By Lionel Gayle

As a thinking man, I don’t believe there is any evidence, scientific or historical, that the world will end – not even with simultaneous cataclysmic earthquakes in divers places, or with a planet-wide nuclear war.

By the way, have you ever wondered why earthquakes are among God’s chosen arsenal of weapons for the annihilation of His own people?

Allegedly, it’s part of Jesus’ prophecy of end-time phenomena. Furthermore, “Earthquakes speak for God.” (http://www.mswm.org/earthquakes/earth_quakes/superearthquakes_superearthquakes.htm).

As for the threat of a worldwide nuclear war, the likelihood of such catastrophe is nil. Tyrants will emerge all over the place, but I have faith in our sane and conscientious leaders who will strive to preserve this planet as a paradise for every living being.

Expressions such as “End of the world,” “End-Times,” “Armageddon” and “The Rapture” are mere jiggery-pokery, obviously coined by holier-than-thou nobles and religious deceivers as scare-and-control mechanisms.

Even if the world ends soon, it won’t be in accordance with the forecast of the great Californian soothsayer, Harold Camping, president of Family Radio. And it won’t reflect the preferences of all those other prognosticators of doom and gloom since time began.

That’s why this drivel about Judgment Day on October 21, 2011 – that’s five months away – is so remotely crazy. The world didn’t collapse on May 21, 2011, and the righteous Mr. Camping also missed the mark in 1994.

Instead of condemning God’s lovely people to a doomsday calamity, all the guilty religious soapbox stars should focus more on the well-being of the needy masses around the world? If your minds are devoid of positive thoughts, don’t hesitate to call on the Almighty for help. Some of you claim that He speaks to you personally, and all of you accept the Holy Bible as the word of God.

By Lionel Gayle

The Scandinavian volcano that erupted last week got me worrying whether the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, also known as the Doomsday seed vault, was in any danger.

So I checked up on my geography and found out that Grimsvotn, one of Iceland’s most active volcanoes, was miles away from Norway’s Doomsday seed-bank.

In fact, the Global Seed Vault is on the Norwegian Spitsbergen Island, built 120 metres (390 ft) inside a mountain cavern, about 1,300 kilometres (810 miles) from the North Pole.

Honestly, if the cataclysmic eruption had destroyed the seed-bank, I wouldn’t have shed a tear, but I would’ve been disappointed. The fact is that I’m fully aware that all the Doomsday deposits – thousands of seeds and a wide variety of plants – are duplicates from seed-banks in countries around the world.

If Svalbard was hit by a natural disaster last week, my main concern would’ve been whether that destruction was a prelude to Armageddon and the Rapture, predicted to happen at 6 p.m. Saturday, May 21, 2011.

California preacher Harold Camping, 89, who had predicted the Judgment Day, said 200 million Christians were expected to ascend to heaven after the destruction of the earth. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/23/national/a110014D10.DTL).

But it seemed God didn’t set foot on planet earth on Saturday, and there was no news of any extraordinary happenings from around the world, where Camping has an audience through his Family Radio International.

At a media conference at his radio studios, he told reporters that the End Times had actually begun on Saturday and would continue until October 21, 2011 when God would destroy the world.

Unlike other critics and observers, I am not calling Mr. Camping a false prophet, even though his prediction that God would’ve destroyed the world in 1994 also came to naught. I guess he has chalked up that error to a miscalculation on his timeline chart.

If this is any consolation, the Jehovah’s Witnesses had a better calculation system, but Jesus didn’t come in 1975 as they had predicted. And in fact, it seems the organization has scored zeros on all its predictions since American Charles Taze Russell, in the late 1870s, founded the precursor to the current Watch Tower Society. (http://4jehovah.org/help-1975-prophecy.php).

As for those nincompoops who reportedly gave away all their worldly possessions in anticipation of last weekend’s elusive Rapture, what were they thinking? From my observation, it’s never a safe move for desperate souls to put all their trusts in religious cults. Remember the Jim Jones suicide pact in which more than 900 perished at Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, and the 1993 Branch Davidian fire that claimed at least 76 lives near Waco, Texas?

It’s really a sad state of affair when some clever religious leaders use their charisma to hoodwink the hopeless into shedding their possessions in exchange for embracing a silent and absent God. Like the late reggae star Bob Marley said: “Babylon System is a Vampire … building church and university/deceiving the people continually” (Babylon System from the album Survival by Bob Marley & The Wailers, Island Records, 1979).

By Lionel Gayle

After a week of Google pain with its Blogger confusion, I am glad to report that my blog (this site) seems to be working smoothly.

Yet, it puzzles me to know that I can still launch it from the old address link which I was convinced had been deleted or removed from my Google account. In fact, that old link should’ve been more aligned with my first TLD (Top Level Domain), http://www.kantankarous.com.

It’s the loss, or disappearance of the kantankarous.com address that has led to my week of frustration and confusion in setting up my first blog.

Nevertheless, thanks to those guys at Google for mitigating my stress-level. However, I believe that my present comfort zone arrived after I had made a strategic move when it seemed certain that I wouldn’t have launched my blog anytime soon.

At least I can access my blog with any of my regular web browsers. Up to a few days ago I couldn’t even launch it with Google Chrome – the upstart browser that some internet gurus are touting as the fastest vehicle on the information highway. For about a week, the whole process of setting up this freaking project had stressed the living daylight out of me.

And I blame the behemoth Google Inc. for my woes. I had expected this technological conglomerate to have a top-notch customer care service at Blogger.com, its free and popular blog-hosting operation.

Anyway, I registered my first blog at http://lionel-gayle.blogspot.com. (From Blogspot.com you get what they call a “naked” domain, that’s without the “www,” when you sign up for the free service). My name was not my first choice for the URL (Uniform Resource Locator), but I accepted it and later published my blog under the title “Here Me Now.”

To rookies like me, pleased observe that “a blog” is a website like this one, and my blog title is “Just Blogging.” The story below is my post, headed by the “post title,” which is tantamount to a headline in a newspaper or magazine.

Don’t be flabbergasted if your next-door “blogista” (my coinage) asked you: “When will you post your next post?”

I know your attention is piqued by the two “posts” in that short sentence. And you’re quite right; each post has a different meaning. But just stay cool my friends, it’s merely blog-talk coupled with the perplexed nuance of the English language.

Let’s get back to my Blogger problems. Shortly after I had set up the free blog at http://lionel-gayle.blogspot.com I purchased my TLD, http://www.kantankarous.com, through Google Apps.

Then I transferred my blog to the new site and deleted the stuff from the other. Everything was fine until kantankarous.com disappeared. The old site was still alive, but it was an empty page. That was no problem, I could easily replace the stuff. I just wanted back my TLD.

I laboured with the problems for a few days, with no solution in sight. Then aha, I registered another TLD, http://www.lionelgayle.com, with DomainShoe.com and signed up for another free site at Blogspot.com. I made the registered address my preferred domain and linked the free site. (Hey, that’s the same thing I did at the beginning!)

This time Blogger refused to accept my original e-mail address, so I opened a Gmail account with Google.

Although my blog is up and running, my first TLD http://www.kantankarous.com is still MIA.

I had posted a query at Webmaster Central, a Google help forum, and received a reply saying that the domain http://www.kantankarous.com blog “does not exist,” and that http://lionel-gayle.blogspot “exists but it's basically an empty site.”

Shortly after I had bought that domain, I received an e-mail from The Google Apps Team confirming my purchase and congratulating me “on completing your purchase of kantankarous.com.” The domain is registered with eNom and will expire on May 12, 2012.

I hope she comes home before that date, and before I become a cantankerous old man.

By Lionel Gayle

When the United States special-forces raided Osama bin Laden’s hide-out at Abbottabad, in north-west Pakistan, did they kill him, did they murder him, did they assassinate the man regarded as America’s most wanted terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 atrocities?

America and the rest of the world are referring to that daring act of May 2, 2011 as “the killing” of bin Laden. To me it sounds crass and impolite. Even President Barak Obama’s direction to his elite commandos to “capture or kill” and his reported success of the mission as “an operation that killed Osama bin Laden” sent chills to my spine.

Yet, it’s reality. But I have an aversion to the way in which the word “kill” is being used in such serious matter by intelligent people. It’s like part of a loose-talk that belongs to the street. And as such, it lessens the impact of the milestone reached in the demise of the mass murderer who had classified decent, law-abiding citizens worldwide as mere infidels whose lives are expendable.

Even though I would’ve preferred bin Laden to be captured and prosecuted (like Saddam bin Hussein of Iraq), I never had even an inkling of admiration for the unholy imposter. And gladly, I celebrate with all Americans who have lost loved ones at his dirty, devil-riddled hands. And to those Somalis who marched vociferously in celebration of his death in the streets of Mogadishu last week, I tip a symbolic hat. As one of the marchers told the Associated Press in a story published in the Arab News, “His death will be a milestone for world peace.”

But taking into consideration the universal recognition of polite behavior and the etiquette usually observed by diplomats and heads of state, was the al-Qaeda leader really killed, murdered, or assassinated?

What’s the difference? It is crystal clear that whichever label is used to describe his demise is of no significance. However, because in certain instances I’m a stickler for political correctness, we should at least strive to call a spade a spade.

While I’m not rooting for any reserved respect for the departed monster, I take some solace in the report that his speedy sea burial “had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom.”
Now, take it from me: The course of action employed in the elimination of Osama bin Laden was definitely an assassination. As Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines assassinate: “to murder (a usually prominent person) by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons.”

There is no doubt that bin Laden was a prominent person, albeit infamous. And as Kingston, Jamaica-based imam Muhammad Islam told the Jamaica Observer newspaper, "Osama bin Laden was a politician who just happened to be Muslim."

The Oxford English Reference Dictionary defines assassinate as, to kill “especially a political or religious leader for political or religious motives.” And The Free Dictionary (online) says to assassinate is “To murder (a prominent person) by surprise attack, as for political reasons.”
There is no secret that the US Navy SEALs had executed a surprise attack on bin Laden’s enclave and assassinated him for his political terrorism. But from a popular standpoint, he was killed and not assassinated. Perhaps “assassination” is a euphemism reserved for the clandestine killing of people with respectability, such as presidents, kings and prime ministers.