Silent Night

Blog Post
Larry-Lambert

Peace on Earth – Good will to All!

 

There are no more shopping days.

 

To VM Readers, you know who you are because you’re reading this. I wish you all a Merry Christmas, wherever you are and under whatever circumstances. I hope you find peace and joy in life and your associations. I’ve enjoyed bringing this blog to you over the past year—my gift to you—for whatever that’s worth. We don’t know precisely when Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, was born, and there are questions surrounding the precise location of his birth. Those who chronicled his life did so at a distance in time from the events themselves. That life, that atonement, and that meaning resonates nonetheless 2024 years later.

 

The Tree

 

Advice:

 

A Price on his Head?

Ahmed Al-Sharaa, aka Abu Muhammed Al-Jolani, is the de facto leader of Syria. He is a dedicated jihadist who was sent to Syria by Al-Qaeda to overthrow the Assad government. He had a $10 million bounty on his head placed there by the U.S. Government.

The Biden regime just lifted it.

Al-Jolani is the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist terrorist organization. That organization is still on the American list of foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. Department of State has described HTS as a vehicle for Al-Qaeda to pursue its objectives in Syria.

Al-Jolani, who was held by American forces for five years for orchestrating attacks on our personnel in Iraq, is now OK in our book. He is our new ally.

The decision to drop the bounty on Al-Jolani’s head came after back-channel contacts between our Department of State (Tony “Blinky” Blinkin) and Al-Jolani.

January 20 can’t come fast enough to suit me.

 

 

The End of the Trance.

The big story this week is how X (formerly Twitter) worked to change the American legislative process dramatically. As Chamath Palihapitiya said, “People are underestimating what happened here [The Continuing Resolution].

This multi-hundred billion dollar grift was stopped on a dime over 12 hours of tweets. You would have never thought this was possible. To put a dagger in something that big that had so much broad support just a few hours earlier is so consequential in how the United States can run going forward.

But if you grasp the background for this feat — the story of how Axelrod and Obama, a struggling and complacent media, puppet NGOs, and a corrupt bureaucracy for years created a false preference cascade that fed absurd crazes like “defund the police,” ”structural racism,” “white privilege,” ”assigned gender,” ”genocide in Gaza” — you can better understand the fast collapse.

Obama’s was an autocratic regime that, using David Axelrod’s once benign psychological creation, sold large swaths of the public counterfactual, illogical nonsense like ObamaCare, the Iran deal, and Russiagate and used COVID hysteria to transfer billions of dollars from the rest of us to the top 1% and corrupt our electoral system, but it was utterly without foundation.

In sum, sanity finally overcame politically manipulated hallucinatory thinking.

Merry Christmas

***

Identify the Armor

1

Now there’s a big 90 degree angle to slam a missile into.

 

2

It’s a tougher ID because of the angle, but you can do it.

 

Identify the Aircraft

3

It should be familiar, but the Tommys played with the design a little with this variant.

 

4

The Japanese made a lot of these.

 

5

How long will it take you to ID this one?

 

BONUS – Identify the Armor

6

They are not the same model of tank. Similar, but not the same. They had different names.

The biggest difference is that one has a slightly bigger turret. This was due to the British not liking that the radio was originally in the chassis and had its crew members for it. The British did not like this idea and made a bigger turret that could fit a radio. The commander would control the radio, bringing up our next difference. One had an extra crew member, seven vs. six. Since the commander now manned the radio, they did not need an extra crew member for it in the other. One had a simple commander’s hatch; the other had a commander’s hatch with an MG. One had thicker armor.

 

7

Hint: Mounted on a PZKW-2 chassis

 

Identify the Feature Film/Series

A

Fox hunt…

 

Parting Shot

 

 

 

End

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41 thoughts on “Silent Night”

  1. Merry Christmas to all y’all and your families. A Happy New Year is already promised with Trump’s team moving in. Trance’s End – funny how bringing out into the open light that which was whispered in secret made a difference.

  2. 6 is M3 Lee, officially Medium Tank, M3 in USA. British is the Grant.

    Almost the 26th in Australia. Hope everyone has a good Christmas.

    Any good presents?

    I picked up 500 projectiles for two of my hunting rifles. Have to do some more reloading

    1. We got Donald J. Trump for an early present this year.
      .
      I bought a nice older 22-cal Colt New Frontier revolver about a month ago, but local government (Mrs. WWW) confiscated it, gift wrapped it and wrote me a check for the amount paid. She’ll gift it back to me in about two hours. With any luck, I won’t shoot my eye out with it, and this new trick will work again next year too!

  4. IDA:
    1. Armoured Mortar System II (AMS II)
    2. Valentine 6
    3. Supermarine Spitfire RAF Squadron 43
    4. Mitsubishi F1M
    5. P-47 Thunderbolt
    6. M3 Lee and M3 Grant
    7. MILITÄRFAHRZEUG 3-2009

      1. A P-47 off an aircraft carrier? Must have been a one way transport and the best way to unload it. Imagine the pucker factor if the pilot had never made a carrier takeoff before.

        1. Many of the land-based fighters in the Pacific Theater were transported by carrier. The planes could launch, but not land. And, yes, the pucker factor must have been pretty high.

  6. Merry Christmas to all.
    *
    LL thanks for the blog, the book reading materials, and of course the back channel conversations. May your 2025 be significantly better than 2024.
    *
    Safety to all in your travels. Remember everyone… don’t go boating or flying with Ed.

  10. Identify the Armor:
    1. Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle prototype with 30mm cannon
    2. Bishop SPG
    Identify the Aircraft:
    3. Supermarine Spitfire Vc
    4. Mitsubishi F1M Pete
    5. Grumman Hellcat
    BONUS – Identify the Armor:
    6. M3 Grant (left) and M3 Lee (US)
    7. Sturmpanzer II Bison
    Identify the Feature Film/Series:
    A. Zorro

    1. 5 is an early-model P-47D taking off from the Navy escort carrier Manila Bay off Saipan. It was being ferried, so would land at a newly captured (or possibly even newly constructed) airfield. I’ve seen that picture before, but Google verified my memory (which isn’t entirely trustworthy nor all that quick anymore).

        1. The two shared the same engine, along with the Corsair.
          –
          Big difference between the F6F and the P-47 was the huge arsed giant metal snail of a turbo-super charger in the P-47 that occupied a lot of the fuselage.

  12. Merry Christmas LL, and to all y’all! I have great hopes for a return to sanity in ’25, and at least as much fear that the deep state will “nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”

  13. Stille Nacht…like Christ, such humble beginnings:
    Father Josef Mohr (1792-1848) was the pastor of St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Obendorf, Austria. In 1816 he composed the six verse lyrics to “Silent Night,” which would become one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time.
    Exactly why he wrote the song is unclear. However, we do know that on Christmas Eve 1818 he presented the poem to the parish organist, Franz Xavier Gruber, with the request for Gruber to compose an appropriate melody for two solo voices with choir and guitar accompaniment. The carol was first performed during Mass that Christmas Eve.
    Gruber sang bass as the church choir sang the refrains of each verse. Father Mohr, a talented musician himself, played the guitar accompaniment. The tune was warmly received by those who heard it that first night.
    Father Mohr died in 1848. Before his death, the composer of “Silent Night” is reported to have said that his composing of the Christmas carol was one of the “most treasured moments” of his life.
    Today a memorial chapel (the Silent Night Chapel) stands at the place where this famous song was composed. It is the site of an annual remembrance of the two men who composed the song.
    ***
    Merry Christmas everyone!

      1. It is beautifully done…thx for the reminder.
        –
        These carols we sing, the backstories are fascinating how they go from obscurity into what we call tradition. Fthr Mohr did have a reason for writing Silent Night, needed something special for Mass but the church had flooded and the organ was out of commission. Mohr had a poem he’d written a few yers prior when he had gone out for a walk right after the Napoleonic War…he sat by a stream and saw the peacefulness all around. The words flowed but he never gave it much thought…until that 1818 Christmas Eve. Went to his friend who created the arrangement in short order. The organ builder was there during rehearsal and took the composition with him, thereafter heard by visiting folk singers.
        –
        If you haven’t listened, Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss do a wonderful rendition of The Wexford Carol (in one take no less)…she sings like an angel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDZjg_Igoc

        2. I was chatting back channel with HogsbreathSS – Silent Night, Handels Messiah, etc. all sound better when performed in the original Hoch Deutsch.

  14. Merry Christmas!

    Now the latest “false preference cascade” is the H1B visa needs of silicon valley. Indians of course, but not the ones who fought with Custer at Little Big Horn.

  15. Merry Christmas to all who frequent here, including our host.
    Fun facts to know and tell.
    Edersheim (a converted Jew), author of The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, posits that the shepherds that came to see Jesus after the angelic announcement were Temple shepherds who were to certify the sacrificial lambs. Their pasture was near Bethlehem.
    Daniel the prophet was told by Gabriel the year of His birth.
    Micah the place of His birth.
    Gabriel told Mary who His mother would be.
    I love it when a plan comes together.

    1. Get the neuralink installed so he can manage his own digital traffic and fan mail. The groupies who build shrines to him and feed him snacks will have greater access to him. Once the neuralink and AI are in place, I’m of the opinion that his podcast (in dog) would be more popular than Rogan. How many dog podcasters are there? He could advertise pup cups, and a full range of Banner products.

  18. The photo appears to be from Disney’s Zorro. The two actors in the foreground, Guy Williams and Jonathon Harris, later reunited on Lost In Space.

  20. I’m off with the Better Half for the traditional Chinese dinner. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I’ll tell you – I don’t know. But it’s a tradition!

  22. Merry Christmas everyone, to you and yours!

    …and don’t forget to pop the batteries out (and possibly put them back in backwards) on the toys after the sprogs fall asleep tonight. :-)

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