Bullets II (One Of Us... Eight.)

 [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 the other day.

Benny Johnson and Eric Trump talking about the Trump family "Saving God."

Bitch, if God needs Man to "Save" Him then He is not God. It's as simple as that, and if that's the case we need not worry, go out and do whatever evil you want. What these fucking people are really working it up to try and say is that Trump is "god."

Yeah, I don't think so, despite some fucked-in-the-head Trump Supporters acting like that's the case. I've read the Bible. If there's anything in it Trump fits, it's the Beast of Revelation. The Beast's "Revolution" is eating its own. Milo Yiannopoulos got arrested by ICE and is in custody. Have fun in the hell you wanted for other people, dickhead.

Thus will be the case for all of these motherfuckers, I think ultimately including Trump himself, and I've warned people that this would happen.

Hell, It's the vast majority of what I've been saying for at least 6 years, since These Fucking People absolutely started to go off the rails because of COVID-19, because somebody told them they had to give a shit about other people (because if they didn't, they might die too!)

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields.

Once you fully unleash the bottomless fanaticism, religiosity and stupidity of the American Evangelical, all bets are off...including their own survival.

Trump just wants to be worshiped, even (perhaps especially) at this late stage.

American Evangelicals, founded as they are in Calvinist Puritanism, want to pretty much kill the entire concept of Joy for other people.

I've been seeing a lot of comment on social media these last few days about a few Evangelical nuts promoting "Clean" literature and crusading against Smut. Yeah, fuck you, NO.

You motherfuckers can pry the smut she reads (or writes! out of our cold, dead hands. Fuck Off. If you don't like it, don't read it. You motherfuckers have no right to piously dictate what other people do.

You either believe in freedom or you don't. It really is that simple.

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."

Like, a year and a half ago when things were really bad in her life, and before we started talking again last June...My partner's books, Smut and all, and her writing were literally the only things that kept her going, she would not be alive without them and the Kiddo would be without a Mom. It's not for you to tell other people how to mentally survive breakups, trauma or unemployment.

It's simply not up to you, it's not your right to make other people's choices for them.

I was taught such things are morally wrong. People have the right to do what they want, you have the right to agree with it or not. This is America, you have no right to control somebody else's life.

And more to the point there's nothing particularly "Christian" or "Clean" about trying. Those who try to burn books will eventually try to burn people. That's just history talking.

Our Founding Fathers knew this. They had all lived in that world.

The Constitution, Freedom of Speech and the whole second half of the 20th Century says it's a political issue most people have already decided in favor of, and I'm fine with anybody who doesn't like that just reading Twilight and being done with it. That's their right, too. Have at it, we don't care. Stephanie Mayer will appreciate you.

But these idiots want to go well beyond that kind of thing. Shit, if I had to guess based off of what I'm seeing, Harry Potter or Twilight is way too spicy for these weirdos. I'm not joking and I've seen enough of what passes for Evangelical romance novels to know that "No" is the only word you're looking for.

And, culturally, Americans hate this shit. I remember when "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" became a meme well before it was cool. Fuck, my late best friend Carl held Tipper Gore and her shenanigans against the Democratic Party literally until the day he died.

These motherfuckers wanna go a hell of a lot further than anything her dumb ass ever even advocated for. And yeah, right now they're dressing it up as "Changing hearts and minds." That's a trial balloon. They'll make laws about it if anybody gives them the chance. Fuck that.

And I'm being 100% serious when I say that I first read R.L. Stine in a Christian elementary school (and in fact bought Goosebumps at the monthly book fair there!) So yeah, anything these fucking people would consider "Christian Enough" is probably closer to Radical Islam, but with rather less morality.

Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't wanna fuck in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. ~George Carlin

But, in the same breath, These Fucking People want you to totally ignore how right-wing White Men act, talk or think about sex.

Because trust me there's no Smut I've ever read where any author worth the time they took to write the words would string "Keep my balls empty" together as a sentence.

I mean, among other things, talking like that is just dehumanizing and disgusting. and it implies narcissism or at least a level of selfishness that itself borders on insanity.

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 here's the thing; When These Fucking People's "Glorious Revolution" figures that shit out?? That's just another entire demographic that these monsters will gladly start sorting through trying to find the "False Believers," the impure, the guys who've had a stray or unapproved sexual thought.

I'm warning you now, there's no limit to these people's freakish stupid zealotry. Margaret Atwood didn't get to the half of it.

And that's exactly why we not only need the First Amendment we already have, but basic human rights encoded into the Constitution on a better level than what was considered that 250 years ago, freedom of speech reinforced and both the government's ability to interfere with it and the Surveillance State greatly reduced. That said, I don't give a fuck, hate speech shouldn't get those protections. If we don't stamp out racism, problems are going to fucking continue. Our Founders had too much faith in people.

That only goes in one direction.

'Cuz honestly? What we had 250. Years. Ago. was too much freedom for what some of these religious nuts want right now.

Our ancestors were well aware of the bloody wars that kind of crap leads to.

So are the people who are pushing all this religious bullshit. They just think the ground being soaked in blood is a good thing.

They don't care about God, they just want to hurt people. They don't give a damn about Jesus, they just want to have Inquisitions.

Religiosity is a hell of a drug. And no, they're not really looking for converts. They don't wat to share that either...except with like-minded bad people. They long to be living bullets in some kind of ethnic conflict.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

What if God just wants to read His smut in peace??

Remember this, because it's going to be on the test.

Soon.

I can tell you that once upon a time when I was doing public events people would ask me, "What do you think about the arts?, What do you think of the role of women?, What do you think of men?, What do you think of all of these things?", and now they ask one thing, and that one thing is this, "Is there hope?" ~Margaret Atwood, 2007

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We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

Bullets I (One Of Us... Seven.)

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast saying, Come and see.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

~Revelation 6, KJV.

...

Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. ~John 8:12

I keep seeing shit like this; People basically having voted for all type of bad things to happen to other people...but either being angry that it's happening to themselves or simply angry that somebody pointed out the obvious. 

They voted for Trump to abuse and harm others, yet also gave him the power to hurt them...so of course he did.

And make no mistake about it, deep down, people like this angry middle-aged White lady think that is right and good, they regret only not being close enough to Power to remain unaffected.

These Fucking People crave Empire and Tyranny and yes, the Lash, as much because they think it'll hurt Other people as because they are pretty much taught in their churches that God is an angry, violent narcissist who demands constant control and praise.

A few of them think they'll get to use the lash or wear the jackboot.

And then they align themselves politically with rich sociopaths because they all believe in the Prosperity Gospel. And it doesn't matter whether it's in the original Calvinist/Reformed format or this Unga Bunga Pentecostal shit that's been more popular for about 30 years, it's still all bullshit and this kind of crap is exactly what it leads to.

I find it interesting that people who claim to follow the guy who said "I am the Light Of The World, they that follow me shall not walk in Darkness but shall have the Light of Life." deliberately choose to walk in Darkness like it's the most awesome flex they could possibly make.

That makes no fucking sense to me,  

I was going to write about that.

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.

But then I saw this last night.

Some dipshit Republican legislator in Louisiana making excuses for the sexual abuse and resulting pregnancy of a nine-year-old girl and saying she shouldn't have an abortion.

Might be a bit of a guess on my part that the girl in question is White, but I suspect if she wasn't we wouldn't be having this argument or hearing these excuses because These Fucking People would have quietly invoked whatever exceptions exist and the discussion would never have crossed my social media feed.

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

I'm old enough to remember when kids having kids was considered a Sin and a tragedy by pretty much everybody regardless of politics, I remember one motherfucker of a lot of conservative and religious moralizing on the subject. 

Honestly, I had (still have) some pretty strong opinions about this stuff myself.

But then I think back and most of that was just at the start of America's diversity becoming more visible to These Fucking White People.

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

That was before these assholes felt threatened by the simple existence of Other People.

And if being ruled over by some small unaccountable criminal elite assuages even a little of their disingenuous and misplaced fear, they'll take it. They don't care if they lose their freedom.

Well that and the fact that Newt Gingrich started turning the Republican Party into a cult in 1994 between that and Trump's obvious fucking up everything, Republicans are starting to worry and see the writing on the wall even in Texas.

That was before a guy whose parents came from India, even though he himself was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and by our Constitution and the Law is as American as Baseball or a redneck seeing their girl cousin naked and was considered a valid candidate first for President, then for governor of Ohio

(And he can defend Bernie Moreno's abusive son-in-law all he wants, but a hell of a lot of Ohio MAGA's and Republicans are not very enthusiastic about voting for Vivek Ramaswamy.)

To summarize, These Fucking People mostly cared about stuff like teenage pregnancy before other people were visible and accepted a certain kind of quietly extremely racist White asshole felt threatened. Does that spell it out for you??

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

Now?? Any White Kid, born in shitty circumstances and likely to either grow up poor or be adopted out to sociopathic rich white people (in a Red State in either case) is pretty much nothing more to a lot of these fucking assholes than a living Bullet in a potential Ethnic Conflict.

They understand this is a numbers game, they're trying to eliminate anything else but doing what they want as a choice, and the ultimate endgame with these fucking people is coercion, their only real values are Murder, Slavery and an increasingly creepy cultish devotion to Power. Whether they get that in an Antebellum South type scenario, from Communist peons or in some dystopian bunker situation doesn't matter to them.

I was a peacekeeper in Bosnia for 3 months, I've seen the kind of world these assholes think they wanna live in and keep voting for to happen to "Other" people.

The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angkar are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive. ~Dith Pran, The Killing Fields.

They forget the enemy gets a vote. The people they hate get to fight back. Lots of Serbs lost their ass, their homes, their lives etc. in the Yugoslav wars too.

But these motherfuckers think assholes like Slobodan Milosevic were the good guys in that war.

And yes, that kind of shit is exactly why atavism and hate are marketed to These Fucking People like sports team logos. I've written about this.

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on a race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength of the world. That is the American way. ~Ronald Reagan

It's a big part of why these assholes idolize Israel's current genocidal government. Well, until they figure out that Israel is Jewish, anyway, and then they become skeptical.

It's why Democrats even running about the most White-Bread, literally Christian candidate possible like James Talarico still somehow isn't good enough for a lot of these fucking people, but somehow an adulterous, pedophile-releasing, utterly immoral slug like Ken Paxton is just fine.

Think about that shit for a second, will ya?

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

(Well, that and the latent greedy immoral patriarchy of the current Republican Party.)

Democrats are seen as being the party that betrayed Dixiecrats and Segregation and gave rights to "Those" people, never mind that Dixiecrats were only a portion of the Democratic Party at the time. And any group of people that either votes predominately for them or is imagined or seen as doing so is likewise considered Traitors to their Power.

Hence why these motherfuckers are trying to normalize and increase toleration of (for example) violence against women in general (and yes, White women in particular, even White women rich enough to be able to afford to take up Golf.)

Yes, even in a golf ad. In fact, that's probably what they figured was one of the "safe" places they could do this shit. It turned out even golfers were pissed off, and the ad has been taken down...but it's still making the rounds, just outside of their control now.

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.

Other countries see what's going on here, and they want nothing to do with it.

Whether it's creepy Christian Nationalist horseshit, Trump's incompetence and violent narcissism or simply threats to their own freedom and sovereignty, pretty much the whole rest of the world is saying "NO" Fuck That.

Even the conservatives (Like Ontario PM Doug Ford) are telling Trump he can kiss their ass.

Russia is in no position to help, and China is aligned with Iran in our current mess. They were before, too, but at this point they've picked a side. 

The US functionally losing our support infrastructure in the Middle East only helps the Chinese. And by the way the Chinese have already made other inroads into the Middle East.

Nobody fucking wants this Trump shit and constantly threatening the rest of the world but between maybe 25% and 30% of Americans. They thought they could make the rest of us hate like they do and somehow use that as a springboard to even greater hegemonic power. They were wrong.

Republicans sure as hell can't make the rest of the world hate like they do, unless it's hating them.

America's hegemony was based on alliances, money, and soft power. It was dependent on assisting other countries with their defense against common threats, when the world has changed multiple times since those arrangements were made, that doesn't readily transfer over to a kind of neo-neocolonialism where "Hey white people, it's your turn now!"

I'm not gonna change for these motherfuckers and I'm sure not gonna be colonized.

And since any effort to attack Canada is highly likely to end up with divisions of British, Canadian, EU and yes, Indian troops running Trump out of Washington DC under considerably more embarrassing circumstances than the British chasing out James Madison (and given the state of US Forces and of our domestic politics, even Trump likely knows that) if it doesn't result in him being led out in an orange jumpsuit and shackles.

So my guess is they try and break the United States Of America, hoping they get an ethnic conflict and a couple of Banana Republics out of it and/or hope like hell that the international community sits on its hands trying to figure out what to do for a couple of years like they did with the Yugoslav Wars.

When These Fucking People say "American" they mean "Trump." It's a cult.

And if they have to break everything right down to normal family or sexual relations to preserve his cult-god status they'll do it, these motherfuckers are even throwing out people who wear anti-pedophile T-shirts now.

No, These Fucking People are not far from worshiping devils and idols of gold.

You have been warned.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Now, I've read the Bible. What if all the stuff in there is exactly what it says, and it means that? What if God is exactly who he says He is and the practitioners of this weird Babylon-Trump shit are the ones automatically going to Hell, not the Atheists or the gays, not Barack Obama or Dolly Parton??

What if the problem is greedy old racist white men not the Autistic people or the Muslims??

What if the problem here is *Checks Notes* concentrated wealth in the hands of bad men, resulting from heresies like the Prosperity Gospel?

What if it's this presumed right of a Certain Kind Of White Man to ejaculate anywhere they damn well please that's wrong??

It's not just guys who can afford to play Golf that are the damn problem, we regular people are needing to clean up our own house, too.

And we're gonna have to.

Because right now from where I'm sitting this bullshit looks like Antichrist.

And that the Christians (or Mormons in the case of the guy who sexually harassed my partner last summer) are balls-deep in all this bullshit does not speak well of ya'll.

Remember that.

Because what you've done with your Witness is going to matter.

Even if all that God stuff is not real, do you really wanna be the guy that when you die most of the world says "Have fun in hell, asshole?"

Cuz I just said that.

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You don’t understand what it was like. The town was on its last legs. It started after we got news of the Death Star blowing up. The second one, that is. [flashes back to one particular night at the Mos Pelgo Cantina] The Empire was pullin’ outta Tattooine. There was blaster fire over Mos Eisley. The occupation was over. We didn’t even have time to celebrate. That very night, the Mining Collective moved in. Power hates a vacuum and Mos Pelgo became a slave camp overnight. I lit out. Took what I could from the invaders. Grabbed a camtono. I had no idea it was full of silicax crystals. I guess every once in a while, both suns shine on a womp rat’s tail. I wandered for days. No food, no water. [image of Vanth being rescued by the Jawas] And then... I was saved. [Inside Sandcrawler] The Jawas wanted the crystals. They offered their finest in exchange. [remembers pointing to what is actually Boba Fett's armor] And my treasure bought me more than a full water-skin. It bought my freedom. 

~Cobb Vanth, from The Mandalorian S2.E1 "The Marshal."

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[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."

Six

If God had a name, what would it be?

And would you call it to His face

If you were faced with Him in all His glory?

What would you ask if you had just one question?

And yeah, yeah, God is great

Yeah, yeah, God is good

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

What if God was one of us

Just a slob like one of us

Just a stranger on the bus

Tryna make His way home?

~Joan Osborne "What If God Was One Of Us?"

Light Of The World (The Dolly Parton Post.)

Don't get me started on politics How are we to live in a world like this Greedy politicians, present and past They wouldn't know the truth if it bit 'em in the ass”

~Dolly Parton, World On Fire.

...

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

    - Requiem, Robert Louis Stevenson

...

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 an 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 an 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.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

~Matthew 25:31-46

Dolly Parton died today.

I found out when I got up after I took my nap. My partner mentioned it when she texted me to see if I was up.

There's a reason for that.

In East Tennessee where she lived for a number of years, Dolly Parton was freaking worshiped like a goddess on a bipartisan basis.

Because she helped people.

Because she was a positive representative of those people, of their communities and their struggles. Because unlike so many people when they get money, she still fucking got it.

But it's not just there. They changed the lights on the Empire State Building in New York City to pink to honor Dolly tonight.

And it's been all over social media.

And rightly so.

A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to be.

~Rosalynn Carter.

Dolly Parton will be missed.

Other people, when it's their turn? Not so much.

Remember when your High School History teacher said "The course of human events changes because of the deeds of great men"?. Well the bitch was lying. Fuck Caesar, fuck Lincoln, fuck Mahatma Gandhi. The world keeps moving because of you and me: the anonymous. Revolutions get started because people don't have enough bread. Wars start over a game of checkers. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO Series "Oz" S1, E8 "A Game Of Checkers."

And oh yes, their day will come. There will be a reckoning. Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

East Tennessee (like lots of other places in Rural America) is loaded with Trumpers.

Of course, last I looked at the numbers, even in Tennessee Trump's numbers were underwater. 

A lot less so than his numbers are here in Michigan but they're still in the negative.

And I can't help but notice that These Fucking People never define themselves by what they are for, but only by who or what they are (or think they are) against.

They seethe with resentment of places like New York City for their cultural relevance and diversity even though, really, places like East Tennessee have no less of their own, if only the people who lived there chose to focus on that. And what of it they have is in no small part thanks to people like Dolly Parton.

Sorry, not to be that guy but nobody gives a shit about Kid Rock, not even Kid Rock. Look at the man.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ~John 11:25

Some goddamned MAGA meathead was trying to say the "Left" was "Spiraling" because Trump waved a green flag for that bullshit car racing thing in Washington DC. 

Granted, I'm barely "Left" and that mostly in the sense of policy positions rather than mentality and I could give a rat's ass about Trump waving a flag. I don't give a damn. I have enough other objections to this bullshit so that one doesn't even register.

But more than that, I don't define myself solely by what I'm against, whether I was told to be so or simply arrived at that conclusion on my own (and yes, this Trump shit is in the latter category. I didn't like him when I was a Republican either.)

And I get it, these motherfuckers would rather squat in the dark in their bunkers with their guns and shit on their own shoes, seeing the world only through a rifle scope, than see anybody else get any light.

That sounds depressing, and is a strange way to act for people who claim to follow a Holy Prophet that said "I am the Light Of The World" and commanded His followers to act likewise, and not hide their light under a basket, or in a bunker.

For fuck's sake even the Dukes Of Hazzard eventually had that commemorative special movie where the Boys went to the City.

Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. ~John 8:12

Seems like a hell of a way to live. I couldn't do it.

And people continually try to offer These Fucking People a better way than that. They refuse it. Hell, a lot of people like that, the ones I'm aware of anyway, don't even want to help themselves or even fucking work.

But people like Dolly Parton kept offering them a hand up anyway.

Because that's what you do. You don't have to like it. It's still the right thing to do.

And even New York City honored her for it.

Remember that.

Be the light, not some Remora in the dark, attached to Trump's ass.

Слава Україна!

There is clearly much left to be done, and whatever else we're going to do, we had better get on with it. ~Rosalynn Carter

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Democracy's great recent successes — in India, Portugal, Spain, Greece — show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed.

For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence. ~Jimmy Carter

David And Goliath (Death Star, Five.)

A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.  Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”

David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. ~1 Samuel 17:4-51

I saw this on Saturday night.

Apparently, these fucking Trump people tried to do some kind of backdoor annexation of Canada using a "Trade deal."

Seriously, I used to be a conservative Republican. Who the fuck thinks you can dictate *Checks Notes* another country's culture, defense, language or trade??

You just don't do this bullshit!

Other countries are other countries, they get to make their own choices, and we might get to have an opinion about that (or we might not) but fundamentally it's not up to us.

Also have these fucking idiots even heard the story of David and Goliath??

How would *Checks Notes Again* these same fucking people react if China or the EU tried to dictate Gun Control to the United States??

Or Israel, for that matter, since Israel seems to be trying to dictate everything to just about everybody lately...and if you haven't noticed the whole damn world is turning against them even faster than they are against us.

Naturally, Canada's collective response was "Eh, No."

The reason Canada is bilingual has to do with our own history too. This is not myths and legends.

[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."

And the precedent has been set for somebody else to pull that shit on us. 

Israel will probably be the one to do it, and I have no doubt what they demand will be a bridge too far for most Americans.

Just like most Americans outside of the Republican Party and Democratic leadership have had it up to *Here* with Israel and their genocidal leadership. No, they aren't concerned for their own people, they're trying to see what they can get away with and they think Trump will protect them.

You know who hasn't pissed away all their missiles and precision-guided munitions in a bullshit war that doesn't even have any clear objectives??? Countries like Canada, or Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkiye for that matter. I'm a veteran. Logistics is the Lord Of War.

At this point, Republicans mouths are writing checks American bodies (let alone wallets) can't cash.

That's what happens when you let criminal ass-clowns who live on credit, lies and scamming run your shit.

These idiots start a war with Canada? We'll lose that one too!

[Luke's X-wing is in the trench, and Darth Vader is having trouble getting a lock]

Darth Vader: [Gets a lock] I have you now. [Suddenly, one of Vader's escorts is destroyed.] What?!

Han Solo: YEAH-HOO!!! [The Millennium Falcon arrives on the scene.]

Vader's Escort: Look out! [Vader's surviving escort panics and crashes into the trench, and Vader's TIE Advanced is flung out into space]

Han: You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home! [Luke shoots at the exhaust port and with the help of the Force scores two direct hits.]

Imperial Officer: Stand by.

[The Rebels and the Millennium Falcon fly back to Yavin 4]

Officer: Stand by.

[Just as the Death Star is about to fire, it explodes]

Han: Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Remember... the Force will be with you, always.

~From Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope.

They run it into the ground, every time somebody runs the damn experiment.

And I get it, some people will give some jackoff their last nickel for hate, and then have the balls to wonder why they can't afford to eat.

But I was taught that shit was wrong and to avoid people who were like that.

Seems like most of the rest of the civilized world at least tries to clamp down on this kind of bullshit, and does not include hatred of other people or the incitement of such in freedom of speech (or for that matter, social tolerance.) 

There's still some of it around, even a lot in some places, but most of the world doesn't consider that shit to be a good thing.

And I'm honestly sick of it.

Other people are Other People. This is America. Nobody has to obey your shitty interpretation of Christianity in which there are only three real "commandments" these being; Don't be LGBT, Don't have an Abortion, and Vote Republican, with a huge but mostly unspoken in mixed company Fourth command being "Hate Black People." 

None of that has a damn thing to do with the Bible.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan

And these fucking idiots are all on a power trip when the truth is, they have nothing to back it up and 70% of us are sick and tired of this fucking garbage.

They seem to think that Congress and the Media and various corporate liars are somehow the same as how the general population acts. 

Never mind that current media, upper management, and way too much of our government is populated by rich fail-sons who are basically there as an audition for a podcast or some shit, to be determined later, and honestly that kind of attention-economy crap is becoming the only way to really make it in today's world.

And the only way to succeed there is to bicker and backbite and do ever more outrageous bullshit like high school morons trapped in some kind of escalating Idiocracy loop.

Oww, my balls!

Here's the thing, though, nobody...and I mean this, nobody with even one functioning braincell considers "Internet Content" to be authoritative at this point.

Turning government into content honestly undermines the entire concept.

The United States currently has all the gravitas of one of the minor off-season WWE specials.

We're basically the United States Of Summer Slam, with the current shitty roster. And these Muggs be acting like it's the good old days of Andre The Giant and Hulkamania.

Never mind that all the serious wrestling fans I know switched to AEW as soon as that became a thing. 

Also never mind how MAGA Hulk Hogan turned out, and via the Princess Bride, Andre is still a cultural icon.

Inigo: That Vizzini, he can fuss.

Fezzik: Fuss, fuss...I think he like to scream at us.

Inigo: Probably, he means no harm.

Fezzik: He's really very short on charm.

Inigo: You have a great gift for rhyme.

Fezzik: Yes, yes, some of the time.

Vizzini: Enough of that!

Inigo: Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?

Fezzik: If there are, we all be dead.

Vizzini: No more rhymes now, I mean it!

Fezzik: [pauses] Anybody want a peanut? [holding up a peanut]

Vizzini: GAAAAHHH!

~From the film The Princess Bride.

There's a lesson there, I think.

And we've pissed away all of our soft power in two years and most of our firepower in less than six months, while these Trump administration Jabronis go around making all type of demands like they think they built the Death Star already.

Yeah, how'd that work out for the Empire??

Fun fact and look not only at Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope but also most of the in-universe commentary about the events therein and you'll find that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the writers of the original West End Games Star Wars RPG was based rather explicitly on stories like *Wait For It* David And Goliath!

See, These Fucking People have it all wrong. Knowledge is Power. Knowledge can be Narrative.

Bullshit falls apart the second one guy reads what you were hoping they wouldn't...which was literally what happened with this Canada thing.

You either believe in Freedom or you don't.

And if you don't believe everybody should have it, what you believe in ain't Freedom.

Remember this.

It's going to be on the test.

This will come down to a fight.

Soon.

Слава Україна!

You don’t understand what it was like. The town was on its last legs. It started after we got news of the Death Star blowing up. The second one, that is. [flashes back to one particular night at the Mos Pelgo Cantina] The Empire was pullin’ outta Tattooine. There was blaster fire over Mos Eisley. The occupation was over. We didn’t even have time to celebrate. That very night, the Mining Collective moved in. Power hates a vacuum and Mos Pelgo became a slave camp overnight. I lit out. Took what I could from the invaders. Grabbed a camtono. I had no idea it was full of silicax crystals. I guess every once in a while, both suns shine on a womp rat’s tail. I wandered for days. No food, no water. [image of Vanth being rescued by the Jawas] And then... I was saved. [Inside Sandcrawler] The Jawas wanted the crystals. They offered their finest in exchange. [remembers pointing to what is actually Boba Fett's armor] And my treasure bought me more than a full water-skin. It bought my freedom. 

~Cobb Vanth, from The Mandalorian S2.E1 "The Marshal."

Four

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

They asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God. 

~Malcolm X, Letter following the Hajj.

A Mari Usque Ad Mare

~Canadian National Motto

"From Sea To Sea."