The only substitute for an experience we ourselves have never lived through is art and literature. They possess a wonderful ability: beyond distinctions of language, custom, social structure, they can convey the life experience of one whole nation to another.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions. There were 211, now there are 31. Here is the full list: Agnostic...
And a happy ending, or at least an ending, occurred to this story when the Pentagon redid its classifications to read as follows:
One of the major newspapers ran statistics for the various religions in terms of the what percentage of the military is comprised of them. While there are Mormons in the military, the percentage is infanticidally small. As noted earlier, however, there would be units in the military that would be heavily made up of Mormons, principally Guard and Reserve units in Utah. Their spiritual needs would be different than those of Christian religions, however, which would gain importance in a large scale war.
According to exit polls form the last general election, 64% of Mormons voted for Trump in the last election. 20% voted for Harris. 56% of Catholics did, with 41% voting for Harris. Catholics are a much larger demographic than Mormons and Trump has interestingly shown little concern about enormously offending them. 68% of Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant religion in the country, went for Trump. Southern Baptist, I suspect, are probably the largest Christian denomination to be upset by the reclassification, if they are.
I don't know that I have a strong opinion on the list being reworked to address Mormon concerns, but I would note a couple of oddities about it. One is that that the U.S. Government didn't define them as Christian, although they seem happy with the result. The second is that what Trump may say aside, he doesn't love Mormons anymore than he loves anyone else.
This is completely sick.
Or evil.
On the sick item, a recent video shows Donald Trump getting off of Marine Corps 1 (which frankly shouldn't be a thing) and veering all over as he walks.
FTD is notoriously hard to diagnose while a person is alive. It's slow moving as a rule and the person afflicted with it often just seems weird and mean before it's really advanced. It's horrific to watch up close. Pneumonia ends up being what kills most people with FTD.
A person with the affliction shows these signs.
Socially inappropriate, impulsive, or repetitive behaviors
Loss of interest in normal daily activities
Emotional withdrawal from others
Trouble planning and organizing
This is what Trump appears to have.
It if isn't this, then he's otherwise severely mentally ill, or actually seeking to sabotage the country for some reason, with being a foreign agent the only good explanation. This would fit into that, as it would seriously impair the value of U.S. currency.
The good news, if there is any, is that this would take an act of Congress and it appears to be unlikely that smiling sycophant Bessant aside, anyone is going to be able to convince a sufficient number of Congressmen to go along with this, particularly by July 4, 2026.
May 31, 2026
The "yips"?
Anyone not supporting Trump's immediate removal now is either; 1) mentally unstable, 2) so dependent on his political largess they're willing to see the country destroyed, or 3) a rank cowards.
In an event, history will judge ever single one you bastards as worthless pieces of trash who hurt their country.
June 6, 2026
June 8, 2026
In spite of myself, I listed to the Meet the Press interview of Donny.
True to form, he got frustrated when the reporter wouldn't accept his obvious lies, had a tantrum, and walked out.
This demented toddler is who you are worshipping, Chuck Gray and John Barrasso.
June 9, 2026
A demented King Donny, acknowledging that he acted like a spoiled baby, blamed his performance on Meet the Press on the rain.
Yes, that's right, he went into an unhinged tirade due to, he says, rain.
On other Trump news, albeit not quite in this category,. the "let them eat cake" attitude of King Donny was evident when he attended a basketball game at Madison Square Gardens with his granddaughter. His presence proved to be a massive disruption to the area and actually had a negative impact on local taverns in the area which would normally be full after a championship game. Trump claimed there were more cheers than boos.
On today's entries, the former shows his growing insanity, but the latter merely his rudeness. He left the game early. He appeared to fall asleep during it.
Last edition:
The Kingdom of Afghanistan came into existence when Emir Amanullah Khan Barakzai of the British protectorate of Afghanistan declared the independence with British approval and himself king.
The Battle of Prairie Dog Creek, also known as the Skirmish at Tongue River Heights, or the Battle of the Tongue River, occurred at the confluence of Prairie Dog Creek and the Tongue River primarily in Wyoming Territory, but also in part of Montana.
Crooks command was camped on the creek when it was attacked by a large party of Sioux, which engage them with volley fire. Crook had his men mount an attack in response, which pushed the Sioux back three times before they disengaged. Two Sioux warriors were killed in the battle.
The Sioux goal had been to steal the Army remuda.
Last edition:
Rufus T. Firefly: Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot.
Duck Soup.
Trump doing is signature creepy old guy dance..
June 4, 2026
Tom Barrett of Michigan, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky crossed party lines to vote with Democrats in favor of the resolution to end the illegal assault on Iran.
The measure goes on to the Senate. We'll see what happens there, as Trump's stabbed some Senators in the back, and they're ready to gut him like a fish now.
The action of the Senators is based on conscience. I believe its the right one, but it also serves to remind us that we're now in an incredibly bad spot in regard to the war against Iran, and in the Middle East in general.
It should have been obvious to anyone that decapitating the Iranian regime would not lead to a liberal democracy. The Iranian people have no real ability to overthrow their government and when they tried before the war, after we urged it, they were mowed down. It's the IRGC that has the guns.
When the July 20 plotters mapped out their attempt to kill Hitler, in the attempt that almost worked, it involved wiping out the Nazi state. The idea wasn't just to kill Hitler, but to remove the Nazis in every form. Men like Himmler, Goebbels and Goering would have ended up against a wall had the plot succeeded. Removing those in the seat of power just opens up a vacuum for those positions to be filled. Moreover, in the Iranian case, they'd planned for such eventualities, which we should have known as prior selective US assassinations didn't change the direction of the regime at all.
Moreover, the regime has no place to go. It's not as if they can walk out of their offices retire to cabbage farms. They have to remain in power. Like the German SS in 1945, the IRGC has no place to go. It has to keep the regime in power.
All of this is obvious.
It was likewise obvious that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz and that would so severely disrupt the world's petroleum supplies that it would actually boost the move to green energy, although people still have really awakened to that reality.
And it should have been obvious that those advocating for the war had ulterior agendas. Israel doesn't care about U.S. global considerations and is well aware that the U.S. is a declining power. Convincing a weak minded Trump to go to war with Iran was completely in its interest, and it doesn't care about considerations about defending Taiwan or South Korea.
Pete Hegseth and the pack of far right wing Evangelical would be Crusaders don't care what this will cost. In the view of those in that minoritarian group of American Protestants, a big war will bring on the end of the world and the return of Christ, now. They don't worry about the Just War Theory, as their convinced this is a Divinely ordained mission.
And, it's obvious right now, that the Iranian regime can in fact outwait Trump and its doing it.
The war can only come to an end in one of two ways. We quit, and leave the mess we created as it is, which is a complete and total defeat, or we undertake a largescale ground invasion. Those are the only two options.
The second one leaves open the question of should a country pursue a victory against a legitimate enemy when the war started illegally. It's only a hypothetical question, however, as Trump, who was so stupid as to believe the war would end in a few days, does not have the stomach for that. That really would cause there to be a vote on the war and he knows he'd loose it.
That means the only other option for ending the war is simply leaving, which is a complete defeat. Trump also can't bring himself to do that, as he can't stand the thought that he is what he is, a loser.
So, Trump's option will be increasingly just to ignore the war. He basically just hopes it will go away. In the meantime, like Hitler in the bunker, he plays with models of a reimagined gaudy capital city.
And increasingly look like this to the world.
June 8, 2026
Iran launched something on the order of thirty ballistic missiles on Israel today, and Israel retaliated with air strikes on Iran.
Israel also hit sites in Lebanon.
Last edition:
Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions. There were 211, now there are 31. Here is the full list: Agnostic...
The big flap over the Pentagon's new list of religions, mostly focused on the LDS insisting it be recognized as a Christian religions which at least conventional Christianity holds that it is not, is obscuring the fact that frankly the list may not matter all that much.
All the list does is to provide some guidelines on anticipating the patrol needs of troops. T/he prior list was so large there was no way that it was useful. The original list, Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew, was probably too narrow, in the modern world, to be useful.
Arguably the current list is too big. It'd make more sense, actually, to have Mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Judaism, Islam and Other. Every one of those categories, it might be noted, has various groups within it. Probably only Catholic expresses a singular religious group, but even there, there are a lot of Catholic rites. The Orthodox are a collection of Orthodox churches and have a major division between Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox.
Anyhow, that's probably more useful.
Of note, listing religions isn't an endorsement of them.
About 70% of all service members are some sort of Protestant. 20% are Catholic. I've given the figures already, but the number of LDS troops is very small, although in National Guard units from Utah the opposite would be true. At least one religion on the list discourages its members from joining the military and last had any presence in the military when there was conscription in place.
Lex Anteinternet: Sunday Morning Scene. Religion in the military.: The Department of Defense scaled back its list of recognized religions. There were 211, now there are 31. Here is the full list: Agnostic...
Under new military guidance from Pete Hegseth, the LDS Church is officially classified as a non-Christian religion. My fellow Saints, you can love these Christian nationalists all you want, but they will not love you back.
I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints My church membership is inextricably intertwined with my Christianity, as it is for 17 million other Latter-day Saints Regardless of what the Pentagon thinks
I just got off the phone with President Trump We discussed the Pentagon’s “Christian list” I won’t speak for him, but I’m thrilled about where this is heading We’re most fortunate that President Trump (1) loves Latter-day Saints, and (2) is our commander in chief Stay tuned
