Hellfire III (Repent! Four.)

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.

And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thundering, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! ~Revelation 8 (KJV)

As if we're not already testing the Wrath of God enough today, I just saw this.

Do these clowns not know how that kind of thing works in real life??

Also, have these fucking people never heard the words "Good order and discipline?"

I served post-Tailhook scandal.

I HAD my first sexual harassment training during Air Force BMT at Lackland Air Force Base in 1993. It would not be the last.

Do these fucking people not realize, this kind of thing would get us kicked out of countries and start wars BY ITSELF?? 

Ya'll don't think the Chinese or the Emiratis or the Filipinos gonna protect their women? Do they think *Checks Notes* that Americans would not??

Hell, do they think women would not protect themselves??

'Cause I've not only already had that discussion....

I've actively shit-canned people with fully-"I know where you live" level threats of violence to people I actually cared about and who I thought understood things like right from wrong and that I taught them better than this...that I'm more than capable of delivering on because of my belief that women should not have to put up with this kind of crap.

Whether it was my partner or anybody else!

This shit ain't right and you shouldn't need somebody like me to tell you that, Period.

 

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."

There's nothing conservative about any of this.

Women are not your sexual property, guys.

Now I fully well realize that Jesse Watters is an utter Chuckle-fuck with no home training whatever, but I can remember when just talking like that would get a dude's ass beat, get him fired from his job, and you never saw that dude again...and it was worse in public life. 

If this is the kind of thing these dudes go around thinking about, no wonder we're getting punked by the Iranians, and we deserve it.

As I've written about before, I used to work with dudes that talked like this at my old job, old and middle-aged White dudes with some level of erectile dysfunction who wouldn't shut up about the one time they solicited certain acts from women of questionable integrity in someplace like Japan or Thailand while they were in the Navy, or whatever.

I did IT work for some of those guys, too. 90% of the time it amounted to just cleaning out all the viruses they would get from porn sites and shit, and it finally got to the point where I instituted a $50 Stupid Tax and a $100 I-Don't-Wanna-See-That-Again Tax and compiled a list of reputable sites that wouldn't fuck their shit up. 

None of it mattered, they'd take the stuff I gave them, ignore it, get their shit infected again, pay the money and do it again. It finally just got to the point where it wasn't worth doing the work.

Quitting was easier than getting these old fools to be responsible for their own behavior and hell, their own damn property that they had in some cases spent considerable amounts of money on. And none of these guys were rich. They were all janitors in a casino.

And I should point out all of these guys were the same crew I've written about, staring Zombie-eyed at the breakroom TV like ADHD kids zonking out on cartoons whenever FOX News was on.

Guess I know where they were getting their attitudes from, huh?

I wonder, when the Hell-fire of God's wrath starts raining down on America directly, will these fucking people repent or will they try and deny that, too, just like they did COVID-19??

Freedom requires belief in Truth.

You think these men, given the full run of their desires, would only abuse Women?? LOL.

The persistent thread of homoeroticism with these dudes should be terrifying the Evangelicals. It isn't. Women aren't the only ones who get sexually assaulted, and at this point Romans 1 can easily be said to describe the American Church.

His Wrath ain't just coming, it's already here.

When is Enough going to be Enough??

You either believe in the Truth or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Three

[As the four newly-revealed Cylons aboard Galactica struggle to deal with the information, the call to action stations sounds]

Lieutenant Felix Gaeta: [over the loudspeaker] ...Inbound Cylon fleet! I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition One throughout the ship. This is not a drill.

Tory Foster: Oh gods... what're we going to do?

Saul Tigh: The ship is under attack. We do our jobs. Report to your stations!

Chief Galen Tyrol: Report to stations?

Saul Tigh: My name is Saul Tigh. I am an officer in the Colonial Fleet. Whatever else I am, whatever else it means, that's the man I want to be. And if I die today, that's the man I'll be. ~From Battlestar Galactica (2003) S3.E20 "Crossroads, Part 2."

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ~Matthew 3:2

Hellfire II (Repent! Three.)

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.

And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;

And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! 

~Revelation 8 (KJV)

...

(In a classroom. The Homeboys are getting high.)

Wangler: Bitches. All women is bitches.

Markstrom: Yeah, man, we don't know Mavis is cheating, man.

Keane: I know.

(Kareem Said comes in.)

Said: That boy is 16 years old, he's in for twenty, which means he can be out in 6. He could be back on the street by the time he's 22. He can still have a life!

Keane: Get the fuck out of here, Kenny.

Wangler: What?

Keane: You heard me, kid. I said get the fuck goin'!

Markstrom: Come on, Kenny, let's give him some privacy. Later. (He and Wangler leave.)

Said: You wanna rage at the faith? You fear the fire, my brother. Fear the fire! I am done with you.

(Keane collapses, suffering a flashback)

Arabic Voiceover: Allah-U-Akbar!

Keane: Reverend. I do. I do feel the fire. Save me.

Said: No. You saved me. (Said places his Khufi on Keane's head.)

(Hill narrating.)

Hill: Some say finding God is a glorious thing. They're wrong. It's dangerous. You spend your whole life in a world of men, but when you finally see his power, his greatness, other men fall out of view. 'Cause you're so focused on him, you can barely see them from the corners of your eyes. You lose sight of them. 

~From the HBO Series Oz S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

These pictures are screenshots taken from a video I watched last night. TikTok via Facebook or Threads or some such, taken by the crew of a locomotive engulfed by fire somewhere in Northern Ontario. 

They made it out, but if feels like it was probably a close-run thing.

I took this one off my back deck on Wednesday morning. 

It's not any better today.

Like I just said on Facebook; I'm just sayin' if I was some hypothetical Unsaved non-Believer of Evangelical fantasy who'd never heard the Lord's Word before??

Between that video of damned near literal Hell-fire engulfing that train in northern Canada that I saw last night and the deeds described in what I've seen of the Epstein files, I'm pretty sure I'd at least think Hell and a fair portion of the Old Testament was accurate and true just from that.

 
Same with all the stuff from Daniel about Nebuchadnezzar because America has its own, now.

And, do you really think he wouldn't throw people in a burning fiery furnace if he thought he could get away with it??

Also, a certain percentage of right-wing Christians are still freaking in love with the guy. 

Think about that for a second.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

Just sayin' there's going to come a point where the only goddamned American thing to do is tell These Fucking People "No."

Thanks to the forest fires in Canada, I look out my window and see that there's a sickly Hades-like gray haze over everything.

Climate Change is working up some Biblical-grade consequences all by itself at this point.

Note: And the "Conservatives" want to ignore that, too.

And all the fucking President can be bothered to do is stand there and talk about nonsense and grievances and how he's still mad that he lost an election six fucking years ago. One that, if he really believed he'd won, he shouldn't be President NOW.
That's right, the world is burning and all our leaders wanna talk about is themselves. 

That and some of these people keep posting pictures or videos of themselves that it looks like they figure they're gonna beat off to it later. 

Come on now.

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.

Get the fuck with it and get over yourself, America. 

I don't think God is gonna keep indulging all this garbage much longer.

In the 1990's I was a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement, this started when I was in the Air Force. 

It's a long story and maybe I'll tell how it started sometime, or maybe I won't, but I've already written extensively about the overall sweep of things over the years.

Like what part of "And Hell followed with him" is so damn hard to read?

Kinda feels like we're there, except it's reality.

Not religion, not theology, I can look out my window and see it.

Same with all the conspiracy theories. I was a conservative and a member of the End Times Prophecy Movement in Bill Clinton's America. The gigantic fiasco that was the Y2K conspiracy theory cured me of belief in that crap but I was one of those fucking people long before it was cool and when it would definitely get you laughed at on a bipartisan basis.

That said, it kinda feels like all the bullshit conspiracy theories of 2017-2020 like Pizzagate and Q-Anon were actually These Fucking People telling on themselves, doesn't it??

And the thing is (and I've also written about this, too) I knew 30+ years ago that all the far-right Militia nuts and shit were fucking scumbags, I had a few altercations with them in fact, one while I was literally IN UNIFORM on my way back to the base, it happened not too far from here in fact.

When these guys don't wash their hands or wipe their ass and they're bragging about that...or they look like something that fell out of a can of Copenhagen Wintergreen Long Cut, even before the fact that every word that comes out of their damn mouths is a lie, that should tell you something.

When some billionaire or politician looks like a guy you wouldn't leave your Cat alone with much less your kid, that should in fact be a fucking clue.

Why the fuck do we tolerate this bullshit, America??

Why do we keep elevating the worst of us, and people who are by any conventional understanding both Godless and utterly fucking stupid, to positions of Power??

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And pretty soon you're not gonna have a choice but to decide.

What's it gonna take to make people give a shit again??

Слава Україна!

Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. ~Barry Goldwater

Two

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

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ~Matthew 3:2

Hellfire I (Repent! Two.)

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. ~Matthew 25:31-45

...

(In a classroom. The Homeboys are getting high.)

Wangler: Bitches. All women is bitches.

Markstrom: Yeah, man, we don't know Mavis is cheating, man.

Keane: I know.

(Kareem Said comes in.)

Said: That boy is 16 years old, he's in for twenty, which means he can be out in 6. He could be back on the street by the time he's 22. He can still have a life!

Keane: Get the fuck out of here, Kenny.

Wangler: What?

Keane: You heard me, kid. I said get the fuck goin'!

Markstrom: Come on, Kenny, let's give him some privacy. Later. (He and Wangler leave.)

Said: You wanna rage at the faith? You fear the fire, my brother. Fear the fire! I am done with you.

(Keane collapses, suffering a flashback)

Arabic Voiceover: Allah-U-Akbar!

Keane: Reverend. I do. I do feel the fire. Save me.

Said: No. You saved me. (Said places his Khufi on Keane's head.)

(Hill narrating.)

Hill: Some say finding God is a glorious thing. They're wrong. It's dangerous. You spend your whole life in a world of men, but when you finally see his power, his greatness, other men fall out of view. 'Cause you're so focused on him, you can barely see them from the corners of your eyes. You lose sight of them. ~From the HBO Series Oz S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

I woke up last night to a slew of comments on Trump's bullshit speech about the 2020 election.

I didn't bother watching it myself. From what I heard it was the same old rehashed, warmed-over bullshit 'cause Trump can't get over losing in 2020. (If he thinks that's bad, he has no idea what's coming. People are pissed off.)

And, well, if we're being honest, I kept re-watching a video from a train crew in Northern Ontario whose locomotive was literally engulfed in a fire and all they could do was keep going and hope they made it through before something cooked off. They made it, passing another train on a siding in the process. Think about that.

The world is on fire.

I don't know how much more literally you want me to put that.

We've been being smoked out here in Northern Michigan for days already, and all Trump can keep doing is talking about himself and all his nonsense and petty grievances in a voice that sounds like Chloroform, enunciated.

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. ~ Mark Twain

I'm just sayin' if I was some hypothetical Unsaved non-Believer who'd never heard the Lord's Word before, between that video of damned near literal Hell-fire from northern Canada and the deeds described in what I've seen of the Epstein files, I'm pretty sure I'd at least think Hell and a fair portion of the Old Testament was accurate and true just from that, same with all the stuff from Daniel about Nebuchadnezzar because America has its own, now.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

And Trump and all these CHUDs are all-but demanding blood sacrifice and worship and levels of cowering compliance that they just will not get from America.

No, fuck you. Sooner or later somebody's gonna be That Guy.

Don't Tread On Me with this bullshit.

And I keep seeing pictures and videos of all these MAGA CHUDs striking a pose like they think they're going to jerk off to it later.

No one will ever love this one Wyoming Republican candidate nearly as much as he appears to love himself.

I don't mean to be crude or anything, but there's no other way to even describe this idiocy.

Seriously, the level of narcissism with these fucking idiots is off the damn hook.

It's not just that they deserve to lose, it's that if they don't, God is going to continue to rain shit down on this country.

I mean, come on, who even does shit like that??

And if we, as a people, keep tolerating this garbage...even if there is no punishment, which I believe at this point, there is and it is ongoing...God, the rest of the world, the Universe etc. is just going to wash their hands of this place, move on without us and let us suffer the consequences of our own actions until we figure it the fuck out.

I mean, for fuck's sake, look outside! When I was at the stop sign on the main street on my way home from work you could see the smoke in the headlights of a truck that passed by. 

The world here is seen through a sickly-looking gray veil this morning. It sucks enough here in Michigan that my partner and the kiddo are going to Florida to her Mom and Dad's for the weekend. Have fun, yo. I gotta work and it it sucks here.

It's been that way since Wednesday here, at least.

I am the way into the city of woe.

I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

And these fucking people basically keep jerking off, each to their own Golden Image.

They don't care that it looks like the first circle of Hell across half the country.

It's no wonder we're losing to the Iranians, send these motherfuckers into battle, they're gonna pull their pants down and grab their gun instead of their rifle and check their appearance in the mirror before they go charging at the enemy, and the result will be quite predictable.

You cannot technologize your way out of just plain old Godless arrogance and stupidity.

This shit is reaching Biblical proportions and we're all gonna pay for it. You watch and see if we don't.

Note I say that as a former Republican myself.

And at that point, you either believe in Freedom or you don't.

You either believe in the God of the Universe or you believe in Donald Trump.

One of these things is not like the other one.

You cannot have it both ways at this point. I didn't make it that way, he did.

Make your choice.

Слава Україна!

Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. ~Barry Goldwater

One

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ~Matthew 3:2

Lost Souls (Repent! One.)

I am the way into the city of woe.

I am the way to a forsaken people.
I am the way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred justice moved my architect.
I was raised here by divine omnipotence, primordial love and ultimate intellect
Only those elements time cannot wear are beyond me,
and beyond time I stand.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'
~Sign above the gates of hell (variant translation) Canto III, Dante's Inferno, the Divine Comedy.

...

[Xerxes has advanced to meet Leonidas, seated on a solid gold throne carried on the backs of many slaves.]

Leonidas: Let me guess... you must be... Xerxes?

Xerxes: Come, Leonidas. Let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste, it would be nothing short of madness, were you, brave King, and your valiant troops to perish... all because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.

Leonidas: Oh, haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.

Xerxes: Yours is a fascinating tribe. Even now, you are defiant, in the face of annihilation and the presence of a god. It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.

Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.

Xerxes: You Greeks take pride in your logic. I suggest you employ it. Consider the beautiful land you so vigorously defend. Picture it reduced to ash at my whim! Consider the fate of your women!

Leonidas: Clearly you don't know our women. I might as well have marched them up here, judging by what I've seen. You have many slaves, Xerxes, but few warriors. It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.

Xerxes: It is not the lash they fear, it is my divine power. But I am a generous god. I can make you rich beyond all measure. I will make you warlord of all Greece. You will carry my battle standard to the heart of Europa. Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet... if you will but kneel at mine.

Leonidas: You are generous as you are divine, O King of Kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But the, uh, the idea of kneeling, it's... You see, slaughtering all those men of yours has, uh, well, it's left a nasty cramp in my leg, so kneeling will be hard for me.

Xerxes: [incensed at what Leonidas just said] There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned, and every Greek historian and every scribe shall have their eyes put out and their tongues cut from their mouths! Why, uttering the very name of Sparta or Leonidas will be punishable by death! The world will never know you existed at all!

Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many and, before this battle is over, that even a god-king can bleed.

~From the film 300.

...

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

So I've been seeing this shit all over the place the last couple of days, Trump keeps trying to delegitimize Georgia's two Senators, John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, "Little" Mike Johnson keeps ranting about "Communism" even though it hasn't been a thing since 1989 and of course These Fucking People are on a kick of trying to relegate women to childbearing and housework.

First off, fuck all that. Second, let me tell you what's really going on here.

Lindsey Graham died and this is known. I'm pretty sure Mitch McConnell is Dead dead or these ass-clowns wouldn't be in such an obvious panic.

These guys are starting to realize for all their alleged political Power, they cannot outrun Death. Eternal Life comes from compassion, not greed, and it cannot be earned or manipulated for. It's a free gift, if you Repent.

It's free, but you have to be sorry for what you did wrong in order to enter into the Presence of the One who cannot abide it. You have to reject your own wrongs and believe in the Forgiveness that Jesus offers you.

That is the Only price of admission into the Afterlife as Christianity defines it.

And that is the one thing These Fucking People cannot and WILL NOT do. It's hard to Repent when you not only don't think you did anything wrong...but the reason you don't think it's wrong is you did it.

Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. ~Barry Goldwater

None of this shit is Patriarchy or Politics or Religion as conventionally understood even from the most conservative of perspectives according to the idea that any of these words have meaning, and it's sure as hell not Conservative. What this crap is...is Narcissism, pure and simple, with large side-orders of bigotry and petty grievance and relative status that, again, loop directly back into the core problem that most of these shitty little weirdos are Narcissists.

Worse, they're all trying to cheat each other and the Universe.

Trump can say whatever he wants, that doesn't make it True. You have to be able to prove things in this country. Perversely, that's exactly WHY these fucking idiots are trying to turn everything into legends, mythology or simplistic tautology.

You can argue the words of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, but at the end of the day, in all cases they or somebody around them wrote all the shit that they did or said down.

It's a lot harder to argue against, for example, the idea that there really was a guy named Perseus who tamed a flying horse. 

That's why everything is branding and mythology to these motherfuckers, and they're trying to force it to a degree where they want people to abandon all conscious thought or even basic human survival instincts and skills.

And it's not working, even though up to 20% of the country might disingenuously pretend to go along with that crap.

In Oz, the guards lock the cages and walk away, and the predators rise, take control and make the rules. But in Em City, the guards are with us 24 hours a day. There's no privacy. Everybody sees what everybody's doing. Eyes everywhere. McManus' eyes. See, in Em City, retribution gives way to redemption. Timmy boy believes he can save every one of us, from each other, from ourselves, from the system that dumped us in here. Only thing he don't get is, you gotta wanna be saved. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz, S1.E1 "The Routine."

Like, the fuck kind of Lost Soul do you have to be to ascribe Divinity to Donald Trump??

I'm serious.

Answer the fucking question.

I'll wait.

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.

You can mythologize being an asshole all you want, that still doesn't change the obvious fact of what it is.

The trouble with mythology, especially politicized mythology, is that no American is going to accept that Kim Il-Sung was born on a sacred mountain under a star anymore than they are going to accept that there really was a giant Lumberjack named Paul Bunyan who went about accompanied by a giant blue ox and singlehandedly cut down most of the trees in the Dakotas. Everybody knows Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are a story, and giant statues in Bemidji, Minnesota and that's about it.

Likewise everybody knows, male dominance fantasies aside, that women can do pretty much anything that men can do and in today's economies, women have to work or the bills ain't gonna get paid or the kids are gonna go hungry...or both. And more to the point, the women in your life are going to be unhappy with you and no, they're not just going to give you what you want then, either. My Grandma worked part-time. She didn't work full-time until after my Grandpa was medically retired from his job and the Navy Reserve and was quite economically dependent on my Grandpa. 

She still ran the house and in many ways, the family, for good or ill. My experience of this stuff was 40-50 years ago, so it's nothing new. This "Male-Dominated" bullshit is just that, bullshit. It can enable abuse and cruelty, but not everyone is that way...or is ever going to be.

From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.

~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)

My partner is the dominant person in our relationship and always has been, and I love her for it.

So much of this shit is driven by a cultivated, vicious mythologized nonsense nostalgia for a bunch of shit that never really was that way.

But they can get a few bootlickers or smooth-brained religious nuts to go along with whatever so Republicans maliciously choose to try to pretend that XYZ is reality and try to act accordingly. And then they have the balls to wonder why everything ends up in the shitter and everybody hates them.

Republicans can market hate and rage and tobacco products like it's all goddamn sports-ball logos all they want. In the end all it's gonna do is make you get lung cancer faster.

And there's no glory or anything else that's any good in dying of cancer. Dead is Dead no matter how you want to mythologize that.

I'm a Christian. I still don't know with 100% certainty What's on the Other Side.

But as I understand it from a few things I have seen and cannot explain rationally, how you live your life very much does seem to influence how your afterlife goes, there are bad spirits and there are good spirits, etc. As far as I'm concerned whether somebody follows Buddhism or Christianity, Judaism or Islam or whatever...or is an Atheist, it's all different ways of relating to the same shit...and yes, some people just don't want to.

A lot of these hyper-Christians like Joel Webbon or Mike Johnson aren't really any less of Atheists than Alan Hale or Richard Dawkins...they just choose to reject belief in different things and, unlike Alan Hale or Richard Dawkins, their rationalizing is a lot more malicious and motivated. 

They know what they "Believe" is wrong, they still think they're going to get something for it.

Nothing Republicans say is an actual statement of belief until they say "We just want Power."

And then they don't even do anything with it that's worth a damn.

But the facts are, a couple of these guys just died, or they wouldn't be acting this way.

You cannot politically cheat your way out of Dying.

And because I have the choice to do so, and because America enshrines Freedom Of Religion first...I'm going to choose to believe that Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell are in Hell.

And Republicans can't stop me.

Simp Democrats can say that Lady G was fun at parties all they want. He still Dead. They still look ridiculous. Submission to Power when it's collapsing at this point due to its own failed internal logic is a fucking choice.

Like I said during the whole Charlie Kirk thing, don't tell me who to mourn for or not to.

You still either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

But remember, having true Faith in anything requires the capability to choose it freely.

Otherwise, none of this is any good. Remember this. Even, perhaps especially from a Christian perspective that's why freedom even matters.

If, when you die, you show up at the Gates of Heaven claiming you're there because somebody told you that you had to be, you will be turned away.

And an ideal of spending an Eternity of Peace and Blessedness with *Checks Notes* Trump sounds like its own punishment. Remember that, too.

You gotta want to be Saved.

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We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon On The Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. ~General Omar Bradley

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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. ~Matthew 3:2