A passage from the upcoming Book X of the Mirrors series:
“An atomic bomb,” Tom said, nodding his head. “Where it splits an atom causing an explosion?”
“Well, so I’m informed; I never made it to any advanced mathematics,” Jerome replied. “But not just one atom; quite a lot of them packed very close together and then blown up causing the split and explosion. We dropped two of them on Japan and they threw up the sponge.”
“It sounds very horrible,” Aleste said.
“It is very horrible, but it did end the war.”
“It did, but I perceive it was like the way my grandmother ended the war; it just made more wars.”
“That was magic.”
“So is your terrible bomb; you and your people have just forgotten what magic is. People always want short cuts.” Aleste shrugged. “And who am I to talk?”
“Couldn’t you stop using magic?,” Tom asked.
“I’d like to but I can’t; it is too late. Mother is wrong; it can’t be fixed. We’re just stuck with it now. Like your people and that bomb.”
Tom nodded.
“We all learn a bit, but never early enough.”
“Well, I sure didn’t. But if I had to guess, Tom, you learned soon enough.”
He shook his head.
“Not nearly soon enough.” He touched the globe and anchor emblem on his blouse. “Dad was a Marine in World War One. Fought in the Argonne. Told me about it. But he left out some details.”
“That’s as old as time.”
“Sure is. But I didn’t help myself. I was Romantic about it on purpose, I guess. What was my meat and potatoes?”
Tom stood up and started to recite with dramatic gestures:
The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? what to do? a glance told him both,
Then, striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line ‘mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and the red nostril’s play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say,
“I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester, down to save the day!”
“Gorgeous bit of poetry by Thomas Read. Dad loved it so much he named me after him.”
“It is a good bit of poetry,” Aleste said. “Stirring.”
“It is that, but I’d have been better off reading Sassoon.”
“What did he write?”
“Oh, a little more bitter than that.”
“Please, tell me. I have to know. To learn.”
“All right.”
“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”
“That is bitter and I’m sorry for him. But it is something to know.”
“It is that.”
I really like that bit – the attitude is deeply woven into the whole tale: we must be brave. But let’s not kid ourselves, either. I think it is something that we have definitely lost in our storytelling. You think of even the very good war movies of the past 30 years or so and throughout them is a thread of its just suffering and you must get through it – but there is also heroism, which cleanses the effort. As long as we are this side of the hereafter, things won’t be all neat and tidy.
The latest example of this is some people getting upset that we’re killing drug smugglers. For goodness sake, they’re de-facto pirates. We can hang them after a drumhead court martial…its actually a mercy to whack them with a missile. It is over quickly. And we should be celebrating our sailors and airmen doing the deeds – they’re defending the least of us from a horrible scourge. And, sure, we can also spare a thought to those we kill – some of them are very much compelled to do it. But, then again, a man who truly knows the value of life would never hold his life more valuable than someone else’s…and everyone who gets into those boats has done just that, and so is getting what’s coming to them…getting, that is, what they were going to deal out. And more mercilessly…over a period of years, and the destruction of not merely individuals …but of families and whole communities.
I think we need to spin better tales, guys. I wish I were a better writer – that I could write something that would shake the world! I hope that some of ours eventually do…because we need stories that enlighten and encourage us. That show us that the good guys do win…but that even the most glorious victory comes with a high price.
Anyways, just a bit of thought I’m having as I polish up the book and get it ready for publication!
Blogs For Victory 
Ya have to love it when a left-wing publication posts something like this.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown by month—that is, to see if there is a shift in the numbers when the National Guard started assisting police patrols in the most homicidal cities in the country. Also, to see a city-by-city analysis.
And then, of course, an analysis of crimes actually committed vs those reported and thereby becoming part of the data.
Crime rates have been falling for the last couple of years. That’s good news for all of us.
Awwwww, casper thinks those Leftists were actually reporting crimes! So precious. Of course he also believed that Kamala Harris was drawing huge crowds at her rallies and Joe Biden got more votes than Barack Obama ever did. It makes me think he still puts out cookies for Santa.
(Remember, he was flattered to be compared to Maizie Hirono—-a little more self-awareness than I expect from him.)
And unlike previous data, this isn’t fake – the Left made crime rates go down by refusing to report crimes…now we’re getting genuine reductions.
Why do Democrats still think we are interested in debate with them? During the government shutdown down, Democrats were perplexed the GOP House (who had already passed the bill) would not return to DC to debate their latest proposal. Here we have billbonks and Casper trying to engage us in debate, and on other platforms I am told that my smart ass comments don’t foster debate.
I have some news for them. There is no more debate. We do not debate violent, stupid people. They have already tried to kill Trump twice, coming within a fraction of an inch the first time, and actually did kill a prominent Conservative/Faith activist. We will still allow you to talk, but that is the extent of it … we are going to do exactly what we want to do, and God Bless Trump for leading that charge and ignoring the whining from the cheap seats.
bonkers and his fellow troll (and probably alter ego) rocks pretend to want debate, but all “they” want is to get their noses under the tent so they can then lurch into weirdly emotional ad hominem attacks on Trump and Trump supporters. It’s all a head-fake with him/them.
Casper wants the illusion of being part of an actual discussion because that fits his fantasy of being an intelligent educated participant in the discourse, but then he lives in a fantasy world where Leftists who refuse to prosecute criminals also report all the crime in their cities. He is similar to the other trolls in that what he really wants is a platform to argue his perceptions of reality, but I think he is less toxic than they are and is just kind of sad, with his nose wistfully pressed up against the window wanting so desperately to be part of what is going on inside. But he wants to be part of it, to be considered an equal in a back-and-forth exchange of ideas, unlike the other trolls who just want in to drop stink bombs and disrupt with attacks, insults, citations of bogus “news” and smug sneering assertions of moral and intellectual superiority. He has always wanted to be accepted on the blog, and I think he is sincere, having truly drunk the Kool-Aid but lacking the intellect to see its defects and just wanting to share his beliefs.
The bonkers/rocks posts lack that idealism and ideology. All they ever do is attack PEOPLE. Any claim of wanting to “debate” is bogus, merely a strategy to get us to engage so they can be in a better position to hurl their attacks, insults, lies and weird obsessions at us. They barely even pretend to want to discuss real politics, focusing instead on toxic silliness like bleating incessantly about the deep significance of bandaids. Recognizing this and derailing it is not censorship, it is merely refusing to be drawn into the game.
We talk a lot about the bias of the Complicit Agenda Media, and we’re pretty good at spotting it when it is there. Here Sheryl Attkisson dissects the structure of the creation of a bad story, and it’s interesting to see the separate parts of the bias from the perspective of a professional journalist.
When we critique a biased story we do so from a defensive position, and here Sheryl approaches it head-on from the purely objective, analytical, perspective of a legitimate journalist and editor. We say “this is what is wrong with it” after it is published and she is saying “this is why refusing to air it was the right decision”. Basically, she gives us an illustration of how the sausage is made.
I remember when Sheryl was reporting on the Obama Admin with CBS and she came forward to her bosses that someone had hacked into her computer and was spying on her. At one point late one night, she stepped away to get a drink and when she came back, her mouse cursor was moving across the screen. This was of course never investigated, and Sheryl ended up losing her job at CBS. Rocks and Casper are just the festering boils of a movement far more insidious and well funded, and a movement of which MAGA will destroy.
casper is more of a pimple and I think rocks aspires to be a boil and would fester if he could but is really just a bad rash
The Jim Jordan report on Substack has a piece on Derek Chauvin and the prosecutorial abuse that has destroyed his life.
The piece reminds me of something I have noticed. When I can’t sleep I sometimes get up and surf the net, and have watched some videos of arrests. One thing that keeps popping up is that when a young black man is detained the first thing he yells when he is on the ground is “I can’t breathe”.
I think of it as George Floyd’s only real legacy.
It is terrible what happened to him – at bare minimum, any trial should have been held in a different venue…but given the news reporting at the time, the only verdict any jury was going to come to was “guilty”.
It is why Blue city cops just don’t bother any more…not when its a black man; they just let it roll by because if you attempt to make an arrest and do anything that the Left can grossly misconstrue as wrong, you’re not just losing your job and pension, you’re going to jail. Add in Soros-DA’s just letting them out again and there is just no upside to stopping it. Just wait a bit and then go pointlessly collect the evidence after its over.
Hey let’s have universal health care … it’ll be great
https://archive.is/IPTGD
This is a joke … I hope
Primary Sabotage? Niqab-Wearing Muslim Woman Who Has Voted Democrat Since at Least 2008 is the ONLY ‘Republican’ Running for North Carolina Senate
Did you see her picture? That’s not an image of American Freedom. Her picture is an image of oppression and theocracy. This is not who we are. Muslims who ascribe to to the tenants Islam do not belong in politics nor do they belong in this country. Get them the fuck out of here …
It is, however, the image of Identity Politics. She is a proved Liberal with an unbroken history of voting Democrat, and by her garb is announcing her allegiance to a political movement/religion that is antithetical every tenet (check the spelling on that, BTW) of the Republican Party even when it falls short of full conservative ideology. All she has to do is “identify” as a Republican.
“North Carolina’s semi-open primaries allow unaffiliated voters to choose a party ballot, but the real vulnerability is in low-turnout primaries where a single questionable candidate can dominate. If Alston wins the GOP nomination unopposed, she could force Republicans into a no-win scenario where they must either back a candidate with a Democratic track record or watch the seat go uncontested in the general.”
This could turn out to be a boon to Republicans, though, as it looks like any Republican announcing will be able to beat her for the GOP nomination in the primary–unless a lot of unaffiliated voters also choose to identify, at least for the time being, as Republican to tilt the vote to the bogus Republicans.
Democrats just play this game a lot better than the GOP – that is, looking for opportunities to just mess things up for us. I’ve long thought that in response we should look around the far left districts to find someone credible who agrees with us on just one issue…I’d assume it would usually be taxation…and then back that person to the hilt in the Democrat primary – and/or run them as Independents in the general. The idea isn’t to win, but just to mess with…and, hey, if the guy we backed gets in, then at least on one issue we’ve got a vote. Force the Democrats to play defense at home…and, just perhaps, break up their Establishment monopoly of power in the deep Blue areas.
One thing that we tend to overlook is the messing with the structure of the elections, as seen in jungle primaries and open primaries. These are local and state issues that define who will even be on the ballots and they are invitations to meddling and manipulation. An open primary is like giving the other team the ability to call your own team’s plays by letting the other side pick your candidate, and a jungle primary can be manipulated merely by filling the roster with so many candidates that the one preferred by the elites does not have to have a majority of votes in the primary. That is, the final candidate might only get 40% of the vote but if the other 60% is divided six ways a candidate can be on the ballot with far less than majority or even plurality approval, and the incumbent has a bigger advantage in a jungle primary due to name recognition. (This is how Lisa Murkowski got on the ballot in Alaska—if her opposition votes had not been diluted by having so many others in the primary those votes, according to exit polls, would have gone to Palin, giving us a decent Senator.)
Fully in line with my constant ranting about the dangers of Identity Politics and the need to make decisions based on structure and not on people, there is this in Coffee and Covid: emphasis mine
“As British systems theorist Stafford Beer once famously said, “The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it says it does.” For example, if a system claims to promote democracy but consistently punishes dissent, rewards conformity, and nullifies voters’ choices, then —by definition— its purpose isn’t really democracy at all.”
This should be the defining message of the 2025 election cycle: Don’t vote for a PERSON but for the system this person represents—-and then define and compare the two competing systems. Don’t get sucked into debating the pluses and minuses of ISSUES, and avoid criticizing the opponent. Rise above it. If an ISSUE proports to be about “trans rights” skim over it to the reality that rights do not and should not be based on any characteristic, whether it is gender status or race, which is a strongly held belief of the Republican ideology as seen in its origins as the party created as the anti-slavery party and then move on.
Stick to structure, stick to systems. The most charming, delightful, charismatic candidate is a bad candidate if he or she represents and will vote for a system that is bad.
That is the battle – and we’re still being held back by many on our side who just won’t do that little bit of thinking which tells us, for instance, that the FBI hasn’t been for crime fighting, but for protection of Ruling Class interests…that is, the only people who ever went to jail (at least in the last 40 years) at the instigation of the FBI are those who in one way or another crossed the Ruling Class or provided no benefit for that Class. The Somali fraud is in the news and it is very massive – and likely went into overdrive via Covid + Biden – but this didn’t happen all in a day. It took decades of work to get a system of theft this extensive in place…and this is precisely what the FBI is supposed to be on the look out for. And we know they know what to look for because they do prosecute for fraud…but never in a manner which would actually stop it…one person or a couple people might get hit, but not the system of fraud. And yet here come millions saying that we have to leave this all alone because if we don’t we’re denying the System!
Trump broke through on this by simply calling it what it is…refusing to play their game and use their approved terminology. And going forward we need those people who will rudely just continue to call it out.
This should be the defining message of the 2025 election cycle: Don’t vote for a PERSON but for the system this person represents…
Yeah, that will be a winning campaign slogan. “Don’t vote for me! Vote for the system!” Perfect for charmless, charisma-less candidates like JD Vance.
Every now and then I look at the Trash folder here to see how many troll posts have been dumped. I don’t always know who made the decisions, but it is always based on the fact that these trolls not only never contribute anything positive to the blog but usually just post dreck with no value whatsoever, just screeds exposing their pathologies.
I brought this back from the grave because it actually does contribute to the blog, though not in the way the author intended. It is supposed to be another snarling attack on me, but what it does is reinforce a point I often make, which is the foolishness of Identity Politics.
Rocks appears to be stating a conviction that votes should be based on “charm” or “charisma” instead of the political system represented by the candidate, which is exactly what I have been pointing out as the biggest problem in our elections. I have been arguing that we need to be objective and analytical, first developing a coherent POLITICAL philosophy and then basing our votes on who we believe is most likely to enact that philosophy in Congress, and here Rocks admits that in his opinion the decision on who to vote for should be based on the emotional calculation of who has the most “charm” or “charisma”. That is, who causes a tingle to run up a leg—or farther.
Aside from the fact that I happen to think JD Vance is charming and charismatic, and love that he (and Hegseth) represent a return of testosterone to the White House, which had formerly been left up to Trump, his wit and humor, charm and charisma are not enough to vote for him. I will vote for him because if he runs because he represents the SYSTEM I think is the best blueprint for governing the nation—-a system which I have never hesitated to describe and define and commit to—-and am confident in his intelligence and competence as well as his commitment to Constitutional governance.
But we are burdened by the frivolous nature of so many political decisions based on the equivalent of arguing over who is the cutest Jonas brother. We always see people who are smugly self-congratulatory as they brag “I don’t vote for a PARTY, I vote for the PERSON!” as if this is something to be proud of instead of an admission of intellectual superficiality. (Besides which this is also not true, as about half of the country doesn’t even vote FOR a person at all, just AGAINST an Invented Other bogey-man created and used to stir fear or anger or just plain hostility.)
It’s also funny to see this kind of de facto admission of basing election decisions on personal judgments of charm and charisma coming from someone whose posts indicate a preference for the ticket that included Tim Walz.
Sometimes a self-own that illustrates the main defect in the political calculations of so many is worth bringing back. The other defects that lead to deletion lack even this minor redeeming quality.
I was glad to see you resurrect Rocks’ post. He might as well have posted a neon sign saying, “look how stupid and superficial I am!” As Sun Tzu noted, “never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.”
That was my reaction, too. The funniest thing about it was that he thought he was getting a “gotcha!” on me without realizing it was just a massive self-own of political ignorance pettiness and shallowness. It was like sneering “Ha ha! You are so stupid you make political decisions based on actual thinking instead of who is the cutest!”
But the value in his post was not about him, but that he echoed the mentality of the D-Tribe and its basis for voting.
And now we know why Melissa Hortman was murdered. She cast the vote to end the funding of the fraudulent health care programs in MN. An ally of Gov. Tim Walz killed her and her husband. And Ilan Omar is worth $30 million after being broke just a few short years ago. This MN Democrat fraud ring runs DEEP and is exactly what MAGA needs to hang everyone in that party and to dismantle it.
That would be interesting – I mean, Hortman was a complete Commie. All the usual nonsense about abortion, getting mad that GOPers were playing cards rather than listening to screeching speeches on the floor, green energy scams, defunding the police…but if she was in any after corruption and then was killed, that would tell us exactly why.
All deviation from the script must be punished, and in a way that sends a message to anyone else who might be thinking of going against the machine.
I think MAGA is still a little naive at how deep Democrat corruption runs …. But we had better be resolved to find out
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS0oV_lgYmF/?igsh=cjdkbXRjenN5ZTdh
Arctic Frost is a Deep State Coup to Take Out Conservatives
I am so glad we have Jim Jordan in Congress
Arctic Frost makes Watergate look like a high school production
Everything about Artic Frost is like something out of a Ludlum novel, with federal agencies, the judiciary, the media, the DNC, and even foreign agents from Russia and the UK colluding with an American president to rig a presidential election.
Watergate was a small, compartmented and clumsy effort involving only a couple of hired civilians trying to sneak a look at some medical files, only becoming a bigger deal when the president at the time scrambled to cover this up when it was discovered.
This chick has some issues …
Marjorie Taylor Greene launches astonishing attack on Trump women who ‘puff up their lips and enlarge their breasts’
The good news just keeps coming.