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Monday, August 31, 2015

1984... Or What You Will



The Independent
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/marvel-villains-are-now-quoting-david-cameron--WklhQIWs0Nx

The second volume of Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders [a Marvel publication in the UK] was published earlier this month.

The series takes place on Battleworld, a dystopian planet in which two cities, one good and one evil, are separated by a wall.

The 'evil' city is run by Victor von Doom of Fantastic Four fame, who invades the 'good' city of Yinsen when the second volume begins.

Early in the issue the reader is brought to a detention camp, where a guard tells captives that their rights are being stripped.  [see above picture]



Now Von Doom, yet another instance of what Dr. Sheldon Cooper refers to as the troublingly high number of advanced degree holders among super villains, has been accused of plagiarizing the British PM:





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Russia: Monasticism In The Urals


Confession before the Liturgy near the Holy Relics of St. Dalmat Isetsky.

Dalmatovo Assumption Monastery situated on the left bank of the Iset river, at the confluence of the Tech river, in the town Dalmatovo, Kurgan region, Urals.


Russia Beyond The Headlines
 http://rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/multimedia/2015/08/21/warriors-of-light_391669

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Views Of Russia

RUSSIA Beyond The Headlines






There are some blogs I regret taking my eyes off...

Charming Faces Of Russian Orthodoxy
http://rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2013/02/22/charming_faces_of_russian_orthodoxy_23089



"A wooden church stands on the island of Patmos in the middle of the Katun River; residential and farm buildings are located in an area of woodland on the left bank. The island is connected to the shore by means of a suspension bridge. The sisters make a daily round of the cloister with an icon."


" 'Holy Bushes' Uspensky Svyato-Georgiev [St. George Assumption] Monastery, Bashkiria was opened in 1901. It is located among forests, meadows, and low hills, away from populated areas."


"Father Nikolai, an elder of the Ufa diocese, visits the cloister to answer workers' questions. Lay people often come and spend time at the monastery. The purpose of their visits is the selfless desire to help the monastery. In addition to their desire to help the monastery, people are frequently in need of spiritual help and support, and in search of a new outlook on life. Visitors and monks live in small detached wooden monastic cells."

Go and look! Go and look!

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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Continuous Transportation

Un État de Transport Continu
inspiré par le film Transperceneige


 Le Retour Du Train Perdu


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Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.... Along With The Republican Party


Ivanka Trump Running in a Central Park Half Marathon
Ms. Trump Has NOTHING do with Anything in this Post


I was going to watch the Republican debate on FOX.
However, as the moderators spoke on the "rules" of the debate - such things as "one minute reply to questions" - it was apparent that this was more like part of a beauty pageant - the part where the beauties answer a weighty and profound question - and hardly a debate of anything of substance.

So I did not watch.
I left the room.

BOY! Wuz I wrong!

It wuz not a mindless bunch of tripe. It was an argument about women's periods.

Then the very next day a lady runner ran the London Marathon. She was in "her ladies' time" and she ran her marathon without any padding designed for such times, and she had her photo taken at the end of the race with quite a bit of "blood" streaming from "wherever".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3192039/Woman-26-ran-marathon-WITHOUT-tampon-break-stigma-surrounding-women-s-periods.html
Runner who completed the London Marathon during her period without a tampon says she did it to 'break the stigma' after receiving support - and criticism - for her actions

Kiran Gandi, 26, a musician and Harvard graduate, ran London marathon;
Ran with 'blood dripping down legs' for 'sisters who don't have tampons';
Said she wanted to 'transcend oppression' .

If I made up stuff like this, you would all think me perversely comic.

But it is the Brave New World, and welcome to it.

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Sunday, August 02, 2015

A Priest, A Rabbi, And An Ayatollah...




... are walking down the street, and Clancy sez (I'm getting my stereotype jokes mixed up here, I think) that the Iran nuclear deal will not keep Iran from bomb-getting, and the Ayatollah here said it himself.

The Ayatollah nodded in agreement, and then said, "But I added that we already had a religious ruling against nuclear weapons."

Father Brown hummed a bit. The rabbi did not say much. So Pat and Mike said, "So?"

The ayatollah said that it warn't the treaty, but the article of faith that determined what they did.
It was just like back here at home, some folks think it is an article of faith that we must have every nuclear weapon conceivable to the mind of man.

Some folks here think we should have all weapons of destruction, 'cuz God loves us.

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Saturday, August 01, 2015

The Right-Wing Crafts Their Attack On The New Treaty


"We are against the treaty. We believe that the High Old One, that Power greater than ourselves, wants us to fight against it, and to defend whatever it is we similarly believe in within His invisible Mind."

Thus began the right-wing to begin their attacks against the Treaty of Algeron, which had been designed to ensure decades of peace between the Romulan Empire


 


and the Federation of Planets




The Treaty of Algeron is described as a sell-out of the Federation to its enemies, the Romulans. The treaty expressly forbids the Federation to proceed in the development of "Cloaking Technology".
The radical conservatives hawks, led by Admiral Pressman

Admiral Pressman, center


proclaim that the treaty deprives the Federation of its rightful future.

As portrayed in fictional accounts - Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode Pegasus - having retrieved a cloaking device from the derelict Pegasus, Captain Picard uses it on the Enterprise to escape from an imprisonment within an asteroid engineered by a Romulan opponent.
However, upon escape, Picard uncloaks in front of the Romulan, thus alerting them to the violation of the Treaty of Algeron.
Captain Picard relays a message to the Romulan vessel stating that the Federation would be contacting the Romulan government about this incident.

(Thus, clearly, since the Pegasus cloaking device is also a phase-shifting device, an incredible jump ahead in technology, Captain Picard is taking the role that Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein took after the development of the Atomic Bomb, hoping to avoid an arms race.)

Presidential candidate, Donald  ( "The Donald" ) Mudd did not comment early on


in the fight against the ratification of the treaty.


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note

Some people have thought this post to be in bad taste.

I think an unresolved 67-year old situation in Palestine and Israel to be repugnant, and the political fighting that is still occurring to be nihilistic, for a politics and ideology that fights to preserve confrontation and war is morally abhorrent.

I for one have lived my entire life encased in the malign cocoon of Middle Eastern War.
It exudes from my pores, it perverts the religion of the simple beings of faith... the simple AA-type-faith of greater powers by turning their uncontrollable hopes and desires into what they think is the word of God.

What could be more atrocious?

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