NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Why God?!? WHY!?!

The Cap Lounge, beloved bar and hangout of Hill rats, has burned down.

The Capitol Lounge, a bar long popular with Hill staffers, was reduced to a blackened mess of charred benches, burned ceilings and singed photographs yesterday after an early-morning fire.

...

The fire, Friedman said, was caused by a smoldering cigarette in a trash can and was ruled accidental. Although the Capitol Lounge is in a rowhouse, firefighters were able to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings.

...

"Everything in there was older political stuff and stuff from D.C. It can't be replaced," said Scott Clark, a bar patron.

I hate smokers. Before, I've only had vague, non-descript reasons to hate them, such as moral opposition to suicide, disgust over second hand smoke, etc. But now the smokers have taken my bar. You bastards! Have you no decency? Have you no shame? You shall never be forgiven.

I have long fought the myth that hell is a place of fire and brimstone where unrepentant sinners burn, but rather, it is separation from God for eternity.

But in this instance, I can confidently say that whoever burned down Cap Lounge shall be damned to the Seventh Level of Hell, as described by Dante:

Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assassins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgment, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies.

Damn you. Damn you all.