The Duke's new year address

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Red I hope?

It was white 😏 I’ve heard that red is more inclined to cause a headache and any cheap wines always do with me.

@the-gravedigger said
Two bottles of wine get most people feeling squiffy.

That would give me bilious vomiting 🤢, ever had that?

@drewnogal said
It was white 😏 I’ve heard that red is more inclined to cause a headache and any cheap wines always do with me.

Is the solution, “opening up the purse strings”?🤔🍷👍

@great-big-stees said
Is the solution, “opening up the purse strings”?🤔🍷👍

No, I just can’t tolerate much of any sort of alcohol.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Four score and seven years ago (give or take) our fathers brought forth on this internet, a new chess site, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal on the chessboard.

Now we are engaged in a great chess war, testing whether that player, or any player so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met o ...[text shortened]... chieved and the nonsense we have collectively posted.

Live long and prosper. Use the force Luke.

Sir, you are taking 3 to make them into 1.

I know my place in the hierarchy of things. In our stovepipe organizational setup, I'm only sending smoke to the top, to be clear. The following is not meant to be a competitive speech, but only to augment yours. To put some additional weight on it, to make it sink to the bottom, which is for the benefit of the bottom swimmers/feeders.

A reflection for next year's speech on collective nonsense posted this year of our Lord, 2024. Something old and something new.....mostly old.

Do not despair. Hate will never conquer the world for love is eternal. This misery that is upon us is but the passing fury of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The way that leads to universal love and the brotherhood of all mankind. The hate of men will pass and dictators will die and the wind will blow way this dust and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die freedom shall never perish, especially freedom from all sin.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes. Men who despise you and enslave you and themselves, who hold you in contempt, who kill your personality by slandering the innocent with the use of everyday terms of paranoia and delusion. Men who despise you, enslave you with endless questions unworthy of answers, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel. Who drill you by asking questions already answered, and still they ask, over and over while tripping over the answers right under their noses. They treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourself to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men, and women. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate. Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural, the unfriended.

Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery. Fight for liberty. In the 17th chapter of St. Luke it is written, “The kingdom of God is within man, not one man, nor a group of men, but in all man....in you. You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create dinosaur's bones, the power to create happiness. You, the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, and a new heaven, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age of security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill that promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now want to just fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness through evolution.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite and vote for a Good Dictator, one who dictates for our good, and not his, since he's already as good as he can be. Besides, we all know that tyrants arise from the fertile ground of a democracy.

P.S. I put this together AFTER I ventured into my own popular pub. In the land of Lincoln we call them bars. A bar and grill named Heaven.

@drewnogal said
That would give me bilious vomiting 🤢, ever had that?

I have had a few bad hangovers over the years Drew.

@pettytalk said
Sir, you are taking 3 to make them into 1.

I know my place in the hierarchy of things. In our stovepipe organizational setup, I'm only sending smoke to the top, to be clear. The following is not meant to be a competitive speech, but only to augment yours. To put some additional weight on it, to make it sink to the bottom, which is for the benefit of the bottom swimmers ...[text shortened]... red into my own popular pub. In the land of Lincoln we call them bars. A bar and grill named Heaven.

Your over thinking it PT.
Get a bottle of wine down your Gregory Peck and chill out.

@moonbus said
Congrats, Rusty. TU from me.

Another game in Feb.? I'm right in the middle of moving house right now, but come Feb. I'll have some time again to think about chess.

Thanks Moon,
I am about ready for another lesson. I actually managed a draw with Ghost which is a win as far as I am concerned. 🙂

-VR

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Four score and seven years ago (give or take) our fathers brought forth on this internet, a new chess site, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal on the chessboard.

Now we are engaged in a great chess war, testing whether that player, or any player so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met o ...[text shortened]... chieved and the nonsense we have collectively posted.

Live long and prosper. Use the force Luke.

Frankly, I had expected a New Year's address might involve Bermuda or the Bahamas.

Like those Southwest Airlines commercials, "Wanna get away?"
.