Bottomless Pit (Easter 2026, Postscript.)

[In the Preox-Morlana planet of Morlana One, Deputy Inspector Syril Karn is confused his superior won't open an investigation into the murder of two Pre-Mor officers]

Chief Inspector Hyne: Tough case. Bad timing.

Deputy Inspector Syril Karn: I'm sure that in several days, with the proper resources, I can bring this case to a-

Hyne: Stop! And I don't just mean the talking. I mean stop. [closes his office door] This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure.

Karn: Sir?

Hyne: Two dedicated Pre-Mor employees caught in the sad orbit of a rare calamity.

Karn: I don't understand.

Hyne: I want you to conjure a suitable accident, and let's make sure it's on the far side of the plaza. Let's get it outside the Leisure Zone.

Karn: But they were murdered!

Hyne: No, they weren't. They were killed in a fight. They were in a brothel, which we're not supposed to have. The expensive one, which they shouldn't be able to afford. Drinking Revnog, which we're not supposed to allow. Both of them supposedly on the job, which is a dismissible offense. They clearly harassed a human with dark features and chose the wrong person to annoy. I suspect they died rushing to aid someone in distress. Nothing too heroic. We don't need a parade. They died being helpful. Something sad but inspiring in a mundane sort of way. [regards Karn] You look stricken, Deputy Inspector. Are you absorbing my meaning here?

Karn: Trying to, sir.

Hyne: When I said bad timing, I wasn't referring to the fact you spent all night worrying this. I mean that I am on my way this very morning to an Imperial Regional Command review, where I'll be asked to make a report about our crime rates, and the goal of that speech, should you ever be asked to deliver it, is brevity. Minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you. [dons his coat, picks up his briefcase and moves to leave] Don't put your feet on my desk in my absence, and let's have an accident report waiting when I get back.

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E1 "Kassa."

...

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this last night.

Keep in mind, Erick Erickson is one of the "smart" Republicans who's made a big point of sticking to a bunch of the old school mores of the Party and called out MAGA and Trump and fellow Republicans more than once, hell, I've quoted him, sometimes favorably and others not so much.

Dinesh is, well, Dinesh. If you expect anything more from Dinesh that he'll drop to his knees in front of Trump (for no reason) faster than a $2 ho for a crack rock, well, you're nuts.

Given the choice between "Bigotry" and "Doing The Right Thing" there's a certain type of asshole Republican that will always pick Bigotry. It don't even matter what it's about. Erick would rather have Trump praising Allah on Easter than have the Transgender day of Remembrance be on Easter. 

Ya know, aside from a general level of human decency and empathy for the lost and those they leave behind, I've never given the Transgender day of Remembrance a bit of thought.

But then, I've never had to, although as I've written about I've lost LGBT people that I cared about. My partner is bisexual, our kid is a lesbian. It's like I said back in 2015 when all this anti-Trans shit got going, I didn't understand it because I'd not even met enough such people to really form an opinion.

That has since changed and at this point I'll gladly take the side of the Transgender folks, especially if it's Erick Erickson and Donald Trump making common cause against them.

These fucking people aren't happy, unless they have somebody they can bully, hate and pick on for no good goddamned reason. It's not just racism, it's every other "Ism" too and every petty hatred, social ill, societal Fentanyl or bit of woo woo that you can imagine, with a side of misery.

Doesn't matter whose misery, their own will do in a pinch. The average Republican of a certain age or social classes is just fine being a miserable bastard their own damn selves. They'll fuck their own shit up or make up something to be mad about if they have to. They don't feel right, if they ain't going around mad all the time, but doing it with a "Conservative" aesthetic.

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.

And they expect to be able to mistreat anyone they damn well feel like while they're at it.

Like I said, I've lost friends over this shit. Nothing of value was lost, apparently.

Doesn't matter who, LGBT folks, non-Christians, People of Color, poor people, Women, of course. Their own who somehow are insufficiently "Conservative" are more of a guilty-pleasure favorite than something that'll do in a pinch. I say that as somebody who perpetually fell into that category on account of using my head as something more than a hat rack, and my partner gets that shit even more than I do...on account of being a right-leaning person working in a professional job where you have to do things right, the first time, every time. All the more so because she cares about people (and animals) and is reasonably intelligent.

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."

The modern Right's whole thing is, somebody has to be abused, or it's somehow not worth getting up in the goddamn morning. And they don't give a fuck who they hurt, kill or traumatize in the process.

For all of these fucking people's fake-Jihadism against the "Left" the big war is, naturally, right-wing "Conservative" regime vs. right-wing conservative regime of a far older type. Unlike Dinesh, I'm not stupid. It's not even about God, not really, as it's the same God and anybody who can fucking read who isn't willfully ignorant knows that. These fucking people fundamentally agree on like 90% of things. It's mostly the combination of that other 10% and one has something the other thinks it wants. The funny part is Mullahs who would be perfectly well at home in the 12th fucking Century are adapting better to the 21st than "Christian" wannabe-Crusaders who like to cosplay what they think are the attitudes of the 12th Century (but in truth they're a massively modern innovation, even within the century-long history of Protestant Fundamentalism.)

And like I said, at this point I think it could be successfully argued that Trump is one of the Prophets Of Baal. Erick and Dinesh don't care, so long as the demons eat somebody else first.

You don't argue with that shit, you don't negotiate, you don't do politics as usual. You go the full Roman and you burn that demonic shit down, you kill it, you smash it, and you salt the Earth so it can't grow again. If you're smart you'll sow distaste, distrust and a lack of tolerance for that shit as deep and hard and across as many theological streams as you possibly can.

And if you don't know why that is, do I really need to repeat myself concerning what I've heard of or seen from the Epstein files??

There isn't a Bottom to Human Evil unless humans make one.

How do people like Erick Erickson think they're gonna go to Heaven when they carry the Bottomless Pit around in their hearts??

And I submit to you that These Motherfuckers would rather Cancel Christ than Love Their Neighbors.

At this point, you either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

Слава Україна!

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 

Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 

Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.

And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two cords of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four water-pots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. 

~2 Kings 18:20-40

Four

Captain Raymus Antilles: Your Highness, the transmission we received. [hands Princess Leia the Death Star schematics] What is it they've sent us?

Princess Leia Organa: Hope.

~From Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Canceling The Resurrection (Easter 2026, Four.)

In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. ~Matthew 28:1-7

..

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~Gautama Buddha

...

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. ~Ronald Reagan

...

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

I saw this bullshit last night.

Lindsey Graham, getting in a vehicle with an open container of alcohol, he's clearly been drinking. Most of us would be looking at a ticket for this, probably have to go to court, etc. And you know it. I had a DUI once and that shit fucked up my life for a while. Open container isn't quite that bad but is not looked kindly upon, either.

It's Easter.

I'm a former Baptist, not Southern Baptist, just regular conservative Baptist and I can remember when this bullshit (especially on Easter weekend) would have been a scandal that dominated headlines (especially in certain Baptist publications) for weeks, if not months. The Southern Baptists? Had something like this shit happened 20 years ago? They'd still be bitching about it.

With the possible exception of alcoholic idiot fake "Southern Baptists" like my partner's cousins.

It's Motherfucking Easter.

And the only Resurrection or spiritually uh, "Transcendent" event that a lot of these idiotic fake Evangelicals care about is the attempted ascent to Godhood of *Checks Notes* Donald Trump.

It's less about the Resurrection than about trying to turn Trump into the White Jesus.

(I'm White and I reject this.)

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.

It's not working. They seem not to care.

And they'd just as soon Cancel the real Resurrection of the actual Jesus if they can't replace Him with Trump.

Drunk senators behaving like some basic old WASP-y shit from the Elks Club flat ignoring the rules of the golf links? The same people who'd have flipped a royal bitch if John McCain had done that shit 20 years ago just don't give a damn anymore.

The same people, or perhaps increasingly often their kids now, are basically just mailing it in. 

They don't give a shit anymore.

Or maybe all that conservative morality and Christian virtue was a lie to begin with.

Potato, Potato, six of one half a dozen of the other. For those of us who aren't in that system anymore or never were to begin with, it doesn't really matter. The end result is the same either way. 

It at least looks like it was basically all bullshit.

And no one seems to care less that their Witness is completely shredded and no one has any reason to follow them than the Christians.

In fact, the same fucking people are now openly plotting to use the Power of the State to try to force their own people and others to follow whole sets of bullshit-ass rules that nobody even would have thought of back when I was at my most conservative and clearly in the "On Fire For God" stage of End Times Prophecy Movement belief as a young Airman 30 years ago!

But "Follow us, or else" ain't a reason.

I don't actually give a rat's ass what the alleged "Power" of our fading State says in that regard. 

Not against the fact that I've read 2nd Kings and I know how that whole bit worked out for the prophets of Baal.

So Ahab sent for all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together on Mount Carmel. 

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word. 

Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 

Therefore let them give us two bulls; and let them choose one bull for themselves, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it; and I will prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood, but put no fire under it. 

Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

So all the people answered and said, “It is well spoken.”

Now Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one bull for yourselves and prepare it first, for you are many; and call on the name of your god, but put no fire under it.”

So they took the bull which was given them, and they prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even till noon, saying, “O Baal, hear us!” But there was no voice; no one answered. Then they leaped about the altar which they had made.

And so it was, at noon, that Elijah mocked them and said, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is meditating, or he is busy, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they cried aloud, and cut themselves, as was their custom, with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them. And when midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. But there was no voice; no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Israel shall be your name.” Then with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord; and he made a trench around the altar large enough to hold two cords of seed. And he put the wood in order, cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood, and said, “Fill four water-pots with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood.” Then he said, “Do it a second time,” and they did it a second time; and he said, “Do it a third time,” and they did it a third time. So the water ran all around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones and the dust, and it licked up the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces; and they said, “The Lord, He is God! The Lord, He is God!”

And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. 

~2 Kings 18:20-40

The thing to remember is all these idiots actually care about is a bigoted hierarchy with the appearance of a "Conservative" aesthetic, the ability to act like douche-bags with some measure of impunity and some kind of imagined "right" to mistreat women, and ultimately to kill and manipulate and steal.

And they don't actually care if anybody else gets this, or anything like it, or anything at all, really.

All of These Fucking People, on an individual basis, only want this shit for themselves.

That's not how this works.

Not if you want to maintain a Civilization, anyway.

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

And without Civilization, most people's lives in fact are nasty, brutish and short.

The rich people think they're going to hide in bunkers and escape all that, but they won't.

The whole damn point of days like Easter is that it's possible to have a new world...for everybody, not just rich people or whoever one thinks is somehow "Deserving"...and without burning everything down and starting over.

That is literally what the Resurrection even is.

Jesus made a New Covenant that was supposed to make all the harsh religiosity and sacrifices unnecessary by becoming the Sacrifice His own damn self!

Jesus took the Sin of the world upon Himself and suffered for it and became the Sacrifice so you wouldn't have to! Technically, you ain't even gotta follow it. Or you can seek grace in your own way, this is why other beliefs continued to exist and continue to spring up. Christ's death on the Cross and subsequent Substitutionary Atonement is not diminished by the fact that some people might choose to believe in something else, or nothing at all or even whether anybody likes it or not.

Imam: Just because you do not believe in God, Mr. Riddick, does not mean God does not believe in you–

Riddick: You think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? You think he could start out in some … liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe in God? You got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God, and I absolutely hate the fucker. ~From the film Pitch Black.

But accepting such a view of the world and spirituality requires Faith.

People like Donald Trump and Doug Wilson and Pete Keg-Breath? They don't want that. They want to issue everybody X amount of Sin because for them Sin means control and guilt and worldly Power, it means spiritual captivity, not liberation.

They don't know and seem not to care that they're in spiritual captivity with the same shit their own damn selves. Or, as I put it on Threads earlier...they prefer the sure thing of counting heads in Hell to taking their chances with God's judgment in Heaven.

From everything I've ever observed about it, MAGA and all this far-right Global Authoritarianism, Inc. Bullshit is one of the most faithless movements of people that ever was. Soviet Communism has nothing on these motherfuckers!

But then, if you really look at it the true "Prophet" of this movement, the guy who really started it and propagated it, is KGB Agent Vladimir Putin.

So I don't know what the fuck anybody else would expect.

And Republicans go along with this shit, out of fear of any possible New World whatever.

Reagan Wept.

I'm old enough to remember when tearing down people like Vladimir Putin created whole new worlds of possibility for millions of people the world over.

And Republicans didn't just do it, they were the captains of the fucking team!

Now, fundamentally, they're mad because other people besides them have gotten to have Freedom.

Well, sorry bud, but either you believe in freedom or you don't. Privilege ain't the same.

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

And on this day, of all days, which celebrates the coming of Spring and the triumph over Sin, remember that.

There's a new world out there.

But just like the whole concept of Salvation as I was taught that...you have to want it, and at this stage of the game you have to choose it freely.

Remember that, today.

It's Easter, the day of the Resurrection.

And remember also, that the alternative is to follow a man who apparently can't decide if he's a Christian or a Muslim of if he is "God" incarnate.

Just sayin' no matter how it goes, spending one's Eternity with Donald Trump seems like it's own special kind of Hell.

Remember that, because I have a creeping feeling it's going to matter, soon.

At this point you either believe in Trump or you believe in...well, pretty much anything else.

You want this shit to stop? It's going to come down to a fight.

You don't have to let these assholes cancel the Resurrection.

Remember that.

Слава Україна!

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ~Matthew 24:27

Three

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. ~Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Captain Raymus Antilles: Your Highness, the transmission we received. [hands Princess Leia the Death Star schematics] What is it they've sent us?

Princess Leia Organa: Hope.

~From Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Bodies In The Tomb (Easter 2026, Three.)

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews. ~Luke 23:33-38

...

[ISB director Col Wullf Yularen addresses Major Partagaz and all ISB officers in the wake of the Aldhani raid]

Col Wullf Yularen: The criminals responsible for last night's atrocity on Aldhani think they've taken the Empire by surprise. We know better. We know the real shock will be when they discover how ready and eager we are to respond, to be prepared, to be here this morning and know that the only question we need to answer is how tight to close our fist. This is why we plan. This is why we work so hard when we're at peace. This is why we recruit so carefully and demand so much. The following measures will be adopted Empire-wide as of today. A tribute tax equal to five times the amount stolen from Aldhani will be levied on any sector harboring partisan activity. We will make it clear that no one steals from the Empire. The use of any local custom, festival, or tradition as cover for rebel activity will trigger permanent revocation of Imperial tolerance. 

I spoke with Emperor Palpatine last night, and he's assured me that the ISB will be taking the lead going forward. No one in this room should have trouble accessing Army or Naval resources in future. The Emperor will be convening an emergency session of the Senate to propose a legislation package of bills and amendments that will free our hands in all matters of surveillance, search, and seizure. We will be invoking the Public Order Resentencing Directive later today. P-O-R-D. Any criminal act, with even indirect effect on the Empire, will henceforth be branded a Class One Offense. All prison sentences are immediately re-evaluated. All outstanding fines and levies are to be paid in full. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E7 "Announcement."

...

Saladin: I will grant every soul safe passage to Christian lands. Every soul. The women, the children, the old. And all your knights and soldiers. And your Queen. Your King, such as he is, I leave to you, and what God will make of him. No one will be harmed. I swear it to God.

Balian of Ibelin: The Christians butchered every Muslim within the walls when they took this city.

Saladin: [Firmly] I am not those men. I am Saladin. Sala-hu-Din.

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

I saw this last night when I got up for work.

Apparently, the Pentagon hosted a Good Friday service for Protestants that excluded Catholics.

Now, first off if you know how chaplaincy and religion works in the military this is flat-out against military law and regulations.

Second, it seems pretty damn stupid to start shit in your own forces when you're at war.

And, especially over some stupid religious bullshit that's fine out in the civilian world, but out of line when the literal cultural viewpoint of the military basically forever (especially as regards various Christian denominational bullshit) has been religiously neutral literally as a reflection of the fact that we serve a large, diverse, pluralistic nation.

America is that whether you want it to be or not.

Yes, I get it. Republicans don't wanna play well with others anymore, and Republicans and the wealthy think if they stop doing that they can just beat everybody else into compliance. Well, guess what? There's more of the rest of us than y'all and people are already tired of this fucking garbage.

There is simply no way...especially given the time constraints baked into the system...to bully 330 MILLION people into all becoming Republicans, it just ain't gonna happen. And yes, that's what it's about, the overwhelming majority of these sons of bitches don't care about the Lord's Word or any other damn thing except possibly as a marketing scheme.

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.

I get it, these motherfucking idiots don't care, rich white men are so high on the smell of their own shit right now that they don't even have the slightest idea what the hell is going on.

And Republicans are staring down the barrel of an irate public and utterly abysmal polling numbers right now and trying to figure out how to cheat instead of doing anything different.

Right now that's a problem for everybody else, but it won't take long for it to become a problem for them in particular.

They keep this shit up, it ends badly, especially for them.

There ain't no pension plan in the Dictator business.

That's one of the reasons the original American political class came up with modern Democracy and a lot of the rest of the world eventually followed along. It's simple survival instinct.

And now These Fucking People have started actively mistreating both the people with the guns and their families. Yeah, keep that shit up. I'm a veteran, but more to the point I've been to some other countries and I can tell you this kind of shit does not end well.

Worse, you might consider we're being out-memed By. The. Iranians.

I'm going to politely ask you to stop and think about that for a second.

These Fucking People cannot even compete in their claimed area of unassailable mastery without the deck being completely stacked by people like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey.

And yes, that level of failure and incompetence is spreading out into the real world including into the kind of brutally Darwinian spaces where nobody can afford to fuck up, and where you might get killed even if you do everything right.

We're losing, and I suspect the level at which we're actually losing is probably embarrassing.

I rather suspect that the only thing that our elites and our government are even being truthful about right now is their mentality of "Fuck You!"

I'm pretty sure by the time I was old enough to use words like that on occasion, I'd read enough history to know how well that kind of shit usually ended.

Because the thing is, we're already at the point where you have to want to be distracted from this bullshit and only those who wanna be are still sozzled on prejudice and propaganda.

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

Yeah, they might keep the narcissists, a certain kind of religious fanatic and those who are addicted to misery and would rather squat in the dark and shit on their own shoes than see anybody else get any light, but that's not even most people, much less everybody.

Everybody knows shit's not working, Everybody.

It's Easter.

And These Fucking People don't want a Resurrected, living Christ, A Savior who demands some sort of a relationship and participation in the Divine Conversation, but who will judge them for falling short without repentance. 

No, They want a Dead Prophet On A Stick that will justify their wrongs.

It's Easter.

If you're a Christian, you either believe in a Resurrected Christ or you don't.

I have no better way to put it.

If that's you, this day, when He was in the tomb, that's for you. That's where your story ends as well.

Have a good sleep.

A lot of people seem to want it that way.

Lots of bodies in that tomb.

Lots of people don't want to accept the Grace or do the work of repentance and making amends to get to the Resurrection. Lots of people like their Sin too much.

And that's just the Christians...

And as for the rest of you?

At this point either you believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

Two

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

Bad Friday (Easter 2026, Two.)

And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, And saying, If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself. And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, This Is The King Of The Jews. ~Luke 23:33-38

...

Valin Hess: So what shall we toast to, boys? I can blather on about “To health” or “To success,” but I’d like to do somethin’ a little less rote. Where you from, Brown Eyes?

Migs Mayfield: How ’bout a toast to Operation Cinder?

Hess: Now there’s a man who knows his history.

Mayfield: No, I don’t just know it. I lived it. I was in Burnin Konn.

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

Hess: That was a hard day. I had to make many unpleasant decisions.

Mayfield: Yes, you did. Entire city gone in moments, along with everybody in it. We lost our whole division that day. Man, that was like 5-10,000 people.

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

Hess: Well, it’s a small sacrifice for the greater good, son.

Mayfield: Depends on who you ask, don’t you think?

Hess: [irritated] What you gettin’ at, trooper?

Mayfield: All those people, the ones who died, was it good for them? Hmm? Their families? The guys I served with? Civilians, those poor mud scuffers, died defending their homes, fighting for freedom. Was it good for them? 

Hess: But we’ve outlasted them, son. They’re eating themselves alive. The New Republic is in complete disarray, and we grow stronger. You see, with the rhydonium you’ve delivered, we can create havoc that’s gonna make Burnin Konn pale by comparison. And then they’re gonna turn to us once again. You see, boys, everybody thinks they want freedom, but what they really want is order. And when they realize that, they’re gonna welcome us back with open arms. Ah. To the Empire.

[Mayfield chuckles, then fires a blaster at Hess' chest, killing him instantly. He and Mando then shoot their way out of the mess hall] ~From The Mandalorian, Season 2, Ep. 7 "The Believer"

I saw this yesterday.

Some idiot Republican Congressman who's probably never worked an actual day in his life telling people to "Just Get Another Job."

Homie I'm looking for another job, season doesn't start starting around here for another couple of weeks and I have a family now so no, I really don't want to be working two jobs between my own energy level and wanting to spend time with them when we can get together. It's already hard enough as it is.

And then I saw that idiot Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers said it's "Blasphemy" to not believe in Christ.

No, bro, for one thing this is America. Nobody has to be a Christian at all, let alone your kind.

Not that he really believes either, except in a joyless religiosity of Power, Self and Selfishness.

And something is clearly going wrong in Republican-land, apparently even in Oklahoma.

Or these motherfuckers wouldn't be talking like this. With These Fucking People, the religious talk always gets really weird just before things implode.

I happen to know this from personal experience.

In February of 2001 things got really bad between my now ex-wife and I, she lost her job (again) and we'd been just getting by with both of us working and going to school. It was the slow season at my job and I wasn't getting enough hours to make up the difference. We had asked the church we were going to for help.

They gave us a $100 gift card to Walmart, a gas gift card to the local chain gas station, a bunch of canned goods and $50, basically enough to pull us out of the hole if we'd been in. My Mom and I were going to meet for breakfast the next morning before I went to class. My Mom had said she was going to give me $100. That would have put us ahead a little. Hell, I had a grocery list written down.

So what'd my soon-to-be-ex-wife do? She stole the $50 out of my wallet while I was sleeping (after she, er,  made a point of wearing me out, LOL) sold the gift card for $50, went downstairs to the bar for Karaoke and managed to blow pretty much the entire $100 on alcohol and junk food. I knew she wanted to go out. I had told her to take the $20 out of my wallet and leave the $50.

When I called her on it the next morning she was completely unrepentant, the resulting argument got pretty ugly.

Her bullshit was literally pricing us out of being able to make it. I told her that.

She told me to ask my Mom for more money. I was like WTF? No!

So, I left, went out to breakfast with my Mom and told her what happened. It turned out my Mom did give me a little bit more and put gas in my truck and paid for some groceries but she told me not to tell my soon-to-be-ex-wife so I didn't.

We discussed contingency plans, which I really didn't want to do, but was starting to not see a choice.

Bitch flipped a bitch about it after I got home from class AND work too, she literally had expected everybody else to cover for her bullshit and give her money, too! And she pretty much baldly put it in those terms, because she's a fucking narcissist. I told her I'd walk if she didn't cut the shit.

Her bullshit line at the time was "God will provide."

No, bullshit!

Other people gave us money and stuff!

That argument got even uglier, and of course ended with her going downstairs to the bar to sing and get drunk.

Not particularly proud of it but while she was gone I accepted the neighbor lady's standing offer of companionship and we got hella stoned, but in the process I made up my mind what I was gonna do about this mess.

Bitch-face suspected, and as far as I know is still mad about it.

The next morning when my soon-to-be-ex caught a ride to Petoskey with the neighbor she had a class with, I called my boss, explained the situation, arranged to take my accumulated PTO (About five days) packed a bag, my guns, important documents and the dog and headed for my Mom's house.

Things weren't getting any better, so I said "Fuck It." 

It was a Friday, February 16th, 2001.

As soon as she figured out what happened, that was the start of an endless stream of E-mails and phone calls so bad that my Mom unplugged all the phones and insisted we turn off our cell phones.

Within 48 hours my ex got on a Pentecostal mania that took at least 20 years to even die down a little, but in the meantime there was everything from threats of brimstone, death (her own and that of others) and hellfire to utterly anguished pleading.

I guess she didn't think I was serious when I told her she was making it impossible for us to continue.

My Mom had left one phone plugged in, out in the garage, and when it was really quiet I could hear it ring every few minutes, this went on for days. I stopped looking at my Email and, after about three days of this just went and got a Yahoo email address to replace my Hotmail and reconnected with everybody else that way.

By the time I had to go back to work I had my head on sort of straight. My ex started being "nice" and trying to get me to stop by on the way to or from school and/or work or do stuff like take her to the laundromat or the small local grocery store (and I accepted more than once and that's when the really weird shit started.)

It had nothing to do with Jesus, it had everything to do with she wanted an easy life of wealth without work and to freely indulge her addictions and perversions. Religion was just a convenient excuse and way to shut down obvious argument.

But by the start of March I had gotten into the dorms at the college and was sort-of figuring stuff out. I've written extensively about what happened between us and with me after that, but I've never written about leaving itself.

The shit was too painful.

But I made a choice to never, ever, put up with that type of shit ever again.

And that's what it's going to come to, America. In fact it's probably a miracle my ex isn't a MAGA.

There's a very good chance our national unity isn't going to survive this mess, anymore than our marriage survived my ex's addictions, irresponsibility and religious fanaticism.

These Fucking People are all the same way. 

They've made all the obvious bad choices, and if anything it looks like now that the bill is coming due, they expect everybody else to do the work and pay for it. 

No, none of this shit works that way. Fuck You.

And apparently These Fucking People don't trust the troops or anybody else to implement their delusions, as well they should not. If anything, the voting patterns say they're not going to get anywhere near as much of America as they thought they were going to when that national split-up occurs.

Pretty much it'll work out the same way for them that it did for my ex. And I guarantee you in five or ten or twenty years when the rest of us have moved on they'll still be the same way, doing the same shit while shouting Praise The Lord and Pass The Designer Drugs as their Earthly fiefdoms collapse or shrink, and it'll still be everybody else's fault but theirs.

It's Good Friday. The Resurrection is coming.

So it is in life, but first we're gonna have to deal with a bunch of bloody mess and weird shit, America.

Слава Україна!

The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan

One

"I didn't want to do it,'' he hears himself saying. "I didn't want to leave them behind.''

The void laughs at him. There are miles of empty air beneath his dangling feet. "You had no choice.''

"Yes I did! I didn't have to come here.'' He pauses. "I didn't have to do anything,'' he says quietly, and inhales another lungful of death. "It was all automatic. Maybe it was inevitable.''

"-- Evitable,'' echoes the distant horizon. Something dark and angular skims across the stars, like an echo of extinct pterosaurs. Turbofans whirring within its belly, the F-117A hunts on: patrolling to keep at bay the ancient evil, unaware that the battle is already lost. "Your family could still be alive, you know.''

He looks up. "They could?'' Andrea? Jason? "Alive?''

The void laughs again, unfriendly: "There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.'' 

~From A Colder War, a novella by Charles Stross.