Pre-All Saints Eve Guest Post, by the spirit of Aaron B. Cox

Infinite conversational recursion of the sort where semantical obfuscation requires becoming the sole participant among a multitude of sycophants (less those are banned, deleted or require editing into conformity), who praise and emulate a further bloggerly host, and so on going both backward and forward an infinite number of bloggerations is the standard model of Latter-day Saint blogging cosmology, as initiated by Times and Seasons, but perfected by my own New Order Millennial Star.

Fortunately for me, since I am transcendentally brilliant, this model has many difficulties worthy of my considerations (since I am the only one capable of explicating such complexities of Platonic Mormonism, which Joseph Smith clearly espoused but which fact is obscure to all who fail to be inspired as I), difficulties that may be solved by transition between the sophisticated philosophies of learned men such as I and the subtle revelations of the Holy Spirit revealed to me, and back again. The oaks of Bashan and the cedars of Lebanon (which are the bloggers of the Naccle) shall be humbled and shall submit to a goodly cedar, even the New Order Millennial Star. For the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day, and anything He has to say to you will be through me.

Behold, I teach you the truth, the doctrine of INCORPORATION (a doctrine formerly known as the Atonement, which is wrong). If you are stupid, and question me, then I will delete your comments, because they are wrong, and I am right, because I am inspired, and you are not, as evidenced by your very comments. If you have no argument and no revelation, then I am unpersuaded, and therefore correct. QED.

Mark Butler is without question showing himself forth as one of the most accomplished and brilliant narcissists on the Bloggernacle. In only a couple of months he has effectively hijacked Millennial Star and turned it into his own bully pulpit of egomania, spreading forth all sorts of wacky doctrine ex cathedra, deleting all comments he doesn't like and editing the heck out of the ones that fail to praise his maniacal brilliance. It is only a matter of time before Mark starts banning anyone who dares question him, and why shouldn't he? That is what any good narcissist would do, and Mark is good.

What Bloggernacle newbie couldn't learn a few things from this master of craftsmanship? Geoff B has got to be cursing the day he invited him to join, having lost grip of M*'s reins as Mark wrenched them from his hands. And Clark Goble is presumably cursing his fate having at the very least tacitly approving his addition, and perhaps even endorsing it, given Mark's prior activity of Clark's philosophy page. Oh, cruel twists of fate!

Now, I know what you all are thinking, Mark Butler isn't real. He just can't be. Yes, on this anniversary of the demise of the Banner of Heaven, people suspect Mark Butler in fact the incarnation of none other than Aaron B. Cox come back to harangue us all with his prophetic wisdom. Could it be? Is Mark Butler the Aaron B. Cox doppleganger? If so, it would be a birthday present of such epic systems proportions no software engineer could possibly imagine, anyone who pulled such a hoax would have to have all human knowledge available at their fingertips, a veritable repository to store all knowledge in one model, which takes advantage of cURL too. Is this butlerm's xmission? To stage a man in the middle dot net attack?

Over at T&S, Jonathan Green suggests that the Church might learn a few lessons from the international marketing efforts of big corporations like Wal-Mart and McDonalds.

Indeed! And the Church has listened:

Learning from Wal-Mart's mistakes, to attract price-conscious German converts, the church will implement predatory pricing on tithing and other offerings.

Taking a cue from McDonalds, the Church will now use this new, revised logo on all German church buildings and missionary materials.
The Mormon Church: I'm lovin' it!

It was not confirmed, at the time of this writing, if the Church would authorize the granting of indulgences. Also, the initial idea of "drive-through" Sacrament distribution was scrapped due to the relatively high fuel prices prevalent in European markets.

BCC wants to be bigger, better, hipper and...well...more T&S-like than T&S, and the past couple of days have seen major accomplishments along those lines. Congratulations! BCC has descended into the downward spiral of petty infighting that spills over into blogspace in the same sophisticated and adroit manner T&S does on occasion.

J.Stapley's "No You're Not One of Us" piece has spun off some related sordid bits. While DMI Dave, formerly of BCC, eagerly distances himself from the fracas and The Chupacabra suggests everyone just chill out, it is plain the BCCers are not ready to douse the fire J.Stapley started. HD/JDC defends J.Stapley (probably because there is a secret BCC club for people with initialized first name letters of "J", given RT/JNS' support; shouldn't be too long before it is revealed Steve Evans' middle name is actually Julius and he starts posting as Super J. Enius), as Amri "note the lack of a J initial in my name" Brown points out all this petty tripe is a great load of rubbish.

Just look at all of these purveyors of Bloggernacle® obsessing about Bloggernacle®. Really, who gives a baboon's cheeky red bum what any of these people think? I don't care if their first initial is J. or not, for the life of me cannot understand why anyone else does. J.Stapley doesn't like angsty DAMUs? So what? Who cares what some preppie history-major-wannabe who wants to be so-cool-yeah-i-am-in-a-band in Seattle thinks?

For the piece de resistance, two BCC permabloggers will resign and be moved to emeritus status. Naturally they should be females, given T&S' lead. And, it will be great fodder for a "Hey why aren't there more female permabloggers in the Big Group Blogs" type post, which will devolve into banal sexism arguments.

Uh oh, J. Stapley stepped in it (hurry, go to FMH and write a guest post about it!). Not only does he attempt to dictate BCC policy and get slapped for it, he tromps on the DAMU and gets chastised for it! Imagine that, the offensive are easily offended (the best defense is to be easily offended, right?). Oh, poor J. Worst of all, nobody came in and praised him with choruses of "Thank you, Oh, thank you for this" as he so often regales others with. The ingrates!

Tip for all budding narcissists: Step on a bear trap instead, as it may generate some sympathy for you. But, do take off your penny loafers first, as you wouldn't want them to get scuffed up.

Last week's top narcissist was Guy Murray. Who? You know, that guy who in concert with M0's Geoff B keeps the Bloggernacle abreast of every move Mitt Romney makes. Oh, yeah, that guy. Well, like any good aspiring narcissist, Guy is quick on his feet at directing traffic to his blog to increase his hit count. Being a quick study from the contention, and massive numbers of comments, on recent Bush-hating rabid rants at BCC by RH and HP, Guy follows suit and jumps into the fray to score the highest number of comments ever on a blog post. Natch, he follows it up with another one to keep the momentum rolling, but interest peters out quickly when readers realize they are being played.

And, lest his mentors think he has gone all left-wing and thereby endanger his much-aspired-too guest bloggering, he returns to the source of his inspiration to castigate them sharply for their obvious excesses. Good on you Guy for helping to reign in Ronan's "light speeches", "excess of laughter" and "superfluity of naughtiness", providing ample backlinks to your own blog.


Note to all aspiring narcissist bloggers: Follow Guy's example assiduously and you too will enjoying higher hit counts, riding boldly and bravely on the coat tails of others down well-worn paths to glory.

Scabbers Wormtail lashed out at his master today in an effort to ingratiate himself with those whom he has previously disenfranchised through self-promoting treachery. When asked for a comment regarding the apparent insult, Lord Voldemort stated in a matter-or-fact manner, "Let the permabores be warned, his devotion is nothing more than cowardice. He would not be at T&S if he had anywhere else to go."

Covertly obtained correspondence between Scabbers and the permabores, obtained at great personal risk and sparing no expense to obtain, is as follows:

"Adam, Adam, what could I have done? The Dark Lord... you have no idea ... he has weapons you can't imagine ... I was scared, Adam, I was never brave like you and Matt and Russell. I never meant it to happen ... He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me ... He -- he was taking over everywhere! Wh -- what was there to be gained by refusing him? You don't understand! He would have killed me, Adam!"

One of the less polite female permabores, stated of Scabbers,

"Hero-worshiped Oman and Harris. Never quite in their league, talent-wise. I was often rather sharp with him ... Stupid boy ... Foolish boy .. .He was always hopeless at blogging..."