While Magi sounds like a Persian word, Kenneth E. Bailey in Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels gave evidence that the Wise Men were for Arabia:
According to Matthew 2, the wise men arrived with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Rich people usually possess gold, and gold was mined in Arabia. But more specifically, frankincense and myrrh are harvested from trees that only grow in southern Arabia [Yemen = Sheba].
...
Dr. Bailey pointed out that Justin Martyr identified the Wise Men as from Arabia:
...
In the 1920s a British scholar, E. F. F. Bishop, visited a Bedouin tribe in Jordan. This Muslim tribe bore the Arabic name al-Kokabani. The word kokab means “planet” and al-Kaokabani means “Those who study/follow the planets.” Bishop asked the elders of the tribe why they called themselves by such a name. They replied that it was because their ancestors followed the planets and traveled west to Palestine to show honor to the great prophet Jesus when he was born. //
The wisemen or magi all came from present day Ethiopia. There were at least 12 in total not just three. Three magi or people who understand how to read the stars and three kings with each of them (9 kings). The three gifts mentioned of gold, myrrh & Frankincense are the same gifts that the queen of Sheba (Ethiopia & Yemen) had taken to king Solomon a few centuries before when she returned and introduced Jewish religion in Ethiopia. Being strong Jewish believers and always making pilgrims to Jerusalem to worship it is the Ethiopians outside of Israel who were anticipating the birth of the messiah. Ethiopian kings traveled from different parts of ancient Ethiopia to present the gifts to the Christ child to fulfill the prophecy of their sages. Maṣḥaf Kebur (መጽሐፍ ክቡር), an Amharic source published in 2008/9, lists the names of the three wise men and the kings who accompanied them to Jerusalem.
Luke 3:1 "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar" - convention for counting years (NOT what the actual A.D. year was)
This question is NOT what the A.D. year was but about the counting convention for years when mentioning reign of a ruler.
The tendency toward political centralization that has characterized the western world for many centuries, first under monarchical rule and then under democratic auspices, must be reversed.
-- Hans Herman Hoppe //
The truth is any post-breakup map of America would not resemble an electoral map following state lines, nor even a redrawing of state boundaries, such that the fantastical greater Idaho or Free State of Jefferson might exist as part of a wider Confederation of Constitutional Republics, or a Breakaway Philadelphia city-State join a Union of Progressive Democracies…
No. It’d be nothing so comprehensible or easily mapped to modern politics.
A post breakup America would probably look closer to this:
If you’re a sane person and your immediate reaction is: WHAT THE HELL AM I LOOKING AT!?
….Well that’s kinda the point.
(I really do apologize for all I’m going to have to digress)
For our purposes we can broadly divide history into 2 types of period… Periods of Centralizing trends, and periods of Decentralizing trends.
Gavin
5d
Occasionally, one comes across something that just stops one in one’s track and messes up the day’s schedule. This long (I mean … long) article by Anarchonomicon fits the bill.
After the State: The Coming of Neo-Medievalism and the Great Decentralization
The article is too long to summarize, but the basic idea is that history has seen long periods of centralized political control, and much longer periods of de-centralized control. The author predicts that the inevitable collapse of modern states will lead to “Neo-Medievalism” in which small political units will proliferate.
".… What you may have noticed is there’s really just two great centralizing eras in the history of western civilization… the 300-350 years from the start of Alexander’s conquests til the final centralization of the Roman empire under the Caesars… And the 250-300 year history of modern empire: From approximately 1700-1945. …
… The total number of autonomous Greek city states, which prevailed from the Bronze age collapse to the first conquests of Alexander, and only truly ended with the final roman conquest of all of Greece, numbered over 1000. …
… In the past 3200 years we’ve had only 600-800 years of truly centralizing eras where power concentrated, or merely continued without disintegration, when power didn’t dilute… But 2400-2600 years of Decentralizing eras where polities where shrinking and the ability to exert power across distance was eternally shrinking. …
… The Roman empire ended when all of its tech advantages were adopted by the Germanic tribes its was fighting… because those Germanic tribes had been trained in them while employed as roman mercenaries. Likewise the age of imperialism ended shortly after WW2 ended, because at that point every colony had a generation of young men who’d just been trained in western fighting styles. A process that began with the Irish declaring independence after WW1 and reached a fever pitch after WW2 when even the colonial white settler states set up by the British (who you’d think would be the apex of dependence, what with minority rule) declared independence. …
… Federal Authority, legitimacy, and even Seeing Like a State style legibility and intelligibility to the central government is collapsing in real time before our eyes… and far from panicking and trying to rescue their control over the body of the American Nation… the US Federal Government is accelerating the collapse of their own power through petty bureaucratic interests and short term political considerations. …"
Optimistically, the author concludes:
“… whatever successor institutions, aristocracies, and duchies devour the modern welfare states in a orgy of map redrawing and private fortune making will probably find that there is a great deal of economic and technological low hanging fruit just lying about. …”
It really is worth reading the whole thing.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson
By Frank Hawkins
Young Bill Ayers
America has undergone enormous change during the nearly eight decades of my life. Today, America is a bitterly divided, poorly educated and morally fragile society with so-called mainstream politicians pushing cynical identity politics, socialism and open borders. The president of the United States is threatened with impeachment because the other side doesn’t like him. The once reasonably unbiased American media has evolved into a hysterical left wing mob. How could the stable and reasonably cohesive America of the 1950s have reached this point in just one lifetime? Who are the main culprits? Here’s my list of the 10 most destructive Americans of the last 80 years.
James Madison is the Father of our Constitution, and the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at Madison’s Montpelier provides educational programming for teachers, law enforcement officers, and others.
That seems appropriate. After all, not only did Madison—our country’s fourth president—help draft the Constitution, but he also served as a key delegate at the Constitutional Convention, authored the Bill of Rights, and urged ratification of the Constitution through his practical and philosophical arguments in The Federalist Papers.
But these accomplishments are, at best, downplayed at his historic home. Montpelier has no exhibits dedicated to Madison and his contributions.
Worse still, Montpelier is equipping educators to teach Marxist-based theories to elementary, middle, and high school students. And the programs doing this are, in part, funded by the state of Virginia. //
It’s sad that Montpelier has chosen to focus on a Marxist-motivated movement fueled by critical race theory, instead of on the many astounding achievements of the home’s former owner and the Father of our Constitution, James Madison.
It’s a disservice to the public, teachers, and students.
The SBC6120 Model 2 is a conventional single board computer with the typical complement of EPROM, RAM, a RS232 serial port, an IDE disk interface, and an optional non-volatile RAM disk memory card. What makes it unique is that the CPU is the Harris HD-6120 PDP-8 on a chip. The 6120 is the second generation of single chip PDP-8 compatible microprocessors and was used in Digital's DECmate-I, II, III and III+ "personal" computers.
The SBC6120 can run all standard DEC paper tape software, such as FOCAL-69, with no changes. Simply use the ROM firmware on the SBC6120 to download FOCAL69.BIN from a PC connected to the console port (or use a real ASR-33 and read the real FOCAL-69 paper tape, if you’re so inclined!), start at 2008, and you’re running.
OS/278, OS/78 and, yes - OS/8 V3D or V3S - can all be booted on the SBC6120 using either RAM disk or IDE disk as mass storage devices. Since the console interface in the SBC6120 is KL8E compatible and does not use a HD-6121, there is no particular need to use OS/278 and real OS/8 V3D runs perfectly well.
The SBC6120 measures just 4.2 inches by 6.2 inches, or roughly the same size and shape as a standard 3½" disk drive. A four layer PC board with internal power planes was needed to fit all the parts in this space. A complete SBC6120 requires just 175mA at 5V to operate, and this requirement can easily be cut in half by omitting the LED POST code display. Imagine - you can have an entire PDP-8, running OS/8 from a RAM disk, that’s the size of a paperback book and runs on less than half a watt!
Celebrating the world's first minicomputer, and
the machine that taught me assembly language.
The 12-bit PDP-8 contained a single 12-bit accumulator (AC),
a 1-bit "Link" (L), and a 12-bit program counter (PC):
Original photo credit: Gerhard Kreuzer
Later models (the /e, /f, /m & /a) added a 12-bit multiplier quotient (MQ) register.
The term “minicomputer” was not coined to mean miniature, it
was originally meant to mean minimal, which is a term that,
more than anything else, accurately describes the PDP-8.
Whereas today's machines group their binary digits (bits) into sets of four in a system called “hexadecimal”, the PDP-8, like most computers of its era, used “octal” notation, grouping its bits into sets of three. This meant that the PDP-8's 12-bit words were written as four octal digits ranging from 0 through 7.
The first 3 bits of the machine's 12-bit word (its first octal digit) is the operation code (OpCode). This equipped the machine with just eight basic instructions:
Dad was a quiet, friendly sort, almost shy in public. Sometimes, I’d be next to him when he’d mutter some observation that just broke me up. He was funnier than Jack Benny. //
Dad had occasional advice. “When you have something to do, do it now. Then, you’ll have time for fun stuff later.” I probably should have thought about that the past few days when I could have been writing this.
I realized later his parenting style was very Socratic. One Sunday, no matter how many times I yanked the cord, the stupid lawnmower defied my efforts to start it. Dad happened to walk by, “I’m sure you checked the gas tank.”
I hadn’t, of course. It was bone dry. So, he passed on that lesson in privacy without confronting me with my own stupidity.
Dad had a phrase, “Minus to a plus.” It was okay to make a mistake, as long as you learned something, anything, from it every time so you’d never make the same error again.
“Think of how far ahead of everyone else you’ll be when you grow up and avoid all these early mistakes.”
This isn’t just any old dead white guy who is bleeding out at the center of this piece, however. This is Cato the Younger or, as his contemporaries knew him, Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, a Stoic, scion of the late Roman Republic, a famously incorruptible statesman, and an advocate for liberty (or at least what passed for it in those days.) He set a standard for statesmanship that is no longer seen; I can think of no one practicing politics today who is fit to stand in Cato’s shadow. //
houdini1984
7 hours ago
We need a Cato. We need a Cicero as well, an orator and philosopher who can lend eloquent words to the cause of saving our republic, but Cicero’s is a story for another day. From where will come our incorruptible Stoic? From where will come the statesman who will confront those who will drag our republic to ruin and tell them, “No, no further; this ends now”?
I’m concerned by the apparent fact that men like him no longer exist.
Sigh. No one is coming to save you. Hell, Cato couldn't even save Rome. By the time he was at his peak, the rot had already grown too deep and the people had largely given up on the idea of liberty. Eventually, that happens to all "free" societies. And why? Well, part of it has to do with the very idea that we need a Cato to save us.
That's one of the main weaknesses of the American experiment in self-rule. Too many people are looking for a superman to save them, rather than rallying behind the mortal men who are already in the field. DeSantis is a great advocate for liberty and sound government. So is Rand Paul. Ted Cruz. My own governor here in Iowa, whose response to Covid involved little more than confirming that she trusted us to make the best decisions about our health.
Unfortunately, that superman myth has overtaken our national psyche -- at least on the Republican side of the political aisle. That's the whole appeal of Trump. It's not that anyone believes that he understands the constitution, the idea of God-given rights, or the true burden that government places on liberty and individualism. Instead, it's that he's made himself larger than life, through decades of forcing himself into the spotlight and building a reputation as a winner. It's myth, but myth is an easy sell to the average person.
Forget Cato. We need tens of millions of normal Americans to commit to saying no to the ongoing Marxist revolution. We need a counter-revolution that restores our national identity. We need to get aggressive in our opposition to the would-be authoritarians and their statist agenda. Because that is the only thing that can possibly reverse our slide toward tyranny.
For you Millenials, Gen Zs, and whatever, I'd recommend putting aside your anime for a couple of hours and watching a real movie.
While the breakout from Stalag Luft III is the most famous prison break, it was nowhere near the biggest or most successful. It occurred at Stalag 315 in Epinal, France, on May 11, 1944. Stalag 315 housed over 3,000 Indian, Sikh, and Gurkha soldiers, mostly captured in Dunkirk and North Africa. On May 11, the Eighth Air Force carried out a 67 bomber raid on Epinal, and some of the collateral damage was the prison. About 70 prisoners were killed, but over 1,000 prisoners made a break for it, and about 500 made it to Switzerland. Unfortunately, their story hasn't received the attention of the Stalag Luft III escape. As with the Great Escape, some of the prisoners were summarily executed upon recapture.
Here are some of the other major prison breaks.
Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques
(SITA) Neuilly France
INTRODUCTION
1.1. SITA (Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautique), a cooperative company founded in 1949, embraces the majority of the international air carriers (more than 160). It provides to its members a worldwide message switching network.
1.2. Initially the network consisted of manual (torn-tape) centres, interconnected by low speed circuits (50, 75 Bauds, 60, 30, 15 words per minute, asynchronous). The Airline terminal equipment (teleprinters. Telex) was connected to the SITA manual centres, thus enabling airline messages to be exchanged via nodes of the SITA network, with consequent reduction in costs to the airlines by their sharing of communications facilities.
1.3. With the rapid development of the Air Transport Industry, the airline communications needs became increasingly important and thus the SITA network expanded very quickly, by 1963 covering the world. Network development was not, however, restricted to geographic extension; in 1963 a number of the busiest manual centres were replaced by semi-automatic systems, and three years later, due to the continuing steady increase of traffic volumes, SITA equipped the Frankfurt centre with its first computer system to perform the message switching functions. Then, in 1969, SITA began replacing the other most heavily loaded centres (Western Europe and New York) with computer systems and established a computer communication data network by interconnecting these centres with voice grade circuits (medium speed). This network, called the High Level Network, performing the task of block switching, was interfaced at that time with the rest of the network composed of manual centres. This step was soon followed by the automation of other manual centres using what are in SITA terminology called satellite processors. These stand-alone computers act as concentrators of airline teleprinter traffic and controllers of airline CRT terminals, each of them connected to one High Level Centre by medium speed circuits. By mid-1973, the SITA network comprised 150 centres including 8 high level centres and 21 satellite processors. The 29 automated centres will be referred to as the SITA medium speed network (see figure 1).
James Madison’s list of achievements did not happen by accident. We have much to learn from him.
The following is adapted from the book Lessons in Liberty: Thirty Rules for Living from Ten Extraordinary Americans.
Happy 273rd birthday to James Madison, the most egregiously underappreciated, sadly uncelebrated, and unfairly unsung American in the history of the United States.
Consider the list of his towering achievements: Father of the American Constitution, formulator of American federalism, collaborator of The Federalist Papers, de facto doula of the Bill of Rights, and the fourth president of the United States.
Yet there is no significant monument in Washington, D.C., celebrating Madison’s titanic contributions to the American self-government experiment. No American temple featuring quotes chiseled in marble, no miniaturized version of his home, no statue strategically placed on the National Mall, no allusion to membership in the American Mount Olympus. //
1. Be the Most Prepared Person in the Room
2. Be Willing to Change Your Mind
3. Be Generous — Don’t Worry About Who Gets the Credit
But nowhere is Madison’s propensity for stepping aside or working behind the scenes more pronounced than in his friendship with Jefferson. While Jefferson is perhaps the most celebrated American to have ever lived, behind much of this success is the genius of Madison. They drafted the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions together in opposition to John Adams’ Alien and Sedition Acts. Most significantly, Madison worked steadily behind the scenes to help forge the new Democratic-Republican Party. When the party successfully defeated Adams in 1800, the first president representing the new party was Jefferson, not Madison.
Madison’s significance in our history and the lessons his life provides to Americans today should be both loud and large. In an era of potent political turmoil and personal strife, we ignore them to our and the nation’s detriment.
THE HISTORY OF
THE STANDARD
OIL COMPANY
BY
IDA M. TARBELL
AUTHOR OF
THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE,
AND MADAME ROLAND: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
PICTURES AND DIAGRAMS
A lady asked Dr. Franklin, “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Tue 13 Feb 2024 // 11:17 UTC
OBIT Polymath, pioneering developer of software and hardware, a prolific writer, and true old-school hacker John Walker has passed away.
His death was announced in a brief personal obituary on SCANALYST, a discussion forum hosted on Walker's own remarkably broad and fascinating website, Fourmilab. Its name is a playful take on Fermilab, the US physics laboratory, and fourmi, the French for "ant."
In the early days of microcomputers, everyone just invented their own user interfaces, until an Apple-influenced IBM standard brought about harmony. Then, sadly, the world forgot. In 1981, the IBM PC arrived and legitimized microcomputers as business tools, not just home playthings. The PC largely created the industry that the …
COMMENTS
Wade Miller
@WadeMiller_USMC
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Here @MSNBC helpfully makes it clear their disdain for Christians in America.
She says that if you believe that your rights come from God, you aren’t a Christian, you are a Christian nationalist.
Somehow they seem to not mention that our own founding documents make this… Show more
1:08 PM · Feb 23, 2024 //
According to the Founding Fathers, our rights came from God.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Per The Rights of the Colonists:
These [rights] may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
Lastly, per John Quincy Adams:
[T]he Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth. …[and] laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.
They float the term "Christian nationalist" to scare the public from those who believe their Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ, and that, yes, our rights do come from God. The majority, if not the overwhelming majority of Christians believe that, whether they identify as nationalists or not. //
If Christianity ever becomes the minority in America, you will never hear about the religion from left-wing networks again because they will have achieved their goal.
We've had all kinds of men as president, but only one of them started a world war, prevented a military coup against the government of the United States, and used either a sword or pistol to convince a deputy sheriff that he had urgent business back at the office; that was George Washington, the original American badass.