The Conservative Cave

So This Is Christmas — and What Have Celebrities Actually Done?

https://instapundit.com/763976/

To be sure, faith is no guarantee of a refuge from the evil that men do. Evil is also committed in the name of faith and by those who think they were/are on a mission from God. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been doing this since 1979, as one modern example.

However, it’s an analytical stretch that requires undue faith in the innate goodness of the religiously naked ape to believe atheism and atheist states will be any different from others who have complete power in a state. It’s an error to think that atheism will somehow thus serve as a peaceful refuge from humanity’s worst impulses. To believe this is to assume that religion — and not concentrated power — is the main problem in human affairs.

See China’s Xi Jinping today as the latest atheist incarnation of John Lennon’s imagined state and its consequences: a man on a mission for himself, who will run roughshod over his own population and others who want nothing to do with his view of how we should live. Xi’s repression is already obvious in China and in Hong Kong, and if he ever gets the chance, in Taiwan.

The same vapidity is evident in “Happy Xmas.” Its most famous line opens the song, and lodges in my cranium without asking permission: “And so this is Christmas/And what have you done?” Those ten words have enough hubris to inflate the Hindenburg. It’s as if ordinary folk somehow should justify themselves to a 1960s–1970s rock star consumed by self and by error, as in his musical worship of anti-religious belief and consequences.

The easy response from normal people to two celebrities who, by 1971, had been writing songs and giving interviews from their bedroom decked out in pajamas can be imagined as follows, perhaps from a single mom: “Oh, I don’t know, John — I’ve been raising three kids, caring for my aged Mom, and working double-shifts at the coffee shop to pay the bills. You?”

Other responses to imagine: From a Second World War veteran: “I fought my way on to Omaha Beach and survived D-Day — and the rest of the war, but many of my friends did not. We beat the Nazis, which is what mattered even more despite the sacrifices.”

Or imagine the response from a steelworker, miner, or farmer: “Endured another grinding day at the foundry/shaft/farm, this to afford the mortgage and Christmas presents.”
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In one of his last interviews, Lennon would finally admit, “I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything. Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn’t enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I’m one of the people. I was doing it against my instincts.”

Maybe John came to know better, probably partially, but his unrecognized detachment for normal-people reality, his guilt-feelings for being rich, and mental elitism are probably shared by many entertainment industry denizens.

They somehow screwed up selling oil? That's impressive.

Might as well toss this in here, for no good reason...

New Photos Reveal Epstein Had A Sick Fetish For Girls With Giant Black Squares For Heads



WASHINGTON, D.C. — After the latest batch of Epstein files was released by the Department of Justice, it has become evident to everyone that Jeffrey Epstein, along with being a vile sex trafficker, had some sick fetish for girls with giant black square heads.

"It's disgusting," Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "But you wanted us to release the files, so here you go. Now you get to see how obsessed he was with black square heads, too. Be careful what you wish for."

In nearly every released photo, girls with black square heads are seen posing with Epstein and others. And though the pictures at first looked fake, the DoJ assures the public they are quite real.

"Where do you even find a girl with a giant black square for a head?" said one confused citizen. "I've never seen such a woman, and it doesn't strike me as particularly attractive."

Psychiatrists say Epstein's bizarre fixation on girls with black square heads could stem from a childhood fixation on his mother, who may also have had a black square head. "That would explain everything," said psychology expert Dr. Fredrick Sreud to reporters. "But now, we'll never know. Because, you know, he totally killed himself."

Whatever the source of Epstein's perverted desires, it should have been clear to those around him that he was disturbed.

At publishing time, Bill Clinton denied having sexual relations with any black square-headed people.

Hey, it could BEE true!

Venezuela Blames the U.S. for Its Own Ruin

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2025/12/24/venezuela-blames-the-us-for-its-own-ruin-n4947511

A Familiar Accusation From a Familiar Regime

The United States is committing the "greatest act of extortion in the country's history," according to the government of Venezuela. The charge reads like it was written by a keen marketing committee, with emotional language and sweeping claims that frame it as a moral outrage rather than a political tactic.

Their accusation is based on sanctions and diplomatic pressure tied to corruption, human rights abuses, and election manipulation. Caracas claims those measures amount to economic warfare rather than accountability.
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Sanctions Did Not Create the Crisis

Venezuela's economic collapse began long before any U.S. sanctions took effect; years of price controls, nationalized industries, and currency manipulation committed far worse damage than any sanctions could. A once-wealthy country watched as food shortages spread, power grids failed, and oil output cratered.

Venezuela has suffered decades of misgovernance. Their oil industry was nationalized and profits diverted to social programs. The predictable result was, as happened: maintenance didn't get done and investments in growth and improvements didn't happen; machinery broke down; modernization didn't happen; oil production declined.

Socialists seem to always attack farmers, because farmers are few, and the city-dwellers who like cheap/free food are many. What soon happens, as happened in the USSR and China and Ethiopia, is some farmers revolt and get crushed (Holodomor in Ukraine), and others lose incentive to be productive and lapse into lethargy.

Whether Maduro's falsehoods play well among America-Haters may be a different story, of course.

The ‘Inn’ That Wasn’t an Inn: Reading the Christmas Story Carefully

https://pjmedia.com/jamie-wilson/2025/12/25/the-inn-that-wasnt-an-inn-reading-christmas-carefully-n4947499

Nothing in the first chapters of Gospel of Luke needs to be changed to correct this inaccuracy. No verses are removed. No theology is revised. But without altering a single word of Luke’s account, several long-standing assumptions carried through the misinterpretation or misunderstanding of a few key words can be clarified — assumptions that have quietly reshaped how the story is imagined.

The “Inn” Wasn’t an Inn

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Luke 2:7: "She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."

Luke’s account hinges on the single word "inn." When he explains why Mary and Joseph struggled to find a place to stay, the Greek term he uses is kataluma. Over time, that word has been commonly translated as inn, importing an entire mental picture — a commercial lodging, a keeper, and a refusal at the door.

But kataluma does not mean an inn in that sense. Luke uses a different word elsewhere when he wants to describe a public lodging place. Kataluma is a guest room, typically within a private home.
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Luke does not say Mary and Joseph were turned away. He says the guest room was already full.

In a small town like Bethlehem, swollen by a census requiring families to return to ancestral homes, this would have been unremarkable. Extended families would have filled every available sleeping space in the homes of families who still lived in the town. Hospitality would have been offered as best it could be managed. What ran out was not goodwill, but room. Like an exended family today coming home for Christmas, people were placed where the host could find space for them.
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First-century Jewish homes were not organized like modern Western houses. Among other things, domestic architecture commonly included a central or semi-enclosed courtyard, not an ornamental space, but the functional heart of the household. It was used for work requiring light, ventilation, water, and cleanup, or for gathering large groups of people together for meals or socializing, or any variety of other things. Animals were often brought into or adjacent to this space at night for warmth and protection. Feeding troughs — mangers — were frequently built into walls or floors, made of stone or heavy wood.

This arrangement was not uniquely Jewish. It reflects a broader Near Eastern domestic pattern shaped by climate, economy, and long cultural continuity. Israelite households developed within that continuum, not apart from it. As far back as ancient Egypt, domestic courtyards were commonly used as spaces for childbirth. They were liminal areas within the home itself: open enough for light and air, easy to clean, and set apart from sleeping and food-preparation spaces. Birth did not require removal from the household, but it did require a space that could temporarily absorb danger, blood, and disruption. That same architectural logic persisted across the Near East, including in Jewish domestic life.

Summarizing, a less than accurate translation of one word and KJV translators (or Tyndale?) projecting common 16th Century culture and usage has affected understanding of this one aspect of the Christmas story.

Yes, Bethlehem, a small village, was crowded, because Augustus's decree mandated registering in one's ancestral city/town/village. Ordinary homes having guest rooms was normal among Jews of the time. This can be seen in the account of the Last Supper, which took place in a home's guest room at a time when visitors would be coming to Jerusalem for Passover.

When Mary and Joseph arrived, homes' guest rooms were already occupied. They probably had to travel more slowly due to Mary's advanced pregnancy. Lodging instead in the enclosed courtyard would have provided a degree of warmth in a part of a home often used for childbirth (practical reasons and "ceremonial" reasons that also made for healthier delivery and better health for newborns - guess who just read the relevant chapter in Leviticus).

If correct, this understanding changes seeming rejection (an assumption not present in the text) into adaption and hospitality. The meaning and significance of the account of what happened and the context into which it fits is not changed. It may even dovetail into the Matthew account of the Magi, in which they came to the house where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were living in Bethlehem.