Sorry. A sloppy posting. I had used the excellent comment as a framework for a scathing critique of our own British neoliberal Trump fan and notorious racist Nigel Farage. Yes, an act of plagiarism but the parallels where hard to resist! “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response: A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: • Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. • You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Alive but, Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soulit shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.

Oliver Kornetzke

Someone asked, “Why do some British people not like Trump?” An articulate and witty writer wrote the following response: “A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace. So, the stark contrast does throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty, or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I do not say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it is a fact. He does not even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he does not just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and automatic nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance, or depth. It is all surface. Some might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we do not. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He is not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He is more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully and racist. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So, the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a few of us– of look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: You do not need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty hard to miss. After all, it is impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumps of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created? If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Nate Whight

‘The most uneducated buffoon in history stands at a podium, bloated with self-importance, lips pursed like a carnival barker ready to sell turd milk to the unsuspecting. He grins a grotesque smirk stretched across his face as he scrawls his name onto a hollow decree, a sham celebration of the dismantling of knowledge itself. The Department of Education falls, not with a bang, but with wheezing verbs, suffocated under the weight of his own staggering ignorance. Surrounding him are the usual suspects: cowards in expensive suits, servile sycophants clapping like trained seals, and racist opportunistic ghouls picking clean the bones of democracy. Liars, fools, and thieves all parasites fattening themselves on the hardships of the many. They stand in rigid formation, dead-eyed and soulless, their allegiance sworn not to country, not to principle, but to power, and the dark, festering rot that clings to it. And there he is the convicted wrong, the living embodiment of septic tank spew, his voice a noxious fog of grift and grievance. He lectures the world on right and wrong, irony clawing at the walls, desperate to escape the grotesque theatre of his moral void. The stomach turns, the air curdles, and for a moment, history itself recoils watching, in horror, as the great American experiment teeters on the precipice, led by a man who couldn’t spell “precipice” if his life depended on it.’

‘More fool me! Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer. Then I woke to today’s news that one of the Trump cabinet’s bigger boofheads – the uber Christian nationalist, crusader-fantasist and “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth had announced that America would have a public firing squad execution of murderer Nidal Hasan. Reckless global militarisation including a threat at the UN to annihilate Iran, a litany of sexual misconduct allegations against the commander in chief, claims of blatant presidential corruption … they have all ceased to surprise and shock us, so inured has the world become to Donald Trump’s monstrous narcissism and maladministration. But now we have execution TV. Tune in to the livestream on Thursday 3 December to watch a military firing squad shoot the life out of Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a US army base in 2009.State-sanctioned killing as entertainment! Yes, the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy has arrived at an horrific new moral nadir. The fact that America remains Australia and the west’s most relied-upon and trusted ally despite the global wrecking ball the second Trump administration has proved to be, was already cause for deep concern. But being so closely allied to a country that now wants to turn the execution of a human being – no matter what their crimes – into a live entertainment event, promises to redefine depravity. Given that American states continue to execute so many convicted criminals, where might the United States ultimately draw the line? No doubt the ilk of Hegseth in American society – and elsewhere – will count down the days until they can tune in to the live coverage of Hasan’s execution in droves. Might the audience cry out for more – for livestream cameras in the death chambers across the land of the free? How would this populist administration respond? If you think it is a fanciful question, consider how far American governance and presidential values have slid in the moral murk in the past two years alone. Meanwhile, it is hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event. But there we are. We have arrived. Pass the popcorn, Don, and Pete! It would be heartening today to hear political leaders the world over condemn Hegseth and Trump’s planned introduction of Ghoul TV. But let us please start in Australia, where federal governments have for a long-time opposed capital punishment – let alone turning it into a public spectacle. Will the prime minister and his senior ministers stand up and condemn without qualification this depraved plan for America to livestream an execution? What about the leaders of other political parties here, some of whom have, after all, supported capital punishment? We are waiting. Meanwhile, how much further into the moral quagmire must America wallow before Australia rethinks its craven military dependence on Washington – not least via the reckless shackling of our strategic reliance to the US via the $368bn (and counting) Aukus submarine deal? Announcing America’s decision to turn killing into a form of entertainment, Hegseth said: “It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” America’s defence department later confirmed the execution would be livestreamed. This represents a significant lurch in the US from civilisation towards savagery. You cannot choose your family. But you can choose your friends and allies. And you can also tell them firmly when they have careened off the ethical rails. Actions speak louder than words. And this planned livestreamed execution says it all about what is happening in America today, opening the window ever wider on the Trump administration’s moral vacuity and its paucity of human decency.’ • Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

Old but still relevant."The US constitution is in peril. Civil and human rights are being trampled upon. The economy is in disarray. Federal judges in more than 120 cases so far have sought to stop Trump – judges appointed by Republicans as well as Democrats, some appointed by Trump himself – but the regime is either ignoring or appealing their orders. It has even arrested a municipal judge in Milwaukee amid a case involving an undocumented defendant. Recently, Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III of the court of appeals for the fourth circuit – an eminent conservative Reagan appointee who is revered by the Federalist Society – issued a scathing rebuke to the Trump regime. In response to its assertion that it can abduct residents of the US and put them into foreign prisons without due process, Wilkinson wrote: If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning. Wilkinson’s fears are already being realized. Ice recently deported three US citizens – aged two, four and seven – when their mothers were deported to Honduras. One of the children, who has stage 4 cancer, was sent out of the US without medication or consultation with doctors. Meanwhile, the regime continues to attack all the independent institutions in this country that have traditionally served as buffers against tyranny – !universities, non-profits, lawyers and law firms, the media, science and researchers, libraries and museums, the civil service and independent agencies – threatening them with extermination or loss of funding if they do not submit to its oversight and demands. Trump has even instructed the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue, the platform that handles the fundraising for almost all Democratic candidates and the issues Democrats support. We are no longer Democrats or Republicans. We are either patriots fighting the regime or we are complicit in its tyranny. There is no middle ground Meanwhile, Trump is actively destroying the economy. His proposed tariffs are already raising prices. His attacks on the Fed chief, Jerome Powell, are causing tremors around the world. Trump wants total power, even at the cost of our democracy and economy. His polls are plummeting yet many Americans are still in denial. “He’s getting things done!” some say. “He’s tough and strong!” Every American with any shred of authority must loudly and boldly explain the danger we are in. A few Democratic members and progressives in Congress (Bernie Sanders, AOC, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy) have expressed outrage, but most seem oddly quiet. Granted, they have no direct power to stop what is occurring but they cannot and must not appear to acquiesce. They need to be heard, every day – protesting, demanding, resisting, refusing. Barack Obama has spoken up at least once, to his credit, but where is my old boss, Bill Clinton? Where is George W Bush? Where are their former vice-presidents – Al Gore and Dick Cheney? Where are their former cabinet members? They all must be heard, too. What about Republican members of Congress? Are none willing to stand up against what is occurring? And what of Republican governors and state legislators? If there were ever a time for courage and integrity, it is now. Their silence is inexcusable. Over 400 university presidents have finally issued a letter opposing “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education”. Good. Now they must speak out against the overreach endangering all of American democracy. Hundreds of law firms have joined a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the law firm Perkins Coie’s appeal of the regime’s demands. Fine. Now, they along with the American Bar Association and every major law school must sound the alarm about Trump’s vindictive and abusive use of the justice department. America’s religious leaders have a moral obligation to speak out. They have a spiritual duty to their congregations and to themselves to make their voices heard. The leaders of American business – starting with Jamie Dimon, the chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who in normal times has assumed the role of spokesperson for American business – have been conspicuously silent. Of course they fear Trump’s retribution. Of course they hope for a huge tax cut. But these hardly excuse their seeming assent to the destruction of American democracy. We have witnessed what can happen in just the first 100 days. I’m not at all sure we can wait until the 2026 midterm elections and hope that Democrats take back at least one chamber of Congress. At the rate this regime is wreaking havoc, too much damage will have been done by then. The nation is tottering on the edge of dictatorship. We are no longer Democrats or Republicans. We are either patriots fighting the regime or we are complicit in its tyranny. There is no middle ground.! Soon, I fear, the regime will openly defy the supreme court. Americans must be mobilized into such a huge wave of anger and disgust that members of the House are compelled to impeach Trump (for the third time) and enough senators are moved to finally convict him. Then this shameful chapter of American history will end.”

‘Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.’

Oliver Kornetzke

‘The most uneducated buffoon in history stands at a podium, bloated with self-importance, lips pursed like a carnival barker ready to sell turd milk to the unsuspecting. He grins a grotesque smirk stretched across his face as he scrawls his name onto a hollow decree, a sham celebration of the dismantling of knowledge itself. The Department of Education falls, not with a bang, but with wheezing verbs, suffocated under the weight of his own staggering ignorance. Surrounding him are the usual suspects: cowards in expensive suits, servile sycophants clapping like trained seals, and racist opportunistic ghouls picking clean the bones of democracy. Liars, fools, and thieves all parasites fattening themselves on the hardships of the many. They stand in rigid formation, dead-eyed and soulless, their allegiance sworn not to country, not to principle, but to power, and the dark, festering rot that clings to it. And there he is the convicted wrong, the living embodiment of septic tank spew, his voice a noxious fog of grift and grievance. He lectures the world on right and wrong, irony clawing at the walls, desperate to escape the grotesque theatre of his moral void. The stomach turns, the air curdles, and for a moment, history itself recoils watching, in horror, as the great American experiment teeters on the precipice, led by a man who couldn’t spell “precipice” if his life depended on it.’

Verses in Exodus 21, particularly verses 2-11, regulate slavery among Israelites, allowing Hebrew men to serve for six years, but also permitting permanent servitude for foreign slaves and stipulating rules for selling daughters. If an Israelite buys a Hebrew slave, the servant serves six years and goes free in the seventh. However, if the servant loves his master and chooses to stay, his ear is pierced, and he serves for life. A man could sell his daughter as a servant. She was not freed like male servants. If she did not, please her master, he had to let her be redeemed (bought back by family) and could not sell her to foreigners; if he took another wife, her basic needs (food, clothing, marital rights) could not be reduced. If a master beats a slave (male or female) and they die under their hand, the master is punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, the master is not punished, as the slave is considered their property.

This.

Totally agree.

Has he ever said an intelligent thing? “The most uneducated buffoon in history stands at a podium, bloated with self-importance, lips pursed like a carnival barker ready to sell turd milk to the unsuspecting. He grins a grotesque smirk stretched across his face as he scrawls his name onto a hollow decree, a sham celebration of the dismantling of knowledge itself. The Department of Education falls, not with a bang, but with wheezing verbs, suffocated under the weight of his own staggering ignorance. Surrounding him are the usual suspects: cowards in expensive suits, servile sycophants clapping like trained seals, and racist opportunistic ghouls picking clean the bones of democracy. Liars, fools, and thieves all parasites fattening themselves on the hardships of the many. They stand in rigid formation, dead-eyed and soulless, their allegiance sworn not to country, not to principle, but to power, and the dark, festering rot that clings to it. And there he is the convicted wrong, the living embodiment of septic tank spew, his voice a noxious fog of grift and grievance. He lectures the world on right and wrong, irony clawing at the walls, desperate to escape the grotesque theatre of his moral void. The stomach turns, the air curdles, and for a moment, history itself recoils watching, in horror, as the great American experiment teeters on the precipice, led by a man who couldn’t spell “precipice” if his life depended on it.’”

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There’s not the smallest orb that thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn: With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear, And draw her home with music. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. The reason is, your spirits are attentive: The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted… Music! hark! It is your music of the house. Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day. Silence bestows that virtue on it. How many things by season season’d are. To their right praise and true perfection! Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak’d. Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

More fool me! Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer. Then I woke to today’s news that one of the Trump cabinet’s bigger boofheads – the uber Christian nationalist, crusader-fantasist and “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth had announced that America would have a public firing squad execution of murderer Nidal Hasan. Reckless global militarisation including a threat at the UN to annihilate Iran, a litany of sexual misconduct allegations against the commander in chief, claims of blatant presidential corruption … they have all ceased to surprise and shock us, so inured has the world become to Donald Trump’s monstrous narcissism and maladministration. But now we have execution TV. Tune in to the livestream on Thursday 3 December to watch a military firing squad shoot the life out of Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a US army base in 2009.State-sanctioned killing as entertainment! Yes, the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy has arrived at an horrific new moral nadir. The fact that America remains Australia and the west’s most relied-upon and trusted ally despite the global wrecking ball the second Trump administration has proved to be, was already cause for deep concern. But being so closely allied to a country that now wants to turn the execution of a human being – no matter what their crimes – into a live entertainment event, promises to redefine depravity. Given that American states continue to execute so many convicted criminals, where might the United States ultimately draw the line? No doubt the ilk of Hegseth in American society – and elsewhere – will count down the days until they can tune in to the live coverage of Hasan’s execution in droves. Might the audience cry out for more – for livestream cameras in the death chambers across the land of the free? How would this populist administration respond? If you think it is a fanciful question, consider how far American governance and presidential values have slid in the moral murk in the past two years alone. Meanwhile, it is hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event. But there we are. We have arrived. Pass the popcorn, Don, and Pete! It would be heartening today to hear political leaders the world over condemn Hegseth and Trump’s planned introduction of Ghoul TV. But let us please start in Australia, where federal governments have for a long-time opposed capital punishment – let alone turning it into a public spectacle. Will the prime minister and his senior ministers stand up and condemn without qualification this depraved plan for America to livestream an execution? What about the leaders of other political parties here, some of whom have, after all, supported capital punishment? We are waiting. Meanwhile, how much further into the moral quagmire must America wallow before Australia rethinks its craven military dependence on Washington – not least via the reckless shackling of our strategic reliance to the US via the $368bn (and counting) Aukus submarine deal? Announcing America’s decision to turn killing into a form of entertainment, Hegseth said: “It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” America’s defence department later confirmed the execution would be livestreamed. This represents a significant lurch in the US from civilisation towards savagery. You cannot choose your family. But you can choose your friends and allies. And you can also tell them firmly when they have careened off the ethical rails. Actions speak louder than words. And this planned livestreamed execution says it all about what is happening in America today, opening the window ever wider on the Trump administration’s moral vacuity and its paucity of human decency. • Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

Satan? I do not believe in Satan, leprechauns, pixies, ghosts, werewolves, jujus, angels, Tooth Faeries, Odin, Thor, Zeus, Ra, Brahma, Athena, Hera, Poseidon, Yahweh, Allah, or the Trinity, demons, devils, Astrology, the Tarot, Satan. For the same reason in every case: there is not the tiniest shred of 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐟 empirical, 𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥, 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥, 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 any 𝐆𝐨𝐝 and the burden of proof rests with those who wish to believe. Even given no evidence for specific gods, we could make a case for some unspecified “intelligent designer” or “prime mover” or begetter of “something rather than nothing”? By far the most appealing version of this argument is the biological one - living things do present a powerful illusion of design. But that is the very version that Darwin destroyed. Any theist who appeals to “design” of living creatures simply betrays his ignorance of biology. Go away and read a book. And any theist who appeals to biblical “evidence” betrays ignorance of biblical scholarship. The burden of proof rests with those who wish to believe. Even given no evidence for specific gods, could 'his ignorance of modern scholarship. Go away and read another book. As for the cosmological argument, whose God goes under names such as Prime Mover or First cause, again no evidence. Because physicists are closing in, with spell-binding results. Even if there remain unanswered questions - where do the fundamental laws and constants of physics come from? Obviously, it cannot help to postulate a designer whose existence poses bigger questions than he purports to solve. If science fails, our best hope is to build a better science. The answer will lie neither in theology nor - its exact equivalent - reading tea leaves. In any case, it is a fatuously illogical jump from deistic Unmoved Mover to Christian Trinity, with the Son being tortured and murdered because the Father, for all his omniscience and omnipotence, could not think of a better way to forgive “sin”. Equally unconvincing are those who believe because it comforts them (why should truth be consoling?) or because it “feels right”. The wife of a former UK prime minister may stand for the” feels right” brigade. She based her belief on “an understanding of something that her head cannot explain but my heart knows to be true.” She aspired to become a judge! My’lud, I cannot provide the evidence you require. My head cannot explain why, but my heart knows it to be true. Why is religion immune to the critical standards we apply not just in our courts of law, but in every other life?”
Richard Dawkins

“I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016 and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic, morally vacant, and psychologically mangled he is. I do not wonder anymore. He won for that exact reason. He was not a candidate. He was a mirror. If you were a racist, you found your guy. If you were a misogynist, you found your guy. If money was your only religion, you found your guy. If your heart was armoured shut, you found your guy. If you mocked disabled people, you found your guy. If you hated intelligent people, you found your guy. If you were a rapist, you found your guy. If you enjoyed golden showers with Russian sex workers, you found your guy. If you had done absolutely nothing to confront your emotional wreckage, you found your guy. If you were a serial cheater, you found your guy. If you were a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy. If you stiffed honest workers, you found your guy. If you were a conman, you found your guy. If you mocked people’s appearances, you found your guy. If you longed for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy. If you were dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy. If you were unconscionable in every economic dealing, you found your guy. If you lied as naturally as breathing, you found your guy. If you had never eaten a green vegetable, you found your guy. If you were a white supremacist, you found your guy. If your ego contained a hole so large not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy. If you were a sociopath who cared not one molecule about other humans, you found your guy. If he had only two of these traits, he never would have won. He won because he had hundreds of them, and millions of people recognized themselves in at least one. This has never been about Trump. It has always been about the people who finally had their worst instincts validated. Trump did not create the cruelty, he licensed it. He handed out permission slips for hate. He is merely a symptom of a far deeper disease: collective toxicity. If there is one sentence that explains Trump’s power, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That is the part that should chill the spine. Who knew that tens of millions of Americans were thinking such unconscionable things about their fellow citizens? Who knew how many white men felt so threatened by women and challenged by minorities that they were ready to torch democracy to feel big again? Who knew that after decades of apparent progress on race and gender, so many people were living in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to legitimize their worst selves and convert their bitterness into political power? We were living in a fool’s paradise. We aren’t anymore." — Michael Jochum

Republicans come in three types. Those motivated by crazy neoliberal ideology based on the sociopathic views of Ayn Rand (“The virtue of selfishness”) Hayek and Friedman. Both social Darwinists who thought that the markets should decide everything. Xenophobic, usually homophobic, and some overtly racist. Some just want to enrich themselves at the expense of others, seek attention, and thirdly,a hate fuelled repugnant mixture of both. Inept, ignorant, incompetent, stupid, perverted, or deranged.

More fool me! Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer. Then I woke to today’s news that one of the Trump cabinet’s bigger boofheads – the uber Christian nationalist, crusader-fantasist and “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth had announced that America would have a public firing squad execution of murderer Nidal Hasan. Reckless global militarisation including a threat at the UN to annihilate Iran, a litany of sexual misconduct allegations against the commander in chief, claims of blatant presidential corruption … they have all ceased to surprise and shock us, so inured has the world become to Donald Trump’s monstrous narcissism and maladministration. But now we have execution TV. Tune in to the livestream on Thursday 3 December to watch a military firing squad shoot the life out of Hasan, the former army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a US army base in 2009.State-sanctioned killing as entertainment! Yes, the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy has arrived at an horrific new moral nadir. The fact that America remains Australia and the west’s most relied-upon and trusted ally despite the global wrecking ball the second Trump administration has proved to be, was already cause for deep concern. But being so closely allied to a country that now wants to turn the execution of a human being – no matter what their crimes – into a live entertainment event, promises to redefine depravity. Given that American states continue to execute so many convicted criminals, where might the United States ultimately draw the line? No doubt the ilk of Hegseth in American society – and elsewhere – will count down the days until they can tune in to the live coverage of Hasan’s execution in droves. Might the audience cry out for more – for livestream cameras in the death chambers across the land of the free? How would this populist administration respond? If you think it is a fanciful question, consider how far American governance and presidential values have slid in the moral murk in the past two years alone. Meanwhile, it is hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event. But there we are. We have arrived. Pass the popcorn, Don, and Pete! It would be heartening today to hear political leaders the world over condemn Hegseth and Trump’s planned introduction of Ghoul TV. But let us please start in Australia, where federal governments have for a long-time opposed capital punishment – let alone turning it into a public spectacle. Will the prime minister and his senior ministers stand up and condemn without qualification this depraved plan for America to livestream an execution? What about the leaders of other political parties here, some of whom have, after all, supported capital punishment? We are waiting. Meanwhile, how much further into the moral quagmire must America wallow before Australia rethinks its craven military dependence on Washington – not least via the reckless shackling of our strategic reliance to the US via the $368bn (and counting) Aukus submarine deal? Announcing America’s decision to turn killing into a form of entertainment, Hegseth said: “It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” America’s defence department later confirmed the execution would be livestreamed. This represents a significant lurch in the US from civilisation towards savagery. You cannot choose your family. But you can choose your friends and allies. And you can also tell them firmly when they have careened off the ethical rails. Actions speak louder than words. And this planned livestreamed execution says it all about what is happening in America today, opening the window ever wider on the Trump administration’s moral vacuity and its paucity of human decency. • Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist

And it is a hideous, grotesque, unsightly, monstrous, and unlovely pile of crap. The fool has no taste.

Christians are appaling. I am a reasonable man and am certain that their holy book is an absolute heap of disgusting, slavery condoning, male infant genital mutilation demanding, repellent, demented, vicious dark age mumbo jumbo. Christians should be told quite clearly that our citizens have the legal right to criticise, lampoon, ridicule and mock god and Jesus to their heart’s content, in any way that they wish: that Christians have no special claim to protection from the rough and tumble of post-Enlightenment intellectual, political and social life. If they cannot live in a society in which this is the case, they should go somewhere else; they are, after all, spoilt for choice, at least in theory.