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“Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.” -CS Lewis Like all demons, he was obsessed with children. Shedding their blood was preferable. Failing that, he could always cut them up, scalp them, sexualize them, incite them to a sexual frenzy, or castrate them. The possibilities were endless, and exciting. Demonic appetite never ceases, and Mephistopheles was hungry. To satisfy his lust, he would need a megalomaniac with a Promethean drive; someone appointed in high places and thus able...

Here is the formatted transcript with proper capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphs added (formatting by Claude.ai): Yeah, even the phrase for Chapter 5, the title of Chapter 5 is called "The Rise of the Materialist Magician." And that phrase "materialist magician," I took from C.S. Lewis's book "The Screwtape Letters." For those that don't know, "The Screwtape Letters" is an epistolary novel that takes the form of a series of letters that this demon Screwtape writes to his nephew demon Wormwood. Wormwood is assigned a person to try to damn to hell, to tempt and to enslave. Wormwood asks Screwtape a...

Activist David Hogg talks of his generation of gun controllers in a NYMag cover story, then thinks of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and says, “Move the f**k off the plate and let us take control.” NYMag indicates Hogg is wearied by the “old” Democrats who keep hanging onto their offices. He mentioned Pelosi in particular, and said pointedly, “Nancy Pelosi is old.”

One of my favorite stories is of famished Samaria under siege. "Hear the word of the Lord," Elisha said in 2 Kings 7, "Tomorrow about this time a seah of fine flour shall be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, at the gate of Samaria." He was announcing imminent bargain prices on a starvation day when "a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver" and some dove's dung for five shekels (2 Kings 6:25). Sure. No way. Who will not pity Saul? Nothing was happening. The brave hero, having waited seven days...