I’m Dreaming Of a Normal Christmas

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

There is no New Normal. There’s normal, and then our present durance vile and captivity.

In this very abnormal Christmas, I wish you the joy of American Christmases to come.

Because we all know what came after Valley Forge.

Meanwhile have as Merry a Christmas as you can, and remember you are not alone, you are not crazy, and gaslight never illuminated anything except the desire of those who want to keep you in the dark.

Stay safe, stay sane, and know we are all with you in spirit.

234 thoughts on “I’m Dreaming Of a Normal Christmas”

  4. After that noted river crossing George and his troops captured 800 Hessians with the loss of a single American soldier.
    Note also what we did to the Axis in WWII. Only country so far to actually nuke two cities with an estimated 200,000 dead.
    Watched Forged in Fire where they made a duplicate of Washington’s sword. To me bore a striking resemblance to Oscar’s Lady Vivimus in Glory Road.

    1. I believe I’d mentioned that I lived in DC for some years. I always though that what was missing from the Enola Gay display was a banner that said, “ there’s more where that came from”

    2. Had to explain to a foreigner that this meme was a brag, not a denigration. (At least he knew to ask.)

      1. For small blessings, we give thanks….

        I guess I can see how folks wouldn’t recognize it, it is a very odd sort of bragging. Like “you can beat us. You can kill us. But you can’t defeat us.”

          1. Which the left never managed to learn, and those of their children who had a glimmer had it beaten out of them in our socialist public schools. American parents, my the Good Lord bless and keep them, do our darnedest to counter that pernicious influence.

          1. We Americans honor our families and take pride in our accomplishments.
            Sadly, your brother is a European, something you managed to shake off dear Heart.
            Euros are all about lineage while we simple folk respect a mutt who keeps his word and respects hard work. Now admittedly, most American families allow at least three generations to pass before turning their black sheep pirates and horse thieves into folk heroes.

        3. Yep. The essence of “it is a good day to die” is that they can kill you, but they cannot defeat you. We will never love Big Brother nor will we ever sing the praises of Oceania. We would rather go out fighting singing Battle Hymn of he Republic and The Star Spangled Banner. To quote Churchill, “we will never surrender”.

            1. I’ve posted this movie about the Argonne battle ere now, but it is a good example of the problems faced by those who would wage war against Americans.

              Maj. Prinz: [speaking German; subtitled] We learned at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood that these Americans are unpredictable. They don’t retreat when they’re supposed to.

              Gen. von Sybel: [in German] How inconsiderate of them, Major.
              ~

  10. Be not afraid, for I bring you tidings of great joy, Unto us is born this day in Bethlehem a savior who is Christ the Lord.

    The USCCB said we were to sing hymns in a subdued manner. Nah. Belted them out. Do the same. Who knew that singing Joy to the World could be subversive.

    Merry Christmas.

        1. Like Sir Francis Drake is supposed to do. (I think he’d be a better pull-chestnuts-out-of-fire leader than King Arthur, but that’s just me.)

          1. “‘But-ask of the Devonshire men;
            For they heard in the dead of night
            The roll of a drum, and they saw him pass
            On a ship all shining white.

            ‘He stretched out his dead cold face
            And he sailed in the grand old way!
            The fishes had taken an eye and his arm,
            But he swept Trafalgar’s Bay.”

            The Admiral’s Ghost, Alfred Noyes
            https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-admiral-s-ghost/

            1. If we’re queueing reincarnation I vote for Georgie Patton.

              Plus there is he believed in it already, so no long convincing required..

  12. Merry Christmas to all.

    On another note, I see Nashville had some excitement this morning. I’m wondering what the impetus of it was. Still seems slightly early to kick of boog.

    1. I suspect some folks will give the ol’ starter a few pulls before the damn thing fires up reliably.

      “Get a mower, do some mowin’
      Spend all morning gettin’ it goin’…”

      1. when i am forced to go to various training monologs, with out fail they will trot Einstein’s famous quote that to do something over again and expecting different results is insanity.
        and I will raise my hand, and explain that i have and old mower. and to start it i pull the cord. and it does start. and i pull the cord over and over and it does start. and finally i pull the cord and it starts.
        so it takes and act of insanity for me to mow the lawn.
        It works out, whenever my wife asks me to mow the lawn i shout “THAT’S CRAZY TALK”.
        she puts up with a lot from me.

          1. One of the difficulties of having smart kids is that they’ll try doing things over, adn over, and over.
            Stick with me, this is relevant.

            The thing is, the smarter the kid, the more changes they can see to make– what they lack is the experience to know if the change is relevant.

            So “don’t touch that” means they’ll touch it with a different finger, a foot, a tool, or throw something at it.

            Starting the engine? Each pull isn’t the same. Stuff moves from each pull, and that’s why it’ll eventually start up. Hopefully.

    2. My money’s on false flag, or like the enviroterrorists derailing trains in Washington state, a bit of (foreign funded, mayhaps) warfare.

        1. Eh, I don’t know. If you’re just a standard terrorist looking to blow people up you don’t give them a loud warning and a long head start. Either this guy is the most inept terrorist ever or he had something else in mind.

            1. Impossible. We can’t possibly be heading into a civil war. There is absolutely no way this could be part of a larger scheme, aided and abetted by compromised law enforcement.

              2. Doooood. *RES* is here. He has chasms of sarc that could swallow Olympus Mons several times over, and you’re worried about a mere ditch of sarc? Nice of you to be concerned, but really…

            4. I just found out this morning that the the bomb was outside the big AT&T building Nashville. A major swtching center fro cellular asn fiber from what I can gather. Given the reliance on such rechnology, that is definitely a target for an insurgency. Could be just some guy who hates the phone company but it looks a lot like a warning shot fired across the government’s bow.

              Keep your powder dry brothers and sisters.

          2. I have heard It was near an ATT building and ATT has been laying people off left right and center. The problem was this seems to be a LARGE truck bomb and those take time ( e.g. the murrah building attack took months to get the materials) to arrange. That seems to kill the revenge motive, it also means the conservative boogaloo seems unlikely as until November 3/4 we figured that the current administration was moving forward. The only people in rebellion long enough seem to be antfia and their anarchist friends.But they wouldn’t have bothered warning folks they like collateral damage. This is just one more fricking thing in a really weird ass year.

            1. The left revolutionary backers are the criminals, the media, and the deep state bureaucrats. If it isn’t the right, because of timing, and it isn’t the criminals, because not callous enough, then that points to media or deep state.

              Media is very hands off, and does not appear to be very competent.

              If the Fibbies infer that they will be rounding us up for the commies next year, why would they hesitate at domestic terrorism now? Some of the federal terrorist arrests appear to be a matter of finding someone ill enough to talk to the feds, and then supplying them with materials. Doing it personally is a change in MO, but obviously would be more secure if you wanted to make it happen deniably.

              Of course, now I notice that I’ve overlooked the Chinese and Russians. Might not be callous enough for them. DEfinitely isn’t the thought process of Islamic terrorists, so not Iran.

              Yesterday, I caught myself wondering if for the 2020s ChiComs being the source of crimes that media won’t comment on will be the new “and its Muslims”.

            2. I could buy the materials at pretty much any retailer in town within an hour. Matter of fact, they all have big bins right out front…….

              “Of course I have a BBQ grill! This IS Texas (VA, North Carolina, etc.)

              1. Which might explain why Greens have been saying backyard grills are evil for a few years…..

      2. My money’s on some poor schlub pushed over the edged by the panicdemic edicts. But of course the Left will try to use it to advance their “muddle, befuddle, finesse, and make examples to frighten people” strategy. They’ve bet it all on being able to keep the fourth box closed.

        1. I’m inclining to the “dramatic suicide” theory at the moment, with the communications collapse as being either an unintended consequence or worse than anticipated. BUT the 48 hour rule is also in effect, so YMMV.

      1. My son lives in Nashville. He and his lady are with us today, which is good.
        (I’m not fond of new country music, but I can tolerate it).
        As to who and why, who does blow up an RV? If the B-H Admin was in, I’d definitely think of provacateurs.

          1. Interestingly, people report hearing a recorded “this RV will explode message” with a recorded countdown (apparently starting at fifteen minutes).

            1. Which, oddly, tweeks it more into a very elaborate friction fire.

              Businesses ruined by restrictions, and betcha they’re copying Seattle’s homeless rules.

                2. Am about 20 minutes northeast. What we hear is that there were messages starting 30 minutes before the blast culminating with a countdown. The police were able to evacuate many, but were also pulled back after the blast in fear of the common terrorist tactic of bringing in the responders and setting off additonal explosives. It has affected communication in the area with little service. No mobile and sketchy internet.

                  Trying not to speculate without data. Thoughts are could go either way. Experiment to see how widespread communication interupt is with minimal damage, false flag, terror op. Don’t know what we don’t know.

                  Stay calm, collect data, do nothing quickly. Looks as if several million are without cell communication. First sign for us was no messages going outbound to Christmas wisshes from friends and family.

                  And as Sarah always says, be prepared.

                  1. We’re 90 miles south. Just checked, no signal. Luckily internet’s on another service.

                3. Exactly what I thought of. “I’m a thirty- second bomb! I’m a thirty second bomb! 29, 28…”
                  Does someone want to shut down New Year’s celebrations?

                  1. ETA, the Basque Separatists, used to give warnings. The one time they didn’t IIRC, it was because they DID, but someone dropped the ball in getting the message to the people who needed to hear it, and there were nasty casualties. A bit like one of the IRA bombs in the 1980s.

                    1. The IRA calling up in a red-hot rage because the UK cops had sat on/suppressed/failed to pass on that they were bombing an area is the one I’ve heard of.

                    3. Most of the domestic terrorists in the US used to give warnings as well. After Weatherman blew up the house they were crashing at, most of the groups quickly realized that actually killing people with their bombs was bad for publicity. So bombs were typically hidden in places like bathroom vents, and then a bomb threat was phoned in shortly before the bomb was supposed to go off.

                5. It was on the reading list for years. May still be on for all I know. The people who read from that list tend to be pretty good at blowing stuff up.

              2. CNN claimed it was white supremacists going after the bars. People with their heads not in their rectums are noting that a) it was right by an ATT data center (and comms went down about 6 hours later. Lots of coms. If I had to guess, they lost main power and the backups lasted 6 hours) and b) the Weather Underground used the pre-announce tactic a lot. b’) Members of the WU are still around, many teaching on campus. b”) they taught a lot of people, and not just grievance studies.

                It was a fairly large bomb if the reports are correct; debris field 2 blocks (not sure if that’s one or two block radius), with video showing a large boom.

                I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s false-flagged against the Vast Q-Anon Conspiracy (you know, the evil one that’s against communists and pedophiles), but my best guess is that this is another of the opening acts for a very interesting period before January 20th. Still, I don’t know which group may have done it. Who benefits?

                I switched from the .380 mouse gun to the 9mm flat pistol. Starting to think about John Moses Browning and Colonel Cooper’s advice to use something starting with ‘4’. We’re civilized; open carry is allowed around here.

                1. Looking at the post-blast pictures? It’s a two-block radius along the road.

                  Also… 6 AM on Christmas Day to target the BARS? And since when does whitey hate alcohol?

                  1. Well, we’re talking about the idiots of CNN. 👿

                    Seriously, attempting to imagine the “logic” I’m remembering an idiot visitor to Ringo’s Tavern (on Baen’s Bar).

                    This idiot assumed that John Ringo was “Conservative Christian” because “All Conservatives Are Conservative Christian”.

                    Another idiot (in Truth vs Pravda on Baen’s Bar) slammed Conservative Christians “thinking” that all Conservative Christians are against Drinking Alcohol (he also thought we were against Sex).

                    So if we “assume” all Conservatives are White Supremacists and all Conservatives are Conservative Christians who are against Drinking Alcohol, then “of course White Supremacists are Against Drinking Alcohol”. 😆

                    Crazy Logic, but we’re talking about CNN. 😈

                    1. As a result the only reason not to suspect that CNN is directly behind it is that they are unlikely to be that competent.

                      On the other hand, the current weirdness is maybe hitting them as badly as it everyone else, so a crazed decline into Baghdad Bob-ism would not be shocking.

                    3. >> “*smirks in basement full of [very loud, Christmas-high] children, wine and whiskey*”

                      [sigh]

                      After that “March of Cambreadth” parody Steve just linked my brain is starting to go to ridiculous places again. I read that and started mentally singing “How many prog heads can we make blow?”

                    4. Wanna really annoy them, have them be around dear husband and myself when we’re making the gaming group roll their eyes or flutter about how “Cute” we are.

                    5. Another idiot (in Truth vs Pravda on Baen’s Bar) slammed Conservative Christians “thinking” that all Conservative Christians are against Drinking Alcohol (he also thought we were against Sex).

                      I’m sure he also complained about Conservative Christians causing overpopulation by having too many kids.

                      Which makes one wonder what kind of grade he got in high school biology.

                    6. Another idiot (in Truth vs Pravda on Baen’s Bar) slammed Conservative Christians “thinking” that all Conservative Christians are against Drinking Alcohol (he also thought we were against Sex).

                      Every time I hear this bit I can’t stop laughing. I quite literally can’t even. I mean. Really.

                      “Extramarital sex is a bad deal, yo.”

                      “What!? You’re against all sex, anywhere, anytime, for any reason at all?!”

                      Sounds like typical democrat logic to me. *chuckle*

                    7. I’ve watched some discussion of Catholic stereotypes in Catholic blogs get pretty silly. Catholics really, really, really hate sex — and have large families.

                      Parents of large families tend to be the major participents.

                    8. I don’t drink (any more), but I’m not against drinking. It’s just with my medications, it goes against my sense of survival.

                      OTOH, I sure would have liked some rum in the eggnog tonight. Sigh.

                    9. What made me turn off one so-called ‘sitcom’ (I don’t care to remember which) was the protagonist railing against ‘white Catholic conservatives’. Really? How many Catholics do the writers actually know? I know a few, and most of them fall on the liberal side of the scales.

                    10. It’s a bit like screaming about all those horrible conservative Jews, yeah.

                      Identify-as-Catholic breaks down roughly even to US over-all, to the point of the Catholic Vote almost always going to the winning candidate.

                      The liberal cultural-Catholics, as opposed to observant Catholics, tend to be really loud.

                    12. Thinks ALL Christians are against alcohol? Have they ever met an evangelical Episcopalian? Admittedly our last baptist pastor was a teetotaler, but the current one would be happy to have a decent beer with you. Obviously they haven’t met many “Conservative Christians”. Of course this is CNN who generally can’t reliably find their backside with both hands and detailed instructions.

                    13. Thinks ALL Christians are against alcohol? Have they ever met an evangelical Episcopalian?

                      When my grandfather was showing the mill owner that the Catholics were really, really, REALLY not planning anything (JFK election time), one of the things that sold him was that papa knew where the priest kept his whiskey in the basement, near the Knights’ pool table. (For when confession needs a can’t-be-therapy-he’s-a-priest boost.)

                    14. Once upon a time I heard a joke involving a Catholic Priest.

                      He got some whiskey spilled on his clothing.

                      Since he was on his way to somewhere important but did have time to change clothing, some people were giving him advice on how to disguise the whiskey smell.

                      One helpful woman offered the priest some of her perfume.

                      He smiled and said that he was allowed the whiskey. 😆

                      Oh, do I have to tell anybody here that the priest was allowed the whiskey but not women? 😉

                    15. I have actually seen a long argument where someone could not be convinced that his joke about Catholics not drinking alcohol was stupid.

                    16. I can practically hear it…. “It’s a joke, quit taking it so seriously!”
                      “…dude, your joke depends on something that is not only not true, but is nonsense. It’s not like it’s not-true in a funny way, it’s like telling a Catholic joke that hinges on them not eating bacon cheese burgers.”

                    20. I suppose it is only the Irish Protestants who drink? The Italians, of course, are notoriously tea-totallers.

                      Mardi Gras, that celebration of the onset of the CATHOLIC holiday of Lent is (of course) famous for sobriety and decorum.
                      ~

                    21. There is a term for “jokes” premised on invalid stereotypes, and it not one which the wise would welcome.
                      ~

                    23. Reminds me of the quip in a short segment of the old show “Darma and Greg” that I saw a very long time ago. A political commentator says that Republicans don’t have sex, while Democrats only have sex with people that they’re not married to.

                    24. CNN is a subsidiary of Warner Media, which is owned by (drum roll) AT&T, so that talking RV bomb could just be internal corporate warfare bumped up to the next level.

                    26. joke about Catholics not drinking alcohol

                      Wait, what?

                      This person having not actually met any Catholics, obviously.

                      They know the Italian-ancestry folks are mostly Catholic, right?

                      That’s like a joke someone is a secret CrossFit vegan, never telling anyone.

                2. Well, I can still get 10mm ammo, unlike 9mm. Been thinking about a .40 conversion barrel for a while now, but haven’t (ahem) pulled the trigger on that yet.

                    1. Seeing some nice copper rounds that would do well to discourage just about any critter I’m likely to find in Florida, no matter the number of legs, just not looking forward to the cost for proving my firearm likes them.

              3. Nashville station ran a recording of the minutes before the blast. There was a warning, given repeatedly in a feminine robot voice.
                Also reports of “human tissue,” being found near the explosion site. Of course the media is thinking in terms of “suicide bomber,” rather than, “poor, random schlub wandering by.” They’re also speculating on fuel oil/fertilizer explosive, but I remember what the Murrow building looked like and to me, the damage doesn’t match. Otoh, they’re saying several hundred businesses and residences now have to be checked for structural damage and one building (not shown) is said to have collapsed. So I don’t know.

                  1. Agree, based on what I’ve seen in the media (I used to play with ANFO under controlled circumstances. It was the safest stuff for the type of blast effect we wanted [pyro effects].)

                2. There’s surveillance video with no shlub. Possibly a prisoner inside the vehicle, possibly a suicide bomber, possibly a decoy corpse; but whoever it was, it was right there in the blast crater.

                    1. Philadelphia covid scientist that the PRC probably killed included a body left near by that the crime could be pinned on.

                3. Husband– I’ve mentioned his hobby is basically “terrorism and how it is committed,” though he has included the cartels for decades now and most places don’t– looked at the damage and suggested butane or meth-lab that was just exceptionally bad.

                  …

                  Dear heavens, please do not make it a freaking Punisher copy-cat.

                    2. Which makes one think she is leaning towards butane, but saying that it has similar characteristics to meth lab explosions.

                      I worked drilling and blasting rock out of high school using ANFO as well as using it on farms when I was younger than that. And our FFA spent some time creating ponds for wildlife by literally blasting craters in the ground with ANFO (doubt they allow a group of high schoolers to play with a few thousand pounds of explosives nowadays). It is potent stuff, an rv stuffed with it would make a big blast, and it has some telltale signatures. Haven’t looked at videos yet, but if people that know look at it and are saying (as all are that I heard) that it doesn’t match an ANFO explosion, they are likely right.

                    3. Butane is used to make crystal meth and hash, and a lot of the time it’s hard to tell what they were making from what’s left.

                      From the size of the fireball, nevermind the warning– not an accident.

                    4. Wouldn’t a barbecue-sized propane tank be simpler and raise less suspicion than a few dozen cans of butane? After all, it blew the shit out of Wolverine’s camper in X-Men.

                    5. I try to avoid making things go boom, so I don’t know, but I believe they do sell butane in propane-sized tanks, besides the five-foot-tall cylinder options.

                    6. You can make meth out of a lot of things, most all of them flammable. Toulene was used a lot, and white gas made the “pink crank”. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve been around the type of people that cooked and I’m sure they have made advancements* in methods and materials but they still use flammable solvents.

                      But yeah that size fireball speaks of liquid or gaseous fuel in large quantities, not an accident or disposal of evidence. Possibly body disposal, but I would venture to say that is at most an incidental (handy way to get rid of a body you have laying around) the main purpose was the big public explosion and possible damage to nearby facilities/buildings while limiting casualties with the warning.

                      *For certain values of advancement, and replacement with substitute materials for ones the government makes hard to obtain. Red phosphorus and iodine crystals used to be used extensively in certain recipes, those got decidedly harder to get and the criminal chemists found alternate methods and materials or ways to make the materials (like iodine crystals from liquid iodine).

                  2. >> “looked at the damage and suggested butane or meth-lab that was just exceptionally bad.”

                    How does that jive with the well-in-advance announcement that the RV was going to blow up? There’s no way this was a sudden accident.

                    1. We hadn’t heard that part yet– and the size of the fireball makes accident really unlikely.

                      Hm, possible it was corpse disposal. A really major “do not go on our turf” message.

                      The picture of the RV ahead of time doesn’t make that look likely, though, and I’m not sure if the cartels are sane enough to try to avoid casualties.

                    4. Intimidation factor.

                      The more usual “cut them into chunks, put the chunks in cold chests and kick them out the door in down-town” hasn’t reached the US yet, at least not like in TJ.

                    6. Generally, the dead guy’s/guys’ associates are quite clear about it, with the identifying parts that are missing being the ones that might help law enforcement.

                      Going off of how often they’ll add in extra body parts to make sure that the only information those who aren’t involved have is “the people doing this are terrifying,” they don’t want clarity for most people.

                      Probably short of freezers with unused body parts in Tennessee, though.

                    7. Remember that NCIS series of episodes where the bodies started turning up in barrels of acid? Yeah. Had I been Gibbs, the perp(s) would have ended up as victims of weapons malfunction. Gag.

                    8. Husband looking at the fireball, going “that’s a really big fireball,” still can’t think of anything that fits better than gas type bomb because it went up. The buildings are still standing. No windows, but they’re standing.

                      Suggests that the point may have been knowing the bomb squad can’t get there in 30 minutes on Christmas morning, even with a recorded announcement– that’s one hell of a slap in the face, especially if you’re muddying the water about body disposal. (Setting the vehicle on fire is a favorite method. This is turned to 11, twice.)

                      Holy crud that is a big fireball……

                    9. Telecom data centers have an arrangement (that’s the ticket, “arrangement”) with the feds, notably NSA for phone/internet surveillance operations. Apparently, Nashville is one of the sites involved.

                      OTOH, it didn’t demolish the place, and the backup generators ran until TPTB had the gas lines turned off because reasons, perhaps even good ones.

                      List of suspects nontrivial, but take your pick it if was anti-surveillance.

                      I’m still baffled by the mayor’s joking and laughing over the deal. I haven’t seen the video, but I’m told he was highly inappropriate in his demeanor.

                    10. Re corpse disposal, our church sponsors a missionary in Honduras. Since she’s survived five assassination attempts (so far) she’s doing something right. Something about opposing rape, trafficking, etc. She told us SOP in Honduras for “dealing with,” someone like a local businesswoman is, “kill a close relative.” And then. “Keep finding and killing close relatives (like children) until they give in or you run out of relatives.” I gather they usually don’t come close to running out of relatives

                    11. Opening your door to find a child you love crucified on the other side will tend to have that effect, yes.

                      Another reason that I believe gun control is deeply, deeply immoral.

                  3. The one (singular data point, I know…) image of the blast-in-progress SCREAMED gas (gaseous hydrocarbon) to me. And I admit I don’t know much of the subject. Just… nothing else seemed to fit something that looked that ‘clean’ *in that moment*. I suppose it COULD have been a powder charge and gasoline… but I ain’t making any bets.

                    2. Yeah, and EVERY RV on the road has cylinders of it for everything from cooking to fricking refrigeration.

                      Yeah, Fido alerted on every RV in the lot.

                    3. Was calculating how many cylinders you can fit in a standard RV… and how not hard it would be to get a trigger spark… hardest part would be mostly gas-proofing the RV.

                  4. Another point: a meth dealer is unlikely to go to the cops and report a stolen Class C RV.
                    Just don’t tell hi. Why you want to buy a used meth lab. Let him assume….maybe that you’re a Breaking Bad wannabe.

                    2. According to PJ Media , there’s a Person of Interest who the Fibbies are looking to frame investigating. The published information really points to his guilt*; he owns/owned an RV of the same make and color. Sounds like they’re going for a suicide bombing narrative**.

                      (*) Can somebody get my eyes? I think they rolled under the couch.
                      (**) Convenient, that. Dead body, don’t have to keep looking.

                      (*) Cue the perma-sarc tag.

                      Link to PJM https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2020/12/26/mysterious-viral-video-of-nashville-bombing-surfaces-as-police-investigate-person-of-interest-n1287142

                    3. Seriously, there’s at least three similar RVs in 50 miles of where I sit.

                      Hope the guy phones in going “I’m a person of what?”

                    4. Oh, come on, have the Fibbies EVER gone after the wrong suspect before, ignoring all other evidence so they can look like they’re making progress?

          2. Every report I’ve seen says there was a 30 minute warning given. So someone intended this to happen, but at least made a nod at avoiding casualties. Hmmmm.

        2. Deep state, something something something.

          Could be Obama era politicized types who have held out for an opportunity, and think consequences will not be occurring. Or panicked because of information not yet publicly known wrt foreign sponsorship of the electoral fraud.

          24/48 hour rule probably applies.

          1. Lots of RVs are going to be headed towards Dizzy City in just under two weeks.
            Might be related.
            Might not.
            Lots of RVs in blue cities bring used by quasi-homeless that have been making right buttheads of themselves.
            It’ll be interesting to see if the connected Powers-that-be start freaking out and cracking down.

            Certainly an interesting choice of target means of targeting, and time to target.

            VIN tags would have survived the blast well enough to be read. Plates were captured on camera. Willing to bet the tags are missing, and that the plates were swapped somewhere without surveillance cameras. There’s still lots of potential for leads. Especially if the persons involved just swapped plates once. More, if any of the electronics of the triggering/announcing mechanism survived.

            Setting aside the data-mining thing, they certainly demonstrated that civil government command and control has major vulnerabilities.

      2. >> “Look, I’m no fan of Country Music, but all you have to do is TURN THE DIAL or switch the set OFF.”

        Everyone’s a critic, but some more than others.

      3. Generally, we turn around the walk out of the restaurant.

        It’s when they decide to turn it on after we placed our orders that things get annoying. And it must *always* be cranked up so loud you have to shout to be heard across the table.

        We have walked out before our meal was brought to the table when that happened. No, asking them to turn it down or to something else is a waste of time.

        1. “No, asking them to turn it down or to something else is a waste of time.”

          That has not been our experience here in Plano/DFW. It usually is possible to get it turned down; it really depends on the crowd and time of day. TV programs are more problematic.

    4. REdstate is reporting that interesting irregularities have been found with respect to an account that uploaded a video of the pre event footage. Suggests either a long term plan, with an organization with thoughts in this direction since spring, or that whoever did today’s explosion had found a useful anonymous account with creepy videos to imitate.

      I’m confused and disturbed.

        1. And instapundit links to a long twitter thread commenting on the bombing.

          Tweeter seems to be associated with deep staters like Preet, and media types like Tapper.

          A set up like that for laundering ‘speculation’ from a local journalists to prominent media figures?

          Sarah was correct about communist fraud. The Dems are playing too much hardball to be safe to concede to fraud.

  14. Merry Christmas to all. Especially to Sarah and family, and the extended family of commenters here.
    We put the fun in dysfunctional.
    John in Indy

  16. Wallabies, while we’re wonderful in myriad ways, rarely are “merry” and aren’t even sure how it is done.

    But the Wallaby household will have a quietly content Christmas and wish all who celebrate the day what Joy may found in this fallen* world.

    *And apparently unable to get up.
    ~

  19. Had to work last night, so I missed Mass at my normal parish. Went with my parents this morning instead. Sang really loud.

    It is stupid. Either your mask is good enough to block “droplets”, or you aren’t actually wearing a mask. And most of us already had this junk, and I seriously doubt the stats on “droplets” anyway, so what the heck, people!?

      1. Our church has regular services, no masks, no social distancing. Coffee and snacks afterwards. This spring they suspended the coffee and snacks for a while and spaced rows farther apart with putting some people in the foyer to provide room for everyone. When the powers-that-be said we needed to crack back down this fall it was completely ignored. We had a church potluck the week after they put Idaho back at a “Level Two” which is higher than we ever were graded in the spring.

        People are fed up and even though the powers-that-be are screaming the sky is falling and claiming everyone needs to hunker down in a hazmat suit, most of the rural residents and small town businesses are ignoring it and going on with business as usual.

        You seldom see masks unless you go to the cities or they are getting out of a car with Washington plates. And even in the most liberal city in the area, which has a mask mandate, you will see plenty of people (me included, if I have to go there) walking around the grocery store or Walmart barefaced.

  20. some people try and tell me this is the new normal, and are shocked when i try to explain that this cannot stand for long enough to be the new normal.

  21. After reading this I got to wondering: There is Santa and Elijah (on Passover) – are there any other characters who traverse the world, visiting multiple households, in a single night?

    Santa’s milk and cookies: The history behind the popular Christmas tradition
    For decades, American children have been leaving out cookies and milk for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, but few people know how and when the holiday tradition began.

    In a special Christmas episode of Fox Nation’s “At Home With Paula Deen,” the celebrity chef breaks down the fascinating history behind the sweet tradition and how it inspired countries across the globe in a new episode of a “Cookie Cutter Christmas.”

    [SNIP]

    The custom eventually stuck, serving as an inspiration to countries across the globe who embraced their own versions of the popular Christmas tradition.

    British and Australian children leave mince pies and a glass of sherry. Children in Denmark leave a bowl of rice pudding, while those in Ireland leave Santa a good old cup of Guinness, explained Dean.

    “Hopefully one of Santa’s elves are leading the sleigh after that stuff,” she joked.

    “In America, it’s estimated that Santa eats more than 300 million cookies on Christmas Eve each year,” Dean said, adding, “no wonder he’s got a little punch to him.”
    ~

    1. ““Hopefully one of Santa’s elves are leading the sleigh after that stuff,” she joked.”

      The reindeer ARE intelligent:

      1. So glad Fox showed us that Avengers / March of Cambreadth mash-up a while back, because I never would have got it otherwise. 🙂

    2. St. Lucia and her donkey, in parts of Italy. You leave oats fro the donkey.
      In Portugal the baby Jesus came down the chimney and left toys (this has changed to Santa, because media) but we didn’t leave food. Because baby.

      1. So that is where my sister in law got it!

        She’s not Italian, but an aunt-born-of-the-wrong-parents got her into Saint Lucia very heavy as a child, and they send out packets of oatmeal for Santa’s reindeer .

  22. our present durance vile

    Le mot juste.

    A few more:

    Stone walls do not a prison make,
    Nor iron bars a cage;
    Minds innocent and quiet take
    That for a hermitage.
    If I have freedom in my love,
    And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone, that soar above,
    Enjoy such liberty.<

    And..

    In the end we win, they’ve lost

    Because Christmas.

    Merry Christmas, Huns and Hoydens!

  24. Then sang the bells
    More loud and deep,
    “God is not dead
    Nor does he sleep.
    The wrong shall fail,
    The right prevail
    With peace on Earth
    Goodwill to men.”

  25. the world health organization, known as WHO has declaired that neither dogs or cats can have covid 19.
    therefore all dogs and cats that are in quarintine should be released.as a dog owner i felt that this is a wonderful christmas gift. let me repeat WHO … let the dogs out (and cats)

    I would like to wish everyone a merry x-mas and happy new year.

    i would say 2021 will be better, but then i remember that mad max was placed in 2021.

  26. Add “During a smallpox epidemic” after “On Christmas Day” and your Trenton meme would approach perfection.

  27. Update on my brother. He didn’t have a heart attack, but he does have pneumonia and another infection from a bedsore. Which he has because he’s been refusing to get out of his chair.
    Yes, it looks like slow suicide. No, I don’t know what to do about it besides pray. Arrrgh!

  28. Oh, hey, found something fun on Amazon Prime. There’s a two-part Italian tv movie called “Augustus” starring Peter O’Toole as the Emperor. Haven’t watched the whole thing, but the first scene after the prologue is BEAUTIFUL.

    You get the Forum and the markets. You get Augustus doing his “I’m dressed like a Roman farmer and I’m a super-charming old guy.” You get pretty much everybody dressed like actual Romans of the time period. And then you get Augustus reminding his daughter, with an edge of menace, that Rome doesn’t have kings.

    If you can pull that magic trick for even one scene, that’s pretty nice.

    I gather that a lot of the battles and history and Roman life later on are pretty badly staged and presented inaccurately, and that not all of the acting is good; but that little Forum scene is pretty darned nice. So yeah, not a military history or a historical fiction show; more an imperial intrigue show.

  30. Merry Christmas to all! Keep the Faith, he will make the crooked places straight, just not necessarily on our schedule…..

  31. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone on the forum and their extended family.

    A very Christmas thank you for all the work Sarah does for this forum and her fictional writings, and the work she inspires others to post as her guest.

    Plus one final prayer … Please, 2021 this is not the time to tell 2020 “hold my beer!”

  32. Merry Christmas from a descendent of one of those Hessian soldiers captured by Washington. He later went on to fight on side of the Americans, became an indentured servant to a farmer in Pennsylvania and married the farmer’s daughters. Six generations later, after my ancestors followed the frontier from Pennsylvania to Ohio to Missouri to Idaho, I am back East after traveling the world for many years. That is petty good for an Idaho farm boy and this is what makes America great. My son is both seventh generation American and a first generation American since his mother is Albanian, as were many of my ancestors.
    My wife grew up under communism and both her grandfathers died because of conflict between communists and partisans at the end of the Second World War. Then the communists confiscated all their property, leaving her grandmother to live in a small barn and her father was sent to the orphanage. Another aunt ends up the Camp working in the fields and forbidden to talk to anyone outside the Camp. After coming to America, my wife became an American citizen and earned a PhD.
    Many people in the US have little understanding of what socialism and all its variants really are and see only the utopian view that the left sells. This is not the America we had and we must fight against the left however we can.

    Merry Christmas swamp foxes.

    1. As I told a friend the other day, Hessians actually were “anyone who crossed Hess on a bad day.” A lot of people were press-ganged from other principalities, and even other countries. I have a vague memory of one being an ITALIAN priest.
      So many defected, and became Americans 😉

      1. Including not a few that ran for the hills as soon as they could. The Appalachian hills, of course. From New York to Tennessee, Scots Irish weren’t the only ones these little mountains sheltered from official (at the time) displeasure.

        1. Hessians tended to concentrate in Pennsylvania. (At least one prisoner, being marched through Philadelphia, had his aunt come out of the crowd to scold him from coming to attack his own kin.)

          2. Here in NJ there are the Ramapo Whites, they’re reputed to be the descendants of Hessian deserters along with the natives and the odd escaped slave. There’s still a few of them up there.

            It’s odd to think that what we think of as little hills were major barriers back in the day. The “short hills” were the primary barrier between the British and Continental army at Morristown and the Battle of Springfield is arguably decisive since it kept Washington’s army there in being. I live on one of those hills, they call them mountains though they’re only 250-500 feet high.

            1. They are an old lava flow that is now higher than the surrounding area in two parallel lines because the surrounding area eroded faster.

    2. oh, yeah, husband’s ancestor of the same name fought on the US side in the revolution. So my kids are…. 11th? Twelveth? generation on dad’s side, first on mine. 😉

      1. Son is 5th generation Oregonian on my side. First on his dad. At least 4th generation American on his dad’s side. My side? Also at 11th or 12th generation from both maternal and paternal, at least one or more pathways (here before the revolution and fought in the revolution along the rebels. Paternal side one Scott sneaked in (great grandfather), but his wife was born locally.

  33. Merry Christmas, again 🙂 Hope everybody keeps some cheer, saving up for the rest of the year. I’m very much afraid that 2021 is going to be a “hold my beer” year. Don’t really see how it can be anything elsr..

  34. With so much religious persecution it seems like a Chanukah sort of year! We all know how that worked out!

  35. Top of the hour news on Ave Maria radio
    https://avemariaradio.net/
    just explained how the contested election, house of reps, etc thing works. Phrasing it as something like reasonable allegations of wide spread fraud.

    This station is in Anne Arbor. They’re as far left as you can be and still be orthodox Catholic. It’s going to reach folks who normally only listen to main stream media.

    1. Considering Pope Communist I, that is pretty far left.
      Some Cardinals need their head smacked about for putting in the See and fool less Catholic than I, an atheist who paid as little attention as possible in Confirmation and CCD.

      1. Thank God (quite literally), his views don’t change a thing.

        There is simply too much that simply is, which he can never touch, which the Progs must deny, which means we cannot be Progressive leftists.

        1. My now deceased Aunt was not enamored with him, and for a time the fellow traveler priest assigned to my hometown diocese and was attending, of all things, a Baptist church when she couldn’t take the similar nonsense the next town over. The new priest that replaced the Commie one brought her back, and he was the one who did her funeral. I thought of her the other day when read somewhere, Commie-I said it was fine if the vaccine development used material from aborted fetuses.
          Catholics need a real Pope, not the Anti-Pope they got.

          1. A lot of the reporting– OK, everything outside of actual Catholic blogs– I’ve seen on the subject is terrible. For example, one guy thought he knew a lot because his wife is raising the kids Catholic, and he didn’t know the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is the guys that answer questions like this (Ratzinger/B16 was the lead of it for years, that’s how the stupid Harry Potter misreporting got going), and none of them have explained the whole “yeah, but” and how many vaccines use embryonic cell lines in development.

            Which hey, not a problem, except for the part where said news guy felt the need to comment on it with authority. -.-

            It’s the same moral situation as any other act of cannibalism. Not to be lightly done, and you want to make sure you don’t encourage folks to kill someone off — much less kill someone yourself!– but it’s licit when the harm is already done and a life can be saved.

            And last time I checked, at least one of the vaccines is entirely moral.

            1. Not a Catholic, but does the fact that the tissue was probably sold by PP thus increasing their motivation to do abortions change thing?

              1. From what I understand, no additional fetuses were harmed in the creation of the most recent material. I don’t pretend to understand everything that’s going on with it. But for something like this, the samples were “donated” long ago. Research was conducted using them, and that research was incorporated into things that came later – possible including some cells grown from the original sample. A similar situation might be someone using “medical research” from the Nazi death camps to figure out a treatment for a condition decades later. The modern researcher hasn’t done anything inhumane, but the use of that data is ethically problematic due to how it was obtained in the first place.

              2. None of the vaccine cell lines are, as far as I know, PP.

                Information here:
                https://cogforlife.org/vaccine-overview/

                That is one of the things that is considered, though. Especially since before China came out with a new cell line– a girl, of course, “therapeutic abortion” like almost all of them are– it was looking like they might be “providing” a line.

                To the best of my knowledge, even that flavor-testing company is using a non-PP provided corpse.

                The cell lines used in vaccines are more stable than the immediate tissue demands that PP tends to fill, as best I can tell.

            2. “A lot of the reporting – OK, everything outside of actual Catholic blogs– I’ve seen on the subject is terrible.”

              Fixed it for you.
              ~

      2. I think a more accurate analogy is that some cardinals need their “Saul on the Road to Damascus” moment. They’ve got belief. Unfortunately, that belief is likely in something that declares the Catholic church (as well as every other church) to be an opiate of the masses.

        1. They don’t understand that some times, the opiate is needed in order to allow rest so that healing can get well underway. Past that point, the analogy breaks down faster than a cardboard boat caught in Typhoon Nargis.

          1. Marx’s analogy, that is. I’m getting ready to teach Marx in a few weeks. Ugh. That man needed an editor. I respect F. Engels determination to get Marx’s writings turned into something coherent. (That’s the ONLY thing I respect about Engels.)

            1. Marxism is by its inherent nature incoherent, because socialism/communism is incoherent, that only survives because it is essentially a religion where its dogma is not subject to question, rather than a philosophy subject to the give and take of reasoned argument.

              1. Ignoring for a moment the sheer incoherence and leaps of logic present in the system, and that the emotional foundation is pure envy…. (so ignoring 99% of Marxism)

                When we get down to the root premise of Marxism we have……. the Labor Theory of Value. Which is complete bunk on its own merits, and then as a intrinsic value theory is also complete bunk on the merits of its category.

                Marxism is fractally wrong. No wonder it has to murder people on an industrial scale to come into existence.

                1. Murder to some degree during implementation, eggs and omelets and all that, and then more and more when it inevitably obviously fails, in order to sustain itself and suppress those who notice out loud.

                  The real world “That which must not be named” is the inevitable failure of the socialist inevitable arrow of history, with any such naming punishable on an arbitrary sliding scale with an accelerating slope. The only thing truly inevitable in socialism in its bloody quest for “true communism” is the body count.

                  That’s why the folks who came here from commie states have had such a visceral reaction to the way China Joe “won”: They have first-hand personal experience with what inevitably comes next.

            2. No, the world would be a much better place if Engels had left bad enough alone, and Marx had remained utterly unreadable. The evil that sprung from that infernal collaboration is nearly immeasurable.

              They should be buried side by side, to make pissing on both of their graves convenient.

              1. They really need to put Hegel’s there also, as it is his stuff that is the root of the odiousness that Marx and others spewed.

  36. I expected that tptb would reuse the whole pandemic thing over and over because it gave them so much power, whether from ccp attack or just the dem fraudsters. But I was kind of hoping they’d at least give us a break before starting it up again. But no, it looks like their intention is to never give us our freedom back. There will be one covid variant after another (i.e a “cold”) won’t there?

    As far as being able to *fix* the fraud… https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/why_sidney_powell_gets_the_galileo_treatment.html

    I have the horrible feeling the only way to get the dems to agree to voter id and reasonable voting security is to commit as much fraud as they do. And that’s a horrible thought.

    1. I have had the same thought: By defining what they did to carry China Joe over the line as not-fraud, there is little they can say when the same exact thing is done in the other direction.

      Except that they will throw the full power of the deep state at any such that occurs, regardless of the hypocrisy, because they can, and the idiot-middle electorate will only see the media coverage of that crackdown and the midnight door-kicking roundups and media perp-walks of the conspiracy members, coincidentally including all the opposition with any public respect.

      To worry about hypocrisy they have to care about what will be said by the sayers-who-matter, and since they own the three letter media heart and soul, they really don’t.

      1. Yeah, there’s clearly totally different standards for “hypocrisy” depending on which “side” you’re on. But after the relevations of the last few months, I find it completely believable that Republican members of the uniparty are also in on the fraud, which would explain why they push so hard for Trump to concede.

        1. I believe that after some variable period of time in DC depending on innate depth of character, whether in the make-me-a-millionaire-Senate or the less remunerative House, any us-versus-them between the politicians of the two allowed political parties is superseded by the deeper us-versus-them between politicians-in-power and the electorate.

          Given the electorate is the sovereign in our form of government, a name for such a position leading to active opposition is left as an exercise for the reader.

      1. I will note that the most reported number includes only those since they started counting.

        I know for absolute certainty that even in places where there are severe restrictions there are lots of “grandad brought this home with him from overseas” items in closets.

        Heck, this past May out here in Silicon Valley, in upscale Saratoga, a homeowner digging in their front yard uncovered a cache of live WWII pineapple grenades.

        So multiply that number by at least 1.5.

      2. *STANDARD* firearms.

        There are.. alternatives. Not quite as viable, or easy, but they exist… or *will*.

        Smokeless (and black to lesser degree) powder is the nice, convenient, perhaps most effective option.
        It is hardly the only one.

  37. An excellent Christmas. Thanks to one son my library of books by Sarah Hoyt expanded by two. I started on “Witchfinder” yesterday.

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