Minnesota limits it's citizens to

ordering 24 bottles of wine per year.

Make it make sense

## Christmas Day Reflection: Rethinking the Timeline Without Losing the Truth

On Christmas Day, Christians rightly turn their hearts to the mystery of the Incarnation:

**“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”**

That truth does not depend on calendars, empires, or astronomical charts. And yet, the God who entered history did so *in history*—at a real time, under real rulers, amid real political and spiritual conflict.

For many believers, the dates surrounding Jesus’ birth and death have been inherited without question. But careful study of Scripture, history, and even the heavens suggests a **coherent alternative timeline**—one that does not weaken the Gospel, but may actually strengthen our understanding of how disruptive and consequential Christ’s coming truly was.

This reflection offers such a view—not to unsettle faith, but to deepen it.

---

## A Birth Earlier Than We Were Taught

The Gospels place Jesus’ birth during the reign of **Herod the Great**, who died in **4 BC**. That alone requires Jesus to have been born *before* that date. A growing body of historical and astronomical evidence supports a birth around **September 11, 8 BC**.

### Why September?

- Luke tells us John the Baptist was conceived while his father Zechariah was serving in the Temple, likely during the priestly course of Abijah.

- Counting forward through Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Mary’s conception, and a full-term birth places Jesus’ birth in early autumn.

- This aligns naturally with shepherds being in the fields at night—something unlikely in mid-winter.

### Why 8 BC?

- The “Star of Bethlehem” need not be a single miraculous point of light. The Magi were astrologer–priests who interpreted **patterns**, not flashes.

- Between **7 and 3 BC**, the heavens displayed rare and symbolically powerful events involving:

- **Jupiter** (the king planet)

- **Regulus** (the king star)

- **Leo** (the constellation associated with Judah)

- These signs unfolded over years, explaining why the Magi arrived *well after* Jesus’ birth, when He is described not as an infant, but as a *paidion*—a young child.

This timing also explains Herod’s order to kill boys **two years old and under**. He was not guessing wildly; he was responding to when the signs first appeared.

---

## A Longer, More Disruptive Ministry

Luke tells us Jesus was “**about thirty**” when He began His ministry. If He was born in 8 BC and began preaching around **AD 29**, He would have been closer to **37**. In the ancient world, “about thirty” was not a precision statement—it was a declaration of full maturity and authority.

If Jesus’ ministry began alongside **John the Baptist**, as all four Gospels affirm, and continued until a crucifixion in **AD 35**, His public ministry may have lasted **five to six years**, not three.

This longer ministry helps explain things the Gospels assume rather than explain:

- Why Jesus was already widely known across Galilee and Judea.

- Why opposition from religious authorities escalated so sharply.

- Why Jerusalem was primed for explosive conflict by the time of His final Passover.

Jesus did not appear briefly and vanish. He taught, healed, confronted, and gathered followers long enough to become a genuine destabilizing force.

---

## Why Consider a Crucifixion in AD 35?

Traditionally, Christians are taught that Jesus was crucified in **AD 30 or 33**. But Scripture itself does not give a year—only conditions:

- It occurred during Passover.

- It occurred under **Pontius Pilate**.

- It involved **Caiaphas** as high priest.

Both Pilate and Caiaphas were removed from office in **AD 36** by the Roman governor of Syria, **Vitellius**, amid serious unrest in Judea.

A crucifixion in **AD 35** places Jesus’ death **just one year before** their removal—suggesting not a quiet resolution, but a flashpoint that intensified instability:

- Pentecost followed weeks later, producing an explosion of converts in Jerusalem.

- The apostles openly challenged the Sanhedrin in the Temple.

- Stephen was executed.

- Saul began persecuting the Church.

- Judea descended further into disorder.

From Rome’s perspective, this was failure of governance.

---

## Why This Matters on Christmas Day

Christmas is not a sentimental interruption of history. It is **God entering a world already cracking under the weight of false authority**.

A Jesus born earlier, ministering longer, and crucified closer to the political collapse of Judea is not a weaker Christ—it is a **more dangerous one** to the powers of the age.

He did not merely appear, teach briefly, and depart.

He **confronted**.

He **endured**.

He **overturned expectations**—religious and political alike.

And He did so long enough to force the world to react.

That is not a threat to Christmas.

That is its meaning.

---

## The Anchor Remains

Dates may be refined. Timelines may sharpen.

But this does not change:

> **“Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.”**

Whether in 8 BC or 6 BC, whether crucified in AD 33 or AD 35, the truth remains the same:

God kept His promise.

Light entered darkness.

And nothing has been the same since.

**Merry Christmas.**

Lifting heavy things is fun

The most common defense of surveillance is always the same: "I have nothing to hide." This is the refrain of the comfortable, the naive, or the historically illiterate. As Cardinal Richelieu warned; "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I will find something in them which will hang him." Think about that the next time you justify your own surveillance. The state doesn't need you to be guilty, only vulnerable.

Why are we going to war with Venezuela again?

Now that requires a long answer. For now, as with most things, it’s a combination of the two.

For now, the primary issue - at least as I see it - was a serious degradation with in the Party when Xi came to power. It was a free for all (rampant corruption) and risked delegitimizing the Party. Power needed to be recentralized and that’s been an ongoing process for the past decade.

Were people caught up by being on “the wrong side”? Yes. But, again for me, that’s a second order effect.

I don't think you're gonna have to wait too long

After almost five years without Nick Szabo, we've wrecked Bitcoin. He had to come back to tell us we're idiots.

In short, he told us that:

- We have to end the segwit discount.

- If we allow things in op_return, we will have to be able to remove it from a complete node, which is not possible now, or continue to limit op_return.

If the police catch you with 100 gigabytes of child pornography, you go to jail even if it's encrypted. This is worse; the police don't need to decrypt it, it's visible to everyone with a simple program. Do you expect not to go to jail?

You're stupid. It's a full-blown state attack, as I've been saying for a long time, and you've fallen into the trap.

Bitcoin is not storage, Bitcoin is money. Anything that does not involve monetary transactions should be censored because it is spam.

By the way, knots filter both segwit discounts and op_return and many other types of spam. If 90% of the nodes were knots, we would not have this problem on the table.

True but the kids will def need more than a kind heart and good intentions. Sound money for a start and no drugs (phones) until they are old enough to be responsible, independent humans. The latter is completely overlooked or disregarded so the kind kids are still slaves to the state in the end.

⚡️🇫🇷 NEW - "Palestinians Will Not Disappear From The Land Where They Have Their Roots!"

Emmanuel Macron sends a Strong message to Benjamin Netanyahu:

"The occupation of Gaza, the forcible displacement of Palestinians, their reduction to starvation, the hateful dehumanization of discourse, the annexation of the West Bank, will never offer Israel a VICTORY.

On the contrary, they will reinforce the country's isolation, feed Antisemitism and endanger Jewish communities worldwide.

Palestinians Will Not Disappear from the LAND where they have their ROOTS, and no one can see what path would then open up for Israel’s VOCATION to remain a GREAT DEMOCRACY and the NATIONAL HOME of JUDÉITY to be realized."

The demographic collapse problem is simple to diagnose, of which nobody wishes to do: War is the health of a state; Income tax and inflation are the death of a nation.

If there is 8% unemployment among new EE/CompSci/CSci graduates, and 6% of these same jobs within US borders are held by foreign workers actively on work visas, does this smell of foul play to you?