Four Lights (Day Of The Lord, Five.)

Gul Madred: I remember the first time I ate a live taspar. I was six years old and living on the streets of Lakat. There was a band of children, four, five...six years old—some even smaller, desperately trying to survive. We were thin, scrawny little animals, constantly hungry, always cold. We slept together in doorways, like packs of wild gettles, for warmth. Once I found a nest. Taspars had mated and built a nest in the eave of a burned-out building. And I found three eggs in it. It was like finding treasure. I cracked one open on the spot and ate it, very much as you just did. I planned to save the other two. They would keep me alive for another week. But of course, an older boy saw them and wanted them. And he got them. But he had to break my arm to do it.

Jean-Luc Picard: Must be rewarding to you to...to repay others for all those years of misery.

Gul Madred: What do you mean?

Jean-Luc Picard: Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders why it is still practiced.

Gul Madred: I fail to see where this analysis is leading.

Jean-Luc Picard: Whenever I look at you now, I will not see a powerful Cardassian warrior; I will see a six-year-old boy who is powerless to protect himself.

Gul Madred: Be quiet!

Jean-Luc Picard: In spite of all you have done to me, I find you a pitiable man.

Gul Madred: Picard, stop it. Or I will turn this on and leave you in agony all night!

Jean-Luc Picard: Aha! You called me "Picard!"

Gul Madred: What are the Federation's defense plans for Minos Korva?

Jean-Luc Picard: There are four lights!

~From Star Trek: The Next Generation S6.E11 "Chains Of Command, Part II"

...

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984. 

I saw this earlier.

Apparently a couple of idiot legislators in Florida want to make it illegal to fail a student on something if they invoke "god."

Sorry, but that's like making it legal for kids to cheat on their homework.

They might not learn anything at all, except to lie real good. Is that what These Fucking People think is "Christian??"

Of course not, they see it as an expression of political power.

Which attitudes have already bred a few generations of useless liars, at least.

(And I'm serious, to illustrate this I'll just point out the generations of outlandish lies White "Conservatives" tell about the American social safety net.)

For the record, as a Christian kid attending Christian private schools in the 1980's I saw kids get paddled (I'm talking get yo ass beat with the big old board-looking thing with all the holes in it, BTW) for less than Samantha Fulnecky did.

And there's a reason for that. 

Facts don't care about your political dogma or religion.

Nor do most career fields or practical jobs other than in politics or religion. Maybe advertising or "Business" runs a close second but there, you can actually have consequences for doing it wrong.

Truth is Truth and it doesn't give a shit about your opinion. You can bullshit or obscure it for awhile but it will always out, eventually.

But more than that, things simply are what they are. Failing to acknowledge this and live in the world as it is simply doesn't benefit anyone, least of all you.

If you have to accurately measure something, change a tire, do a task at work, read a book, take care of a kid or a pet, etc. not a damned one of those things is gonna give a shit if you're the right kind of "Christian" or "Conservative" or not. There is a right way and a wrong way to do most things. Life is not podcast bullshitting or political banter.

I'm a veteran, there is a right way and a wrong way to (for example) put on a gas mask or fire and maintain your weapon. If you do it the wrong way, you can die. Or you can survive but then have to be cared for by others, who also are trying to survive.

My partner might be a moderate conservative, but she's a vet tech. She has to do her job right, the first time, every time, and do it correctly or somebody's pet might die. This cuts down on her believing a lot of the bullshit going around.

You have to know how to get by and survive in a world that doesn't give a crap about you or your claimed "Beliefs."

Not to be crude or anything, but that's simply the way it is. I had this literally beat into me by the time I was like eight years old.

My Dad didn't tolerate lazy-assed not-wanting-to-do-your-homework bullshit, and my Mom was even worse.

I see why that was, now, and I'm grateful that I was taught properly.

Note: This always starts at home, don't let the State raise your kids, folks.

And thankfully, my family generally attended churches that had similar attitudes towards literal and theological Truth and which cared more about you picking up a Christian belief or two and having it stick than about any particular dogma, interpretation or politics.

Now?? the people who allegedly obsess over that you have to believe in their religion just exactly the right way at all times now literally don't care if you can read, or write anything more than "Jesus Did It!"

Anybody who thinks this way is not your friend, they're not on your side. In practical terms, they're really your enemy and their goal is to control you, fuck you over, manipulate you and/or steal from you.

Truth is the only floor most of us will ever have to stand on to push back against Power.

For fuck's sake the Bible itself says as much many times.

That's why these CHUDs want an AI Jesus that they can program to distract the people, or a dead savior on a stick and not a Living Christ that might Judge them.

Right and Wrong are what they are, anybody who cares enough to think about it can figure this out for themselves.

Jesus isn't a "Get Out Of Thinking For Free" card.

Christianity is a vastly complex philosophical and religious endeavor that actually requires a bit of education in it to do properly...if you want to avoid worshiping your own brain chemicals and emotional reactions, that is. 

Doesn't matter what faith one is talking about either, really, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, hippy Neo-Pagan weirdness, faithfulness takes knowledge and work and solidarity with other people.

And it's the bearers of the Tabernacle of Moloch that wish to distract you from this fact.

Salvation might be a free gift, but having the free will to make the choice and knowing what it means takes a little effort.

Participating in the Divine Conversation can be hard, but: You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And that applies to freedom of conscience or religion (and to the freedom of the world from the latter) as much as anything else.

On the Day Of The Lord, randomly blurting out "Jesus Did It!" ain't gonna save you.

You will be judged for your actions and intentions as well as claimed beliefs, please assume God is at least as smart as you are, probably smarter.

There are four lights, yo.

Слава Україна!

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Four

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

New Year, Same Old Bullshit (Day Of The Lord, Four.)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984. 

...

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

...

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

New Year, same old "Literally ANYTHING but 'Love Thy Neighbor'" bullshit.

First I saw some idiot Calvinist trying to say it was a Sin to care about other people.

Like, bro, I've read the Bible, I live in this world. If you don't care about other people, what's the damn point of anything??

I don't know who wants to live like that but I couldn't do it.

After awhile one gets the idea that these Calvinist motherfuckers really figure they could somehow worship Devils and Idols of Gold for worldly Power but get to go to Heaven for claiming to "believe" the right things according to the right formula.

All that falls apart the second you attribute a level of even basic intelligence and observational capability to the Almighty.

Then I saw some idiot pro-Trump preacher trying to say some shit about "Kicking off the New Year with five hours of nonstop worship."

Technically that sounds harmless enough,

Until you actually ask just what the fuck these people are worshiping. Honestly, I don't even think they know. I'm not sure they care.

The short, and probably morally darkest answer, but also the one that tracks the most (especially when it comes to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostals) is "Their own endorphins."

Yes, stop and think about that for a second.

And yes, I have actual experience with these fucking people.

That's exactly what they worship, more often than not.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor." "No," says the man in the Vatican, "it belongs to God." "No," says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone." I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

And please keep in mind who profits from this "Feeling good being evidence of goodness" bullshit, while actively spreading a boatload of philosophies of life and living that actively strip people and society of any actual goodness or even self-respect, which is obviously not the same as self-esteem or self-regard, while promoting emotionalism and reactivity.

I'd point out that this shit makes people very easy to manipulate, but the trouble with that is there's people out there who are fine with being manipulated as long as they get to be bad people or get their biases or their bigotries confirmed.

It's an antisocial social contract.

Basically these shitheads are trying to create an Ecstatic Cult of self-worship and shitty behavior.

Honestly I'm amazed that shit isn't attracting more people, but they're going about it in the dumbest and worst ways possible.

The problem is there's some people out there who will consume the worst possible stupid slop (AI and otherwise) if it has the right (right-wing, that is) political label slapped on it. 

Also known as how Lara Trump has a job.

(Seriously, about any random waitstaff in Nashville can sing better than that garbage, damn.)

We need to stop tolerating this garbage.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're willing to fight for it, or you're not.

Keep in mind the alternative at this point is these fucking Trump people continuing to shit all over American culture and entertainment.

Imagine listening to that voice...

Forever.

Sick of it all yet??

Слава Україна!

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

Three

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ~Amos 5:7-26

Crab Bucket II (Day Of The Lord, Three.)

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

...

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ~Amos 5:7-26

I saw this shit last night.

Erika Kirk is preaching "Submission" again...while doing anything but submitting.

She's basically what my ex-wife would be if the bitch had somehow hit it big. Her whole damn thing was to appeal to the male ego and the male eye and try and leech off of dudes.

Most of the time, though, she just lived off of welfare. That whole scenario was, honestly, my first brush with the tranche of "Conservatism" that freaking dominates MAGA around here, AKA poor religious nuts.

Then I saw some other idiot, bitching about getting rid of low-income housing and SNAP. Like, I'm just sayin' if you don't want women to work and you want them to "submit" to male power...ya'll gonna need a lot more cheap housing and food aid, not to mention higher wages, period. That's not me preaching liberalism, it's simple common sense and mathematics. There has to be something in it for people.

In today's world, you can pretty much either have a traditional lifestyle or you can have unfettered capitalism, you cannot have both because most people, as things are, simply cannot afford that shit. Nobody becomes a parent for the joy of it, yo.

And it's been that way at escalating levels for my entire life. NOTE: I'm an old guy.

And lately these motherfuckers are finding all type of flimsy-ass excuses to make trouble for the daycare industry. That's also been a thing for my whole life! None of this shit is conservative. Conservatism is "Things As They Are." I went to daycare a few times as a kid, usually while my Mom did Yoga or whatever it was when we lived in California. There was nobody to watch me at the time her Yoga class was, and that's my only experience with the subject.

This was in *Checks Notes* like 1983.

As with so much of this horseshit, if it wasn't a big deal 42 years ago why is it now??

And also, "Conservatives" are fighting and tearing each other down like crabs in a bucket, and various Trump admin people are trying to exert some sort of "Authority" to stop it and of course failing.

There is a reason these fucking people are retreating into AI dream-worlds and fantasies about taking over remote corners of the Earth for themselves. They are finding out the hard way they can't just parasitize and take over existing cultures with their weird Bioshock Infinite bullshit.

My theory is they're gonna try for the remote places next, Greenland is unlikely to fall to them, likewise Gaza because if it did I see it taking like five minutes for these assholes and the Israelis to end up being very hostile neighbors. Maybe they'll try space colonization although I see that as being unlikely to succeed simply because These Fucking People won't last very long in environments where you have to do it right the first time, every time, or you might die.

What these people want isn't Christianity, or conservatism.

It's not reality, and you can't beat reality into that kind of shape no matter how hard you try. 

It's narcissism, and that's all it is. These motherfuckers want an unending narcissistic slob job power trip and it's as simple as that.

The rest of the world doesn't have to get on its knees and provide one, and they're getting mad about it.

Too bad. "No" is a complete sentence.

Freedom means being free from some other idiot's narcissism or limitless self-regard, too.

Like, I don't care how great you think you are, I'm free to disagree and just ignore you if I want.

And that's why these idiots hate freedom and want everybody to live in a fucking Crab Bucket and for people to not even be able to talk the way these people talk anymore.

If words themselves have no meaning, they think they can do whatever the fuck they want.

But then, really, at the end of the day that means nobody can do anything, including them. Communication itself requires a certain ground floor of Truth for concepts and words to have meaning and communication to be valid, and accomplishing anything much requires people to communicate.

And that's before you get to the fact that people like Erika Kirk cannot stop contradicting themselves.

"Do as I say, not as I do" is the kind of logic that doesn't work on a five-year-old, and these are supposed to be adults.

Are you tired of this shit yet?? Cuz I sure am!

Again, either you believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're willing to fight for it or you're not.

So get after it.

Слава Україна!

I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock

Two

[Mon Mothma addresses the Senate chambers again]

Mon Mothma: Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries, I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I've spent my life in this chamber. I came here as a child, and as I look around me now, I realize I have almost no memories that predate my arrival, and few bonds of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct. This chamber is a cauldron of opinions, and we've certainly all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come.

I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil! When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest. This Chamber's hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza! What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman, was unprovoked genocide! Yes, genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we helped create, the monster who will come for us all soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine!

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S2.E9 "Welcome To The Rebellion."

Vain Repetitions And Much Speaking (Day Of The Lord, Two.)

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

Therefore when thou does thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou does alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which sees in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

And when thou pray, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou pray, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which sees in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. ~Matthew 6:1-7

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

Last night I saw this bullshit.

Apparently Trump wants to try to institute some "program" to try to get people to spend an hour a week praying.

First, praying to what? 

That kind of matters. 

You can pray to Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump all you want. 

You'll still go to Hell.

Second, that's Constitutionally wrong and not the government's job to tell people to pray or what to pray to per the First Amendment.

And literally the first thing that came into my mind when I read that was Bible verses about Vain Repetitions and people thinking they will be heard for their Much Speaking.

Note: I'm a Christian Agnostic, I'm not a Born-Again anything.

It's kind of sad that I believe in Christ and His Word more than These Fucking People and their followers do. Likewise, the US Constitution, etc.

And at the same time, Elon Musk and assorted idiots on Twitter apparently want to enact the plot of Idiocracy upon the world.

For these motherfuckers, religion is just an excuse to abuse children, enslave women, maintain undeserved control and sanctify their own assholery and perversions. 

I'm tired of this shit. You want to know why so many people currently regard the American Protestant Church as a House Of Devils?? 

That's Why!

And apparently these idiots on Twitter are just coming out and admitting to being pedophiles now. 

That's disgusting and I can remember when you could get beat up or shot for shit like that. 

You know, ancient history like *Checks Notes* up to about 2015 or so.

And it seems to me like all those memes and IRL signs saying shit like "Pedophiles will be handled by Smith And Wesson" disappeared overnight once Trump became a candidate.

It's also funny how since the Epstein files started trickling out all the Q-Anon shit apparently died a very quiet death and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Do words even have meaning to these fucking people anymore??

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Not a huge fan of Bill Cosby but he's right if you're talking about White people nowadays. I've given up trying to figure out or keep track of what the fuck is wrong with these people.

I can't even talk the way these people talk, anymore.

Neither can a hell of a lot of other people that I know, not even most of the conservatives I know.

Like I said yesterday, I haven't seen a MAGA hat in months.

These fucking people are losing the crowd.

And that's part of why it's gonna come down to a fight.

Truth is all most of us have to stand on to push back against Power.

Whether it's the Truth of the Lord's Word or the US Constitution, or both, or some other thing...what it is for you in particular matters less than that you stand on it.

Right now, they're trying to tell you to pray.

These idiots are already trying to roll out some kind of an AI Jesus.

Next year, or the year after that, they'll try to tell you to pray to Trump.

This bullshit is Antichrist. 

It's Babylon.

The "Babylon" of Revelation specifically.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're willing to fight for it, or you're not.

This is American Revelation.

You have been warned.

I've been writing about this, using those exact words, using the same End Times eschatology I was taught as a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement, for seven years.

Time is coming where you're going to have to pick a side.

These assholes aren't going to give you the luxury of being Lukewarm. They'll keep going until everybody has either bowed down or fought back.

Because they're narcissists and as they see it, that way they get their narcissistic fuel either way.

And that's all they care about, their worship of the Self.

But that's how they go to Hell.

Pick a fucking side.

Pick the one your daughter won't be afraid of you for picking.

Слава Україна!

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ~Amos 5:7-26

One

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out!

[repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

Conligula's House (Day Of The Lord, One.)

 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ~Amos 5:7-26

...

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die. Who knows? If there is in fact, a heaven and a hell, all we know for sure is that hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix — a clean well lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except those who know in their hearts what is missing... And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Generation Of Swine.

I saw this last night.

Trump, AKA Conligula The Great, nattering pointlessly about some new obsession with putting marble on everything. Meanwhile a whole shitload of people are about to get priced out of their health care. 

Oh, for extra points, there's still Far-Left idiots waxing eloquent about refusing to support any Democrat that won't unilaterally cut off arms shipments to Israel and sign onto a bunch of far-left fever dream stuff.

Well that's great that you have your theological purity there, homie, meanwhile people like me and my partner are just trying to be free, make ends meet and stay alive while having at least a few things that make life worth living.

I could pretty much give a shit about Israel and Palestine right now, because my partner and I are working class people in Trump's America, she and her kid are both Autistic and LGBT and I'm a disabled veteran. My Mom is retired and on social security...which Republicans want to cut or get rid of.

If you're too privileged to see that there's a lot of people out there dealing with all that shit plus basic survival...fuck you.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

None of us fit into the far-right orthodoxy of These Fucking People and sooner or later pretty much anybody fitting that description is gonna be a target.

What part of "These Chuds want to kill their fellow Americans" don't you understand?? 

And pretty much the one thing far-left and far-right do agree on, it's that both of them hate America.

But the far-left couldn't be bothered to vote for the people who'd at least likely have done something to restrain the Israeli far-right.

Meanwhile the far-right dreams of being Russian Oligarchs...or peasants and has the balls to call that "Christian."

And not a damned one of these fucking people can be bothered to know or learn anything even about any of the stuff they claim to revere.

Narcissism is better, I guess??

I don't know what the fuck we did to deserve this Biblical Plague of Narcissism but I'm tired of it.

Like, apparently Stephen Miller doesn't know that both Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra were Italian.

I knew that when I was a kid.

And WTF is it with this dude basically spending every waking moment seething against "Immigrants" anyway?? 

Dude, get help.

There's something the fuck wrong with these people.

And they're ripping the country apart while Trump plays Interior Decorator redesigning America into the sort of hotel that has mirrors on the ceilings and coin-op vibrating beds in every room.

If you can't see how that's a problem, or don't want to do anything about it because Something Something Gazpacho, I ain't got time for ya.

And if you agree with it? Don't worry, we'll settle up eventually.

That's the thing that pisses me off, both far-left and far-right think all this bullshit is gonna help their brands and they could give a fuck if anybody else dies.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

This is American Revelation.

The Day Of The Lord is coming.

You ready??

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When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

Last Post

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No," says the man in Washington, "it belongs to the poor." "No," says the man in the Vatican, "it belongs to God." "No," says the man in Moscow, "it belongs to everyone." I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock