All Hail Texas

There isn't much in Itasca, apart from an eerily impressive war memorial, and Karen's Authentic Mexican Food.

Karen's has expanded its operation and now includes seating, which it never used to have, but it still offers a fine bean and brisket burrito for around $3. You can have red sauce or green sauce on your bean and brisket, that's up to you. 

I opted for red and drove to Blanton, where I pulled up under a tree, put down the tailgate and ate that burrito. Up until a year or so ago there was an outdoor wooden chapel, open at the sides but tin roofed, to give cover to worshipers and mourners at the nearby cemetery. It had three flagpoles, too, and these would fly the Texan, Confederate and POW MIA flags.

The chapel has gone, sadly, though the flagpoles are still there, and it was tranquil sitting on the back of the truck, with $3 worth of tasty-as-you-like bean and brisket in a delicious tortilla. There was even a cool breeze. I thought back on the times I'd spent there over the last 8 years, mostly on horseback. 

It was a good moment in the Texan countryside and I thank God for that.

Some people scorn Texas. Those people are fools.

LSP

Comrade Corbyn, Clay Golem?

Hundreds of thousands of Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Red Communists and their fellow travelers in the declining Church of England, are rejoicing that Comrade Corbyn has been made head of the Labour Party and plans to save Great Britain from the clutches of a sinister cabal of Old Etonians.

A Clay Golem

But is Corbyn the promised savior of the Islington proletariat or a clay golem, magicked into being by the dark arts of an evil old witch? One prominent member of the US Intelligence community seems to think so.

An English, ahem, Lady

"The question on many people's mind is whether Corbyn is actually a golem, formed from the mud in a toxic waste spill and them magically animated by Madonna," stated a well placed source, on the condition of anonymity.

An Evil Old Witch

Clay golem or regular Red, Comrade Corbyn has been endorsed by demented celebrity millionaire socialist, Russell Brand.

Demented

Workers of the world unite.

LSP

Jeremy Corbyn, Two-Bit Leftie or Islington Shill?

Right wingers in England are worried that the new head of the Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, will destroy what used to be Great Britain and make it even less great than it already isn't. How will he do that?

By getting rid of the UK's nuclear weapons and disbanding its Army, Navy and Airforce. "What?!?" you exclaim with shock, "England has an Army, a Navy and an Airforce?" Apparently yes, sort of, and some nuclear missiles too. You never know, the Sceptered Isle might be able to deter Israel, or Iran, maybe even Pakistan or Zimbabwe with its mighty arsenal. Corbyn wants to get rid of that.

He also wants to nationalise the once great Britain's trains, flood the country with Mohammedan terrorists, and pay undergraduate students money to take lesbian theater study degrees at the London School of Economics.

Typical Islington Street Scene

The list goes on, and the MP from North Islington sounds exactly like what you'd expect, from the MP from North Islington. Comsymp Pinko altruist? Compared to Hillary, who isn't.  Two-Bit Lefty? Tick. Islington Shill? Obviously. 

But here's the thing, Piers Morgan hates him. Perhaps he deserves a chance?

Corbyn, not the appalling Morgan.

LSP

The Face of the Anglican Communion

A tiny dried up skeleton has been found in a ghost town in Chile, which experts claim is all that's left of the Anglican Communion.

The desiccated body was discovered near an abandoned church by Oscar Munoz, in La Noria, a ghost town in the Atacama desert. No larger than 6 inches long, the mysterious skeleton was wrapped in a shroud and had 9 ribs, sharp teeth and a bulging head.

Tests carried out at a prestigious California university showed that the skeleton wasn't a monkey but a mutated human.

"I can say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human - closer to human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight,’ said Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California. "Obviously, it was breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big the thing might have been when it was born."

How the shortlived anomaly known as the Anglican Communion came to rest in a Chilean ghost town remains a mystery.

LSP

9/11 Never Forget, The Religion of Peace

I won't bore you with my 9/11 stories except to say that I was in DC at the time and there was a moment, when the plane went into the Pentagon, that we were more than half expecting a nuclear flash. First a plane, then a suitcase nuke, sort of thing. That didn't happen.

What did happen is that we launched a war against radical Islam, without naming the enemy, and I was in favor of that. I still am. This led to some arguments in London, a few months later, where everyone seemed to think that the best response to the Islamic terrorists was to do exactly nothing while we wept into crying towels, went to face painting workshops and got on with the business of denouncing the evils of America.

But one friend was different. He said that Saddam Hussein was the wrong target and that the real enemy was Saudi Arabia. I pounded my fist and bellowed and drank many more pints like the best kind of public house jingoist until the conversation shifted.

Looking back on that conversation, I have to say my friend had a point. In the meanwhile, Western Europe is opening its borders to hundreds of thousands of Mohammedans from the Middle East. Some of these will do their very best to emulate their Prophet, and live by the Koran and the Hadith.

What could go wrong with that, it's a religion of peace, right? Go ask Kayla Mueller; oh, you can't, she's dead, after having her finger nails ripped out and being turned into a Koranic sex-slave.

LSP

Womyn Bishops Are So Very Awesome

The shrinking Church of England is falling over what's left of itself to make womyn bishops, the top jobs that the declining denomination has to offer. A former Archdeacon, Christine Hardman, is the latest in a series of womyn to break through the stained glass ceiling this year, and has been nominated as the next Bishop of Newcastle.

According to Church statistics, only 5 dioceses in the CofE grew between 2008-2012, with the other 38 in decline. Average church attendance shrunk by 37,000 persons in the same period. Maybe all the womyn bishops will turn this Titanic around. Here's a womyn's Creed to get things moving.

I believe in God, our Mother Bear,

source of all being. 

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s wisdom made flesh, 

along with Sophia, the church, and all that live in wisdom. 

Born of the bad-ass womanist liberation theologian, Mary, 

suffered under the systems of oppression of this world, 

was crucified, died, and was buried,

forever joining in solidarity with those murdered by Empire.

On the third day, the women declared him risen;

signifying God’s “No” to oppression.

He points to God our Mother Bear,

who works in this world, calling for justice for the poor and oppressed.

I believe in Sophia Spirit,

Christ’s body, the church,

the communion of saints,

the grace to reject this world’s systems,

hope for justice in the future,

and renewed life everlasting. Amen.

Beautiful, isn't it. Perhaps you didn't know that God was a Mother Bear and Mary was a bad-ass womanist liberation theologian. Now you do.

Good luck, CofE,

LSP

This Is Not Aberystwyth

It's raining, here in Texas, and that's about as far as the similarity to Wales' notorious seaside resort, Aberystwyth, goes.

A Typical Aberystwyth Street Scene

After Morning Prayer the power went out, so I took the dog for a recce patrol. I also took a pistol along for security, in case things got out of hand with the grid being down. 

Texas

In Aberystwyth that'd be illegal, because you can always call the police when you're being attacked by Welsh seaside rowdies.

A Bright Cheery Morning in Aberystwyth

The power's on, now, and we'll see how long that lasts. Smart people are building cisterns to hold the rainwater because, at some point, the electricity may not come back on again.

Off Grid,

LSP

Russian Town Ruled By Bears

According to the Primorska newspaper, a Russian town of 21,000 people near the border with China, Luchegorsk, is now ruled by two bears, a brown bear and a Himalayan bear. The two large bears wander the streets of their town, forcing scared locals to stay indoors.

A further 36 bears are reportedly circling Luchegorsk, in what one one female resident described as a military operation.

"Our hunters say that they looked at the area from a helicopter - there are crowds of these bears, like army units. My friends told me bears smashed their three yards where they keep bees. We are scared to walk outside. All doors are shut in kindergartens, there are written warnings everywhere walking with kids is allowed only in certain areas."

Some claim that Washington DC is ruled by a bear. That is as absurd as it is preposterous.

Your Pal,

LSP

Labor Day Pistol Shoot

To celebrate Labor Day I went to the range for a pistol shoot. I wanted to get more familiar with the Glock 21 and see how the pistol worked with its new Blackhawk SERPA TECH holster. Would the holster improve my accuracy with the famously smooth shooting piece of Austrian engineering achievement? To find out, I lined up against a 12" steel plate at around 20 yards.

Sure enough, the holster worked, and so did the Glock. Encouraged by the satisfyingly swinging plate, I unloaded a few 13 round magazines of .45 ACP against the pockmarked steel opposition. Big fun, then, on my last but one shot, remember to count your rounds, kids, the pistol fired, the plate swung, and a piece of shrapnel  fired back at me at lightning speed. 

I could see it coming, just, and there it was, a bit of steel embedded in my support hand. I looked down at the offender, holstered my gun, and picked the metal out of my hand, as though it was a bad heretic, getting excommunicated from the Church.

I fired off the rest of my Winchester White Box Value Pack against a paper silhouette. That didn't shoot back, fortunately.

Moral of the story? Be careful shooting against steel plates; I wasn't hurt, but that same bit of steel that found my hand could have chosen an eye, which might have made for a much less happy ending, sunglasses notwithstanding.

Watch out for the bears,

LSP

Putin Ups the Syrian Ante

Evidence is in that Russia is putting boots on the ground in Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS, just like we're doing, kind of. Zerohedge was ahead of pack, two days ago, and had this to say:

"Of course, what is left unsaid is that since Russia is there under the humanitarian pretext of fighting the evil ISIS, the same pretext that the US, Turkey, and the Saudis are all also there for, when in reality everyone is fighting for land rights to the most important gas pipeline in decades, the US is limited in its diplomatic recoil.

"Indeed as we sarcastically said last week: 'See: the red herring that is ISIS can be used just as effectively for defensive purposes as for offensive ones. And since the US can't possibly admit the whole situation is one made up farce, it is quite possible that the world will witness its first regional war when everyone is fighting a dummy, proxy enemy which doesn't really exist, when in reality everyone is fighting everyone else!'"

What's the real driver behind the halfhearted  fight against ISIS, Assad's backing by Russia, and the Saudi, Qatari, US focus on deposing him? Oil and gas. Here's a helpful infographic, again, from Zerohedge:

The tragedy of this, to my mind, is the massive scale of human suffering unleashed by the Western power and its oil allies in their attempt to break Gazprom's leverage over Europe. Russia, understandably, wants to protect its interest and Putin appears to have upped the ante. We won't look so good fighting ISIS by, er, fighting the people fighting ISIS.

In the meanwhile, Syrian refugees should have the automatic right to resettle in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and inside the Beltway. Not that I'd imagine they'd want to go to any of those places.

Putin continues to ride the Bear.

LSP

Episcopal Church Pilgrimage to Ferguson's Holy Ground

The Episcopal Church is organizing a youth pilgrimage to Ferguson, which the Bishop of Missouri, Wayne Smith, describes as "holy ground."

The Saint

“A tourist merely passes through a place; a pilgrim comes to a place in a posture of vulnerability and then allows the place and its people in. No one intended it, but through the ravages of racism, past and current, St. Louis has become a place for pilgrims. There is holy ground here," stated Smith, referring to Ferguson, "And no one can stand on it and encounter its people without being changed.”

Lives Being Changed, by The Saint

Without being changed? Like the way a shopkeeper's life was changed when Michael Brown assaulted him before rushing a cop, punching him and then trying to grab his gun? Or the way people's lives were changed when their shops were looted by off-the-hook thugs?

The Saint's Friends Getting Some Change

There's nothing holy about Ferguson at all, it's an urban ghetto hell-hole, and trying to invent a phony race martyr out of a person like Michael Brown isn't going to fix anything. Except maybe salve your guilty, upper middle class, white privileged conscience. 

White Privilege

Bishop Wayne Smith, you and your fake pilgrimage to the fake shrine of the fake saint is risible at best. You are a mountebank and a fraud, like Al Sharpton and Lesley McSpadden.

The Frauds

Tickets to pilgrimage cost $500. Pilgrims get to visit the shrine of Michael Brown and take part in community organization and racism awareness workshops.

Pathetic.

LSP