I dreamed I was watching a Dark Lord–you know, the big bad villain, the leader of all the spooks and goblins and things that go bump in the dark, bent on conquering all of Fantasyland and putting it under his iron heel. It was apparently–you know how you just know things in dreams–one of those Fantasylands where a new Dark Lord arises every few hundred years once the old one has become only a hazy memory.

He was talking to someone. Maybe a subordinate, or maybe he was monologuing to the plucky farm boy hero.

Being the Dark Lord is harder then you think. You have to make the nicest of judgments all the time or you fail.  If you draw off too many forces to deal with the plucky hero and his ragtag band then your main assaults against the kingdoms of men will fall.  But if you do not draw off enough forces just when you’ve crushed the last Kingdom of men and are planning on ruling unchecked and supreme, the plucky hero shows up in your throne room to kill you.

If you give your subordinates too little independence and power then the plucky hero is able to run rings around them.  But if you give them too much, they turn on each other and even on you.

I remember thinking this made sense and even thought to myself that the dark lord had to be pretty terrifying to cow his enemies and keep his own hordes in check, but also could not be too evil or he would fritter away resources in just doing nasty stuff and would actually inspire more opposition that way.

The next part of the dream was an infodump.

I was given to understand that the dark Lords monologue was correct. In fact a dark lord had to basically do everything right or else the plucky hero and his ragtag band would figure out a way to defeat him.

That was because the purpose of Fantasyland was not generating heroes.  The purpose of Fantasyland was to create the perfect dark lord.  The plucky farm boy heroes and swords of prophecy and the alliances of light and all of that were just  for testing the dark lords and terminating failed dark lord trials. They were a mechanism for creating the perfect dark lord.

When I woke up I thought that such a dark lord might turn out to be not so dark after all.

Oh I say, what! The brainy coves at Lawrence Livermore let on they’ve reached energy positive nuclear fusion.

Put it to me straight, chaps. Does anyone know the stock ticker for Lawrence Livermore? I have a good mind to have a flutter.

CIA molesters unprosecuted

Biden Admin pleased, they say, with robust economy

Watergate a scandalous conspiracy to bring down a President?

Australia government forcing people into camps if they have exposure to covid

16-year old Tate Myre died rushing a gunman.

Mississippi has a law that mostly bans aborting babies after the 15th week of pregnancy.  The Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments about it yesterday.

How the voting and logrolling among the justices will go I have no idea.

This is the best kind of politics–interesting but very far away.

https://mobile.twitter.com/pegobry/status/1465641008260132871?s=20

Imagine a US Presidential candidate who felt free to say these kind of things.

Too big to fail and Just in Time manufacturing are examples of businesses doing good for themselves in the short run but setting themselves up for failure in the long run.

We do the same in our personal lives.  Spend now, later you wish you had savings.

What would be a similar example of short term thinking for the Kingdom?  I think its when we optimize too much for adapting to where the world is at right now so we can be successful at missionary work right now.

In our personal lives, there is the short term peace that comes from giving in to temptation or to worldly opposition.  And there is the long term peace that comes from rising above the opposition.

Jens and the Pond is my favorite story, bar none, from conference.

Jens of Denmark prays daily to live the gospel and notice promptings from the Holy Ghost. He has learned to act quickly when he feels directed by the Spirit.

Jens shared the following: (more…)

I have discovered a positively sockdologer way to skirt awkward political conversations when foregathering for a jolly Thanksgiving feast with one’s fiancee’s truculent pig-ignorant SJW relatives.

Dashed simple.

Propose marriage.

“I say, dear truculent pig-ignorant SJW relative, speaking of white supremacy, how about it, eh, what what?  I refer of course to hitching our twin destinies.  Let’s tie the knot, rather.  It would be ripping.”

The conversation gets diverted to new topics like billy-o.

WARNING: if having a manly go at Wooster method, it is advisable to have Jeeves among those present .

Tender meat and tender feelings.

Those are rookie numbers, Mos.  Gotta get those numbers up.  Not gonna make it with numbers like that.

Tamara Durand, 52

Virginia Sorenson, 79

LeAnna Owen, 71

Wilhelm Hospel, 81

Jane Kulich, 52

Jackson Sparks, 8

So far.

It is striking to read thoughtful cultural commentators from the 1950s-70s, who are confident that The System – based on materialism and motivated by Leftism – will certainly collapse due to its incoherence and contradictions.

. . .

Of course, The System did not collapse – but instead expanded in power and scope; and has now taken-over the world. Yet The System is indeed incoherent and self-contradictory – so how was this survival possible? . . .

The short answer is that The System captured the procedures and dissemination of evaluation: it captured the ‘knowledge-making’ processes. Therefore, The System now conceals from itself its own incoherence – and its own colossal failures.

-thus Bruce Charlton

The scriptures tell us a few things about knowing that a collapse is about to happen.

There will be signs of the times.

People will continue marrying and giving in marriage (in other words, life will go on, routines will keep happening, normalcy bias)

If it were possible, even the very elect could be deceived.

I believe that the median response from decent people when the collapse happens will be surprise but also a feeling that they should have seen it coming.

I had one of those jumbled meaningless dreams you have when you are waking up.

It appears that some beloved legendary British fighter commander from WWII had died.  I forget his name.  It was something extremely Scottish.  But everyone called him “Truno.”  None of the obituaries mentioned why.  I wondered if maybe it had something to do with with “true north.”  Anyway, this fella died and there were news reports and obituaries and such.  And everyone called him “Truno.” That was the dream.

Then I completed the process of waking up.  As soon as I came awake, my brain said,  “you should worry that the idealization of WWII reveals the fundamentally apocalyptic bent of Anglo-American secular culture.”

Thanks, brain.  I guess I will worry about that now.

Of your vax rule it’s come to your ken, OSHA

That it was written in the house of the stars, OSHA

the rule’d get the big cross

in a Fifth Circuit loss

Thus it rose in the house of the stars, OSHA.