The Catholic Church has since the 5th century commemorated the Feast of the Holy Innocents, either today, December 29, or December 28, depending on where you lived.  Herod the Great was a Roman Jewish king of Judea.  He was born around 72BC, named King of the Jews by the Roman Senate in 40BC.  Most likely died at the age of 70 in 4BC, but maybe not until 1BC, shortly after Jesus was born. Now   after Jesus was born in   Bethlehem of Judea   in the days of Herod the king,  behold, wise men [ a ]   from   the east came to Jerusalem,   2  saying, “Where is he who has been born   king of the Jews? For we saw   his star when it rose [ b ]   and have come to   worship him.”   3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;   4  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where   the Christ was to be born.   5  They told...

Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the Republican primary race, and endorsed The Donald.  Note the GOD OVER GOVERNMENT sign.  That is a surprise.  I thought both he and Nikki Haley were planning to hang in to the end, hoping Donald Trump would be judged so guilty that he couldn't continue his campaign.  Trump should win the New Hampshire vote over Haley on Tuesday, and crush her in South Carolina on February 24.  Thus, as she was governor of that state, look for her to drop out before or soon after that date. In case you were wondering what this fuss was about Biden not being on the New Hampshire primary ballot,  Democrats bypassed Iowa and New Hampshire, and will count South Carolina as the first primary state , even though no one of any substance is running against him.  New Hampshire, however, got pissed off about being sidestepped--although they say they are required by law to do this--so went on with the ballots anyway, showing his absence.  Thu...

COVID-19 summary : With 4% the World population, the USA had 33% of COVID-19 new cases yesterday. While Europe is suffering, ominously, Mexico is now #2 to the U.S. in new deaths. But California had four times more new cases than Mexico yesterday. Apparently, the British virus has mutated and can infect people 1.7 times more efficiently. New cases are increasing in Canada, Indonesia and Japan. China had 23 new cases and no new deaths. Taiwan had 3 new cases and no new deaths. From David Leonhardt of The New York Times : I’ve shown you   a version of this chart before . The basic idea is that if you track the number of new virus cases, you can fairly accurately predict the number of Covid-related deaths about three weeks later. Every 100 new cases in the U.S. has led to an average of roughly 1.6 deaths, with a 22-day lag. (Trevor Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle,   explains why  in this Twitter thread.) From colleagues in Florid...