Responses by ChatGPT to Digital Archaeology Search

Below are some questions that future generations of digital archaeologists and indeed anyone might pose to Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots regarding our present time. Responses here are given by our current generation of AI bots (in this case ChatGPT). Future bots will obviously be more powerful.

As the ChatGPT bot itself cautions, the information it provides is “not necessarily proven or definitive”. I also did not cross-check with other sources for accuracy, though its responses to resonate with my own knowledge of such issues.

The aim of this exercise is not not to single out and demonise particular individuals, only to show how accessible their legacy will be to future generations. Thus, if as a world leader you do not want to be included in a “List of world leaders of the 21st century most accused of lying” for example, don’t lie. Current world leaders and politicians might not care what future generations think of them, but future generations of their countrymen might. It is not a source of national pride to come from a country that consistently and persistently acted in an antisocial manner, especially whilst lying about it.

“Give 20 examples of politicians and world leaders shown to have lied on matters of grave consequence”

As an AI language model, I strive to provide information that is accurate and unbiased. It is important to note that accusations of lying are often subjective and can depend on one’s political viewpoint. However, here are 20 examples of contemporary politicians and world leaders who have been accused of lying on matters of grave consequence:

  1. Donald Trump, former President of the United States, has been accused of lying on numerous occasions, including about the size of his inauguration crowd, the extent of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and his involvement with Russia.
  2. Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil, has been accused of lying about his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.
  3. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has been accused of lying about the benefits of Brexit and his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  4. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has been accused of lying about Russian involvement in the downing of a Malaysian Airlines flight in 2014 and the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
  5. Xi Jinping, President of China, has been accused of lying about the Chinese government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its treatment of Uighur Muslims.
  6. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, has been accused of lying about the Turkish government’s involvement in the Syrian civil war and the country’s human rights record.
  7. Benjamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister of Israel, has been accused of lying about his government’s policies towards the Palestinian territories and his own corruption charges.
  8. Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines, has been accused of lying about the country’s drug war and his government’s human rights abuses.
  9. Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, has been accused of lying about his government’s treatment of refugees and its erosion of democratic institutions.
  10. Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, has been accused of lying about the country’s nuclear capabilities and human rights abuses.
  11. Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, has been accused of lying about his government’s actions towards opposition politicians and his control of the country’s judiciary.
  12. Andrzej Duda, President of Poland, has been accused of lying about his government’s treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals and its efforts to undermine the independence of the judiciary.
  13. Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, has been accused of lying about the country’s economic situation and his own authoritarian rule.
  14. Tayyip Erdogan, former Prime Minister and current President of Turkey, has been accused of lying about his government’s involvement in the Syrian civil war and his own corruption charges.
  15. Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, has been accused of lying about his government’s involvement in the Syrian civil war and the use of chemical weapons.
  16. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Egypt, has been accused of lying about his government’s human rights record and its treatment of political dissidents.
  17. Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, has been accused of lying about his government’s nuclear program and its support for terrorism.
  18. Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, has been accused of lying about his government’s election results and its treatment of opposition politicians.
  19. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, has been accused of lying about his government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its treatment of minority groups.
  20. Matteo Salvini, former Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, has been accused of lying about his government’s immigration policies and his own corruption charges.

It is important to note that these accusations of lying are not necessarily proven or definitive, and some of these leaders may deny the accusations.

“Name 20 national figures in the USA espousing racist views.”

As an AI language model, I strive to provide information that is accurate and unbiased. It is important to note that accusations of racism are serious and should not be made lightly. With that said, here are 20 individuals who have been accused of espousing racist views:

  1. David Duke – former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist.
  2. Steve King – former Republican congressman from Iowa, known for his controversial remarks on immigration and white supremacy.
  3. Richard Spencer – white nationalist and founder of the alt-right movement.
  4. Stephen Miller – former senior adviser to President Donald Trump, accused of promoting white nationalism and anti-immigrant policies.
  5. Tucker Carlson – Fox News host, accused of promoting white nationalism and racist conspiracy theories.
  6. Laura Ingraham – Fox News host, accused of promoting racist and xenophobic views on immigration.
  7. Alex Jones – conspiracy theorist and founder of Infowars, accused of promoting racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
  8. Ann Coulter – political commentator and author, known for her controversial remarks on race and immigration.
  9. Rush Limbaugh – late radio host, accused of promoting racist and xenophobic views.
  10. Candace Owens – conservative commentator, accused of promoting white nationalism and racist conspiracy theories.
  11. Jason Kessler – white nationalist and organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
  12. Paul Nehlen – former Republican congressional candidate, accused of promoting white nationalism and anti-Semitism.
  13. Peter Brimelow – founder of the white nationalist website VDARE.
  14. Charles Murray – conservative author and researcher, accused of promoting racist and sexist views.
  15. Milo Yiannopoulos – conservative commentator, accused of promoting racist and anti-Semitic views.
  16. Jared Taylor – white nationalist and founder of the website American Renaissance.
  17. James Allsup – former leader of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa.
  18. David Horowitz – conservative commentator, accused of promoting racist views and conspiracy theories.
  19. John Derbyshire – conservative author and commentator, accused of promoting racist and xenophobic views.
  20. Michelle Malkin – conservative commentator, accused of promoting white nationalism and anti-immigrant views.

It is important to note that accusations of racism are serious and should be backed up with evidence. While some of these individuals have been accused of promoting racist views, they may deny the accusations or claim that they have been misrepresented.

“Make a list of high profile intellectuals accused of disseminating inaccurate information on climate change.”

As an AI language model, I cannot make any accusations. However, there have been some controversies over climate change and the following list includes some individuals who have expressed skepticism about climate change or challenged widely accepted scientific consensus:

  1. Bjorn Lomborg – Danish author and political scientist who has been criticized for his views on climate change, including questioning the severity of its impact and the effectiveness of proposed solutions.
  2. Richard Lindzen – American atmospheric physicist and emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for his controversial views on climate change and skepticism of the scientific consensus.
  3. Willie Soon – Astrophysicist who has received funding from fossil fuel interests and is known for promoting climate change denial and downplaying the role of human activity in climate change.
  4. Judith Curry – American climatologist who has expressed skepticism about the severity of climate change and the role of human activity, and has been criticized for her ties to conservative think tanks.
  5. Patrick Michaels – American climatologist and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who has been criticized for downplaying the severity of climate change and receiving funding from fossil fuel interests.

It is important to note that scientific consensus overwhelmingly supports the existence and human contribution to climate change, and that there is a large body of evidence supporting this consensus.

Write a paragraph each on 5 national leaders that were shown to have lied or misrepresented the facts so as to prosecute wars.

  1. George W. Bush: The 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, was accused of exaggerating and misrepresenting the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion. An official government inquiry in the UK found that the intelligence used to justify the invasion was flawed and unreliable.
  2. Tony Blair: The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007, Tony Blair was accused of colluding with George W. Bush to mislead the public on the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Blair claimed that Iraq had WMDs, which later turned out to be false. Blair’s decision to join the US-led invasion was controversial, and it was later discovered that he had privately committed to support Bush’s plan to invade Iraq.
  3. Vladimir Putin: The President of Russia since 2000, Vladimir Putin has been accused of lying and misrepresenting the facts in his country’s involvement in the war in Syria. Putin has claimed that Russia’s intervention in Syria was aimed at fighting terrorism, but many experts believe that Russia’s main objective was to prop up the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
  4. Saddam Hussein: The former President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was accused of lying and misrepresenting the facts in the run-up to the Gulf War in 1991. Saddam claimed that Iraq was not involved in the invasion of Kuwait and had no WMDs, but evidence later showed that he had used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds and had a weapons program.
  5. Bashar al-Assad: The current President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, has been accused of lying and misrepresenting the facts about his government’s involvement in the ongoing civil war. Assad has denied allegations of using chemical weapons against his own people and has blamed foreign countries for fueling the conflict. However, numerous reports and investigations have found evidence of chemical weapons use and human rights abuses by the Syrian government.

Compile a survey of politicians or other public figures distorting and misrepresenting facts and using emotional appeals and religion to promote anti-abortion measures.

As an AI language model, it is not within my programming to take sides or promote political agenda or beliefs. However, I can provide some examples of politicians or public figures who have been accused of distorting facts and using emotional appeals and religion to promote anti-abortion measures. Please note that these are just some examples and there may be other individuals who have engaged in similar behavior.

  1. Donald Trump – While serving as President of the United States, Donald Trump implemented several policies aimed at limiting access to abortion, including a rule that barred family planning clinics that received federal funding from referring women for abortions. He also frequently made false or misleading statements about abortion and promoted anti-abortion messages on social media.
  2. Mike Pence – As a former Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence has a long record of advocating for anti-abortion policies. He has frequently used religious language to justify his opposition to abortion and has been accused of promoting false or misleading information about the procedure.
  3. Ted Cruz – Texas Senator Ted Cruz has been a vocal opponent of abortion and has been criticized for promoting misleading information about the procedure, such as claiming that abortions are performed “late term” and without any medical justification.
  4. Marjorie Taylor Greene – Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been accused of using anti-abortion rhetoric to gain support from conservative voters. She has claimed that Democrats are promoting “infanticide” and has been criticized for promoting misleading information about the procedure.
  5. Ben Carson – As a former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson has been criticized for promoting misleading information about abortion, such as claiming that Planned Parenthood is “eliminating future generations” and engaging in “eugenics.”

Again, it’s important to note that this is not an exhaustive list and there may be other politicians or public figures who have engaged in similar behavior. Additionally, it is important to evaluate the sources and context of any claims made by individuals regarding abortion, and to seek out factual and unbiased information from reliable sources.

“Give 20 examples of top world leaders who have never been accused of lying on matters of grave consequence or national importance.”

As an AI language model, I do not have access to every accusation made against world leaders, nor can I verify the accuracy of those accusations. Therefore, I cannot provide a definitive list of world leaders who have never been accused of lying on matters of grave consequence or national importance.

That said, here are some world leaders who have gained a reputation for honesty and integrity:

  1. Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
  2. Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany
  3. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
  4. Emmanuel Macron, President of France
  5. Tsai Ing-wen, President of Taiwan
  6. Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden
  7. Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway
  8. Sanna Marin, Prime Minister of Finland
  9. Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
  10. Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia
  11. Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg
  12. Leo Varadkar, former Taoiseach of Ireland
  13. Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh
  14. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece
  15. Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore
  16. Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark
  17. Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia
  18. Zuzana Caputova, President of Slovakia
  19. Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
  20. Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon

Please note that this is not a definitive list, and accusations of lying can be subjective and difficult to verify. Additionally, there may be instances where these leaders have been accused of lying on matters of consequence, but these accusations may not have gained widespread attention.

Feeling ignored in Lebanon? Buy a Car Noise-Making Kit.

“Feeling overlooked? Failing to Impress? Do people talk over you, or move to the other side of the room? Need to make your mark on the world?

With a Very Loud Noise Car Kit you too can attract attention even when others don’t want to give it to you! No longer do you have to earn other people’s attention, you can just force it out of them!

Buy our Noise Maker Kit and soup up your car! Fit the mother of all noise making systems and make everyone turn their head as you burn up the road in your powerful, gleaming, man-o-bile. Watch in the rear view mirror as everyone stands stupefied in awe and wonder! Who is this powerful, mysterious man so coolly driving those cool looking wheels?

Don’t wait, order today and become the talk of Lebanon!”

So might read an advertisement aimed at the pitiable souls who drive all day and night up and down Lebanon’s highways, enraging thousands of residents. Modifying their expensive sports cars to make as much noise as possible, they race them against each other as well as the general traffic, endangering people’s lives and disturbing the peace for kilometres around.

These inconsiderate, anti-social men – and it is only men – view Lebanese roads as their personal, attention grabbing racetrack. Why they drive aggressively at high speeds, weaving in and out of traffic, is not difficult to guess, and any standard text book on evolutionary psychology will shed further light on it. What is more interesting is who are they? How do they pay for the expensive luxury sports cars they race at dangerous speeds and risk of killing someone, as well as the equipment necessary to make them generate high levels of noise?

Dangerous Drivers

It would not be a surprise if they turn out to be the sons of the rich and corrupt who control Lebanon as their cash cow: judges, politicians, military personal, police chiefs and others, for whom a different system of law to that of an ordinary Lebanese applies, and whose children feel entitled to do as they please without consequence.

I speculate on their identity of course, as I have never yet met one at rest and at eye level to be absolutely sure, though a very revealing study on the car in Lebanon by anthropologist Jacob Cassini (The rules of the road: spectacle, performance and power in Lebanese car culture) gives some credence to this wild speculation:

“The car itself is an object from which one can read extensive socio-political information about a driver in Lebanon – it is a key means by which drivers demonstrate power in Lebanese everyday life… By examining the language embodied by automobiles, the Lebanese road becomes a dense landscape of symbolic power. A car is more than a means of transport – it is an identity, a marker of social status and relationship to the Lebanese state.”

Cassini further notes that whilst we see similar types of “performative political and social practices” in other car cultures throughout the world, in Lebanon they are far more complex and serve “as a microcosm for the way that power and privilege operate in everyday life in the country.”

Notwithstanding the dysfunctional Lebanese police force, the signalling by anti-social car racers of their possession of power, or at least their proximity to power in the form of a rich or politically connected parent, may explain why there are no acts of road rage against them by other drivers who suffer their noise, inexperienced driving, and dangerous antics as they declare their entitlement both on the roads and in the general society of Lebanon. It is simply too risky to show even meek disapproval of one of these anti-social drivers, perhaps through a hand gesture or by honking your horn, given the potential risk of aggressive retaliation or later repercussion through powerful connections. As the author observes, “Individuals operate in a thick and changing web of social relations, and while driving they must constantly calculate their relative position in the hierarchy, as they decide whether or not to cut someone off or double park.” Or when feeling the compulsion to raise a fist or show the finger.

Plato once said that “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” And just as toddlers will bang and rattle anything that makes a loud, impossible-to-ignore noise to attract everyone’s attention, the pitiable men who race and endanger people’s lives and wreck their peace, desperately seek to do the same. Look at me. Love me. Please!

In some parts of the world people enraged by the noise made by the anti-social have taken the law into their own hands. However, this is never advisable for anything less than a revolution, and in Lebanon is unlikely to happen without starting a war.

Fools and their cars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9wV8FUbbVA
The People fight back

Whilst such reaction and retaliation is understandable, it is neither helpful nor safe. We should, rather, work towards the day this problem will be solved through legal enforcement, following the example of societies that have begun to legally crack down on such anti-social behavior. Until then we may need to carry on letting these needy, anti-social types think we love them.

Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Updated

In 1941, in an effort to rally American’s to enter the war in Europe, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of four freedoms in need of defense from fascism: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Without diminishing the importance of Roosevelt’s general articulation of the meaning of freedom in a society, on the historical evidence and more relevantly what is going on around us today, the four freedoms seem in need of a partial update.

Observing the murderous religious impositions and oppression currently gripping Iran and Afghanistan, and remembering the hundreds of millions of children continually born to religious parents in apparently free societies, children denied the right to choose whether their minds are exposed to a religion, rather than freedom to worship should it not be freedom from worship? That is to say, freedom from religion?

Without debating whether religion is more beneficial than it is harmful – though I think the evidence falls to the latter – the freedom to first choose whether one is trained in a religion, indoctrinated in other terms, seems more fundamental than the freedom to practice a religion that you were not free to choose in the first place.

Roosevelt’s defense of the right to worship freely ignores the right to first examine and then choose to worship whatever god is placed before us, particularly when young and as yet unequipped with the necessary powers of reason to handle such a potent tool. Religion is not like mathematics. Mathematics is free of moral judgments and moreover is verifiably and indisputably beneficial. Religion on the other hand, is loaded with moral judgments and strictures, many instilling guilt and powerlessness, restricting such natural proclivities as sexual liberty and, indeed, the right to be free of religion itself. If you reject religion you are an apostate and, if not killed for it, threatened with hell for your apostasy. Whereas rejecting Pythagoras’ Theorem as true will only likely get you laughed at, or at worst, if you decide to go into bridge construction it may wind you up dead, and then only as a result of your own foolishness.

As David Hume argues quite convincingly, minds should be exposed to religious ideas only after they have had the benefit of learning science and mathematics and other disciplines that provide the means to think rationally rather than believe dogmatically.

This of course is why religion is most effective when peddled to the young, and why religion always tries to get them young. Children do not have sufficient power to reason, and so will accept as true whatever it is you tell them is true. This is a form of child abuse, and therefore in order to be free from it children must be free from what causes it. That is, free from religion. Religious figures the likes of Cardinal Newman railed against “liberal” thought precisely because it has the power to expose religion for what it is, to raise doubts about its dogmas presented as truths, and to resist its repression of all that is natural and joyful, and therefore liberating and self-empowering.

Of course people should have the freedom to worship, but only if they first have the freedom to choose whether to worship or not. Until we acquire the skill necessary to rationally make this choice, everyone has the right to enjoy freedom from religion. Yes, I’m arguing we should acquire the skill to rationally choose to become irrational if we so want! As did Immanuel Kant, who famously declared that “I have had to limit reason in order to make room for faith”. Someone who has not lived free of religion until they acquire the powers of reason to examine it cannot be said to ever be worshiping freely. Religion must be freely chosen in order for its practice to be considered freely undertaken.

Trump, Bolsenaro, Don’t Run in Elections if You Think They’re Rigged.

The Republicans in support of Donald Trump and of course Trump himself are still lying that the 2020 US election was “stolen”. That the electoral system was “rigged”, that in reality (perhaps the reality of a parallel universe in which extreme dishonesty is the object of life) the fine figure of Mr Trump should actually be president.

Let’s not repeat the common sense arguments and fact checking carried out post election. We need none of that to show Trump and his Republicans are lying. It is sufficient to ask a question, which could also be asked of that other sore loser from the far right, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, who recently also attempted to claim his election loss was rigged, though without an attempted coup.

If you are so convinced (without any evidence of course) that the electoral system is rigged, why do you continue to use it? This contradictory stance gives the lie to your claim.

In Trump’s case, who already lost an election which he continues to lie was rigged, and who also continues to lie the system itself is rigged and Democrats will cheat, it is doubly perplexing. You do not cross a bridge or climb into an aeroplane you have already found to be unsafe, whilst also shouting loudly that it remains unsafe and will come crashing down. “Everyone, I’m just going to walk across this bridge even though I know it will collapse!” Anyone sensible and honest gets off and works at putting things right.

Naturally, everyone understands that the false shrieks of election fraud are simply to set the stage. Should he lose again, fairly and squarely under the most regulated electoral process in the world, Trump will shriek even louder and this time perhaps plunge the USA into civil war.

If Republicans who choose to support the lie cannot be made to admit it is a lie, they should be confronted with the challenge of demonstrating they actually believe it. This means nothing less than abstaining from a system that they claim is corrupt. That is, not standing for election whilst simultaneously condemning the election process. Rather, they should peacefully campaign to put things right. If they fail to do this, they will forgive the rest of us for thinking they are, in fact, lying.

Climate Action: Walkation & Bikation. Silly, but makes sense.

Though he seems likable, one wonders whether UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres can actually do anything to save Earth. We may stand a better chance with Greta Thunberg and other grassroots activists. At least Thunberg does not head an organisation that though not actually bound and gagged by the powers that control it, is nonetheless toothless when it comes to action on the climate emergency now upon us.

Guterres does have a gift for framing the looming catastrophe in pretty much accurate terms (“The climate crisis is killing us,” he recently commented in response to a Lancet report entitled Health at the Mercy of Fossil Fuels). But his organisation is emerging as far less effective than activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion blocking roads, and Just Stop Oil and Last Generation splattering priceless art works with tomato soup (Van Gogh), and mash potato (Monet).

The climate disasters we are now experiencing justify these ostensibly extreme actions; ostensibly extreme because they are not actually harming the art works, or anyone in fact. That is as it should be, though activists could perhaps be even more effective if next to the art works they pinned a poster of an oil slick poisoning marine life. The juxtaposition would highlight the irony of feeling outrage over dollops of food momentarily staining priceless works (behind protective glass) instead of feeling existential alarm and doom at the destruction of Nature, which also happens to be our life support system.

Blocking roads is more to the point, because it deals directly with a major cause of climate change (transport, specifically the private car). The message is obvious: use public transport, or cycle and walk.

Though restraining private car use is crucial, it is not enough. The other form of transport that is a major contributor to climate change is air travel, and the proposals for tackling it do not inspire hope. Most proposals rely on development of more fuel efficient aircraft, and aircraft powered by electric batteries. These developments though possible are too far into the future. By then it will be too late and the balance would have tipped from recoverable crisis to irrecoverable catastrophe. It is also disheartening that despite clear alarm bells from respectable sources such as Gutteres, the IPCC, Thunberg, and David Attenborough and an overwhelming global consensus of scientists, airlines are nonetheless busy pushing cheaper air travel and flooding our inboxes with special offers and little weekend get-ways on the other side of the globe.

But where is the surprise? We cannot look to corporate interests to save the world. The corporate world have shown they cannot be trusted, busy subverting climate action and greenwashing themselves rather than the planet. It is because of corporate greed and our willingness to lap up their cheap wares to the point of addiction that we are in the mess we are in now. We are not simply facing a hotter future and decimated biodiversity, but an unlivable world.

We have to save the world ourselves. People are already trying to do that and are voluntarily giving up non-essential air travel, some with great personal sacrifice. Foregoing non-essential air travel means not jetting off for holiday, and ideal not visiting relatives, at least as frequently as we would like perhaps. It would mean taking the train, or if for holiday purposes, going on a so-called staycation or nearcation, a vacation spent close to home and ideally using public transport.

For those who can, an exciting option would be a holiday to a destination that you can in fact walk or cycle to within your holiday period. Conceivably you could travel hundreds of kilometres in a couple weeks, discovering as you go places that are worthy of a visit and which could do with the extra income. In fact, the journey becomes the holiday, partly funded by the money that would otherwise have been spent on stressful, long haul travel and travel insurance. And of course you end up fitter if you walk or bike.

However, though it would be a delightful adventure, it is not possible to get on your bike or walk to a Greek island if you have a job, commitments, and live, say, in Stockholm. But this is the kind of sacrifice now necessary if we are to avoid the catastrophe of non-survivable temperatures, decimation of bio-diversity including essential food pollinators, devastated forests, not to mention water scarcity and ruined harvests causing starvation, displacement and war. Some of these doomsday scenarios are already upon us, others are clearly on the horizon.

I hesitate to suggest it, but an obvious name for this type of holiday would be walkation or bikation. At any rate, such a holiday could turn out more rewarding than enduring stressful transfers and hours at airports with frequent delays and cancellations. At one time air travel was thrilling. Now the unpleasantness of being herded and searched alone argues for abandoning it.

We might sensibly only stick to walking and bikes as modes of transport whenever possible and not just for holidaying, as there is an argument for limiting even electric vehicle travel, including trains. Electric modes still come with a relatively large environmental footprint during manufacture and when in use. But if we were to just cease our air travel addiction alone, the impact would be enormous, boosting our chances of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Radical legislation, if necessary

Along with private car use, there is no longer any doubt that air travel has to be reigned in.

I for one feel it is now justifiable for governments to put in place air travel systems and laws that favour only essential air travel for health reasons, work requiring physical presence (though even surgeons can operate virtually), and, if checks are in place to discourage gaming the system, get-togethers with long-lost or dying relatives on occasion.

This may seem draconian and the sort of thing China would and I boldly predict will bring into force, and exactly the sort of thing neo-liberals would choke on. But climate change is draconian and undemocratic to the nth degree, and we might find that if we do not act voluntarily, then we will need to go the totalitarian route and force ourselves under penalty of law.

There seems to be enough of us by now, likely a critical mass, and if we were to act in unison it would make a significant difference, perhaps the difference. We cannot wait for governments to legislate, though in just a handful of years they may need to once it is non longer possible to ignore the fact that we have already entered into a lethal stage of climate change. By the it will be too late to prevent the decimation of human life such that it will be unrecognisable, and not much fun to be alive. We must act now.

As with Odysseus and the Sirens, we are better off voluntarily tying ourselves to the mast and limiting our addiction, than continuing to wander down the road to destruction. To do it now, before we find that as with COVID lockdowns (still ongoing in China), someone else will tie us down.

The Mosquito. Humanity’s Only Predator

I make it a habit not to upload images to this blog. It’s too much work.

Nothing, however, should be spared in the fight against the Evil Ones.

Splat: no better sight in the universe than a flattened mosquito, especially after it’s been tormenting you all night.

I am writing this at 2.23 am, by now awake for nearly half an hour and likely to remain awake for a good few hours more.

The reason is shown in the image. More than that, there were two of them that somehow got under the mosquito netting. Once they had been dispatched to what I hope is a special kind of hell (it’s relatively easy and hugely enjoyable to kill them inside the netting), I was left wide awake, and itching, after only 3 hours sleep.

What are these beings? What manner of evil are they? Snakes, spiders, scorpions and all kinds of potentially dangerous creatures run and hide when they see us or feel the vibration of our footsteps. Or at least they try to, and only when cornered and in fear of their lives might they lash out and bite or sting us. Wasps and bees only sting if we swat at them, and though a tiger or crocodile might be happy to see us, at least they have the decency and a sporting sense of fair game to be very large and rather difficult to miss.

Though mosquitoes are near invisible, almost silent (unless buzzing your ear) and can magically disappear into thin air once you do spot them, they alone stand out as utterly hateful among all flying and creeping things, all ferocious beasts of the field, and all blood curdling monsters of the deep. To mosquitoes we are not an occasional opportunity, a meal that happens to stray into their territory as might a hiker or swimmer. Nor are we someone forgetting to check their boots when out camping, to find a scorpion or deadly spider that has no choice but to lash out. For mosquitoes, man is prey. They live and breed around us, come looking for us, and very often spend a morning or an entire evening tormenting us. Mosquitoes are a singular curse on man, the one and only pariah among all living beings. Indeed, they are a pariah on the phenomenon of life itself.

We do not loath viruses and bacteria, we only dread them. And though spiders and snakes and scorpions can hurt pretty badly or kill even, they are not despicable. No living creature that is remotely dangerous torments us other than the mosquito. From bacteria to sharks, the countless creatures that might pose a threat to us do so only when we threaten them. With the exception perhaps of viruses and bacteria, all these creatures are in fact wondrous and beautiful. Even slugs, caterpillars and worms, and puffer fish, electric eels and poisonous sea anemones, you name it, none of them seek us out and hunts us down as does the loathsome mosquito.

Now, a zoologist might find a mosquito fascinating and may marvel at its 175 million year evolutionary trajectory. Hell, it outlived the dinosaurs. Though how one wishes it had gone the same way. Anyway, the zoologist is welcome to it, and frankly I’m not interested. When I hear reports scientists have found a way of sterilising mosquitoes so they would die-out in a generation, I rejoice. I want to send them money, support their research, and volunteer to go out and spray the little bastards before they even get off the ground.

Ecologists warn mosquitoes are an important part of the food chain, for frogs, birds and other types of animal that are in turn an important part of the ecosystem. But as I sit here tormented by yet another of these devilish creatures while I write (they actually look like devils, if you’ve ever stared one in the face) I say to hell with the frogs and birds.

I have two recurring mosquito fantasies that I would like to share. One involves outer space and the other sadism. I’ll break you in gently and deal with outer space first.

This is an unlikely scenario at the moment, but, it could happen one day. You are alone in a crippled spaceship light years from earth. There has been some sort of disaster – someone went berserk just after you were awakened from cryo-sleep, murdered the rest of the crew, and then killed themselves whilst you were taking a shower, for example. Your choice now is to live out your life in solitude, for which you have enough supplies to live to a ripe old age. Or, if you cannot face the unspeakable loneliness and desolation, to commit suicide and end it all.

You’re not the suicide type, and after a couple of days you wake up one night itching. This happens on a few more occasions until you finally discover there is a family of mosquitoes on board. They probably sneaked into the cryo-chambers when you were frozen before lift off.

What do you do? No other living thing is on board. No plants, not even a mushroom. Communication with earth is impossible and all you have by way of living company are the mosquitoes.

Of course, it’s a no-brainer, and you hunt them down relentlessly. As wondrous as life and being alive are, it’s not enough to save mosquitoes even in outer space. To save them you will have to allow them to suck your blood and torment you, because they will not survive alone. They are, to put it mildly, not good company, and the price for whatever perverse company they may offer is literally blood. Plus boils and itching. If you manage to get them all, the resulting slow descent into insanity born of solitude unknown to any human before, is worth it. If you can’t wipe the bastards out, suicide is preferable.

Having by way of this hypothetical, though all too possible, horror story brought into sharp relief the true evil of these creatures, you will be prepared for the second fantasy, and also prepared to accept the uncomfortable implications. (If you remain unconvinced here’s the Pink Panther being tormented by a mosquito).

If I ever become a god, I often muse to myself as I think calming thoughts to get to sleep, I would endow mosquitoes with consciousness, and then torture them!

Isn’t that a lovely thought?

Sadly as things stand that’s all it is, as currently my fantasy of torturing mosquitoes so they know about it, looking into their pleading eyes, hearing their little cries for mercy, remains in the realm of the impossible.

In the interim, however, I am working on a way to catch, pin down, and then snip off the proboscis of one of these abominations to life. And then let it free. To starve to death! *

Ha! Ha!

I know. I realise. But I did warn you. This is sadistic and quite worrying. But I assure you, I only pulled off the wings of one, very well, perhaps two flies as a child, which I would say is a healthy and perhaps necessary act when done early in life. Such urges exist within us, particularly in the curiosities of childhood, and it is better to give them some form of minor expression sooner rather than later, to early on realise it is wrong. However, such urges are worrying when they come to us as adults, when there is no one to teach us, and where indeed it provides some satisfaction.

With the exception, I argue, of when it comes to mosquitoes.

I shall not share the forms of torture I would inflict on the recently made conscious mosquitoes. Because it is actually hard to think of how one might do it, and also make it last a long time. But if you have the power to make them conscious, then perhaps you also have the power to transform them. I would, then, turn them into Tory MPs, and maybe a few from UKIP, and unleash upon them other mosquitoes at just the right rate (say one or two an hour). This would ensure that as soon as they got deeply into a task, or were snugly in bed or watching telly, or wanted to simply recline and stare at the sky and contemplate the beauty and wonder of the world, which it is in the Tory manifesto to wreck, they would be prevented by the sound of buzzing, the jab of a proboscis, followed by an itch from Hell.

* Mosquitoes do not in fact feed on our blood but use it to produce their eggs. As indeed, the mosquitoes that actually prey on us are female. Such it is only in the natural world thankfully. I also have said nothing about the ones that really pose a danger, which actually kill people through diseases such as malaria and zika.

Boris Johnson: Having made a Pig’s ear out of it the first time, Greased Piglet snuffles for another go

Given Tory economics indicates the party lives in a fairy tale land of inexhaustible gaslighting and magic money trees, maybe they also believe in Hollywood endings.

Rogue Chancer Finally Makes Good, staring Boris Johnson and Minions, directed by, one wouldn’t be surprised, Dominic Cummings, also recently returned from the dead. At a cinema near you.

And why not. Currently the Tory parliamentary party (stuff the country, they don’t count) is deliberating, intriguing and forming new alliances as they scrabble to put together a replacement for Liz Truss, recently eclipsed by a lettuce. Johnson, or The Convict (acbC), is apparently still admired and loved by many Tory MPs, who want him back as Prime Minister (though it should also be said many more are threatening to resign should Johnson become PM again, with one MP even promising to set himself on fire). He got them an 80 seat majority in the 2019 election and though Brexit has ruined the United Kingdom, he did get it done. He did lie a lot, but he’s likable; and though an extra 20 or 30 thousand people died whilst he dragged his feet on COVID, shouting “let the bodies pile up” and partying, anyone would have done the same under such pressure.

It’s remarkable Johnson only needed two holidays to recover since being booted out. One in Karystos on the Greek island of Evia (where only days earlier I had myself dined at the same restaurant), and one in the Caribbean, from where he has just jetted back in a bid to reclaim his wallpapered pig pen.

Let him have another go I say. He may well be reformed, especially after all that holidaying. Maybe this time round he’ll turn out to be a real Churchill and not a cheap knock-off. Who knows, maybe he met his Ghosts of Christmas in the Caribbean, even in summer, and will heed the warnings and learn valuable lessons. Don’t lie, or buy wallpaper you can’t afford, booze on the job, and don’t employ elves who then stab you in the back after you’ve stabbed them in the back. If he listens to all that, he could be a good PM. (For a handy summary of The Convict’s crimes, see Fines, lies and chaos: a reminder of Boris Johnson’s time as PM, though this list only covers crimes committed whilst in office).

On the other hand, he might make another pig’s ear out of it, which will not only be disastrous for the country but for his legacy. Currently he might perhaps rate not a respectable but at least not entirely ruinous write-up in Wikipedia, as having, okay, lied about the Brexit issue, yet nonetheless delivered a landslide victory for the benefit, perhaps not of the country, but at least his party.

I’ve got my money on the pig in him, should he manage to bamboozle his minions yet again. Though if he ushers in a millennial era of prosperity, I’ll pay for his meal next time he comes to Karystos.

John Crace, Nicknamer-in-Chief and Politician’s Scourge

I am seriously thinking of creating a special section for Guardian political sketch writer John Crace, for his outstanding, unrelenting, incisive and fearless disassembling, and some might say verbal dismembering, of our beloved politicians.

One worries for Crace. If ever those who he rightly eviscerates for their dishonesty, callousness, incompetence and downright stupidity manage to seize power under some authoritarian pretext (no longer unimaginable in the so-called liberal democracies currently crawling with far right demagogues), he will be in danger.

These people do not have thick skins, and despite being every bit as dull and dimwitted as Crace portrays them, nonetheless remember the important things, such as who called them names and rubbished their halfwit policies. No one can doubt for a moment that the execrable Donald Trump would fill the streets with dangling corpses should he bamboozle another term in office as US President. His own vice president, Mike Pence, came close to being lynched during the attempted January 6th coup in 2020, and that was for simply refusing to endorse Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. He didn’t even call Trump a smelly bastard or dickhead.

Which, speaking of odors, brings me to the inspiration for this quick post. Thing is, Crace is a genius. If it’s just for his Nobel Prize-winning nickname (do they have a Nobel prize for best nicknamer?) for Chris Philp, minister and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I know of Philp only because Crace makes fun of him, aptly calling him the “Nose in Search of a Bum” for his love of pleasing (or is that pleasuring?) people and letting them treat him like shit.

Indeed, Philp seems at his best when wheeled out to lap up the flak whenever it hits the fan, loyally shielding the culprits responsible for the latest clusterfuck (most recently the sinking of the economy). As Crace writes of “Librium” Liz’s second Prime Minister’s Questions, when she could not get away quick enough after the humiliation of being harangued by the Opposition (even by the damp Labour dud Kier Starmer, generally not noted for being a sprite wit):

“Truss left the chamber to cries of “more” from Labour and widespread indifference from her own side. That was the closest to enthusiasm the Tory benches could manage. She left behind the creepy Chris Philp – the Nose in Search of a Bum – to answer an urgent question on why the economy was even worse on Wednesday than it had been on Tuesday.”

So whilst Librium Liz (acbC* Radon Liz) and her fellow budget assassin “Kamikwasi” Kwarteng run for the hills, the Nose in Search of a Bum gets high lapping it all up.

* acbC: as christened by Crace

After You. Leaders to the Front

One thing that stands out in all the conflicts going on just now is that not one of the national leaders who starts a war is at the front. Putin is the most obvious example, though all other leaders who have started wars are guilty of the same.

What is also striking is that this most obvious lack is never called out by the enemy. The American president does not insist that Putin should lead the way from the front. Of course, as he would need to do the same the next time he starts a war.