Killing ourselves

 

It's not Sunday, but...

 Unreal that this is where we are.

It's Sunday

 Pope Bob had a message for Trump and his ilk.

Pope Leo said on ‌Sunday that God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have "hands full of blood", in unusually forceful remarks as the Iran war entered its second month.

Addressing tens of thousands in St. Peter's Square on Palm Sunday, ​the celebration that opens the holy week leading up to Easter for the world's ​1.4 billion Catholics, the pontiff called the conflict "atrocious" and said Jesus cannot be ⁠used to justify any wars.

[...]

"(Jesus) does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: 'Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood'," he said, citing a Bible ​passage.

  Reuters

Yeah, but MAGA Christians have rejected Jesus. They pray directly to their vengeful, warlike god.  And worse, they do it in Jesus' name.  

During an appeal at the end of Sunday's celebration, the pope lamented that ‌Christians ⁠in the Middle East "are suffering the consequences of an atrocious conflict" and may not be able to celebrate Easter.

I hope he didn't forget the Muslims. I feel confident he didn't.

The pope, who is known for choosing his words carefully, has repeatedly called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict and said on Monday that military airstrikes are indiscriminate and should be banned.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has started leading Christian prayer services ​at the Pentagon, prayed at a service on Wednesday for "overwhelming violence ​of action against ⁠those who deserve no mercy".

You heard him, Pete's God. And may I add, those who show no mercy deserve no mercy.

The purge will be ongoing

 

Time to actually think of the children

What are we doing?

As if they haven't been, but...

The expectation now, if they declare war, is that the US will have to join.  Right?

Interesting that they don't say Palestine, only Hamas.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 07:46 am:

UPDATE 10/08/2023:

US volunteers in Ukraine

They were told not to go, and I understand the problem should they be captured by Russians, but I also understand the desire to go. Maybe if we gave the Ukrainians the weapons they're asking for US volunteers wouldn't be needed.

US volunteers have been seen in video footage from the frontlines in Ukraine, suggesting that the international legion fighting alongside the Ukrainian army is playing an increasingly active role.

Two video clips featuring US fighters appeared on Twitter on Thursday: one showing an American in combat gear posing in front of the burnt remains of what he said was a Russian tank. Off camera, a Ukrainian shouts “Welcome to America!” and the American repeats the phrase.

[...]

The first video was posted by James Vasquez, a US army veteran and building contractor from Connecticut, who, according to his Twitter feed, arrived in Poland on 15 March and crossed into Ukraine the next day, bringing with him several surveillance drones. He was sent to the frontlines from Lviv on 18 March.

“I kind of feel like I’m on an awesome very dangerous vacation,” he said. And in another tweet: “When I need to amp myself up for battle, I just think about the most punchable face on the planet … Tucker Carlson.”

  The Guardian

It won't seem like much of a vacation if he gets captured.

“They are … shocked to see an American passport when I hit checkpoints,” he said. “They let me right through because they think it’s awesome an American soldier is here to fight alongside them.”

Best of luck, pal.

In his account of Thursday’s battle for a village he does not name, Vasquez said he was tasked to “find a pack of Russians spotted hiding by civilians” and he used a drone to try to spot them.

A few hours later, he tweeted: “Just went through six straight hours of combat. I have crazy video I’ll post later. 2 men were shot but will be OK. One fatality.”

Maybe don't post video, or even talk about, any place that might be identified.

Initial accounts of the international legion suggested that the foreign volunteers were a mixed bag, many with no experience. The military news website Task&Purpose reported there was “a swarm of Fantasists for every one candidate with experience in combat”.

“Selection apparently follows no discernible process other than separating those that don’t have military experience from those that do. The former are put through a four-week training course – the latter are given a weapon and sent to the front in ad-hoc units with a Ukrainian officer,” the report from Ukraine said.

I bet you there are Irish volunteers there.

The whole world is watching

Don't be surprised

Matt Taibbi's followers are crackerjack

They always come through on movie title references to the latest BS.













































Join in if you've got one.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Is it propaganda if it's true?

Always by proxy

He's not wrong.



Assuming there are any operable printers.  Or survivors.

Sitting on a Time Bomb

In one of the biggest evacuations in Germany since World War II, 70,000 residents of the city of Frankfurt are to move out of their homes while a bomb is defused. It was found at a construction site in the city center.

[...]

The operation to defuse it is planned for Sunday.

[...]

The 4,000 pound (1,814 kilogram) 1.8-tonne or 2-ton device is believed to be a British bomb dating back to the Allies' raids on the city. The bomb was designed to damage buildings more than a kilometer from the center of the explosion.

[...]

The bomb, which may contain 1,400 kilograms of explosives, is one of many which have been uncovered in Germany in recent years.

[...]

US and British air forces dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe between 1940 and the end of the war in 1945, according to the Smithsonian US research group.

Half of the devices were dropped on Germany. An estimated 10 percent of the bombs had failed to explode.

[...]

In December last year, a British bomb identified as a 4,000 pound blockbuster was found in Augsburg. More than 54,000 people had to leave their homes on Christmas Day while it was defused. That to date was the largest evacuation since the end of World War II more than 70 years ago.

  DW

War, the gift that keeps on giving.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let's Have Another Nuclear Holocaust!

via GIPHY

He wants a war so badly he can taste it. Nothing else will get the media on his side.

Interesting that Japan is so eager to align with us against North Korea.  Sure, North Korea CAN hurt them.  But we have already proven that we WILL.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 2:30PM:

Mad Dog Mattis blocks Dolt 45 for the second time in two days.

[D]efense secretary, James Mattis, flatly contradicted the president’s blanket statement, telling reporters: “We’re never out of diplomatic solutions.”

  Guardian

Clarity of Vision

Willing to Bet My Life

Donald J Trump does not pray.

And even if he did, what's the prayer?

Mark Twain's War Prayer

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by...

 [...]

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled...

 [...]

The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read;

 [...]  

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —

 [...] 

“Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

[...]

[A stranger entered the church and] motioned [the preacher] to step aside [...]  During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.

 [...]

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently.  [...]  You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”

...

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Toay in History: Gulf of Tonkin

"Collateral Damage"

[T]he Iraqi Army continues the strenuous effort to liberate western Mosul, wiping out militants with an intensive air campaign as well as in clashes on the battlefield.

“We were ready and our moral was high. We destroyed ISIS here. We have liberated 70 to 80 percent of Mosul,” an Iraqi Army soldier told RT.

  RT

In the language of war, "liberated" = "destroyed".

Luring warplanes to residential buildings so they will target the innocent has become a standard tactic of the jihadists.

“ISIS made us keep our door open, so they could get onto the roofs at any time. They even broke down the walls between houses so they could move around,” a local resident told RT.

“I don’t know why they were climbing onto our rooftops, whether it was to fight or to provoke [coalition] airstrikes,” another witness said.

The suffering of civilians who have to endure the side-effects of the offensive on a daily basis has been immense.

“There was so much bombing, and so many deaths. Pieces of human flesh were flying in all directions. Add to that constant hunger and thirst,” an elderly woman told Gazdiev.

[...]

“It’s terrible. The kids can’t eat properly, they can’t drink properly. They’re devastated by what they’ve been through,” a middle-aged survivor told RT.

Many children have become orphans, losing their parents to war, and have to take care of their younger siblings.

Following the Iraqi military through an almost completely demolished residential neighborhood, RT’s crew filmed what was left from a building, now reduced to a pile of rubble, mixed with rotting corpses of dead ISIS militants.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Happy Anniversary American Military Atrocity Deniers & War Lovers

Yes, Let's!

Just what we need right now: war with Russia.

John McCain declares that Russia has committed an "act of war" https://t.co/ctrQWvO2go

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2017

Somebody needs to find a nice retirement home for old dicks like this.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.