(Brexiting) Chaos By Default: The One Who Hesitates Is Almost Always Lost Whereas The One Who Bites the Bullet Is Just as Often Better Off: It'd Have Been Better By Far For the United Kingdom Simply to Have, Post-June 23rd 2016, Unilaterally Crashed Out of the European Union: I Wager The Long-Term Fallout Would've Been Significantly Less...By A Long-Shot...

To Be Continued...sometime-or-other... 

Yes, All It Will Take In Fact Is The Moral Panic Attending/Accompanying An Officially-Declared 'EMERGENCY' To Create the Conditions Necessary To Bring It Into Effect - HOWEVER APPARENTLY WELL-MEANING THE DECEIVED/DELUDED ADHERENTS/PROMULGATORS THEREOF...

Is The Dystopic Orwellian Vision of a Commandeering Big Brother Surveillance State Almost Upon Us? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT, FOLKS, As A Matter of Fact One Has It Upon Pretty Good Authority That It's Well and Truly - In All But Name (and Official Edict) - Already Arrived...Awaiting Only the Appropriate Time and 'Right' Conditions and Suitably Willing Official Participants (and Compliant Populace) To Bring It Fully Into Effect...

To Be Continued... 

Yes, It's - Finally - TIME For All Real-Deal, True Dinkum Anzacs To Stand Shoulder-to-Shoulder in Telling the C(hinese)C(ommunist)P(arty) We Don't Want and Simply Will Not Abide Their Attempts to Brow-Beat Australasians - Be They Aussies, Kiwis or our South-Pacific Island Neighbours - Into Submission Through Bully-Boy Tactics/Intimidation/Political Infiltration and/or Special Aid Programs and Trade Deals...

No, to paraphrase what Margaret Thatcher once so memorably and powerfully proclaimed...

These peoples ain't for buying.

Notwithstanding My Longstanding Concern At Where Long-Afoot Movements Within the American 'Moral Majority'/'Christian Coalition'/'Religious Right' Have Long Been Heading, Yet For All of That, I Do Hereby Solemnly Declare That Such as the Puritan Pioneers of the United States of America - Much Like Aotearoa-New Zealand's Own Missionary 'Forbears' (Such as Samuel Marsden) - Have Also Long Been Unduly and Unfairly Pilloried/Maligned: A Belated Thanksgiving Tribute to America's Pilgrim Fathers (and Mothers)...

Accused seemingly relentlessly of everything from (participating in) genocide through to religious tyranny to attempting to set up another theocracy in the image and likeness of ancient Israel...

I must protest, especially on the first - by far the most significant and libellous - count...

for my understanding is that their supposed ill-treatment of America's indigenous/native population has been highly exaggerated, if not oftentimes fabricated fullstop... 

And their views on religious liberty were pretty well impeccable, though admittedly and regrettably they, like so many of their (post-Reformation) Protestants, were so often not willing to extend the selfsame religious and even civil liberties to others (of differing Christian denominations as well as non-Christian religions in general) that they were so zealous in championing for themselves...

Yet as one far-seeing much-published Christian author has well stated, those newly emerging from great and deep spiritual darkness do not all at once see/perceive everything in the bright light of the midday sun...

And as (in paraphrase) said another, the Pilgrim father Roger Williams, of the new colony of Rhode Island, also quoted in Ellen Gould White's seminal, epochal & classic The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan (known as Cosmic Conflict), expressed things so very thoughtfully and farsightedly:

We vow before our God to accept and follow all the additional light our gracious God may well see fit to shed upon our path(way) in times to come...

...for it simply cannot be that having lately emerged from such midnight darkness [as above referred to] that all additional duties and obligations, rights and privileges pertaining to our high estate as Christians can yet have been fully revealed to us...

Yes, Trivializing the (Unwelcome) Messenger Makes Dismissing That Person's Message All the Easier to Do...But Quite Seriously, Folks, Zooming In Time and Again Upon Former New York City Mayor and Trump Bosom-Buddy Rudy Giuliani's Faded (Hair) Dye Did Come Over Somewhat Desperate in the Extreme...(as later noted also by another sibling equally no fan of President Trump)...

And New Zealand media certainly weren't alone, with the following headline from the November 19th (British) Guardian, no less:

'Sweaty Rudy Giuliani suffers hair malfunction in latest bizarre press conference.' 

Need I say/add more?

Hey, It's EASY AS To Engineer the News to Your Own Ends, Especially When You Conveniently Only Present Those 'Facts' Which Just So Happen to Conform to Your Own Personal, Political Agenda...

Which is the best construction I can put upon the presentation - at the head of the hourly news bulletin - of an item midday today (and at 1 p.m.) upon RNZ National, dealing with an interview Yours Truly had listened to after the 7 a.m. News with host Jim Mora and regularly 'appearing' opinion pollster **Em(m)anuel Kalifatelis/Kalifitavis (of Research New Zealand)...

To wit, Radio New Zealand highlighted only one of *three opinion polls recently conducted by Research NZ, the one showing that most NZers would support moving from the present three-year to a four-year term of national government...

...all too conveniently failing to include that another of their latest polls shows kiwis opposing in no uncertain terms the much-touted and endlessly promoted lowering of the voting age from 18 downwards...

...and, wonder of wonders, even youth themselves (the 18-30-year age demographic or the like) majorly opposed doing so (by a margin of 70:28%, apparently)...

Yes, the news always looks a whole lot better and in sync with one's own political preferences when we only mention the bits we like and oh so conveniently sidestep and even positively ignore those we don't...

But, folks, last I heard that's called stacking the deck in one's own favour and/or giving viewers/readers/listeners only half the story...

...though perhaps I'm a little wet behind the ears, naive or gullible, and perhaps that's really what ***said media actually want their devotees to hear...

...i.e. only those so-called 'facts' that just so conveniently happen to suit their agenda...

-and yet they'd have us believe that only the likes of Donald J Trump major in 'fake news'...

*Please forgive me for presently forgetting what the other of those polls was about/over.

**Depending upon which of the various items posted under said gentleman's name express the correct spelling! 

***Unlike Newstalk ZB, incidentally, which upon their 5 p.m. news bulletin included both these polls.

Hey (Dr) *Lara (Greaves), Your Political Biases are Really Showing...Bigtime (As Per Usual)

Coz, sure as heck, had the National Party made a bottom-line, bedrock promise to pretty well end child poverty before one election, and after the following one was still finding its feet thereabouts...

...well, anyone even half familiar with the kiwi political scene knows there'd be all hell to pay by this particular point in time, and the media, political commentators and assorted punditry alike would've not only taken them severely to task (by this point), but would be veritably screaming from the rafters all about broken promises and the like, we'd hear no end of it in fact...

Or was I the only person in God's Own to **hear then Opposition leader Jacinda Ardern declare in no uncertain terms that 'under her watch' not only would great strides be taken in dealing to this scourge of our society, but poverty would be ultimately eradicated/eliminated altogether?

*A lecturer in politics and public policy at Auckland University, appearing this morning on Newshub Nation with fellow commentators and host Simon Shepherd.

**In what to this punter and pleb, anyhow, was a fairly memorable pre-election (2017) television debate and tete-a-tete between her and then Prime Minister Bill English.

"Democracy Is WONDERFUL Until It Doesn't Work for You, and Then You Simply Override It." Hey, 'the Hosk' Ain't Always Wrong...

Read D J Trump and Presidential Election 2020...the UK Brexit referendum result and those who rallied incessantly in sheer defiance thereof, seeking it be annulled and voided...

...and countless third-world regimes, be they tyrannies, oligarchies or 'mere' petty dictatorships...

Or, in this particular instance, China's CCP and its ongoing attempts to bully lil 'ole Hong Kong - and Taiwan for that matter - into submission...

...and to threaten and intimidate any and all who dare to speak out in the defence of these noble small peoples... 

"Deplorable"? Hey, Deplorable IS as Deplorable DOES...And NO, It Ain't Limited To White Middle-Aged Males, or Even 'WASP's (I.e. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) For That Matter...

To Be Continued (in the near foreseeable)...

-including a reference to blind Wellington bus-rider George Taggart, a gentleman with the courage of his convictions and the staunch determination to take a very real personal stand allied to his unwillingness to simply be fobbed off by an uncaring bureaucratic 'machine' (as in its human personnel)... 

Recount Pitfalls Upon All Sides in American Presidential Election...-Yes, Highly Questionable if Not Outright Shonky Tactics Abound Upon Many Fronts in Backwash of America's Most Meaningful Choice in Modern History...

But whose particular version is completely a-okay, and if neither side is 100% squeaky-clean, what are we to make of that, and moreover ultimately do about it?

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (As the 'sweet psalmist of Israel' asks in Psalm 11:3 [King James Bible].)

"Blessed Be the Peacemakers, For THEY Shall Be Called the Children of God": And So Credit Ought Be Given to Rick Santorum, For His Helpful Intervention Overnight to Ensure Peace and Stability - and an Accepted, Mutually Agreed Upon Outcome - in This Most Disputed and 'Disputaceous' of American Presidential Elections

As events transpired overnight to tip things increasingly in Joe Biden's favour, how refreshing to hear from an atypically unpartisan Republican standard-bearer, in this case former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, trying to bring some measure of agreement between the two warring camps by suggesting that all the advance/absentee etcetera ballots be counted, whether in Democratic-tending Arizona or in Trump-leaning Pennsylvania, as well as the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etcetera...

Like Biden in *a very real sense - living with a child with a serious congenital condition - perhaps has made him a more reasonable, understanding sort of a person, the kind we and especially America increasingly need in these days of such searing heat rather than elucidating light... 

*Though Joe Biden's situation, almost identical with that of an American relative Gale Burkholder who lost his own wife and child in a car accident in the later 1960s, is quite dissimilar in its specifics from Mr Santorum's, it's the tenor of traumatic grief that seems to resonate similarly in both instances...

Duly Holding Their Noses and Covering Their Faces, A Multitude of Americans Have - Arguably - This Very Day/Night Returned Donald J Trump To Power for a Second Term...aka 'the Brexit Effect' (the Silent Majority, So Fearful of Being Labelled Racists and Xenophobes They're No Longer Prepared to Tell the Pollsters the Truth)...Yet Democratic Challenger Joe Biden Also Still Seems to Have a Path to Victory, And So In All Likelihood This Will Be Fought Hammer and Tongs, Tooth and Nail, All the Way to the (Newly Trump-Friendly) U S Supreme Court...AND THEN WHAT, FOLKS? Yep, My Longstanding and Ever-Increasing 'Worry' of an All-Out (Second) Civil War is Looking More and More a Very Distinct Possibility, Nay Probability...God Help Us All (Especially Americans)!

Thank the LORD Then for Such Spiritually-Saturated Songsters, However 'Secular' and Unreligious - But Certainly Not IRRELIGIOUS - As Jerry Jeff Walker, Composer of the Timeless Classic of New Orleans' Street-and-Cell-Life, MR BOJANGLES...the Breathless Beauty and Ageless Pathos of Which Will Long Outlast This Epitome of Southern American 'Outlaw Culture'

Je Suis NICE (France): What Just Happened in Nice Was NOT VERY NICE...at all

"For When Thy Judgments Are In The Earth, the Inhabitants of the World Will Learn Righteousness"

Overnight a powerful earthquake, with potential tsunami implications - centred in the Aegean Sea - rocks Turkey. Does anyone in their right mind consider this a mere coincidence, just another arbitrary 'freak of nature'? Surely that's not how your average Middle Easterner, anyhow, would, in their heart of hearts, so regard it.

It hardly occurred in a void, rather it follows some highly inflammatory, bordering on genocidal language, in not just Turkey but now apparently throughout the Muslim world - seen especially in the huge protest marches in Pakistan and Bangladesh - against France and its leadership, who have gone out on a courageous limb and denounced in no uncertain terms the Islamist Fascists now vying for supremacy in the Gallic nation.

Which country has now forthrightly declared it is no longer prepared to bear with a long-time 'softly, softly' approach to the existence of terrorists in its midst, wreaking 'merry havoc' with *the innocent on every side, a nation no longer resiling from its longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and expression, but, in the wake of the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and republishing of those 'inflammatory' cartoons, laying down the gauntlet to those who have used the liberties which are every Frenchman and woman's very birthright to challenge these very values under the disguise of supposed religious intolerance and persecution.

Yet what we are seeing not only in South Asia and Turkey in particular but in France itself are sympathizers with such intolerant - Islamist, note, not Muslim - fascists: yes, let's, like France's President Macron, who's at long last recovered his mojo, as folk might put it here down under, call it for what it actually is - under the protection of France's long-established and deeply-cherished **liberties, seeking to subvert and overturn those selfsame liberties by disingenuously conflating them with the very intolerance that is their own especial trademark! 

I'm afraid that sticking your finger up and in the face of Western Europe's proud (post-Protestant Reformation) heritage of civil and religious liberty is one that - ultimately, eventually - even the Almighty will one day soon(er than many think or realize) call time on, declaring verily

Enough is Enough! It's all over, folks, and I'm returning to claim My own...

*/********But sadly, it is the innocent who tend to suffer, not the despotic leaders such as Turkey's Erdogan. Yet does that mean that God actually approves such innocents suffering unjustly? Hardly; He has ***denounced as an abomination that very thing throughout His (Older Testament) word, including especially in the 'Torah' (****first five books of Moses) and in the Book of Proverbs in particular.

Rather, as the American university-based 'defender of the faith' (once delivered unto the saints) - whose name I've somehow forgotten - well put it - ******by sheer coincidence this very day, after I'd long since begun, and even almost completed, this very blogpost - in the oft-noted and (*******quite understandably) denounced Older Testamental genocides wherein entire peoples, including every last man, woman and child, were declared due for complete and utter extermination (by God to His people), these peoples' children did indeed perish through no special fault of their own, as a result of (unavoidably) sharing in the consequences accruing to their parents, who had by such time (often long since) surpassed the moral boundaries God has set for human beings, indulging in child sacrifice among other abominations...

**One of its revolutionary triad of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

***In scriptures such as Exodus 23:7 and Proverbs 6:17 in particular.

****For those like myself who cannot believe it wasn't Israel's *****great deliverer (Moses) who penned the timeless classic of the well-known Book of Job (about which I've long been preparing 'a layman's guide', if it ever gets written).

*****But of course it was Yahweh/the LORD Almighty Who through Moses - and angelic agencies - really, truly delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian captors/oppressors/slavemasters, an event of historical moment ever after known as 'the Exodus'. 

******But to 'true believers' nothing, no, nothing is sheer, mere 'coincidence'; sovereign divine Providence overrules all. Which of course doesn't mean that accidents don't happen, or - even more importantly - that it is ever somehow God's rather perverse will for the innocent to suffer and/or die.

Entire volumes/tomes have been written on this very subject, but suffice to say the general consensus of Christian authors upon the same seem in unanimity in agreeing that what God is oftentimes (throughout sacred scripture) declared as causing...is rather, just as often, something He happens to allow...and, again, suffice to say that here is a world, nay, a universe, of difference between the two...

*******From an initial, if ultimately superficial, secular human perspective. 

********Which is why I heartily concur with (New Zealand's) Family First spokesperson Bob McCoskrey's summation of his own opposition (anyhow) to the recent (almost exactly) 2:1 approval of euthanasia ('assisted dying') in our general election-concurrent referendum. The problem with euthanasia is the same as that with capital punishment, you simply cannot ensure that even one innocent person will not suffer as a consequence. And for myself as for Bob, one mistake is too many.

Je Suis France - One of the Remaining Bastions of Western Liberty and Values: The Wreckers and Haters Might Well Severely Test Your Nerve, Resolve and Even Mettle, But In the End and One Day Soon, the Truth and All Those Aligned With It Will Triumph Gloriously...and All Evildoers and Purveyors of Hatred and Discord, of Bloodthirsty Bestiality and Brutality, Will be Put Down For Good/El Permanente/Finito!

Affliction will not rise up the second time...

No indeed, but mercifully for them (and everyone else) they'll be put out of existence altogether. 

Anti-Semitic IS As Anti-Semitic DOES: Though This Deadly Scourge Is Growing Unabated and Virtually Unchallenged Throughout the Length and Breadth of Our Present-Day World, Good On British Labo(u)r for Finally calling "Time Out!'" Upon This Insidious Scourge of Our Day and Age...and thus and so, though I once liked and even championed the man, former Labo(u) Leader Jeremy Corbyn Simply Had to Not Only Go (from Party Leadership, as he indeed did following Labo(u)r's Crushing Election Loss)...But Go Into the Back-blocks, the Sin-Bin Itself...

But Donald Trump Simply Cannot Help Himself...Moving from Narcissistic Self-Obsession and Envy of Covid-19 Stealing His Limelight/'Glory' the One Moment - as Former President Obama So Aptly Put Matters the Other Day...to Messin' Around in North Africa's Business and Veritably Stirring Up a Potential Hornet's Nest in/by His Typically Thoughtless and Ill-Advised Intervention Vis-a-vis the Proposed Massive Ethiopian Dam (as it Necessarily Affects the Respective Water Rights of Three Great, Populous Nations in the Region: Egypt, Sudan and Of Course Ethiopia)...Yes, One Cannot Deny that 'The Donald' Has Form, But Verily 'Fools [Still] Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread'...

Yes, better to remain silent and be thought a fool, as the wise man Solomon once put it, than to open your mouth and remove all (shade of) doubt... 

but hey, if all else fails on the domestic front, why not take things globally and open up another major regional war, and as an in/direct consequence  contribute therewith to the big W111 to boot?

[In Breaking News] History in the Making, Moving Doomsday Clock Inexorably Nearer to Deepest, Darkest Midnight: With Amy Coney Barrett Just Being Confirmed As New U S Supreme Court Appointee...

Jesuit He May Well Be, But Hats Off (for Once) to France's Emmanuel Macron...for, Alongside his Prime Minister, 'Showing his Quality' in Standing Up UNEQUIVOCALLY, AND IN NO UNCERTAIN, HALFHEARTED, NAMBY-PAMBY, WISHY-WASHY MANNER WHATSOEVER...to the Islamist Fascists Currently Running Amuck and Amok in France (and Throughout 'Western' Europe of Recent Times)...Terrorizing the (Global) Population with their Gruesome and Barbaric Beheading of a Schoolteacher with the 'Gall', the Guts and the Gumption - Not to Mention the Gonads - To ACTUALLY Discuss the Republishing of the 'Notorious' Cartoon that Incited the Horrible Charlie Hebdo Massacre...Affirming and Attesting That the Noble and Civilized Gallic Nation Will Indeed Stand Tall and Proud in Defence of the Judaeo-(Protestant) Christian Values of Free Speech (That Have Made the Likes of France, the United Kingdom Et Al Truly Great, and for Which Multitudes of Westerners Have Self-Sacrificially Given their Very Lives Over the Past Century Especially)...

Speaking of 'Clear and Obvious', In Your Face Bias, It's Hard to Go Beyond RNZ National's 'Max' On Their Weekday 'World Watch' Just the Other Day...

And apologies, for a start, as I scribbled the following thoughts a little while prior to the last American presidential debate three days ago, but time rapidly ran out, and naturally I didn't want to miss a moment - though admittedly I did end up missing the first two-three minutes (thankfully, only of introductories and preliminaries, evidently, as the moderator was still speaking and giving debate guidelines when I tuned in).

So in what specifically does my said 'beef' with selfsame 'Max' consist?

Well, immediately following - if memory serves me aright, not always a 'done deal', I'll readily admit! - a report upon the very latest permutations of the approval/confirmation process around President Trump's latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, 'Max' expounded upon how the final presidential debate (shortly thereafter to be held/aired live around the globe) would consist of *six essential 'talking points'...

Well, after 'Max' duly cited what was then the overnight (NZtime) breaking news from the U S of A of the (seemingly unstoppable) confirmation of said Supreme Court nominee Barrett the following Monday (presumably U S time, i.e. tomorrow 'kiwi' time) - said development indeed constituting, I have little doubt (nor apparently do many/most commentators thereabouts), one of the most momentous (religio-political-cultural) and defining moments in modern American history, especially vis-a-vis their seemingly endless 'culture wars'...

Max mentioned what was indeed a much-discussed 'talking point' in itself over the expected confirmation, i.e whether - as Joe Biden's Vice-Presidential candidate Camilla Harris had herself been pointedly asked by the moderator of the Pence vs Harris 'Veep' debate a couple weeks earlier, and had conspicuously declined to say - Biden (and Harris) would themselves (if elected), subsequent to and as a (politically partisan) response to the now seemingly inevitable confirmation of Barrett upon the US Supreme Court, stack the deck, i.e. appoint a whole lot more justices to counterbalance the now (putative) 6:3 conservative: liberal ratio/majority upon the Nation's Highest Bench...

Then Max mentioned that Democratic Party nominee Biden is also now facing new allegations of his own, regarding an "unproven/unsubstantiated" email allegedly proving he acted corruptly in regards to his son Hunter (which might well ring a bell or several for those folk familiar with a major news item from a couple years ago, relating to Hunter's involvement in the Ukraine during Biden's Vice-Presidency under Barack Obama)...

Max then made the rather unbelievable remark: "But this doesn't yet seem to be adversely affecting Biden's presidential bid/gambit, as his (reasonably substantial) poll lead over Trump hasn't yet taken a tumble and is holding up"...

But how could it possibly do so (i.e. negatively affect JB's and DJT's respective poll numbers/ratings) when patently anti-Trump and anti-Republican social media giants Facebook and Twitter have thus far banned the aforementioned seriously damaging Biden allegations from even seeing 'webtime'?

But then Max put his personal biases readily on display for one and all to see (and be duly appalled) when he then attempted to move seamlessly from an account of a **new greatly restrictive abortion law in Poland to the totally unrelated matter of the (apparent) conviction/imprisonment of members of Italy's formerly 'insurgent' Golden Dawn Movement. 

And in what contentious way did he do so?

By simply inserting this rather pejorative 'filler'/linking paraphrase: "And now for some better/brighter news." 

Not a big deal or a 'biggie', I hear you intone... -except that journalism was never (meant to be) about one's own subjective interpretation of news events, but simply a proper reportage thereof...

...for readers and viewers to make up their own minds (and hearts)... 

*If recollection serves me correctly, (four/five of these being) Covid-19, racism/civil unrest, climate change, the economy/unemployment, issues/questions of (personal) character -if not in that particular order...

**Which is seemingly pretty much the very conservative approach once so adhered to in many jurisdictions, including America and New Zealand, that abortion should remain illegal except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the woman.

***A perfectly justifiable and appropriate phrase, mind you, for insertion/inclusion in my seventh blogsite, 

'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life...We Don't Know How Lucky We Are'

accessible c/o http://goodygoodydaggdrops.com/ 

(in memory of the comedic greats, The Goodies' Timothy Brooke-Taylor and Fred Dagg/John Clarke).

So 'the Right' are Peddlers of So-Called (and indeed it often so proves!) 'Fake News' ? So are you telling me (and one and all) that the Supposed 'Left' Are All that Much Better, Aren't in Fact 'Just' a Bunch of Goody-Goody Two-Shoes? Hey, You Must Be Kiddin'!

Before the Debate:

Some thoughts prior to the *second ('proper') presidential debate...

(Vis-a-vis Decisive Events Even Now Taking Place in the United States of America.) 

But this much let me put 'on the record' for now...

Joe Biden is certainly not 'out of the woods' as yet, he still has some serious answering to do about the 'alleged' corruption (as per supposedly 'questionable' emails recently discovered vis-a-vis his own dealings with his son Hunter Biden and Ukrainian officials etcetera)...

And the 'fact' that these have thus far failed to dent his huge opinion poll lead over Presidential Trump are neither here nor there, really...

How the heck could they have done so, the anti-Trump social media brigade have it in for 'im (i.e. Trump), and have demonstrably failed to report these newfound and incredibly damaging allegations to the American people!

*Third if one counts/includes the twin town hall meetings simultaneously hosted last week in which each of the two major party candidates appeared in separate(d) venues. 

After the Debate:

Hard to say precisely who won the debate, but certainly the two candidates again determined its course - by refusing to exercise proper self-discipline and, for instance, giving Covid-19 the lion's share of their discussion/s; utilizing the extra minutes (or parts thereof) allotted each one for certain specified purposes only to relitigate earlier controversies and insert irrelevant but salacious details requiring further repartee and rejoinder by the other in the time remaining; and by thus effectively refusing to follow the letter of the law laid down by the moderator, though argument could well be made that they - oftentimes - followed the spirit thereof.

However, I feel Joe Biden, despite less than adequate responses in some of the more important areas - his healthcare plans (in relation to ongoing attempts to roll back Obamacare); the employment prospects of oil industry workers across the USA, not to mention those laid off through the coronavirus; and especially his own track record vis-a-vis the 'lock 'em up' mentality towards petty drug crime and the like which characterized the 1980s and 1990s in America, and the resultant incarceration of multitudes of consequently 'criminal' black Americans...

...rectified this 'shortfall' (so to speak) by his consistently statesmanlike reaction to Trump per se: effectively treating him with the obvious disdain and contempt his childish approach to interpersonal relations ever warrants by regally dismissing it with a giggle and a smirk, whilst pursuing the moral high ground of a dignified direct tete-a-tete with the 'average voter', appealing to her/his native intelligence and innate decency, ultimately judging the two candidates upon their clear and obvious track record and character/ moral rectitude...

simply trusting Americans to thereby know which one of the two was indeed truly worthy of their trust. A rhetorical plea to them - and implicit faith in their good sense and decency - to come to the only sensible conclusion possible: i.e. that the rascal and buffoon must go, and go asap, and the true gentleman and leader be installed... 

A real pity, then, that Joe Biden himself doesn't pass the 'smell test', which even a cursory glance at his track record will readily show...

In Christlike Act, the Queen of England Exercises the Royal Prerogative of Mercy...THAT'S What True Leadership Is Really All About, Yet 'Hardly Ever Heard'...

"The[This] Message is for the Greens as well: 'RULE FROM THE CROSS-BENCHES' " So declared on-again, off-again politician cum political pundit/commentator Tau Henare immediately following the weekend's Labour landslide...

Henare thus succinctly stated a view I have long held, as much vis-a-vis any 'minor' political party as the Green Party as such, simply because once they're drawn into the ambit of the 'major' parties via a coalition and/or other special governing arrangement they're the very first to suffer any subsequent fallout from disillusioned voters once the Government of the Day loses its status of flavour of the month...

...voters for some reason or other seemingly reserving their harshest criticism and retribution for those parties (and individuals) seen as propping up a particular government...

Which for the Greens obviously works in the interests of their major partner, Labour, since they ever serve as a convenient 'fall guy' for unpopular Government decisions, the 'good guy:bad guy' sort of arrangement so easy for sports-obsessed kiwis to be taken in by, an effective poisoned chalice.

So yes, such an arrangement is most definitely in the interests of the Labour Party, and hence they might *under normal circumstances promote such, as the insightful and ever so reasonable Newstalk ZB host Miles Davis asked (of such a political scenario) the other night: "Is Labour [just] using the Greens as extra currency [for future contingencies], to blame if things go pear-shaped?"

And hence the sound wisdom behind those such as (former Green MPs) Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty, both of whom have been interviewed in this regards in the days and weeks immediately following the election, in their cautioning and advising the Greens (and Green Party members) in resisting the natural urge to eagerly grasp for what that denizen of MMP politics, the Right Honourable Winston Peters, deemed the (alluring but deceptive) 'baubles of office'...

...baubles he himself, it cannot be denied and ought not be forgotten, has in practice not been all that 'un-enamoured' of!

And of course the major parties themselves are not exactly uneducated in the practice of using such minor players in the Machiavellian art of thus deflecting criticism of themselves before the voters by attempting to pin any blame accruing to their particular administrations onto these small stumbling stones in the successful prosecution of their political designs...

...as if to say, 'There [we might well have come] but for the [obstruction] of these [minor irritants]...

Some such as the ever-opinionated and outspoken, never shy to declare the emperor (or Empress) of kiwiville has no kit, Mike Hoskings, have argued both ways...suggesting that the very and indeed one and only reason any party like the Greens is - or at least ought to be - in politics in the first instance is that of actually achieving tangible, concrete, legislative results...

...so that everything is measured in terms of their actually being 'in the tent' throwing their weight around (like NZ First is no stranger to) or advancing their agenda (somehow-or-other), in actual 'rungs on the board' as it were...

...though some might rightly suggest the Green Party's ever softly-softly, tread carefully and create no (or few) ripples approach to governance has hardly served its own interests well, and that for a very long time...indeed, i've always felt they've been taken for a ride by the likes of Helen Clark & Co over the years, such politicoes well knowing the Greens simply had nowhere else to go...

...or, to use less flattering words, 'played for suckers' by their supposed political bedfellows...

And so, though I've never been a Green Party voter, or even supporter - except over the Clark Government's approach to Corngate and ending the moratorium on genetically-modified/engineered organisms - I've ever felt some degree of sympathy on their behalf for ever having their self-respect undermined on an ongoing and regular basis...

...yet others would - and do - rightly claim they are the authors of their own misfortune by refusing point blank to ever go into coalition (discussions/conversations even) with the National Party...

...otherwise they could have ever upended Winston and NZ First on a regular basis over many election cycles, making themselves the coalition makers or breakers...

Yes, they've been honourable and noble - to a veritable fault - yet gained nothing thereby; ever acted the idealist and the dreamer (of better things), but with their heads held firmly in the clouds have signally failed to achieve practical results 'on the ground', for which their own supporters would surely argue New Zealanders themselves have been the losers...

Yet there is an answer to such dilemmas, and that is, to adopt Tau Henare's catchy phrase, worthy of the language of the Good Book itself (about the Messianic Age to Come wherein the Christ will indeed one day soon 

rule/reign in the midst of His enemies)

for the Greens to rule from the cross-benches, thus achieving 'the best of both worlds': i.e. being able to effectively and authentically distance themselves from the ongoing faults, failings and other foibles - not to mention outright outrageous disasters and devastations small and great wrought - of the major party they're naturally aligned to, and so protect their voter base, but moreover even extend this base by managing to successfully 'prosecute' the particular principles and policies/measures they heartily believe in, effectively putting these up for general cross-parliamentary debate by and voting on of all other parties in the chamber (of Parliament)...

...and occasionally, if only occasionally - but progressively, by-and-by - getting some of these accepted by and embraced/supported by others in Parliament, thus getting increasing community 'buy-in' for their agenda...which, in the longer run if not in the shorter term, might well help increase voter buy-in also... 

So no, Mr Hosking et al, for the Green Party to achieve power at all costs, to sell their soul for the baubles of office, thus gaining and exercising tangible political power whilst in the process selling out their essential agenda and principles, and likewise merely achieving a few minor rungs on the ladder of real legislative change, is most definitely not in the Greens' interests, long-term or otherwise...

...that is, if being in the political game is really about tangible change and progression of a positive agenda, and not just about the cynical manipulation of the levers of power by small self-interested cliques and elites, something it would seem other political 'players' know all too much about...

*However this election (result and background) is far from normal, and since it is now apparent that a sizable number of National Party voters crossed over to prevent the Green Party exercising any let alone a major role in Labour's governance, Labour itself is only too well aware of this situation, and hence realizes such cross-over voters would readily feel betrayed if too many concessions let alone levers of power were given the Greens, and so feels unable to offer such this time around...

...though even the small favours which look set to be dished out may ultimately prove too high a price for the Green Party to pay for their formal support of a Labour Government...

But anyhow Labour now can govern on its lonesome, and so has no absolute need of such political cannon fodder, which otherwise could prove only too useful for getting out of any (periodic) jam...

Post-Election Reflections and Ruminations: Afterthoughts Upon Aotearoa-New Zealand's First (& Hopefully Last) 'Covid' Election

This will take the form of a number of bullet-points, to get my ideas 'on the rung' before they become hopelessly outdated...

*Quite apart from my (conservatively assessed) electorate seat (number) predictions upon the election's eve, which were so close to most opinion poll results as to be rather lame and to my mind tiresomely predictable, what I did in particular get way off/out - probably like most other observers, however, truth be told - was my very strong sense/conviction that however (1)incredibly well the Labour Party in particular did in the bigger cities (and somewhat lesser so in the larger provincial towns and small cities), they'd be absolutely wiped out in the rural districts, to the extent that National and Act would garner 60 and 15/20 % respectively and Labour and the Greens but 20% between them, Labour's share but 15% ...

But as we all now well know, my predictions - like those of the commentariat generally - were way off the mark, even 'missing' the extent of Labour's landslide victory altogether, though truth be told many earlier assessments held strongly to this very possibility (if not likelihood)...

*As to thy other 'raw data' aspects of the result, I'll leave that for the time being, except to note 'how [verily] the mighty have fallen', from 'the Right Honourable' (2)Winston Peters through to (one-time Earthquake Recovery Minister) Gerry Brownlee through to longstanding Nelson M.P. (and ofttimes Conservation/Environment Minister) Nick Smith...

*The graciousness of (some) such longstanding MPs going personally to their winning opponents' victory parties, whilst 

*In the minutes preceding the Prime Minister's 'Acceptance Speech' we also witnessed the extremely ungracious speech of Labour's (3)deputy leader Kelvin Davis...

...itself exceeded, were that possible, in overbearingness (and sheer insufferability) anyhow, by Tova O'Brien's all too typical determination to make the messenger become the message, the journo with bad attitude in spades, and only too willing to display the same, however hilariously ridiculous...

...whilst her Newshub Nation colleague Paddy Gower gave us side-splitting hysterics as per usual with his ape-like physical antics and prowess as the countdown went quite literally down-to-the-very-wire in the Maori electorate of Waiariki, and ultimately (naturally, pending specials) was won by the Maori Party.

*But due kudos - with knobs on - to the outstandingly and relentlessly positive Chloe Swarbruck, who wrested the highly contested and contestable seat of Auckland Central with the sort of door-to-door campaigning that would've made Yours Truly proud back during his own run in 2008...

(1) Yet - and admittedly I've hardly had the time or leisure to thus far dissect the myriad details of electoral results at large - why, when Labour was handily winning rural electorates of such a blue hue as Rangitata, they only gained 48-49% of votes overall, is utterly beyond me...as it seemed to me, prior to the election admittedly, that were they to be thrashed in ruraldom, garnering only 15-20% of the votes there (as outlined above), yet with their 40 percent-some in provincial New Zealand, and their 60%-some in the larger cities, they'd easily gain 50% plus...

...so, when on election night they bested National so convincingly in rural NZ, it seemed to me they ought to be obtaining 55-60% of votes overall, so something's awry somewhere surely...

(2) No sooner was the ouster of Peters and his (longstanding phoenix-from-the-ashes) party officially confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt than the vultures immediately started circling, sensing blood aplenty in his particular vicinity, and thus and so we had the unholy and unedifying scenario not even a day on of shadowy journalistic paparazzi stalking him and his partner as they tried in vain to elude their erstwhile pursuers; generous recompense no doubt for someone who - love 'im or loathe 'im - has unquestionably given more personal service (at least quantitatively-speaking), baubles of office notwithstanding, to NZ Inc over a lifetime political career than any other politician over the past half-century...

(3) Someone whose removal (for this and other reasons) was vigorously and vociferously opposed on Sunday's Newshub Nation by former (NZ First/Mauri/National) M.P. and now professional political  commentator Tau Henare, Henare urging Labour's Maori caucus to rebel if Davis' removal was actioned.    

Postscript:

It seems to me anyway, someone incidentally 'for the record' who's twice voted their way (and twice been strongly tempted to), that New Zealand First made two fundamental errors going into this election: failing to highlight the unpopular policies they effectively blocked; and likewise failing to highlight their many and various successful 'runs on the board'...

...instead as it so transpired flailing about in last-minute, last-ditch efforts to distance themselves from and severely criticize the Government that they more than any other party played such a significant role in shaping, whether ultimately for good or ill...

... a thing that was simply too far a stretch for your average voter to fall for and not see through...

They'd have stood a far greater chance of at least crossing the MMP threshold and returning to Parliament, where, like the Green Party, - if not an actual part (and parcel) of the new Labour Government - they could at least and indeed have 'rule[d] from the cross-benches' (since their centrist philosophy has ever been far more appealing to the average kiwi than that of the Greens)...

Yes, they could and should have highlighted the 'stuff' Labour promoted/wished to achieve, which they prevented, such as

*Repealing the Three Strikes and You're Out' law;

*the Capital Gains Tax

etcetera (I simply can't remember any others at present, but I know there are aplenty)...whilst 

highlighting all the policy successes they helped bring about, 

whatever those were (and indeed there were a number, but I'm afraid my memory has failed again, and I must go and attend to the rest of my life, and ipso pronto!)

To Be Continued (somewhere awhile down the line)...

But Irrespective of Whether Our Prime Minister (Jacinda Ardern) Is Gifted the Nobel Peace Prize for Her Handling of the Christchurch Mosque Shootings and Her Adept Handling of Covid-19...She Ought to Receive the Nobel Peace Prize In/For Diplomacy...For, In Responding to a Really Tricky Question from Si and Phil (on the Newstalk ZB Afternoon Show), Saying (As to One Quality Which She Would Use to Describe Morning Show Host - and National Party Cheerleader Extraordinaire - Mike Hosking): ASSERTIVENESS!!! Nuff Said, Folks, Milady's Forbearance Evidently Knows No Bounds...

'Thank God' the Wellington-Based New Zealand National Library Has At Last Seen Sense...and Abandoned its Philistinian Plan to Cull 60/70,000-Odd Books of Historical Moment From Its Archives

 Apparently, only for the moment, i.e. until after our general election is done and dusted, over and out...

So here's hoping...-and congratulations Christopher Finlayson and Helen Clark, for your written/verbal representations thereabouts, whatever our differing political/ideological perspectives on all manner of issues, at last we see eye-to-eye upon this one wee matter...

and our Western cultural/literary heritage is actually really no itsy-bitsy thing, no indeed...

The Obsession With ANYTHING & EVERYTHING Which Happens to 'Go Viral' and/or Otherwise Incur Much Web Traffic...Reveals More than Perhaps Anything Else Not Only How Shallow and Superficial But Just How Very Sick Western Society Has Now Become...Showing How Mere Numbers (as in Quantity) Now Ever Trumps Quality...By Which Measure Adolf Hitler Was Of Course a Runaway Success as He Most Certainly Had Pretty Well the Entire German Populace of His Day Eating Off His Lap and Lapping Up Almost Everything He Spouted Off...and, By Clear and Obvious Contrast, Jesus Christ Ended His Earthly Life To All Appearances an Abject Loser On Almost All Conceivable Fronts...

Yet I know which of these two I'd like to be backing, or rather have backing me, on Judgment Day... 

Returning to the Nobel Peace Prize, As I Attempted to Post Last Friday Eve/First Thing Saturday Morning (The Sabbath Notwithstanding), In Cognizance of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (As Some Literary Wag Expressed Things), A Joint Prize To Both Aotearoa-New Zealand's Own Jacinda Ardern and Sweden's Greta Thunberg Seems Most Likely (And Perhaps the Delay in Announcing This Has Been Because They Now Well Realize That Inserting the Same in the Midst of Our General Election Countdown Might Not Happen to Go Down All That Well With Everyone Concerned)

& Speaking of 'Screwing the Scrum'...What A Complete and Utter, But El Typical, Bureaucratic Shemozzle: Vis-a-Vis the (NZ General Election) Voting Paper Stuff-Ups

(Three) Necessary Disclaimers:

Firstly, yes I well realize Aotearoa-New Zealand is certainly not alone in this, that verily there are much bigger fish in the global ocean presently undergoing some very deep frying, sizzling and charcoaling...

Secondly, I've personally ever loathed and detested New Zealand's traditional religion, its longstanding household god rugby...

Thirdly, I've ever disliked and found quite cringeworthy and almost vulgar the associated verb (and all its like) so commonly employed in describing the procreative act...

Yet, all those caveats notwithstanding...

What a typical bureaucratic shemozzle...i.e. the inexplicable, unaccountable - unless for innate, underlying (anti-certain off-the-wall (in particular) parties) political biases - omission of party lists and names from voter packs (apparently across the country)...

...alongside various other such glaring omissions emerging out of the woodwork over recent days and weeks as nationwide radio networks (RNZ National in particular) have been reporting...

To Be Continued (before I run myself right ragged and further down, down, down...)  

No, We Ain't 'Screwing the Scrum', Really We're Not...Vis-a-Vis New Zealand's 'End-of-Life'/'Assisted Dying'/Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Referendum: Or When Orwellian 'NEWSPEAK' (aka Eric Blair's '1984') Gets Taken to a Whole New Level...

Though this isn't written to re-litigate the euthanasia debate, happening to listen in for a few minutes this morning (to RNZ National's weekly 'Media Watch') to a conversation upon such referenda between reporter Hayden Vennall and Auckland University politics lecturer Lara Greaves... 

I couldn't help myself from - far from even reading between the lines as such - hearing a less than tacit, a veritable explicit admission by said political expert...

...that the actual wording of the question (for the 'end of life choice' referendum) - doubtless as for any and every other such referendum - is all-important...(i.e. in determining peoples' responses)...

Which wouldn't raise an eyebrow - even Judith's, I assume/presume - except for this (fact): the pro-Smacking Ban folk (who'd succeeded a little while previously in seeing Sue Bradford's infamous repeal of Section 91 of the Crimes Act enacted into law - otherwise known as the anti-smacking law of 2007/2008), whether before, during and/or after the debate upon that well-remembered referendum back in P.M. John Key's early years, stressed the selfsame point. 

Which was why selfsame 'experts' were subsequently able to explain away the resounding defeat for Ms Bradford's (Labour Government-endorsed) smacking ban (already passed into law in the dying days of the Helen Clark-led Government)...i.e. as a badly-worded question, which, and oh how very, incredibly - if predictably and typically - condescending and patronizing of them, they claimed had confused the voters thereupon, that the voters had misunderstood that question...

...the clear and obvious implication being, if they really had understood it aright, they'd have voted accordingly, i.e. against the (referendum) proposition to overturn the legislation banning smacking. A triple negative being hard to digest/comprehend at the best of times, I'm suggesting selfsame experts really, truly believed the voters would actually maintain the recently-legislated ban on smacking. Clear as mud?

Or so they self-delusionally tried to convince themselves... 

Anyhow, the new National Government never carried out/put into legal effect the clear (87%:13%) referendum edict (of the voters), leaving intact the (smacking ban) status quo (which, to be fair, they themselves had taken over the line under (now, Sir) John Key's (pre-Prime Ministership) very fleet-footed, conciliatory, and (political masterstroke) leadership when the then 'anti-smacking bill' was struggling to get over the line).

Just as Nelson M.P. (Dr) Nick Smith et al rather endlessly banged on about in parliamentary select committee debates late last and early this year on the same (i.e. end-of-life) referendum question, pointing out the vast difference between calling the upcoming-and-now-present referendum on ending one's life by every conceivable euphemism imaginable...anything and everything, in other words, except calling it what it most patently is: assisting people to commit suicide.

Another case of conveniently 'screwing the scrum' when(ever) it so happens to suit your particular (side of the) argument? You tell me, but, as I often say about this, that and especially the other (particular matter under discussion),

*/**If it looks like a ............, if it sounds like a ............, and if it talks like a ............, hey, folks, -no, it ain't rocket science- it usually is ............ 

*You fill in the missing word; though admittedly I simply can't recall it this mo, I believe there are any number of alternative possibilities which would well suffice...

**Alternatively, you might also find my similarly-(en)titled 42-pager in the run-up to the 2016 American Presidential Election - posted on my original blogsite, i.e.

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

on August 22nd, 2016 - 

worth a read/looking at, and not just for this reason...

It's entitled

Yes, They Really Suppose They've Got Us All Fooled: or, If It Looks Like A Set-Up, & It Walks Like a Set-Up, & It Talks Like a Set-Up...Hey Folks - "Wise Up" (& Fast!) - Perhaps It Really Is A Con Job - or, alternatively: The 2016 American Presidential Election A Real Jack-Up? Why, Yes Indeed, And In More Ways Than Might Appear; From Its Very Inception, Moreover; And With Bill Clinton Himself Holding the Trump Card

But Perhaps 'the Donald' Et Al Might Well Share That Particular Trophy With the Singer-Songwriter Gunned Down 40 Years Ago Today (i.e. John Lennon) Who Gifted Our World With the Gracious and, I Dare Say, Almost Inspired Song IMAGINE...A Song Which has Inspired the Generations to Reach Up and Beyond the Dictates of Petty Bickering and Beastly Bloodshed to Hope for a Better World Beyond...

Though, in all too typical contradiction to *what I've just written, that particular goal will never be possible of accomplishment without the good and gracious interposition and intervention of One Whose purposes of goodness towards His human creation will continue forever...

*For, as those familiar with Imagine well recollect, Lennon (fervently) expresses his desire/wish to achieve world peace and harmony without the Good Lord...

...a 'dream' which I respectfully suggest is simply not possible of fulfilment and so will ultimately fail...

You Might Believe I've REALLY Gone Off The Deep End This Time, and Moreover That My Particular 'Pick' is the Height (or rather, Depth) of Treason - to my Own Nation - But I Have A Rather Inconceivable Choice for This Year's (or, perhaps more aptly, this demi/semi-decade's) Soon-to-be Announced NOBEL PEACE Prize Winner. And Whom Do I Pick? You Guessed It, Yes, 'the man himself', and for One and Only One Reason (but I Suggest it's a Pretty Good One): 'For' - as Someone Variously Described as Narcissistic (to an Extreme), Psychotic, Even Pathological (and Much More Besides, Little of it Remotely Flattering Much Less Positive) 'Not (Re)Acting According to Type and Precipitating World War 111' (as Yet, Anyway), Though According to Every Sane Assessment, Evaluation and Prediction He's So Extremely Erratic and Utterly Unpredictable and Unstable, Let Alone Seemingly Uniquely Insecure and Unhinged, He Ought to Have Done So Lickety-Split, Pretty Well Upon Arrival at the White House/in the Oval Office - the Current Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America...And for THAT 'Small' Mercy/Blessing, I Respectfully Suggest Everyone and Everybody Everywhere Ought to Be Supremely Thankful (If Not to Him Directly As Such, At the Very Least to the ONE Holding Everything in Check; 'the One' (as the great Apostle Paul Once Wrote) 'in [Whom] we live and move and have our being')...

The selfsame reason, in fact, I've come to regard Ronald Reagan as a great President...despite every likelihood and prediction by (left-of-centre) scaremongers and the like - and I certainly was doubtless one (if a then silent member) of this populous 'club' - he didn't start World War 111...

despite having every conceivable pretext and excuse for so doing...

But once again, One wielding supreme authority over this little earthly orb - whilst 'employing' the efforts of President Reagan and Pope John Paul the Second in an historic pact and secret alliance which put paid in near record time to the Eastern Bloc - and ultimately the Soviet Union, the U(nited) S(oviet) S(ocialist) R(epublics) itself/themselves - had, I again respectfully suggest, the very last word on the matter...

Praise the LORD!  ('Coz if He hadn't, folk, we wouldn't even be here discussing the matter, would we.)

 

Incidentally - 'by the way' - where are all the tried and true 'radicals', all the perennial protesters and other assorted 'agitators', those who cannot rest at ease one solitary night lest they can point out the sins, flaws, failings and other faults of the U S of A (in particular), when it comes to China's much-oppressed ethnic Uighurs? Your Collective Silence is Quite Deafening, Folks...and Despite All the Shortcomings of America - and even Australia of recent times - at least they're prepared to be counted when it comes to ACTIVELY and VOCIFEROUSLY protesting - to the relevant (i.e. Chinese) authorities - their shameless and shameful (mis)treatment of this much-oppressed People

"It is Understood in the Good Book...the Separation Between Church and State...THAT is Clearly Spelled Out." Yep, Winston (the Right Honourable W Peters, NZ Deputy Prime Minister), I Couldn't Have Put It Better Myself...

 To Be Continued...

Here[in] is [W]isdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six

As my *600th blogpost (upon my main, original two blogsites), I couldn't resist posting this scripture, all the more coming upon the heels of a debate in the U S of A - nicknamed 'interruptus horribilis' by some wag - wherein one particular participant therein, 

has **elsewhere been 'equated' with a number of other scriptures, if not ***this one in particular, scriptures all (of which) delineate in somewhat clear and distinct, stark and anything but glowing - rather glowering - colours,

a personage - the biblical Antichrist - who is therein described (and by such words and terms) as

a vile person

to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom

but he shall come in peaceably, 

and obtain the kingdom by flatteries

a king of fierce countenance

understanding dark sentences

And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand

and he shall magnify himself in his heart

a little horn...[having] eyes like the eyes of a man,

and a mouth speaking great things

that horn that had eyes,

and a mouth that spake very great things,

whose look was more stout than his fellows

****Etcetera etcetera etcetera...

Though I happen, as someone with a fairly thorough knowledge of such scriptures, to believe these refer far more aptly and precisely, to another class of personage altogether,

I'll admit they do contain a number of notable and unmistakable resonances with and to a certain individual whose advent into political life and world affairs seems to indicate our world may well never be the same again...

yet - praise the LORD - as I say elsewhere (awhile ago) both upon this very blogsite and upon my original one,

http://nuffsaid: consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

the truly Great One will ultimately have the last laugh...

*****at the last trump (sic)...the trump (sic) of God  

*520th upon this, my second blogsite.

**By Benjamin Corey (elsewhere referred to upon this blogsite, and others of mine).

***I.e my blogpost title.

****Assorted scriptures from the King James Bible.

*****Specific, Second Advent-related scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, (King James Version): i.e. 1 Corinthians 15: 52 and 1 Thessalonians 4: 16. 

What, moreover, has greatly intrigued and even fascinated me ever since re-stumbling upon said verses over recent years (i.e. since Donald J Trump's own 'advent' to the White House, and indeed since his name was really 'out there' following his announcement of standing for the Republican Party's presidential nomination back in 2014, 2015 or whenever) was that said King James Bible is the one and only Bible version employing that particular verbal form of 'trumpet', and indeed (in 1 Corinthians 15:52, anyhow) also employs that selfsame alternate term 'trumpet' therein, only serving to strengthen said word and concept association further - to my own understanding, anyhow... 

A Nation Stands at the Crossroads: Upon the Very Heels of a Highly Significant Death, The U S Commandeerer-in-Chief Rushes to Appoint Amy Coney Barrett as Supreme Court Successor to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, In a Decisive Move Which If it Transpires as Expected Will Bring the Entire (Dis)United States of America to the Very Precipice, to a Veritable Knife-Edge (in the Memorable Words of the Lady Galadriel to the Nine Companions/'Fellowship of the Ring' in Peter Jackson Et Al's Cinematic Reinterpretation of JRR Tolkien's Epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy), From Which, If and As It Unfolds, The 'Slightest of Movements' Either Way May Well Signify Whether Its Original Aims and Objectives Ultimately Prove Successful or Otherwise: It's Make or Break Moment, Folks, It Really Is...

But Does That Mean the Entire Covid-19 Saga - Whether Globally or New Zealandwide - Is Perfectly 'Above Board' and 'On the Level' (so to speak)? Well, actually...yes - and no!

What, you're telling me (yep, I'm speaking pejoratively and in the shoes of an onlooker acting as devil's advocate regarding Yours Truly) that I'm in the ranks of the loony-tunes, of the conspiracy theorists and other associated 'nutters'? Well, once again - to repeat myself - no, and yes...

To take two examples/instances taken randomly from this afternoon's RNZ National News bulletins, the latter repeated often throughout the day...

On the 4 p.m. News we were told about a major protest *today/overnight in London over the Covid-19 (lockdown) measures, in which protestors believed/claimed the whole thing was a (global) hoax being used surreptitiously for clandestine purposes, as in to control the (world) population...

Okay, I happen to - completely - disagree in terms of it being any sort of a hoax, let alone a conspiracy as such, but what I most definitely/certainly do believe...

apart from what I specify in intricate detail upon my fifth blogsite,

http://IRYMN.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/),

in two or three blogposts posted three to four or so months ago...

is that the entire pandemic has set in motion such legal and other precedents which are not only being presently milked rather shamelessly and shamefully by various governments around the world, but moreover that even if not at present being at all evil or underhand are nevertheless putting in place 'stuff' (for want of a word to order) that future far less scrupulous political administrations 'here, there and everywhere' (i.e. worldwide) may well, and indeed will - at some unspecified date/time 'down the line' in the 'unforeseeable' (i.e. future) - choose/deign to use as an all too convenient pretext for furthering far less benevolent and far more nefarious purposes/agendas... 

One reason, in fact, that this very day I've - despite ever and only really subscribing to the tenets of one particular political party (in God's Own/Godzone), i.e. (what was once known as) the Social Credit Political League, these days simply known as 'Social Credit' - that is, alongside its onetime contemporaneous, and virtually **identical party - minus Socred's social conservatism - the Values Party) - and I still intend to support Social Credit by ticking the box of the local electorate candidate...

- determined this very afternoon I'll pretty certainly be giving the Advance/Public Party combo my party vote in Aotearoa-New Zealand's upcoming general election...

-and that despite my real and rather serious reservations about and even objections to some somewhat extreme elements to their Covid-19 policy plank... 

The second (news) item? On RNZ National's 8 p.m. (and Midday etc) news bulletins today we were told that 'There are repercussions for [disobeying] the [covid-19] laws [vis-a-vis] German sailors 'deliberately flouting' these (i.e. in New Zealand's own territorial waters, I presume)...

Really? Then what are the repercussions for the New Zealand Government apparently likewise flouting the law (of the land, you know, the sort they spend every waking moment writing and rewriting) according to New Zealand's Supreme (or Appeals) Court('s fairly landmark decision) recently? 

Hey, I'm only asking, please don't start stoning me for being disloyal to our globally-feted leader...

Or is it, as Eric Blair's (i.e. George Orwell's) brilliant oft-repeated refrain in his classic 20th-century fable Animal Farm expressed it so very aptly...reworking this, you understand, for the NZ context...

Some ****sheep are equal, but some ****sheep are {just a tad] more equal than others. 

*For the meantime bear with a few of my (alternating) specifics, frankly they matter not one whit or iota.

**A thing I always found rather curious, and indeed received my answer a decade or so ago (following my own brief electoral stint in NZ's 2008 General Election) from a local 'Socred' party official seeking to ***enrol me (free of charge, as well) as a member of said party...

that the Values Party had effectively 'stolen' Social Credit's policies...which, to look at another way - disregarding valid/legitimate charges of (political) plagiarism, no doubt - was actually paying Socred the highest form of flattery...

***Something which, despite his evident generosity, I  regretfully declined, seeing belonging to any merely (if necessarily) 'worldly' (as in earthly, as opposed to profane) political party to be a form of (implicit) treason to my One and Only Lord and Master Who brooks no rival for one's allegiance... 

****Substituting the traditional export-earning farm animal once 23 times more populous than our people for the popular, 'iconic' kiwi... 

COVID-19/The Coronavirus: Look, Folks, It AIN'T a Salvation Issue

So, yes, by all means feel free to comply with (the various edicts/orders and associated admonitions of) 'the authorities appointed by God'...

except insofar as you simply cannot in all good conscience do so, and believe in so doing you would be inevitably transgressing/breaking God's eternal, everlasting (Moral) Law of love and liberty...

 Hygiene/hygienic practices - including the likes of quarantining - quite frankly could not be more biblical, it/they really couldn't (be)...

-see, for instance, Leviticus 13:1-15:33, a 'section' of (Older Testament) scripture comprising fully 1/2 % of the entire Bible...

...and also my own blogpost on the matter, on my fifth blogsite, i.e.

http://irymn.blogspot.com - 'I Realize You Might Not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See It Anyhow'...

...in March or April I believe, right at the start of the nationwide New Zealand lockdown...

Making oneself a 'martyr for the Lord' is oftentimes, I would (very respectfully) suggest, simply a convenient pretext for giving the authorities that be *'the fingers', emotionally satisfying, admittedly, but so often productive of no real much less longer-term good...

Indeed, the biblical admonition (given in a wholly different context altogether) in Romans 12:18, but a few short verses earlier (as a matter of coincidental fact), of, as far as possible - 'as much as it lies in you(r keeping)' - be(ing) [i.e.living] at peace with all men [i.e. people], is only too applicable here.

Yes, the apostles John and Peter (in two recorded incidents) in the Acts of the Apostles certainly didn't avoid declaring the absolute necessity 'under God' of rendering implicit (and explicit) obedience to God over against mere humanity - that is, when(ever) the two classes of duty happened to conflict; but of course that was never meant to serve as some sort of catch-all 'get out' (of jail free) clause much less excuse to thumb one's nose at the powers that be when(ever) it happened to suit one('s particular sensibilities, prejudices or political/ideological biases/agenda)...

No, as Jesus Himself said on one occasion (in a scripture seldom quoted): Judge righteous judgment...not according to mere appearance. 

And in another two/three contexts (but again wholly relevant and apposite, as it so happens), since said authorities 'stand in Moses' seat'[i.e. of (in this case secular rather than religious) authority] **do as they say...but not as they [so often] do... 

Elsewhere advising Peter to pay the requisite temple tax 'lest we ***offend them' [i.e. selfsame authorities] and otherwise 'giv[ing] to Caesar what is Caesar's'...responses which baffled his critics and enemies no end in their profound simplicity and incontrovertible wisdom...

...i.e. enjoining the duty of compliant citizenship upon all citizens within a(ny particular) jurisdiction... 

*The two-fingered salute that one-time U S President George Bush (Senior) gave Australians back in the day, intending to indicate victory but unfortunately signifying something else altogether...

**As New Zealand's own (former) health minister, the local M.P. and one-time 'honourable' David Clark, might well have been accused of.

***And that's the reason - alongside sheer cowardice, I'd wager, simply not wanting to get into any unpleasant contention thereabouts - that I've 'positively' avoided this topic up till now, that I've taken so long to write and post this particular blogpost...

But it needs be stated/placed upon the record once and for all, so that when the coming Sunday Law crisis - emanating from the USA, but doubtless 'helped along' by the 'Mother Church''s earnest little helpers and undercover agents (the ancient order of) the Jesuits - comes into its own/pushes front and centre in the 'Time of Tribulation such as never was, no, nor ever will be [again]',

honest-hearted people everywhere will take due heed and may know for a certainty that the then charges of disloyalty and disaffection  to the powers that be are of absolutely no validity whatsoever. 

It's - Long Past - Time: "Let's Close the Gap, Let's Bridge the Divide, Let's Reconcile the Churches": (The 700 Club's) Gordon Robertson is Right On Vis-a-Vis the Long Overdue Need for American Churches (Of the Evangelical Persuasion in Particular) To Walk Out in Their Everyday Church Experience the Plain as Daylight Imperatives of Jesus' Teachings

Yes indeed, as Mr Robertson mentioned it had so often been stated (by various others), 11 a.m.-12 p.m. on a Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America(n life)...

Confirming or simply validating the experience of my own (long deceased) Dad, who himself noted to his deep disgust and dismay all those many years/decades ago (before he and Mum moved to my *birth (and breeding) home country of Aotearoa-New Zealand in 1960), the **other churches in his/their own proximity/visitation were ***'segregated'.

*As in the common descriptive idiom 'born and bred', that is...

**As in the three he happened to deem acceptable, to even consider as options to attend, I'd gather, i.e. the (Roman) Catholic Church and the Baptist Church, and the Religious Society of Friends (otherwise known as the Quakers); which actually comprise a tiny number/proportion of U S churches by any standard...

It pretty well goes without (needing) saying that it was the last of these three which comprised black as well as white Americans in its 'congregation'...

***Or words to that effect.

Bloodymindedness Gets You Everywhere, Every Time...I Mean, Nowhere Very Fast: Some Thoughts About the Maori Party's, and In Particular Former Co-leader Tariana Turia's UNEQUIVOCAL, UNILATERAL Policy Push to Quite LITERALLY Rename ALL Aotearoa-New Zealand's Places by their 'Original' Maori Names...

Please spare us, folks...your singleminded determination is worthy of a far better object...

But to explain further...   

As Heather Du Plessis-Allan said, after discussing this election proposal with the aforementioned well-respected (not least by Yours Truly) Dame Tariana, on her weekday afternoon Newstalk ZB Drivetime Show this very afternoon,

*why not allow for a combination Maori-European nomenclature for each and every such site?

Knowing full well that to do such a thing (i.e. the aforementioned) would undoubtedly 'get the backs up' of a large percentage of the population...

But sadly, as Ms Turia well showed in her one-time **'antics' with a former Prime Minister of the Labour Party persuasion - which otherwise I would hardly serve with even an iota of criticism -
as with so many it's either 'her way or the highway'...

...and so, as Du Plessis-Allan herself so well put matters today - actually echoing  my own every thought as she did so - doing thus and so, while helping political/electorally the Maori Party in the forthcoming election with its own voter base (there'd be little doubt at all), could well lead to greater racial disharmony, one of the very objects, presumably, she and her party would be most keen to avoid - and like the proverbial plague (or Coronavirus these days)...

*Which incidentally is the precise practice of Yours Truly over the lifetime of my various blogs (far as I can remember), i.e. I've pretty well used Aotearoa-New Zealand as often as New Zealand in referring to my beloved homeland in the Antipodes...

**I.e. the escapist episode via a taxi or the like (as she lowered herself with Ms Clark looking on approvingly) after the two had publicly fallen out bigtime over the Foreshore and Seabed Law...though admittedly I'm yet to make hide nor tail of that particular rather oddball incident!

Je Suis (PORTLAND) Oregon...

For Once Ye Mainstream Media are Verily SPOT ON: Yes, the Scenes We are Viewing Throughout the American West are Indeed APOCALYPTIC, Straight Out of the Book of the Apocalypse Itself In Fact...

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God...

I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire, and vapour of smoke...

...before that great and notable day of the Lord come...

And to my *beloved would-have-been 'sister city' of Portland, Oregon no less...

...and withal eerily reminiscent of the reddish skies we here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and in my hometown of Dunedin, no less, experienced over the past summer, on the very morning of New Years Day, 2020 in point of fact...

*Yes, as I've often ruefully reflected in years and even decades since leaving America in mid-1995, Portland (as in Oregon rather than Maine) was far and away my personal pick of the (larger) city I'd have been more than at home moving to and living in, as I indeed did for awhile (two-three months) in late 1992.

Incredibly and unbelievably it now (as of today or yesterday or whenever) 'boasts' the unenviable distinction of having the world's most polluted air...

...though come to think of it, like its 'sister city' Seattle in Oregon's state neighbour to the north, Washington, back around 1980 following the eruption of Mount St Helens it perhaps likewise had some fairly marginal air quality...

Good On the Aussies...for Having the Gall, the Gumption and the Guts, to Stand Up to the Peoples' Republic of China, or Rather the Self-Appointed 'Representatives' Thereof

P.S. And 'Scomo' is right on vis-a-vis a person's intrinsic, inalienable right and even responsibility to attend the dying moments of (and 'funeral rites' for) their beloved, their nearest and dearest...

No ifs, buts or maybes - get a heart, ye (self-appointed) 'Masters of Covid'...

Grace Virtue: Shown No Grace by her Merciless Assailants and No Justice by a Judge Without Virtue: May You Rest in Peace...and May Your Own (Lifetime) (Good and Gracious, Virtuous) Works Follow You...As Indeed They (Doubtless) Shall

Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings...

Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake[-] us...

And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter...

Yet Without GENUINE, HEARTFELT, BIBLICAL REPENTANCE Nothing, No, Nothing in the U S of A (Or Anywhere for That Matter) Will Ever - REALLY, TRULY - Change...

And such repentance is ever and only a gift from God, and issues (i.e. results in) or produces works which reflect the same...

And so Bishop Harry Jackson (I believe) is right on in his calling attention to the lack of such repentance (over the years and decades, even centuries presumably) evidenced by white Americans over their mistreatment of their *black compatriots...

Something in point of fact that any serious reader of this and my other (original) blogsite would be only too well aware has been understood and advocated by myself for quite some considerable time.

When I've reflected at times over recent years and decades upon the ongoing invidious plight of Blacks in the States what has especially struck me has been how so many of those who once so vociferously and vehemently (and vigorously) denounced the desegregationalism so powerfully advanced through both legislative enactment and societal changes from the Civil Rights Era on now so almost nonchalantly act as if actual equality as such were such an obvious and unquestionable 'thing'...

...despite many of them having (in decades previous) done their level best to thwart and frustrate and bring to nought any and all such social developments within their nation...

...and in saying so I most certainly do not include the likes of the once notorious segregationist George Wallace, who, it seems to me anyhow, experienced a genuine Road to Damascus experience, unlike so many of his contemporary (especially Republican Party) fellow-travellers.

*And of course other races, such as the Japanese in WW11, but - far more significantly, for obvious reasons - native Americans (American Indians), who experienced virtual genocide in centuries past.

"Not On My Watch!" is a Sentiment , Even 'Fighting Words' (It's Awfully Hard to Argue With) of My Very Own Namesake (Once Previously Alluded to, Upon My Utter Astonishment At Learning of Such) in the Trump Administration, No Less,...i.e. Interior Secretary DAVID BERNHARDT's 'Take' Upon the Out-of-Control 'Cancel Culture' Now Spreading Like an Insect or Rodent Infestation Of/Approaching Biblical Proportions Throughout the Length and Breadth of the States

In particular, vis-a-vis such attempts in the nation's capital, Washington D.C., of late...

As D J Trump has himself said - of which I'm in total agreement on this occasion - this sort of lawless attempt to rewrite America's history and destroy its cultural heritage...

must be stopped (dead in its tracks; ipso pronto; no ifs, buts or maybes)...

*/**Having said all of that, unlike some rather reactionary folk I'm personally of the view that an accommodation of sorts could potentially be made between the various warring factions in such matters, i.e.

such cultural artefacts of undoubted and undisputed historic significance and value could certainly - upon agreement and broad consensus within the body politic - progressively be removed, with due care and sensitivity, and relocated in various museums and the like and in such settings have a more thorough and balanced portrayal presented of all the various major perspectives upon such individual figures of note...

Just trying to be helpful, you understand, which in our day and age of over-the-top implacable bickering, rancour and dogged political partisanship surely couldn't be such a bad thing, you'd think...

But as I've said on other occasions, in a somewhat cynical vein, 'dreams are free', or (more optimistically, if way less realistically) one can only hope that such commonsense might one day prevail...

*Even just qualifying my preceding uncategorical assertion, I well realize and fully concede, doubtless seems to pretty much nullify that (previous) point. Accepting such an assessment as quite legitimate, I nevertheless - being the complicated and nuanced fellow I likewise am - choose to do so anyway, yet also wish to add another important caveat (or qualifier), namely

**That I simply find it impossible to question much less oppose whichever black Americans consider confederate statues (and associated publicly displayed Civil War 'memorabilia') to be outright offensive and worthy of only one possible fate, i.e. public humiliation and destruction...

...basically because those who have been so long downtrodden in such a despicable and appalling manner - as a watching world has looked upon with horror and unbelief and its own sense of outrage over recent years (as the systematic and systemic police violence against black - in particular, but certainly not solely - Americans throughout the lengths and breadths of the United States has been exposed time and again for all to see) - ***can hardly be blamed for finally rising up and declaring: "Enough is enough!"...

***Though I have always heartily 'endorsed' (for want of a better word) the nonviolent road of civil disobedience so ably and effectively articulated by and practiced by the likes of Martin Luther King Junior, when studying a paper in American History (from the Civil War era through the Carter years), I recall being so appalled by the treatment of blacks for so very long I could briefly see the sorts of 'arguments' advocated by the likes of Malcolm X and, if my memory serves me aright, Stokely Carmichael in simply wishing to have the (basic human) 'right' to defend themselves and their families upon being, for example, attacked without reason in the sanctity of their own homes...

Although I wish their (in my view often patronizing and condescending, and moreover gratuitously virtue-signalling) fellow-travellers...such as for instance some prominent (especially foundational) members of the Black Lives Movement...would 'cease and desist' forthwith from what to myself anyhow are rather disingenuous attempts (unfortunately overly 'successful' thus far) to hijack the holding police to account (and now also statue-dismantling) movement for their own ideological agenda and political ends...

effectively using it even, I would argue - ****as others have (and much more ably than myself, I'll readily concede) - as pretty much a Trojan Horse...

****Such as *****the 700 Club's articulate and measured, ever mild-mannered, reasoned and reasonable, Gordon Robertson...

*****As occasionally seen upon New Zealand's Shine TV weekday evening Newscast (from 6 p.m.).

George Orwell (I Mean Eric Blair), Secular Seer of the 20th-Century (and Well Beyond), Once Again Proven a Prophet of Rare Insight...As the Dilettantish Standard-Bearers of 'Our' (English) Language Go to Town Yet Again in Their Incessant Attempts to Turn 1984's 'Newspeak' into Rather Vivid Reality...

Squandering a Superb and Unprecedented - and Undoubtedly Un-(Readily) Repeatable - (God-Given) Opportunity: To Re-set U K Politics for Good: Boris Johnson Et Al's Going AWOL Sadly, if Predictably, Betraying the (Great, Unprecedented) Trust Traditional (Mainly Working-Class) 'Laborites' Throughout the United Kingdom (Especially England and Wales) Reposed in the Brexit-Delivering Government Handed a Whopping Landslide Victory and Mandate in Last December's History-Making Election...as ('Gender-Challenged') Newbie Labour Leader Keir Starmer Goes from Strength to Newfound Strength...

As Covid-19 Takes Out Many Americans, Constitutional Crises Loom In Every Direction and the United States of America Edges Ever Closer to Civil War, the Closest It's Approached That Inauspicious Predicament Since the Days of Abraham Lincoln

To Be Continued... 

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme...Everything I Want...And Preferably Yesterday! (An Entitled Generation's Plea To 'Have it All' - Right Away - I Mean (to say) 'the Juicy Bits'...But None of the Difficult Stuff)

"Yes, let us have all our innate/inherent rights - but none of the concurrent responsibilities. All the privileges of adulthood, but none of the associated responsibilities. All the dessert, and none of the vegetables."

In other words, let's have our cake and to eat it too.

And thus and so an ultra-entitled generation seeks to extend the voting age lower and lower...whilst its standard-bearers will equally vociferously argue that the age of criminal liability be pushed out further and further (towards the late teens)...

Yes, as a good and close friend once taught me, wanting its cake and to eat it too...

Reminds me somewhat of some words with which King Solomon - at the height of Israel's glory as a nation - ended his much-loved Book of Proverbs:

After describing a certain generation, using that very word four times (30:11-14), we find the following words - separately stated for sure, but perhaps relevant to the aforementioned reference:

The leech has two daughters - Give and Give!

Perhaps the Supposedly 'NICE' Left Ain't Necessarily So Very 'NICE' After All (is said and done)...Or Prithee Tell Me Why They're Not Rehiring/Re-engaging New Zealand's Longstanding and Well-respected Sexual Violence Campaigner/Advocate Louise Nicholas?

Or as the undervalued National M.P. and Nicholas namesake Louise Upston so ably articulated as she spoke at the conclusion of the parliamentary debate mid-afternoon today:

Why otherwise has the Government now dropped/dumped Louise Nicholas from her advocacy role on behalf of victims of sexual violence throughout Aotearoa-New Zealand?

As Upston well if succinctly expressed matters, there seem to be only three likely reasons (here repeated in the order she put them):

*She'd been increasingly (if privately/non-publicly) asking the Government a number of uncomfortable questions (presumably about their approach to the subject).

*Her erstwhile public criticisms of the (governing) Labour Party's own track record in the area, as per its youth camp scandal a year or so ago.

*The Labour Government simply doesn't like independent voices per se/fullstop;

(and certainly when it can't control those voices and the direction in which they might happen to go!)
(My own added explanation thrown in for good measure.)

A bit of a worry (as people say), and in my own view especially so in light of the way the previous (Helen Clark-led) Labour Government of 1999-2008 handled/dealt with New Zealand's late great prison reform advocate Celia Lashlie, similarly 'dumped' or the like for her own well-known independent-minded assessment of things in the criminal justice area...

No, the ultra-nice Left ain't really quite so nice after all, going by their (on-the-ground) track record anyhow!

But As Far As 'GodZone'/'God's Own' (Aotearoa-New Zealand) Being a "Hellhole" - According to the Jokester-in-Chief Currently Presiding Over the United States of America - Well, They Do Say (As We All Know) that 'It takes one to know one'...But In This Particular Instance It's Plain as Daylight that the Person Talking (Out of a Hole in His Head? - to be Generous!) is Wholly Lacking in THIS Quality (of Self-Awareness) Also

Necessary Disclaimer:
Though - to quickly clarify - I'm most assuredly not damning my own truly great nation as such a pit of the Devil, nor for that matter alluding to the increasing suspicion around the world that Trump's own nation seems to be rapidly hurtling under his watch in that particular trajectory, but to the man himself (having such *unChristlike qualities)...

As far as NZ Inc constituting a "hellhole", and that (in two other short news-segments in various press conferences etcetera) having recently experienced a "surge" or the like in our Covid-19 situation...

...again, for those pitiful enough to deign to even dignify such remarks by any sort of response whatsoever, anyone with any insight can only say 'Your envy is clearly showing, Mr President."

Though - as per usual - such offhand/'throwaway' (quite literally) comments and 'observations' are a proverbial country mile or thousand as far from the real facts as could almost be possible, why the heck wouldn't they be, and why the heck wouldn't America's present Pontificator-in-Chief be [envious of NZ Inc in general and its popular leader in particular]?

Jacinda Ardern has of course - indeed post-March 15th, 2019 and the Christchurch Mosques' Massacre - been quite literally feted from pillar to post by all and sundry, including and especially by such high-profile and long-respected magazines and newspapers as Time Magazine and the New York Times (including in headline articles and cover stories). But especially since New Zealand's significant - but no, certainly not unique - success in dealing to the coronavirus...

...though claims, including especially by Ardern and her political colleagues here, that the disease has been either eliminated or eradicated have indeed been proven over recent weeks patently untrue.

Yet to even attempt  to somehow make some sort of comparative disparagement of New Zealand, with its 22 deaths (all many months ago now) thus far (and, all told, 1500-odd cases of covid-19 from the get-go to today), with the present (and previous) situation throughout much if not all of the U S is so laughable as to be pathetic in the extreme...

but it sure is providing more than adequate cartoon possibilities and comedy fodder for kiwis...

*Again, to be perfectly measured as well as charitable.

But Having Said All of That (As I So Often Have to Say), NO, I Didn't Come Down in the Most Recent (Pre-Advent) Deluge. And YES, I'm Only Too Well Aware of and Acquainted with the Telltale Signs, Symptoms, Fingerprints, Signature of a Congenital Liar, Especially When HE (in this particular instance) is Blindingly Obviously Staring One Smack Dab in the Proverbial

And so it was yet one more 'clincher of a confirmation' for me when just yesterday (early) morning upon BBC Radio I heard that D J Trump's own sister (it seems) has just come out 'outing' her highfalutin' 'bro'(ther) as just such - having engineered the faking of a varsity degree no less (through the - evidently able - assistance of an erstwhile friend/acquaintance).

It is a matter of no small amusement (and sense of well-warranted deja vu) for me to have instantly recalled having, only a couple (if that) of weeks earlier, in chatting with my own brother, compared the U. S. President to and with an old family friend (and more significantly flatmate of 31-33 years ago)...

...whom a fellow flatmate - who found it quite unconscionable and moreover physically impossible to properly stomach (at the best of times) suffering any fool gladly - then likewise 'outed' for having falsely claimed (on an ongoing basis, as a source of pride and bravado, or rather braggadocio) to have spent a year or two at the (well-known internationally recognized) university here (in Dunedin, New Zealand)...

...but following hard upon some fancy footwork, meticulous inquiry and investigation was nowhere upon their books, i.e. had never ever done any such thing...   

"I Know a Predator When I See One." REALLY? I'll readily concede, that's a great, even high-flying declaration and sentiment. But (I just can't help myself, I have to declare) I'm of the old school, which still happens to believe that 'Decent' IS As 'Decent' DOES: And No, Whatever Donald J Trump's (Seemingly Innumerable, Even Incalculable) 'Faults', 'Failings' and Far More Egregious Crimes and Misdemeanours, There's An Old But Ever True Saying: Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right...

So no matter how 'decent' and 'Christian' Mr Biden may try to present himself to an unsuspecting, readily credulous, even, dare I say it, gullible (American) public,

a true - as in biblically orthodox, and Christ-following - 'believer' doesn't wink at sin...and/or gloss over or otherwise dismiss well-founded and substantiated allegations, and certainly not those of a serious nature...

...which I at least consider those emanating from his former aide, Tara Reade, to most definitely be.

As my own Master and Lord Himself so aptly put it two millennia ago (admittedly in an altogether different context, yet it is not irrelevant to mention here):

Unless you (yes, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden) repent, you too will [ultimately] perish.

For, just as the 'good folk' of your native land, the U S of A, never ever really 'owned' as in publicly confessed and *repented of their great sin in relation to their countrymen and women - not only black Americans but native Americans as well - from centuries of slavery through the following century of segregation and all the rest, onto the systemic police brutality and violence (of the following half century) upon which the torch of light and truth has only now at last been brought to bear and shine,

unless you too own and publicly confess to and repent of - let the political fallout come as it well may - your own 'crime and misdemeanour' thereabouts, apart from proving yourself (never mind President Trump's own well-known and arguably way more egregious acts both personal and 'presidential',  whether pre- or post-inauguration) wholly unfit to assume the world's most powerful political post - alongside that of the Papacy/Vatican/Holy See of Rome - according to my Bible at least, and on associated good biblical authority, you not only are not in any way, shape or form a 'decent' person, much less 'Christian',

but, once again according to my reading of the word of God, will one day perish, and that for good!

*For true biblical repentance involves the sort of thing that my own nation of New Zealand and South Africa also has long since engaged in. Whether in the latter case the 'Commission for Truth and Reconciliation' or in the former the ongoing Treaty of Waitangi settlements throughout the length and breadth of Godzone/God's Own, repentance - to quote my blogpost title - is as repentance does...

...and involves a - substantial - measure of reconciliation and restitution...

...neither of which seem to have thus far occurred in the United States of America...

...and yet seem at long last - and not just from the political Left but from numerous standard-bearers of the evangelical 'Right' even - to be approaching full steam ahead... 

Plague, Pestilence...and/or Pestilential, 'Pestiferous', Pest (of a Fellow, I mean President): Facing the Crisis of the Ages

"In the year '20-20' " - in resonance with the famous introductory line/refrain/chorus - '25-25' - from the 1970s' chart-topping hit 'The Age of Aquarius' -

we Earthians (homo sapiens) are, it would appear, faced/confronted with the crisis of the ages:
covid-19/the coronavirus...climate change...the (current) American 'Commander-in-Chief'...

To reverse the order...

Donald J Trump (2020 and Beyond): is he the coming Antichrist? Well, some evidently believe so.

Is climate change/global warming not just 'for real', but is it set to put an end to life on earth as we('ve) know(n) it?

Or is it the unlucky last of these three, the dreaded and dreadful, deadly and devastating coronavirus/covid-19, that represents the crisis of our age...and indeed of the ages?

Or is the latter - indeed are all three - but the (biblically) necessary precursors to and of the coming crisis in the cosmic conflict...

...and moreover the celestial footprints in the countdown to Armageddon and the long-cherished, much-anticipated Second Coming/Advent of Jesus the Christ to our world?

Put on your seatbelts, folks, I can readily assure - if not reassure! - you that coming instalments in this here blogsite/blogpost  - alongside those in my original blogsite, i.e.

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)...

and those in one of my latest websites, i.e.

http://666MYSTERY666.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/) -

will keep you well and truly strapped to your seats for the forseeable...

as - over coming days - weeks - months - years (if time and circumstances permit - 'all else being equal', in other words) -

these specific subjects, and many more related matters, are traversed in greater detail...

Yes, We're Indeed, Well and Truly Living in The Day and Age of Ye - Usually Impurely and Pettily - Partisan Press (or Rather (Mainstream Western) Media Generally), Whereby Their Motto (Unlike That of Yours Truly) Might as Well Be: 'Bestowing Brickbats and Bouquets With Fear (of) and Favour Toward None...-Yeah, Right!

Yes, 'The Media' These Days is Veritably 'Under (Rather Sustained) Attack' Upon Pretty Well All Fronts These Days...But Seldom from the Centre, Generally Not from the Right, and Almost Always from the (So-called) 'LEFT'...

Bravado, Bluster or Brave and Brilliant Declaration of Defiance Mellowed and Modified by Implicit Recognition of Providential Provision: Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai's 'Reading' of the "blessing of God" in his Patently Unjust Arrest...As the Selfsame Elevates him to Newfound Hero Status Throughout the Gutsy Little Island State as Ye Ole Saga of 'David versus Goliath' is Reformulated and Reconfigured for the Umpteenth Time...

And Regarding (My One-Time Rival for the Electorate Seat of Dunedin South, Soon to Become Known - 'Forever After' - as Taieri) Retiring M.P. Clare Curran's Recent Interview (Post Her Parliamentary Valedictory) Concerning the Present State of So-Called 'Journalism' (in God's Own/Godzone in Particular), as in the Glut of 'Editorializing' By (Especially) Political Correspondents at/from the Beehive...Her Criticisms, Whether Somewhat the Result of Jadedness on a Personal Level or Otherwise, Also (see Preceding Post) Pretty Much Sum Up the Current 'State of Play' Vis-a-vis the Prostitution of Modern-day Mainstream 'Journalism' Throughout At Least Aotearoa-New Zealand and the United States of America, Anyhow...

As For Ye Mainstream (Western) Media's Obsessive, Almost Paranoid Focus Upon All Things Trivial These Days...'Give Us (All) A (Collective) Break!' -That's A Futile Fancy However, As We're Long Past Time When, Quite Frankly,They Could Give A Damn...

As so eloquently conveyed (in quite different and far fewer words) by Newstalk ZB's nighttime talkback host Bruce Russell in the wee small hours overnight...

Hey, d'ya think the election of former celebrity host Donald J Trump might just have somewhat to do with this whole thing...

...as in the American media's own sensationalizing of all things trivial (as in his remarks about *President Obama's not holding United States's citizenship)?

No, I'm off on the wrong track entirely, aren't I...not!

Correction: no, the matter itself wasn't trivial as such, but the comment/suggestion that such a thing was the case was clearly such utter drivel that ye mainstream media ought to have instantly relegated it to the journalistic dustbin...

And As For Monsieur Macron Being the Solution to Lebanon's Woes: If He's the Answer, Lebanon's In Much Bigger Trouble Than Anyone Realizes...For Last I Heard (and Understood from History, Not Only That of Present-day France), the Jesuit Order - Far From Solving the World's Problems - Are Pretty Well One of The Chief Sources and Origins Thereof...

Believe me or not, but one day soon you - and this entire world - will 'discover' this way too late...to do anything about it...

For like the hapless Frodo in Shelob the Spider's labyrinthine maze, they'll then be trapped (with)in this evil ancient order's web, and will be helpless to pry themselves loose...

"Yes, I Might Not Happen to Agree With You, I Might Even Seriously Disagree With You...But I'll Defend to the Death Your Right to Say [What You Believe]"...NO LONGER, Apparently: How Have We Now Reached A Time and a Place Wherein This is No Longer True? (And, No, It's No Longer the So-Called 'Right'(Wing) That's - Generally - Abandoned This Time-Honoured Ethic (of Civility).)

And hey, as for mentioning/citing specific instances thereabouts, I really wouldn't know where to even begin...

And For That Matter, So Too Do the Lives of Hong Kongians...Uighur Muslims...and Mainland Chinese Christians - Among Numerous Other Similarly Situated Folk...

Yes, ZIMBABWEAN LIVES DO MATTER...However Much Ye Mainstream Western Media Might Cruelly and Callously Choose to Ignore Them...No Doubt Afraid of 'the Croc' himself...

Let's All Hereby Give a Due - and Wholly Overdue - Salute to Sean Wallace, aka 'the Dark Destroyer' (of 'The Chase' Fame)...But PLEASE, Oh PLEASE - Pretty Please (Even) - Spare Us All Some Very *Silly Virtue-Signalling by Some Very *Silly Virtue-Signallers Whose Unctuous Semantic Self-Righteousness Has Really, Quite Literally, Gone Off the Deep End...and Into the Abject Abyss...Where, In All Likelihood, Such Self-(Con)Gratulatory Do-Gooders Will Ultimately End Up...With Others Flaunting Their Superior 'Good Intentions'...Alongside the Blatantly Evil and Wicked, Including his (**or rather Its) Infernal Majesty - and **his/Its Myriads of Cohorts - **himself (Itself)...

Hey, if Sean himself is happy enough with (Chase host) Bradley (Walsh's) endearing, tongue-in-cheek monicker, who're all these condescending, patronizing busy-bodies and word police - well (un)worthy of a - prominent and permanent - place in 'the Ministry of Thought' (or the likes) in George Orwell ('nee': Eric Blair)'s epochal 1984, no less - to tell him otherwise...

*Due apologies to the likes of John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) and Co, whose own 'Ministry of Silly Walks' is simply not fit to be mentioned alongside such present-day 'ga-barge' (i.e. garbage), as well-known American radio preacher Chuck Swindoll has well enunciated it...

**As the brilliant H Scott Peck once expressed matters (in his inimitable People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil). He simply couldn't bring himself to assign any gender to the devil or Satan, finding 'him' (or rather 'It') from very real personal encounter/s to be in a category all his (or Its) own, one which Smeagol-Gollum (of J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, or more likely Sir Peter Jackson Et Al's cinematic interpretation thereof) might well say was

"Not [a] decent place[-]." No indeed!

While Winston Likewise Makes the (Only Possible) Right Call...As Regards (Unilaterally) Revoking Our (i.e. Aotearoa-New Zealand)'s Extradition Treaty (For Repatriating Chinese Nationals) With Mainland China...

That is, the specific treaty pertaining to (extradition of) Hong Kong(ers), though I immediately assumed it was the *particular law that the John Key Government had enacted vis-a-vis extraditing Chinese nationals 'at trouble at home' (i.e. in and with the Chinese Governmental authorities)...back to Mainland China to face what would doubtless be 'rough justice' (to put it mildly) in their original homeland...

Yes, Deputy P M Winston Peters deserves nothing but commendation - and received the same from a plethora of people, including former National leader Simon Bridges among others, whose sole criticism - of it being a little late (if certainly the right and proper move to make) - cannot really be faulted, though Peters' (needed) 'machinations' thereabouts with coalition partners obviously necessitated much manoeuvring and finely-niched consultations - to avoid upsetting the apple cart, so to speak (due to needing to get the likes of the normally outspoken Greens to agree thereto, though perhaps in this case it was more a matter of placating cooler, more pragmatic (or, rather, wishy-washy and politically expedient ) heads within Labour)...

Yes, Winston most definitely 'made the right call', while - some/certain - nit-picking commentators, experts, political pundits and other policy wonks busied themselves splitting hairs and attempted - wholly unsuccessfully, I have to add - to besmirch him by damning his move with **faintest praise. As per usual.

But what conceivable alternative option could 'New Zealand Inc' pursue but to follow the United Kingdom and Australian governments' lead in effectively ripping up our own erstwhile version of said extradition treaty with the Central Chinese Communist Government, thus no longer enabling or facilitating the extradition/repatriation of Hong Kong residents here - and other NZ-based Chinese nationals - 'bequeathing' these (perhaps generally perfectly innocent) folk at the request of supposedly justice-seeking authorities in Mainland China...

...knowing full well the likelihood that compliance therewith - as with the five booksellers in Hong Kong a few years ago - would doubtless result in unfair trial and conviction, imprisonment and even death...

*...a law that at the time it was enacted I felt to be insulting, humiliating and obsequious - not to mention obscene and disgusting (and all the rest)...

...one of the particularly low moments of that Government, alongside the disgraceful lowering of the national flag to half-mast upon the death of the then Saudi crown prince (I believe)...

...alongside the equally disgraceful 'pulling up' of the [immigration] drawbridge upon refugees from war-torn lands such as Iraq and Iran (etcetera), nay from places that had undergone ethnic cleansing/genocide no less, (around 2010-2012 or so), despite Prime Minister Key's own grandmother (I believe) herself escaping thus to a safe harbour/haven in God's Own as a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust...

**However, listening in to RNZ National this very morning, I personally don't buy Peters' suggestion or rather explanation that our Government is ***not obligated, as per the UK for instance, in going even further and providing safe haven here for Hong Kongers (in HK itself) as per the UK and Oz are doing...

***I should correct that in this way: no, we're most certainly not legally obliged to do so - Peters' is eminently correct in that assertion, it's fairly incontrovertible...but many folk would suggest there's a much deeper obligation, and that's one called doing the decent thing, and that by any folk anywhere suffering unjust persecution and oppression...

...though in the current rather febrile and fevered atmosphere surrounding the ongoing, never-ending (anytime soon) covid crisis one can hardly see him receiving almost any let alone undue flack thereabouts...

Morality Trumps Mammon -Every Time: At Least for Those Who Still Happen to Believe that the Rights of Human Beings Supersede - By an Infinite Distance - Mere, Sordid, Pecuniary Gain (Vis-a-vis Independent M.P. Jami-Lee Ross's Call to Jettison 'Filthy [Chinese Governmental] Lucre' in Any Real Trade-Off Between Rolling Over or Standing Up to the Chinese (Communist Party) Dragon...Over its Ongoing, Egregious Offences Against People 'Domestically', Regionally and, Let's Not Forget, Globally)

Such 'egregious offences' including/comprising - but by no means limited to -

*The treatment of its ethnic (Muslim) Uighurs

* "        "            "  " newfound territorial 'appendage', the once proud little city-state of Hong Kong

*Its all too evident imperialist designs upon Pacific Island nations c/o oodles of foreign aid

*Spying on Overseas Critics in/Meddling in the Internal Affairs of New Zealand and Australia (in particular)

*Dismissing - and Glossing over the Investigation of - the Origin of Covid-19, Quite Easily the World's Worst Pandemic Since the Spanish Flu of the Post-WW1 Era

*A Brutal yet Under the Radar Crackdown Upon Human Rights in Mainland China, Not Least Amidst its Burgeoning, Even Exploding Ranks of (Underground, Home Churched) Christian Believers

And to round out the list (for a seventh 'offence' one never ever hears a mention of  - as NZ Deputy PM Winston Peters might put it, "Not a murmur, not  whisper" - from ye mainstream media), how about the following tidbit of info gleaned from an impromptu discussion with a stranger - ?Kevin? -  outside The Warehouse Central (soon to close) in Dunedin a couple weeks ago (now)...

*Citing a couple of the **various '-Stans' - as in Ex-Soviet Union/USSR Republic variety - in particular the 'K' ones, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (but notably not ***Kurdistan), he informed me how - totally unbeknownst to me, and doubtless pretty well one and all - forces from/of the Chinese Mainland Government are apparently stationed in different parts thereof (as in an occupying force, akin probably to the Russkies in Crimea etc), militarily controlling the same

Though one expects some mainstream commentators - i.e. the ones ever and always enamoured with 'economic growth' and the like - to be ever strident critics of folk like Jami-Lee Ross and Winston Peters who to their immense credit do not happen to believe that filthy lucre (from China or anywhere else for that matter) is the be-all-and end-all of all that matters in life, what one might not expect is the reaction - or should I say 'non-reaction' -  of others in the political space, who're equally loquacious about their views upon this, that and the next thing...

Yes, how very interesting - but moreover utterly inconsistent - that some of the very ones - including standard-bearers upon the Western political Left, especially media-based...themselves one-time 'champions' (for want of a more apt term) of pretty well the first noted (presidential) advocate in the U S of A of such 'morality in foreign policy', i.e. President Jimmy Carter...-as against the likes of his (immediate) successor, Ronald Reagan-

now are quite literally nowhere to be found...

Double standards? Hypocrisy? You be the judge...but, quite frankly, it's proving increasingly difficult to arrive at any other 'logical' conclusion...

For my money - scarce as it ever is - I welcome Ross' (and Peters') 'interventions', small as they are (in the overall scheme of things) as a welcome breath of fresh air in global 'realpolitik'...and would remain 100% behind them even were they ultimately to result in a revocation (by China) of its 2008 free trade deal with our nation - evidently one of, if not the world's first - recognizing - for my part - that some things matter (a whole lot more) than a nation's financial balance sheet...

Being able to look at oneself (including as an independent, self-respecting nation) each and every morning with a clear conscience surely matters as much....

Do you not agree?

**Curiously enough an inexplicable source of (at times, i.e. over recent years) 10-20 or so 'hits'/results (as in page views by) upon both this (in particular) and my initial (Nuff Said) blogsite...

***Of course this is not - presently - an independent nation as such, but many (like myself) believe - long since - blimmin' oughta be...

And Though I, For One - While Perhaps Being Increasingly the Only One - Don't, As Yet, Consider Him the Devil Incarnate, At the Same Time You Have to Give It to (President) Donald J Trump (for This Much, Anyhow): He Sure as Heck Is No Rank Amateur at Making it Up as He Goes Along...

He's not only made a veritable art-form of the practice, he's pretty well ready to hand out PhDs in the same, with 'Summa Cum Laude' thrown in for added measure to those who're imitating his every move...

"Morally Bankrupt"? I'll Show You Morally Bankrupt, and It's Initials Aren't Invariably DJT, I Can Readily Assure You. No, They Have All Manner of Other Permutations, Well Known In Fact Upon the Global Scene...

To Be Continued...

Meanwhile Another Equally Potent and Problematic Dragon Arises In the East, Portending No Good Whatsoever to the Inhabitants of Planet Earth - At Least Not While its Current Leadership Maintains its Unholy Sway

To Be Continued...

Could the Present Occupant of the Oval Office/White House Actually Be the Fabled (as in Notorious) Villain of the Holy Bible - i.e. the Biblical Antichrist? Though Already Abundantly Acquainted With, Yea, Even Thoroughly Traversed in the Topic - and Moreover Utterly Invested in One Mightily, Even Completely Convincing (and Compelling) View of the Matter, as in (Biblical) Interpretation Thereof - I Nevertheless Highly Recommend My Readership - Such as it Still Remains - Look Up 'Benjamin L Corey' Vis-a-vis 'The Antichrist' Sometime Soon: His Own (Scripturally-Based) 'Argument'/Proposition is Not One Easily Sniffed At Much Less Dismissed Out of Hand, I Can Assure You!

Through 'Popular Demand' - (Probably) NOT - But At Least Due to My Evident Lack of Clear Explanation in My Last Blogpost (as Finally Sussed Out by Me, Having At Long Last Reread It) Vis-a-Vis THAT I'd Decided to Finish/Wind Up THIS Blogsite, Let Alone Explain Precisely WHY I'd Decided To...I'm - At Long Last - Resuming Writing Thereupon...As Of This Very Day (Quite Clearly)...

But, hey, it'd be wonderful to see some of my 'regulars' delving into my *six newer blogsites (as detailed in my previous post)...

...they certainly have much to say about some of the very serious 'stuff' inundating our species 'homo sapiens' ever since covid-19/the coronavirus broke loose upon a weary world mere months ago and began wreaking such unmitigated distress and devastation upon us all...

*Four (as cited thereupon), having added two other ones since...-but since hardly anyone seems to have bothered with those other (four), I'm starting to feel why bother...

IMPORTANT NOTIFICATION: Not A Proper (Blog)Post As Such, But Rather an Invitation to Loyal Readers...

...to re-join me anytime they like...

...upon (any of) my (three/four new) blogsites...

Which are - in chronological order (of creation):

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Sorry to See Ya Go...It's Nice To Remember

I Realize You Might Not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See it Anyhow

Ye Can Discern the Face of the Sky, But Can Ye Not Discern the Signs of the Times?

Apologies tonight (what with Daylight Savings over overnight, I'm already long past my (new) proper bedtime, and what with the Covid-19 crisis constantly breathing down all our necks, the last thing I need to do is cause any health issues for my (resident) Mum)...

...so I'll locate and *provide the aforementioned blogsite addresses in the near future...

Suffice to mention for now that if you appreciate - no, I never said always agreed with! - my (second) longstanding blogsite 'davidedwinisms'...

...then methinks you'll take to the third of the above especially, and possibly the fourth as well...

...the other two being respectively a health blog and an obituary/commemoration 'number'...

*In the above order, here are the blog addresses (much simpler as it transpires than I'd recalled):

supacalifragilisticexpialidocious.blogspot.com

sotosey-gitnitore.blogspot.com

irymn.blogspot.com

666mystery666.blogspot.com

And if all else fails - in trying to get onto these blogsites - you can of course always flick a little 'http://' at the outset thereof...

HAPPY & PRODUCTIVE Blog-Browsing...and - I ever live in (rather forlorn) hope - commenting thereupon...

'Scuse - even correct - me if I'm wrong, even 'wresting the Scriptures', But prithee tell me if I might not just be onto something here...

I'm not laying down any hard-and-fast rules (and/or 'guesstimates' as such), much less engaging in that ever fraught, time-dishonoured activity of (prophetic) time/date-setting...

but, perchance, could the following succession of verses (in the Newer Testament Book of 1 Thessalonians) perhaps be somewhat indicative of where we presently stand in prophetic time?

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety;

then sudden destruction cometh upon them...and they shall not escape.

(1 Thessalonians 5:1-3)

Interestingly/curiously, 'as fate would have it', just three verses earlier - and also quite clearly in the context of the Last Days of (the first) Earth's history, in particular concerning the events coinciding with the long-anticipated *Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to Planet Earth, we read these words (amongst others less apropos to our discussion/consideration - although certainly not contradictory to that):

The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven...with the **trump (sic) of God

(1 Thessalonians 4: 16)

*Evidently the Koran also features reference/s to the Third Coming of Christ Jesus to the planet, (which, in the biblical version, occurs after the Millennium and in order to execute the much-heralded 'Day of the LORD' Great White Throne Judgment...upon everyone who has ever lived upon Planet Earth, or rather upon the unsaved; those not raised in the First Resurrection).

**Also alluded to in 1 Corinthians, in a major passage about the resurrection of God's (true) 'saints':

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep [in (the first) death], but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,

at the last trump (sic): for the trumpet shall sound,

and the dead shall be raised...

(1 Corinthians 15: 51/52)

Intriguingly - I'm hoping you'll agree - the trump rendering is only in the  Authorized Version, i.e. the King James Bible...

...and for my money, at least, shows that 'the One Upstairs', as people so often refer to the Almighty, does indeed have a sense of humour...and will ultimately have the last laugh!

Hey, as Far as These Increasingly Prevalent - if Interspersed and Intermittent - Outbreaks of Contagious Disease are Concerned, 'Wouldn't it be Loverly' (as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady might have put it) if the Omniscient Modern Media Occasionally Would Put Two and Two - or even Eight and Eight - Together and Suss Out that Perhaps it'd be Worthwhile Belittling Western Civilization's Once-Cherished 'GOOD BOOK' A Little Less and Actually Investigating Some of Its Time-Honoured Truths...Such as the HEALTH LAWS in the Torah, Which Helped Protect Ancient Israel from ALL MANNER of 'Stuff' Afflicting Contemporaneous Civilizations Such as the Egyptian (one), and Moreover Has Helped Provide an Effective Blueprint for Modern Hygiene and Quarantine Standards (to Name a Few)

Likewise the Present Frenzy Over the Supposed Evils of the Trendy Newfangled Fad of VAPING, and That of the Flavoured Variety in Particular - President Trump's Own (Unsurprisingly Strident But Typically Superficial and Amateurish) 'Intervention' Notwithstanding - Methinks is Another Instance in the 'Health Arena' of A Whole Lot of Hyperbolic 'Moral' Panic Effectively Serving to Downplay and Obscure the Equally Incredible SUCCESS of the Same in Helping People Worldwide 'Kick' What is Well-Known as Being an Extremely Hard Habit, Nay Addiction, to Break

(You're Just a) "Little Fella": 'Short People Got No Reason...Got No Reason...to Live...Short People are Just the Same as You or I': Again, take your choice, but for me, myself and I, alongside musical legend Paul Simon and the Global Midgets Society Incorporated, I'd Prefer to Defer to the Latter (Notion)...You see, I'm Likewise Somewhat Height (not to mention Physique!) 'Challenged'

And Though the Jury Still Seems Out - Global Media Hype Notwithstanding - It Would Appear the Coronavirus ('Covid 19') Could Well Be the Worst 'Pestilence' in Living Memory; or, Alternatively, A Far Tamer Version of the Good-Ole-Fashioned 'Flu': Take Your Pick, The Arguments are Pretty Strong Either Way

But for ye mainstream (Western, anyhow) media to now be getting so dumbstruck about people (such as here in Auckland, New Zealand) becoming duly beside themselves and 'hunkering down' as it were by stockpiling bulk supplies from local supermarkets of recent days...

...methinks, anyway, is just a tad (or two) rich...

Duh, what d'ya reckon has caused such an extreme alarmist response/reaction?