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.)
...
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)
...
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...
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American. Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion, and character. America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness. Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small. ~George W. Bush
I keep seeing shit like this.
Christians and Republicans and far more often, a certain type of "Christian" for whom the two words are basically synonymous, we'll call them (as usual) These Fucking People...are getting weird on us.
Not only, in effect, trying to promote a worldview where the two "worthy" things to be doing are basically fighting or fucking, completely needlessly atavistic view in our modern world. They're pretty much pushing conflict with Muslims on a level that's pretty much schoolyard bullying with a side of political power and vast corruption. I don't know who the hell thinks any of this is "Christian" but I sure don't. I'll note that any time there's a need for actual security they fuck it up, any time there's a real fight, these assholes lose...seemingly on purpose. What that purpose might be, I sure as hell don't know.
Like, over the weekend, the Cryptocurrency markets pretty much got pillaged by
*Checks Notes* The
North Koreans. The Bored Ape Yacht Club or whatever the fuck they got going now has officially funded the last Stalinist style Communist regime on Earth to the tune of six
BILLION dollars.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. ~2 Timothy 4:3
I have to wonder what my late Cryptocurrency-Bro friend Jeffy would think about that. But then, I also have to wonder what he'd have thought of his family trying to describe him as some kind of Christian Conservative political type at his funeral. Bitches, this dude was a Libertarian and smoked so much Weed it was ridiculous. I never heard one damn word about religion...any religion...come out his mouth (or that of any of his family members that I ever met) ever. His preferred topics were rap music, sex, and zombie movies (and TV shows like The Walking Dead.) Occasionally, he'd show up on Saturday morning at my Pastor's house, but usually just when we were blazing it up.
It honestly pissed me off that anybody tried to make him seem all religious, that was disrespectful to the man I and all my people knew. But then, what These Fucking People say about themselves (let alone others) rarely lines up with reality. These people's "beliefs" about themselves are no more real than a Hologram...or a video game like Bioshock, no more real than the "Wildfire" virus in The Walking Dead.
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.
Or the professed beliefs of a lot of members of our Political Class that America was never really supposed to
have. Yeah, I saw that bullshit that Haley Stevens pulled, switching her endorsement from Abdul to Mike Rogers (and
torching her political career in the process.)
Look, I'm a conservative Democrat, I very much believe secular liberalism has not met the moment, and yet I still routinely land to the Left of a lot of Democrats on many issues simply because I believe in fighting for your own team, voting with your own team, and watching out for the less fortunate. This is no exception. I hope Haley enjoys her thirty pieces of Silver. It probably won't even do Republicans any damn good. I'll be voting for Abdul simply because I think he'll actually do something, and do it for his own side or even maybe for the people that he represents.
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.
That seems like it should be a fairly
low bar in any kind of civilized society, but what the fuck do
I know??
We're at a point where Evangelicals in the United States Of America (I refuse to call them "Christians" at this point) have effectively shown there's no line, morally, they won't cross for political power or simply in a fit of pique or because it's Monday.
I believe in no God, no invisible man in the sky. But there is something more powerful than each of us, a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. But it is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. Any man who tells you different either has his hand in your pocket, or a pistol to your neck. ~Andrew Ryan, Bioshock
I get some of them are turning on Trump
now...but that's mostly because his policies and politics ended up hurting
them, too, or them instead of somebody else they thought he was going to hurt.
They still gleefully aligned themselves with some of the worst fucking people in the world, just because they thought other people would get hurt worse.
I have a partner and a kid to think about, I can't afford to make decisions on that kind of a basis.
I'll let her be the one who's powered by Spite.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
Like the other day, Tech Bro billionaire Sam Altman bitched that people like me have RAM in our computers instead of that RAM being in Data Centers serving him. Bitch, if I don't have enough RAM and a computer that works...I can't use your product. I've worked in IT. I worked in IT when Windows 95 was still turning up on people's computers that they brought in. People not having enough RAM to do whatever they were trying to do (and needing me to install more) is not a thing I'm unfamiliar with.
Most people don't even think about shit like that now since it comes in Gigabytes anymore but I can remember having to read the specs on the side of a box to see if a given game or whatever software would run on my system.
Fuck these motherfuckers. My first computer was a Commodore 64. I used to play Doom with my bros in the Airman's Dorms at KI Sawyer Air Force Base about the time Sam Altman was in the fifth grade, that's how far back
I go. I worked my way up. You can pry my RAM (among other things) from my Cold Dead Hands.
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he speaks as a dragon.
And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, and causes the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
And he doeth great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
And deceive them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. ~Revelation 13, King James Bible.
And
among those other things is a belief that Trump is an
Antichrist and a slow-burning
RAGE at all these damned "Evangelicals" for basically making
Trump (of
all fucking people!) their god.
Have fun in Hell, idiots.
I Have Spoken.
In Oz, the guards lock the cages and walk away, and the predators rise, take control and make the rules. But in Em City, the guards are with us 24 hours a day. There's no privacy. Everybody sees what everybody's doing. Eyes everywhere. McManus' eyes. See, in Em City, retribution gives way to redemption. Timmy boy believes he can save every one of us, from each other, from ourselves, from the system that dumped us in here. Only thing he don't get is, you gotta wanna be saved. ~Augustus Hill, From the HBO series Oz, S1.E1 "The Routine."
There simply is nothing more, let alone anything kinder, to say.
You gotta
want to be Saved.
And you either believe in freedom or you don't.
In 2024 we proved that we were NOT a Better Nation.
In 2026, we take it back.
Vote. Tomorrow.
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The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits — not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. ~Ronald Reagan
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[Kuiil and Mando have successfully repaired the Razor Crest with the parts recovered from the Jawas]- The Mandalorian: I can't thank you enough. Please allow me to give you a portion of the reward.
- Kuiil: I cannot accept. You are my guest, and I am therefore in your service.
- The Mandalorian: I could use a crew member of your ability. And I can pay handsomely.
- Kuiil: I am honored. But I have worked a lifetime to finally be free of servitude.
- The Mandalorian: I understand. Then... all I can offer is my thanks.
- Kuiil: And I offer mine. Thank you for bringing peace to my valley. [leaves the ship and mounts his Blurrg; to Mando] And good luck with the Child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward. I have spoken.
- ~From the Star Wars series; The Mandalorian, S1.E2 "The Child."
