The Winter Solstice arrives December 21 at 1838 hours, The Moon will be bright and full having passed though a full eclipse in the waning hours of Autumn here on the East Coast of North America. An event that last occurred in 1638, 372 years ago.

The Winter Solstice is a special night for those who practice the craft. In old Europe, it was known as Yule, from the Norse, Jul, meaning wheel. It is one of the eight holidays, or Sabbats, that are held sacred by Wiccans and Pagans around the world. It the longest night of the year, mid-winter. We decorate our homes with red, green and white, holly, ivy, evergreen and pine cones. We honor the solar year with light. There is food roasts and stews and winter vegetables and sweets, chocolate and peppermint candy, apples and oranges and sweet breads. Of course there will be wine and beers, some made by friends who will join the festivities.

This year we will have two nights of celebration, the night of the eclipse, we’ll gather around the fire in the early morning hours and marvel at the orange glowing moon, drinking hot cocoa and hot buttered rum. We’ll sing and dance and laugh away the darkness and cold. Tomorrow we’ll finish cooking the food for the feast to celebrate the passing of another years and the coming of Spring and rebirth. The fire started the night before will have been kept burning and again we will join together with family and friends, remembering the old year and planning for the new one coming as the day begin to lengthen.

Merry Yule, everyone.

What will American’s object to, if not this?

Glenn Greenwald:

One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is its fixation on hiding everything it does behind a wall of secrecy while simultaneously monitoring, invading and collecting files on everything its citizenry does.  Based on the Francis Bacon aphorism that “knowledge is power,” this is the extreme imbalance that renders the ruling class omnipotent and citizens powerless. . . . . .

Of all the surveillance state abuses, one of the most egregious has to be the warrantless, oversight-less seizure of the laptops and other electronic equipment of American citizens at the border, whereby they not only store the contents of those devices but sometimes keep the seized items indefinitely.   That practice is becoming increasingly common, aimed at people who have done nothing more than dissent from government policy; I intend to have more on that soon.  If American citizens don’t object to the permanent seizure and copying of their laptops and cellphones without any warrants or judicial oversight, what would they ever object to?

Dana Priest and William M. Arkin

Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government’s goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.

Other democracies – Britain and Israel, to name two – are well acquainted with such domestic security measures. But for the United States, the sum of these new activities represents a new level of governmental scrutiny.

This localized intelligence apparatus is part of a larger Top Secret America created since the attacks. In July, The Washington Post described an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it.

1984 is here.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Laurence Lewis, aka Turkana: The Political Fights the President Chooses

When a president tells Congressional members of his own party that his presidency depends on a bill’s passage, said president is holding back nothing. He is laying himself bare. That President Obama reportedly did so for the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the first-ever reduction in Social Security funding, and but a year’s worth of unemployment benefits, reveals his political desperation. It also puts the lie to the claim often made by some of the president’s most ardent defenders that he is at the mercy of a broken Congress, that a president can’t or shouldn’t interpose in the process of legislating. A president can and should, and every president has. And this president does. As he just did. Now, for this bill.

This bill is not the saviour of the Obama presidency. It could be the beginning of its end. From the day of the inauguration, if any single bill was going to have the greatest impact on the success or failure of the Obama presidency, it was going to come early and it was going to be on the economy. Not this bill. The stimulus bill. The president’s first opportunity to do something about the disaster he inherited from Bush and Reagan and Milton Friedman. That was when he should have used every means at his disposal to enact what would come to define his first, and possibly only, term in office. He was enormously popular. His predecessor was enormously unpopular. People were scared. They knew something fundamental was broken. They were ready for transformational change. They believed in change. They had the audacity of hope.

Nouriel Roubini: How To Save Europe

How the Continent’s stronger economies can rescue its weaker ones.

After the Greek and Irish crises and the spread of financial contagion to Portugal, Spain, and possibly even Italy, the eurozone is now in a serious crisis. There are three possible scenarios: muddle through, based on the current approach of “lend and pray”; breakup, with disorderly debt restructurings and possible exit of weaker members; and greater integration, implying some form of fiscal union.

The muddle-through scenario-with financing provided to member states in distress (conditional on fiscal adjustment and structural reforms), in the hope that they are illiquid but solvent-is an unstable disequilibrium. Indeed, it could lead to the disorderly breakup scenario if institutional reforms and other policies leading to closer integration and restoration of growth in the eurozone’s periphery are not implemented soon.

Sen. Al Franken: The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time

This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it’s a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

This principle is called “net neutrality” — and it’s under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

December 20 is the 354th day of the year (355th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 11 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1803, the French hand over New Orleans and Lower Louisiana to the United States.

In April 1803, the United States purchased from France the 828,000 square miles that had formerly been French Louisiana. The area was divided into two territories: the northern half was Louisiana Territory, the largely unsettled (though home to many Indians) frontier section that was later explored by Lewis and Clark; and the southern Orleans Territory, which was populated by Europeans.

Unlike the sprawling and largely unexplored northern territory (which eventually encompassed a dozen large states), Orleans Territory was a small, densely populated region that was like a little slice of France in the New World. With borders that roughly corresponded to the modern state of Louisiana, Orleans Territory was home to about 50,000 people, a primarily French population that had been living under the direction of a Spanish administration.

The Louisiana Purchase (French: Vente de la Louisiane “Sale of Louisiana”) was the acquisition by the United States of America of 828,800 square miles (2,147,000 km2) of France’s claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S. paid 60 million francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs ($3,750,000), for a total sum of 15 million dollars for the Louisiana territory ($219 million in today’s currency).

The Louisiana Purchase encompassed all or part of 14 current U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The land purchased contained all of present-day Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, parts of Minnesota that were west of the Mississippi River, most of North Dakota, nearly all of South Dakota, northeastern New Mexico, the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide, and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. (The Oklahoma Panhandle and southwestern portions of Kansas and Louisiana were still claimed by Spain at the time of the Purchase.) In addition, the Purchase contained small portions of land that would eventually become part of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The purchase, which doubled the size of the United States, comprises around 23% of current U.S. territory. The population of European immigrants was estimated to be 92,345 as of the 1810 census.

The purchase was a vital moment in the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. At the time, it faced domestic opposition as being possibly unconstitutional. Although he felt that the U.S. Constitution did not contain any provisions for acquiring territory, Jefferson decided to purchase Louisiana because he felt uneasy about France and Spain having the power to block American trade access to the port of New Orleans.

Napoleon Bonaparte, upon completion of the agreement, stated, “This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride.”

On December 13 and 16, Jon Stewart did two segments shredding the Senate Republicans blocking the 9/11 First Responders Bill. In the second segment of December 16, Jon’s guests were four men who were 9/11 first responders, all of whom are suffering from severe health problems as a result. He talks with them about their reaction to the Republicans blocking this bill.

Thank you, Jon, for your support for these men and women who sacrificed their health to help others.

The third segment is below the fold.  

The lies continue. Remember this is the one man who could have stopped the filibuster and didn’t.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine publishes The American Crisis.

These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops. Between September and December, 11,000 American volunteers gave up the fight and returned to their families. General Washington could foresee the destiny of a rebellion without an army if the rest of his men returned home when their service contracts expired on December 31. He knew that without an upswing in morale and a significant victory, the American Revolution would come to a swift and humiliating end.

Thomas Paine was similarly astute. His Common Sense was the clarion call that began the revolution. As Washington’s troops retreated from New York through New Jersey, Paine again rose to the challenge of literary warfare. With American Crisis, he delivered the words that would salvage the revolution.

The American Crisis was a series of pamphlets published from 1776 to 1783 during the American Revolution by eighteenth century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine. Thirteen numbered pamphlets were published between 1776-1777 with three additional pamphlets released between 1777-1783. The writings were contemporaneous with the early parts of the American Revolution, during the times that colonists needed inspiring.

They were written in a language the common man could manage and are indicative of Paine’s liberal philosophies. Paine signed them with one of his many pseudonyms “Common Sense”. The writings bolstered the morale of the American colonists, appealed to the English people’s consideration of the war with America, clarified the issues at stake in the war and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: It’ll be the SALT Treaty, Obama’s Afghanistan strategy and the impasse in funding the government with Sen John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Richard Lugar, (R-IN).

The Round Table guests, George Will, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, Reuters Editor at Large Chrystia Freeland and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post will look at the meaning of progress in the Afghanistan war. And Amanpour takes a special look back at her time covering Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests will be Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), Armed Services Committee Member, Sen. Carl Levin, (D-MI), Armed Services Committee Chair, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN) and Sen. Jeff Sessions, (R-AL). They will discuss the recently released Afghanistan report and what’s ahead in 2011.

The Chris Matthews Show: Chris, aka “Tweety”, will be joined by , Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine

Assistant Managing Editor, Helene Cooper, The New York Times White House Correspondent and Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor. They will discuss:

Did Barack Obama Get Back on the Right Track This Week? and Top Ten Political Gaffes of the Year.

Yeah, Obama’s on the “right track” alright.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: “LUrch” will have as his exclusive guest Vice President Joe Biden who will no doubt lie about how great the Obama tax cuts are and how the left should suck it up and vote for Obama in 2012.

The Round Table will include the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory Booker (D), Republican Strategist and Founding Leader of No Labels, an organization devoted to decreasing hyperpartisanship, Mark McKinnon, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and the Host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Joe Scarborough.

Andrea’s getting around this morning

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: The President signs a key tax cut plan into law after a contentious debate in Congress with his own party. What are the chances for bipartisanship that got this legislation passed can possibly carry on to the next session? We’ll talk to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (aka the Human Hybrid Turtle) on his party’s agenda.

Then shifting focus abroad to the progress in the War in Afghanistan… where do we go from here and what are the prospects for country’s future? Candy sits down with former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, former CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon (Ret.) and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers (Ret.)

And we’ll break down the week in politics with A.B. Stoddard from The Hill Newspaper and Matt Bai from The New York Times.

I have it good authority that Matt Bai is an idiot

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Remembering Richard Holbrooke, the man that Fareed calls “maybe the most important American diplomat of the last two decades.” A great GPS panel will discuss what makes a great diplomat…and what’s the way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Ambassador Holbrooke.

Also, Fareed’s take on the President’s recent Afghanistan review and the challenges that lie ahead for the United States and its allies in the region.

Britain’s austerity measures have sparked protests and violence. Fareed sits down with the architect of the austerity, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.

And then for the other side of the story, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also served as the U.K.’s finance minister, tells Fareed why he thinks the budget cuts are the wrong move.

Also, what in the world? Why are China and Russia renouncing the almighty American dollar?

And finally a last look at the Pentagon powered by…a Playstation?

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Healthy Holiday Appetizers

Healthy Holiday Appetizers

Herb Crepes With Goat Cheese Filling

Marinated Salmon on Toothpicks

Salmon or Tuna Tartare

Potato and Onion Frittata