From the Narrow Desert

Taiwan's mask mandate, which is still in force, allows masks to be removed in special situations -- including (last I checked) eating, drinking, walking, riding a motorcycle, taking a photo, and lecturing -- so I'm pretty much good. My students, who have to sit at their desks without doing any of those things, not so much.

A few days ago, one of my private students said, "It's not fair that I have to wear a mask but you don't!"

"It certainly isn't," I said. "Feel free to take it off if you like."

"I can't!" she said. "Big Ben says I have to wear it."

Big Ben! I wish I had thought of that.

The Minister of Health and Welfare -- "Taiwan's Dr. Fauci" and the world's most powerful dentist -- was called Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), and his given name is a perfect homophone of 時鐘, the Chinese word for "clock." The Chinese for "stupid" is 笨, pronounced ben, and so Big Ben in London is called 大笨鐘 -- literally, "Big Stupid Clock."

It's just a perfect nickname -- a very clever Chinese-English pun, and (much like "Let's go Brandon") indirect enough to make it playfully irreverent rather than just rude. Forget the old "Tooth Fairy" nickname; I'm never calling him anything but Big Ben from now on.

So imagine my mixed feelings when I discovered, just days later, that Big Ben had resigned! Not in disgrace, mind you, but to focus on his run for Mayor of Taipei -- a position which is generally recognized as a stepping-stone to the presidency. The good news is that Big Ben will likely be in the public eye for many years to come, giving me ample opportunity to talk about him. The bad news is that he hasn't really stepped down but stepped up, and the new guy will probably be just as bad but without the awesome nickname.

No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protestors yesterday that they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol.

We all know that’s true — and it’s unacceptable.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 7, 2021

Yes, we all know that's true.

If it had been BLM, they would have been called "protestors" rather than "the mob."

Every headline covering the event would have included the words "mostly peaceful."

If it had been BLM, expressions of solidarity, not condemnation, would be universal and de facto mandatory, and every corporation, media outlet, and church would be falling over themselves to provide the same.

If she had been a drugged-up petty criminal of the sacred race, Ashli Babbitt would have been elevated to sainthood, her name printed on football helmets, and the cop who murdered her doxxed and harrassed.

But of course if it had been BLM, they never would have wasted their time storming the Capitol in the first place. They would have targeted a real symbol of oppression: the local Louis Vuitton store.

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(By the way, what do you think of this post? I think it's Nebula material.)

I stand with President Trump.

I repent my pretentious attitude of dismissing Trump and Biden as two interchangeable lying buffoons whose squabbles were beneath my notice. This position was never, in the deepest sense, honest. It represented a forced override of intuition by discursive reason, and was motivated by pride and pusillanimity.

This is shaping up to be a total war, and neutrality is neither possible nor desirable. Mr. Trump is very, very far from being a moral exemplar, but it is becoming increasingly clear -- ever more so as every demon in hell is mobilized against him -- that God is with him and against his enemies. And so am I.

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My uncle and I used to play the "reincarnation game" -- how literally it was to be taken was left ambiguous -- of trying to figure out who various public figures had been in past lives. We were in agreement that Bush fils was George III and that Obama was FDR but could reach no consensus on Trump. My uncle said Caligula; I said Beowulf. We don't play that game anymore, but if we did, I would be very confident in asserting that Trump is Samson.

Samson: kinda goofy, lots of warts, certainly not anybody's role model -- but, as they say, "he also delivered Israel."

Let's hope his story has a happier ending this time around.

Keep reminding yourself:

2020 happened on Trump's watch. He has not repented -- literally has never repented in his life -- and will never repent.

A Joe Camel administration would be even worse. But how much does "even worse" really matter at this point?

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
If the Camels don't get you, the Fatimas must

Tune out, turn off, drop out. Follow Jesus, and let the dead bury their dead. 

It has been decided that the new totalitarian world order will be called the New Normal.

People used to be ruled by a hierarchy -- from hieros, "holy" -- but our masters no longer make any claims to (of all things!) holiness. They're just normal guys, regular Joes, and the Satanic agenda they enforce is just common sense and basic decency. It's not even political, really, so don't try to "play politics" by disagreeing with it!

It's not a hierarchy anymore. It's a Normalarchy.

When, in late October of this year, I posted on how the Rider-Waite Tarot accurately predicts the results of every U.S. presidential election from 2000 to 2020, it didn't take much chutzpah to declare Trump the prophesied winner of this year's race. Trump winning in a landslide seemed the only possible result, and I dismissed Biden as a soon-to-be-forgotten Walter Mondale figure. Even when the synchronicity fairies kept stubbornly bringing Biden to my attention (via Jay-Z, Dr. Seuss, Steve Martin, and Clickhole), I just couldn't take him seriously as a potential winner. ("I don't know why the synchronicity fairies are feeding me all this material on a man doomed to become irrelevant in two weeks' time," I wrote on October 25, "but who am I to kick against the pics?")

Now that the Media -- supported by their political arm, the Democratic Party -- have "officially" called the race for Biden, I'm going to stick my neck out and double down on my prediction. The Tarot has been 100% accurate in stating the winners of every other presidential election this century -- with the 0th trump predicting the winner in '00, the 4th trump the winner in '04, and so on -- and the 20th trump unambiguously says Trump. I stake my reputation as an interpreter of the Tarot on this prediction. If Trump doesn't win in the end, the Tarot is not what I think it is.

Let's go over what I mean when I say that. For those who don't know it, this is the 20th trump in the Major Arcana, called The Judgement.

1. Did you know that the word trump only occurs twice in the entire King James Bible? Both instances refer to the scene portrayed on this card.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52).

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

An aside: Obviously, the name Biden as such does not occur in the Bible -- but if we ignore spaces, it does: "Thou sayest, Lo, thou hast smitten the Edomites; and thine heart lifteth thee up to boast: abide now at home; why shouldest thou meddle to thine hurt, that thou shouldest fall, even thou, and Judah with thee?" (2 Chronicles 25:19). This seems to allude to Basement Biden's "sheltering in place" and to prophesy his fall after boasting that he has smitten the Edomites. (Edom means "red" in Hebrew, so the Edomites are the Republicans -- and I suppose everyone knows to which modern people the name Judah refers. Judah is of course also the same name as Judas.)

(An even-more-tangential aside: Looking for other 2020 names in the Bible led me to Deuteronomy 14:7, which reads, "Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you." The camel, the hare, and the coney. This seems to connect Kamala Harris with another woman who came to prominence in 2020, Amy Coney Barrett, and to pronounce them both unclean. Does this presage some future treachery from ACB?)

2. The trump has a flag attached to it. Trump was born on June 14 -- Flag Day.

3. The flag has a big red cross on it. Red is the Republican color, and the cross resembles T for Trump. This is in fact St. George's flag, signifying victory over the dragon.

4. The angel has a full head of blond hair, with a touch of orange.

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What are we to make of the scene on the lower half of the card, which shows the dead rising from coffins which appear to be floating in the water? A few thoughts:

They could represent Trump voters -- defeated, "dead," and then with their fortunes unexpectedly reversed. The water could represent the Trump's claim that lots of Trump ballots were dumped in rivers.

Alternatively, they could represent actual dead people -- who, as we know, voted in record numbers in 2020! The problem with this is that they appear to be cheering for Trump, when in fact corpses appear to have voted overwhelmingly for Biden.

But perhaps they're cheering because they think they've won -- gotten rid of Trump. He's up in heaven, an angel, dead. Little do they realize that the day of reckoning is coming.

And what's that in the background? Mountains -- or an approaching tsunami?

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What about the prophecy -- which, believe it or not, I also take seriously -- that Trump will invite "Joe Camel" (Joe and Kamala) to the White House? I don't know what to make of that yet, but here's my best guess: The recounts and lawsuits ("Sue sews Slow Joe Crow's clothes," i.e. suits) and everything will not be completed by January 20, Biden will be sworn in, and Trump will peacefully "invite him to the White House." Shortly thereafter, the election results will be overturned by the Supreme Court, and Trump will be restored.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. The highway is for gamblers. If I end up being wrong, I will, as they say, eat crow.

(Cross-posted at The Magician's Table.)

The Milwaukee City Wire is reporting that Seven Milwaukee wards report more 2020 presidential votes than registered voters. The story has details about the number of registered voters, and of recorded votes for Trump and Biden, in each of Milwaukee's 327 voting wards. Of these wards, 90 reported voter turnout higher than 90%, seven higher than 100%, and one a whopping 202%!

How do you "debunk" something like this without actually, you know, debunking it? Easy. Make up a similar but false story -- using all the same key words -- debunk that, and flood the search results.

Search for the story, and you get tons of "fact check" sites assuring you that it's absolutely false that Wisconsin -- the whole state -- had higher than 100% voter turnout. Was anyone ever really claiming that, or is this just an ad hoc strawman made up for the express purpose of burying the real story? (In other news, it is absolutely false that Joe Biden once raped Jeffrey Epstein's niece in a laptop repair shop in Ukraine!)

I've clicked a few of the "fact check" links, and none of the ones I looked at so much as mentioned the alleged irregularities in Milwaukee. The real story is there in the search results if you scroll down a bit, but of course most people won't do that. They'll take one look at the results, assume there's nothing to see, and move on.

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Let me take this opportunity to remind you that I don't vote, don't support either candidate, and don't think it matters much which liar wins. But whoever wins or loses, I sure hope they take a lot of other liars down with them.

But behold, ye have rejected the truth, and rebelled against your holy God; and even at this time, instead of laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nothing doth corrupt, and where nothing can come which is unclean, ye are heaping up for yourselves wrath against the day of judgment.

Yea, even at this time ye are ripening, because of your murders and your fornication and wickedness, for everlasting destruction; yea, and except ye repent it will come unto you soon.

Yea, behold it is now even at your doors; yea, go ye in unto the judgment-seat, and search; and behold, your judge is murdered, and he lieth in his blood; and he hath been murdered by his brother, who seeketh to sit in the judgment-seat.

And behold, they both belong to your secret band, whose author is Gadianton and the evil one who seeketh to destroy the souls of men.

-- Helaman 8:25-28

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Oh, by the way, happy Guy Fawkes Day.

Yes, it’s like 3:00 a.m. in Taiwan, but this just came to me, and if I wait till tomorrow to post it, it’ll be too late.

In the unlikely event of a Biden/Harris win, you heard it here first: Clickhole called the race for Joe and Kamala almost a full year before there was even a Joe/Kamala ticket!

In fact, the Joe/Kamala candidacy may have been known as far back as 1992!

(Yes, I know the Tarot is predicting a win for the incumbent, but keep in mind that the Tarot is well-known to have a pro-trump bias.)

. . . permission is granted.

I don't usually do Bloods-and-Crips electoral politics, but since people keep asking my opinion:

Donald Trump

• hasn't built the wall,
• hasn't drained the swamp,
• hasn't made America great again,
• hasn't even maintained basic law and order, and...
• hasn't prevented the totalitarian birdemic takeover.

Joe Biden

• doesn't even pretend to want to do any of those things.

This is not an endorsement of Trump or of voting. You shouldn't vote, because voting is wrong, and it will -- very obviously! -- make no real difference who wins anyway.

Saying that in 2020 is like saying, in the midst of an ongoing Communist revolution, "We categorically condemn all exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie."

Well, exploitation should be condemned. And sometimes the middle class does exploit the working class. But in context -- the context of a triumphant evil movement that defines everything, including everything good and true, as the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie -- what you're really saying is "Shoot more kulaks." Or, to paraphrase somewhat, "Hail Satan."

So that's how it is. If you make a point of categorically condemning "racism," no matter how defensible the literal content of your statement may be, I'm going to see it as a declaration of allegiance to the god of this world. And I'm not going to be wrong.

An American politician is giving a speech. "If you're not a free state, you don't get a star on the flag. As simple as that!"

The crowd erupts into chants of "No freedom, no stars! No freedom, no stars!"

I think my dreaming mind has pretty accurately captured the niveau of contemporary politics.

Remember Hillary Clinton's unintentionally prophetic logo from 2016?

Red and blue symbolize the right and the left, respectively, in U.S. politics, and Clinton's logo inexplicably showed a red arrow pointing to the right, slashing through two blue towers. The two towers represent the two mainstream parties (one a bit to the right of the other, but both basically "blue" or leftist), and the red arrow is Trump.

This is just one of several examples of self-defeating symbolism used by the Clinton campaign in 2016. Another was the incredibly stupid choice to adopt a playing-card metaphor (the "woman card") in a fight against someone named Trump.

Whoever designs these logos appears to have learned nothing. Here's the logo for this year's Democratic National Convention.

I am sometimes tempted to congratulate myself on choosing to live in Taiwan, where common sense is only near-threatened rather than critically endangered and where people tend to be relatively laid-back about the Burning Issues of the Day.

Sometimes.

If the press is to be believed, the mild-mannered mayor of Changhua, the city which has been my home for the past decade and a half, has announced that he is (I swear I am not making this up) Energy-Saving Carbon-Reducing Tree Man -- and even has a snazzy superhero costume that makes him look a bit like Poison Ivy's male sidekick, Poison Ivan. (Not nearly as catchy a moniker as Energy-Saving Carbon-Reducing Tree Man, mind you.)

Energy-Saving Carbon-Reducing Tree Man went on to declare Changhua "the first Climate Emergency City" in Taiwan (summers on this subtropical island are, he astutely observed, "very hot") and to demand a green new carbon zero carbon justice extinction something something.

His speech was cheered by crowds of ivy-crowned maenads -- and, apparently, one heckler holding up a sign that said "How dare you!" (presumably a reference to ESCRTM's failure to wear a mask).

As I was saying, crowds.

You can read the original story here (in Chinese) if you feel so inclined.

Pizza, calzones, and Black Lives Matter

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers of the world, unite!" Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life "in harmony with society," as they say.

Obviously the greengrocer . . . does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace." This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, "What's wrong with the workers of the world uniting?" Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed toward people and toward God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.