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Alzheimer’s and Gut Biome

Not all dementia is Alzheimer’s, and the relationship between gut biome and neurology is still not well understood. However, this is a hopeful step towards a better understanding of one of the contributors to a sad and frightening illness which will inevitably affect us or someone we know.

Stay Away From Cities Run By Democrats

The level of gun ownership in the USA is not the problem. The USA is a safe place to visit and to live. Take the top ten most violent cities (listed below) out of the equation, and the US murder rate drops to 1-2 per 100,000, amongst the lowest in the world. The top sixteen most violent cities in the US all have long term Democrat administrations. Just stay away from cities run by Democrats.

Worldwide gun ownership per 100 people
Worldwide gun ownership – guns per 100 people
International murder rate per 100,000 people
Worldwide murder rate – murders per 100,000 people
Top ten most violent US cities
Top ten most violent US cities

Australian Women’s Classic Winner is Not a Woman

Stunning and brave.

The WPGA Tour of Australasia tweeted: “Showing nerves of steel, Breanna Gill triumphed in a playoff for her first professional win at the AusWomensClassic! [GolfNSW] | feelNSW | NewSouthWales.”

She “outdrives the field by 42 yds on average.” Wow! I wonder why?

Breanna has previously won the Qantas Golf Challenge, the New Caledonia Women’s Pro-Am in 2018, and the 2019 New Zealand PWG Pro-Am.

They forgot to mention that Breanna is actually male.

The WPGA and GolfNSW shut down social media comments after women asked why this was allowed. This tweet was typical:

“That’s a man cheating to win women’s competitions. You’re a disgrace. Stop pandering to the men who claim special identities, you’re crapping all over actual women in the process. #SaveWomensSports”

US swimmer Riley Gaines wrote:
“Imagine writing off wanting sex-protected spaces and categories as “hate” or some type of “phobia.” We deserve privacy. We deserve fairness. We deserve safety. We deserve respect. When I say “we”, I mean everyone. Everyone is entitled to these things, but one group’s rights shouldn’t be valued more than the others which would, in turn, take away their rights. No one deserves to be collateral damage in making sure one person/group feels happy or included.”

Real women are being deprived of the honour of their wins, of sponsorship deals, and of prize money.

Is that fair?

Ah Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended?

The poem Herzliebster Jesu by Johann Heermann, translated by Robert Bridges, sung to a beautiful melody in F minor by Johann Crueger, arranged by JS Bach.

Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,

That man to judge thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by thine own rejected,

O most afflicted.

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?

Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee.

‘Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee,

I crucified thee.

Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;

The slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered;

For man’s atonement, while he nothing heedeth,

God intercedeth.

For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,

Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation;

Thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,

For my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,

I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,

Think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,

Not my deserving.

The Australian Relays Antivax Misinformation

If you are unlucky you may see posted on social media a scan of a recent article in The Australian by Adam Creighton. There is virtually nothing in that article which is accurate.

The Dr Conny Turni mentioned is not a medical doctor or researcher. She has a PhD, but no qualifications in medicine or medical research. She works in animal science.

The Journal of Clinical and Experimental Immunology her article was published in is not the prestigious journal of that name published by Oxford University, but a predatory open access journal.

The data available to medical science is absolutely clear. The vanishingly small risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines is vastly outweighed by the slowing of transmission and especially the vaccines’ very effective reduction in serious illness and death.

Antivaxxers like Campbell, Creighton and Turni may and no doubt will continue to push the line that vaccines are harmful. This claim is contradicted by evidence and by every medical research organisation, hospital and university.

Listen to real medical scientists instead!

Mark Latham and the Screeching Harpies

Mark Latham is an Australian politician, and New South Wales leader of One Nation, a conservative libertarian political party.

Mark spoke recently at a community gathering to express his concerns about women being excluded from public spaces and from sport, as women’s spaces were gradually being taken over by trans women. He and I share the view that trans people are not to be mocked or belittled. If they want to call themselves women that is up to them. But if they want us to call them women, that is up to us. They disagree.

At this community event, titled “Let Women Speak’ there was a noisy crowd of trans activists who were determined that no one should speak, and that anyone who did not publicly agree with their position should be silenced. This continues a pattern where what is presented as a call for tolerance by minority groups quickly becomes a call for compliance: everyone must agree. Any expression of disagreement is described as exclusionary and hate speech. Even if the disagreement takes the form of women politely expressing their concerns about men in women’s clothing taking over women’s sport, and women’s rest rooms.

Following this, Mark was described by Alex Greenwich, an openly homosexual member of the New South Wales parliament, as disgusting, hateful, and dangerous. Mark responded with a bluntness that offended Alex, and which caused a number of lily livered handwringers to flutter their fans and complain that his remarks were mean and unseemly and offensive and not appropriate for a public figure.

Mark Latham asks what is disgusting?

What counts as disgusting? Allowing people to speak about matters that concern them is not disgusting. Attempting to shut them down by screeching, calling them names and threatening violence is disgusting. Mark Latham is not hateful and dangerous simply because he refuses to go along with demands by noisy minorities for complete agreement and silent compliance.

Was Mark’s response to Alex disgusting? Maybe. What it brought home to me is that if you say bluntly what a particular behaviour is in a way that makes it clear that it is not something to be proud of, those who take pride in it will descend in fury like a clamour of harpies…

Nimrod, Paganism, and Christianity

Who was Nimrod?

If you are like me, you may have been baffled to see long stories posted on social media by members of fringe Christian groups (and some atheists) claiming that Nimrod was the founder of most ancient pagan worship, that he was the husband of Semiramis, the father of Tammuz, and the inspiration for many of the beliefs and practices of mainstream Christian churches.

Nimrod appears in the Bible in three places. First, in Genesis 10:8-12 “Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to become a mighty warrior. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, ‘Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.’ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, which is the great city.” Cush was the son of Ham, one of the sons of Noah.

This is from the RSV, probably the most literal of the reliable modern translations. But the Hebrew can just as well and probably better be read “From that land came Ashur, who built Nineveh, Rehoboth-ir..” etc. Ashur was one of the sons of Shem. The same word is used for both the person and the empire. Ashur is also the name of one of the gods of Assyria.

Nimrod is also mentioned In Micah 5:6 “They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod at its entrances.” This does not mean two different places. It is the typical parallelism of Hebrew poetry. Here Assyria and the land of Nimrod are the same place.

And in 1 Chronicles 1:10 “Cush fathered Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.”

In a social media discussion I was told that the word “mighty” (gibbor in Hebrew) in the verses from Genesis and Chronicles actually means despot, so Nimrod was a mighty despot and hunter of those who belonged to the Lord. While the word gibbor can mean despot or tyrant, it more usually simply means mighty, as when applied to God in Deuteronomy 10:17, Psalm 24:8, and Isaiah 9:6. Neither Genesis nor either of the two other Biblical references and surrounding context give any basis for claiming Nimrod was a hunter of those who belong to the Lord.

Another Facebook conversation claimed that “before the Lord” means “in rebellion against the Lord.” But this is not the plain meaning of the text. Exodus 29 repeatedly speaks of worship and offerings before the Lord. Deuteronomy 16:11 instructs the Jews to rejoice before the Lord. 1 Samuel 2:18 tells us Samuel ministered before the Lord. In 2 Samuel 6:14 David danced before the Lord. Psalm 37:7 tells us to be silent before the Lord.

For people whose basis of belief is sola scriptura, the most that can be said of Nimrod is that he was the son of Cush, the great-grandson of Noah, that he was a mighty hunter, and that he later became associated with the land of Assyria.

Like Enoch and Melchizedek, Nimrod seems to be important, but the Bible doesn’t give much information about him. As with the former two, this has led to speculation and the development of further legends, none of which can be substantiated by reference to other historical records.

The Jewish historian Josephus records some Jewish legends about Nimrod. In book 1, chapter 4 sections 2 and 3 of his Antiquities of the Jews he wrote:

“It was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers!

… When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them diverse languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before; for the Hebrews mean by the word Babel, confusion.”

In this story, Nimrod built a great tower to the heavens because he was determined to avenge the destruction of humanity in the flood.

But there are other traditions. For example, the Targum Yerushalmi, also known as the Targum Pseudo-jonathan, a Judean interpretation and explanation of the Torah, reports the belief that Nimrod left Shinar and moved to Assyria in northern Mesopotamia, refusing to take part in building the tower of Babel, and that God rewarded him for his faithfulness by giving him four cities in Assyria. Ephrem the Syrian, a Christian theologian and hymn-writer who lived from 306AD to 373AD, likewise recorded that Nimrod was mighty for the Lord, and opposed the rash actions of those who built the tower.

None of these older sources, nor any other historical document before 1850, claim any association between Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz. Who then were Semiramis and Tammuz?

Semiramis is a legendary figure in Assyrian and Babylonian history. She was the daughter of fish goddess Derkato and a human male. Abandoned by her mother at birth, she was found by the royal shepherd and brought up in the palace. She married Onnes, a general under king Ninus, and came to the king’s attention as a military advisor. After she proved herself not only as a strategist but a fighter, leading a successful raid which led to the capture of the city of Bactra, Ninus fell in love with her and married her following the death of Onnes by suicide. Ninus and Semiramis had a son called Ninyas. When Ninus died, Semiramis ruled in Ninyas’s place for forty-two years, during which time she conquered much of the Middle East, extending the boundaries of the empire as far as India, and restoring the city of Babylon. There is no evidence for any of this in any historical records or in the comprehensive king lists of Assyria or Babylon.

It is possible the character of Semiramis is based on that of queen Shammuramat, wife of King Shamshi-Adad V, who ruled between 824BC and 811BC. The legendary accounts of Semiramis are placed much earlier than this, and as myths and legends usually are, not at any specific time. It is possible that when Shamshi-Adad V died, Shammuramat ruled as regent until their son Adad-nirari III came of age. Later writers and traditions ascribed many military campaigns and building projects to her, but the only reference to her that is close in time to this period is a stele (obelisk like monument) she had built in the city of Ashur, which reads: “Stele of Shammuramat, queen of Shamshi-Adad, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, Mother of Adad Nirari, King of the Universe, King of Assyria, Daughter-in-Law of Shalmaneser, King of the Four Regions of the World.” Regent or not, Shammuramat was a woman of considerable skill and power.

The Bible records that Nimrod was Noah’s great-grandson. Using Ussher’s chronology and reconstructing from genealogies, it is possible he could have been alive when Abraham was born in about 2,000BC. He could not have been alive in 811BC. There is no possible link between Nimrod and the historical Shammuramat.

Tammuz was a minor early Mesopotamian god of sheep and herding. His father Enki was one of the great gods of Sumeria. His mother Duttur was symbolic of ewes. Later Tammuz was absorbed into the Assyrian pantheon, and possibly from there to Babylon, though there are very few references to Tammuz in the Babylonian period. Over this time, his role changed from pastoral (herding) to agricultural (cropping). Historians believed that In Assyria he was a dying and rising god, but this view is no longer held. It seems more likely he was like Persephone in Greek mythology, not dying, but spending half the year in the underworld, and the other half on Earth or in the heavens.

The only record of Tammuz in the Bible is Ezekiel 8:14. In a vision, along with many other sins and abominations, Ezekiel was shown saw women sitting in the North entrance to the temple, weeping for Tammuz. This was sympathetic magic. The women were not weeping as in mourning, but on his behalf. It was believed his tears watered the crops, so their sharing in his weeping would make the grain more productive.

The temple no longer existed at this time. Ezekiel, who was born into a priestly family and was familiar with the temple, was taken to Babylon at the fall of Jerusalem in 597BC when he was about twenty-five, and died there in his early fifties. All of the book of Ezekiel was written in Babylon during the Exile. Ezekiel’s purpose is to explain that the temple was destroyed and Israel (actually the Southern tribes, the Northern tribes having been dispersed by the Assyrian Empire some one hundred and twenty years earlier) was taken into exile because of their failure to keep the law, and especially because of their defiling of the temple with idols and the worship of other gods.

It is worth remembering that Ezekiel does not say that he ever actually saw Tammuz being worshipped in the temple, nor is there any evidence that the worship of Tammuz was common in Israel. It is very likely, on the other hand, that some of the exiles adopted some of the religious practices of the society in which they now lived. This needed to stop before God would return them through the Northern entrance to Jerusalem and allow the temple to be rebuilt. There is no evidence that Tammuz or any other of the old Assyrian or Babylonian gods was ever worshipped, or even remembered in Israel after the return from exile.

None of this has anything to do with Nimrod or Semiramis. There is no connection in any ancient literature between Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz. Nimrod was not married to Semiramis, Tammuz was not Semiramis’s son. Where did this idea come from? The answer is a pamphlet called “The Two Babylons: The Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife,” written by a Free Church of Scotland minister called Alexander Hislop. This pamphlet was published in 1853, and expanded into a book in 1858. It has been in print since, going through several new editions.

Before going on, let’s note that mainstream Christian worship and belief does have some things in common with some pagan cults.

We offer worship to a god we believe is personal, and who takes an interest in us. So did pagans. We sing songs of praise. So did pagans. We participate in a memorial meal which brings us into God’s closer presence. So did some pagans. We use images to remind us of the love and justice and generosity of God. So did pagans. We read from sacred texts inspired by God to lead us to Him. So did pagans. We use water for baptism. Some pagans also used water to symbolise the washing away of sin. These are simply universal aspects of all human worship. They are not in themselves pagan, and there is no reason Christians should stop reading from the Bible or gathering for worship or singing just because pagans did.

Hislop claims are much stronger than this. For example, he claims the reason Christians celebrate Christmas on December 25th is that this was the birthday of Tammuz. Leaders of the Catholic Church know this, he claims, and celebrate Christmas on this date because they know their religion is a continuation of the Babylonian cult of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz (despite the fact there is no evidence any such cult ever existed). In the same way he claims Christians honouring Mary are actually worshipping Semiramis. Asking our friends in the great crowd of witnesses to pray for us, belief in the real presence of Jesus in Holy Communion, the baptism of children, and the celebration of Easter, are all also, he claims, evidence that the Catholic faith, and the faith of other churches including the Orthodox churches, and most mainstream protestant denominations, is actually worship of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz.

Hislop claims that all major pre-Christian pagan religions were adoptions or transformations of his Babylonian/Nimrod religion. How did he get this idea? The simple fact is, he made it up. No archaeologist or historian believes Hislop’s pamphlet is any more than a collection of disconnected fantasies.

Nimrod does not appear in any of the comprehensive king lists of Assyria or Babylonia, but this is no hindrance to Hislop. He simply asserts that the mythical tale of Semiramis and Ninus is history, and that Ninus was Nimrod. Ninyas was, he claims, is another name for Tammuz. This makes as much sense and has as much basis as claiming Robbie Burns is the same person as Robin Hood, and Eddie van Halen is the same person as Einstein.

How does he get a birthdate of 25th December for Ninyas/Tammuz? Hislop claimed that Adonis, Apollo, Bacchus, Cupid, Dagon, Hercules, Lucifer, Mars, Merodach, Mithra, Moloch, Narcissus, Ninus, Odin, Orion, Osiris, Pluto, Saturn, Typhon, Vulcan, and Zoroaster, were all the same person, and that stories of all these other monsters, gods, and heroes were in reality stories about Nimrod. Since Semiramis was the wife of Ninus, and Ninus is Nimrod and all the other aforementioned deities, then Aphrodite, Artemis, Astarte, Aurora, Bellona, Ceres, Diana, Ishtar, Iris, Juno, Mylitta, Proserpine, Rhea, Venus, and Vesta, were all really Semiramis, all really the wife of Nimrod, and all the stories about them are stories about Nimrod’s wife.

Working on from this point, Hislop argues that Egyptian goddess Isis (whom he insists is Semiramis) and her husband Osiris (whom he tells us is Nimrod) had a son Horus (whom he tells us is Tammuz), and that Horus was born on December 25th.

These Egyptian gods are mentioned in the Pyramid texts from 2350BC on. Shammuramat, the likely basis of the legends of Semiramis, did not live until 1500 years later, making it impossible that she could be the inspiration for the legends of Isis. That would cause most people to have second thoughts. But Hislop ploughs on regardless.

Hislop relies for his belief that Horus (Tammuz) was born on December 25th on Egyptian legends that the son of Isis was born about the time of the Winter solstice. Since all the other gods and monsters he mentions are all Nimrod, and therefore they are all married to Semiramis, and therefore all the firstborn sons ascribed to them are actually Tammuz, all of them were also born on December 25th. Hislop comes to this conclusion despite the fact that not a single legend concerning any of them names that date as their birth date.

In addition and obviously, about the time of the Winter solstice (December 22nd) is not necessarily the 25th of December. Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus in Spring, not Winter.

Hislop relied on a book called The Ancient Egyptians by Sir J Gardner Wilkinson. Wilkinson was a careful and accurate collector of facts and stories. His work is still held in high regard, and he is considered the founder of modern Egyptology. Wilkinson records that the son of Isis who was born about the time of the winter solstice was not Horus, her older son, but a younger son, Harpocrates. Wilkinson may not be correct here. In some versions of the story, Harpocrates is the childhood name of Horus. But Hislop did not even quote Wilkinson correctly, instead simply grabbing what he thought supported his views, leaving anything out that did not.

Easter, claims Hislop, is the celebration of Semiramis as a fertility goddess (which she was not) under the name of Ishtar (no one except he has ever claimed any connection between the two). He claims Ishtar was pronounced Easter (it wasn’t), and therefore the Christian celebration of Easter is really about her, which means it is really about Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz.

I have written about the date and name of Easter here: https://qohel.com/2017/04/17/easter-ishtar-and-eostarum/

And the date of Christmas here: https://qohel.com/…/04/03/christmas-yule-and-sol-invictus/

Names and dates are not the only instances where Hislop misquotes Wilkinson and other sources, or quotes selectively and deceptively.

For example, Hislop claimed one of the proofs that Catholicism was a continuation of the Babylonian mystery religion of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz is that Catholic churches use round wafers in Communion. Relying on his Isis equals Semiramis theory, he quotes Wilkinson’s The Ancient Egyptians, noting that Egyptians used round cakes on their altars, and claims that since all these stories are really stories about Nimrod, they must have been used in Babylonian mystery religion. That is, the religion he made up, for which no evidence exists. He leaves out the surrounding sentences in Wilkinson’s book, which note the Egyptians also used square and folded cakes, and cakes in the shape of animals.

The real reason many churches use round wafers is twofold. First, it is a reference back to the manna provided by God in wilderness: “When the dew that lay had gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, like hoarfrost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, “What is this?” For they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto them, “This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.” Exodus 16:14-15. Holy Communion is the new manna, the new bread from heaven. Secondly, the bread used by Jesus at the Last Supper was the unleavened bread of Passover. This is a flat round bread like naan or pita. The Apostles continued to use round flat bread so that they were following Jesus’ instructions as closely as possible.

Paganism all began with Nimrod! No, it didn’t. There are a few ambiguous lines about Nimrod in the Bible, and some contradictory later Jewish traditions, none of which associate him with Assyrian or Babylonian deities. Nimrod appears nowhere in the lists of ancient kings. No ancient texts mention any link between Nimrod and Semiramis, and Semiramis and Tammuz. No text anywhere mentions this until Hislop’s’ pamphlet in 1853.

The Babylonian mystery religion of Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz never existed. It was entirely the invention of a bored Scottish Presbyterian with no knowledge of ancient Middle eastern history or languages.

Christmas, Yule and Sol Invictus

Every year we seem to get the same bleating on Facebook about silly Christians celebrating Christmas. It usually goes something like this:

“Well, it was a pagan festival, something to do with the sun, and the Christians pinched it to try to make their religion more popular.”

This is one of those things people just ‘know’. But like many things everyone ‘just knew’ at one time (eg, the Sun goes round the earth, older women with moles are witches), we now know this to be false.

The belief that Christians appropriated a pagan festival and made it into Christmas started with Paul Jablonski, a German historian writing in the 17th century.

A radical protestant, Jablonski wanted to show that the Catholic faith was unreliable because it had almost immediately started absorbing pagan beliefs and customs. Jablonski believed, and wanted to prove, that ‘Sola Scriptura’ (Scripture alone) was the only safe foundation for faith.

In the Julian calendar, created in 45 B.C. the winter solstice fell on December 25th. It seemed obvious to Jablonski that the day must have had a pagan significance before it had a Christian one.

He was wrong.

In fact the feast of Sol Invictus, or the invincible sun, was instituted by the emperor Aurelian in 274AD. By this time Christians had been celebrating the birth of Jesus on that date for many years.

Hippolytus, a priest in Rome, wrote thirty years before this that Jesus’ birth “took place eight days before the kalends of January,” that is, on December 25th. St John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, also confirms that Christians had celebrated the birth of Christ on this date from the early days of the Church.

How could the Church have known when Jesus was born?

There is nothing complicated about this at all. The simplest explanation is that the earliest disciples asked Jesus’ mother, Mary, and she told them. And they told those who came after, just as they related the other facts of Jesus’ life and teaching.

A little additional confirmation comes from John Chrysostom. He explains that the date is confirmed by Luke 1 which says Zechariah was performing priestly duty in the Temple when an angel told him his wife Elizabeth she would bear John the Baptist.

During the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Mary was also visited by an angel and Jesus was conceived. She then went immediately to visit Elizabeth, who was her cousin.

The 24 classes of Jewish priests served by roster in the Temple. Zechariah was in the eighth class. Jewish tradition tells us the class on duty when the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70.

Calculating back from that, Zechariah’s class would have been serving in October in the year before Jesus’ birth. That is when Elizabeth became pregnant.

Mary visited Elizabeth six months later, just after her visit from the angel Gabriel. That is, in March. Jesus was born nine months later – in December.

It was the pagans who attempted to bolster their falling numbers by appropriating a Christian festival, not the other way around.

So Happy Christmas!

Art and Indecency

A school principal in Florida has been fired after showing her grade six students a photo of Michelangelo’s David.

You can’t understand the history of Western art without knowing Michelangelo’s David. It is an astonishingly beautiful and detailed work.

But it might have been wise to let parents at a conservative school in a conservative district know you were planning to show their ten and eleven year old children a statue of a naked man.

Of course the truth is always more complicated than it first appears. The principal claims a letter was written to parents but school admin forgot to send it. There are also claims the school board had been concerned about her performance for months, and that this incident was the last straw.

It is easy to manufacture outrage. Don’t be outraged on demand. Step back and investigate first.

The Savagery of the Kind

I have mentioned before that I have never met anyone who claimed to be an “empath” who did not turn out to be a self-absorbed narcissist. That is a tautology, I know, but the contrast between empaths’ avowed ability to imagine themselves in other people’s situations and feel other people’s feelings, and the often shocking unkindness with which they treat anyone whose views differ from their own is worth noting.

Recent incidents in Australia and New Zealand are a perfect example. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, better known as Posie Parker, visited those countries to speak on the importance of maintaining women’s identity, and women’s spaces in sport and art and politics (not to mention restrooms). Her rallies and events had the general theme “Let women speak.” The idea that women should speak on matters which concern them is an outrage to the kind and inclusive.

Protestors responded with violent fury, doing everything possible to silence and intimidate, so that everyone’s voices could be heard, and no one be afraid. No, it doesn’t make any sense, until you realise that everyone’s voices means only the voices they want to hear, and that it is OK to intimidate and act with violence towards people who disagree, because those people are nazis and therefore not real people.

Posie Parker describes her experiences here.

Did the Good Guys Win WWII?

There are many alarming things on social media. This is one of the most concerning I have seen recently.

Did the good guys win WWII

There is a frightening depth of both ignorance and contempt for our history in the responses to this survey. It is not hard to understand where this comes from. School and university students are taught to value other cultures, and that is good. But at the same time they are taught to revile and reject the culture of the West.

I had a discussion with a history student a couple of weeks ago. She said that the West had no culture, nothing worth preserving. I was horrified, but not surprised.

We have given the world its greatest art, its greatest architecture, literature, dance and music. We have given the world science, democracy, rule of law, secure property rights, and the notion that all human beings have intrinsic value. We are the only culture in the history of the world that ahs voluntarily given up slavery.

Western culture and values are adopted around the world because people find them attractive. People from other cultures form an endless stream of immigrants to the West. By all means let us value what others have to offer. And at the same time, let us recognise the enormous gift the West and its accomplishments and values have been to the world.

COVID Research

Despite what you may have seen in shonky crockumentaries like Died Suddenly, COVID-19 vaccines have not caused a massive increase in fatal blood clots.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/died-suddenly-a-tsunami-of-antivax-misinformation-and-conspiracy-theories/

Despite memes being passed around social media, sudden cardiac death, even among young people, is not new (see this Australian journal article from 2004, for example: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2004/180/3/causes-sudden-cardiac-death-young-australians ), and has not increased in frequency. It’s just that your average social media meme creator and passer-onner has very little knowledge of pathology, and imagines that if he or she has not heard of something before, it must not have happened before, and must be related to something new…

In reality multiple large studies have shown LOWER rates of cardiac death following COVID-19 vaccination. Hardly surprising, since cardiac arrest is common in severe COVID cases. See this summary from the world’s most highly regarded heart research foundation: https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/coronavirus-vaccine-your-questions-answered/myocarditis-and-covid-19-vaccines-should-you-be-worried

Also, despite what you may have seen being passed around social media, often consisting of statistics which the posters don’t understand, and which say the opposite of what they claim, the vaccines are effective in reducing transmission and even more effective in reducing severe illness and death.

However, vaccines are not effective for everyone; people with impaired immune systems, for example, who cannot mount an effective response to the illness despite the prompting given by the vaccine. In addition, COVID-19 is very good at evading immunity. Existing vaccines may be less effective against newer strains like the Omicron BF7 strain causing the current massive outbreak in China.
https://theconversation.com/covid-what-we-know-about-new-omicron-variant-bf-7-196323

A vast amount of research is being done around the world, in thousands of hospitals and research facilities, to develop vaccines which are even more effective at reducing transmission, and which will be effective against new strains.

A similar volume of research is seeking new treatment and prophylactic protocols. Researchers at the University of Cambridge have tested hundreds of existing drugs to check for possible utility in the fight against COVID-19. They have just published the partial results of this research. Read the link below. Ursodeoxycholic acid is an off-patent medication which is cheap and quick to produce.
https://scitechdaily.com/off-patent-liver-disease-drug-could-stop-covid-19-and-protect-against-future-variants/

Vaccination is the cheapest and most efficient way to slow transmission and stop severe illness – better not to get it, than to get it and have to treat it. Even apparently mild cases can have unpleasant long-term effects. But for people with impaired immune systems, and perhaps as a prophylactic for medical staff or in areas of very high community infection, this medication offers another tool to save lives.

France – Riots over Retirement Pension Age

Lots on the news over the last few days about protests in France, the fiery but mostly peaceful kind, about changes to the age at which citizens can access the old age pension. Currently in France it is 62. It is being raised to 64. In Australia it is 67.

The protests are being framed as complaints about changes to retirement age. They are no such thing. Anyone can retire at any time they like. They just can’t expect someone else to pay for it. That is the objection – that they have to wait two more years before someone else will pay for their retirement.

In a way I understand the frustration. I am 64 now, nearly 65. I have worked and paid taxes all my life. Twenty years ago I could have retired on a pension just a few months from my current age.

But the reality is that the old age pension was never intended to be a 25 year tax payer funded holiday, and it simply cannot be.

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