Does anyone know how long it takes to get bloodstains out of concrete? I thought the rain would wash it away like tears, but it doesn't seem to be going away. People keep walking on it, not knowing what it is or what sequence of events played out to bring it there…
13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
16 The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
- Revelations 9:13-16
It's no secret that one of the promises of Bush's tight circle is to set into motion the rapture. Ashcroft has been quite clear and public that he believes America must build up the state of Israel in order to hurry the second coming of Christ and bring about the apocalypse (more, more, more, more, more, more). While this has been widely reported over the last two years, it's been one of those “ha ha, whatever” stories.
The Bible plainly forecasts the coming of yet another great war. It will be a war to eclipse anything the world has ever seen. It will embrace most of the nations of the world; and its focal point will be in the Middle East, where the armies of the world will some day deploy themselves, centering at Mount Megiddo. This great war has been called the battle of Armageddon. In the midst of this terrifying war that could destroy civilization the Lord Jesus Christ will return to this earth in glory and power to judge the nations of the world and set up His own glorious kingdom. The sixth angel will pour out his vial upon the great river Euphrates.
God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.
- George W. Bush
- Billy Graham
But now we've got Bush apparently losing his mind (more), walking around the White House muttering biblical passages, paranoid of everyone but his inner circle, convinced he's being commanded by God's Will, and making growing lists of “enemies”, both inside and outside America…
With US soldiers now being told that they could be facing war crimes charges over their actions (more) and an ever growing army of hatred pointed straight at Bush and America, I can't imagine the personal stress Bush must be under. He's barely sleeping, he's in way over his head, and we know how he's handled stress in the past — drunk driving (more), cocaine (more), fist fights (more), and finally, running away (more)… now that he's under hundreds of times more stress than he's ever been in, can't run away, and can't escape into the bottle or drugs, what will he do as the man who controls more firepower than anyone else on the planet?
I don't know how many of you saw Cuomo on The Late Show last night, but personally I think he's insane for this idolization of Lincoln… talking about how Lincoln was for civil rights and similar bullshit. Seriously, what a load of crap. I realize that's what gets taught in America these days, but does no one remember that “the victor writes the history” (especially notable in Lincoln's case since one of his “achievements” was the government-run school system, hugely reducing the quality of education in America, but allowing them to “shape minds and beliefs” more effectively)? Let's take a look at history.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it."
- Abraham Lincoln, 1862
Lincoln, a lawyer, defended slave owners in court. He never “freed” slaves at all — any slaveowner loyal to the North could keep their slaves, and Lincoln had most of the Northern States add ammendments banning the freed slaves from settling there (why do you think the “underground railroad” ended up in Canada, not NYC?)… he did on the other hand work with Henry Clay to try and ship them all back to Africa (which is where the country Liberia came from), but because they ran out of money, most ended up in Haiti before the plan collapsed, all the money having been embezzled by the companies that got the government contracts in the first place.
Before moving on, let me quote that actual Emancipation Proclamation:
"...all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free...
the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."
To be real clear: this means that you can keep your slaves if you're loyal to the North, but if you're not, your slaves are free. Northern slaveowners were absolutely welcome to keep their slaves. To put things into context, at the time of the proclamation, the North was doing badly in the war and was arguably actually losing. However, the South was short on manpower because so many of the men were in the North fighting… It should be pretty damn obvious to anyone with even the most basic of understanding of military strategy that his goal was simple: to start a slave rebellion. When that failed, his men shifted their war to civilian targets:
In conducting the war, Lincoln encouraged his generals to violate international law, the U.S. Military Code and the moral prohibition against waging war on civilians. Lincoln urged his generals to conduct total war against the Southern civilian population, to slaughter them with bombardments, to burn their homes, barns and towns, to use rape as a weapon of war, to destroy foodstuffs, and to leave women, children and the elderly in the cold of winter without shelter or a scrap of food.In order to carry out Lincoln's wishes, a new kind of soldier was needed. Gen. Sherman filled his regiments with big city criminals and foreigners fresh from the jails of Europe. The war against the Southern civilian population was fought with the immigrant soldier.
DiLornezo writes that had the South won the war, there is no doubt that Lincoln and his generals -- Grant, Sherman and Sheridan -- would have been hung as war criminals under the Geneva Convention of 1863.
In any case, Lincoln had one goal when he started the Civil War, and that was to consolidate all power into the federal government. That was what the Civil War was about, not slavery. The Civil War was a war about big government versus distributed government, and ulimately about big business versus the individual. Now, don't get me wrong. This isn't about “defending the South” or anything like this. My core point is that America would be better off idolizing someone like Thoreau, and is not doing itself a favor by becoming an increasingly communist corporate state under the guise of “Lincolnian freedom”.
Well, you're welcome to yell at me for writing this, or you can read more.
I've just posted an image update with just under 1,500 new pictures. Thanks to all the contributors and also to Alcan for the photo of Wormy (part of the continually expanding MFC empire).
I mentioned this in the whatever forum as well, but I wanted to post “my solution to America's problems” (when I say “America”, I mean all Western nations, but I believe that America defines the modern Western nation). It's simple:
Of course, tax plans proposed by both Republicans and Democrats (and their equivalents in Canada as well) offer exactly the opposite, shifting the tax burden from corporations down to employees of those corporations. Politicians have claimed that by not asking big companies to pay taxes that they'll hire more people, spend more money, and so on… but again, the opposite has happened every single time.
Individuals on the other hand do spend more when they make more, thus keeping the economy financially fluid and vibrant. In addition, by creating an economic incentive for small businesses to prosper, we eliminate the mass/inertia advantage of the mega-corporation, as well as equalizing their bulk buying power. This brings about an upsurge in family businesses, empowers small towns against invasion from big city superstores, and I believe would even encourage civic responsibility. In addition, because small companies them more profitable, it encourages alliances between small businesses which effectively spreads the wealth… getting us close to a capitalist system that doesn't decay into our current pyramid scheme.
Of course, given that government is currently wholly owned by the corporations, not the people, it's going to take people waking up, educating themselves as to exactly what kind of monster they're voting for, and making sure that everyone they know is similarly informed and goes out and votes (maybe).
PS. It's old news that Bush is a bastard that has leaked national secrets to “the enemy” when it's suited his spite (more, more), but folks, it's going to get a whole lot dirtier now that it turns out that Bush and his Cabal were “accidentally” leaking US secrets to Iran (more, more). It's too bad no big name politician has the balls to shout out “the emperor wears no clothes”… or in this case “execute the treasonous fuck”. What does it take for people to clue in that Bush is not an American and does not work with America's best interests in mind? He is at best a corporate operative that serves the oil and defense sectors, and any other monster willing to bribe him with a few dollars.
As I was writing this entry someone just left the balcony a few floors below us (I don't know if it was accident, suicide, or murder). He is currently in pieces directly outside our window. The police have roped off the dog park, but not before a number of people in this building stumbled over the corpse. Some of them didn't want that terrible sight, but now it's looky-loo land and a crowd has gathered.
I've just posted an enormous experience update with I think around 520 new stories, which almost entirely clears the backlog. I'm sorry if it means some slipped through that shouldn't have, but I didn't think it was right to make people wait so long for their memberships. Thank you so much to the small number of dedicated reviewers who have continued to help with reviewing. Thanks also to Anna for the cover photo… not of her, but by her (at Punkteur in Missouri). I guess that quote really sums up a lot of the beliefs of many tattooed people. I'm surprised I don't see it inked onto people more often.
PS. One step closer to the draft.
Even the cover of Slashdot these days is filled with more and more corruption. The way people behave gets more sickening all the time. Or maybe it's just more obvious. I don't know. Yahoo has released its own “spyware fighting” toolbar to compete with Google. No suprise there. But looking closer at it, it doesn't actually uninstall all spyware… just the spyware that competes with Yahoo's business partners (more). Then over in patent insanity land, Microsoft has been granted a patent on double clicking (more) which they claim they invented in 2002 (more). Also sourcing in 2002, December to be specific, Network Associates (aka McAfee) has been granted a patent on Bayesian filtering and other combined filtering (more)… nice of them to “invent” it in December of 2002… I guess it only took them three months after reading “A plan for spam” to reword it as a patent and write their own name on it.
I don't even know why I bother writing this stuff. It seems like either people get it or they don't. And the fact is that if it continues this way (not just in America, but in Canada as well, with Steven Harper promising Bush-style tax cuts to the rich), there is only going to be one way to live with any semblence of independence: become extremely wealthy. Your only other options are revolution or slavery.
Sadly I suspect most people prefer slavery and are already enjoying it.
