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$ echo "Just _once_ in _every_ man's life he just _has_ to bust loose and '$ sudo rm -rf *'."
Just _once_ in _every_ man's life he just _has_ to bust loose and '$ sudo rm -rf *'.
$ sudo rm -rf *
Password:
$

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Today we celebrate a bunch of guys who privately owned not only guns but cannons and armed ships declaring they'd rather be dead than under the thumb of a tyrant. We've knocked a bit of the polish off the apple since then but it's still the only place in the world where actual liberty still has a fighting chance.

Folks, today our Country has been WINNING for 242 years. In war, in many things. Great day to honor our war heroes & veterans. Our great and very brave soldiers. And by the way, I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they SHOULD be capitalized! One People, One Family, and One Glorious Nation under God! And also under me. Also under me. pic.twitter.com/ue5JEZy85v 🇺🇸

Wow! The NSA has deleted 685 million phone calls and text messages. Privacy violations? They blame technical irregularities. Such a disgrace. The Witch Hunt continues. First they came for the Salemites. Then they came for the communists. Now they're coming for me!

I told you all this shit a while back and you all brushed it off. Now even full on SJW academics admit that even blue-haired, SJW, feminazi bitches want real men (Azuma and her team excepted of course). It's built into their fucking genetic code to want someone who can protect and provide for the family. There would not be a human being left on the planet were this not an evolutionary trait we picked up along the way.

Poor lefties. Reality has a systemic bias towards the truth and not all the wishful lies in the world are going to change that.

Not for the first time, the thought has occurred to me that an empire, defined as any nation with an expansionist and/or colonialist system of existence, bears several striking resemblances to parasitic and parasitoid species. Beyond simple resource theft, I speak mostly of parallels to how these organisms often lose functions from their own genomes in favor of allowing the host to perform them instead...and their subsequent complete dependence on said host species. When the hosts either die out or move on, the parasite too withers and dies.

There has been a pattern throughout history of analogous processes taking place in imperialist nations. What chiefly concerns me here is the effective outsourcing of both manufacture and raw-material procurement, beyond what is necessary due to said resource not existing natively or lack of infrastructure at home. Rome, in its middle and latter days, relied on grain imports and slave labor. Britain's loss of India had much to do with its economic dependence on its colony, for textile manufacture for example. And I don't think I need to paint you a picture of the effects of globalization on the US's economy, specifically with regard to wage depression and overseas flight of production.

What all these have in common is that the people at the top are essentially trading the vitality and independent function of the nation they rule--and make no mistake, the golden rule, that the guys with the gold make the rules, is and has always been in full force--for their own personal enrichment. Whether it be kings or CEOs of multinational corporations with US headquarters, the end effect is the same, because the concentration of power is the same.

(Incidentally, this is why the Citizens United decision was such a complete disaster and why lobbying itself ought to be illegal: making money does not always coincide with the interests of the nation, and very often opposes them in a global society.)

So...where does this end? Eventually, the empire in question allocates more resources to maintaining its "interests" (read: colonies) overseas and across borders than it does internally. And the citizens of the empire, especially the poorer ones, suffer more and more over time. There grows, between the moneyed powers and the average citizen, a great, impassible chasm, a gap of not just material wealth but of anomie and hopelessness. The laws and law enforcement apparatus turn inward, protecting not citizens from criminals, but the haves from the have-nots. Long-term planning by the ruling class for the good of the nation becomes not just impossible, not just unthinkable, but outright mocked. The average citizen completely loses faith in the institutions of the nation, and with good reason, for they have become an enemy and they see the citizens as such.

Add to this that no empire ever truly got its power and resource base by above-board, honest, peaceful means--with the possible exception of the Marshall Plan, and even that struck me, all the way back in sixth grade, as a particularly cynical piece of international brinksmanship. Empires have terrible karma. They become ringed with enemies, many of whom may at one point have been allies. Foolish decisions regarding allies and trade and warfare are made. Eventually, the global order shifts...and the empire in question, overextended beyond endurance, demoralized from within, decadent and incompetent and decrepit from decades of internal misrule, is vulnerable and weak and *completely* unable even to see the coming seismic shift as it happens, let alone respond to it after the fact.

Time flows like a river. History does not repeat, but it does rhyme. Care to guess where the US is in this pattern?

For a developer, for a prostitute, for a lawyer -- for so many professional folks -- the client must always come first. Before yourself, before your family, before anything. And sometimes you take a bullet for a client. Or your family takes some bullets. Could be A LOT. It's called being a professional. It's called LOYALTY. It's what you do if you're any good. If you're worth anything!!!

* This Giveaway** is not endorsed by Soylentnews PBC (SN) and is being put on by user Sulla and an AC friend of his
** Whatever legal definitions of giveaway that might exist do not apply to this. Only what you read below applies to this

So we had three email entries and one entry that posted in the original journal thread. So means we have four winners.
1. Gaaark
2. conn8d
3. MikeVDS
4. hendrikboom

SullasACFriend will be sending out emails to the first three asking for addresses so I can get these shipped. We will need hendrikboom to send us their address as well.

sullasacfriend@protonmail.com is the contact email

For the remaining blackberries go ahead and post and say you want one and I'll bug someone at SN on the IRC to validate that you are a subscriber. This offer will remain until the remaining blackberries are gone.

Editor @janrinok asked me to put this in my journal. Because he thinks it's "satire." It's not, believe me, it's news. It's not news, it was news on Monday. It's old news. But it happened. 100%!

Tremendous thing for Turkey, the Turkish people re-elected their terrific President -- overwhelmingly. And gave him A LOT more power. The folks at the Associated Press call it "one-man rule." President Erdogan says it's a victory for democracy. And for national will! foxnews.com/world/2018/06/24/erdogan-proclaimed-winner-in-turkey-presidential-election.html foxnews.com/world/2018/06/25/turkeys-victorious-erdogan-set-to-assume-sweeping-powers.html foxnews.com/world/2018/06/25/whats-next-for-turkey-after-vote-grants-erdogan-vast-powers.html

Some guy was waxing fundamentalist with a megaphone as he carried a sign upon which he delivered The Christ's once-thought-lost lessons as for example "Gays Deserve AIDS".

Inspired by the bagpiper who got right in this gent's face when he was so very filled with G-d's love that he set out to save a few souls at Portland's Starlight Parade - held after dark with lit up floats, musicians and dancers - I myself walked right up to a perfectly legal and nonviolent distance then with the volume turned all the way up to eleven belted out such timeless hits as The Star Spangled Banner, You Are My Sunshine and Somewhere Over The Rainbow as my quarry struggled in vain to hand out religious tracts at the TriMet Pioneer Courthouse Square MAX Yellow Line Station.

But to my quite cheerful dismay I ultimately conceded he was a better man than I and so demonstrated my good sportsmanship by conceding his victory then suggesting he google "Michael David Crawford Baritone".

What people are saying about Michael David Crawford, Baritone:

"I Love You."

This from a lady who shot an iPhone video of me following Jesus Freak around all over Creation. (I didn't think to request she post it to YouTube.)

When again I take up my tip jar I'll come equipped with URL-bearing handbills that I'll mass produce at NedSpace. We all have the freedom to print a "reasonable" number of pages on a two-sided laser printer as well as the free use of my very favorite musical instrument:

A guillotine paper cutter. I own this particular one that I also use for the case inserts for my instrumental piano EP Geometric Visions: The Rough Draft. I shall soon take up handing them out Free As In Freedom when I sing on the street as well as at Open Mics.

Civilly And Disobediently,

Michael David Crawford, Baritone

PS: Coming Fall 2018: Michael David Crawford LIVE! On Broadway.

(...and Morrison in Downtown Portland, Oregon.)