Jean Meslier
Originally, savage nations, ferocious, perpetually at war, adored, under various names, some God conformed to their ideas; that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, greedy of blood. We find in all the religions of the earth a God of armies, a jealous God, an avenging God, an exterminating God, a God who enjoys carnage and whose worshipers make it a duty to serve him to his taste. Lambs, bulls, children, men, heretics, infidels, kings, whole nations, are sacrificed to him.
A friend (thank you, Jim!) introduced me to the music in the tank.
What is an “Authoritarian?”
Well, if you were an authoritarian, you probably wouldn’t even ask that question. For you, an “authoritarian” is whatever I tell you it is: authoritarians are people who accept beliefs based on simple assertion from an authority figure. In this case, since this is my blog, I say that’s what an authoritarian is, so there you go, let’s move on, we’ve got other things to talk about.
“It’s just metadata,” the cry echoes down the corridors of power. And the ISPs, in the name of “increase your marketing dollar” have taken it up.
Venezuela has just implemented a pre-revolutionary French doctrine. One which got Marie Antoinette unfairly attributed with the original “tumbril remark”…
Eventually you get to a point where reasoning with someone doesn’t work, and then you’ve got this weird situation where you either realize the other person is not being honest, or they’re so incredibly far from you in terms of world-view that it’s impossible to reconcile their reality with yours.
CNN asks a silly question: [cnn]
SAN FRANCISCO — Almost all nations engage in some type of cyber espionage, but Russia stands apart in outsourcing the work to criminal hackers from its thriving cyber underground, say U.S. security experts.
An employee told the officer that Kendall came into the restaurant yelling and screaming, “Go back to your country, terrorist,” the affidavit said. The employee asked Kendall to leave. He did, but came back about five minutes later and threw a plastic object at the employee, the affidavit said.[ol]
If Prince was not some kind of funk asymptote, there never will be: