More on Chronology of the Crucifixion

This website uses astronomical reconstruction of the Judean night sky to fix some dates from the Gospel account. These are as follows:
1) Virgin Conception: September -2 CE, when Jupiter conjoined Regulus in Leo, and twice again in the next 9 months
2) Virgin Birth: June -1 CE, when Jupiter conjoined Venus (See this French site for details)
3) Adoration of the Magi: December 25, -1 CE, when Jupiter went into retrograde again
4) Crucifixion: April 3, 33 (they don't mention whether this is a Julian or Gregorian date, but for this part of the 1st century the 2 calendars coincide anyway). This is based on the confluence of three factors:

1) The moon went into eclipse at 3pm Jerusalem local time, and rose blood-red a few hours later in partial fulfillment of Joel's prophecy.
2) Passover fell on a Friday that year.
3) Pilate was on Tiberias Caesar's "naughty boy list" that year.

April 3, 33. A date Astronomically Fixed. But I guess we have to toss it out, because--confound it--it's the same date Ussher came up with in 1632.

Politics--ugh.

Sigh.

The White Man prefers to steer clear of politics, given that so much of his time is already consumed with supporting the majority of his fellow countrymen who are on the state, federal, or local direct deposit plan. But I can't keep from recommending Ann Coulter's warning to all the Suckerbees who've fallen for Huckerbee (pardon the misspelling). It's here.

In the Dec. 19th Reuters report on the Presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee is admitted to be statistically tied for Republican front-runner nationwide, a fact imposssible to ignore. The report says that Huckabee has has drawn even with Giuliani, having "moved ahead" of Thompson, Romney, and McCain, and Paul. While this is certainly true of the first four (and that other candidate, "Unsure,") Huckabee has never been behind Paul. Giuliani has been the front-runner from the beginning; Huckabee has moved from fifth place to statistically a tie for first; but Paul remains a constant and increasingly distant sixth nationwide. Most of the support he stood to pick up from the declining candidates has now shifted to Huckabee, with the remainder going to Romney.

So, Huckabee has received the annointing from on high. Without it, maybe he would be in a statistical dead heat with Ron Paul--which, in the White Man's opinion, is where he belongs.

How Congressmen earn their money

In this enlightening and apparently uncontested video, Uncle Jay explains how Congressmen earn their daily $450 (most days).



"By the transgression of a land many are its rulers,
But by a man of understanding and knowledge, it endures."

In Defense of 'Christmas'

Upon setting forth to write a brief defense of the use of the word 'Christmas', I suddenly had a feeling that I had written on this topic before. Checking my archives, I found the following posted on December 4, 2004, which I am now re-posting here:

"Christmas is weird. What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?" I'm not defending any of the heathen customs that have come to be associated with the celebration of Christ's birth. But I fear we may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Bible doesn't say we should celebrate His birth, nor when He was born. But it doesn't say we shouldn't. Isaac Watts wrote many hymns celebrating the future coming of Jesus; hyms like "Joy to the World" These are now mostly considered "Christmas Carols" and not suitable for singing except in December. While this is a shame, it's also a shame to avoid celebrating Christ's birth just because it's associated with Santa Claus. The dreary moths of November, at least in North America and Eurasia, are a good time to celebrate, and what better thing to celebrate than the birth of Christ? I for one think that Christmas is a good time to celebrate his First Coming."

During the three years which have transpired since I posted this, I've forgotten where I found it. It's certainly not the sort of thing I would have written (e.g. 'hyms' and 'moths'). I probably meant to add some commentary to the bottom but never got around to it.

Well, here's my chance. But rather than commenting on the above drivel, I choose to ignore it and go ahead with what I first intended to write when beginning this post. But I'll leave this in place for archival purposes, since I've deleted the post in which it originally appeared.

Should you visit the White Man's homestead on December 25th, January 7th, or any of the other days traditionally associated with the celebration of Christ's Advent, you won't find an evergreen tree in the living room, a nativity set on the mantle, or candles in the windowsill. There will be no wreath on the door, reindeer in the yard, Santa on the roof, or lights framing the windows. You won't be greeted with "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays." So it would be fairly safe to assume that we don't "celebrate Christmas" at our place. We don't particularly celebrate Ramadan, either, but we definitely know when it occurs, and what to call it. So it is from this perspective that I rise to defend, on strictly legal grounds, the use of the word 'Christmas'.

Every October, citizens of the USA rise up in protest that a certain word is being censored from our national speech. This has been going on for about as long as most people can remember, but every year it seems to get worse. Now it is not allowed, for example, to display an angel on the top of an evergreen tree in the common areas of HUD housing. Or to include the word 'Christmas' on a public school poster. Or to speak of 'Christmas Break' at government universities.

All of this is legalistic balderdash. As a matter of fact, all 50 States and the District of Colombia have set aside December 25th as a holiday, and that holiday does in fact have a name: it is 'Christmas'. And the day before it has a name, too, even though it's not a holiday. Al Qaeda may not have the usual celebrations in mind for the season, but at least they know what to call it, according to FBI spokesman Ross Rice. It is pure hypocrisy to allow the celebration but to refuse to call it what it is.

Christmas is the most banned holiday in history, yet it stubbornly refuses to go away, or submit to being called by any other name.

Even the latest Hurricane to threaten the Atlantic coast bore the Anglo-French version of its name. Perhaps this was allowed only because hurricanes never strike after November 30th.

AIDS as an agent of natural selection

According to recent statistics, AIDS is taking the lives of four school teachers and two police officers every day in Zambia. Statistics like these are responsible for the life expectancy in many African countries now being below 40 years. A 15-year old Botswanan boy has only a 10 per cent chance of staying AIDS-free that long.

Did you ever stop to wonder why AIDS, which was originally diagnosed exclusively in white men in North America, and was later found to disproportionately afflict black men from Haiti, is now most closely associated with black people of both sexes dying in Sub-Saharan Africa? Has any other disease in history done this sort of transmigration? If AIDS actually originated in Africa, as is commonly thought, why was it necessary for it to incubate in America and Haiti before returning to wreak such devastating damage in the continent of its birth?

It's actually a matter of Natural Selection. AIDS can only thrive in societies that nurture the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (also known as the HIV). The societies in North America that are very hostile to this virus--along with some who nurture it, but try not to let it spread--have been able to minimize the spread of the HIV. Should all societies within North America take an equally aggressive stance against its spread, it could go extinct locally within a couple decades. But important to the containment of the HIV is an understanding that it is a deadly agent that must be killed whenever possible, and whose spread must be contained, even at considerable cost (as an example, many Americans are now prohibited from donating blood through public blood banks because they haven't entered the universal tracking system that was set up to contain the spread of the HIV through blood transfusions).

In direct contrast to this approach, the societies among which AIDS runs rampant, whether they be on the African continent or in the Diaspora of Slavery, do not recognize the HIV as the true enemy. As one person recently returning from a month traveling through Southern Africa put it:

The reason why AIDS is such a killer in Southern Africa is due to the fact that people do not connect their behavior with getting AIDS. If they come down with AIDS, they are convinced that it is because someone with stronger magic than theirs has put a curse on them. The only approach they take to preventing AIDS is to wear the most powerful charm that they can buy whilst continuing to engage in behavior that is likely to bring on the disease.

There you have it, folks. AIDS is an agent of Natural Selection, removing animists from the gene pool. Africa is rapidly becoming less and less animist as a result.

2013: There is a follow-up post found here.