Son,

I have a bad knee – well, they did surgery on it in 1983. My knee now reacts to the weather. I can always tell when it rained yesterday. Such is the case with the predictions of Nostradamus.

It is Christmas Day and I am tired – I stayed up late last night – hoping to see Santa Clause and his reindeer.  Some old guy wrote a poem a couple of hundred years ago predicting that St. Nicholas would come by way of flying sleigh, powered by flying reindeer, to slip down our chimneys and leave gifts for all good people.

Oops. There is always a catch in the ancient prophecy hoaxes.  There is always an out – if Santa does not come then that means you were obviously not ‘good.’  Nostradamus is the biggest prophecy hoax since his ancestor wrote the Book of Revelation.

A prophecy is a prediction of the future, not a metaphor of the past.  The wackos who believe Nostradamus was a prophet point to all of the historic events of the 20th Century to validate their looneyism faith.  They say Nostradamus predicted Hitler, the assassination of JFK, The World Trade Center attack, and all other conspiracy related events.  How convenient.

I personally prefer prophets who provide useful information – something that will help us prevent future catastrophes. We have a few prophets running for political office in America.  They are giving the if/then prophecies of behavior.  I have some of my own.

Whoa, my knee is acting up, I think it is going to snow last Saturday.

Dad