Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, initiating Holy Week. Next Sunday is Easter. The celebration at the White Wolf Mine will be punctuated by a visit from some of my children and grandchildren on Easter break. Though we will attend church, there will also be barbecuing and maybe some range time (Bible and Sword) punctuated by tannerite detonations. Too loud for the campers and tourists? Too bad. There are no palms on the Mogollon Rim, but we can substitute pine boughs – I guess. We’re not doing a pageant here at the mine.
Daughter (right)
Bullet Points:
** Religious wars. Dogma and power challenged. “Make my skin into a drumhead to signal another attack!” Your Palm Sunday Sermonette.
** Question of the Day: Would you have been a papal conformist or a heretic during the Reformation?
** Why are beef prices so high in the USA? (1) Persistent dry conditions in major ranching states have forced producers to “liquidate” their herds—slaughtering breeding cows they could no longer afford to feed or water. (2) Ranchers face record-high expenses for fuel, fertilizer, and labor. While cattle prices are high, these overhead costs often keep rancher profit margins thin. (3) Outbreaks of the New World screwworm parasite in Mexico led to border closures for live cattle imports, further tightening the supply of “feeder” cattle that would eventually become beef. (4) Four major meatpacking companies control over 80% of the U.S. beef market. This concentration can create bottlenecks and allow processors to capture a larger share of profits than the ranchers themselves. I’ve spoken to ranchers in my area, and they are definitely not the ones seeing a profit. In fact, it looks like things will get worse before they get better.
** Did historical Moses write the Book of Exodus? Likely not unless it was written in hieratic Egyptian. Hebrew didn’t exist as a written language until the 10th or 11th century BC. The Book of Exodus, as we know it, was written in a developed form of Hebrew. The Book of Exodus is written in historical narrative prose, which puts it in the 9th century BC. Maybe 800-850 BC? Passover is coming on Wednesday, April 1.
** During the Middle Eastern Crusades – 200 years of European knights marching into the Middle Eastern desert in sealed metal containers — absolutely convinced God was on their side, repeatedly discovering the climate was not. The most iconic helmet in Crusader history, the Great Helm, weighed 4kg, gave you the peripheral vision of someone looking through a letterbox, and provided adequate air supply for a man sitting quietly in a cool room. Not for hand-to-hand combat in the Levantine summer. So knights did the logical thing. They took it off 30 seconds into the battle, handed it to a squire, and continued fighting in something considerably more sensible. The most expensive piece of head protection in the medieval world was routinely discarded at the exact moment it was most needed. Meanwhile, the infantry — underpaid, ignored by history, conspicuously absent from anyone’s heraldic seal — wore wide-brimmed iron hats that let them breathe, see, and remain conscious. Which was, one would have thought, rather the point.
** Then there were the Cold Crusades that converted the European pagans to Christianity. They were more successful in the 1100s, and by my way of thinking, there may need to be YET ANOTHER crusade to Europe to convert the pagans to Christianity, if you get my drift. LSP – Will you lead the Crusade to bring Christ to the UK?
** No US state has ever declared bankruptcy, and the retirement benefits sit senior to the bonds in California. So you have to pay out the retirement benefits before you pay out all the bondholders who have loaned California the money it uses to run its programs and services. The Public Employees Retirement System loans money to the State in a circuitous way. The relationship involves complex financial interactions where the state has borrowed from the pension fund to manage its own liabilities. The state is required to repay this “loan” to itself (the internal fund) with interest, essentially using a lower-interest internal loan to pay down a higher-interest pension debt.
** VDH on Ukraine, NATO, and so forth.
** Old NFO reports on California’s lament – The University of Southern California cancelled a planned California gubernatorial primary debate because all the invited candidates were white, multiple media outlets reported. That’s not the least bit racist of USC, is it?
** Iranian Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi warned Americans and Israelis that “even parks, recreational areas, and tourist destinations anywhere in the world will no longer be safe for you.” But that was yesterday, so we can’t confirm whether he’s still alive.
The Mouse that ROARED
(h/t Claudio – Royal Navy Lookout) British forces have been ordered to intercept and board suspected Russian shadow fleet vessels in UK waters, as the government moves to tighten enforcement of sanctions. The announcement signals a more assertive maritime posture, with the RN expected to play a central role alongside northern European allies.
The Prime Minister confirmed that warships, commandos, and law enforcement personnel will be tasked to stop and board tankers suspected of evading sanctions imposed on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. The move aligns the UK more closely with Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) partners such as Finland, Sweden, and Estonia, which have already taken direct action against suspect vessels in the Baltic.
Russia’s shadow fleet, estimated to comprise more than 1,000 ageing tankers, has become a key mechanism for sustaining oil exports amid Western sanctions. They predominantly transport oil and gas from Primorsk or Ust-Luga in the Baltic Sea to Asian customers. These vessels frequently operate under flags of convenience, maintain obscure ownership structures, and employ deceptive shipping practices to avoid detection. These ships also pose broader risks, often poorly maintained and operated outside normal safety and insurance frameworks, raising the likelihood of accidents and an environmental catastrophe along the south coast. (more)
Given the maritime will, does the Royal Navy currently have the capacity to project force into the English Channel and do so? Will they need to ask France or the USA for assistance to intercept unarmed shadow tankers in British waters?
The English Channel remains a key international waterway, with around 500 commercial vessel transits per day. Shadow fleet ships represent only a very small fraction of total traffic, but it’s estimated that several pass through each week. Denying access to UK waters is designed to increase pressure on this network by forcing vessels onto longer and more expensive routes around the north of Scotland and west of Ireland, or risk interception. Is this publicized intent real, or just another paper tiger?
Identify the Ship:
1
2
3
Parting Palm Sunday Thought
End
1 is USS Arthur W. Radford a Spruance-class destroyer.
2 is USS Mahan was the lead ship of the United States Navy’s Mahan-class destroyers.
3 ?
Royal Navy –
Australia has about double the number of commissioned warships as Britain plus ours actually work. Maybe they could lease some from us with crews. Cash only paid in advance.
Otherwise a couple of the floating museums I have been to in the USA might be interested in target practice.
Off topic –
Also showing steep decline though I think I have mentioned this before Germany now imports Boxer armoured personnel carriers from Australia. Factory is about 45 minute drive from home.
I was going to ask how many rowboats England had in their fleet…
I think they’re called Jolly Boats…
Maybe Australia could create a lend-lease program for the British? I think that the US demanded payment in Gold back during WW2… And yes, get the payment in advance.
Maybe they could lease some ships a.k.a. canoes from Canada and the sailors a.k.a. Mounties to paddle them.
We demanded payment in gold in WWII because England stiffed us for WWI. Ungrateful bastards.
I understand the UK’s latest submarine is named HMS Insubmergeable…
That’s cold, BRM.
Seems like they could manage to submerge just about anything.
Maybe “insurfaceable”, instead?
– Kle.
France has a larger navy than Britain.
I’m sure that France will be willing to send ships to aid the British under the NATO treaty if the need arises. The British don’t need a fleet if the French can be “The Home Fleet,” do they?
Identify the Ship::
1. Self Defense Test Ship Ex-Paul F. Foster
2. USS Mahan
3. USS Somers
Excellent!
Just realized my internal voice was wrong! Saw the mast, thought it was Foster but didn’t verify the hull number. Kudos to RCC.
Yes, he got it.
Ranchers are facing tough conditions, and a market that doesn’t benefit them the way it should. Meanwhile, with less supply, and a long time before more breeding stock will be available, beef will remain high at the supermarket, and for those without local producers, the availability will decline.
I have a friend that is a rancher. He told me last year he wasn’t seeing the benefits of higher meat prices, and it’s looking like things won’t be better until more land isn’t so drought affected.
We could end the drought by using small modular reactors to desalinate seawater and pump the water inland to affected areas. That would require foresight and the ability to resist the long costs and delays with pipeline construction – but it’s not as though we’re dealing with something experimental.
FedGov is also screwing with the ranchers, as usual.
I presume less so under the current administration than under whomever
was in charge in the last one.
– Kle.
A decade +/- ago The Democrats got on board with the Envirowhackos who believe cattle and farming are a scourge to the planet (despite they are God gifts to sustainable food sources), there has been a war on the food industry since. Clarkson’s Farm showcases how Britain is wrecking the industry…no farming, no food. It’s galactically moronic, but still present. Buy local if you can, support your local farmer or rancher.
We buy local as much as we can. Plenty of veggies, beef, and lamb, and pork here.
We are lucky to be in the same position to buy locally grown produce, poultry/eggs, beef and pork. I have not seen lamb grown here. There were big wars over sheep and cattle grazing in Arizona (Pleasant Valley War, etc). Maybe the beef won out?
* No US state has ever declared bankruptcy
California is the model for blue states. If they are first to declare bankruptcy, it may start a domino effect.
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Midterm elections. Any idea that the thousands of people who stood in the TSA screening lines might change their voting pattern? The cleaning of voter registrations may be enough to make a large difference. Colorado has more registered voters than voting age residents when comparing Census Bureau estimates to records.
I would like to know if the TSA union ( and it’s members ) will continue to donate to the democrats, either directly or indirectly
As of early 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is actively terminating collective bargaining for TSA Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), aiming to end union representation for over 47,000 employees. While TSOs have been represented by the AFGE union since 2011, recent directives claim collective bargaining is incompatible with national security.
It is beyond past time to eliminate public sector (aka. Government) unions…how that occurred is unsurprising considering the mentality coupled to a desire to sway elections as a group while padding their paychecks and retirement funds the rest of us Peons never get. Every single public sector employee works for us, are funded by taxpayers (us), and should have been never been allowed to form a unionized shop. Then again, The Swamp likes this sort of special club where members enjoy self-serving agendas.
All public sector unions do is make sure that the people doing the collective bargaining get the best benefits while selling out their younger union members.
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I, sadly, was a public sector union member for about a year until I saw how the sausage was made and just wanted to shoot everyone, both union and city officials, involved in the giant scam. A-holes all.
Midterm voting patterns – I’d have to wonder how many have attention spans long enough to remember those airport lines when they vote.
If the Republicans are smart, they’ll have commercials with both the wonderful episodes from the State of the Union Address and of the long TSA lines and anything else especially horrid done by the Dems.
Heretic.
Figures
Of all the beef issues I expect the screw worms to impact the industry for five+ years due to thinking the problem was perfectly fixed with sterile flies in the 50s and 60s. We stopped sterilizing them and they are back. It is sort of like most the problems that just require continual maintenance. I’ve got the money one hand to buy beef the rest of my life. I plan on supporting my local butcher generously. You can buy happiness.
I live in a leftist hellhole. I have to travel outside of my AOA to find a real dedicated butcher shop. You ever notice that the first thing the socialists remove is availability and variety?
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Fortunately Sam’s Club has a kicking deal on boneless leg of lamb, so I’m set for Easter this year.
“But that was yesterday, so we can’t confirm whether he’s still alive.”
How Trump negotiates with Iran’s leaders:
https://youtu.be/4kJ2sVEMm9s
SEND IN THE NEGOTIATOR!!
MORE OF THAT PLEASE! Good one Ed.
Send in Korbin Dallas to negotiate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TyxxLHfBwE
That’s pretty much the scene I posted above :)
In this day and age of Zoom meetings, why the Frig would any idiot, knowing there’s a 2,000 lb guided bomb locked on his/her/its buttocks, ever go to a physical meeting? I mean, that’s just asking to catch a bomb up one’s butt.
The European crusades history was new to me, thanks!
I had to find something for the Sermonette to launch Holy Week.
Good job!
X3
And, of course, totally legal and legit and done for the right reasons. If the muzzies hadn’t been, you know, being good muzzies and following muzzie law and killing and enslaving Christians and destroying Christian holy sites, then Urban the Deuce wouldn’t have had to start the whole Crusades thingy and, well, there you go.
PERA: I say the ‘rules’ for any retirement program ought to be universal, public or private, yet it’s funny how public employee retirement programs operate while private sector unions have more IRS and SEC rules than you can shake a stick at. PERA should be more truthfully called ‘Protected [at all cost] Public Employee Retirement Fund’. Total grift, especially when considering teachers, who get 75% of their highest salary for life once retired, with the ability to retire at 55, no questions asked and can never turn off the spigot. Extend that o 65 and retirement as a teacher looks pretty great…guaranteed. Nice deal.
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Contrast that with private retirees who schlub it out until at least 65…now being pushed for 70. Yet all we hear are teachers aren’t paid enough by and thru our taxes. Why are public employee retirement programs treated differently? Could it be because they believe they are more special and deserving while WTP take it in shorts to prop up their grift? Could it be because they believe the pot is bottomless? When property taxes are eliminated that might make them rethink their position.
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Palm Sunday: There is only one King over all (as a response against the ‘No Kings’ activists planning their idiotic protests coming soon to a town near you). The difference sits in contrast to what people thought…he humbled himself for us all.
At church this morning: Nobody brought palms!
Me: We all brought two to lift up in praise.
We had palms at service this morning, but not the big ones we got in Catholic Church as a kid then proceeded to fiddle with all Mass long…because we were kids and couldn’t help ourselves…until dad gave ‘the look’ to knock it off and pay attention.
Memories….
Heretic
“Did historical Moses write the Book of Exodus?”
in what language/writing system were the tablets inscribed; the ones that Moses brought down from the mountain?
They’re not at hand to examine – maybe Egyptian?
Traditionally, Moses is acknowledged as the author of the Pentateuch. Raised as royalty, thus assumed educated as Egyptian, he may have been fluently able to write hieroglyphics. More likely he wrote or dictated peleo-hebrew, a derivative of Phoenician. Marrying a distant relative in the lineage of Abraham’s son Midian, and possibly mentored by his Father in law, a priest of the said culture, language and religion, he may have written, or even possibly dictated to scribes what would be the spoken written form most used by said 1M plus Hebrews making the 40 yr pilgrimage out of Egypt to Cannan. The Timna Valley, upper NW Arabian peninsula, has a trove of archeological records of the Midianite pottery scattered among the copper mining of the presumed era of the Exodus circa Ramsesses ll dynasty.
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My own question to ad; If God is who he says he is in the literary collection of the Hebrew and N.T. scriptures is he not capable of communicating with his people in their own language?
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2nd question; In the earth made new, heaven on earth, God dwelling with humanity, will we only speak one language?
GFW, I will second your opinion on Moses writing the Pentateuch. What are apparently Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions were found in an Egyptian mine that coincides with the time of the Hebrews in Egypt. The big problems are the “Scholars” involved in the whole of the research of the Hebrew/Jewish Bible (Old Testament). They all want to be correct and dismiss any descension to their views. So many will state “that the science is settled” but there are more and more archeological finds that support the Old Testament and the approximate dates of what is recorded in them.
+1 Both of you.
Tanner Rites; love the punctuational family time exclamation points! Many more great returns on your investment in the hovel at the mine.
Reference State Bankruptcy: Over the years, several states were bankrupt as they couldn’t pay their retirement accounts. Instead of letting things get tough for those states, the US Treasury purchased their bonds to keep them afloat. That really didn’t solve the spending problem as those states continued to spend more bucks and to have excessive public pension payouts for their public employees.
-The exchange purchase was noted by a few independent financial bugs, but not by the mainstream media.
-If we could see the actual transactions side by side, The Land of Lincoln, The Empire State and The Bear State may still be in arrears with the US Treasury bailing them out. I haven’t bothered to check closely for a decade or so.
*****
Where’s the beef?
-This isn’t the first time that ranchers and those who like eating beef have been in hard times. Ranching has a history of volatile times and good times. About 35 years ago, the problem was the cost of feed lot cows versus grass fed cows and for several years the weather was the defining issue. If the ranchers bet the wrong way, beef prices went up and they barely cleared costs. If they bet the right way, they made a bit of money but were not hauling bucks to the bank in cattle trailers. My friends in the business bought new equipment only when their old equipment couldn’t be maintained anymore.
-The other problems are governmental with the FDA demanding local butchers meet big ag meet packing plants restrictions or demanding certain health measures in every American herd even though the health problems were thousands of miles away along with various tit for tat import/export restrictions.
-There doesn’t appear to be any help from congress as they sit on their hands instead of passing laws to get Uncle out of the business sector other than setting end standards that should be met. They can’t even agree on marking products with made in a lab, made on the farm, or bioengineered with RNA altering assistance labels.
Per Australian Navy , do the ships have sails ? Bunker fuel is short supply , or is it unicorn farts you need. Do they teach the Lady Admirals how to read charts , or was that a new sandbar she hit , oh she did capsize ,so a hard grounding I guess.
Yeah ,I’m being a jerk , the US navy ladies manage to hit each other in open sea. Or maybe I dreamed that.
You have got the wrong navy. You appear to be confusing the Royal Australian Navy with the Royal New Zealand Navy. They are not one and the same.
Thanks for boosting the signal on my little post! And re the beef prices, HS classmate is a rancher in East Texas. For the second time in 10 years, he’s sold off the herd due to lack of water. Kept 3 bulls and 3 cows, and is pumping water from the Red to ONE stock tank… sigh I’m not sure he’s going to try again. Lots of work for very little profit, as he raises Brangus mixed breed.
@Mike W you are most likely correct , but you guys are half a world away. Mia Culpa,Mia maxima culpa . So who has the admirals that can’t read a chart ? But both you guys are out of go juice ,,,right?
New Zealand. She was/is a member of the DEI fraternity.
Australia exports oil but is short on refining capacity. It is also a large LPG exporter.
New Zealand imports everything energy wise except for coal that is local.
Every blessing for Holy Week.
Regarding the Barrel Helm, and other ‘great helms’ like the sugarloaf-helm (a helm that ‘coned’ up at ear level coming to a point on top) well, yeah, they ditched it pretty quickly once the battle started. But the reason is a tad different than you’d expect.
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Here it is.
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Great helms were designed to protect the wearer more during the lance charges than in hand-to-hand combat. As such, they reduced peripheral vision and ventilation, giving more to protection from lance thrusts and the initial sword/axe/hand weapon from horseback fighting, a time when the massed ranks were still somewhat cohesive.
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Once it’s turned into a giant scrum, then the great helms came off. Doesn’t mean the warrior was unarmored on his pate, nope. At the minimum he was still wearing a maille coif (hoodie) and over that was, at a minimum, a heavy linen cap with a roll of horsehair enclosed in linen around the head above the ears (it’s what the helmet rode on, some were like what Russian tanker helms look like, no, not kidding.) Richer warriors had a helm, like a skull-cap or a shortened conical helmet, underneath the great helm. It’s where the barbutte, with or without a nasal, comes from. All the secondary helms leave the face exposed, so great vision and ventilation. But, well, that leaves your face exposed, so ventails, flaps of maille, were added to connect to the underhelm once the overhelm is gone. Later, the barbutte evolved into a helmet all its own.
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Be in their place. An open field, the army charges, suddenly everything is dust and muck flying everywhere, you’ve knocked 2-3 enemy out with your lance, smashed some with your shield and hand-weapon, and now everyone is interspersed, friend and foe alike. You toss your great helm (it could be chained to you or your saddle, or you just drop it) and now you can see somewhat better and breathe a lot better.)
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And… The heavy great helm isn’t bad to fight in. The non-tourney version has vision slots wide enough that you can actually see quite a bit (though limiting peripheral vision) and the ventilation isn’t as reduced as you would think (for those helms that have airholes on both sides of the helm, the ones with no airholes on the left side do ‘suck’ so to speak but they’re meant for jousting (lances come towards the left/shield side during jousting) so no problem there. The weight is well distributed by the webbing in the helm and the aforementioned padded coif of linen and horsetail hair. 4kg sounds heavy, but I’ve worn a 5kg SCA helmet for hours on end, while walking to the fight (it’s easier to wear it than carry it) and the fight and then back to the camp) or while doing fighter practice (first in armor, last out of armor, no need to take the helmet off unless you’re puking, overheating or passing out.) A properly fitted medieval helmet, just like a properly fitted modern helmet, isn’t THAT bad to wear.
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As to heat issues while wearing the great helm, well, knights had straw hats made to fit over their helms and underhelms that they could wear when not in battle (or in battle if they felt like it.) Some even had ‘mexican chi-chi balls’ or pom-poms hanging on the outer brim to help fend off flies and other insects. (My lovely wife absolutely would not let me wear a straw hat with chi-chi balls hanging off of it even though it was the height of medieval fashion at one time. My lovely wife wouldn’t let me wear one because as she said, “Just because they had horrid fashion doesn’t mean you get to wear it.”
And footmen’s helms tended to have a brim to keep jerks on horseback from hitting them in the less-protected neck area (which is a natural shot-trap, as in the angle from the shoulders to the head catches blows there.) Sun and rain protection were just added benefits.
👍