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Jul 192017
 

Party members told to give up religion for Party unity or face punishment

“Party members should not have religious beliefs, which is a red line for all members … Party members should be firm Marxist atheists, obey Party rules and stick to the Party’s faith … they are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion,” Wang Zuoan, director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) wrote in an article released in the Qiushi Journal on Saturday, the flagship magazine of the CPC Central Committee.

Officials who have religious faith should be persuaded to give it up, and those who resist would be punished by the Party organization, Wang wrote.

How terribly progressive of them.

“It is important that Wang constantly reminds Party members not to have religious beliefs. Some people who claim to be scholars support religious beliefs in the Party, which has undermined the Party’s values based on dialectical materialism,” Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Ah, the ol’ “dialectical materialism” ploy.

It should be pointed out that in Marxism, “atheism” isn’t exactly “atheism.” The normal definition of an atheist is someone who does not believe in god (cue the arguments over the difference between “not believing there’s a god” and “believing there is no god”), but commies are a bit different. They yammer on about how there is no god, and about how religion is bad, and how their form of “dialectical materialism” is good. But at the same time, they elevate the state to the *role* of god, turn the Communist Party and its ideology into the exact duplicate of a religion, and the objective results of their materialism *sucks.* The only reason why Communist China has turned itself into something of an economic powerhouse is because they have fallen from the true communist faith and have embraced capitalism, just not in name. They are now something far closer to National Socialism than Communism in the way they run their economy, but the way they run their government is still classically communist.

Some of this is due to an innate need in many, perhaps most, humans to believe that there’s some sort of magical superpower out there, whether it’s God or the State or Fate or whatever. But mostly I think it’s because religion was developed over perhaps tens of thousands of years and refined into a *really* quite effective way to keep most of a society in line, and commies, who are all about power and control, want that ability for themselves.

Remember, kiddies: this is the same China that a whole lot of people are hoping will take the reins from the US as the “leader of the world.”

 Posted by at 10:28 pm
Jul 182017
 

Because.

Raedthinn chillin’ in one of his favorite spots, backed up by Fingers.

Fingers gazes with disdain down upon her subjects.

Buttons looks with dismay upon the unwelcome scene of the vet clinic

Speedbump looks up in befuddlement at, well, everything. He’s not that smart.

 Posted by at 1:27 pm
Jul 182017
 

A little while ago there was a commercial for a childrens charity that deals with kids who need hospitalization. As is traditional for such things, many scenes of injured & sick lil’ adorable moppets were shown, but one of them CREEPED ME THE HELL OUT. The first time I saw it I had my glasses off, so I saw the screen burrily and wasn’t able to quite make out what I was seeing. What they were showing on screen was a little girl who was missing her left leg and learning to walk on a prosthetic. Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that. But… the prosthetic leg is a simple “stick,”and, for reasons that effectively evade me, they painted it BLOOD RED.

Behold:

Ye Gods.

Seen out of focus and for just a split second, it sure looked to me like a little girl who had just been attacked by a swarm of piranha. Or maybe she was the undead. In any event, it just wasn’t a good look.

BLAAAARRRRGH

 Posted by at 1:16 pm
Jul 172017
 

Some recent panoramas, stitched together from cameraphone photos:

The “Belt of Venus” looking southeast towards Brigham City at sunset.

A late afternoon summer storm. The rain didn’t quite make it to the surface; it evaporated en route.

Sunset

Sunset

Sunset

 Posted by at 4:08 pm
Jul 172017
 

UPDATE: books have sold.

I’m selling some books. The usual approach is ebay, but I figured I’d start here with y’all. This first group I will try to sell separately *if* nobody wants the lot of them. If you buy the whole lot, it’ll be cheaper than individually. The individual prices are based on what they seem to be going for online.

If you want the whole lot, I’m selling it for $100 (sum of the individual books, $133), plus postage. If you’re in the US, it’ll be media mail, so it shouldn’t cost too much. If you want the lot, let me know via email or comment; first come, first served.

For right now, trying to sell these books as a lot. If nobody wants the whole lot within a day or so, I’ll make them available individually.

“The High Frontier” by O’Neill, larger paperback, 1982. $15

“Colonies in space,” by Heppenheimer, larger paperback, $3.50

“The Future of Flight” by Myrabo, paperback, 1985. $3.50

“Colonizing other Worlds” by Macvey, hardbound, 1984. $7

“The Exploration of Space,” by Clarke. Hardbound, dust jacket is torn, otherwise good, 1951. $3

“The high Frontier,” by O’Neill, trade paperback, 1978, $3.50

“Colonies in space,” Heppenheimer, trade paperback, 1977. $3.50

“Space Trek,” by Glenn, paperback, 1978. $5

“Moving Into Space,” paperback, 1978. $4

“The Third industrial Revolution, by Stine, paperback, 1975. $5

“Space Shuttle,” by Kaplan, hardback, 1978. $4

“Dark Sun” by Rhodes, 1996, paperback, $4

“Fallout Prediction,” US Army FM3-22, 1973. $12

“The Constructive Uses of Nuclear Explosives” by Teller, 1968. Hardcover, no dust jacket. $60

 Posted by at 1:07 pm