Why do I feel like he used the excuse, “I was walking and tripped and my penis went I to that goat” with his wife, too.

“It stinks down here.”

“Good,” the Cleric replied. The Cleric continued in a volume louder than a whisper, but not quite normal speech.

“This is an unsanctioned casting. We need privacy. The smell will keep people away while we do our work.”

The Acolyte continued to prepare the ritual.  The vagrant was laying on the bare concrete floor in a stupor, his breaths slow and shallow. It was dark. The work area was weakly illuminated by a small battery powered electric lantern. A little light from the streetlights and buildings above filtered down through ventilation grates, but the Cleric and Acolyte positioned themselves so that there was no direct line of sight between themselves and the city above.

The Acolyte dipped his thumb into a chalice of wet ashes and dabbed a design onto the vagrant’s forehead.  He then reached into the backpack he had brough with him and extracted a small silk pouch.  He took a generous pinch of course grain salt from the pouch and sprinkled it over the vagrant’s body.

“Was this guy right or left-handed?” The Acolyte asked.

The Cleric looked over the unconscious body and noticed the burns on the fingers of the left hand from handling a meth pipe.

“Right-handed, so tie off the left arm.”

The Acolyte rolled up the vagrant’s sleeve to the bicep. He took a broken bungie cord and fashioned a tourniquet around the left arm, just above the elbow. He then took a syringe, removed the safety cap from the needle, and pushed the needle into the vein in the vagrant’s left arm.  He laid the vagrant’s arm down beside his body letting the syringe dangle awkwardly from where it was embedded in the skin.

The Cleric stood watching, chanting quietly to himself.

“There, that’s it,” said the Acolyte as he stood up.  The cramping muscles in his back beginning to relax after having been bent over for too long.

The Cleric looked at the body and examined the symbols in ash on its forehead.

“You did well. Your skills are progressing.”

“Thank you,” the Acolyte said.  After a long pause, he continued “Can I ask a question?”

“You may.”

“Why are we doing this?”

“You understand the purpose of ritual,” The Cleric said.

“Yes, of course, I do,” the Acolyte said, a little shortly.

“Then tell me, what is the root of all magic,” the Cleric said, taking on a professorial tone.

The root of all magic is the divine,” the Acolyte said flatly.

“The exact words of the text.  But do you understand it? Do you believe it?”

The Acolyte stifled a laugh.

“Do you?” The Cleric’s tone took on a level of seriousness.

The Acolyte took a deep breath and began to recite.

“In the beginning there was nothing, then God created the heavens and the earth. He created the land, the seas, and the sky, and all the plants and animals that lived within.  On the sixth day, he created man in his own image.  Imbuing man with a spark of the divine. The essence of magic is the ability to create from nothing. The root of magic is the divine. To cast magic is to harness the spark of the divine that exists within each and every person.”

“That is a close enough paraphrasing,” the Cleric said.  “And what is the principal law of magic?”

The Acolyte took another deep breath and continued.

“All magic has a cost. Man is not divine.  We cannot create something from nothing. We can only harvest the spark of the divine and put it to our own use. The cost of magic is human life itself.”

The Cleric nodded in agreement. “The cost of magic is human life. So, if we want to cast magic…”

“We must take life,” the Acolyte finished the Cleric’s sentence. “But I understand all that. Why are we doing this.” The Acolyte gestured broadly with both arms at their surroundings.

“Why this guy,” he said, tapping the unconscious vagrant with toe of his boot. “Why in this stinking sewer, and why are we making it look like an overdose?”

The Cleric looked the Acolyte directly in the eyes.  He had a deathly serious expression on his face.

“This is an unsanctioned casting.”

“I know, but why?” The Acolyte asked.

“The use of magic to extend life, to cheat death, is strictly forbidden,” The Cleric said.

“Why?” The Acolyte stressed the word. “The ability to create life seems to be the ultimate use of magic. It is the greatest act of the Devine.”

The Cleric’s voice took on an air of gravitas. “Death is the great equalizer. All living things must die. The disruption that would come from an immortal caste is too great. It would expose the existence of magic to the world. It would create chaos.”

“But we have done healing castings before. Those were sanctioned.”

The Cleric continued. “Healing does not create life.  We can cure disease, repair injury, stave off a premature death.  But for every person, their life must naturally come to an end.  To extend life past that is forbidden.”

“You agreed to do this unsanctioned casting.” The Acolyte sounded accusatory.

The Cleric nodded.  The Acolyte started to glower, the look on his face communicating his displeasure.

“You want to know why I agreed to this despite it being forbidden?” The Cleric sounded more matter-of-fact than defensive.”

“Yes.”

“Our client is a billionaire. He’s miserable, greedy old bastard. He’s terrified of dying and he’s willing to pay a lot of money to keep living atop his little business empire of avarice.” The Cleric said.

“So we’re doing this for money?”

“Were not just doing it for money.  We’re doing it for a shitload of money.” The Cleric said.

The Acolyte’s face broke, he tired again not to laugh.

“Don’t get cold feet on me now.” The Cleric said. “I made you my Acolyte because I trust you. You’ve harvested the spark before. We’ve taken other lives together. This is no different. You know the cost of magic.”

“Those were criminals, convicts. Their sacrifices were sanctioned.” The Acolyte retorted.

“Look at him,” The Cleric said, pointing at the vagrant. “He’s a homeless drug addict who lives in an alley. What value does he bring to society? What positive contribution? He was most likely going to die like this anyway. When we are done and we’ve cleaned up, all that will be left is a dead vagrant in a sewer with a needle in his arm. We take his life a little before he did it to himself, some rich prick gets a few more years, and we get millions of dollars. That is the power that we control. Buy doing it like this, down here, to him, it should go completely unnoticed.”

The Acolyte pondered this for a moment.  He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “Fine.”

The Acolyte and Cleric took their positions on either side of the vagrant’s body. The Cleric took the chalice of wet ash and held it above the vagrant’s head.  The two men began to chant in a language older than the universe itself.

The vagrant began to twitch and then shake like he was suffering from a grand mal seizure.  His eyes opened and a flickering light emanated from them. The ashes in the chalice began to glow a dull orange like the cooling coals of a dying campfire.  The glow of the ashes increased, turning from dull orange to bright orange, to yellow, to white, and finally to catch fire the instant the light in the vagrant’s eyes went out. The Cleric dropped a small sliver of paper on which the desired casting was written into the fire.  The paper curled and shriveled as it burned. When the paper had been completely consumed, the fire in the chalice went out, leavening nothing but a thin whisp of smoke.

“Done,” said the Cleric.

The Acolyte bent down and pushed the plunger of the syringe forcing the remaining drugs into the vagrant’s blood stream.  He took the vagrant’s still hand and used it to wipe the ash from vagrant’s forehead. The Cleric and the Acolyte finished arranging the body and packed away their things.

“The rats and bugs will start on the body as soon as we leave. Even if the police wanted to do an investigation on a dead vagrant found with a needle in his arm, there won’t be anything to find that could alert the Guardians that there was an unsanctioned casting.” The Cleric said.

“You say that like you’ve done this before.” The Acolyte responded.

“What makes you think I haven’t,” the Cleric said with sly grin. “There are many people who would pay a king’s ransom for the benefit of a casting and a city like this has more than enough disposable homeless that nobody will miss.”

The Acolyte stared at the Cleric and furrowed his brow. The two men picked up their bags and headed out of the sewer and though an empty alley in the dark of the small hours of the morning.

The Cleric stopped and turned to the Acolyte.  “I will make sure you get your share. Once you see just how lucrative this sort of work can be, you’ll feel a lot better.”

The two men continued to walk on into the night.

The thoughts of what he could do with the money began to fill the Accolyte’s imagination.  But at the back of his mind, the Acolyte couldn’t shake a niggling feeling. All magic has a cost. That cost was borne entirely by the vagrant and that seemed too low for such a forbidden casting.

I, on the other hand, am totally fine with banning TikTok.

I understand the free speech argument against it, and that why I’m in favor of the ban.

TikTok is not a free marketplace of ideas.

We know that the Chinese government curates the feed. They do it in China and they do it here.

It’s deliberate to manipulate people.

TikTok promoted the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel users and limited pro-Israel users.

China is invested in building a relationship with Iran.

We know pro-transgender children users are promoted in the US and banned in China.

China uses TikTok as a weapon against the US by manipulating what we see.

We should absolutely ban TikTok to reduce China’s influence on American pop culture.

And if that sets precedent in the US, wherein any social media that is manipulates instead of being a free marketplace of ideas is squashed, I’m for it.

The ChiComs and billionaire tech-bros shouldn’t have the power to cureate what we see to manipulate us.

This is not a drive-in horror movie, this is Florida in 2024.

NEW – DoD officials say they are "alerted" about a potential maritime "mass migration" from Haiti into the United States.pic.twitter.com/gIY32mwKTN

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 12, 2024

From the NY Post:

Florida border agents placed on high alert for refugees following breakdown of order in Haiti

Border agents in Miami have been told to prepare for a wave of migration from Haiti following the takeover of the country by bloodthirsty gangs, The Post has learned.

An internal agency email leaked to The Post pointed out it is unlikely Haitians who take to the sea and enter Florida illegally will be repatriated back to their home country, given its instability.

The message also warned that one vessel of migrants landing would overwhelm agency capabilities in the area.

“One landing will cripple the station and our ability to respond to other traffic,” the email to agents read.

“With the breakdown of the government in Haiti repatriating Haitians may not be happening for the foreseeable future,” the email read. “If this is the case, then the Coast Guard may not be stopping Haitian sail freighter[s].”

Border Patrol officials are concerned that if Haitian migrants reach Florida’s shores it will be difficult to contain the groups, transport them in a timely fashion for processing and identify fraudulent families, the email read.

Après moi, le déluge.

the first boat will overwhelm the system, then it will be non stop.

We will have no idea who is coming, but we can guarantee that it won’t be just starving women and children.

The crime wave that would come from this will be horrendous.

The disturbing thing is that I honestly believe the federal government has no desire to prevent this.

If you live in South Florida, prepare for the worst.

Ron DeSantis turned Florida from a bluish-purple state into a red state.

The Hispanic population of Florida has consistently gone more conservative as they watched their ancestral homelands in the Caribbean and South America fail as they’ve turned socialist or communist.

I wouldn’t at all put it past this administration to add 9.5 million illiterate, unemployable, welfare dependent voters to the state of Florida to secure it as a blue state.

Everyone knows that South Florida is 90 miles from Cuba. The Cuban influence in Miami is undeniable.

Cuba is not the only Caribbean island that is within a short boat ride from Florida.

There is a large Haitian immigrant population, just a little further north of Miami, in north Dade and Broward County.

This came to mind when I saw this:

Haiti declares state of emergency after thousands of dangerous inmates escape

Haiti has declared a three-day state of emergency and a night-time curfew after armed gangs stormed the country’s two biggest jails, allowing more than 3,000 dangerous criminals, including murderers and kidnappers, to escape back on to the streets of the poor and violence-racked Caribbean nation.

The UN estimates that about 15,000 people were forced to flee the violence between Thursday and Saturday, including those already in makeshift camps for displaced people set up in schools, hospitals and squares around the capital, Port-au-Prince.

But even in a country accustomed to the constant threat of violence, Saturday’s attack on the national penitentiary in Port-au-Prince came as a huge shock.

Almost all of the estimated 4,000 inmates escaped, leaving the normally overcrowded prison eerily empty on Sunday with no guards in sight and plastic sandals, clothing and furniture strewn across the concrete patio. Three bodies with gunshot wounds lay at the prison entrance.

So how is Haiti doing now, after the three day state of emergency?

Oh. They are eating each other.

??BREAKING NEWS: Here is disturbing footage of the Haitian cannibal gang eating body parts of one of their victims as he cooks in the fire. The Haiti Cannibal Gang leader is named ‘Barbeque’ and is now the most powerful man in Haiti after their Prime Minster Ariel Henry fled. https://t.co/2j41sdPZ4Z

— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) March 10, 2024

Gang leader named ‘Barbeque’ is now most powerful man in Haiti — as US evacuates Americans

Haiti’s most notorious gang leader, known as “Barbecue,” may be the most powerful man in the nation as the prime minister remains unable to return home.

Jimmy Chérizier, the leader of the notorious “G9 and Family” gang, is in command of the bulk of the gunmen stirring anarchy in the capital — and he vowed to fight until embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigns.

Some claim that the rifle-wielding 47-year-old mobster’s nickname comes from his penchant for setting his victims on fire — though he says it’s an old moniker his mother gave him as a boy.

Fourth thousand prisoners, gang members, and fucking cannibals have the potential to come to Florida to seek refuge in the Haitin community in South Florida.

We’ve seen in Texas and California how drug and gand term wars in Mexico have spilled over into the US. Why would Florida be any different?

Be prepared because this has the potential to get really bad.

By now, you probably have heard that Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the armorer on the set of Rust when Alec Baldwin shot two people, was convinced of involuntary manslaughter.

There has been a lot of coverage of that trial.

She deserved to be convicted.

I want to take a look at the expert her lawyers hired for her defense.

Frank Louis Blair Koucky III.

He went viral for mishandling guns on the witness stand and being chastised by the judge.

I wanted to know who this idiot was and how he became an expert in firearms.

He is, by career and experience, a financial advisor. He has never worked professionally with guns.

His experience is as a hunter, reenactor, and extra on movie sets.

I’m shocked that he was even allowed to testify.

I’m shocked that the defense wanted to call him because he was such a bad expert, I believe he made the defense’s position look worse.

The only thing that I can guess is that ever other reputable gun expert refused to agree to work for the defense because her case was so bad.