Yes, today is the Solstice, and the days will start getting longer tomorrow. Some people make a big deal about the day—mostly Pagans who like to run around naked in the woods. It’s a better activity for the summer solstice than the winter solstice, but who am I to judge?
If you need to celebrate the first day of winter, do it.
Pagans decorate a Yule tree and keep it in their homes until most leaves fall off, then burn the Yule log.
German Pagans don’t celebrate the presence of Zwarte Pete as part of their holiday traditions. I expect that is why paganism is dying out in Europe. What’s a Winter celebration without Sinterklaas’ negro helper who beats terrible children?
Bullet Points:
** Did Caesar conduct a census in Judea during Herod the Great’s Rule (Luke 2-3)? The Biblical account doesn’t match Roman or Judean history. Dan McClellan weighs in. It’s the same argument. John the Baptist was allegedly born during Herod the Great’s reign, which ended with his death in 4 BC. The census occurred in 6 AD under Quirinius, so there’s a ten-year spread.
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, also translated as Cyrenius, was a Roman aristocrat. In AD 6, after the expulsion of the ethnarch Herod Archelaus from the tetrarchy of Judea, Quirinius was appointed legate governor of Syria, to which the province of Judaea had been added for a census. It wasn’t a census that required people to travel. Rome wanted to know where they lived and worked and how much money or property they had for the purpose of taxation.
Tiberius Caesar succeeded Publius Sulpicius Quirinius after Quirinius died in 21 AD. Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under Emperor Tiberius from 26/27 to 36/37 AD.
Pilate was subordinate to the legate of Syria; however, for the first six years in which he held office, Syria’s legate Lucius Aelius Lamia was absent from the region, which may have presented difficulties to Pilate. He seems to have been free to govern the province as he wished, with intervention by the legate of Syria only coming at the end of his tenure, after the appointment of Lucius Vitellius to the post in 35. Like other Roman governors of Judaea, Pilate made his primary residence in Caesarea, going to Jerusalem mainly for major feasts to maintain order. He also would have toured around the province to hear cases and administer justice for matters under Rome’s jurisdiction.
As governor, Pilate had the right to appoint the Jewish High Priest and also officially controlled the High Priest’s vestments in the Antonia Fortress. Unlike his predecessor, Valerius Gratus, Pilate retained the same high priest, Joseph ben Caiaphas, for his entire tenure. Caiaphas would be removed following Pilate’s removal from the governorship. This indicates that Caiaphas and the priests of the Sadducee sect were reliable allies to Pilate. Moreover, Maier argues that Pilate could not have used the temple treasury to construct an aqueduct, as Josephus recorded, without the priests’ cooperation. Similarly, Pilate is depicted working closely with the Jewish authorities in the execution of Jesus. Jean-Pierre Lémonon argues that official cooperation with Pilate was limited to the Sadducees, noting that the Pharisees are absent from the gospel accounts of Jesus’s arrest and trial.
** Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant and Burgess Everett reported. The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime is sparking intra-party debate over Trump’s approach, particularly after he sought to wind down US troop presence in Syria in his last administration. “I would advise him to do everything he can to make sure ISIS doesn’t come back,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally. Other senior Republicans aren’t convinced: “Having any soldiers there’s a terrible idea. Soldiers serve as a target for terrorists. They serve as a tripwire to get us involved in a messy civil war,” Sen. Rand Paul said. He called for Trump to pull out the roughly 900 US troops stationed in Syria “on Day One.”
Some see the vacuum as an opportunity. What do you think, HogsbreathSS?
** You can’t negotiate peace with somebody who has come to kill you.
** Moving with EdB – you thought that all he did all day was go boating. No, there’s more, much more.
** Kamala raised $1.5 billion and spent $1.52 billion, three times what Trump raised and spent. Cooper did not consider that maybe Trump won because he was open and honest with the public while Kamala kept trying to hide her inner communist.
** The consequences of a Republican deficit among elites are profound. The GOP didn’t do well among wealthy voters, with the Democrats raising multiple times what the GOP did nationwide. Harris outraised Trump among wealthy donors by more than 3.5 to 1. In Montana, a very conservative, overwhelmingly white state where every statewide official is a Republican, Harris outraised President Trump despite losing the state by 20 points. The recent U.S. Senate election in Montana saw the GOP candidate outspent $69 million to $19 million (despite the GOP candidate leading in the polls for months). The GOP Senate candidate ended up winning easily, but it shows how much white elites have migrated to the Democrats, even in conservative strongholds.
**To all of you who can remember your childhood telephone number but cannot recall the password you created for your computer yesterday, you are my tribe.
** Are you ready to visit the megachurch? You don’t need to donate cash. You can swipe your card. And be mindful of the challenges of being a senior global international pastor with a family and family issues.
And when the senior global international pastor needs the services of the megachurch lawyer…it’s a full-service operation.
Can he also be Santa Claus?
The bronze statue of Zeus of Cape Artemisium, 450 BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens.
The current mood is that various cultures claim Santa Claus for themselves. Was he an African negro? I know that’s little black Pete (see above), but some people claim that Pete’s boss is also black. They also claim that Anne Bolynd and Cleopatra were black.
Being Santa Claus takes more than a white beard and ample body. Lots more. You also need elves that do more than bake cookies and can be enslaved to make toys at the North Pole.
Prices – The Taxation Factor
Who should play Obama in his biopic?
(a) Juicy Smollett
(b) The Reverend Al Sharpton
(c) Rachel Zegler
(d) Tom Selleck
Who should play Big Mike Robinson-Obama in the same production?
(a) The Reverend Al Sharpton
(b) Samuel L. Jackson
(c) Danny Glover
(d) Dylan Mulvaney
Could Biden Pardon the entire Democrat Party Pre-emptively?
(Jonathan Turley) There are growing indications that President Joe Biden is about to fundamentally change the use of presidential pardons by granting “prospective” or “preemptive” pardons to political allies. Despite President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated denials that he is seeking retaliation against opponents and his statements that he wants “success [to be] my revenge,” Democratic politicians and pundits have called for up to thousands of such pardons.
While there is little threat of any viable prosecution of figures like the members of the January 6th Committee, the use of “White Knight pardons” offers obvious political benefits. After many liberals predicted the imminent collapse of democracy and that opponents would be rounded up in mass by the Trump Administration, they are now contemplating the nightmare that democracy might survive and that there will be no mass arrests.
The next best thing to a convenient collapse of democracy is a claim that Biden’s preemptive pardons averted it. It is enough to preserve the narrative in the face of a stable constitutional system. Indeed, Biden’s pardon list has replaced the usual Inauguration Ball lists as the “must-have” item this year. Pardon envy is sweeping over the Beltway as politicians and pundits push to be included on the list of presumptive Trump enemies.
The political stunt will come at a cost. Preemptive pardons could become the norm as presidents pardon whole categories of allies and even themselves to foreclose federal prosecutions. It can quickly become the norm in what I recently wrote about as our “age of rage.”
It will give presidents cover to wipe away any threat of prosecution for friends, donors, and associates. This can include self-pardons issued as implied condemnations of their political opponents. It could easily become the final act of every president to pardon himself and all of the members of his Administration. We would then have an effective immunity rule for outgoing parties in American politics.
Ironically, there is even less need for such preemptive pardons after the Supreme Court recognized that presidents are immune from many decisions made during their presidencies. Likewise, members have robust constitutional protections for their work under Article I, as do journalists and pundits under the Constitution’s First Amendment. (more)
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
More than one variant – originally designed and flown as a float plane. 1,532 built.
Hint: 紫電, “Violet Lightning“
3
This bomber was designed with a pressurized compartment for high-altitude operations. Four Merlins powered it. Note the unusual landing gear arrangement of a wheel under each engine nacelle.
Identify the Vehicle
4
5
Identify the Film/Series
A
B
It’s a famous film. You don’t need a hint.
C
Parting Shot
h/t Frank
End
Who should play Obama in his biopic?
Too bz on the floor laughing
ok.
Mr Hawaii 5-0.
Both have that hawaii thing. A day in the Hawaii sun and Mr S is darker than who sane naturally.
Myke?
I’m leaning more towards Chris Jerico or H Hogan.
this is of course if it’s the Notflix production.
Reckon Mel Gubson could produce it?
or Angel Studios?
Juan
I’m sure that Mel Gibson would be proud to produce The Obama Story starring Tom Selleck as the sleek Hawaiian/Kenyan, with Dylan Mulvaney as Big Mike. Mulvaney would need to pad his ass but they can do that with Hollywood magic and a little AI.
C- three amigos
#3 landing gear under engines; can engineer’s explain the advantages of where the majority of the aircraft weight is, when returning from a bombing raid?
#4 vehicle, used in north Africa? Did they use these these on the TV series rat patrol?
#4 is a Russian vehicle – so not used in Rat Patrol.
#3 was a concept in landing gear that never took hold.
#C is indeed the Three Amigos.
Re: #3 Landing gear under the engines wasn’t for center of gravity purposes. It was because the airframe had more in common with a buckyball than a skeleton. They were experimenting with geodesic structures, in an early run toward the monocoque construction of today. The advantage of having a basket-weave frame is that there’s no single critical part to get shot, and open internal spaces. The disadvantage is that you can’t easily bolt something into the spars that aren’t there… so it’s easier to build multiple lighter landing gears into the bottom of the engines than to design in more places to take the load and stress of slamming into the ground. As ever in aviation, *everything* is a compromise. The lighter landing gear were also not that long – check out the astounding lack of ground clearance, in an era where airfields were literally fields more often than not.
.
Whether or not that would have proved to be a maintenance nightmare will never be known, as they didn’t go into production.
Very well explained. I remember being astonished to read that the Wellington bomber (also made by Vickers) had a geodesic structure. I had looked it up because of its role in Pastoral, by Nevil Shute. I also read that the structure made the Wellington able to survive a remarkable amount of damage.
#4 BA-64 ?
RE: Presidential pardons ~
1. if this administration didn’t do anything wrong, why the fuss about pardons?
And a corollary
2. If Biden was/is mentally incapacitated, are these pardons legitimate?
2. is a good question RSH? I’m sure his aides type them up and forge his signature while he sniffs children and gives billions to third world country’s. Your question would be a good one for a constitutionalist?
Listen to HogsbreathSS. He’s on target.
Only if SCOTUS finds him ineligible from a stolen election or wholly derelict in his duties/incompetent…as having come to light after the fact and “staff” was running the dumpster fire. But we know that ain’t happening in the next 30 days.
IDA:
1. Focke Wulf Fw 58 Weihe LNS6 Stkz
2. Kawanishi N1K Japanese fighter
3. Vickers Windsor Heavy Bomber
IDV:
4. BA-20 Soviet light armored vehicle
5. Sd.Kfz 234 Puma
ID Film Series:
1. Tulsa King
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
3. Three Amigos
Karen Allen was some kinda something-something back in her day, yum.
Yes, she was! I really liked her in “Starman”.
Who should play Obama in his biopic?
(a) Juicy Smollett
Who should play Big Mike Robinson-Obama in the same production?
easy (b) Samuel L. Jackson
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Focke-Wulf Fw 58
2. Kawanishi N1K-J George
3. Vickers Windsor
Identify the Vehicle:
4. BA-20 armored car
5. Sd.Kfz. 234/2
Identify the Film/Series:
A. The Family Stallone
B. Raiders of the Lost Ark
C. Three Amigos!
Surly ran the table.
Dylan plays Barack. Rachel Levine as Big Mike.
Santa! Darn Canadians. I thought stopping baby seal hunts were good for the environment; and climate change was going to take out polar bears.
Al Gore, oracle for our time, said that Polar Bears would be extinct five years ago. Guess not. People paid him a lot for his prognostications.
big mike- tyrus. barack hussein- chris rock. then will smith can play trump, slapping him silly…..anything and everything signed by biden should be overturned immediately since he’s been found mentally incompetent. camelface has effectively abandoned her post so johnson should be president until 20jan24. i would like somebody to show me the legal basis for pre-emptive pardons. i fail to see how you can be pardoned for something you haven’t been charged with, or even discovered….i won’t celebrate winter but i will rejoice in the days getting longer again. also celebrate team trump handing the dems and rinos their first butt whooping of the term before the term even started. its fun watching them squirm like worms in hot ashes.
Presidential biopic casting:
(1) Paul Rubens.
(2) Bobcat Goldthwait.
*
– Kle.
Now there’s a combo that I didn’t consider, Kle.
I wonder why 😮
Winter solstice is a much bigger deal when you’re starved for sunlight. I don’t celebrate it since leaving Alaska, but up near the arctic circle, we’d shuffle outside, drink coffee, and watch the sun rise / set. When it was over, we’d throw the last of the now-cold coffee in our travel mugs up in the air, and let it drift away in a fine rain of ice crystals. Even down in that nice suburb of Seattle half an hour away from Alaska – Anchorage – there was this feeling of deep relief, that while things might be at their deepest level of suck, life will be getting better.
.
You know, kind of like Nov 6.
That makes sense, Dorothy. Life looks different from a lower latitude.
A friend was complaining bitterly about there being a “heavy frost” earlier this week here in our Tiny Town.
.
G-d bless Texas. I sat outside in the sun for a while today, just because I could.
Solstice… greeted me with a 1/4” of freezing rain covered over by 2” of frozen snow slush. Then thanks to VM I was reminded that today was only the FIRST day of winter. Thanks for the reminder LL.
*
Puma had a big bark with that cannon. So while only an armoured car it was a formidable anti tank weapon if it could get off the first shot. After that of course it was dead. Still as infantry… better to have a few of those hanging around as support than.. “Hans do you have another grenade?”
It’s all part of the service, Al. Day One.
“…but it shows how much white elites have migrated to the Democrats…”
if I may offer an emendation:
but it shows how many people who are considered liberal (from California, Oregon, Washinton state) have migrated to Montana (primarily for the skiing)
>Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally
“Staunch”? That’s an insult! Miss Lindsey is Trump’s Greatest Ally. (In the Senate, that is.)
—
Biopic casting choices: none of the above.
RuPaul for Barry, some muscular negro gay (top) porn guy for Big Mike. (I’m not putting THAT into my search history.)
I wonder if Big Mike will leave Barack and hook up with Lindsay. They’d be the perfect DC couple. Big Mike has always been the “top”
Barack saw what happed to the “chef.” Big Mike PTSD must be horrible for Barack Hussein and the brothas. Nothing a little or lotta crack won’t fix for them. The only person who could play Big Mike is “Big Mike” himself. Anything less would be travesty. I always thought his book Becoming was about his/her transformation into a Minitour that would roam the streets of D.C. at will infecting and enslaving lefties to get in line or fall under the same fate as other souls in the swamp that didn’t get in line.
Mike_C…more like “stuffed shirt opportunist”.
BTW: has anyone else noted that we are now in the “Age of the Ad Threat”?
many moons ago all of our TV stations slowly became vehicles for “sponsors”; when ad-free cable came along, we gladly paid forthe ability to watch a program, movie, whatever without being interrupted by one to three minutes of irritating nonsense every five to ten minutes: now we’re paying (mucho) for cable and being again subjected to the same (there’s another word I’d like to use in lieu of ‘nonsense’, just can’t remeber it)
and youtube “Pay Up or Else”. hasten Jason, I need a bucket, not a basin
I’ve noticed.
–
There was a time about 40 years ago when some ads were amusing. Not now though and not for a long time.
If I hear “So you can tear one off and throw it in your wallet” one more time I’m gonna PUKE…..
“So you can tear one off and throw it in your wallet.”
It’s true that HogsbreathSS is a provocateur. However I must know whether you actually barfed – like projectile – or was it more along the line of a “heavy belch.”
I’d post a graphic of the projectile emesis, but the site won’t let me…..
I am finding that the current crop of commercials is interfering with my viewing pleasure. Where are the creative advertising writers? The commercials all feature actors who are politically correct but lack talent. I suppose I will pause the commercials and get a beverage or change dies for my next 6.5 Creedmoor reload. Then press ff/play and back in action. And with a better ballistic coefficient.
Today the presence of a negro or a tranny or a homosexual couple groping each other would seem to pass for a convincing narrative to get you to buy tampons, Pepsi, Rasin Bran or the latest drug (ask your doctor or Mike_C).
Solstice. Soon the sun will be shining on our balcony long enough for the dog to enjoy. Right now he is grumpy.
Pardons? Would a pardon disqualify you from ever holding an appointed post? Perhaps Biden will clean out the stable, by accident, so Trump doesn’t need to. If you accept a pardon aren’t you saying you are guilty of a crime?
Obama bioptic. Since I will never bother to see it I don’t care who plays what. Hopefully someone will play assassin with an Iranian made man portable SAM on the Obama’s private jet (with them in it).
You promised to get Banner his own sun bed for this time of year. It’s the least you could do for him when you consider all that he does for you.
I promised? That is a guilt presumptive close.
You discussed it.
I have yet to meet a dog who fails to take the mere utterance of the words “walk”, “ball”, or “treat” as a promise. ‘Twas said, and If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.
Spoiled dogs that get whipped cream in a cup “a pup cup” come to take that utterance with the most gravity.
So Trump’s going to have Bondi bring in the recently pardoned Biden staff and have them deposed under oath where the first questions will be about which papers they signed Biden’s name too, like pardons, and then show them the Dr. Jill WH tapes? Or do they show them the tapes first, then ask the questions? Dr. Jill is smart enough to be taping all this isn’t she?
I don’t know where they got $4/gal for gas in CA, my daughter paid $6 and change/gal in Lake County this week.
Yes, they understated it. A lot depends on where you buy it. If you’re driving through a Loves on an Interstate in CA (using their 10-cent/ga discount) it’s going to be less.
The Magical Mr. O Biopic? One of the Harry Potter Dementors because once he latches onto power he doesn’t let go until a Patronus Charm (aka. APDJT) is elected. for “The Mrs”, maybe The Shaq.
***
Diesel prices in Wyoming are .30 cheaper than Colorado…filled up in Laramie at $2.87/gal at the cheapie station. Then again, Colorado being the primary California refugee state has enacted a “no bag” (ie. ‘Buy a stupid paper bag from us for .10”) rule because it somehow manages to save the environment.
***
Caesar/Census- The Bible says he did and that’s enough for me.
***
Christmas is about giving and peace and joy and the coming of Christ, St. Nicholas was real and I like to think he had those three aspects dialed in better than most, myself included (the proverbial ‘work in progress’). What he looked like is not the main point…for me that is.
***
Sidebar…being the first day if Winter and all, and here, oddly 57 degrees, Pinedale (Wy), -3…no complaints from me as I gave myself most of a rare day off…but found Rufo’s take on the Manhattan Murder reason/aftermath spot on (from Kim Dutoit’s blog, see his comments as well):
https://christopherrufo.com/p/luigi-mangione-and-left-wing-nihilism
The #5 vehicle is not real. It’s a model set in a diorama. Look at the size of the leaves on the “road”….
Good catch, yes it is.
There’s discussion of Zwarte Pete and Santa Clause in the Fourth Quarter of this, but it wouldn’t hurt you to listen to the three quarters ahead of it :)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kTj1qy1Jk7znf5xndX1w9?si=9652174a9eff4a7f