The illustration to your left probably gave away this entry’s subject straight away, removing most of the suspense, but I felt it was necessary just to make sure we’re all on the same page: Red means “stop”, green means “go” while yellow means “pay attention, because soon you’ll have to either stop or go”. If you’re red-green color blind, the illustration probably doesn’t make any sense, and if you feel all angry and left out right now, I apologize. Thankfully, you should still be able to understand what is happening in the real world since, usually, the red light contains some orange in its hue, and the green light contains some blue. In any case: Top light equals STOP, bottom light equals GO. It’s pretty damn simple, don’t you think?

And still, there are tons of nincompoops who have no idea what is going on when they see a traffic light. For some people, both red and green lights means “step into road”. And this has to stop. As you know, I ride my bike to and from work and it can be quite challenging. Not so much going to work, because there are not that many people out and about early in the morning. But going home is always a game of “Don’t Kill the Pedestrian” spiced up with a little “Don’t Get Killed by the Car”. Pedestrians: Red light means that you have to stay patiently on the sidewalk and wait for the light to turn green. For the record, the sidewalk doesn’t include the bicycle lane. You’ve got a huge, paved area that’s exclusive to you. The bicycle lane, on the other hand, is my domain. If you continue to walk across the road on red light, I will run into you at some point and it will be painful for the both of us. Let’s work together to avoid that.

While pedestrians crossing the road on a red light is potentially dangerous, cars jumping red lights are the sum of all fears. My route to work takes me through Grønland, a part of Oslo with great accessibility for bicyclists, but there are a few blind intersections. Because of this, they have traffic lights, which should, in theory, make them safe. On Friday, I found myself waiting for a green light in one of those intersections. Having gone through that particular intersection at least two hundred times, I’m now familiar with how the lights change; the “rhythm” of the traffic lights, if you will. Because of this, I’m usually on my merry way as soon as the light turns green.

On Friday, however, I didn’t go when the light turned green, but decided to wait a bit. The reason was that I heard a car coming from the right side of the intersection, and it was coming fast. There was no way in hell it would be able to stop, even though the traffic light he was ignoring had been glowing with a bright red color for at least five seconds when he eventually sped through the intersection. Had I gone on green, I would have presented my entire broadside for him to plow into. With the speed of the car, that would have resulted in a very extensive sick leave – at best.

Drivers: Please don’t jump red lights. You will end up killing someone; a pedestrian, a bicyclist or another driver. And a friendly public service announcements to my fellow bicycle riders. When you ride your bike in traffic, don’t listen to music. I see some of you do this, and it’s just plain stupid. Your ears are just as important as your eyes when riding your bike.

Thank you, internet. I’m glad we talked. I honesty hope we don’t have to sit down and have a chat about parking your god damn car in the bicycle lane as well.

But let’s get back to Bolivia. There are a lot of places you don’t want to get busted for drug smuggling. The worst is probably Singapore, where the award is execution, but I’m guessing Bolivia isn’t a walk in the park either. That was probably what one of the three girls thought as well, and when she was released on a NOK 200 000 (~USD 35 000) bail in December 2009, she decided to get the hell out of the country and back to Norway. Here she was charged for attempting to smuggle the cocaine to Norway, but just recently she got acquitted by a Norwegian court.

The two girls still stuck in Cochabamba were not that lucky: In April 2010 they were both sentenced to 13 years and four months in jail for their failed smuggling attempt. The sentence was later reduced to 10 years and eight months for both of them. But one of the girls, Stina Brendemo Hagen, decided that she didn’t want to spend her twenties in a Bolivian jail, and when she was released on bail in August 2011, she fled the country and flew back to Norway.

And here she is free to live a perfectly normal life because the Norwegian authorities won’t prosecute her as she “can’t be sentenced for the same charges twice”. It doesn’t even look like she has to serve her ten years of jail time in a Norwegian jail either, so basically she’s off the hook (source, source, both in Norwegian). My three word comment: What the fuck!?

Norway, like every other country in the world, doesn’t extradite its own citizens to other countries. This is understandable, because in other countries they might, in a worst case scenario, face a death sentence. I can also see that it would be wrong to sentence someone for the same charges twice. But as a matter of fact she has been through a trial where she was indeed found guilty and sentenced in Bolivia. That she does not have serve in Norway makes no sense to me. Does this mean that if I go to Bolivia, put a bullet in someone’s head, get arrested, sentenced to life in prison, but break out and flee to Norway, I can walk around as a free man back home? Is getting back to Norway a magical get-out-of-jail-card?

We fine middle aged politicians NOK 25 000 (~USD 4 400) for getting a full body massage by a prostitute in Latvia (source), but trying to smuggle a load of cocaine is evidentially just fine. That’s pretty fucked up right there. Does someone with a little knowledge of how the Norwegian legal system works please weigh in?

I really enjoyed the festival this year, and focused on quantity rather than quality when nosing. Ola has always laughed at me for trying weird whiskies, but this year I think it really paid off. Amongst the many different brands available I found Buffalo Trace, a mild, but complex, American whisky. It’s quite possible that I enjoyed this one the most because it was the first one I tried, and drinking whisky for an entire evening can be quite the ordeal for an tastebuds.

We also tried the whisky bar, where they use whisky in drinks. This is considered sacrilegious by the most hard core whisky drinkers, so the bar is hidden in a corner of the conference floor. Going there is frowned upon, but we took our chances and came back happy. I don’t remember the names of any of the drinks, but but if you’re ever offered a drink that contains whisky, fear not – it’s a good chance you’ll like it, even if you’re not a whisky drinker.

Some of the distillers and importers can be quite pretentious when describing their goods, and here’s the most over-the-top description I found this year (translation by me):

Eagle Rare Single Barrel 10YO has a dark bronze color. Early in the scent picture one can find grain, toasted wheat bread, honey and tobacco leaves. The scent then goes on to become ripe banana, charcoal, almonds, butter, melon. Eagle Rare has an incredibly complex taste picture and you quickly feel that there is a lot to be found. You will discover the taste of raisins, grape fruit, charred oak and candid almonds. The closing is long, sweet, moderately flaming and pleasantly oily.

Moderately flaming and pleasantly oily. All righty, then.

Even though I enjoy the odd glass, I really don’t know anything about whisky, which is a bit quite embarrassing. To top it off, I’ve only bought a single bottle of it all my life, a The Famous Grouse Blended Scotch Whisky, which sits half full in my liquor cabinet. I can hear Kristoffer¹⁾ laughing all the way from the other side of the country. So, to actually be a little prepared for tomorrow, I decided to read up on some basic whisky knowledge. Here’s my quick “Whisky for Newbie Nosers” (which is mostly ripped off Wikipedia):

First, let’s start off easy with a video. It’s a few minutes long – and a commercial for Johnnie Walker – but it’s very well done. And it’s got bag pipes. I love bag pipes.

Whisky is an anglicization of a Goidelic name (Irish: uisce beatha and Scottish Gaelic: uisge beatha) literally meaning “water of life”. Interesting, since the word aquavit, another great liquor, is derived from Latin aqua vītae, which is also “water of life.” From this I choose to understand that drinking both whisky and aquavit is really good for your health!

Whisky is made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and maize (corn). It’s is aged in wooden casks, made generally of charred white oak, except that in the United States corn whiskey need not be aged. The typical unifying characteristics of the different classes and types of whisky are the fermentation of grains, distillation, and aging in wood. Indian whisky is an exception, where grain fermentation is not a requirement and the most common basis is fermented molasses.

Malts and grains are combined in various ways:

• Blended malt is a mixture of single malt whiskies from different distilleries. If a whisky is labeled “pure malt” or just “malt” it is almost certain to be a vatted whisky. This was formerly called a “vatted malt” whisky.
• Single malt whisky is whisky from a single distillery made from a mash that uses only one particular malted grain. However, unless the whisky is described as “single-cask” it will contain whisky from many casks, and different years, so the blender can achieve a taste recognizable as typical of the distillery. In most cases, the name of a single malt will be that of the distillery (The Glenlivet, Bushmills, Nikka), with an age statement and perhaps some indication of some special treatments such as maturation in a port wine cask.
• Blended whiskies are typically made from a mixture of malt and grain whiskies — often along with neutral spirits, caramel and flavoring. A whisky simply described as Scotch, Irish, or Canadian Whiskey is most likely to be a blend. A blend is usually from many distilleries so that the blender can produce a flavor consistent with the brand, and the brand name (e.g., Chivas Regal, Canadian Club) will usually not therefore contain the name of a distillery. Jameson Irish Whiskey is an example of an exception, as it comes from only one distillery. A mixture of malts (with no grain) from different distilleries (more usually called a vatted malt) may sometimes be referred to as a “blended malt”, and a mixture of grain whiskies with no malts will sometimes carry the designation “blended grain”.
• Cask strength (also known as Barrel proof) whiskies are rare, and usually only the very best whiskies are bottled in this way. They are bottled from the cask undiluted or only lightly diluted. Rather than diluting, the distiller is inviting the drinker to dilute to the level of potency most palatable (often no dilution is necessary, such is the quality of single cask whiskies).
• Single cask (also known as Single barrel) whiskies are usually bottled by specialist independent bottlers, such as Duncan Taylor, Gordon & MacPhail, and Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, amongst others. Each bottle of a single-barrel whisky is from an individual cask, and often the bottles are labeled with specific barrel and bottle numbers. The taste of such whiskies may substantially vary from cask to cask within a brand.

Whiskies do not mature in the bottle, only in the cask, so the “age” of a whisky is only the time between distillation and bottling. This reflects how much the cask has interacted with the whisky, changing its chemical makeup and taste. Whiskies that have been in bottle for many years may have a rarity value, but are not “older” and will not necessarily be “better” than a more recently made whisky matured in wood for a similar time. Beyond an age of a decade or two, additional aging in a barrel will also not necessarily make a whisky “better”.

Most whiskies are sold at or near an alcoholic strength of 40% abv, which is the statutory minimum in some countries – although the strength can vary, and cask strength whisky may have as much as twice that alcohol percentage.

So, there you have it – everything you need to know to avoid looking like a total idiot if you ever start discussing whisky with anyone. I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to a really greasy burger at Beach Club and then three hours of whisky sampling tomorrow.

1) Dude, if you’re reading this, you should really come next year. We’ve got a spare bed you can use. Bring the missus.

1. Don’t bring my own lunch to work, but instead buy lunch in the canteen.
2. Have an energy drink some time after dinner.

As you can imagine, my Fridays are pretty damn wild. Buy lunch!? I’m crazy. But at least I’ve got bragging rights for sampling quite a lot of different energy drinks. And since Anniken is visiting her parents on this particular Friday – probably to have someone to drink wine with – I’m home alone and free to go wild: I’m having three energy drinks this evening!

I’ve bought three cans of SoBe Pure Rush, one can of each of the available flavor: Lime Starfruit, Pink Grapefruit and Berry Apple. Each can contains 250 ml and comes with natural ingredients like caffeine, guarana, sea-buckthorn, açaí and ginseng. In order of appearance, they have the following effects on the human body:

• Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant, temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness.
• Guarana increases memory, alertness and mood. It’s also rich on caffeine.
• Sea-buckthorn berries contains loads and loads of C-vitamins, about 15 times more than oranges, in addition to dense contents of vitamin E
• Açaí has no scientifically proven health effects but products made from the açaí palm has been marketed as products for reversal of diabetes and other chronic illnesses, as well as expanding size of the penis and increasing men’s sexual virility and sexual attractiveness to women.
• Ginseng, on the other hand, contains ginsenosides, which actually can facilitate penile erection. It’s also possible to overdose on ginseng, with possible side effects being fever, seizures, convulsions, and delirium. Stuff like that.

In addition there are of course ingredients that are used to color and flavor each individual version. It seems to me like mixing caffeine, guarana (both increasing alertness) and ginseng (delirium) is a sub-par idea, but the people who came up with the Pure Rush recipe probably knew what they were doing. The only warning label on the can covers the caffeine level, which is 320 mg per liter, or 80 mg per can. According to the interwebs, a cup of coffee contains about 100 mg of caffeine. With a warning label that states that “kids below the age of 14, pregnant women and people who are sensitive to caffeine” should stay away from the drink, I was expecting more of the good stuff.

I know that you love gadgets and since caffeine can cause increased heart rate, I’ll be doing my drinking tonight with a heart rate monitor strapped to my chest. Even though I might not feel more alert, maybe technology can prove that pouring down three cans of Pure Rush actually have some effect on my body. To make sure nothing else than the pure Pure Rush can affect my heart rate, I’ve turned down the lights and I’m listening to Hammock. Right now my heart rate is about 57 beats per minute.

The first can is SoBe Pure Rush Lime Starfruit. It has a nice, fresh and green color, not a big surprise since the word “lime” is used in the name. I love lime, so how can this possible fail? The drink tastes a bit like lime, but with a bitter aftertaste. To be honest, I was expecting more, and the bitter is an unpleasant surprise. Around half way through the can I’m beginning to feel that the can should have been maybe half the size.

The SoBe Pure Rush Pink Grapefruit also has a nice color, a dark red – not so different from grapefruit juice. No real surprises there either, in other words. Both the smell and the taste is sweater than Lime Starfruit, and I have to admit I like the taste better. But it could use some lime, crushed ice, rum and a little umbrella. Unlike the Lime Starfruit I didn’t get tired of the taste half way through the can.

SoBe Pure Rush Berry Apple is an interesting little thing. First of all, I wonder what “berry” they have been using. There’s a chance these “berries” are the same as the “meat” in sausages – the stuff that’s left when all the edible parts of the animal have been used. The drink smells extremely synthetic and not natural at all, but the taste is surprisingly good, considering the smell.

After finishing the third and last can I’m starting to get a nice layer of sugar in my mouth, probably because the three cans cover 102% of the recommended daily sugar consumption. My heart rate is stable at 60 beats per minute, and I don’t feel particularly upbeat. It’s well beyond my usual work-week bed time, though, so it could be that the drinks are indeed making me more alert. Or it could be because it’s Friday and I’m in love.

As a drink to clench your thirst, the SoBe Pure Rush series is all right, but nothing more. You should empty the can in one go, though, because it’s easy to get bored with the taste. As an energy drink, I’m not sure if it actually works, because I just talked to Anniken on the phone and her yawning immediately spread to me as well. But if I find myself still being wide awake at three in the morning, I’ll let you know.

I’m suspecting that it’s the non-challenge about it all that I like. After a long week of facing challenge after challenge at work, it’s great to kick back and do something that doesn’t require any brain activity whatsoever. So, inspired by the Street Cleaning Simulator review, I decided to try out another game by the same publisher; Garbage Truck Simulator 2011¹⁾.

Ah, the garbage truck. Without it, we would be knee deep in our own filth in no-time, just ask the citizens of Naples. So we can safely say that driving a garbage truck is one of the cornerstone professions of any modern society. Acing the simulator would probably give me enough experience to have another job to fall back to should my current career crumble for whatever reason. I downloaded the Garbage Truck Simulation, installed it and started the game. It took a least three minutes to load and there was no indication that anything was happening. Things started to look grim, and when a message telling me about a missing DLL, I was pretty sure my days as a garbage truck driver had ended even before I had the chance to start.

But the game miraculously started, even without the DLL file present. My joy was short lived, however, as everything crashed with the message “Invalid pointer or handle in” when trying to create a in-game profile. I set off on a quest on the interwebs to find the missing DLL file, but even if the error message about the DLL file was now gone, the game still crashed miserably during profile creation. I should probably mention that I’m on Windows 7 x64, this might have contributed to the problems.

But a broken simulation is just a minor setback for someone who once flew a virtual Boing 737-400 from Oslo to Copenhagen in real time only to accidentally crash it into the ground 100 meters from the runway. There are plenty of weird simulators out there to pick and chose from and German Astragon seems to be the most dedicated of the publishers. What about a quarry simulator? Hell, yeah! Unfortunately, Astragon’s games are available in German only (English language versions might be available somewhere) and only a few of them have demo versions. But the Gabelstapler (forklift) Simulator 2009 had, so I decided to download that. Forklifting is, like driving a garbage truck, essential to modern society. What would happen if boxes and parcels were just randomly thrown into trucks and freight trains? Chaos!

After installation I started the game and everything went smooth until the everything froze up when the name of the game’s developer was displayed. They’d chosen the very fitting name “Still” for their game company. At this point I have to admit that I was getting a little annoyed. Everything was turning into a challenge to get any simulator to work on my computer, not to play the simulator itself. As a third and final attempt, I downloaded Bagger (excavator) Simulator 2011, hoping that it would not be plagued by the same kind of bugs as the other simulators.

And believe it or not, this game actually started without any error messages and didn’t crash within the first ten seconds. How everything went from there, I think I’ll save for another incoherent, rambling entry. It’s getting late and I’m being told it’s time to go to bed.

¹⁾ Fredrik, you can safely skip reading this entry.

If you are a running around doing this you need to get your act together. I’d love to see you arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to community service; your first job being to remove whatever piece of crap (pun intended) you were caught making. You might say that I’m overreacting. I say you should read up on the broken windows theory and shut the fuck up. The kind of graffiti Oslo is drowning in makes no sense at all. Today I even saw a wall where someone had written #antisec, which made me want to reach out for the first nerdy looking “hacker” activist I saw and punch him in the face. That’s the broken windows theory in practice.

But every now and then a piece of art surfaces that doesn’t just look like a random act of vandalism. It blends into the urban environment where it’s been created while at the same time livening up what is normally a gray and boring area. Some time over the last couple of weeks, two artists have created some excellent pieces down by the walkway opposite the bus terminal in Schweigaards gate. They’ve even covered some of the crap that was already on the walls. Here are a few quick captures I did while walking by today.

Yeah, I know I’m being quite the hypocrite here; smashing common graffiti while at the same time praising the works of art pictured above. But I’m going to go ahead and let this one slide and just be a hypocrite. Digging around on the interwebs a little, I discovered that artists are Alice Pasquini and C215. It looks like they tend to roam around a lot. Check out Street Art London for pictures of work they’ve done in London. Also, have a look at C215′s Flickr photo stream for more pieces he’s done in Oslo this summer.

Analogue technologies, however, I can’t wrap my head around. Take loudspeakers, for instance. They can create every sound audible to man just by changing the voltage of an electromagnet that in turn move a diaphragm back and forth. How is it possible to know exactly how much power is necessary to create the sound of Frank Sinatra singing “Come Fly With Me”? I’m pretty sure this is alien technology!

We all agreed that loudspeakers are amazing stuff. But right up there with loudspeakers is another piece of technological mind fuck I find simply baffling. The others didn’t agree with me, though, but maybe you will.

I think my explanation of this is quite bad, but please bear with me. Let’s say you have a computer program that creates a white gird; a completely white image. Then it gradually fills the image with black pixels such that when the image has turned completely black, the computer program has created an image for every possible combination of black and white pixels. If you have saved every single one, you have pictures of everything that has ever happened in the past and everything that will ever happen in the future.

Every single thing. The big bang, the fall of man, every book ever written, the cure for every disease that will ever exist, every movie ever made, the secret to time travel and your entire life from life to death. You’ll also have pictures of thing that couldn’t possibly happen, like Obama riding across the Saharan dessert on a unicorn while enjoying a sundae. Stuff like that.

Unfortunately, as with most things amazing on this level, it’s only theoretically possible to do it. You’ll need a massive amount of computer power and storage space and a lot of time on your hands. Also, you need someone to filter through the images created to find the interesting stuff, a job probably best outsourced to India.

Let’s do a little math. To be able to calculate anything, we limit the size of the image to 32 x 32 pixels. With an image that size you wouldn’t be able to see much, but it’s better than nothing. Also, my math is somewhat rusty, so there might be an error or two hidden in plain sight. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

A 32 x 32 pixel pictures will yield a massive 2^(32×32) = 1,80 * 10^308 possible combinations. To put things into perspective, a million is 10^6. If you had the computer power to generate a million images per second, you’d only use a little over one hour (2^32 / 1000000 / 60 / 60 = 1,2 hours) to create all combinations of the first row of pixels. The second row, though, will take about 584942 years (2^(32*2) / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365 = 584942,4 years) to generate and from there on the number just skyrockets.

So, it’s easy to see that creating an image of everything ever is not practically feasible. But if you sit down and think about the concept, I’d say it’s pretty mind-blowing.

Norway. About 5 million people. Way too many online newspapers. Verdens Gang (VG) is one that I rarely visit because it’s basically just a compilation of annoyances. I know I’m stepping on a lot of sore toes now, but that’s my humble opinion. In spite of my opinion, however, it’s the most popular domestic site, according to Alexa. Boy, is my thumb not on the pulse of Norway.¹⁾! Every now and then, though, I take my chances and head into the journalistic void that is VG in the hope that something might have changes since my last visit.

Unfortunately, it rarely does. When I went to the site just now I was greeted with an article with the heading “Ordered jacket — got poop“, while their main story is that it’s more environmentally friendly to own an SUV than a German Shepherd. For some reason they have used a picture of a Belgian Tervuren to illustrate this point. And let’s not get started on the design of the site itself and the comments people post on the articles. Well, to be honest, the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory can be studied in detail on every single site on the internet that allows anonymous commenting, not just VG.

Anyway. I wasn’t going to ramble on about the fall of journalism or crappy web design, but rather an article I read on VG a few days ago when I ventured so innocently to the site.

The article was about a politician who gave the middle finger and a huge “fuck you” to the environmental movement and the science that says global warming is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which result from human activities such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation. To the picture of her tanking her 2003 Ford Expedition, politician Sylvi Listhaug laughs at what she calls “climate hysteria”. Sylvi is representing the Progress Party, which is currently in opposition.

In her opinion, which is partly the opinion of the Progress Party, there are no scientific proof that CO2 emissions are a contributing cause to global warming. It’s just “an excuse to introduce more taxes and fees”. When asked about her car and its fuel efficiency she responds that “the car is perfectly legal in the United States, where they also have environmental laws” and that more people should have a car like hers out of safety concerns: “Norwegian families are driving around in death traps because they can’t afford safe cars” (with reference to the tax levels on large cars, SUVs are taxed quite heavily).

A lot of sane arguments right there. Let’s pick them apart, one by one, shall we?

Fist and foremost, let’s talk about the taxes and fees you as a someone who live in Norway has to pay. Yes, we are pretty fucked when it comes to taxes and fees. And yes, some people leech off the system and should be punished medieval-style for that. But the bulk of us get a lot back from all the taxes we pay. Sylvi herself are getting a lot back right now as she’s in parental leave. Because of the taxes Sylvi and her fellow citizens have paid, she can stay home with her kid for a massive 46 weeks and still get 100% of the money she would have received from her employer. Or, if she prefers to stay home for 56 weeks – that’s more than a year – she’ll get 80% of her salary.

On to her 2003 Ford Explorer. With combined fuel efficiency of 14 MPG (source), this baby burns through juice like there is no tomorrow. Even though her car was perfectly legal when it was manufactured back in 2003, things are looking very different today. New SUVs that are sold in the US today need a minimum average of 24.1 MPG (source) – so it actually seems like the Americans care about fuel consumption as well, Sylvia. What gives!?

When it comes to her statement that there is no scientific proof that CO2 emissions are a contributing cause to global warming, this is an ongoing discussion among scientists and lobbyists around the world. But instead of bickering, let’s take a quick look at two graphs:

(source, source)

Both are fairly self explanatory, but let’s quickly have a look at them. The first graph shows the global mean land-ocean temperature change from 1880-2010, relative to the 1951-1980 mean. The black line is the annual mean and the red line is the 5-year running mean. The green bars show uncertainty estimates. The second graph is known as the “Keeling Curve” and it shows the long-term increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations from 1958-2008. Monthly CO2 measurements display seasonal oscillations in an upward trend; each year’s maximum occurs during the Northern Hemisphere’s late spring, and declines during its growing season as plants remove some atmospheric CO2. I don’t know about you, but to me it seems like there is some kind of correlation here.

But before we go, let’s, for the sake of the argument, say that the CO2 emissions does not cause global warming. In fact, global warming is just a conspiracy to sell more air conditioners. Still fossil fuels are, in all practical terms, a limited resource that we will one day run out of. If we don’t find a viable energy substitute before that happens, our civilization as we know it will implode on itself in the fight for the last drop of oil. That should be good enough reason to keep the current use as low as possible and to stay away from 2003 Ford Expeditions with under half the fuel efficiency of a modern family sedan.

I don’t want people like this run my country. That’s why I vote.

VG article: “Ler av klimahysteri“.

¹⁾ Did I do that right? I’m not sure, but either way I managed to cram a Bill Hicks quote in there.

How does Harold know all this? Because he’s been reading the Bible. In fact, he has been a tireless student of the Bible for over five decades. This is not the first time someone has predicted the end of the world, though. You might think of Jehovah’s Witnesses when you think of the apocalypse and they are pretty hard core when it comes to rapture predictions (source). Harold Camping has been around the block once before himself, too, he actually predicted the return of Christ back in 1994.

Wait. What?

Yes, Mr. Camping predicted that the world would end on September 6, 1994. Since we’re still here, it’s pretty safe to say that it never happened. You’d think that this gives Family Radio a credibility problem when it comes to predicting the end of days, but no. According the the Family Radio website, “Mr. Camping highlighted the abundant evidence pointing to 1994 as a probable year of Christ’s return”. In short, he was not entirely sure if the date was correct. But Family Radio has all that covered this time. Harold has had the opportunity to study the Bible quite a lot since 1994 and “the Biblical evidence is too overwhelming and specific to be wrong. [...] Today there is no longer any question, May 21, 2011 is the day in which Jesus Christ will return”.

So now we know the date, but what about the time? I might be splitting hairs here, the actual time is not too interesting since it’s the end of the world and all, but it’s still a point I’d like to raise. And I’d love to do it with a quote from one of my all time favorite movies, Strange Days:

Talk radio host: Now, just so the, the rest of us know how much time is left, when is the rapture supposed to hit exactly? Is it midnight New Year’s Eve?
Lori: That’s right.
Talk radio host: Aha. Is that midnight L.A. time or, or Eastern Standard Time, or what? I mean, what timezone is God in anyway?

Yeah, what time zone is God in anyway? As I’m writing this, it’s May 21 in many parts of the world. Has the rapture started there yet? Is India totally fucked as of right now? I’m just throwing that one out there.

Personally, I think that the chance of all this happening tomorrow (or today if you’re in India) is rather slim. I find it interesting that Harold Camping bases his predictions on the Bible, a book that has been rewritten, revised and edited several times. How does he know that the version he is reading is the correct one? Could it be that the parts about the actual rapture was removed decades ago and that Harold is now running the risk of predicting the wrong date yet again? And if the rapture really doesn’t happen, I’m all ears to what kind of excuses Family Radio will come up with. Calculation errors? Dyslexia? Time will show¹⁾.

The most interesting thing about all this is I’m not making any of it up, Family Radio has their own page where you can read all about the upcoming rapture. The site might be a bit unstable because of heavy traffic, if you’re having problems with the direct link, try the cached version instead.

And with that I wish you all good night and good luck with tomorrow and the next five months.

¹⁾ And likewise, if it turns out the end of the world actually starts tomorrow, I’m going to feel really stupid for writing all this.