Aliens, figments of fevered imagination?
Or something all too real.
You be the judge,
LSP
Aliens, figments of fevered imagination?
Or something all too real.
You be the judge,
LSP
Do you remember how we used to scorn the Soviet Union for being a gerontocracy? My, how that worm's turned. Consider Diane Fienstein sitting not so pretty at 88, Nancy Pelosi at a nimble 82, Mitch McConnell a mere 80, yes this thing's bipartisan, and the Big Guy himself looking good at 79.
The list goes on and here we are, living in a nation run by a seemingly self-perpetuating class of ancient multi-millionaires. You'll note, gentle readers, that gerontocracy and kleptocracy rhyme.
What's with this latest Hiemat/blood/soil Wewelsburg Nordic rune thing? You know, like SS Wiking 2.0 becomes the armed branch of the German Green Party and the Western rainbow lib kleptocracy. Like what? Seriously, what? But it's there for all to see.
Even Rueters didn't bother to hide the swastika tatt on the arm of one of its protected species and you know that's deliberate. They just don't make that kind of mistake, they're professional, ahem, journalists. Cough, spit.
So what does it mean? Surely not the collapse of Yoko Ono greenery into outright corporate fueled tranny Fascism. That's unthinkable. Except that it isn't, see the wretched Ukraine. But with such grisly thoughts in mind, recall there's a reverse side to the medal. It's not joking either.
Terrifying, eh? You know the saying, "No one gets out of here alive." That in mind, look up 1945 SS combat reports, I dare you, and consider the result. Edge of the Abyss:
Your Old Pal,
LSP
PS. This shallow mindblog is entirely against the NSDAP and its runic death metal followers.
I could see the miserable offender from the Compound's upstairs windows. There it was, a mutinous AC exhaust spewing water onto the roof, doing its level best to destroy this humble Texan home.
You see, the genius patrol who got rid of the sleeping porch in the 1980s and turned it into a meeting room didn't grade the roof correctly, the pitch is too shallow. This means water collects on the structure's oddly impermanent asphalt shingles, degrading the rubbish decking beneath and before you know it the whole thing's a soggy, rotten mess. Then it collapses. Disaster.
To play my part in fixing this threat to hearth and home I clambered up on the roof like a mountaineer and, after enjoying the view, advanced to contact. "Look at you, traitor," I thought, looking down at offending PVC article, and then fixed it with a snake, this being a untwisted coat hanger. Take that. And so it did. Now water doesn't flow from miscreant to roof, mission accomplished.
On the way back down to earth I opened up a window which had been painted shut. This will make climbing easier.
Overwatch,
LSP
This important mind post is an exercise in juxtaposition, of binary opposites if you will. On the one hand we have Texas, searing under the heat of an incandescent sun. Yes indeed, hot. Then, on the other hand, we have something else.
You may disagree, feel free, there's no "rule." But I'd say not hot. In related news, have you noticed Baphomet's trans? Seriously, the demon Baphomet is a blasphemous mixture of man and woman, with the head of a goat.
You'll note, vast international readership, that people tend to resemble the gods they worship. There's a warning in that, choose wisely my friends.
LSP
Desperate underdog Ukraine needs help to defeat the Russian Bear. It's time, surely, to unleash the fury of our unconventional arsenal, International Cr*p Pop Stars, ICPS, Wunderwaffe if you will.
Try to imagine the appalling destruction of a Yoko unleashed on Moscow. Horrific.
Or St. Petersburg destroyed by Madonna, in an instant, Bono obliterating Donetsk while the Edge beats Berdyansk into total, utter submission.
That's not all, think of Geldof submunitions smashing Guards Tank Armies while Sting blasts Kherson. Brimstone and Treacle? Emphasis on brimstone, a hint? Perhaps.
Not a pretty picture, is it, and we haven't even begun. Picture Putin trembling in shock at a second wave Taylor Swift strike, the sheer force of its migraine inducing eyes bringing the strongest Russian combat units to their knees.
Horrific? Yes, but such is war.
Peace Out,
LSP
If you wanted to make up a religion for, say, profit, fun and a seat on a private jet you wouldn't come up with the Trinity; the doctrine's too hard, that God is a trinity of Persons in unity of substance. Not three gods or three aspects of god but one God who is three distinct Persons, each one of which is fully divine. The Athanasian Creed puts it thus:
We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost.
It goes on to say that unless you believe this you will, without doubt, “perish everlastingly,” which sounds harsh and is doubtless why this Creed's hidden away at the back of the 1979 Prayer Book. It's just not very polite, especially for modern Anglican sensibilities. But there it is and if we aspire to heaven we'd better worship God as He's revealed Himself to us, as triune. Can we make any sense of this or must we fall into reverent silence in the face of the mystery?
Both, surely, and perhaps the African Doctor St. Augustine comes to our aid. He teaches us that the act of love, human love, necessitates three things, a lover, the beloved and love itself. This, he believes, is analogous to the Trinity, where from all eternity the Father pours out his being to the Son in an act of perfect love.
The Son returns the Father’s love and gives himself to the Father perfectly. So they are one in essence or substance, yet distinct as persons in their relationship one to another. And from their love, this timeless interplay of perfect being, proceeds the Spirit. The love of God personified, distinct by virtue of his procession.
Benedict XVI describes the relationship with admirable clarity:
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one because God is love and love is an absolute life-giving force; the unity created by love is a unity greater than a purely physical unity. The Father gives everything to the Son; the Son receives everything from the Father with gratitude; and the Holy Spirit is the fruit of this mutual love of the Father and the Son.
Per B16, St. John sums it up in three words, "God is love." Reflect on that for more than a moment and silence, to say nothing of fear of the Lord ensues, "Remove your sandals for you are on sacred ground." But we can say this, God, in the Trinity, has revealed himself to us as an infinitely loving communion of persons. So what? So a lot. Consider some of the other options.
What if your higher power is the enigmatic "Life Force," a popular deity in San Francisco, Portland, and Austin, which sounds suspiciously like electricity, doubtless solar. But however green, electricity doesn't love you, it can't, it's not a person. Stick your finger in a light socket and find out.
Again, what if "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" by you is simply the universe, the world writ large. The good Texan soil, the trees, the sun and moon, the stars glittering in the night sky, galaxies cascading out into the icy void of deep space. Such grandeur and all good in itself but here's the thing, the atoms don't care when they're smashed together and obliterate a city. Lake Whitney doesn't shed a tear when you tragically fall off the boat and drown along with your guns. Again, this version of God doesn't love us, it can't, it's not a person.
So what? So a lot. People become like the gods they worship and an unloving, impersonal god produces unloving disciples; followers of the Life Force become just that, all about force. You'll note that "we just want civil unions" moved to "bake the damn cake!" at warp speed.
The doctrine of the Trinity saves us from this tyranny and the despair which goes with it. God, the ultimate reality, the great I AM, is love and He loves us. He dies for us on the Cross, he reconciles us to the Father, He restores God’s image in us, He adopts us as sons as we rise reborn in the waters of the font, the Spirit anointed Sons of God, beloved by the Father, heirs in Christ of everlasting life.
What can we do but fall down in humble adoration, wonder and praise before the God who loves us and has revealed Himself to us as love, as He who is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
God bless you all,
LSP
As noted by LL with admirable historical accuracy, Alexander the Great was precisely that, great, conquering most of the then known world. A remarkable, heroic, man and general, hailed as divine in his lifetime and admired ever since, not least by the infamous Caligula.
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, fondly nicknamed Caligula by Roman soldiers as a child, meaning little boots or "bootsy," became Rome's third Emperor in 37 AD. Not one to waste time, the youthful Emperor constructed a pontoon bridge in 39 AD across the Bay of Naples and rode across it in Alexander the Great's breastplate, which he had removed from the hero's tomb in Alexandria. According to Lacus Curtius (59:17):
Gaius, however, did not care at all for that kind of triumph, as he did not consider it any great achievement to drive a chariot on dry land; on the other hand, he was eager to drive his chariot through the sea, as it were, by bridging the waters between Puteoli and Bauli. (The latter place lies directly across the bay from the city of Puteoli, at a distance of twenty-six stades.)...
When all was ready, he put on the breastplate of Alexander (or so he claimed), and over it a purple silk chlamys, adorned with much gold and many precious stones from India; moreover he girt on a sword, too a shield, and donned a garland of oak leaves.
The following day Caligula charged back across the bridge on a chariot, presumably in the same breastplate, accompanied as before by a military guard. Gaius, of questionable sanity, clearly sought to emulate the martial prowess of his martial forebear. He was also a transvestite, witness Suetonius:
Gaius paid no attention to traditional or current fashions in his dress; ignoring male conventions and even the human decencies. Often he made public appearances in a cloak covered with embroidery and encrusted with precious stones, a long-sleeved tunic and bracelets; or in silk (which men were forbidden by law to wear) or even in a woman's robe; and came shod sometimes with slippers, sometimes with buskins, sometimes with military boots, sometimes with women's shoes. Often he affected a golden beard and carried a thunderbolt, trident, or serpent-twined staff in his hand. He even dressed up as Venus and, even before his expedition, wore the uniform of a triumphant general, including sometimes the breastplate which he had stolen from Alexander the Great's tomb at Alexandria.
We can imagine him, the most powerful man in the world, walking the colonnades of the Palatine, golden beard affixed to imperial chin, armed with emblems of divine omnipotence and an all too real power over life and death. He was killed on his way from the Theater on January 24, AD 41 by senior Centurions who stabbed him to death. He was 29 years old.
There's a moral here if you care to draw it.
SPQR,
LSP
And so we did, for bar fun followed by carnitas followed by wine in the smoking room, yes they have one. I tell you, the sheer noise of Dallas exuberance wasn't far off a sound system going full tilt. Fun, if loud. And you have to wonder how many of these boys bellowing beneath the trophies are actual hunters.
We asked one, "So what are you doing to celebrate Pride month? Hangn' out a flag or what?" Polling, you see. Quick as a flash our boy came back, "Uh, nothing. Don't hold with that." Nor did we, "Hold for dove?" Yes indeed and dam straight, by the 1000, in Argentina no less. "I understand you have to tape your trigger finger." That's where he was at and fair play.
Vocal chords exhausted, dial up a driver and head for home, restaurant budget exhausted for the year. Kyrie, but great result.
LSP
But they keep fighting. Well, that's orcs for you, just don't know when they're beat.
Too bad they can't make tanks, missiles, computer chips, electronics, engines, literature (ahem Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Ed.) IFVs and all the rest. You'd think they'd surrender asap, but no, they keep on fighting, ignorantly, stubbornly, orcishly. Sila.
Mithril,
LSP