Rabbit Hole (Bropocalypse Now, One.)

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

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

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

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

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

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

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

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

...

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

I saw this earlier and was reduced to cough-laughing about it, twice.

How the fuck is this so much of the rest of the world and countries like Iran and the United States Of America have so many fucking uptight-ass religious nuts? 

Yeah, Okay, Iran has sometimes-insane violent Islamic Fundamentalism. Apparently those people can still plan things and fight an insurgent hybrid war competently.

America has *Checks Notes* Atheistic selfish hyper-Capitalism often working in concert with increasingly fanatical and violent Christian Nationalist weirdos who make the occasional violent Calvinist from back in the aughts much less the basic ass bog-standard Christian Fundamentalists or whack-a-nut Pentecostals of a generation ago look like Bill Maher by comparison.

Again, one of these things is not like the other one.

Others who are far better at this than me have pointed that out.

And the day is coming when These Fucking People are going to try and fight everybody else starting with other Christians and conservatives who don't buy into their crazy bullshit. We're lucky that they apparently suck at this whole war thing and even with massive profligate expenditure of lives and munitions, they're not winning. I guess, and maybe I'm glad, that I have to care about life.

Like, I'm sorry, but among other things I was raised Christian and conservative when those words meant different things, apparently, These Fucking People's entire thought process is completely alien to me.

And honestly, I would not want it to be anything else.

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

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

And if I was capable of talking it, I wouldn't want to, my God.

I've seen These Fucking People both advocate for and tolerate shit that absolutely sickens me.

I have a daughter to think about, whether I want to or not. I cannot even imagine thinking the kind of shit that comes out of Doug Wilson's mouth on a regular basis. "Friend to pedophiles?" What the fuck is wrong with you dude?

Her mother, my partner, is Christian, strong and independent and I wouldn't want her to be any other way, even though this doesn't always (or even necessarily often) work out in my favor. No, it doesn't have to make sense to you.

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

Also, when we were not together she and the kid were horribly traumatized for ten of those years by *Checks Notes* exactly these kinds of fucking people.

That people are putting up with this shit much less these fucking freaks are building churches in our national centers of Power is even a question fills me with an absolute fiery rage.

They're not looking to build the Kingdom of Christ, they're looking to consolidate power for the Cult of Baal.

How do I know?? I've read the Lord's Word.

It's pretty simple, honestly.

Christ's Kingdom is NOT of This World. He said so Himself.

Why is this so fucking hard for some people??

Because the Truth is they'd rather go down endless Rabbit Holes of endless Manipulation, freakish perversion and stupid shit in search of political power, sexual perversity and wealth without work.

And they've figured out that Jesus Christ isn't gonna help them with that, not really, or at least not enough. Even the most skeevy interpretation of the Prosperity Gospel, as interpreted and written in the context of Christianity...Just Doesn't Do It For Them Anymore.

It's not hitting right, they can't mainline their own goddamned narcissism well enough, it's not a big enough high to simply preach Jesus while mocking Him with their every action anymore.

And that's what they really want, a bigger High.

Damaskinos: It has been said, "Be proud of your enemy and enjoy his success." In that regard, I should thank you.

Blade: For what?

Karel Kounen: Eliminating Deacon Frost. You did us a favor. Karel Kounen.

Blade: [noticing vampire tattoo] You're human.

Karel: Barely. I'm a lawyer. European Health Consortium.

Damaskinos: As you may know, Vampirism is... a horrible virus, carried in the saliva of predators. In 72 hours, it spreads through the human bloodstream, creating new, parasitic organs.

Blade: Like cancer.

Damaskinos: Cancer with a purpose.

Karel: Unfortunately, viruses evolve, too. We've encountered a new one. We dubbed it the Reaper Strain. And like any good pathogen, it appears to have found a carrier.

[Karel places a disk into a computer. Nomak's first attack plays via a recording]

Karel: There. [Points to an image of Nomak] Jared Nomak.

Damaskinos: Born a vampire, but an anomaly like you. Unlike the rest of us, however, he feeds on not just humans, but Vampires as well.

Blade: Looks like he was doing me a favor.

Nyssa: You're missing the point. Their vampire victims don't die. They turn. They become carriers.

Asad: You've got to understand. These things are like crack addicts. They need to feed daily. Nomak's been up for 72 hours. By our estimates, there are already a dozen Reapers. There'll be hundreds before the week is out. Thousands within a matter of months. Do the math.

Blade: Wait. Let me get this right. You want me... to hunt them... for you?

Damaskinos: Once they are finished with us, who do you think they'll turn against next? Your precious humans. Not one of them will be left.

Karel: We spent two years training a small tactical unit: the Blood pack. We want you to lead them.

Blade: Two years?

Nyssa: We've been training to hunt you.

~From the film Blade II.

And no, they don't care what they break or who they kill or what they wreck in the search for it, including themselves.

Doesn't matter if it's America.

Doesn't matter if it's Civilization, or the Earth itself. I'm fucking serious.

Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Anything but America or Freedom.

Worse, these jerkoffs want to take the same joyless fundamentalist religiosity their fathers applied to Christianity and turn it to Baal worship. It's about the addiction, the high. They don't even want to enjoy the fruits of their greed or their perversity, they just want the Dopamine hit that shit generates. The damn Dopamine has become their fucking Jihad. Like broken-ass hardcore addicts, they'll do anything for the shit and it's not even fun anymore. They simply consider it the same dour joyless "Religious" duty that their fathers and grandfathers applied to Calvinism and hatred of spicy food.

They are ruled by their dicks not because they enjoy the pleasure or even want to but because to them that shit represents Power and the accumulation of Power and Control and place in the hierarchy is a ravening Addiction and a total freakish Compulsion to these absolute weird motherfuckers.

"Winning" isn't "Everything" or even for a purpose anymore. Power is the ONLY thing these freaks want or understand. It's like what Red said to Andy Dufresne about the Bull Queers in the Shawshank Redemption.

Red: The Sisters have taken quite a liking to you. Especially Bogs.

Andy: Don't suppose it would help any if I explained to them I'm not homosexual.

Red: Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. They don't qualify. Bull queers take by force. That's all they want or understand. But if I were you, I'd grow eyes in the back of my head.

Andy: Thanks for the advice.

To them the Epstein cult victim sexual slave from god-knows-where who hasn't been taught anything and is forced to participate in ecstatic rites to Baal and made to do shit that no one should ever have to is more "Christian" to these monsters than a professing, theologically-educated Believer like James Talarico.

Hell, a cult-slave to ancient Demon-gods fits These Fucking People's worldview more than the two basic Christian church-camp teenagers literally born and raised in a small-town American Pentecostal church-community who keep dry-humping because they like each other and have every intent to get married, be a family and have kids eventually, with their literal professed faith in God and Jesus Christ as the glue that holds it all together.

Because that's not what "Christianity" even is to these Monsters.

Because those Believers in my example (as evidenced by their simply liking each other) might not do what Power wants every time, and if pushed the wrong way or asked to do something they don't want to do those Believers might fight against Power with the faith that God will back them up. Why do you think these fucking beasts really hate the Ukrainians so much, even though so many Ukrainians are both Christian and (small "C") conservative??

Because it's not about any of that. Not at all. Not even close.

Being in a gang is a lot like being in a religion. You got rules to follow, a leader to obey, and at the heart, it's about love. "Love thy fellow man" becomes "love thy brother gangster." But what if you stop believing the religion you've been preaching? You come to see that the hole is still in your soul, that the God/love you thought you had is nothing but a hologram. ~ Augustus Hill, ~From the HBO series Oz, S1.E3 "God's Chillin.'"

Because simply by caring about something other than Cultic Power and devotion to a given Narcissist, simply by liking each other, simply by believing that they have a right to defend themselves from the extinction some powerful authoritarian narcissistic ruler decreed for them...whether it's the church teenagers in my example or the Ukrainian soldiers in the field or angry American Airmen, Marines, Sailors and Soldiers reporting on Christian Nationalists trying to tell them to fight in the name of bringing about Armageddon, or just basic Americans who don't support or vote for any of this fucking bullshit, people break the framework and the narrative and the endless Power-seeking Rabbit Hole that these assholes demand...not just by actively resisting but by simply existing.

Remember that.

Because they sure will.

And sooner or later the monsters whose main problem is simply that "Other People Exist" are going to try to do something about that.

Bropocalypse Now, Yo.

You either believe in freedom, and in your own right to have a life, or you don't.

Слава Україна!

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

Prequel

And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. ~Matthew 24:1-13

Valley Of Decision (Bropocalypse Now, Prequel.)

Thebes, City of the Living. Crown jewel of Pharaoh Seti I. Home of Imhotep, Pharaoh's high priest, keeper of the dead; birthplace of Anck-Su-Namun, Pharaoh's mistress. No other man was allowed to touch her. But for their love, they were willing to risk life itself. To resurrect Anck-Su-Namun, Imhotep and his priests broke into her crypt and stole her body. They raced deep into the desert, taking Anck-Su-Namun's corpse to Hammunaptra, City of the Dead, ancient burial site for the sons of pharaohs, and resting place for the wealth of Egypt. For his love, Imhotep dared the gods' anger by going deep into the city, where he took the black Book of the Dead from its holy resting place. Anck-Su-Namun's soul had been sent to the dark Underworld, her vital organs removed and placed in five sacred canopic jars. Anck-Su-Namun's soul had come back from the dead. But Pharaoh's bodyguards had followed Imhotep, and stopped him before the ritual could be completed. Imhotep's priests were condemned to be mummified alive. As for Imhotep, he was condemned to endure the Hom-Dai, the worst of all ancient curses. One so horrible, it had never before been bestowed. He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus, the undead for all eternity. The Medjai would never allow him to be released. For he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh-eater with the strength of the ages, power over the sands, and the glory of invincibility. For 3,000 years men and armies fought over this land, never knowing what evil lay beneath it; and for 3,000 years we, the Medjai, the descendants of Pharaoh's sacred bodyguards, kept watch. ~Ardith Bey (Narrating) from The Mummy (1999 Film.)

...

How can you see into my eyes like open doors?
Leading you down into my core where I've become so numb
Without a soul my spirit's sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home

(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can't wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
Bid my blood to run
(I can't wake up)
Before I come undone
(Save me)
Save me from the nothing I've become.

~Bring Me To Life, Evanescence.

...

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

As I've mentioned and written about many times, I'm a gamer.

As I've mentioned before I ran a crossover White Wolf game for pretty close to 20 years with several different iterations of "My crew" at work when I worked at the casino, and it continued on Discord for a little while after I left that job, too.

Three of the people in my gaming group were my late best friend, my current partner (for awhile) and the dude who sexually harassed her and got himself shit-canned out of our lives and threatened with a good ass-kicking on principle as a result.

Which is a better fate than he deserved. We started out planning to get even but then figured out he wouldn't even get it if we did. Dude was just that stupid.

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.

My late best friend's main character was an originally Victorian Malkavian Vampire, a bullshit-artist manipulator pretty much modeled as the Mutant Love-Child of the Marquis De Sade and Alex from A Clockwork Orange. 

He basically played similar characters, usually rogues or spellcasters, in D&D.

The sexual harasser's character was a Gangrel Vampire, a very old Mongol warrior based off a bloodline from the Dark Ages setting, I built him to be pretty much indestructible, meant him to be run similarly to dude's usual Chaotic Neutral D&D Barbarians so he was easy for my buddy to play (after both of his more-complicated predecessors ended up remembered as "Regular" and "Extra Crispy" from getting turned to ash fighting a Lore Of The Flames-wielding Devil in the Chronicle's first chapter) and I set him up to be dumb and hedonistic but tough enough to get away with it. Unfortunately I succeeded.

My partner always ran a Black Fury Amazon or Vampire-hunting Silent Strider out of Werewolf The Apocalypse once she saw how much we plundered from movies like The Mummy or its sequel. Most of her characters were basically her with slightly more body hair and actually statistically-quantifiable rage issues and they fit with her vaguely-feminist ball-kicking attitude. She usually ran Clerics or Fighters in D&D.

For reasons that should have been entirely obvious even 20 years ago the bad guys I came up with were very often demonic or vampiric or other kinds of Superatural versions of dudes like Dale Partridge and all These Fucking People that want to try to use some kind of cheat code or demonic powers or magical mojo to bring about some bullshit Apocalypse or variation of the Christian End Times. When you factor in that games like Demon The Fallen are heavily based on stuff like Milton's Paradise Lost it's easy.

My players were very often trying to stop shit like *Checks Notes* current events.

[Addressing crowd after killing gladiator in solo fight] Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?! Is this not why you are here?! [throws away sword and spits at the ground, then leaves] ~Maximus Decimus Meridius, from the film Gladiator.

I find it interesting and a little sad that I lived to see some of us live long enough to become the villains in our own stories.

I'm more than a little disgusted that some motherfuckers idea of freedom is basically the "Freedom" for people to sell their bodies to these dudes.

While the same kind of motherfuckers then want to somehow turn an OnlyFans hoe into a dowdy, dour Christian housewife that is somehow still a freak in the sheets but only for their particular brand of narcissism. 

No, bro, one of these things is not like the other one.

I mean, just to ruin Dale's example my partner wears leggings all the time and while she can historically be a little freaky, the truth genuinely is that she's very Christian and modest by nature and the church background that we have in common is a lot of why we connected like we did. It certainly influenced how that came about and the mechanics of our relationship even now.

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."

That's not the world all these Bro-CHUD's wanna live in.

They think they're gonna "Preach Jesus" on the streets of Iran in the daylight and at night skulk off to some Wild West brothel type place like Al Swearingen's saloon in the HBO series Deadwood. They're not actually interested in following the Lord's Word, they don't really want to preach from it, let alone practice it. They just want to be adrift on a sea of Dopamine and have Wealth Without Work while living in some big bullshit "Adventure" and Evangelicalism-as-it-currently-is keeps indulging These Fucking People.

Again I used to regularly build vampires like this, undead monsters cursed by God, hungering for blood and sometimes serving evil ancient gods like Set or demons like Mammon. Actual humans ain't supposed to be like this according to any moral code I've ever obeyed.

There is a fucking reason that I've stopped referring to Evangelicals as Christians.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Evangelicals are closet Baal-worshipers already. Baal originally was a Canaanite fertility god, and there's always been a subsect of Evangelicals in particular that scanned as  a creepy fertility cult.

Mike Huckabee isn't exactly dissuading me from that line of reasoning.

And the worst part is these motherfuckers ain't doing this out of sincere belief in anything.

They're doing it because they think it's funny and they think they'll make money off of it somehow.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

Yeah, I don't think this is exactly gonna work that way. 

Being somewhat familiar with the expected realities of the shit these fucking people are trying to start, I somehow doubt that Poly-market's servers and all these dudes devices and internet connections are hardened against an Electro-Magnetic Pulse with their own independent power supplies, so the joke's on them. Nobody's gonna get paid if any of these idiots win the bet.

And if they expected to, they wouldn't be putting the shit on some bullshit Cryptocurrency betting website. They would be writing it on slips of paper and storing that shit in some secure location away from strategic targets.

These Fucking People all think this is all some kind of a joke, some sort of bullshit "Own The Libs" prank or some perverse fantasy based off of their own narcissism and religiosity.

When the great day of His wrath comes, none of them will be able to stand.

When it's that judgment day in the Valley of Decision, they ain't gonna like it.

But as for you in the here and now? You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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

That may well be what we get judged on.

Слава Україна!

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

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

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

Last Post

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

Selling Jesus.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

...

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.

...

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

I saw this last night.

Apparently some idiot Evangelical white lady thought we could *Checks Notes* bomb a nation into believing in Jesus. No, none of this works that way, and there's already Christians in Iran.

You can't bomb a Muslim nation into becoming a Christian one anymore than you could bomb America into accepting Atheistic Soviet Communism, just for one example.

Honestly I'd say that I was surprised these fucking people have such a low opinion of the entire concept of Faith...but the truth is I long ago figured out that a lot of these idiots don't really believe in anything at all and for them...if some other Whatever appeared to be advantageous for the social bonus points they think they get for being "Christian" yeah, they'd probably switch over. Such people will worship Baal if that Epstein demon worship shit ever goes public, and I'm not joking.

And such people maliciously assume that everybody else is the same way, although I suppose some legitimately do lack the imagination to think another person could really believe in something.

The question is, Why??

Because these fucking people look at shit like Trump's bullshit-ass Mar-A-Lago parties and gold-plated fuckery and that's their "god." Not Trump himself, he's extremely disposable. They imagine themselves being the rich vipers gathering in such places and that whole idea is basically the egregore that's what they actually "Worship."

There's a reason that until the whole Baal thing came out, I used the names of Dis Pater and Mammon for that shit. But of course the Roman Latinate ideals from which both concepts originated found the Canaanite/Punic pantheon of "gods" as antithetical as the Israelites also found it, to the point where both groups and the later Christian sects considered such to be demonic. On a very basic level all these fucking idiots really technically are only worshiping temporal Power and wealth. But if a better vehicle for that shit came along, they'd take it.

In the same way that they don't give a shit about Jesus, they don't want to obey Jesus Christ. They want to sell Him like a product, to get things like said power and wealth.

The thing is, whatever particular brand of Unga Bunga in particular that they tag the shit with, it's the bad intentions that create or draw in the bad spirits and that's what makes this shit Demonic.

You could argue most of these people are basically atheists, but actual atheists tend to be better people than that.

Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!  

Daniel Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.

Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. That’s wonderful.

Daniel Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.

Eli Sunday: All right.

Daniel Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet. I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet, and that God is a superstition.

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

The truth is worse. They don't care.

Like I said elsewhere last night, there's a reason I'd generally rather deal with an Immoral person than an Amoral person.

Like, even people in prison for sometimes terrible crimes have moral lines they won't cross.

You usually have to go to the privileged, rich white people in order to find somebody who really would murder another person for a dollar.

But then, when These Fucking People actually get consequences for their own actions they demand consideration, empathy and prayer. Which by the way, they are not willing to give to other people under normal circumstances.

And these people are what the Republican Party has turned into.

It's a bullshit MLM scam claiming to sell Jesus Donald Trump.

They don't care if anybody goes to Heaven, in fact they'd rather we didn't. They know or think they know that Hell has a hierarchy.

And this is what Republicans are now.

Actually, they're pretty much all that's left after they chased everybody else out..

Note I say that as a former Republican.

Tell me again, why the fuck do we keep tolerating this shit??

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

Last Post

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

Operation Jackass.

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

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

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

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

Hess: Burnin Konn?

Mayfield: Mmm.

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

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

Hess: Yep. All heroes of the Empire.

Mayfield: Yeah. And all dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...

Hospitaler: One may stare into the light, until one becomes the light. I've done it many times.

Balian of Ibelin: [throws a rock at a bush that catches fire by the spark] There's your religion. One spark, a creosote bush. There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.

Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God. Do you love her?

Balian of Ibelin: Yes.

Hospitaler: The heart will mend. Your duty is to the people of the city. I go to pray.

Balian of Ibelin: For what?

Hospitaler: For the strength to endure what is to come.

Balian of Ibelin: And what is to come?

Hospitaler: The reckoning is to come for what was done one hundred years before. The Muslims will never forget. Nor should they.

[the Hospitaler slowly walks away as a second bush several yards from the burning one catches fire. The Hospitaler is nowhere to be seen in the clear and open desert]

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

So, middle of the night my time, America and Israel attacked Iran (Again.)

On the one hand, I'm gonna guess that it's going to be another case of "Drop a few bombs and try to declare victory" like the last time, not least because this shit has barely started and Trump is already demanding Iran's surrender.

He won't get it.

Personally, I don't think what's left of the United States Of America has the attention span or the capability to fight this out for as long as it could take, nor do I think Israel has the guts or the stamina to keep it going by themselves. The Iranians on the other hand, do. My gut feeling is that this is a bad idea.

This isn't a serious war or a well-planned operation. It's an attempt to distract from the Epstein files and Trump's growing unpopularity. That won't work. And the enemy gets a vote.

I don't like Iran's government either, but they weren't doing anything to us.

And don't forget that Iran is allied to China and Russia, and in particular Iran is Russia's drone arsenal.

My feeling is that those countries don't want their status quo upset.

China, Iran, and Russia, I think the odds are pretty good that if all three decided to pull some crazy shit all at once we probably couldn't handle it very well.

Worse, when people in the Pentagon come up with a name for the operation ("Epic Fury" LOL) that sounds like it was thought up by some gamer chud who couldn't see any further ahead than the length of his own erection, yeah, they didn't think this through, did they??

But then they're not trying to win a war, they're trying to win the news cycle for the next 24 hours.

The shit should've been named Operation Jackass.

These idiots think Internet Content equals Authority when the truth is that none of this shit works like that.

These fucking people are continually trying to suck all the joy out of everyone else's life and all the oxygen out of the room because they think they're gonna use that shit to power getting high off their own narcissism for all of Eternity, presumably (they think) in some AI Cloud after they die or some shit.

The Soul is eternal and when you die your Soul isn't gonna go into some computer. God is going to judge your ass one way or the other.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. ~Joel 3:9-14

Depending on your interpretation or verses of choice, in this life or the next. And it ain't no AI Jesus that these fools or their corporate allies control that's going to do the judging.

But then, I think these idiots took a look at MAGA and their remaining followers...most of whom are people that'll be impacted by their ridiculously-bad decision-making skills at this point, stopped looking at that shrinking cultic base awhile ago and simply decided in their heads that They are God.

It's hubris, in the Classical sense, and these morons are determined to fly too close to the Sun.

The only problem is they want all the rest of us to come crashing back to Earth with them.

And they think they have a right to suck all the joy out of your life, to basically ruin your day for clicks and likes and because most of these goddamned fools have never had to take a punch in their lives or even have a serious argument that wasn't filtered through a computer screen and some degree of anonymity generated by the same, they think they're invincible.

Life isn't like that, and trust me when I say nobody wants to live off shit like Liver and Onions, not least of all for These Fucking People or their profits or their wars. 

America does not have the national spirit or the ideals of common good or sacrifice that my grandparents' generation had and those were the last people I can think of who ever ate anything like liver and onions by choice.

Also I'm here to tell you that Mr. Gas Station Roller Meat-Face has never had to eat that shit in his life.

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.

Cuz if he had, he wouldn't be telling us to eat that kind of garbage, it's gross.

I haven't had to eat anything like that since I was a little kid and I don't intend to start again anytime soon, fuck these motherfuckers.

Stop blowing the narcissists, America.

Stop tolerating this bullshit.

Because there's a very good chance that these clowns are gonna get into a mess they can't extract themselves from (and that's who comes first in their minds, not us) much less the rest of us. 

I mean for fuck's sake, if they couldn't keep the toilets on the USS Ford working the odds that they're otherwise planning a masterclass in air and naval strike warfare are pretty fucking thin.

'Cause if you can't get the basic things or the small things right, odds are you ain't gonna care enough to get the big things right either. I learned that in the Air Force my own damn self, seriously.

And if there's anything we already know about These Fucking People it's that they don't wanna put in the work.

[Addressing crowd after killing gladiator in solo fight] Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?! Is this not why you are here?! [throws away sword and spits at the ground, then leaves] ~Maximus Decimus Meridius, from the film Gladiator.

Same people wanna start some kind of 1,000-front war with the whole rest of the damn world.

I don't think that's gonna work out how they think it will.

You either believe in freedom or you don't, and it's gonna come down to a fight...and not just for the Iranians, either.

Слава Україна!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow overwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock Overhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonor not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

~William Shakespeare, Henry V.

Last Post

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.