Last Chance for 372 years. Or 456.

• Shortest Day: Total Eclipse and Solstice Tonight
• Is START 2 ‘Sticks And Ashes’ in America’s Christmas Stocking?
• Tomorrow FCC Proposes New ‘Secret’ Regs On Internet.
• Unholy War Against Christians
• Bah Humbug Early History of Christmas and Trees.
• South, Japan and U. S.Targets For North Nukes
• Russia Uses Cyber-Weapon
• Bullet Bob Feller Has Died
• Shoplifting Is Always a Mistake But More So In This Case
• “Duck and cover” passé
• Bush Tax Extension Signed By Obama: Hope and Change- But…
• Americans Have No Charity for Assange
• U. S. Navy Fires Record 33-Megajoule Rail Gun

South Koreans crowded the last ferry to Inchon Sunday from Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea on what many believe will be the day before their country’s live fire exercises in the adjacent Yellow Sea. North Korea warns it will retaliate. It attacked the island in November killing two ROK marines and two civilians in an artillery barrage.  The island and area have been disputed since the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War.

Insomniacs will get an early Christmas gift as the sun and moon will appear at their darkest as a full lunar eclipse and winter solstice coincide for the first time in 456 years. The eclipse will happen tonight on the West Coast and during the wee hours Tuesday on the East Coast.

North and Central America should be able to view the entire show, which is expected to last 3½ hours if skies are clear. Total eclipse begins at 11:41 p.m. PST Monday or 2:41 a.m. EST (0741 GMT) Tuesday. The totality phase - when the moon is entirely inside Earth’s shadow - will last a little over an hour at 72 minutes.

Those of Celtic descent may be overcome with a desire to paint themselves blue and prance naked around a bonfire in celebration. That depends in large measure on the amount of iske-bahe (water of life) you have consumed ( iske as in whiskey).

A consequence is that the mood is grim at Hellfire Club HQ in London ahead of Tuesday’s solar ingress into Capricorn.

Ancient files published this week describe the Illuminatis’ rage in1554 when some dimwit last dared leak their sordid secrets. The culprit was eventually prosecuted as a sex beast and boiled in oil for his gall.

That year there was a total lunar eclipse accompanying the Winter’s Solstice, the first such double in nearly 600 years.

The gravity of that phenomenon drove many of the so-called Enlightened Ones nuts with dread however.

Their mania was eventually attributed to a ‘deep-pitched monotone alien pulse’ coming from somewhere underneath Stonehenge where their evil HQ lay.

That was the last time in recorded history when the Moon was completely darkened by the Earth’s shadow at the start of Yule.

Now a repetition of that cosmic trainwreck is completely freaking out the Illumniati’s descendants from those heady days of the mid 16th century.

Last weekend NASA said that next Tuesday’s eclipsed full moon overlaps the year’s shortest day when Earth will be at its closest to the Sun - something that won’t happen again until December 21, 2485.

Al-Qaeda is claiming it set the wildfires in the Carmel mountains in Israel that killed over 40 earlier this month.

Concern among experts in the arena of international treaties that the Obama administration is forcing U.S. senators to ram through a new strategic arms reduction document with the Russians without fully understanding the implications or its provisions - described by critics as unverifiable, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

“(President Barack Obama’s) demand that senators approve this defective accord during the few days remaining in the lame-duck session amounts to contempt of Congress,” said Frank Gaffney who is president of the Center for Security Policy. “It must not be tolerated, let alone rewarded.”

Critics say the treaty could “restrict” America’s ability to defend itself, and suggest that there may be provisions Obama doesn’t want members of the Senate to analyze, and possibly oppose. The bone of contention on ratification starts because of language in the preamble that Republicans say will inhibit U.S. authority to develop its missile defense capabilities - something Russia agrees with but Obama does not. Republicans failed Sunday to send the treaty back to negotiation to amend it.

Russia contends START 2 specifically limits the U. S. in the deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defense. Obama says that is incorrect. Most expect Start 2 ratification to be jammed through the lameduck Congress.

Billy the Kid (November 23, 1859- July 14, 1881) the deranged homicidal maniac, who is reputed to have killed 21 men and whose exploits have been widely chronicled in U.S. popular culture, is under consideration for a pardon.

In a colossal waste of time and taxpayer money New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said on Thursday he was reviewing a pardon petition based on the widespread belief that then New Mexico territorial Governor Lew Wallace promised the 19th century gunman a pardon in exchange for his testimony in a murder trial.

in 1881. Billy the Kid had escaped from the Lincoln County jail while Sheriff Pat Garrett was in a neighboring town buying lumber to build a gallows to hang him. Garrett hunted him down again and shot him to death.

Tomorrow via the FCC, Obama wants to take control of the Internet— changing your ability to contact your friends, your relatives, and even your elected representatives in government.

This “stealth” use of new rules and regulations will sneak up on us just before Christmas. Quite frankly, not too many people know about this; or really take the notion seriously, because, after all, we have the 1st Amendment to the U. S. Constitution to protect us. Right? Wrong!

The FCC is ready to add the Internet to its “portfolio” of regulated industries. The Obama Administration wants to take control of the Internet. BEFORE CHRISTMAS! (even though the regulations won’t “officially” go into effect until after the holidays. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that he has circulated “draft rules” that he says will “preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet.” But, those rules are secret.

Obama’s FCC appears ready to steal our Internet freedom by simply declaring it has the “right” to regulate it. Here’s the underlying problem for Obama. Internet journalists tend to report the news without coloring it with the brush of “political correctness.”

According  to the Washington Times: “With a straight face, Mr. Genachowski suggested that government red tape will  increase the ‘freedom’ of online services that have flourished because bureaucratic busybodies have been blocked from tinkering with the Web. Ordinarily, it would be appropriate at this point to supply an example from the proposed regulations illustrating the problem. Mr. Genachowski’s draft document has over 550 footnotes and is stamped ‘non-public, for internal use only’ to ensure nobody outside the agency sees it until the rules are approved in a scheduled December 21 vote. So much for ‘openness.’

Temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f) across the UK and its Weather Office said this December was ‘almost certain’ to become the coldest since records began in 1910.

As Christians worldwide ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ many of the most ancient churches established in his name are being pushed to the brink of oblivion across the region where their faith was born.

The culprits are Salafist Islam’s increasingly virulent intolerance, the West’s convenient indifference and, in the case of Iraq, America’s failure to make responsible provisions to protect minorities from the violent disorder that has persisted since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

When America intervened to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Christians - mostly Chaldeans and Assyrians - numbered about 1.4 million, or about 3% of Iraq’s population. Over the last seven years, more than half have fled the country and, as the New York Times reported, a wave of targeted killings - including the Oct. 31 slaying of 51 Christian worshipers and two priests during Mass at one of Baghdad’s largest churches - has sent many more Christians fleeing. Despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki promises to increase security, many believe the Christians are being targeted not only by Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has instructed its fighters “to kill Christians wherever they can reach them,” but also by complicit elements within the government’s security services.

The United States, meanwhile, does nothing - as it did nothing four years ago, when Father Boulos Iskander was kidnapped, beheaded and dismembered; or three years ago, when Father Ragheed Ganni was shot dead at the altar of this church; or two years ago, when Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was kidnapped and murdered; as it has done nothing about all the church bombings and assassinations of lay Christians that have become commonplace over the last seven years.

The human tragedy of all this is compounded by the historic one. The churches of the Middle East preserve the traditions of the Apostolic era in ways no other Christian rites or denominations do. The followers of Jesus were first called Christians in Antioch Syria, and it was there that the Gospels first were written down in Koine Greek. For 1,000 years, the churches of Iraq and Syria were great centers of Christian thought and art. Today, the Christian population is declining in every majority Muslim country in the region and is under increasingly severe pressure even in Lebanon, where it still constitutes 35% of the population.

In related reports German police raided homes and offices linked to two Islamic groups this week, using “anti-Nazi laws of association,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. The groups raided are made up of fundamentalist Salafist Muslims, and a government official says they are suspected of wanting to “create an Islamic theocracy and working against the democratic order of Germany,” notes AP. Notably, neither is accused of planning any kind of violence.

“These groups are a problem for integration, even maybe for radicalization, though not necessarily for violent jihad,” said a former German lawmaker now with the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. “They are very orthodox and like to be separate but are not preaching but usually condemning violence. The problem is that some jihadis in Germany from before identified themselves as Salafi.”

Whatever you think about using grating words, at the end of the day it’s actually better not to say whatever, if you know what I mean. For the second consecutive year “whatever’ topped a Marist U. poll as the most annoying word or phrase in the English language.

When Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan forces took over England in 1645, they vowed to rid England of decadence and, as part of their effort, cancelled Christmas. By popular demand, Charles II was restored to the throne and, with him, came the return of Christmas.

The pilgrims, radical English separatists that came to America in 1620, were even more orthodox in their Puritan beliefs than Cromwell. As a result, Christmas was not a holiday in early America. From 1659 to 1681, the celebration of Christmas was actually outlawed in Boston. Anyone exhibiting the Christmas spirit was fined five shillings. By contrast, in the Jamestown settlement, Captain John Smith reported that Christmas was enjoyed by all and passed without incident.

After the American Revolution, English customs fell out of favor, including Christmas. In fact, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America’s new constitution. Christmas wasn’t declared a federal holiday until June 26, 1870.

It wasn’t until the 19^th century that Americans began to embrace Christmas. Americans re-invented Christmas, and changed it from a raucous carnival holiday into a family-centered day of peace and nostalgia. But what about the 1800s peaked American interest in the holiday?

The early 19^th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. During this time, unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season. In 1828, the New York city council instituted the city’s first police force in response to a Christmas riot. This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.

In 1819, best-selling author Washington Irving wrote The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, gent., a series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house. The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly. In Irving’s mind, Christmas should be a peaceful, warm-hearted holiday bringing groups together across lines of wealth or social status.

Irving’s fictitious celebrants enjoyed “ancient customs,” including the crowning of a Lord of Misrule. Irving’s book, however, was not based on any holiday celebration he had attended-in fact, many historians say that Irving’s account actually “invented” tradition by implying that it described the true customs of the season.

The North and South were divided on the issue of Christmas, as well as on the question of slavery. Many Northerners saw sin in the celebration of Christmas; to these people the celebration of Thanksgiving was more appropriate. But in the South, Christmas was an important part of the social season. Not surprisingly, the first three states to make Christmas a legal holiday were in the South: Alabama in 1836, Louisiana and Arkansas in 1838.

In the years after the Civil War, Christmas traditions spread across the country. Children’s books played an important role in spreading the customs of celebrating Christmas, especially the tradition of trimmed trees and gifts delivered by Santa Claus. Sunday school classes encouraged the celebration of Christmas. Women’s magazines were also very important in suggesting ways to decorate for the holidays, as well as how to make these decorations.

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, America eagerly decorated trees, caroled, baked, and shopped for the Christmas season. Since that time, materialism, media, advertising, and mass marketing has made Christmas what it is today. The traditions that we enjoy at Christmas today were invented by blending together customs from many different countries into what is considered by many to be our national holiday.

In the 7th century a monk from Crediton, Devonshire, went to Germany to teach the Word of God using the triangular shape of the fir trees perhaps used to teach the Trinity. By the 12th century it was being hung, upside-down, from ceilings at Christmastime in Central Europe, as a symbol of Christianity. The first decorated tree was at Riga in Latvia, in 1510. Martin Luther is said to have decorated a fir tree with candles.

The Christmas Tree first came to England with the Georgian Kings who came from Germany bringing the custom with them. But, it was not readily accepted. Until 1846, the popular Royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert formally introduced the Christmas tree to court. The idea almost immediately caught on and spread to America.

A team of scientists say they have positively identified an embalmed head, presumed lost in the chaos of the French Revolution, as that of King Henri IV of France, the first of the Bourbon dynasty, who was assassinated in 1610. The head was lost after revolutionaries desecrated the graves of French kings in the royal basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris in 1793.The head appears to have been secretly passed along a chain of private collectors. The head will be reburied next year in the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

As tensions continue between the Koreas a newsletter run by dissident North Koreans, reported that North Korea’s government says North Korea is developing nuclear torpedoes and mines to neutralize South Korean, Japanese bases and U. S. Navy carrier strike forces. The source claims nuclear mines already exists and the torpedoes will be available for deployment in 2012.

A Washington Times article cited a U. S. intelligence source saying “China’s strategy is simply to have us negotiate with North Korea and Iran until its nuclear weapons start to kill us. If our leaders cannot now organize to end these threats and then deal with China, then we are condemned to an awful fate.”

The report also follows disclosure by WikiLeaks of a document that indicates for the first time that a Chinese specialist told U.S. officials that North Korea has covert underwater nuclear facilities.

China tried to bribe the government of the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan with $3 billion if the Bishkek government would agree to close a strategic U.S. airbase there called Manas, a confidential State Department cable said. The cable reveals this and other Chinese efforts to undermine anti-terrorism efforts by the U.S.

Estonia has been the victim of the world’s first coordinated cyber attacks against a nation state and its political and economic infrastructure,” a June 21, 2007 U. S. State Department report says.

The sophisticated cyber attack affected both government and private sector infrastructure for over a month, including government, banking, media, and other Estonian Web sites, servers, and routers that were hit with a “barrage of cyber attacks.”

Perhaps most notable was that the source of the cyber-attack was Russia.

The attack was the “virtual shot heard round the world, signaling a new era of cyberwarfare,” the report said.

No “smoking gun” was found linking Russia to the episode. But, the Estonian government believes that the probing nature of the attacks on specific government and strategic private sector targets through the use of anonymous proxies fit the modus operandi of the Putin regime testing a new “weapon.”

In addition to the segments cited above such cyber weapons can disable vital services including power grids, telecommuications networks, military and public safety segments. It can be compared to a non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse assault.

A 103-year-old woman in Wales is the world’s oldest Facebook user. It just goes to show you that you’re never too old to waste your precious time. — Ferguson

Bob Feller (November 3, 1918 - December 15, 2010) has died in his beloved Cleveland of complications from Leukemia. He was 92.

Feller who came off an Iowa farm with a dazzling fastball that made him a national celebrity at 17 and propelled him to the Hall of Fame as one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, He had played for the Indians for 18 years.

Joining the Indians in 1936, Feller became baseball’s biggest draw since Babe Ruth, throwing pitches that batters could barely see - fastballs approaching 100 miles an hour and curveballs and sinkers that fooled the sharpest eyes. He was nicknamed, nicknamed “The Heater from Van Meter”, “Bullet Bob”, and “Rapid Robert.”

Feller was the first major leaguer to volunteer for combat in World War II and served four years aboard the USS Alabama missing four seasons. He returned to baseball after World War II and retired in 1956.

Joe Demaggio once remarked of a Feller fast ball “That last one sounded a little low.”

A 52-year-old Wisconsin Postal worker delivered a 24-year-old woman’s mail to her office in the nude in what he said was an effort to cheer her up. After he was arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior he called it a “bad idea.”

A U.S. Marine reservist collecting toys for children was stabbed when he helped  stop a suspected shoplifter in eastern Georgia.

Best Buy sales manager  Orvin Smith told The Augusta Chronicle that the man was seen on surveillance cameras  Friday putting a laptop under his jacket at the Augusta store.

When  confronted, the man became irate, knocked down an employee, pulled a knife and  ran toward the door. Outside were four Marines collecting toys for the service  branch’s “Toys For Tots” program.

Smith said the Marines stopped the man,  but he stabbed one of them, in the back. The cut did not  appear to be severe.

The suspect was subdued and transported to the local hospital  with two broken arms, a broken leg, possible broken ribs, assorted lacerations  and bruises he obtained when he fell, trying to run after stabbing the  Marine.

The suspect, whose name was not released, was held until police  arrived.

The Richmond County Sheriff’s office said it is investigating.

Must have been ONE LONG FALL!

A company that sells radioactive “seeds” to be implanted to defeat prostate cancer reports its business has fallen 20% due to a provision against “devices” in Obamacare.

Physicians seeing incomes fall if they implant the seeds while they rise if they do more invasive surgeries are doing more of the latter. Enlightened self-interest dictates that.

A baby born today, with an expected lifetime of 80 years, faces a greater than 50-50 chance that a nuclear weapon attack will occur in their lifetime most likely from terrorists, a Stanford scientist says.

For three generations Americans have been taught to “duck and cover” but a new Department of Homeland Security guide says the order is shelter in place adding these recommendations:

• Find the nearest building, preferably built of brick or concrete, and go inside to avoid any radioactive material outside.
• If better shelter, such as a multi-story building or basement can be reached within a few minutes, go there immediately.
• If you are in a car, find a building for shelter immediately. Cars do not provide adequate protection from radiation from a nuclear detonation and the idea of outrunning its radioactive cloud is foolish.
• Go to the basement or the center of the middle floors of a multi-story building (for example the center of the 5th floor of a 10-story building or the 10th to 20th floors of a 30-story building).

“Shelter in place. That’s the single biggest message,” says L.A. County health director Jonathan Fielding “That’s the best way to save lives and prevent radiation-related illnesses. It runs counter to your basic instinct to get away and reunite with family members. If their kids are in school or in day care, that’s where they should stay,” he added.

An estimated 285,000 people, a mile away and unsheltered from a detonation in Los Angeles, would be sick or die from radiation exposure, Buddemeier said. “Even with a poor shelter, like a wood frame house, you would save 160,000 people from significant exposure,” he maintained. “If people were to find shelter in a shallow basement or a multistory apartment or commercial building, 240,000 out of that 285,000 would be saved from significant exposure. If you can get into an underground parking garage or the core of an office building, you’d have no significant exposure at all,” he said.

The morbid government holiday announcement just now likely has more to do with pressuring for the new START TREATY ratification. Nevertheless the suggestions are valid.

Al-Qaida is planning Christmas attacks in the U.S. and Europe. The U.S. government sprang into action and told al-Qaida, “Hey, you cannot call them Christmas attacks, you have to call them holiday attacks.” — Leno

America has let out a collective sign of relief as Congress voted to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone and Obama signed the bill. Of course this sets up what could become the big debate for the 2012 Presidential election campaigns.

Those concerned about the “death tax” or federal estate tax, saw Congress pass an exemption for first $10 million of a couple’s estate to pass to heirs without taxation. The rest would be taxed at a 35 percent rate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the estate tax the “most egregious provision” in the bill and held a vote that would have imposed the higher estate tax. It failed in a 194-233 vote.

But that doesn’t mean the battle over the estate tax is over just yet. Democrats could still seek to raise the tax in separate legislation next year.

Grumbling Democrats said Friday that Republicans outmaneuvered Obama by getting the estate-tax provisions and an extension of the Bush tax cuts

for the wealthy.

Sunday VP Biden was on talking head shows spinning as hard as he could.

This Christmas season, the post office will handle 10 billion packages. They won’t deliver them, they’ll just handle them. — Letterman

Last week, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was released on bail from a London prison and exiled into self-described “mansion arrest” in the English countryside awaiting an extradition hearing on sex charges in Sweden.. He admitted that he is worried about U. S. charges against him and that he could be extradicted to U. S. custody.

If his fate were left to American voters 88% would have him arrested and tried. 83% say the same thing about those who purloined such documents and sent them to Assange. Only 38% would push for punishment of those media outlets that published the documents.

America’s judgement is even harsher for Army Private Bradley Manning who purloined and sent the classified and secret material to Assange. Manning is still imprisoned at Quantico, Virginia awaiting court martial.

The single biggest unanswered question about WikiLeaks remains who funds it and its front man Assange? Once known that will explain lots.

Some say the city-state Singapore is obsessed with cleanliness, and that is being pushed even farther by a new RAS’ (Restroom Association - Singapore) Happy Toilet campaign intent on a standard for sparkling clean, odor free public toilets. Its goal is to bring 70% of the island nation’s 30,000 public restrooms to at least “three-star” clean by 2013.

The LOO Campaign began in 2008. The RAS has also conducted the Happy Toilet School Education program and is a founding member of the World Toilet Organization and the Keep Singapore Beautiful Movement.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) achieved a milestone Dec. 10 when it successfully conducted a world-record 33 megajoule shot of its Electromagnetic Railgun at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.

Normally, a ship-based weapon would require gunpowder or a rocket boost to shoot projectiles, but the electromagnetic gun is powered by an electric pulse generated by the ship. Since the projectiles travel at speeds of more than seven times the speed of sound, they don’t even require high explosives to pack a big punch: The kinetic energy of the projectile is more than enough to create a lethal effect.

One megajoule is a measurement of energy associated with a mass traveling at a certain velocity. In simple terms, a one-ton vehicle moving at 100 mph equals one megajoule of energy. Being hit with a 12 ounce can of Coca Cola travelling at 7 times the speed of sound would have more impact than a WW II bazooka rocket.

The 33-megajoule shot means the Navy can fire projectiles at least 110 nautical miles (126 land miles), placing Sailors and Marines at a safe standoff distance and out of harm’s way, and the high velocities achievable are tactically relevant for air and missile defense.

This stuff was science fiction just a few years ago. Now the U. S. Navy has publicly disclosed it has The U.S. Navy has tested a railgun that accelerates a 3.2 kg (7 pound) projectile to 2.4 kilometers per second (7,875 feet per second). They gave the project the motto, “Velocitas Eradico” which they translate as “Speed Destroys” but actually means “I am speed and I destroy”.

The rail gun is not yet ready for shipboard deployment.

Larger versions of the concept that was first proposed in 1918 by French inventor Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplee who invented and patented an electric cannon are under development. Such a two0mile long monster could launch 10,000 pound payloads into orbit or even to the moon at a fraction of the cost of today’s rockets. When possible that antiquates and renders today’s rocketry to 19^th century stream engine status. Such an event in U. S. has would be an earth changing moment.