Winter without snow

When I was very much younger, scientists came up with a new invention, it was called Margarine. Far more healthy than butter, they convinced us that eating butter would lead to an early death, and so to be healthy we were told that we should eat margarine.

For 20 years and to my peril, I ignored this warning, and suffered the constant harassment of those who tried to save me from my own ignorance. Then one day these scientists announced that the polyunsaturated margarine, that was the promise of good health, was actually inhibiting the body from breaking down cholesterol, something that butter did not do. So they invented the Mono unsaturated margarine. I stayed with butter.

The scientists in the meantime came up with a wonderful invention called the microwave oven, which was perfectly harmless to humans, until it was later revealed that they could leak those pesky little microwaves and give us cancer. Not to worry, they took care of that problem too.

Over the years of course we were told that vegetarians were fruitcakes, and could not live a healthy lifestyle if they didn't eat meat. I believed this (because I eat tons of steak). Then one day they announced that microwaved meat was 'safer to eat' than pan fried meat. MMM??? Come again? 'Safer?'

If eating meat is unsafe, then weren't the vegans right? Still perplexes me!

Today of course, we are far more scientifically advanced. Scientists are well and truly on top of that deadly disease called 'Cancer'. From all the reports that I have noted over the years, I have figured how to ensure I never get it.

• Don't drink Alcohol, milk, coffee, tea, soft drinks (colas) or water.
• Stay away from all proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
• Don't breath.

Drinking and bathing water down on the farm.

Frankly in this day and age of high speed information technology, one can read that alcohol is bad or good, potatoes are bad or good, eggs and dairy food are bad or good, and all will make you healthy or kill you.

What to make of this information overload? Well, in my case I moved to China where the likelihood of death via vehicular mishap is more likely than some of the other hazards to health that I now face.

I have learned to shake hands with some people who don't wash after going to the toilet (earth closet - literally), drink and bath in germ infested waters of the local (rural) creek, eat cooked food that sits in the farmhouse cupboard all day long (cause there ain't no refrigeration), and breath in the lead and zinc and other metals that are in the polluted air of Urban China.

I ain't dead yet! (Don't sigh!) Of course on the upside, I haven't until recently had much opportunity to eat butter or drink a good bottle of red wine.

Honoring the dead during Spring Festival in China.

And now, wherever you turn, you read about the end of the world through global warming.

"The end is nigh, the end is nigh!" is the constant refrain. Well, if like me you don't trust what scientists tell you (after all, they get paid good money to study monkeys for years so they can discover why monkeys have flat faces), then be of good cheer, for as this report from TCS Daily reports: The End Is Not Nigh?, by Hans H.J. Labohm.

Quote: Ironically, just as global warming scare-mongering reaches new heights, the global cooling hypothesis is making a come back....

Recently the astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg declared that the Earth will experience a "mini Ice Age" in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity. Temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak. The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said.

This view is shared by the Belgian astronomer, Dirk Callebaut, who expects a "grand minimum" in the middle of this century, just like the Maunder Minimum (1650-1700), a period during which the Thames, the Seine and the Dutch canals were frozen in winter.

That's money going up in smoke (play money to be sure).

Now doesn't this warm your bones?  We are not going to suffocate from humidity or roast in Saharan Deserts, we are going to freeze our butts off.

Well, for you folk up there in Magic City, this should be a breeze. Guess you were hoping for a little warming.

As for me, thankfully I'll be dead and burned before the mini ice age arrives; probably roasting in the fires of the hell to which some of my activist readers insist that I should go and some of my religious readers insist I will go.

Sure beats the cold!

R.P.BenDedek
Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

Even the youngest know how to respect the dead.

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (www.kingscalendar.com), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China.

Photographic Stories from China

The King's Calendar' is a synchronous chronological presentation of the history of Ancient Israel, as principally recorded in the Biblical books of Kings and Chronicles, and sets forth Apologetics for and the results of R.P.BenDedek's discovery of an "artificial chronological scheme" running through the Books of the Bible, Josephus,the Damascus Documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Seder Olam Rabbah. www.kingscalendar.com.