensive on the web. When Australian media accused Griffith´s band of followers of being a cult, the WTM succesfully sued for libel. While it´s possible that this particular group isn´t a cult sensu stricto, they certainly *sound* like a weird mixture of religious cult and revivalist Christian church. This strikes me as peculiar, since the WTM at least strongly implies that they are atheists and science-based! Griffith himself is being treated as a towering genius who (with some input from other genial people) "solved the human condition", and his books are said to explain everything and have the ability to save the world. While some of Griffith´s ideas are interesting, his movement sounds fanatical, dogmatic and frankly weird. It also sounds "spiritual", despite the claims to a worldview informed by biology and psychology.
Griffith believes that the human species originally lived in a state of child-like, nurturing, matriarchal innocence, similar to that of bonobos (the bonobo is a peaceful evolutionary cousin to the common chimpanzee). At this stage, human existence was wholly driven by instinct. At a certain point, the gene-driven instincts were supplemented by a nerve-driven conscious mind seeking understanding. This led to a perennial conflict between the mind and the instincts, during which the latter accused the mind of being sinful or evil for straying away from the instinct-driven life. Unable to defend itself against the accusations of the instincts, the mind developed various coping-strategies, of which the most prominent is the need for aggression and competition. Thus, aggression does *not* come from our genes or primal instincts, but is a psychological condition that evolved later. Since aggression doesn´t really solve the mind´s dilemma, humans become increasingly more frustrated and alienated, a process that has been going on for two million years. During that time, other coping mechanisms have been developed, this time of a broadly collectivist nature, which are really attempts to suppress the mind in favor of a return to the instinct-driven life, something Griffith considers impossible. Religion, socialism, feminism, environmentalism and "political correctness" are examples of this. Today, humanity has reached the low point of this development, with the entire human race running the risk of becoming psychological (or perhaps even near-literal) zombies, destroying the entire human species in an apocalyptic endgame of complete nihilism and insanity. Only one thing stands between us and the abyss: the message of the World Transformation Movement...
Some readers will already recognize the familiar Biblical meme of innocence - fall - original sin - apocalypse (or salvation). I don´t think Griffith would deny this similarity. He seems to regard monotheism and Platonism as the most advanced forms of understanding before the WTM´s message. Indeed, Griffith often references St Paul and Plato. He seems fascinated by the dramatic conversion experience of the former and the "simile of the cave" of the latter. Religious prophets were a kind of liberated beings. Despite this, religion nevertheless falls short and is turned into another failed coping mechanism, since the believers are supposed to blindly follow the prophets, in effect going back to the instinctual stage of human evolution. "God" doesn´t exist, at least not in the Biblical sense. God should be seen as a metaphor for the end-point of cosmic evolution, when everything that exists is holistically united in a state of Negative Entropy. (Note the teleological perspective here.)
It´s interesting to note that Griffith doesn´t view the conflict between mind and instinct as "sinful" or "evil", neither from the side of the mind nor from the side of the instincts. Rather, the struggle is a heroic one for understanding. The "fall" is inevitable if humanity wants understanding, a kind of "fortunate fall" if you like. This explains why Griffith doesn´t see a simple return to instinct as a desirable solution, despite the fact that our instinctual state was blissful and bonobo-like. Humans have to evolve higher! The WTM´s ideas are the end-point of the heroic struggle for understanding. Now, we can simply let go of all our alienated baggage, without any reproach or remorse, since the riddle of the human condition has been solved. Griffith also regards males as heroic, precisely because they entered upon the difficult path to understanding, while women took the side of instinct (or at least pretended to do so - both sexes are equally alienated). At the same time, males have become extremely alienated from their true natures. Rape, male homosexuality and in general treating women as sex objects are examples of this. The non-alienated existence seems to be gender-neutral, gender-complementary or even somewhat "matriarchal", with men aiding women in nurturing the children. Griffith opposes really existing feminism since he believes that it can´t harmonize the sexes, simply pretending that everyone in an alienated society is equal. His political views are frankly hard to fathom, since he often sounds right-wing and sympathetic to Prince Charles, Margaret Thatcher, and Fox News commentators Bill O´Reilly and Sean Hannity, while nevertheless taking positions usually seen as leftist (such as sustainability and gender equality).
Griffith calls the non-alienated state of human existence "Transformed Lifeforce Way of Living" or simply "the Transformed State". The change from alienation to the new state is strikingly similar to a sudden religious conversion experience. You simply let go of your present condition and walk away from it all, something made easier if you don´t think too much, which includes thinking about Griffith´s own message! This will transform you to a person filled with love, compassion, nurturing and sheer excitement for life. In other contexts, however, Griffith *does* emphasize the absolute necessity of "Freedom" and the WTM´s other messaging, making the Transformed State sound like an effect of reading his books, or even *identical* to it. The message does have cultish traits. Joining the WTM is obviously seen as extremely important, and Griffith admits that the members don´t have children, so they can concentrate all their energy on spreading the good news. Some people are said to be so special that they can grasp the message almost immidiately (Griffith calls them "ships at sea"). An elite group? Resistance to WTM´s propaganda is simply illogical and must be the result of deep seated fear and alienation. Griffith calls it "the deaf effect" and has developed an entire course to challenge it and overcome it. It has never entered his mind that perhaps people are simply put off by WTM´s evangelical fervour, or might have legitimate worries about the practicality or consistency of this particular philosophy...
I mean, it´s not like we haven´t heard all this before, is it?
With that, I end my little report about what´s behind that ad on YouTube.
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A fascinating article about a possible "living fossil" of crocodilian in the Northern Territory of Australia. While there is no hard evidence for the existence of this "cryptid", I´m ready to believe almost anything about the *Australian* fauna, especially its reptile component! If it´s bad, badass and very hungry (or extremely venomous), yepp, it´s Aussie, alright! From Dr Karl Shuker´s cryptozoology blog.
It seems the world famous Mokele-mbembe has a competitor. It´s called the Mbielu-mbielu-mbielu and is supposed to be a Kentrosaurus redivivus. Yes, folks, Ashtar Command is back in the crypto-zoology fold again (or is it a menagerie), bringing you the latest news about neo-dinosaurs in darkest Congo, c/o the blog of indefatigable researcher emeritus Dr Karl Shuker.
As usual, there is zero hard evidence that any of these mystery beasts exist at all, all we have being eye witness reports, but the subject is sufficiently fascinating for a brief mention on the blog to end all blogs (besides, we´re all tired of the Biden-Trump stand offs anyway). Even the cryptid-hunters are brave enough to admit that the "dinosaurs" might simply be unknown species of monitor lizards seen under unusual conditions, but hope springs eternal...
Keith Woods is a Traditionalist and (perhaps) Third Positionist who does extensive commentary on YouTube. In this clip, he discusses "the death of God" from a broadly Traditionalist perspective.
Woods argues that while it´s true that the crisis of modern man (or Western man) is at bottom metaphysical and spiritual, not simply political or cultural, simply going back to whatever brand of "traditional" Christianity suits your fancy best is *not* a solution. Rather, Christianity itself led to the "death of God", Protestant Christianity in particular.
Christianity has strong affinities with materialism, individualism and a progressive-evolutionary mode of thinking. "God" is simply another being in the universe, albeit the strongest and most important one, indeed he is really a kind of human individual magnified into infinity. This infinity is interpreted as eternal time, rather than as a state outside time and space altogether. Immortality is seen as individual and somehow "physical", making it a materialist concept. Woods even likens the resurrection of the body to trans-humanism! There is also a progression in time and space to constantly better individual states, a concept similar to modern evolutionism.
Woods believes that Christianity got these ideas from Judaism, the first materialist religion. It´s most consistently expressed in Protestantism, which is really explicit materialism plus God as a kind of cosmic ruler on top of the material world. It was easy for the Enlightenment materialists and scientists to simply do away with God as a "unnecessary hypothesis", while keeping the materialist side of the equation. Further, Protestantism lacks an esoteric dimension, due to its "literalist" approach to the Bible and the creeds. It´s pure exotericism. Its view of faith is not based on a supersensible intuition of higher spiritual truths and realities, but rather a completely blind faith in a series of exoteric propositions. The German romantics tried to return to a more authentic spiritual worldview by the route of pantheism, but in the end, they lost to the positivists and other materialists. Since most Western people today accept the materialist worldview on a deep level, converting to Christianity simply won´t change much. It won´t be a qualitatively different perspective.
What is the alternative? Woods points to Traditionalist writers Guénon and Schuon, and also to Advaita Vedanta. God isn´t a "person" but the very ground or principle of Being. Truth, Goodness and Beauty are direct emanations from the Divine, making the entire universe "organic" and united with God on a very fundamental level. Our existence is meaningful and completely dependent on God. The afterlife isn´t a state of eternal individuality (which Woods identifies with individualism), but rather a mystical merger with the Divine outside the categories of time and space altogether. Presumably, this "organic" view of the world also has other implications, since Woods in other clips talks positively about deep ecology, attacks overpopulation, believes in the reality of "race", etc.
The Catholic Church fused the organic view of God with "pagan superstition" during the Middle Ages, when Thomas Aquinas attempted a synthesis of Aristotle, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Bible (with its Jewish errors). With the Reformation, the Jewish-materialist aspect once again became predominant, and its implied at several times that modern Catholicism isn´t much better than its Protestant competitors.
Presented here for discussion purposes only.
"Guinea-Bissau: The Powerful Queens of Orango" is a German documentary with English voice overs. It´s marketed as a sensational exposé of an ancient African matriarchy, but is actually quite boring, unless really hard line anthropology is your thing.
Orango is one of the Bissagos (or Bijagós) Islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, a small West African nation. During the colonial period, Guinea-Bissau was controlled by Portugal, and the islanders still speak Portuguese (or perhaps Creole) alongside their native language. Orango is supposedly a "matriarchy", or perhaps a society of the "typical" West African kind, where males and females have complementary or "dualist" hierarchies. The king (tribal chief) of the island is seconded by a council of elders that consists of both males and females. There is also an all-female council that organizes most of the work. Indeed, it seems most of the work *is* done by the women! (Make of that what you will.) The houses are mostly built by the women, who also owns them and can keep them in case of divorce, which can be initiated by the woman. Marriages are only entered after the female explicitly approves the male´s proposal.
The origins of this system is never explained. The king´s authority is based on his descent from Okinka Kampa, a powerful queen-priestess and de facto ruler of the island who lived about a century ago. Okinka Kampa is said to have abolished slavery and introduced the matriarchy (or perhaps re-established it). The narrator isn´t entirely sure whether the queen is a real person, or some kind of mixture of historical character and legendary ditto.
The religion of the Orango people is also women-centered, with a primordial woman giving birth to the progentitors of the island clans. These ancestors are also pictured as female. Males are seen as spiritually imperfect and have to replenish their life force through initiation rituals. If a male dies before the main initiation, his spirit turns into a ghost, which the women of the village must "capture" during a dance ritual, purifying it of its evil. The main religious functionaries are priestesses guarding idols in a special hut. There is also a male healer, a kind of herbalist.
The documentary tries to picture the island as "harmonious" and "peaceful", with everyone living "in balance with nature". Actually, the island surplus population seems to be moving to Bissau, the national capital of Guinea-Bissau. Without this arrangement, I doubt Orango would be "harmonious", especially since having four kids is considered normal! Another glitch in the matrix comes when the film team visits an elementary school on the island. The teacher flat out says that the villagers are poor and have no basic income, hence the school operates free of charge. Some of the kids have backpacks marked "PAIGC", the erstwhile ruling socialist party of Guinea-Bissau...
The production ends on a sad note, since many youth are no longer undergoing the traditional initiations, and the elders fear that the distinct culture of the island might disappear in the not-to-far future.
"Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed" is an exclusive BBC documentary, first aired on 12 February this year. It follows the research team of archeologist Mike Parker Pearson as it tries to uncover the mysteries of Stonehenge, the famous Stone Age and Bronze Age monument on Salisbury Plain in southern England.
Parker Pearson´s investigations reveal that an old theory about Stonehenge is correct: the earliest monument at the site was a wide circle of standing bluestones, taken from a quarry in Preseli Mountains in Wales, almost 140 miles west of Salisbury. Indeed, "Stonehenge 1" was actually a "second hand monument", since the original stone circle stood at Waun Mawn, only a stone´s throw (pun intended) from the Welsh quarry. After 400 years, the original builders migrated to Salisbury Plains and quite literally took the stone monument with them, erecting it again at the new location! At both locations, the bluestone circle was aligned with the midsummer solstice sunrise.
Parker Pearson speculates that Stonehenge might have been a monument built to honor the ancestors. Indeed, remains of 63 individuals have been found buried at the site. The bluestones are "forever", so is the sun to which the monument is aligned, and so are the ancestors. He further speculates that the ancient Woodhenge at Durrington Walls (long since gone) symbolizes life, while Stonehenge was associated with death.
One thing that fascinated me when watching the documentary were the fairly advanced techniques used to date ancient sites, including measuring the amount of sun light "trapped" in quartz crystals (thermoluminescence dating)! The good ol´ carbon-14 method was also used by Parker Pearson´s team, of course. By analyzing the type of strontium deposited in human bones, archeologists can pinpoint where the humans originally lived. This is the method used to determine that the original inhabitants around Stonehenge were really migrants from Wales.
The documentary points out that there is a curious medieval legend about the wizard Merlin and a group of warriors stealing a magic stone circle in "Ireland" and bringing it to Salisbury Plains. Personally, I find it hard to believe that this means anything at all - folklore is notoriously unreliable, and king Arthur is bogus anyway. The truth about Stonehenge´s lost circle is sufficiently fascinating in its own right...
Recommended viewing if available in your jurisdiction.
"Vikingarnas historia" is a short book by Dick Harrison, apparently based on two longer books by the same author (one of them co-written with Kristina Svensson), "Vikingaliv" and "Sveriges historia. Vol 2: 600-1350". Yes, we´re dealing with the Vikings! Or rather the real "Norsemen", "Late Iron Age Scandinavians" or "Early Medieval" ditto, far removed from the Vikings of 19th century national romanticism, 20th century fascism or 21st century pop culture. Harrison points out that we don´t even know what the word "Viking" really means, and when used in the medieval sources, it´s a reference to pirates. Most Scandinavians were peasants, while others were merchants. Thus, most Norsemen (and Norsewomen) *weren´t* Vikings sensu stricto. And no, the Vikings didn´t have helmets with horns. That´s a late 19th century fiction.
Most books about the Vikings, pardon, Late Iron Age Scandinavians, are arranged chronologically or geographically. Harrison has chosen a more thematic approach. We meet the "Vikings" in their various roles as merchants, warriors, settlers, explorers and state-builders. And yes, raiders and pirates. It´s interesting to note that many of the marauding Vikings were actually mercenaries employed by various foreign rulers in Western Europe, who couldn´t wait pitting the Nordic warriors against local enemies. The infamous "danegeld" was apparently an extra tax imposed by the English kings to finance Viking mercenaries who were protecting the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from *other* Vikings! It´s also interesting to note that the Norse often settled in conquered foreign territories, and became assimilated with the local population after a few generations. In some parts of Britain, Scandinavian place-names still mark the former Norse settlements, but in Normandie, Russia or the Ukraine, the Norse presence have become almost invisible. Two chapters in the book are devoted to the Varangians, Harald Hardruler in particular. The Varangians were Norsemen employed as elite soldiers (and sometimes bodyguards) by the Byzantine emperors. They fought in the Middle East, Italy and the Balkans, and sometimes participated in the internal power struggles in Constantinople itself.
It´s not a pretty picture of "Viking" society that meets us in the pages of this book. Slavery, sex-slavery, war, and various gruesome forms of heathen human sacrifice...it´s all there and it was all considered normal. At the same time, Harrison does have a certain admiration for the sheer daring of the ancient Scandinavians. Some of them combined farming and long-distance trade, being willing to sail considerable distances to explore new territories, including "Bjarmaland" at the Arctic coast of Russia. Others settled Iceland and Greenland, and then set sail for the vast landmass we know as America. Harrison is particularly impressed by the female leadership role in some of those expeditions, but points out that this was probably the exception rather than the rule, Norse society otherwise being patriarchal. Talented women could rise to prominence only at the periphery of the Scandinavian sphere of influence. And speaking of Vikings in America, Harrison writes that there is an Icelandic mention of an expedition to "Markland" (perhaps Labrador) in 1347, and that DNA tests reveal that some Icelanders have American Indian genes...
As usual, Harrison has an extremely critical view of the written sources from the period. He trusts the Vinland sagas mostly because of the archeological evidence (and because he likes to read about strong women). Usually, the saga literature is written off as "medieval fantasy". Forget about the bezerkers, the Jomsvikings, Ragnar Lodbrok, etc. Adam of Bremen´s dramatic description of the pagan temple at Old Uppsala is also questionable. Harrison tries to describe Norse religion in the light of archeological evidence and contemporary written sources, not sagas or eddas written centuries later. I admit the Old Way sounds pretty boring if you do it this way, except for the occasional human sacrifice! Christianity was succesfully introduced by kings and other elite people as part of the process of medieval state-creation. The process began in Denmark, where the local elites felt the need to create a more unified polity to defend their territories against the Franks - or to ally with them (which was made easier by Christian conversion). It then spread to Norway, where local chiefs felt the need for a united kingdom as protection against Denmark! In Sweden, the process of state formation took much longer time, apparently because the Swedes didn´t feel particularly threatened by anyone during the Viking Age.
One thing never explained in this short book is why the Viking Age began at all. Why did the Scandinavians suddenly feel the need to swarm out all across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and even North America? And why did these kinds of Viking expeditions stop around the year 1100? But then, this is a teaser trailer, and suggestions for further reading have been appended at the end...
More crazy Jain stuff. Yes, this old lady is an ascetic who has decided to starve herself to death. Don´t watch this content if you´re a sensitive person! I mean it.
