A.

“So anyway, if you are coming out 

of an Irish pub at 11:30 

and you're on your way home, 

the Púca may suddenly decide 

to descend upon you.

Generally, he grabs you by the collar 

and yells "Got yer erse, mate!", 

and drags you off into a parallel universe, 

just like you hear about in Quantum Physics, 

or a set of parallel universes, 

and you meet all of the great Irish heroes, 

Finn McCoel, Cahaugllen, Niall of the Nine Hostages, 

Patrick Columbus, Brian Confucious... 

Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi... 

Zeus, Apollo, the Devas, 

the Pans, the Satyrs... 

Billions, and billions of years 

of adventures in alternative realities.

And when the Púca gets done playing with you, 

he puts you back on the road.

And it's only one minute after you left the pub, in ordinary time."

Q.

 

"The Púca is vegetation spirit, or an elf, or something of that sort, 

who mostly lives in County Kerry, although he has been known to move around Ireland 

and appear in other places.

He generally hangs around pubs - 

Irish pubs close at 11:30, you can't get a drink after 11:30 

unless you know the publican very well, and they know the cop on the beat 

is going to come in at quarter to twelve 

and have his midnight drink too, 

[and] won't bust anybody. 

But according to The Law, they close at 11:30 

and people start home.

Now, Irish roads are like English roads, they weave, and turn, 

they're not straight like American Roads.

Some people say that's because 

the roads were made 

by the drunks staggering home 

from the pub at night. 

Actually the Irish word for "road" is "bohar", 

which means "cow path" - so the cows created the roads, 

and the drunks followed the cows, I guess.

So anyway, if you are coming out 

of an Irish pub at 11:30 

and you're on your way home, 

the Púca may suddenly decide 

to descend upon you.

Lightray

 

Zephyr in The Sky 

at night, I wonder, :

"Do my tears of mourning 

sink beneath the sun?"

She's got herself a universe 

gone quickly;

For the call of thunder 

threatens everyone

And I feel --

like I just got home

And I feel.

And I feel --

like I just got home

And I feel --

Faster than the speeding light 

she's flying

Trying to remember 

where it all began

She's got herself a little piece 

of Heaven

Waiting for the time when 

Earth shall be as one

And I feel 

like I just got home

And I feel --

And I feel 

like I just got home

And I feel --

Quicker than a ray of light

Quicker than a ray of light

Quicker than a ray of light

Zephyr in the sky 

at night, I wonder --

"Do my tears of mourning 

sink beneath the sun?"

She's got herself a universe gone quickly

For the call of thunder threatens everyone

And I feel --

Quicker than a ray of light

Then gone for

Someone else will be there

Through the endless years

She's got herself a universe

She's got herself a universe

She's got herself a universe

And I feel

And I feel

And I feel,

 like I just got home

And I feel

Quicker than a ray of light 

she's flying

Quicker than a ray of light 

I'm flying

Gunther

 

"Have you seen 'Friends'?

'Cos I think Kerry and Martin 

are a LOT like Gunther and Rachel,
because Gunther loves Rachel, 

but Rachel doesn't give a shit 

about Gunther.

He's just some guy who works in a cafe, 

serving coffee. You know? 

And he should focus on 

what he does have,
which is a great little business."

PLAYS LONG, FLAT NOTE

Martin Mucklowe :

What do you think of that? 

Use the diaphragm.

I mean, my lungs are so strong, 

I could blow up a hot water bottle.

Kerry :

Cor!

Martin Mucklowe :

And watch again --

PLAYS LONG, FLAT NOTE

Martin Mucklowe :

 Something you won't know, Ker, 

is the last Thursday of every month 

I used to play pool with Fred West. 

Kerry :

What..?

Martin Mucklowe :

I know he's done some iffy things,

but as a builder he was top-notch, 

best in the West Country.

Kerry :

Really?

Martin Mucklowe :

We'd say, 

"West, Best in The West."

And he'd laugh, he'd say, 

"Stop, Martin!"

He could hold four bits 

of four-by-four, one-handed.

And there's only one other bloke 

that can do that... and that's My Old Man.

There, Now We’re Even.

Q. : What is a ‘Q’…?

A. : It’s a letter of The Alphabet, 

as far as I know….

[Future - USS Pasteur Bridge]

PICARD: 

On screen! On screen! Let's see it! 

(just a starfield) 

DATA: 

As you can see, sir, there's nothing there. 

(a little later) 

DATA: 

Still nothing, Captain. 

I've conducted a full sensor sweep 

out to one light year from the Pasteur. 

No temporal anomalies, 

no particle fluctuations, nothing. 

PICARD: 

I don't understand. 

It was here in the other two time periods. 

Why isn't it here now? 

WORF: 

Captain. I have been monitoring 

Klingon communication channels. 

Several warships have been dispatched 

to this sector to search for 

a renegade Federation vessel. 

PICARD: 

You're not thinking about leaving? 

CRUSHER: 

There's nothing here, Jean-Luc. 

PICARD: 

There should be! 

There has to be! 

Data, is there some other way 

to scan for a temporal disturbance? 

Something that isn't covered 

in a normal sensor sweep. 

DATA: 

There are several methods of 

detecting temporal disturbances, 

but we're limited by the equipment 

on the Pasteur. 

CRUSHER: 

We should head back to 

Federation Territory. 

DATA: 

.....However, it may be possible 

to modify the main deflector 

to emit an inverse tachyon pulse, 

which could scan beyond 

the subspace barrier. 

PICARD: 

That's it. Make it so. 

CRUSHER: 

Wait a minute. 

Data, how long would this take? 

DATA: 

To make the modifications and 

search the entire Devron system 

will take approximately 

fourteen hours. 

CRUSHER: 

All right. Data, begin to modify 

the tachyon pulse. 

Ensign Chilton, lay in a course 

back to The Federation.

 

We'll stay here for six more hours, 

and if we haven't found anything 

we're heading back, 

maximum warp. 

CHILTON: 

Aye, sir. 

PICARD: 

But six more hours may not be enough. 

We have to stay here until we find it, 

no matter how long it takes. 

CRUSHER: 

Carry out my orders. 

May I see you a moment?

[Future - USS Pasteur Ready room]

PICARD: 

Beverly, I cannot believe that 

you are not willing to 

stay here until we --

CRUSHER: 

Don't you ever question My Orders 

on The Bridge of My Ship again! 

PICARD: 

Damn it, I was just trying to.... 

Look, there are larger concerns here. 

What you don't understand is that --

CRUSHER: 

I understand that you would 

never have tolerated that kind 

of behaviour back on 

the Enterprise and 

I won't here. 

I don't care if you're 

my ex-Captain or my ex-husband. 

PICARD: 

You're right. I was out of line. 

It won't happen again. 

But what you have to understand 

is what is at stake here. 

Q has said that all of Humanity 

will be destroyed. 

CRUSHER: 

I know. That's why I've allowed us 

to stay here longer and keep looking. 

But I also want you to allow for the possibility

 that none of what you're saying is real. 

PICARD: 

What? 

CRUSHER: 

Jean-Luc, I care for you too much 

not to tell you The Truth. 

You have advanced Irumodic Syndrome. 

It's possible that all of this is in your mind. 

I'll stay here six hours longer and then we're heading home. 

I want you to remember, 

if it were anyone but you, 

we wouldn't even be here. 

Crusher leaves, Q appears 

as a ancient man 

with an ear trumpet

Q: 

Eh? What was that she said, sonny? 

I couldn't quite hear her.

PICARD: 

Q? What is going on here? 

Where is The Anomaly? 

Q: 

‘Where's your mommy?’

Well, I don't know. 

PICARD: 

Answer Me. 

Q: 

There is An Answer, Jean-Luc, 

but I can't hand it to you. 

Although, You Do have Help. 

PICARD: 

What help? 

Q: 

You're not alone, you know. 

What You Were and 

What You are to Become 

will always with you. 

PICARD: 

My time shifting. 

The Answer does lie there, doesn't it. 

Now, tell me one thing : 

This anomaly we're looking for, 

will that Destroy Humanity? 

Q: 

You're forgetting, Jean-Luc. 

You Destroy Humanity. 

PICARD: 

By doing what? When? 

How can —

War and Warriors

X. War and Warriors 

 By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. 

So let me tell you the truth! 

My brethren in war! 

I love you from the very heart. 

I am, and was ever, your counterpart. 

And I am also your best enemy. 

So let me tell you the truth! 

I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. 

Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. 

Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them! 

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. 

They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship. 

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! 

“Uniform” one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide! 

Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for An Enemy — for YOUR Enemy. 

And with some of you there is hatred at first sight. 

Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! 

And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby! 

Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars — and the short peace more than the long. 

You I advise not to work, but to fight. 

You I advise not to peace, but to victory. 

Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory! 

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. 

Let your peace be a victory! 

Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? 

I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause. 

War and Courage have done more great things than Charity. 

Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims.

 “What is good?” ye ask. 

To be brave is good. 

Let the little girls say: “To be good is what is pretty, and at the same time touching.” 

They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your goodwill. 

Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb. 

Ye are ugly? 

Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly! 

And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness. I know you. 

In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling meet. 

But they misunderstand one another. I know you. 

Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. 

Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your successes. 

Resistance — that is the distinction of the slave. 

Let your distinction be obedience. 

Let your commanding itself be obeying! 

To the good warrior soundeth “Thou Shalt” pleasanter than “I Will.” 

And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you. 

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life! 

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me — and it is this: Man is something that is to be surpassed. 

So live your life of obedience and of war! 

What matter about long life! 

What warrior wisheth to be spared! 

I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war!

— Thus spake Zarathustra.

Jedi Scum..!!

Oh! What did I say…?!

Bridge of Spies

Dominic Cummings : 

Stupid. 

You should advise your businesses that as a global society, we are entering a series of PROFOUND

economic, cultural, social and political transitions, the

like of which the world has never seen.

Educated people are the MOST stupid.

Massive increase in resource requirements.

You need an Odyssean education.

A rising tide of religious extremism.

A synthesis of…inter-generational inequality in The West

on an historic level.

Apollonian rationality 

and Dionysian intuition.

I would tell them that for the past years, decades, even,

this firm has failed to prepare ANY of them for ANY of it.

Lo, I Teach You The Superman

Thus Spake Zarathustra:

When Zarathustra arrived at the nearest town which adjointh the forest, he found many people assembled in the market-place; for it had been announced that a rope-dancer would give a performance.  And Zarathustra spake thus unto the people:

                I teach you the Superman.  Man is something that is to be surpassed.  What have ye done to surpass man?

                All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves; and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beasts than surpass man?

                What is the ape to man?  A laughing-stock, a thing of shame.  And just the same shall man be to the Superman;  a laughing-stock; a thing of shame.

                Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm.  Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

                Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom.  But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?

                Lo, I teach you the Superman.

                The Superman is the meaning of the earth.  Let your will say:  The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!

                I conjure you, my brethren, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes!  Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

                Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!

                Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and therewith also those blasphemers.  To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

                Once the soul looked contemptuously on the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing: the soul wished the body meager, ghastly, and famished.  Thus it thought to escape from the body and the earth.

                Oh, that soul was itself meager, ghastly, and famished; and the cruelty was the delight of that soul!

                But ye also, my brethren tell me:  What doth your body say about your soul?  Is your soul not poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency?

                Verily, a polluted stream is man.  One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

                Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea; in him can your great contempt be submerged.

                What is the greatest thing ye can experience?  It is the hour of great contempt.  The hour in which even your happiness becometh loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.

                The hour when ye say:  “What good is my happiness!  It is poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”

The hour when ye say:” What good is my virtue!  As yet it hath not made me passionate.  How weary I am of my good and my bad!  It is all poverty and pollution and wretched self complacency!”

                The hour when ye say: “What good is my justice! I do not see that I am fervor and fuel.  The just, however, are fervor and fuel!”

                The hour when we say” “What good is my pity!  Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loveth man?  But my pity is not a crucifixion.”

                Have ye ever spoken thus?  Have ye ever cried thus? Ah! Would that I had heard you crying thus!

                It is not your sin - it is your self-satisfaction that crieth unto heaven; your very sparingness in sins crieth unto heaven!

                Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue?  Where is the frenzy with which ye should be inoculated?

                Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that lightning, he is that frenzy!

                When Zarathustra had thus spoken, one of the people called out:  “We have now heard enough of the rope-dancer; it is time now for us to see him!”  And all the people laughed at Zarathustra.  But the rope-dancer, who thought the words applied to him, began his performance.  Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered.

  

Notes from Nietzche’s sister:

  

He assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has put in ban all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined.  Now, however, a new table of valuations must be placed over mankind - name that of the strong, mighty, and magnificent man, overflowing with life and elevated to his zenith - the Superman, who is now put before us with overpowering passion as the aim of our life, hope and will.  And just as the old system of valuing, which only extolled the qualities favorable to the weak, the suffering and the oppressed, has succeeded in producing a weak, suffering and modern race, so this new system of valuing ought to rear a healthy, strong, lively and courageous type, which would be a glory to life itself.  The leading principle of this new system of valuing would be:  “All that proceeds from power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad.”

Superman, you can hear me, can't you?

Are you kidding? I'm

not going in there.

Hey, hey. Come on.

Just leave him alone.

Taxi Driver :

I can't get through, Lady.

Something's happening.

Hey, look. Superman's drunk.

Ricky Lang :

I wanna see what's happening here.

Lana Lang :

Ricky. Ricky.

Ricky.

Yeah, that's right.

Lana Lang :

Thank you.

“It's a disgrace, that's what it is.”

“I'll tell you, nobody's ever

gonna trust THAT creep again.”

“He's washed up.”

What are you looking at? Huh?

Ricky Lang :

Excuse me. Superman?

It's me, Ricky.

Ricky from Smallville.

Tell them you won't hurt anybody.

Lana Lang :

He's changed.

Ricky Lang :

No. Maybe he's just sick.

Superman, please get better.

Lana Lang :

He's •not• listening to you.

Ricky Lang :

Yes, he IS. He can HEAR me. 

He's got SUPER-hearing.

Superman, you're just in a slump.

You'll be GREAT again.

You can do it, Superman.

Superman, you can 

hear me, can't you?

Superman, you're just in a slump.

You'll be great again. 

You can do it, Superman.

Superman, you can

hear me, can't you?

He's gone nuts.

It’s a Turf-War — on a Global Scale

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

•Protection•

for gangs and other nations

Causin’ grief in Human Relations

It's a turf war — on a global scale

I'd rather hear both sides of the tale

See, it's not about races

Just places

Faces

Where your blood comes from

Is where Your Space is

I've seen the bright get duller —

I'm NOT gonna to spend My Life 

bein’ a colour

Putin argued that many global governance institutions need “fine tuning” as they failed to tackle the challenges posed by the dynamics of global processes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his recent speech, said that woke ideology is fast destroying the Western civilisation. Putin condemned the far-left progressivism and compared it to Russia’s darkest days during the 1917 communist revolution, in which the Soviets seized the means of production and overthrew the government.

Speaking at the plenary session of the 18th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, Putin presented a strong case arguing that the Western civilisation is one step away from falling. The theme of the discussion was "Global Shake-up in the 21st century: The Individual, Values and the State".

Putin began his address by pointing out how the world is facing continuous inconstancy, unpredictability, and a permanent state of transition on almost every front, be it climate change, environmental degradation, the coronavirus pandemic, or the socio-economic problems facing humankind. Putin, citing the Covid-19 pandemic experience, argued that many global governance institutions need “fine tuning” as they failed to tackle the challenges posed by the dynamics of global processes.

“The re-alignment of the balance of power presupposes a redistribution of shares in favour of rising and developing countries that until now felt left out... We look in amazement at the processes underway in the countries which have been traditionally looked at as the standard-bearers of progress,” said Putin.

While elaborating upon the cultural deterioration of the West that is underway in the name of social justice, Putin said “some people in the West believe that an aggressive elimination of entire pages from their own history, ‘reverse discrimination’ against the majority in the interests of a minority, and the demand to give up the traditional notions of mother, father, family and even gender, they believe that all of these are the mileposts on the path towards social renewal.”

The Russian President noted that the overwhelming majority of the Russian society believes in its own spiritual values, historical tradition and multiethnic culture. “The advocates of so-called ‘social progress’ believe they are introducing humanity to some kind of a new and better consciousness,” he added. Putin went a step further as he compared the modern woke progressives to the Soviet revolutionaries and said that this wokeism is not new at all.

“It may come as a surprise to some people, but Russia has been there already,” he said. “After the 1917 revolution, the Bolsheviks, relying on the dogmas of Marx and Engels, also said that they would change existing ways and customs and not just political and economic ones, but the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society. The destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family (we had that, too), encouragement to inform on loved ones — all this was proclaimed progress and, by the way, was widely supported around the world back then and was quite fashionable, same as today. By the way, the Bolsheviks were absolutely intolerant of opinions other than theirs.”

“The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity, when the works of the great authors of the past — such as Shakespeare — are no longer taught at schools or universities, because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what colour or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” exclaimed Putin.

Putin said that the true value of social justice movements, like that of Martin Luther King, is seen nowhere today. “Countering acts of racism is a necessary and noble cause, but the new ‘cancel culture’ has turned it into ‘reverse discrimination’ that is, reverse racism. The obsessive emphasis on race is further dividing people, when the real fighters for civil rights dreamed precisely about erasing differences and refusing to divide people by skin colour,” he noted.

“By the way, the absolute majority of Russian people do not think that the colour of a person's skin or their gender is an important matter. Each of us is a human being. This is what matters,” Putin said, reiterating his belief in Russian society.

“In a number of Western countries, the debate over men’s and women’s rights has turned into a perfect phantasmagoria... Zealots of these new approaches even go so far as to want to abolish these concepts altogether,” he said. “Anyone who dares mention that men and women actually exist, which is a biological fact, risk being ostracised.”

Putin also referred to the awkward usage of gender neutral terms such as “parent number one” and “parent number two”, “birthing parent” instead of “mother,” and “human milk” replacing “breast milk” because it might upset the people who are unsure about their own gender.

“Not to mention some truly monstrous things when children are taught from an early age that a boy can easily become a girl and vice versa,” said Putin, remarking on childhood gender transitions and the embrace of non-binary identities to the exclusion of parents. “That is, the teachers actually impose on them a choice we all supposedly have. They do so while shutting the parents out of the process and forcing the child to make decisions that can upend their entire life. They do not even bother to consult with child psychologists — is a child at this age even capable of making a decision of this kind? Calling a spade a spade, this verges on a crime against humanity, and it is being done in the name and under the banner of progress.”

Putin bluntly called these woke trends as “structural disruptions” and further argued that in the impending period of global reconstruction, “moderate conservatism” is the most reasonable line of conduct to tackle the multiplying risks and imminent dangers of the fragile woke realities around us.

“This conservative approach is not about an ignorant traditionalism, a fear of change or a restraining game, much less about withdrawing into our own shell. It is primarily about reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals, and a fundamental rejection of extremism as a method,” elaborated Putin.

“The cost of ill-conceived social experiments is sometimes beyond estimation. Such actions can destroy not only the material, but also the spiritual foundations of human existence, leaving behind moral wreckage where nothing can be built to replace it for a long time,” Putin warned.