Insect Life on Mars?

After analyzing NASA images, Entomologist William Rosser at Ohio University has made the startling claim that life exists on the red planet in the form of "insect-like fauna," which resemble "Terran insects."

"There is apparent diversity among the Martian insect-like fauna," stated Rosser, "which display many features similar to Terran insects that are interpreted as advanced groups - for example, the presence of wings, wing flexion, agile gliding/flight, and variously structured leg elements."

Rosser believes the photos show evidence of carapaces, antennae, insectoid legs and segmented bodies which stand out from the surrounding martian regolith. However others aren't convinced, with an anonymous whistleblower claiming the martian insects are examples of "pareidolia," a phenomenon in which the mind is tricked into seeing something that isn't there:

If you stare at an object long enough and really want it to be something,  your mind starts seeing patterns and images that aren't really there. We call this pareidolia and that's what's happening here, a pudgy chow thief Lieutenant Colonel turns into a space bug. It's a trick of the mind.

Is Rosser right, is there insect life on Mars or do NASA photos simply reveal a corpulent, corrupt, lying, stand on your rank like a fool, traitorous, uniformed bureaucrat? 

You be the judge,

LSP

Edmund King And Martyr

Perhaps you missed it in the clown show circus, shampeachment event but today's the Feast of St. Edmund, King and Martyr. Edmund was King of East Anglia in the second half of the 9th century A.D. 

He was a model ruler who refused to listen to sneaky, lying, perfidious informant spies, focusing his energies instead on the Christian life and fighting the heathen Vikings.

The latter killed him in 870, torturing the martyr king in a failed attempt to make Edmund renounce his faith before shooting him to death with arrows. The King's shrine was established at the abbey church of Bury St. Edmunds, where it remained until the impious monarch Henry VIII destroyed it in a fit of crazed greed.

Here's his Collect:

O God of ineffable tenderness, who didst enable the most blessed King, Edmund, to overcome his enemy by laying down his life for Thy Name, mercifully grant that we, Thy servants, may, by his intercession, overcome and destroy in ourselves the temptations of our old enemy. Through our Lord . . .

St. Edmund, intercede for us against the raging heathen of our times. 

God bless,

LSP

Clinton Foundation Loses Big

Recent tax records show the Clinton Foundation operating at a combined loss of almost $33 million for two years running, 2017 and 2018. That's because contributions to the, ahem, charity plummeted when Hillary was destroyed at the polls by Trump in 2016, dropping from a massive $300 million when she was Secretary of State to a risible $30.7 million in 2018.

Here's a helpful infographic for the visually inclined:

What a disaster and a sad contrast to the whopping $1.1 billion in revenue pulled in by the Clinton Foundation during the Obama presidency. Why the loss, could it be that in the absence of play no one's prepared to pay?

The Clinton Foundation's famous for philanthropy in Haiti and its close friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who didn't commit suicide because everyone chokes themselves until their neck bones break.

That aside, we have to ask. In the face of devastating financial loss, will Hillary return to the polls in a crazed bid to set the balance sheet right?

We can but hope,

LSP

Tight Lines

Inspired by tales of trout in the mountain streams of the White Wolf Mine, I drove to the lake in search of fish. Would there be any and if there were, would they bite? Two weighty mysteries to conjure with on the way to a date with piscine destiny.

And at first it seemed as though the answer was negative on both counts. No fish. No bites. Yes, it was all very beautiful, blue sky, autumnal Texan sun reflecting off the water, and all of that, so good for the soul, but where were the fish?

Then, just as I was about to head somewhere else there was a vicious tug on the line, hookset, and whatever was on took off like Trump Train 2020. Rod double, line out, reeling action, especially when the cunning leviathan made a mad bid to dive under the pier. It failed, but only just, and there he was, at last, a mighty catfish.

I hauled the monster up on the dock for a photo op before putting him back in to fight again another day. What a good fish. And there you have it, a short story of aquatic adventure in the Texan countryside and yet another testimony to the power of worms, small hooks and a light rod. Amazed the thing didn't break, to be honest.

Great fun, and a welcome break from staring in slack-jawed consternation at the corruption and malfeasance of our nation's political elite and their lying shills in the media. But that's a different sermon.

Fish on,

LSP

Convention

You know the old saying, "Bishops should be locked up and put in a cage." So true, but there's an exception which proves the rule, Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth. I tell you, I have not served under a better bishop. Professional, uncompromising in the Faith and remarkably pastoral.

That and far more in mind, it was moving to hear Bishop Jack give his last address to the Diocese before retirement at our Convention this weekend. Quite a thing. Regardless, I sat next to an interesting woman at the convention dinner who told me that when it came to religion "she'd seen and heard everything."

A Typical Owl Idol

I thought about this for less than a second and fired back, "You have? What about this. Our local Church of Christ's teaching its members that the Original Sin wasn't Adam and Eve, no, it was Adam and Lillith. You know, the demon. What about that?"

She was confused and wondered where this curious teaching came from. "Perhaps from the Kabbalah, a grimoire or even the OTO." Huh, "What's that?" Well, you get the drift and she glazed over as I explained the reinvention of occult ritual magic under the aegis of Aleister Crowley. Who can blame her?

MAGA 2020

The night finished at the hotel bar with assorted priests, bishops, and clergy, great fun, as was talking with a couple of cowboys. I figured they were with the rodeo but no, just riggers and we swapped tales of horses and broken bones. What a good crew.

Texas

Saturday saw the business of the Convention, which was mercifully brief, and I headed for home via the country route. It was alright.

Free Roger Stone

LSP

Impeach!

Having you been following the goofy impeachment clownshow, in which outraged Democrats accuse the President of brazenly, shamelessly talking with a foreign head of state? And that, OMG, he even asked the Ukrainian Premier to look into possible corruption? Like, really? 

Yes, really. 45 literally asked Volodymyr Zelensky to look into pay-to-play corruption between the US and the Ukraine. What a crook, but who was paying who to play? The Ukrainians were paying top level Democrats, of course.

What a gig it was! Apparently the Bidens, Kerrys, Pelosis, Clintons and who knows who else, seem to have had a generous helping of rich Ukrainian gravy. And they would be still if the most qualified presidential candidate in the history of the world ever hadn't failed so dismally in 2016.

What a total, utter disaster. Solution? Kick off a deep state coup to unseat the lawfully elected Usurper, call it an insurance policy if you like. Then, when the Trump's a Russian Agent maneuver fails like an out of fuel Sopwith Camel, deploy the Trump's a Ukrainian Crime Lord shampeachment gambit. No evidence, no matter, just do it.

When that fails due to a complete absence of any wrongdoing, there's always the tried and tested backstop. That's right, launch Hillary, again.

Yes please,

LSP

Meet The Social Justice Puppies!

Why? Because awesome. Thanks, GWB.

Your Pal,

LSP

Reflections

It's freezing here in Texas because anthropogenic global warming has heated up the atmosphere making everything colder. No kidding, thanks to racist carbon dioxide emissions there's snow in North Texas, thus proving the old adage, "Don't pay your climate tax, suffer the Ice Age, Fascists." That in mind, I've got the heat on at the Compound and time to reflect.

"Reflect on what?" you ask in baffled amazement, "The climatic disaster of cis-gendered appropriation of the ecosphere, allied with systemic oppression of the mujerista other?" Well yeah, obviously, but also the US military. A few thoughts.

As Private LSP guided us around the National Infantry Museum he turned to me and said, "I'm part of the greatest military the world has ever seen." He wasn't boasting, just stating a fact, and I replied that unless I was missing something he was right. America, to put it simply, can put more ordnance on target than any other force in history, and can do so with remarkable speed and accuracy on a global scale -- from land, sea, air and space. The US military is, in a word, a devastating machine.

A brief visit to Fort Benning gives you a glimpse into it, an immense base, modern, tight, remarkably efficient as thousands of recruits go through their paces under the eyes of the Drills. It's a far cry from its English equivalent, not least because of the size and newness of the thing. For example, the entire Prince of Wales Divisional training depot as it was in Lichfield would fit into the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry facility at Benning. And that's just one one of many, all of them up to date, in excellent order and professional as the day's long.

The young soldiers were professional too, or at least learning to be. All the privates I met, and I met lots, were intelligent, motivated and comparatively mature. I was seriously impressed by the caliber. That said, Private LSP relates:

"When we were training for the graduation parade, the Drills would order us to march up and shout out the Soldiers Creed, ending with 'I am an American Soldier!' then they'd look you in the eye and say 'No you're not. Next!'"

I had to laugh. It reminded me of long ago being asked by my Platoon Commander on a somewhat beat up infantry training depot in the Midlands: 

"LSP, do we pay you?"

"Yes, Sir."

"That's ridiculous and absurd. You should be paying us."

And there you have it, just some random observations.

Stay warm,

LSP

Veterans Day

President Roosevelt said this on Armistice Day, 1941:

We know that it was, in literal truth, to make the world safe for democracy that we took up arms in 1917. It was, in simple truth and in literal fact, to make the world habitable for decent and self-respecting men that those whom we now remember gave their lives. They died to prevent then the very thing that now, a quarter century later, has happened from one end of Europe to the other.

Now that it has happened we know in full the reason why they died.

We know also what obligation and duty their sacrifice imposes upon us. They did not die to make the world safe for decency and self-respect for five years or ten or maybe twenty. They died to make it safe. And if, by some fault of ours who lived beyond the war, its safety has again been threatened then the obligation and the duty are ours. It is in our charge now, as it was America's charge after the Civil War, to see to it "that these dead shall not have died in vain." Sergeant York spoke thus of the cynics and doubters: "The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally to hold them."

The people of America agree with that. They believe that liberty is worth fighting for. And if they are obliged to fight they will fight eternally to hold it.

This duty we owe, not to ourselves alone, but to the many dead who died to gain our freedom for us-to make the world a place where freedom can live and grow into the ages.

The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. Yes indeed, and the fight's clearly not over today, whether at home or abroad.

God bless,

LSP

The Graduate

No, not the movie featuring Simon & Gurfunkle but my eldest boy's graduation from Basic at Fort Benning on Thursday. And I won't lie, it was emotional stuff, beginning with the walk to the Parade Field. Keep it together, parents.

That achieved, we appropriately ended up at the front with the Padre and on it went. I know many of you have done or witnessed this very thing so I won't go over the detail, but I was more than proud at the march past. Well done.

#2

We met up in front of the National Infantry Museum later and got a guided tour from the newly minted Private. He was enthusiastic and more than a little in awe of his ancestors, and rightly so. I thought seeing Goring's Baton was especially neat; encrusted with Luftwaffe diamonds, thank you very much. Well, hubris met nemesis and Carinhall is notoriously no more.

After the museum we headed out to a pleasant restaurant in Columbus, there is one, and then the Private navved us to the mall for a dose of something not military as well as an iPhone. After that it was on to Sandhill Gate for a tour of the boy's billet and training ground. It was good to see.

We ended up in the car park outside 2/47's compound where everyone got a chance to meet, greet and congratulate as incoming recruits were being beasted (smoked) by their Sergeants on the way to dinner. The graduates looked on with knowing amusement, they'd been there before.

The party ended at 1800 with a final formation in the rain, and we watched them till they marched off to a final night at Benning and their next assignment, AIT. 

I tell you, it was a great day. Well done, boys.

LSP

Shoot!

Sexless drones of the New World Order aren't able to defend themselves, but it's different for free citizens. That in mind, I loaded up a couple of guns in the rig and drove out to Karen's for bean and brisket burritos, so tasty, and then the range.

It felt good to get out in the country for a shoot, just you and the guns under a big Texan sky, complete with hawks and vultures swooping and gliding in search of prey. To say nothing of a green silhouette, a Glock, a Ruger and an AR.

We opened up with the pistol, .45 ACP smashing into paper with more or less accuracy, and then some brisk action with .556. Well done, gas gun, annoying to clean, fun to shoot. And I like this rifle; Bison barrel, Hipertouch trigger, Fortis handguard (light and easy), Primary Arms red dot and Magpul here and there. What a neat little heater. The .22, Brits would say "tutu", was fun too, well done, Ruger.

And that was that, a great afternoon at the range and a good time had by all. It'd been far too long since I was able to get out in the field so it was good to be back. Thanks, modern medicine and firearms tech.

In other news, the Recruit passed all his tests and grads from Basic at Fort Benning on Thursday. He tells me he enjoyed chucking grenades about. Boom. On the way to Georgia now.

I dedicate this short if heartfelt post to RRH who shot well for the first time ever, and Branston, who passed from darkness to light. No small achievement in either instance. As always, gun rights.

MAGA 2020

LSP

Halloween

No, that's not some kid dressed up in a spooky Halloween costume, it's Mick Jagger singing a devil's night toe-tapper. But point of order, what business did Mick have saying we all killed JFK? Er, no we didn't. Whatever, I guess someone thought it sounded good.

That annoying lyrical point aside, have a great Halloween and remember, it's not Satan's Birthday, it's the Eve of All Saints.

God bless,

LSP