Today is the worst day of my life since I left Norway in 1996. Tomorrow I can truthfully say the exact same thing. And the next day, and the next, and the…

Next week there is a national election for parliament in Norway, and the only certainty is that, whatever the outcome, shit will degrade. But I can’t vote here, so why do I care?

Russell Brand has matured. Can’t really disagree with him if you have a functioning brain. He also has really nice teeth for a former heroin addict. I said it from day one back in 2001 when I could see the smoke of the Towers from my house in Connecticut; follow the money. Five presidents in a row have fucked it up while five government military contractors have made billions in profit on the back of American taxpayers, leaving tens of thousands American and allied troops and possibly hundreds of thousands of Afghans rotting in their wake. And of all these presidential sinners Trump is the least culpable, yet he’s the one that gets impeached. Twice. Go figure…

EDITED TO ADD: I must have been drunk when I wrote this post, seemingly endorsing Russel Brand’s views unconditionally. While I agree with many of the points he makes, let there be no misunderstanding: The US had every right in the world to go into Afghanistan after 9/11. Not punishing the murder of 3,000 Americans by barbaric cave dwellers with the blessing of the Taliban would have been disgraceful.

@aftenblad Hvorfor ble min kommentar til https://t.co/g7of92BA3Q fjernet (Lars Dahl)? Hva var kontroversielt eller avstøtende med den? Vil dere ikke at forskjellige meninger skal bli hørt?

— Lars (@OGNDY) August 12, 2021

Min kommentar:

This just popped into my head as a result of hearing about the spike in suicides correlating with the ravages of Covid-19 in America.

People commit suicide to make the pain stop. Physical pain, emotional pain. Any kind of pain you can think of. When you kill yourself the pain stops, so one might argue that suicide is a rational impulse under certain circumstances (let’s disregard the pain that is inflicted upon those left behind for now, just to make this discussion easier, but I’m not unaware of it).

So the pain stops, mission accomplished, right? Well, no. Because you will no longer be around to enjoy any relief. There is no relief. You have merely returned to the state you were in before you were conceived; that of non-existence, and for millennia the world progressed just fine without you (debatable, I know).

I fully understand that there are conditions one can encounter in life that appear intolerable and that ending your life seems like a perfectly rational decision. Just take a moment to consider those left behind.

If at the end of the day you come out in favor of ending it all, I shall not judge you. Suicide can be an act of cowardice and also a noble act. It may even offer comfort in that your existence in the grand scheme of things plays an infinitesimally insignificant role in the daily business of the Universe. You will be forgotten in the blink of an eye after your last synapse has fired.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255

WikiLeaks have just released an email dump confirming that according to Common Sense (a book you should have read in high school), presidential fiat, and the word of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, it’s better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick in times like these.

China, in a secret agreement with Canada and Mexico, will invade at noon. President-in-waiting Joe Biden and his newly anointed candidate for Veep, Alexandria Ocasio-Niña-Pinta-Santa Maria-Cortez, say we must make a fast-track to citizenship available to the invaders; no more destitute people crying and dying at our borders!

President Trump responded in a rambling tweet storm that Jeffrey Epstein died of COVID-19 related causes and that he had nothing to do with it. But if he did it would have been tremendous. He also wanted to know what’s up with all the movies where jacked up male leads are obviously on steroids and shave their body hair.

Personally I would like to know how we can send a man to the moon (if we indeed did…), but my order of various luthier’s tools placed on Amazon 4.11.2020 still is in transit. FTS!

About a month ago, one of our two remaining cats (Dingo, brother of Fuffu, about 15 years old and under our guardianship since they were 12 weeks) was feeling under the weather and had a hard time breathing. As it turned out an x-ray revealed that he  hardly had any functional lungs left. Left to himself he would die a protracted and painful death. The only treatment available was a merciful injection to help him along and make his final journey as painless and peaceful as possible.

Dingo and Fuffu in better days.

A few weeks later it became obvious that his brother had something serious going on as well, and after repeated visits to the vet his diagnosis was no less dire than that of his late brother: a heart about to give up and cascading organ failure in general. We said our final goodbyes today and gave him release from the struggle right here at home with the help of a wonderful vet who visited us in our house.

While we knew that Fuffu was in poor health and living on borrowed time, Dingo’s condition came as a bit of a surprise. Towards the end he lost half his body weight in a matter of weeks. I think Fuffu maybe stuck it out long enough to see him off, and  when that final duty was taken care of he could finally let go himself.

We have chosen not to have any children of our own, but I think we are now experiencing empty-nest syndrome. It’s a sad, sad day.

RIP kitties.