Election Day In The Usa

 My prediction: D.Trump will win. I can be mistaken, of course.We'll see tomorrow, I guess.

Is Ozempic A Miracle Drug?

 Some of its side effects:

• tachycardia,
• pancreatitis, and
• kidney damage.

Additionally, animal studies suggest Ozempic has the potential to cause thyroid cancer, which may lead to lumps in the throat and dysphagia. It's important to be aware of these potential risks and consult your healthcare provider if you experience any severe symptoms. 

Never mind though, they say it happens "rarely" and they "don't know" if it really causes cancer so it must be OK then I guess.

Because It's Halloween

 

A Real Life Horror Story

 The organs of a Kentucky donor who had been declared dead were ready to be harvested — but then doctors made a startling discovery: he was still alive...

Earlier that day, the donor had undergone cardiac catheterization, which is used to evaluatethe heart’s health before or after a transplant.

“The donor had woken up during his procedure that morning for a cardiac catheterization. And he was thrashing around on the table,” Martin said. But then, doctors sedated the patient and continued to plan to recover his organs, she added.

“That’s everybody’s worst nightmare, right? Being alive during surgery and knowing that someone is going to cut you open and take your body parts out?” Martin told NPR. “That’s horrifying.”

Read the whole story over here. 

 

Van Helsing 2004

 Since October is a Halloween month, we decided to watch a horror film to celebrate it and chose this one.

The plot is rather simple. Van Helsing who lost his memory many years ago, but knows that he is very old, hunts monsters in the service of a secret order within the Catholic Church. He is sent to Transylvania to kill Dracula, together with friar Carl. There he meets Anna Velkan, the last descendant of a noble family who is on the same mission and whose brother was turned into a werewolf by Dracula. Her ancestor made an oath that unless he or someone of his family destroys Dracula, they won't be able to enter Paradise and will spend the eternity in Purgatory.

Van Helsing kills one of Dracula's brides and forms an alliance with Anna, while Dracula is plotting to conquer the world and is looking for a new bride...

I should say that the movie is not really very horrific but very entertaining. Strange enough, it wasn't a success when it came out, the fact that many commenters on YouTube trailers found surprising. My theory is that it's due to the fact that it shows the Catholic Church in positive light, something which those who run the MSM in the USA don't really appreciate.

It's also quite traditional because it shows that Evil, though seductive, is still Evil. There are no redeeming qualities in Dracula, which is quite unlike the later abominations of shining s8xy vampires courting high school girls. Europeans are played by European looking actors. Girrl power isn't very annoying. Etc etc. Both adversaries are played by the very handsome actors, btw, and Anna is beautiful, too.

On the negative side, the hint that Van Helsing is the incarnation of Gabriel (yes, that one) is bordering on blasphemous, imo. 

If you are into this kind of movies and haven't seen this particular one, I'd recommend it.

Thoughts On Sunscreen

 We had a discussion on this topic in spring;)

My experiences so far. First I tried one with titanium dioxide, as it's supposed to be free of harmful chemicals. Well, may be, it is but it's also a thick paste and I couldn't tolerate it. 

I bought spf30 and 50 from a local brand. SPF30 worked well until we went on a vacation to the south of Germany. The sun was pretty strong there in May and despite using sunscreen royally I still got burned so I had to buy a cap and try to cover myself more.

In high summer (July-August) I switched to spf50 but it was my mistake. The temps were around 30*C and my skin started to itch. I developed some sort of allergy and couldn't use spf30 either. And it was too warm for my sun cap. So I bought myself a sun visor and a long sleeved shirt to wear on top and went with long skirts only. And it was fine. 

I also mostly tried to avoid direct sun during the day and wore a big hat while sitting on a terrace outside. Plus we used awnings. It became cooler in September so i could use spf30 again without any problem. Now in October we have sun strength 1-2 so unless I spend a lot of time in direct sunlight I don't use any protection. 

My conclusion. Spf30 doesn't really help well when the sun is strong and you spend a lot of time outdoors. Mechanical protection (awnings, hats, caps, clothes) and avoiding direct sunlight gives better results + you don't have to use chemical stuff on your skin. Though I wonder if a normal day cream is so much better for you...

Female Education And Society

 It destroys more than just the TFR:

Every society faces a fundamental choice. Either deny men what they observably and actually prefer or deny women what they think they prefer in theory. Across the West, the last 60 years have been an experiment in the latter. Women have been given the red carpet treatment in the corporations, in the universities, and even in the men’s locker rooms. Divorces and custodies have been granted on demand. Pregnancies have been prevented. Babies have been aborted. Obesity and ugliness have been celebrated. The churches have been de-doctrinated and literally neutered. Refugees have been welcomed. The insane have been liberated from their asylums.

And yet, not only are women unhappier than they were before being granted their collective societal bucket list, men are increasingly opting out of every form of participation in society.

Which European Country Will Go Extinct First?

 For some time we thought it was Spain, but there is another contender:

Poland’s ongoing demographic collapse continues, with the once conservative Catholic country featuring high birth rates, now a land increasingly of childless women and men

Only Spain is a match for Poland, according to data from Birth Gauge, a website that tracks demographic trends around the world. In fact, things have never been this bad in Poland.

The data was shared by Andrzej Kubisiak, deputy director of the Polish Economic Institute, in an X post.

“The total birth rate for Poland in 2024 may be the lowest in the whole of Europe (ex aequo with Spain) and amount to 1.12 This is the worst result in our modern history,” wrote Kubisiak.

France seems to be doing better than most. We all know why;)

 

The Ideal Woman Doesn't Exist

 and neither does the ideal man. A good post by VD:

 One of the negative aspects of the digital world is the way in which it permits both men and women to dwell in an imaginary environment in which the opposite sex partners they rate are absolutely unattainable in real life. Just as Tinder and other social media permits women to attract attention from men who will never, ever, consider them as potential girlfriend or wife material, games and movies permit men to indulge themselves in fantasy relationships with the kind of women who would not even notice them in real life.