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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 ReaganI went and voted this morning.
Fuck These Motherfuckers, I'm done, I've been done.
The question is, why aren't you?!?!
Looks like a proverbial ass-kicking shaping up, but so far at least it's the fairly obvious. Projecting an Ossoff win in Georgia and Vivek going down in flames in Ohio because fuck that motherfucker, too.
God does not work that way.
I have a feeling the Karmic Ass-whuppin is just getting started.
And by the way, the only reason most of these media jerkoffs and Republicans are essentially repeating Israeli propaganda (which I expect is gonna be reduced once Bibi is out) is right-wing ideology and money.
Florida of course is predictable but I'm not surprised by anything in Florida anymore, that state is turning into a foreign hostile banana republic under our own flag, and you watch and see if it doesn't come down to exactly that.
But I wasn't expecting anything out of that fucking place. It's my people in that state and the native Floridians drowned out by a tide of MAGA retirees moving in that I actually worry about.
Now I just need Flanigan to win in Minnesota so Michele Bachmann looks like a total idiot. "40 days of prayer and fasting?"
For politics?
Wlliam Adama: I've been going through Cain's log and from a tactical perspective it's hard to find fault in anything she did. Or that Kendra Shaw did.
Lee Adama: They butchered innocent civilians, Dad. Come on. How can you ignore that?
William Adama: I know that I didn't have to face any of the situations that she did. I had the President in my face, arguing for the survival of the civilian fleet. I had Colonel Tigh keeping me honest, balancing my morality and my tactics. And I had you. Now...you don't have any children, so you might not understand this, but you see yourself reflected in their eyes. And there are some things that I've thought of doing with this fleet, but I've stopped myself, because I knew I'd have to face you the following day.
~From Battlestar Galactica: Razor
I saw this when I was getting gas.
Note: I live in Northern Michigan, in an area that had a lot of Trumpers when I moved back up here in 2021-2022.
There aren't very many left, and if they are still that way, they're quiet about it.
I'm tired, the last couple days have been a whirlwind because I ended up with some money, so naturally I put most of it so far into helping my partner. But I still had to run errands and all that type of shit like usual.
Still, had to laugh seeing an anti-Trump sticker on the gas pump on election night freaking all the way out here. You have to understand I'm two hours from the nearest freeway in either direction, about two and a half hours from the nearest large city. There's whole towns up here that was nothing but Trumpers all the way down up to a few months past the start of his second term.
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
And yes, I absolutely voted for Abdul this morning, my bro is so Michigan it ain't even funny. He knows what's up, or at least is smart enough to play the game like he does and act like a regular damn person from my state.
On top of that he's a decent guy, and he very much seems like somebody who'll do something, which is rare enough in a congressional candidate. I don't give a rat's ass if he's Muslim although I have a feeling I know a lot more what that means (and I support that, too, Muslims have rarely been anything but a force for good in my life) than fake-pious media chuds like Bret Stephens do.
Being anti-Israel at this point is not being Anti-Semitic.
Israel is a secular nation, not a theocracy, it does not represent Judaism in the same way that (for example) the Holy See represents Catholicism. Their government is democratic and people (both in Israel and otherwise) have the right PER THEIR OWN LAWS to criticize their government.
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.
In a few cases it's possible they actually believe in Christian Zionism. You know, the kind that's basically fattening up Israel as a sacrifice for Republican Murder-Jesus.
Most of these fucking people hate actual Jews.
I'm serious, it's gross.
And all this shit is, mostly, is people using each other in the most cynical ways you can possibly imagine, or maybe you just don't want to.
- 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."
Some people are just bad people, and pretending or wanting to believe otherwise will not help you.
No, there is not "Good" in everyone. I don't give a royal rat's ass what Marianne Williamson told you back in the 1990's.
I have spoken.
And while I'm at it, it's been my actual lived experience that nobody lives down to their claimed opinion of Humanity and the World as being evil and sinful and Fallen than the Evangelicals do.
There is a reason I don't consider Evangelicals to be Christians anymore.
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."
When they'll let me, anyway.
You don't have to like it, or understand.
I know.
And that's all that's needed.
From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned. ~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)
But let me tell you, just for example; The Kiddo is almost 15, she wants to get a job. She wants to work. She has goals, she has a plan. It's a bit idealistic but you want people to be like that at her age. There's a reason I do what I can to make her life a little better specifically too.
If she learns to be a bit of a bitch and a princess like her Mom was when we met all those years ago, and develops the cleverness to manipulate guys and shit because of me, good. Her mother has already taught her to defend herself, if it ever comes to that. I've been present for discussions of Rules Of Engagement when they thought something was gonna happen. Don't mess with that kid.
My ex-wife's oldest son, by contrast, the one she had when we were married, is 30 and doesn't even have a job, or seem to want to.
You want to see what people are, who people are, look at their kids and how the kids conduct themselves and what the kids want to do. I'm sorry, but everybody that can work needs a job.
I know that's hard for some people. Those people should be accommodated as best we can.
I don't make the rules.
But the truth is people who have issues often want to work harder than some of them what don't.
I just wish our system put more into helping the people who were trying to do something and gave less to manipulators who could give a shit about anyone or anything but themselves.
If we want a better nation, we have to be better citizens.
And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama
It's too bad that so many people had to Fuck Around and Find Out before learning that. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble doing the right thing 2 years ago.
You either believe in freedom or you don't.
Слава Україна!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
"I will not trash talk. I will not be a divider in chief or an agitator in chief. I won't be out there blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country — to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world."
[Silence. Two big burly guys push a heaping-full trash-cart with a squeaky wheel across the hall in front of Jeb! Silence.]
"Please clap."
~Jeb! Bush, February 2nd, 2016
(Michigan has not been called yet, but here we are.)
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