Nostradamus has been famous for “predicting” future events and, depending on how they were interpreted, his prophecies have been surprisingly accurate. The problem, however, is that all of his predictions were vague and ambiguous. The prophecies were never clear and time frames weren’t definitively set, which makes it open to all for interpretation. Add to that the fact that he has far more misses than hits (much like Bible interpretations and prophecies) and you essentially have nothing beyond the mathematical probability of outcomes. If I made thousands of predictions, very loosely written and vague, it’s almost a guarantee that a handful of them would come to pass.
Enter Gerald Celente, the hokey Nostradamus of our day. Celente also makes “predictions” and has foreseen doom in the near future. What’s the latest word from the modern-day prophet? America is doomed and nothing can be done about it. Over the course of the next four years, we will no longer be an industrialized nation, we’ll be scouring for food, there will be rebellions and riots, and all hell will break loose – to say the least. Wow, what a bold statement in hopes that everyone will forget within the next four years. That’s the beauty of prediction these days. You make them long enough that people will forget if they don’t come to pass, but if for some reason the prophecies come to fruition, you dig up your documented predictions and smugly say, “I told you so.”
Apparently, Celente has “accurately predicted” the fall of the USSR, the market crash in 1987, and the Asian currency crisis in 1997. How does he do it? Does he study social, market, and economic trends? Does he gather this data and use mathematical modeling and forecasting to come to reasonable possibilities? Does Celente allow for error and come up with figures to back his doomsayer predictions? Nay, Celente doesn’t subscribe to reason and uses the following method:
According to Gerald Celente, Director of the Trends Research Institute and author of Trends 2000, the key to tracking trends is to read two newspapers every day with a purpose — either The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times, plus The New York Times or USA Today. Look for stories with social, economic, and political significance, be it about the difficulties older suburbs face or the current currency crisis. (You’ll know by the headline or the first paragraph.) Skip the stories that are purely human interest or that are about something that hasn’t happened yet (for example, a jury resuming deliberation on a sensational trial).
When a crisis does occur, tune in to the extra in-depth analyses that you’ll find in accompanying background pieces probably in more than one of the newspapers. Read them as though you’re a “political atheist,” Celente recommends — not for what you want or hope, but for what is really going on, not only in your own profession or industry, but for trends that may directly or indirectly shape the future.
There you have it – and how convenient and simple! All you have to do is read two newspapers everyday, make sure to read between the lines, and then make an objective conclusion about what should happen next, not what you hope to happen. In all seriousness, if there is a such a thing, who would listen to such a dope? One fine example is this painfully long blurb from Alex Jones’ Infowars. Doing a little research shows that, along with Alex Jones, all the Bible-thumping, hell-and-brimstone fanatics hail Celente as their prophet and take his predictions, which have a predilection for gloom and depression, very seriously.
Anyone who listens to a forecaster who is very specific, extremely positive or negative, and has nothing to substantiate his or her claims would do well to be skeptical. Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of companies out there who study trends and make predictions, but it’s what they do for a living. These types of forecasters actually have several working models to come to the conclusions that they do, and even then they openly state the room for error and inaccuracy. Be wary of anyone who is firm and definitive, they’ll end up looking like an ass in the end.
What on earth is happening with media and entertainment these days? Growing up, it seemed to me that movies and television shows aimed at issues or stuck with their genre. Or maybe there was something more that I just didn’t notice, namely commercialization. I just saw an episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I thought to myself, “Wow, they just threw a bunch of attractive people on the show and made a drama with the Terminator theme somewhat in the background.”
This rant of mine pretty much stems from the new vampire movie Twilight. What happened to vampire movies? Now everything is a damn love story with a war going on in the background, or vampires as an afterthought, or anything else you can imagine. What should be the central theme or premise for a movie often becomes little more than an excuse to make another stereotypical love story. If you’re going to make a vampire movie, put some vampires in it, dammit!
This is NOT a vampire:
Really, Hollywood? The perfect makeup and meticulously styled “bed hair”? For fuck’s sake, here is what a vampire should look like:
I don’t know about you guys, but I think Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys looks more like an evil, nocturnal bloodsucker than Robert Pattinson does in Twilight. If anything, Pattinson looks like he’s suffering from a serious iron deficiency. They might as well have put The Hills on and called them all vampires. I blame the WB and all those stupid shows they put on that reduced vampires, witches, and ghouls to nothing more than pretty faces with a slight prosthetic or two. I also blame shows like The OC, The Hills, and Laguna Beach which do nothing more than follow prissy teens around while they live out their drama, angst, and turmoil… all while looking clean-cut and gorgeous at all times – even after a fight! This drive to put pompous, pretty teens in every movie is tiresome. It’s like watching the same thing over and over again and trying to pretend it’s different.
I love WordPress. Why? Well, it’s obvious how awesome it is for blogging, but I also like getting these stats. It looks like someone is stalking me (WHICH IS ILLEGAL), like on my old blog, and is looking for something very, very specific… Mmm hmm. My name. WordPress. The name of my blog. My URL.
Well, you found me! What’s up now? Drop it already. Geez.
Yes, I am chalking this one up to religion because I am unafraid to say it: I am a staunch atheist and agree with Christopher Hitchens when he says, “Religion poisons everything.” One of the most recent and tragic acts committed in the name of religion and Islamic law is the stoning of a 13-year-old girl who begged for her life after she was raped. One observer said the young girl cried out, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!” 50 men soon went on to stone her to death. What’s worse is there were about 1,000 people who sat and witnessed the poor little girl’s horrid fate. Imagine how helpless the child must have felt being buried with only her head exposed as those religious fanatics committed what they believe is acceptable by Islamic law.
How did it ever get this far, you ask? Well, whatever drove those men to lie is beyond me, but the story allegedly begins with a 23-year-old woman who confessed to adultery. Why a woman would do such a thing, knowing what punishment awaits her, is beyond me (though it didn’t actually happen) – but how one stretches the truth in order to stone a little girl to death is even more despicable (much like religion itself). There was never a 23-year-old woman involved; the girl was only 13 years old and she didn’t commit adultery. If being raped by three men weren’t enough, authorities managed to turn the story around. Much to the demise of the little girl and saving embarrassment for the rapists, no one faced or owned up to the truth.
I dare any reader to contend that religion had anything to do with this. Religion has been responsible for unborn babies being slashed out of stomachs. Religious fanatics have been responsible for murdering girlfriends and beating boyfriends simply because they were found in a car together, unaccompanied. Islamic fanatics are the reason planes flew into the World Trade Center and hypocritical Christians are the reason that war ensued in Afghanistan and Iraq shortly thereafter. And now, a poor child is gone forever and ever because of a bunch of bastards who subscribe to ridiculous laws and use religion to propogate their perverse world.
Miscellanea 