Guilty! (Gravity, Eight.)

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā
Ā, upane! ka upane!
Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!

~Ka Mate, Maori Haka (main body)

...
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
'Tis Death, 'Tis Death, 'Tis Life, 'Tis Life
This is the hairy man
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Up the ladder, up the ladder!
Rise! The Sun shines.
~Ka Mate (English translation.)

(War Dance)

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

.....

"The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride."

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly 25 February 2022, Associated Press

So, while I was sleeping yesterday, Donald Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his NYC Hush Money trial.

Good. For what it's worth, anyway. I saw it when I got up, but I had to work last night.

Like I said to my local paper-delivery guy, there's a good chance Trump is done politically, but a non-zero chance Republicans declare him a martyr and their god, and the devotion of the Cult deepens. That just means we have other problems coming, like a right-wing insurgency that will be fought in Trump's name.

(It'll be a soup sandwich and they'll lose but it'll still kill people.)

Basically every MAGA nut, Republican or Republican-adjacent person is trying to defend this asshole while blaming imaginary Communists, and for what?? It's not like Trump appreciates it. Communism hasn't been a thing since 1989, and they threw in with Putin anyway. Do they think we can't see this bullshit??

(Note: I find it suspicious that RFK Jr. is playing for second Vs. Trump just like Nikki Haley and all the other Republicans did. You'd think now is his moment if he's seriously running.)

Also, how fucking ideological and/or stupid do you have to be to think Donald Trump is a "Freedom Fighter" of any kind?? Of course, Stephen Miller is trying to be the legal arm of the White Supremacist Liberation Front, but there's nobody actually oppressing Angry Old White Guys.

And what I'm not sure Nosferatu even realizes is, angry old white guys are a dime a dozen, and the next one might not give a shit about him, I mean, why should they?? For fuck's sake, what happens when all these obviously Anti-Semitic Republicans realize he's Jewish??

And that's the thing I don't get. 

What's even the point??

There's too many contradictory factions here.

All these motherfuckers have in common is Donald Trump, a hatred of liberal democracy and petty racial and sexual bigotries...but the far-right usually falls apart due to petty infighting whenever their Icon-Of-The-Moment gets taken down a peg or two, and Trump just did.

The problem with that, is that Republicans have spent decades undermining US national cohesion and all these Republicans basically hate each other, too.

This could very well result in a couple of fucking Red States seceding from America (and liberals just taking the attitude of "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out") then promptly going to war with each other over some stupid shit, like who is the most special snowflake Trump-worshipers.

And if you don't think Trump or his family members would egg that shit on in the name of fueling his delusions or their own narcissism, you have another thing coming.

And it can always get worse.

We're dealing with a fucking cult here.

These fucking people are simply not rational.

And honestly, I feel like there's no good ending to this. One, The system waited too long. Two, because the way to stop it was to never let it get started in the first goddamn place and too many fucking people dropped the ball in 2015-2016.

The Republicans could and should have told Trump to go fuck himself. Democrats should've taken this threat more seriously and the goddamned voters could have easily stopped this shit ourselves...except too many of us had our heads up our asses.

Now the goddamned Republican power structure and the media have gone balls out to try and save Trump (and his ego) so they can make money off him and it wasn't enough.

My concern here is that MAGA motherfuckers will just start shooting at people if they don't think they can get whatever they think they want politically, and of course the only way to stop that is to shoot back. (And Republicans will be no help with this shit, even though it will end up targeting them, too.)

Like I said, it's not so much Gravity, it's that sudden stop at the bottom.

I feel like a Conviction is a start, but we have to keep the pressure on. We have to stand up, and keep standing up. Everybody wants to go back to normal, but Normal wasn't even yesterday.

Remember that.

We have to believe in and want our Freedom more than they believe in and want their Hate.

And we're going to have to fight for it.

If you want a better country, you have to be a better Citizen.

And now's the time.

Freedom ain't free, yo.

Слава Україна!

Seven

[Cassian and Kino Loy have successfully broken out of their cell block and took over the prison complex's command center]

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

The Virgins Are All Trimming Their Wicks (Gravity, Seven.)

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:

But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.

But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.

Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.

But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.

Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

~Matthew 25:1-13

...

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

I saw this Tuesday night after my Grandma's birthday dinner.

Some idiots made a memorial stone for Ashlii Babbitt and some of the other January 6th insurrectionists who were killed, and tried to take it and put it somewhere at Arlington National Cemetery. They were immediately turned away by security.

WTF?? (I'm a veteran, you can't just do stuff like that, there's rules. I'm not saying that to be mean or because I don't like MAGA insurrectionists, it's just the truth.)

But of course these people are mentally ill fanatics and nothing will ever be good enough for them anyway, and why the hell did we give these fucking people a platform to begin with, like, at all?

It was a busy couple of days for me.

I left here before dawn on Tuesday and met my Mom up at her partner's house, and we drove up to the Upper Peninsula (MI) to my aunt and uncle's house with a few detours like to my Mom's favorite campground near Brimley and around the former KI Sawyer Air Force Base to see what'd changed since my last trip up there. (Really, outside of Marquette itself, not much.)

But you notice things, or I do anyway.

Part of it is natural inclination, part of it is training.

In one of the most rural and Whitest parts of rural White America, I saw about as many Biden signs or Pride Flags or Ukrainian flags as I did MAGA swag or Trump signs, a lot more if you take all the other stuff in total. 

When we drove through Bay Mills...which used to be a typical crappy Reservation with shoddy Federal-grade constructed buildings and a Casino...everything there has changed, Native American business and street names, obvious cultural pride, etc. There was still a drunk Native guy walking down the road but my Mom...who goes up there and camps a lot most summers...just waved and told me he always does that. She knows the guy. Likewise, I noticed that even along the rural and fairly desolate Seney Stretch, things seemed cleaned up compared to how they were the last time I was there, rather than just a few things fixed up by federal grant...there were businesses open where there hadn't been in 2017. Both coming and going, we saw a short train on the stretch of railroad that follows that part of M-28 for most of its length...a stretch of track that was impassable, cluttered up with abandoned railcars for decades...rusting behemoths on abandoned tracks...even the last time I went that way. Somebody hauled them all away.

 We drove through KI Sawyer (my home station for 19 months of my Air Force career) and even that looked less like a moldering former SAC Base and more like a community that'd finally got its feet under it. Marquette...always a Blue island of a city...had a lot of new stuff although I freely admit it's been over 20 years since I drove all the way through it.

My family has always predominately been Democrats with a few moderate, conservation-minded Republicans sprinkled in (Like I was, and I got it from my Dad) and when I lived at my Aunt and Uncle's house while stationed at the then-active Air Force base in the early/mid-1990's apparently my (then generally mutually alcohol-augmented) political discussions with my Uncle (who himself is a 1970's Army National Guard veteran and was a part-time firefighter and full-time maintenance guy with a side of farming. 30 years ago he was a staunch Clintonista) are a thing of family legend now. The two of my three cousins who were there both brought that up.

But a key point that they brought up was that we always got along and both knew what we were talking about...rather than the conspiracy theories and nonsense of today.

The sole remnant of that time...a moth-eaten woodland camo BDU jacket with my name and Sergeant's stripes on it (recently found in the attic) got appropriated by Cousin #1's boys and apparently I ain't never getting that shit back now, so my Uncle and I laughingly showed them how to stand at attention, march and salute and shit like that. They can have it, and more power to them. (Their Mom, herself an Air Force veteran, USAFA graduate, former C-130 Hercules pilot and current lawyer, thought this was extremely funny for some reason. They never got that excited about her stuff.)

I'd expected to have to go upstairs to even get shitty Wi-Fi reception on my phone. That's a thing. (Forget trying to check Google Maps or your weather app between about Newberry and US Highway 41, that hasn't changed.) But, they have good Wi-Fi now...which I should've thought of because of my Aunt's craft business. Things Change, even up there.

I stayed up late Tuesday night playing D&D with my twin (girl) cousins, and twin cousin #1's husband and twin cousin #2's wife. Crash-slept for a few hours, and then got woke up by the dog. In an echo of earlier days, we watched the news (Trump trial stuff was all that was on) and my uncle held forth about political stuff like he always used to. The level of divisiveness, conspiracy BS and outright rage among a lot of the older guys he knew, and how he talked about it, was breathtaking to me. Those people (some of whom I also used to know) were not always like this.

My uncle has apparently thrown hands with some of these guys.

We made Bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast. My Mom and I cut some Asparagus and Rhubarb from the gardens and got on the road by 10 AM.

But ya know, the thing about those angry conspiratorial old white guys is that now they want to change America right out of the American Experiment as it has ever existed, and they want to kill women. Yeah you can just go right ahead and tell that shit to a guy with three girl cousins...one of whom is LGBT and has a really cool, nice wife. I've got something for you, if you wanna be that way, but you ain't gonna like it.

All I keep hearing about from Republicans is revenge.

Revenge for this, revenge for that, revenge for the goddam other thing...and Death, lots of death.

Revenge...for Trump being held to account for once, for literal criminal acts?

Republicans are mad that other people exist, or that laws can be applied to them and theirs. Some of them always were, and now they've chased all the other Republicans out. And now they wanna kill people because Trump is facing a possible guilty verdict?? I mean seriously these fucking people have just been outright lying about how juries and criminal convictions work, to gin up outrage.

These fucking people don't want to live in America as it's currently constituted, and fundamentally, they want to kill anybody who does. It doesn't matter that this BS doesn't make any sense, not least of all to them.

Shit, these fucking people would try to argue with Gravity.

Well, let me tell you how this is gonna go;

It's not Gravity that kills you, it's that sudden stop at the bottom: There is a hard baseline to reality.

I swore an oath to this country and I'm naturally going to be opposed to seditionists and traitors, and it pisses me off that some motherfucker would try to commemorate treason on the sacred ground of a place like Arlington National Cemetery. There's a motherfucking reason that place was built on the grounds of Bobby Lee's plantation house. When the government gave you the middle finger back in the day they didn't screw around.

Before I was ever a Republican or a Democrat, or a Christian or anything else that I am or ever was, I'm an American. 

And if you don't wanna live in America, if you'd rather live in some country called Trump Land, you can get the fuck out.

Antarctica is nice this time of year, I hear.

But the truth is, at the end of the day, these idiots want to take over America or at least break a piece of it off for themselves and either would be rebuilt in Donald Trump's demented image. I don't think they'll succeed at the former, but it's very, very likely that they will attempt the latter, and more likely than most people think that they would succeed.

The world is not ready for some kind of Trump-cult Nation.

So the only way to stop this shit is that we have to show up, and quite likely, we'll have to fight them off after we vote them down. Start working on stopping it now.

I didn't make the rules, decades of Democrats and Republicans alike dropping the ball while a few bad actors laid the groundwork for this situation created this mess.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

But if I had to guess, these motherfuckers have a lot less support than they've convinced themselves that they do.

The trouble is, if we don't stop this bullshit now and find a way to force the crazies out of public life, and to get the wannabe murderers out of "Conservative" politics, people are still going to die. This is literally what they're publicly declaring that they want.

And they're making up literally endless excuses for it, having decoupled decency and morality from basically any of their claimed beliefs...simply because to retain either would not permit them to do what they think they want to. They've started to replace any political conservative beliefs or anything else they ever claimed they had with bigotry, racism and every other form of societal fentanyl you can think of. I mean, what the fuck is even the point of an alleged "Conservative Christian" theocracy if one of the first people they'd kill is Jesus??

They'd sooner call Valdimir Putin "Christ," claim Russia is Rome, and then blasphemously unify the two...and join themselves to that bullshit...where the entire fucking point, theologically is that Christ and Rome are naturally in opposition.

If we don't put a stop to that, these fucking people just might get their Killing Fields with a mall.

And it's Republicans who want that. Same people who go a little buggy without "Liberals" to argue with and go to pieces when confronted with a virus think they're going to kill everybody else and take over.

No, it doesn't make any sense.

But if you don't want that, or want them to try it, that means you have to stand up.

Слава Україна!

Six

"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity". ~Martin Luther King Jr.

Bonus Content

[Cassian and Kino Loy have successfully broken out of their cell block and took over the prison complex's command center]

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

Ghosts (Gravity, Six.)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address.

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~Idiocracy (2006 Film)

...

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

It's Memorial Day.

And Donald Trump tried to make it all about himself.

I'll point out again that "I'm so tired of this crap." Not that it seems to matter to about a third of the country, including much of the media and nearly all of the Republican Party.

Here's the thing; Aside from the rubes cheering for his stupid ass and basically every fart that comes out of it...nobody actually cares about this motherfucker.

Everybody else doing this shit who actually knows anything is either trying to get money or power (or both) from this situation...and none of them much care if the rest of the country goes to hell in the meantime. 

These fucking people [The media and the "Conservative" political class] don't give a good goddamn if Trump turns America into the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia...but with a mall. 

So long as the dead and the suffering and those fighting against this shit are kept out of their sight, that is. (The Basic MAGA's on the other hand will want all the suffering basically livestreamed for their entertainment.)

And of course, they all care that they can keep partying it up. (But it's better if somebody else can't.)

Where does it stop??

When is enough, going to be enough??

If it doesn't stop, if we don't stop it, this garbage is going to break America. 

There will be two countries (at least) where this one used to be...and trust me, you won't want to live in the one that's basically Trump North Korea.

But the media will never shut up about it, for one thing.

They'll sing the glories of Trump Juche right up until they get put up against the wall and shot for some minor infraction against Trump's endless narcissism, or that of his successors.

I'll never get it, yo. And guess what? I don't want to, either.

The Libertarians booed the motherfucker, for fuck's sake!

Memorial Day is supposed to be about America's war dead, about those who didn't come back, and those who have gone before. 

Today...as I do every Memorial Day, I remember my Air Force bro (by then an Air National Guardsman) who got called up and deployed to Afghanistan a month or so after he got married in 2003. He came back, late summer of 2004 only to find that something in his mind or his soul never left there, then he shipped out to Iraq for another year and a half. He got out when his time was up, couldn't keep it going. I didn't blame him. His wife left him in 2006. He never said what it was over, and I didn't want to pry. It was obvious that it hurt and by then his mental health wasn't great. My friend moved to Florida in 2007, got a job as some kind of contractor at NAS Jacksonville and we sort of lost touch. 

He committed suicide in April of 2011, around what (had things worked out) would've been his eighth wedding anniversary. Rose, my ex-girlfriend that he had introduced me to, messaged me on Yahoo Messenger. She told me to call her. I did, and that's how I found out. 

All this time later I still kind of feel like "What's even the damn point?"

Then, as now, I feel like "What the fuck are we even doing here?"

Half my news feed on Threads was all about Donald Trump on this day.

The Republican Party has degenerated into an Idiocracy.

And I'm tired of it.

I can't help but feel like we're coming up on the next conflict, and whether it'll be with the Russians, or each other, or both...I don't know.

But I imagine the AI wannabe-overlords and the Tech Bros and other motherfuckers will just try and make even more money off of it, like trying to sell shit to troops in the battlespace in the same kind of way that Google stalked me (to the point of asking for reviews of my workplace) until I basically blew up and sent somebody a nasty E-mail saying "I work there, you don't want to know what I think."

How many young people, fighting to try and save this country, will give the Last Full Measure of Devotion simply because they forgot to mute their damn cell phones in the heat of the moment and got some stupid notification at the wrong time? 

On the other side, how many people will die because the MAGA revolt didn't train their people worth a damn, made vaccinations optional for their forces and didn't supply them properly, Russian style?

And when this poorly-fought civil war ends, either in defeat of the rebels or some Chinese-and-Russian-backed negotiated settlement (which, I fear, would be the most likely outcome) what are the odds we don't learn anything?? I bet we just paper it over (again) and try to go on, as normal, as soon as we can. 

This doesn't just apply to wars...we did it with COVID-19, too. We tried to do it with Trump's first term, but he won't stop. Sooner or later we're going to have to face something, hell, anything.

We have to stop feeding this bullshit, stop blowing the narcissist, America.

Maybe it's just me, but if you can't find a moral compass and rediscover right and wrong, at least have enough self-preservation to remember that one has to be alive to spend money.

Like I keep saying, there's a hard edge to reality. It's not Gravity that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom. You can argue with that all you like...but Physics won't care.

And neither will the Ghosts.

Sooner or later, you're going to have to be a better citizen. Sooner or later, you're going to have to stand up for America and Civilization...or at least for your own life and right to exist. I think you'll find that these things are pretty heavily connected.

But less blood will be shed if you start doing it now.

Remember that, this Memorial Day.

Before we have even more dead to commemorate.

Слава Україна!

[Captain Lennox is trying to call the Pentagon while his men fight Scorponok]

Capt. Lennox: I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD!!!

International Operator: [Bored] Sir, the attitude isn't going to speed things up any bit at all. I'm going to ask you to speak into the mouthpiece very clearly.

Capt. Lennox: I'm in the middle of a war! This is friggin' ridiculous!! [Runs over to Epps] I need a credit card! Epps, where's your wallet?

Tech Sgt. Epps: Pocket!!!

Lennox: Which pocket?!

Epps: MY BACK POCKET!!!

Lennox: You've got ten back pockets!!!

Epps: LEFT CHEEK!!! LEFT CHEEK!!! LEFT CHEEK!!!

Lennox: [Picks up card and continues talking] Okay, it's a Visa.

International Operator: Also, sir, have you heard about our Premium Plus full-service call package?

Lennox: NO, I DON'T WANT A PREMIUM PACKAGE!!!

~From the film Transformers.

Five

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

We've learned fuck all, haven't we?

Tarnishing The Golden Idol (Gravity, Five.)

Nixon: Therefore, there is no place for neutrality or a neutralist sentiment in South Vietnam. As I leave Vietnam today there is no doubt, certainly, in my mind that the Viet Cong will be defeated and this war will be won. Asia does involve, I think, very appropriately as you have suggested, give and take.

Adrian: Well I-- I really didn't make that suggestion, sir, I'm sorry.

Nixon: The United States has no right to give--

Hauk: Why would Cronauer's voice be on this tape?

Abersold: I don't know, Lieutenant.

Nixon: --territory to the communists.

Adrian: Mr. Nixon, thank you for that concise political commentary, but I think I'd like to delve into something slightly more personal for the men in the field. How would you describe your testicles?

[Hauk turns to the radio in horror]

Nixon: That they're soft, and that they're shallow and they have no purpose.

Hauk: Oh, my God.

Adrian: What are you saying, sir?

Hauk: Oh, my God.

Nixon: That they lack the physical strength.

Adrian: How would you describe your sex life with your wife Pat?

Nixon: It is unexciting sometimes.

Adrian: Well, have you considered, possibly, a sex change. There is an operation that can transform you

Hauk: Please don't do this to me. Please don't do this to me.

Adrian: --into a female Great Dane or possibly a very well hung Chihuahua. Mr. Nixon, while you've been in Vietnam, its rumored that you've smoked marijuana. Are you planning to take some of the marijuana home back to the United States? How would you do that?

Nixon: By plane. By helicopter and also by automobile.

Adrian: Can you please do your impersonation of Mister Ed for us?

Hauk: (running into the control room) Cut this thing off! I said cut it off! (Bangs on the tape machine and stops the tape) Where's Cronauer?

Marty: Still eating sir.

Hauk: I want to see him ASAP.

Marty: What's that?

Hauk: As soon as possible!

Marty: VG sir.

Garlick: [into the mic] We interrupt this press conference to bring you this emergency performance of the Benny Goodman Orchestra. 

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

I saw this last night while I was getting ready for work.

Some genius thought it would be a good idea for Trump to speak at the Libertarian national convention.

Trump got booed.

By Libertarians.

And so did Utah Senator Mike Lee, who attempted to tell the Libertarians that they should vote for Trump...if not nominate him to be their party's candidate (As if he has anything to worry about from the Republican Party he took over?)

Shit, I thought Mike Lee was a Libertarian? I guess not.

The Libertarians ran Mike Lee right off the stage.

Also, who's next?? Rand Paul?? (Little Baby Jesus, Please.)

Think about that, take all the time you want.

The people who think Taxation Is Theft booed Trump, a Republican who passed a large tax cut for the wealthy in 2017.

I thought that's what Libertarianism was all about. Well, that and Weed, but I guess Trump's Reefer Madness DOJ didn't exactly endear him to Libertarians, come to think of it.

But wait, it gets worse.

(I don't know how this happened, but it does.)

Brigadier General Taylor: I think I see a pattern forming here.

Dreiwitz: Sir, these letters are unequivocal! Uh, e.g., [reads a letter] "Hey, Hauk. Eat a bag of shit. You suck." That's pretty much to the point, sir, not much gray area in this one.

PFC Garlick: We got one positive call from some guy in Wichita, who thought that Hauk's comedy was "visionary and interesting." The other eleven hundred calls say that the man can't do comedy to save his dick! [pause] That's a direct quote, sir.

Phil: I've taken ninety calls this morning-- they just don't like Hauk.

PFC Garlick: From a Marine in Danang: "Captain Hauk sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls." I have no idea what that means, sir, but it seems very negative to me.

Brigadier General Taylor: I think the troops are trying to tell us something, fellas. 

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

RFK Jr.'s campaign apparently found out Trump was gonna be there and issued rubber chickens to the Libertarians cuz he says Trump is afraid to debate him.

But, the Secret Service confiscated them, because all these motherfuckers can't stop blowing the goddamned Narcissist, or something.

Seriously? 

You have GOT to be fucking shitting me.

Like, Trump, bro, your ass just got owned by a Democrat with literal brain-worms.

And you got booed by Libertarians, seriously, in even George W. Bush level Republican terms I think that means it's time to hang it up and go home. If you're a Republican and get booed by Libertarians, that's not just political death...it's political death, political resurrecting as a Zombie in three minutes and seven seconds, and then politically getting clubbed in the head.

RFK just adds the rough equivalent of politically getting your Ghost exorcised by a Priest of Xenu after all that.

Hauk: Sir, the man has got an irreverent tendency. He did a very off-color parody of former VP Nixon.

Brigadier General Taylor: I thought it was hilarious.

Hauk: Respectfully, sir, the former VP is a good man and a decent man.

Brigadier General Taylor: Bullshit! I know Nixon personally. He lugs a trainload of shit behind him that would fertilize the Sinai. Why, I wouldn't buy an apple cider from the son of a bitch and I consider him a good, close, personal friend!

~From the film Good Morning Vietnam.

Goddamn, if you keep pitching yourself as a far-right fascist with a plan to basically dismantle the Federal Government and get rid of Social Security, with an affect of "Well, the Constitution doesn't specifically say that racism is bad and that social justice should be a thing..." and Libertarians boo you out of their convention...?

I mean, fuck, what's next?

(Yes, yes, one would think I've learned not to ask that question. One would be wrong.)

Well, since you asked;

"It's a trap against Trump, we must protect the President!"

Wait a minute, aren't these guys the "Trump is God" motherfuckers??

Oh...

Shit.

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; ~Exodus 20:2-5

Just sayin' he ain't much of a God if he needs your ass to protect him.

And protect him from "Libertarian Scum" on top of that??

LOL.

I'm imagining this being said in the vaguely British tones of an Imperial Navy officer from the Star Wars franchise. Because yes, a lot of these idiots really do think they want to live in the Empire. In point of fact Republicans are loudly competing to be the guy who goes around shouting "On Program" at all the other prisoners, apparently forgetting that he's also a prisoner himself.

Seriously, when is enough, enough??

We've had to listen to this deranged, doddering ass-clown for going on nine years now and I'm fucking sick of this bullshit, like come on MAGA's, what the fuck is even wrong with you?? Trump isn't a conservative, he wasn't even a Republican before he figured out he'd never get elected as a Democrat (and mind you that is the same Party that nominated and elected Bill Clinton, enthusiastically, Twice.) So he went Republican. 

And let me tell you, I hated old Slick Willie. By the end of his first year, I was as tired of Bill Clinton as I am of Trump now...and I voted for the man! But goddamn, next to Trump?? 

I miss that motherfucker.

And if I hadn't also hated Donald Trump before, just the fact that he made me have to vote for Hillary Goddamned Clinton should have been enough to secure my personal hatred of anybody named Trump for all of eternity.

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

~Daniel 3:14-18

I'm tired of this bullshit.

I'm tired of Trump's stupid, ugly ass face.

I'm tired of his monotone voice.

I'm tired of his insult-comedian schtick, his narcissism, his racism, and most of all his simpering whiny-ass crying like a bitch anytime he doesn't get everything he wants.

I'm tired of what his bullshit has done to alleged "Conservatives."

I'm tired of the cheating, the cultic worship, the lying, and the massive undiagnosed mental illness that all this implies. I get that all you Republicans have issues, you don't have a right to impose them on the rest of us. 

We need to stop stopping the world for these fucking assholes, every time they get "uncomfortable." Their entire fucking business model at this point is being uncomfortable and demanding to speak to the fucking manager!

Probably most of all, I'm tired of the fact that supposedly grown-ass people looked and said "Ooh, a Narcissist, we better keep indulging his fantasies, in the hope that we'll get something we want." And then treating that motherfucker like he's God.

Bitch, I was married to somebody with a personality disorder. 

That shit never works out that way. They get what they want, and you get stuck with the bill, the consequences, and the having to put your whole damn life back together. And if you're lucky, you learn a thing or two and you don't do it again.

And I, being a veteran and knowing a little of what that could mean, am preemptively tired of the fact that we're probably going to have to fight a war to get these assholes to stop this shit.

Because it's very likely that when we vote them and their bullshit out (again) they're going to come at us and attempt to install their bullshit in Power forever by force. 

I also know that, as bad of shape as I'm in, when that happens I have the skills to fight and survive, or at least to earn my keep by teaching those skills to other people.

But a lot of people don't.

And there's a lot of people out there that are too disabled, or too old, or too young to really be able to contribute much to the sort of fight that the future implies if this bullshit is not checked now. And those are the people I'm worried about. And I mean checked not just at the ballot box or in Congress and the courts, but in the streets, by letting the people at the base level know,  who desire to wage this war...and from whom MAGA political types come...that the cost of trying to impose their fascism on the world will be too high.

Because the cost of not doing so will be higher.

Like I said, it's not gravity that kills you, it's that sudden stop at the bottom. People need to start remembering that there's a hard baseline to reality and start acting accordingly. 

I know exactly what kind of world these motherfuckers tried to use COVID-19 to try and create. I saw it in Bosnia. These fucking people want to live in a world that's basically the Killing Fields of Khmer Rouge Cambodia, but with a mall.

We need to stop tolerating this bullshit, and we need to stop tolerating anybody who enables it.

For once, the Libertarians have the right idea about something.

Stop blowing the narcissist, America.

Trump's entire plan is to try and pour the whole damn country down that empty hole where his soul was supposed to be...and I'm here to tell you, if he wins, it won't be enough.

Nothing ever will be. Mental illness just works like that, and Trump is clearly insane. Why people wanna play games with this fucker, I'll never understand.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You either believe in Civilization, and standing against the fall of night, or you don't.

And if the Libertarians can do it, and in so doing tarnish this Golden Idol...even if it's just for once, what the fuck is your excuse??

Слава Україна!

[Cassian and Kino Loy have successfully broken out of their cell block and took over the prison complex's command center]

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out! [repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

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