“I read the whole book!”

Jim Bakker is yelling up a storm, again. Did you know that impeach means kill? Me neither.

“They want Trump in prison,” he said. “I thought we had an America that we were supposed to have an election and then start working together. We have an almost anti-American spirit going on.”

:Snort: The republican definition of working together: “Do everything our way, or we’ll have a yuuuuuge tantrum!” Y’know, Jim, a lot of people thought “we’ll have an election, then start working together” when Pres. Obama was first elected. Funny how there was no ‘working together’ on the conservative side. I remember assholes hollering birtherism, screaming for impeachment, etc. Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, we’re supposed to all get along?

If the Tiny Tyrant has committed crimes, then yes, he belongs in prison. Right now, I’d be happy enough with his eviction from the white house. An eviction notice shouldn’t shock him, he’s certainly served enough of them to others.

Bakker’s guest, Sharon Gilbert, agreed, saying that “Washington, D.C., seems to be the black heart of this terrible spiritual movement” because the city is filled with “men and women who serve our enemy, the enemy of Yahweh,” which is proof that opposition to Trump is “occult in nature.”

The only thing that’s proof of is word salad exists. Oh, so everyone in the resistance has to be occult now? How embarrassing, I don’t even have black candles. I do have a fabulous cloak, but it’s not black. :scribbles shopping list: I have my Ghost playlist on right now though!

“How can we want to kill a president who is trying to save America’s babies?” Bakker asked.

Who’s talking about killing him? I want him impeached. I’ve been very good, I haven’t even muttered darkly about the lack of assassins these days. Really. Let’s not pretend that all you assholes intent on ruling over all the bodies of those who can get pregnant is brand new, and some grand idea of the Tiny Tyrant’s. You’ve been working on that for decades now. There’s nothing at all wrong with ‘America’s’ babies. Most of them are just fine. All the zygotes and embryos, those are none of your business. It would be nice if you shit stirring hypocrites would pay attention to ‘America’s’ babies. Lots of families out there who could use help. Lots of hungry kids who need nutritious food. Food deserts need to be addressed. The foster system needs a reworking, and there are always lots and lots and lots of kids who need homes. There’s all manner of good works you could be doing, but no.

“Come on Christians, you had better wake up! Because the church is very sound asleep over this thing and judgment will come. I’ve read the book [the Bible]—I didn’t just read the end of the book, I read the whole book.

Which christians? Which church? The bible is made up of little ‘books’, and it’s not an Agatha Christie mystery, you dumbfuck. I have read the bible, cover to cover, more than one version. Because there are a number of versions, y’know. Did you read all the books in the Douay-Rheims? Because those are missing in the version you most likely read (KJV). Have you read the annotated SAB? You can get a lovely hardcover version of it. It has all manner of inconvenient notes and questions. Well, inconvenient to christians. There’s always some judgment or other, Jehovah is an asshole supreme. And, it appears he’s been sound asleep for thousands of years now, so that’s a rather empty attempt at a threat. You folks can’t even pray up a burning bush.

All of you asses are getting to be beyond boring. Why don’t you start up Sortes Sacrae again! That would be fun. :Gets out bible: Hmmm, 3 times gives me: The house, their horses they shall find none. Okay, it might take you a while to come up with something good, but hey, it will keep you busy. Okay, I just had to do it again, and 3 times gave me: Why respect this wisdom? Hee.

Judgment always comes when you mock God, when you curse God and we’ve cursed God in this country.”

So you keep saying. People keep mocking, or worse, giving an indifferent shrug to your nonsense and your psychopathic god. Nothing’s happened yet that is not our own doing. I’m much more concerned about the Tiny Idiot King getting his little fingers on a certain button than I am with your imaginary god. Which would be one reason I want him impeached. See how that works?

There’s video at RWW.

Terminal Alliance!

The first book in the Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse series by Jim C. Hines is out! Just started it, but it’s wonderful already. A small excerpt:

In Earth year 2144, nine years before the Krakau arrived on earth, a delegation from the fledgling Krakau Alliance met with four Prodryan military leaders to negotiate a truce. Their efforts failed, but records of the exchange offer insight into ongoing Prodryan hostilities. An excerpt from the transcript, translated into Human, follows.

Canon D. Major (Krakau diplomat): We understand your instinctive drive to expand and colonize. There is room enough for all in the vast ocean of space. Why waste your resources attacking other species?

Wings of Silver (Prodryan warrior): Because of our assholes.

Major: …

Farkunwinkubar (Glacidae diplomat): I beg your pardons?

Final Countdown (Krakau technician): Apologies, honored delegates. Our translation software is having difficulties with the Prodryan battle dialect. I believe the problem should now be corrected.

Major: Thank you. Wings of Silver, could you please repeat your reason for these ongoing attacks:

Wings of Silver: Because we are assholes.

Major: Dammit, Countdown!

After further troubleshooting and berating of Technician Countdown, it was determined that the second translation was in fact accurate. The Prodryan system of what we might call “ethics” is largely instinctual. The strongest drive is for species expansion and survival at all costs. The Prodryan mindset automatically classifies all other life-forms into either potential resources (food) or potential threats.

Prodryans are aware of their own nature, and openly acknowledge their selfishness, lack of empathy, and determination to destroy anyone and anything they deem dangerous or not of use to the Prodryan race.

In short, Wings of Silver was correct. Prodryans are a race of assholes who have warred against the galaxy for more than a century.

One thing I fell in love with right away was the names of the humans. When the Krakau rescued them, they realized the importance of names to humans, and compiled a vast list of names from earth sources. People chose names they liked the sound of, with no regard to gender, because that sort of thing didn’t make any sense to them. (Or the Krakau.) Favourite line so far: “I’m a computer. I’m aware of the math.

And for those of us who are happy about this new series, but still long for more Magic ex Libris, there will be a Jeneta centered novelette, Imprinted, out on January 9th, 2018. Yay!

“It’s all just girls, girls, girls playing politics,”

The conservatears of rage and bewilderment are flowing over recent election results. Naturally, it’s all us evil female types who are to blame, and the wimpy excuses for men who allow us to vote. It’s the ruination of Amerikka! Really truly.

CRTV commentator Gavin McInnes, who also leads the bizarre, misogynistic “Proud Boys”* fraternity, said that the historic electionof several openly transgender people to state and local offices earlier this week can be blamed on men allowing women to vote.

More on this absurd Proud Boy nonsense later.

On yesterday’s episode of “Get Off My Lawn,” McInnes was joined by Gateway Pundit’s White House reporter Lucian Wintrich, who joined him in attributing major Republican losses to Democrats campaigning on “identity politics” by putting forward diverse candidates. They went on to attribute the election of transgender people, including Virginia state assembly candidate Danica Roem, to women’s ability to vote.

“The liberals say, ‘Maybe we should give up on identity politics,’ but you look at all the Sikhs and black people and trans who won in this election and all these unprecedented cases. It had nothing to do with policy. It was all identity politics,” McInnes said.

No, it’s not liberals who are all tangled up in “identity politics”. You’re confusing us inclusive types with the white nationalist nazis. Very different groups, so try to get it right. Sikhs, black people, transgender people, oh my! Why the sky will fall any moment, I’m sure. This would be known as having representatives on all levels who actually reflect the make up of our society. Old white men don’t represent most of us, and if they are going to faint at having to work with people of colour and women, perhaps they should retire. Go fishin’ or something.

He continued, “I was looking at those two trannies who won. There’s no substance there at all. And I think it’s because we let women vote. Women have been voting now based on their ‘feels’ for many years. They brought us Obama, no substance.”

Just have to be disrespectful, don’t you? Transgender people. Or y’know, just people. Or women. Or, and this is really radical – the descriptor of their choice. This woman votes on issues, and emotion is not dirty word, you fucking idiot. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so hung up if you allowed your self to feel something other than anger and aggrieved entitlement, Mr. McInnes. No substance? Hahahahahahahahaha. Oh, I think we know where all the substanceless hot air is residing.

“It’s all just girls, girls, girls playing politics,” McInnes said.

And loving it. You’re just going to have to suck it up, Mr. McInnes, we aren’t leaving the playing field now.  So you know though, it’s women. We aren’t children.

Wintrich said he wanted to know when liberals would realize that “playing the intersectionality game to elect people” results in “terrible people that are ruining the country.”

We aren’t playing a game. It’s a hell of a lot of work, getting people woke, and using their vote to accomplish progress and positive change. Intersectionality is not a game, it’s vital to having a healthy society. So is inclusion. Granted, this ‘1950s ideal’ you morons clutch might be finally staked into its grave, and that’s a good thing. A very good thing.

“I’m excited to see how badly this tranny actually fucks up Virginia,” Wintrich said.

We don’t need to know what gives you a boner, Mr. Wintrich. Truly. I have no doubt Ms. Roem will not fuck up Virginia in the least, and will probably help Virginia a great deal. As I recall, she was focused on traffic issues, which the citizens of Virginia are also concerned with, so let her get on with her job, you nasty little doucheweasel.

The full mess, with video, is at RWW. Now, about that Proud Boy nonsense…

[Read more…]

Amos Chapple.

Absolutely stunning photography, many photos with their own stories, too. Just a few here, although I’d happily post each and every one of them!

An illegal tusk hunter at a site where men extract mammoth tusks from the permafrost. Click here for my story on the Mammoth Pirates of Siberia.

For 61 years he’s sat here, legs dwindling to sticks as he thumps cooking pots into shape. His sons work beside him, three hammer blows occasionally falling together in synch, then scattering again into the random beat of the workshop.

I ask whether the girls admired his arms when he was young but he scolds me for rudeness. He’s more comfortable talking about the men with firebombs who drove his family out of their homeland. His father had made the decision to stay when Pakistan was formed around them, a Sikh clan in a new Muslim nation, but eventually the mob violence visited their neighbourhood and they fled.

Like so many who’ve lived through big history he’s nostalgic for the past. “Under the British we felt enormous pressure but we were innocent then. Now the people have freedom but we no longer love each other.”

But his old-testament face lights up when his grandchildren appear, they’re educated and will live a different life. He props a favourite onto his knee, “these little ones can choose their own lives and of course I’m happy for that”.

Finally, after the curious crowd have drifted away from us he leans in close, “you asked about my arms? My wife told me she always felt safe in these arms”. He rocks back and sweeps a hand over his children, his workshop, his little empire, “and she was, she always was”

These and so very much more can be seen at Amos Chapple Photography. Have a wander! And you won’t want to miss his feature on The Shepherds of the Tusheti Mountains, a gorgeous pictorial of a dangerous job:

Every autumn, a spectacular animal migration takes place in Georgia’s Tusheti region in the northern Caucasus Mountains. Radio Free Europe photographer Amos Chapple recently joined a group of shepherds and their dogs on what he refers to as a “deadly, boozy journey” from the steep mountains to the plains, as they brought their 1,200 sheep down to their winter pastures.

All images © Amos Chapple.

Vincent van Gogh’s Dead Grasshopper.

Vincent van Gogh, “Olive Trees” (1889) (all images courtesy The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art).

There’s a grasshopper in the van Gogh. The artist didn’t intend to embed the critter in his canvas when he was painting olive groves in the south of France, but the insect is there, buried in a swirl of paint. For over a century, it went unnoticed in the finished work, “Olive Trees” (1889), now owned by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, but a recent study by the museum’s curators, conservators, and outside scientists has revealed its old, brown carcass. It’s a small but telling trace of van Gogh’s practice of painting outdoors, where conditions were often windy enough to send flies, dust, sand — and, apparently, crickets — blowing around the artist and his canvas.

Image taken through a microscope of the grasshopper embedded in the paint of “Olive Trees”.

You can read all about this at Hyperallergic.