The Best Games for Free!

American politics is a more dismal science than economics. You're talking about an entrenched, technocratic oligarchy that still gets the peasants to argue over which scumsucker deserves to sit in the big house, when they're not just celebrating the forced sodomy of others all in the name of security. Makes you root for the meteors or at the very least feel some burgeoning Texas Tower Syndrome...

So today we're gonna talk about video games! Where if someone is being an irredeemable asshole, you can shoot 'em in the face without consequence! Yeah!

And since despite the recent "job growth" in the economy everyone is still strapped for cash, these games are utterly and completely free! Just go install Steam and have at it!

Cry of Fear
A total conversion mod of the original Half-Life and the best of the new survival horror generation outside the Amnesia IP. Dropping you into an abandoned Scandinavian city, you have to survive twitchy monsters while piecing together the mystery of your own shattered mind.

Läderface? Herrejävlar!

And it really emphasizes the survival aspect. You get a limited inventory and must manage both your health and stamina to keep from getting pecked to death by undead toddlers. The store page boasts a dual-wield mechanic but they're really messing with you - you can hold a pistol in hand and your light in the other, but it makes your aim less accurate. Drop the light and you can shoot straighter, if you can see anything at all. Mixed with the best atmospheric horror this side of PS2 era Silent Hill, and you've got the best horror gaming experience not produced by Frictional.

Estranged: Act 1

Only the first Act is out now but it's two or three hours well spent. Part survival horror, part old timey adventure game, it drops you on the dock of some mysterious island where the few people who haven't gone all gold-eyed with the rage virus are still a few marbles short.

"I just want to ask you some questions. With my my hammer."

Though you won't encounter either for a good ten to twenty minutes. Like Cry of Fear, this is mostly an exercise in atmosphere and how the constructed game world - bereft of life but likely with a monster about to pop out at any moment - can have you on edge and carrying around any random object the Source engine will let you pick up as a crude improvised weapon. And once into the game proper, you find a mystery involving corporate conspiracy and malfeasance that may have consumed this island community and just may consume you too...

Hawken
Why pay sixty bucks for a MechWarrior clone when the same thing is available for free? Hawken gives you all the giant robot combat you want without first making you scamper around in yet another Modern Military Shooter!

DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!!!

Though not stated anywhere in the official documentation, this is pretty clearly a throwback to MechWarrior. You pilot a walking murder machine through an industrial dystopia, ever on the lookout for enemy robots to blow apart or the mission objective if you're lame. There's a variety of chassis to choose from, depending on whether you prefer armor to speed, and just as many weapons to clip on. And in that best MechWarrior tradition, you get jump jets! Who needs to stumble around the battlefield like an angry turtle when you can go hurtling over terrain like Baron Munchhausen on a cannonball?

Path of Exile

Back in college, I played way too much Diablo II with my friends. I know I'm not the only one to do so, nor am I the only one with such fond memories as the time someone messaged "I M TEH L33T HAX0RZ!1" just before getting annihilated by a boss monster. Path of Exile was made for people with such memories, being a shameless Diablo clone in every way it's possible without getting sued.

"Haduken!"

A simple point and click interface, isometric view, respawning monsters, a few simple ingredients that make for a surprisingly addictive experience. There's a story - you're an exile, come to this cursed land to finagle the mystical pants of Hildebrandt or something - but if you've been playing computer games long enough, you know it don't matter. This is just an epic quest for awesome loot, complete with gem sockets in said loot and a skill tree inspired by a baobab to ensure you will never ever run out things to steal and monsters to kill.

You can find me and all my rowdy friends every Monday night. My handle is "Klown_Hammer."

No More Room in Hell
Oh look, another co-op zombie shooter. Haven't we had enough of these yet? Clearly not and No More Room in Hell is one of the proper ones, eschewing any sense of "realism"in favor of ridiculous fun. Sure, it's got the sublime Source physics engine and a collection of real life firearms, but it also features player skins of Disco Stu and John Goodman.

"I will show you the life of the mind!"

You can still die real easy, but so can everyone else. So you won't spend too long waiting to do it all again, like that overrated douche-magnet Counter-Strike. And if you can get a good group going and survive long enough - since, in the grand tradition of co-op Source games, you really do need to work together to get anywhere - you can get a hold of AKMs, ArmaLites, sledgehammers, and the ever necessary chainsaw!

The Plan

The shortest game you'll ever play but worth every second. More an exercise in visual and sound design than a game, it involves nothing more than directing a fly ever upward, through the soggy and fecund natural world into the choking industrial soot of modern urban civilization, then further and further into the infinite.

...

There is an end, though. And I'll leave it up to you whether it's the culmination of a surprisingly sublime experience or just a cheap joke. Personally, I accept that it's both.

Team Fortress 2
Do I even need to say anything? If you have the sense to PC game rather than burn money on a console, you already know about this finest of all online multiplayer shooters. Why do I need to go on about how it balances classes across varied and creative maps and game types?

...It still doesn't make sense in context.

Instead, a personal story: I was about to pack it in for the night but figured I'd do one more round. Clicking on a server named "Mario Kart," I found myself on a user generated map born of legos, old school Nintendo games, and crystal meth. People were driving boxy go-carts with even boxier cannons, exploring the castle of mirrors in the sky, and the gravity was turned down so my Scout's double-jump took me clear across the map and smack into a billboard full of dancing Japanese cartoons. A more delightfully surreal experience cannot be had anywhere outside Salvador Dali's home movies.

*          *          *          *

Honorable Mention

I would have like to put MINERVA: Metastasis in this list but it just didn't cut it. Despite it's excellent action and pretty good story, it's held back by some puzzles so obtuse as to earn the developer a dick punching party.

This can't end well...

Essentially Half-Life 2 fanfiction, it's well done enough to stand alongside Lost Coast as an apocryphal chapter of the game proper. The story is delivered in text from the titular Minerva, who might be an artificial intelligence from the same production line as GlaDOS or might just be an asshole. These messages are the most uneven part, swinging from juvenile vulgarity to understated sincerity and pathos. And as it doesn't distract you with amateur voice acting, you can just ignore it while blasting through Combine mooks.

So while not the best, definitely recommended.

Threnody Thursday: The Absolute End of The World

 In honor of the latest temporary peace in the Middle East, here's an official VectorPress novella combining real tragedy with myths that don't exist!

"Allahu Akbar!" shouted Yusuf as he depressed the plunger to his explosive vest -

And nothing happened.

All around him in the crowded Tel Aviv market, terrified shoppers and tourists stared in blank astonishment – some scattered to the pavement, some standing stock still, all processing how close they'd come to death. All noise, even the rumble of cars and buses, had ceased at Yusuf's exclamation and no one seemed capable of restarting the buzz of everyday activity.

Yusuf himself couldn't quite believe it - Samir had promised he'd wired the vest properly! Yusuf had even watched him just that morning, both of them slick with sweat which they insisted to each other was from the hundred and five degree summer heat. Just like now - and the long bus ride over - Yusuf assured himself the heavy sweat slowly ruining his one and only suit didn't have anything to do with nerves -

A big, heavy handbag caught him across the back of the head and he went crashing into a rack bootleg DVDs. The five foot old woman loomed over him, swinging again and again with her handbag while snarling in Hebrew. Yusuf had gained only a passing familiarity with the language - one of the reasons he'd been forced out of University - but even he could recognize the expletives.

The rest of the people just continued to stare. A few started laughing - as much from shock as from the sight of the old Mizrahi wailing on the skinny Pal. A young police officer managed to push his way through the crowd to see what all the commotion was about - and quickly shoved his way back the other way at the sight of Yusuf's explosive vest. Most of those present who weren’t laughing or whipping out smartphones to snap pictures of the would-be bomber now getting thrashed followed his lead.

The old Mizrahi didn’t let up. By the time the lone officer returned with backup – including a bomb squad, one officer already in that protective spacesuit - she wheezed with every down-swing of her bag.

"Ma'am," the young officer said, hesitantly laying a hand on her shoulder. "Ma'am please, if you could -"

"Grraugh!" she bellowed with another swing, delivering a satisfying crack to Yusuf's nose.

It took three more officers to haul her away.

Once a safe distance had been cleared around Yusuf, the bomb squad member in the suit lumbered up, muttering about having drawn the short straw that morning. Yusuf looked up into the plexiglas face shield, feeling impotent and childish as the officer went to work, deftly disassembling Samir's now obviously crude job. Yusuf almost felt the need to apologize to this gentleman - he certainly had better things to do today.

As the officer unbuckled the vest - and Yusuf shifted slightly to assist - he, or rather she, called to the other officers, "All clear!"

A woman! Yusuf's stomach tightened and he became intimately aware that through this entire ordeal he'd had a full bladder. That little issue hadn't seemed worth addressing in light of how he'd expected the day to go...

Now the other officers closed in - looming over Yusuf and casting him into shadow. "Right, you have anything else on you?" one of them snapped – conveniently speaking in English. "Give it up now and things might go easy for you."

Yusuf shook his head. No, nothing else. Nothing at all.

Yusuf didn't resist as the officers lifted him to his feet - hands gently lifting at his armpits, as if he were a little boy. They didn't even bother with the flexcuffs. Why should they? He was mostly harmless now.

The assembled officers lead him to a waiting police car. The crowd - still thick, despite the bomb squad – “With a woman!” Yusuf kept thinking - only jeered a little. Only a few, "Hey, something go wrong?" "Having technical difficulties?" "Where are all the virgins, huh?"

The officers waved for people to shut it. Yusuf just hunched up his shoulders, hoping no one he knew might be in the crowd. Today had proved to be enough of a disgrace already. Damn Samir. Just God-fucking-damn Samir! - and Yusuf winced at the blasphemy. And his achingly full bladder...

"What's your name?" one of the officers asked as they drove him to the nearest station - no sirens of course, they had the decency not to draw any more attention than necessary. "Hmm? You have a name, don't you?"

Yusuf didn't answer.

"Right then," the officer didn't seem all that put out. "You'll talk soon enough..."

"Did you rig the vest yourself?" asked the officer driving. "Hannah said the wires looked crossed every wrong way. Did you do it on your own or did you have help?"

Fucking Samir...

"I don't think he's talking yet."

"Fine, no skin off my balls."

"But maybe his!" Both officers had a good laugh at that.

With the sirens off they didn't draw much attention - but the drive took much too long. They spent close to twenty minutes behind a bus that couldn't decide whether it had too many stops or was on the verge of breaking down. Yusuf idly hoped for someone else - maybe even Samir - to martyr themselves and take him along in the process! Exploded is exploded and he'd already tried to do it himself - that had to count for something with God. Maybe not the highest level of Paradise but certainly better than he would've had if he'd spent the rest of his life flunking out of University.

The radio of the police car whistled to life. Lots of frantic, "We've had a bombing in the mall!" and "Some guy lit up on the highway! There's burning cars everywhere!"

The others had kept their scheduled appointments with Paradise but not Yusuf. And judging by the vicious look one of the officers cast back at him briefly, he'd be the one paying for all the others...

"Aw fuck!" the officer driving said as they pulled into the station - a news crew right at the front door!

"How'd they get here so fast?" asked the other officer. "We haven't announced anything, have we?"

"Wait, they're Americans!” He said over his shoulder to Yusuf, “I don't think they're here for you."

Peering out the car window, Yusuf could see four people - a man impeccably dressed for a casual look and three less impressive men toting cameras and microphones - milling about the front door of the police station. The well-dressed man, clearly the one in charge, waved his hands around with a woman's exaggerated gestures to direct the others.

"Fuck it, we'll take him in through the back."

"We can't. Remember the renovations?"

"Shit..."

The police car slid into an empty space in the lot. "We'll have to walk him in." Both officers turned to look at Yusuf - not so much with menace but with a tired superiority he remembered his aunts displaying when he was a child - "You promise to behave yourself? We don't particularly want to taze you in front of the cameras."

Just like his aunts. "Yes, yes..." Yusuf mumbled.

"Bon!" said the driver with false cheeriness. He climbed out of the car first - quickly going round to his partner’s side so they could both manhandle Yusuf out.

The three of them approached the station, Yusuf between the two officers but still unrestrained. Hopefully they wouldn't draw much attention...

The boss of the news crew - clearly a reporter, judging by his professionally sculpted hair - chattered rapidly. " - over there in shadows and shit! Do not compromise my fucking light, how many times do I have to tell you cocksuckers!? Fifteen years in this business a - the hell are you gawking at?"

One abused cameraman - a much browner hue than his boss, Yusuf noticed - gestured submissively to the procession.

The reporter rapidly composed himself - his back straightened, his chin raised, he stopped spitting when he talked - "Get the two kikes and the sand-monkey over my right. Okay? In five, four, three..."

He mouthed "two" and "one" and - "Israeli security forces struck another blow against terrorism today, capturing ten in a complex operation that may have saved thousands." Turning at precisely the moment Yusuf and the officers came within interview distance. "Gentlemen - "

"Get stuffed!"

"Goy cunt!"

The cameraman snickered at that. As Yusuf was rushed through the front door of the station, he could hear the reporter laying into his crew with words Yusuf didn't entirely understand but sounded offensive...

They hustled him into a poorly lit closet of a room - nothing but a table and two chairs under the solitary lightbulb. They left Yusuf without a word, bolting the door from outside.

Yusuf walked around the table and sat down - then immediately sprang back up to walk some more, a painful sloshing in his bladder. He paced once, twice, three times around the little room - God-fucking-damned Samir! Had he done it on purpose? Get Yusuf safely out of the picture to go after his sister? Samir liked thinking he was clever, that Yusuf didn't pick up on the little cues and longing glances - just because she was older and a doctor didn't mean Yusuf didn't have a brotherly duty to punch any lustful men in the balls!

Then why not let him explode? That would certainly free things up - but no, then Samir would never get any. "I helped your brother blow himself up!" was a lousy pick-up line. Better to say, "I stopped your brother from martyring himself and now he's safely being tortured by Mossad!"

Yusuf looked at the door - hands balled into fists, bladder all but pulsing inside - Torture! He hadn't counted on that. Hadn't counted on a lot of things really...

He hadn't counted on failing his exams for one - well, his hopes weren't exactly high for Statistics but the rest... He knew his history and literature as well as anyone else. Better in fact! Why, he'd even tried his own hand at some literary pursuits and even been published - or was going to be, the editors kept promising him. For the past seven months.

What would his mother think of him now? That's what lead to this in the first place - what would his mother have to say about all these failing grades. "Oh Yusuf, you are such a gift to me! You are such a good, studious boy!" she'd gushed when he'd been accepted into University - two years and a lifetime ago. She'd rushed to tell everyone in the neighborhood that Yusuf - her Yusuf! - was going to be educated and make something of himself.

And then she'd see his most recent grades and likely throw herself from the roof.

Better to be a martyr - at least she could still have pride in her son. Better to make something of himself the old fashioned way - the way all the old men playing dominoes described - "Striking a blow at the Zionist oppressors!" Not a doctor or a lawyer but much more dignified than a drop-out.

That's what Samir promised. "You're my friend, of course I'll help you - and I'll take care of Alia when you're gone." Of course, someone - an honorable man - had to watch after Alia back home. Even if she was already applying for fellowships  at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, she was still just a girl. Samir would take good care of her, the cunt-sniffing asshole!

Yusuf bent over, desperately clamping down his muscles so as not to piss himself...

A deep, baritone laugh rumbled all through the surrounding walls. The drab cement seemed to swell and pulse with each throaty, "Haw! Haw! Haw!" - down into the floors, spreading right into the soles of Yusuf's feet, quivering up his legs and stabbing into his poor distended bladder, the sudden stab of pain and humiliation as he began to drip -

The door swung open. A young officer ducked in just long enough to let a bucket clatter to the floor.

Yusuf dragged the bucket into a corner and let loose a torrent of piss - only briefly worrying about whether or not this might be what just the Zionists wanted.

Read the rest of Yusuf's adventure here!

Know Nothing Nation

While everyone is busy lamenting the lack of democracy in America, it's instructive to compare the crimes of this technocratic empire to the genuine desires of the electorate. And when you do, you see that this is indeed a terribly democratic country...

Like torture. Or "enhanced interrogation" in the politically correct parlance of American conservatives. There's been another leak about all the sick shit that went on in the name of fighting terrorism and even the career spooks are admitting that yeah, it's awful. Immoral, indefensible, a big black stain on national honor.

But then you scroll down to the comments and see this:

"I am not ashamed of waterboarding Taliban and Al Quaeda terrorists." ~IndyToddrick

"Give the CIA a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. The truth is this program of enhanced interrogation was used very little, and yielded results all 6 times it was used." ~The Troll

"I dont think they went far enough , Water boarding just didn't cut it , they should have used Hog Blood instead of water" ~radical1a

"The White House quit 'speaking for me' on January 21, 2009. Oh and by the way, who gives a fuk if terrorist experienced "profound pain, suffering and humiliation"." ~Bill Board

"I, for one American, am quite proud of our CIA doing whatever it took just after the 9/11 attacks to get vital info from the Terrorists to protect our USA. The CIA saw its duty, and did it.....on behalf of keeping you and I, and our families safe. Hats off to the CIA...and their interrogations that netted valuable results!" ~Logic Driven Conservative

"AS the mother of an injured Afghanistan vet I not only support what our CIA did, I beg them to continue. More of our kids would have come home safely had they kept up these interrogations." ~tyscks

America!

Lots of Good Germans there, celebrating their government torturing other human beings. Partly because they're terrible people but mostly because the whole torture issue has been sanitized in the media, focusing on simulated drowning rather than all the other techniques practiced from Gitmo to Bagram. It's easy to defend "a squirt of water up the nose" as one rotten bastard describes it, but a whole different endeavor to argue that sodomy keeps us safe. Which isn't conjecture from what little two administrations have publicly admitted, but rigorously documented fact:

"Several Iraqi participants recalled incidents of sexual assault, most of them occurring in Abu Ghraib. One Iraqi former detainee reported that during one abusive episode in Baghdad airport he was beaten severely and the soldiers pulled his penis and testicles, causing severe pain. Another Iraqi man described an attempted rape while he was in Abu Ghraib prison. Late one night, a soldier approached him in a threatening manner with the intent of sexually assaulting him, according to the former detainee.

"Two detainees described being sodomized at Abu Ghraib. One reported that guards took him to a small, foul-smelling room, where they forced him to lay down in urine and feces, while shouting into his ear through a loudspeaker. They then forcibly inserted a broomstick into his anus while he was hit and kicked in his back and on his side repeatedly. He recalled that he was bleeding from his feet and shoulders, and the urine on the floor with which he came in contact exacerbated the pain from these wounds. During this time he recounted being pulled by a leather dog leash and being forced to howl like a dog. He explained that if he did not respond, the soldiers would kick him. He recalled that he felt a hot liquid on his back and believed that someone was urinating on him. He was kicked again, this time in his left side and in the groin, and one of the Americans stepped on his genitals, including his testicles and penis, which caused him to lose consciousness.

"The other detainee recalled an episode at Abu Ghraib where he was chained, kicked repeatedly as he went up a staircase, and when he reached the top of the stairs, 'The party began…They started to put the [muzzle] of the rifle [and] the wood from the broom into [my anus]. They entered my privates from behind.' This individual estimated being sodomized five to six times during this abusive incident and saw blood all over his feet.

"Another Iraqi former detainee described being threatened with sodomy on several occasions but said he was not sodomized, although the evaluators suspected that he actually had been(71). In one instance at Abu Ghraib, a soldier that 'had a stick in his hand [that he] was trying [hard] to insert in my [anus]…but I was saying that I will kill myself if you do these things' and screaming loudly 'like crazy people,' which in the detainee’s view may have prevented him from being raped."

71: Although this individual denied anal penetration, the evaluators found scars highly consistent with anal trauma. The medical experts concluded that these scars raise the possibility that, despite his denial of anal penetration, it may have actually have taken place

~Broken Laws, Broken Lives

Feces!

I almost titled this post "Big Government Buttrape" just to drive the point home. The defenders of this heinous shit are invariably the same loyal Bushies who did a complete 180 to small government libertarianism once a black guy was in the White House. Try reading those cheerful defenses I quoted earlier in the context of a rifle barrel shoved up a weeping man's rectum. Marvel at the mindless, moronic evil of ordinary Americans.

Or better yet, confront them with the reality and watch as their inner fascist boil to the surface:

"Terrorist have NO HUMAN RIGHTS! Neither do 'rabid dogs', same species!" ~kfromaz

They refuse to engage, brushing it off as either a lie to denigrate those selfless heroes in the CIA or they double-down, insisting that buttrape is a terrorist's just deserts. Whether or not these were actually terrorists, but they don't care to know that either.

That's the key here, they do not care to know. The details of America's War on Terror are simply too gross and are thus conveniently ignored, so everyone can get back to the much more important business of screaming over which half of the ruling class gets to pick up more seats in the national peanut gallery. Accepting the reality of torture - and all the grotesque sexual assault it entails - means a final and definitive answer to that popular question, "Why do they hate us?"

Because we literally fuck them in the ass.

Unsung Classics: Fitz James O'Brien

One of the interesting things about Irish literature is it's informed by a folk tradition full of magical thinking. This goes back to when the first Celtic tribes showed up on the islands and found the ruins of the neolithic Beaker People civilization - who may also be the reason behind the Germanic Substrate Hypothesis but that's for another time. Seeing all those ruins developed an idea in the early Irish of the Otherworld, a parallel land of spirits and fairies existing alongside but invisible to the everyday. It's a common belief in primitive cultures, being much closer to the feral realities of this world which civilized peoples try really hard to forget, but it's persisted in the Irish consciousness for generations.

Which brings us to Fitz James O'Brien, the progenitor of all American science fiction.

"Yo."

You've probably never heard of him, even if you went to college, because he died early in the Civil War. A volunteer from New York, he would just be one of the many Americans who died to end the horror of slavery if not for his enormous output of poetry and short stories, all marrying the feral folk beliefs of his boyhood with the optimistic scientism of the 19th century. The former providing a critique of the latter.

If you want - and you really do - you can see this in one of his more well known stories, "The Diamond Lens." It's a confessional piece, like many of his stories, relating how an inquisitive narrator delved deeper and deeper into the hidden world of microscopy - a new and exciting discipline at the time - until he discovered a subatomic fairyalnd. The story not only marries occultism with science, forming a proto-sci-fi-horror genre in its own, but also predicted the reality of subatomic particles by a generation!

Or there's his other stories, "The Golden Ingot" and "The Bohemian," all about resorting to the dark arts for material gain. Like "The Diamond Lens" and the later work of both Lovecraft and Alastair Reynolds, these stories lay out in visceral detail the tragedy that occurs when finite humans attempt to seize control of the infinite, shape it to their will. Similarly, "What Was It?" presents a world easily quantified by science but haunted by nightmarish, invisible creatures - "shaped like a man, - distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a man... Its face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré, or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible... It looked as if it were capable of feeding on human flesh."

And it all carries through because O'Brien was a master storyteller. In the hysterically racist "The Wondersmith," he describes a cunning gypsy testing his new army of little murderous puppets on a store full of birds in such a way as to make you weep. The doomed last stand of a mynah bird, in O'Brien's hands, resonates with all the glory of Cuchulain. His stories weave in details and build up characters so vivid that you'll never forget the decrepit Blakelock or the fascinating and menacing Philip Brann.

O'Brien himself was just as much of a character. Born Michael O'Brien, he changed his name to the much more Irish Fitz James upon emigrating to America. At a time when anti-Irish sentiment was at its height. And like all the best American authors he wrote widely and vigorously, producing a lifetime of work in the amount of time it takes modern "literary" writers to squirt out their first overwritten manuscript.

Then the Confederacy killed him. As if there weren't enough reasons to hate those wretched bastards...

The Rand Paul Whitewash

In a culture with any sort of short-term memory, the sight of Rand Paul calling for ending the systemic racism of America's criminal justice system would be gross slapstick. Fortunately for Randy, nobody remembers anything from more than a day ago. Sometimes not even the same day, as all the articles on Politico and The Hill are so perfectly compartmentalized, never addressing how issues as diverse as climate change, immigration, and drone murders all tie back to the same moribund technocratic hierarchy.

And Rand Paul sure won't change any of that. As pointed out here previously, he's all in favor of traditional hierarchy. For those who don't want to go to YouTube, here's Mister Liberty's exact words defending the right of private businesses to be racist:

" And I think that’s a valid point, and still a valid discussion, because the thing is, is if we want to harbor in on private businesses and their policies, then you have to have the discussion about: do you want to abridge the First Amendment as well. Do you want to say that because people say abhorrent things – you know, we still have this. We’re having all this debate over hate speech and this and that. Can you have a newspaper and say abhorrent things? Can you march in a parade and believe in abhorrent things, you know?"

OBEY

This is why Rand Paul is so popular with the libertarian demographic - he's the apotheosis of the clueless white guy. Supporters have defended this gibberish on the grounds that technically Randy is taking the principled route. Sure all that racism was deplorable but Rule of Law! How can we claim to be a free country if we circumvent the Rule of Law to reach that freedom?

That's their argument and it reflects why Randy will never walk back this particular "principle" of his - it strikes a chord with the deep down cruelty that animates American conservatives. Lots of them call themselves "libertarian" whenever a democrat is in the White House but turn right back into the lickspittles of empire when the GOP takes over. The transition from the Clinton to the Bush years should have spelled that out for everyone but, again, no collective memory.

For all their noise about "liberty," libertarians are more than willing to play along in this stifling technocratic system. They start businesses - something only possible through state capitalism - and style themselves as "disruptive" for not filling out all the forms. They declare freedom from big government the most important issue, and then vote overwhelmingly for the half of the two-party system that produced Gitmo, the Patriot Act, and two failed wars. They are, in a word, schmucks.

And Rand Paul appeals to them, not through principle, but because he speaks their craven language. His latest stunt even reflects their deeply held racism - that making the blacks come over to their side is just a matter of letting them smoke their crack in peace, rather than addressing the endemic inequalities of this totalitarian capitalism where Flatbush is within spitting distance of some of the richest real estate on Earth but looks like a third world country. This makes perfect sense because libertarianism, as a long con by the ruling class, explicitly ignores or embraces the inequalities of this rigged game. And it's only possible with people so coddled by middle class existence that they've forgotten what desperate tastes like.

So while his attempts to blunt the prison-industrial complex are admirable, it's unlikely Randy will sweep the black vote anytime soon. When you've been the designated underclass so long, you don't fall for the sentimental lies quite so easily.

Fiction Friday, Now on Thursday

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I marched ever westward after... No more stomach for war or soldiers or whatever may have crawled out of that shallow grave. I followed a trail of displaced peasants for a league or so, picking at their elderly and infirm in the night. Helped to disguise my predations but Coña Maria - how thin and oily their blood tasted! How relieved I was upon waking one night to smell that thick odor of civilization on the breeze!

Besancon wouldn't have the peasants - at least I assume so, as so many remained outside the walls. But walls, dear Doctor, are but an inconvenience for me - I bounded over them that first night! Had to cross some water first, leading to the happy discovery that I can't drown. After thrashing around for a bit...

Ah! A French city! But still an Imperial city - un Ville Libre d'Imperial, as they were so proud of declaring, even to each other. Frequently. Though quite different from all those other imperial cities I'd known before, both day and night. Much cleaner for one, much more varied peoples - more flavorful, if you will permit me Doctor. I took a room on the Rue de Savoie, overlooking Batten Bridge to the east and the Citadel with its gleaming white walls - gleaming even in blackest night! - visible from the roof.

I am rather fond of clambering over rooftops, I must admit...

A good house with a good proprietress. She left me to a small room near the top and even supplied me with heavy curtains upon request. She never asked why I should need them, nor why I never appeared downstairs until after dark and returned just before dawn. A rarity - an old woman who does not go about sticking her nose into the business of others!

I shared the house with some other drifters and vagabonds. Madame Boulin, the proprietress, held no prejudice against race or creed so long as there was hard coin in the bargain. A delightfully mercenary old woman - she also offered hot food and mending and the services of her sickly daughter Amanda. All for a price!

She needed to be so enterprising. Counting myself, only half a dozen boarders ever called that heap of a house a home. Always felt like more though, what with Amanda's own children getting underfoot. Three of the buggers with a fourth that thankfully ran away. All from different fathers too, their mother being such a loyal and hard worker...

Read the rest of the excerpt here!

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"We've got another group meeting in fifteen," Stephen said, stretching out on the cot. He muttered something.

"Hmm?" David asked. His vision was starting to focus more easily now.

"I said I'm fucking sick of this!" Stephen snapped. "Jesus, I shouldn't be here at all, I -" He saw David's bleary eyes. "How much of that shit did they give you this time?"

"Mmm," David held up first three, then two, then corrected himself again and held out three fingers. "Think it's wearing off now."

"You know those are fucking horse tranquilizers, right?" Stephen dropped his voice, "I started palming them just last week. You should too, makes everything clear up." He added, with a vicious look to his eyes, "Makes it harder for those bastards to mess with your head too."

David shook his head. "Don't want to get in trouble."

Stephen laughed. "Dude, you're in fag rehab! You're in enough trouble already! Little more won't hurt you. Besides," he sat up, leaning closer to David so he could whisper, "They don't check to make sure you take 'em, y'know?"

David shook his head again. He'd promised his mom he'd try. He didn't really want to be gay - he thought. He liked Brad but didn't want it to go beyond that - even though it had already. "Gotta stop while I'm ahead," he completed the thought out loud, then laughed like a hyena. "I said head!"

"Jesus, you're high," muttered Stephen. "Can't say I blame you..."

They sat in silence - except for David's snickering - until the booming voice announced the next group session. David and Stephen shuffled down the hall along with the others, most of whom were still a little groggy from the medicine. It was a necessity, they were told. Their urges had to be suppressed somehow until they could purge them. Otherwise, who knows what they would get up to with each other when the lights went out?

David and Stephen were in the same group, along with some six other boys. They took their seats at one of the dozens of round tables in the main hall - which also doubled as the cafeteria, which doubled as a clinic when the councilors wheeled in privacy screens. Their councilor - in group and individually - was Robert, an orange-tanned and upbeat character with the habit of calling everyone "brother." Like all the other councilors, he was a graduate of the program.

"Grace and peace, brothers!" Robert said once they were all seated, smiling with those perfectly white teeth. "Everyone have a good visit? Brandon, what about you?"

He always did that, singling one of them out to guarantee someone would answer. "M'okay," Brandon said. As Robert kept looking at him, he hastily added, "My mom, uh, said there was this girl asking for me and, um, everyone at home's praying for me?"

That was a popular answer. Robert liked it so much he would leave whoever said it alone for the rest of the session. "Well amen to that! The support and prayers of your family are always needed in these difficult times. But it always comes down to you to get yourself right with the Lord!"

It always came back to the Lord with Robert. Same with all the other councilors but Robert liked to be very loud about it. "- Because only through the Lord and the sacred blood of his only Son, Jesus Christ can you be purged of your wickedness... Along with the Exodus Inc. program."

The program actually came first in Robert’s formula. First, they all had to admit they had a problem. Next, they all had to identify their “wound” – some moment from childhood that turned them from the straight and narrow, as it were. David had never really believed that psychobabble crap, but at Exodus he’d soon found himself blaming his own quiet, agreeable mother for being the emasculating force behind his own turn to wickedness. The things he’d said about her...

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The Case for Impeachment

Today, we're gonna discuss some of the legitimate reasons for impeaching Barrack Obama. This is a purely hypothetical exercise, since the House Republicans have pretty much ceded any possibility of actually going forward with such proceedings. After raising a fuss over Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the dreaded national spread of Romneycare, and some made up thing I'm probably forgetting, the loyal opposition party has settled for a lawsuit. Because settling for a lawsuit is what craven Americans do.

So we're gonna ask the question no career pol will: How does one go about impeaching Obama?

"Bring it on, bitches."

The NSA is the first obvious choice, if only because it's still in the news and the internet libertarian man crush on Edward Snowden. Nevermind Chelsea Manning revealed systemic war crimes in both Iraq and Afghanistan, incidences of not just mass murder but also blackly comic incompetence on the part of the US military - no, what really concerns Americans is if some other office slave was reading their private emails.

While this would be the first option, it's also the trickiest. When the NSA was caught data-mining in the Bush years, it was doing so without a FISA warrant. That's the secret court that issues the secret warrants for secret surveillance, so the government can get its snoop on legally. The PRISM program exposed last year may be technically legal, depending on what secret documents of the secret court get de-secreted. Further, connections to Obama could prove tenuous as he went on record as being unaware of the program, like a good lawyer, when the whole scandal kicked off last year.

So you're not going to impeach Obama over the NSA monitoring your porn surfing. What else is there...

Oh! How about them drones? Admittedly, I'm not an opponent of drone warfare - as I'm under no illusions that war can be moral - but it has killed a number of American citizens under Obama's watch. While a captured Awlaki could quite easily have been convicted of treason and then executed, our legalistic society declares it a bad thing that he was just zapped outright.

And this is a matter of public record. Obama has never shied away from admitting that yes, he gave the order to kill an American citizen. No, there was not a trial. Here, look at the rationalizations the DOJ wrote up after the fact. This here is an abuse of power that practically prosecutes itself!

However... Kamal Derwish. Not many Americans know him but he was the first American citizen to die by drone. In 2002. Also in Yemen, coincidentally. It was little commented on at the time, likely because it was little reported, but his ghost would haunt any impeachment trial based on Obama's use of drones. A sad jihadi ghost, wailing "What about Buuush!" in the middle of the opening statements.

So while legally a good option, impeaching Obama over drones would not be feasible politically.

Now what else does that leave us with? Well, Gitmo is still open - but that brings us right back to the Kamal Derwish example. Detainees may be getting tortured but that started in the Bush years. While it's not explicit in the Constitution, there's likely a gentleman's agreement between Congress and the White House to grandfather in immunity over crimes against humanity committed by the previous administration.

That would certainly explain the GOP's silence on the legality of bombing Libya. They'll yell about Benghazi until they're blue in the face, but Obama's initial attack of yet another Islamic Third World nation is treated as standard operating procedure. Which it is, since it easily falls within the loose confines of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. And Congress can't really go after him for not attacking Syria since they never voted for that - which Obama didn't even need to take action, legally speaking.

One could argue that Obama trading a couple of battered victims from the Cuban gulag for Bowe Bergdahl constitutes "giving... Aid and Comfort" to the Taliban, a not-exactly-declared enemy of the nation. Except prisoner exchanges are perfectly common in war, as is "negotiating with terrorists" like Obama did to free Bergdahl and Reagan did to free the embassy hostages in Iran. You just know a slick Chicago lawyer is going to have these precedents memorized before the House can even introduce the articles of impeachment on this one.

Which leaves us with... Nothing. Zip. Nada. No impeachable offense.

At least not one that wasn't already business as usual.