I call them “Renfields” after the vampire’s slave in Dracula. They’re the weak, beglamoured, cowardly, venal, crippled, soul-dead followers of a master vampire: their sense of right or wrong is completely overruled and all that’s left is fear of the master’s displeasure.
Philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for the ministers of religion.
Your host, Jean Meslier
Warning: Rape, Anger, (Long)
This is not an attempt to equivocate. The victim of an assault is the victim and nothing anyone ever says can or should reduce in any way the victim’s subjective assessment of what they’ve experienced.
The US Government has been cagy about the degree to which the US is assisting Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen; a war which includes area bombing and terror-strikes against civilians. And, because the US has managed to lull its population into accepting anything “anti-terror” as acceptable, there has been hardly any public outcry at all.
I have heard of pyramids in Mexico and South America, and the ones the space aliens made in Africa, but it took a piece of spam email to make me learn about the pyramids in Bosnia.
Voltaire’s wit was often described as cutting and fast; “rapier-like wit” – he wasn’t a man of violence, but his passions could be ferocious and when he decided that someone’s ideas needed to be attacked, his pen really was as mighty as a sword.
PZ wonders if he’s as flawed as the people being accused. [pha] That little bit of effort is part of living an examined life.
Coming in over Iceland, I had turned my cell phone off and stowed it; I had a window seat over the wing so “why bother”?
Icelandair, the original “hippie express” used to offer flights between the US and Europe for about half what the other air carriers charged. Their strategy was pretty cool – they used less expensive jets with shorter range, and did a brief stopover to refuel at Keflavik Airport in Iceland.
My friend Aaron T. suggested this book to me.
Usually I read military history in an attempt to extract a big picture of events from the details.