Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations.

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

I do think that followers of Mithras might want to curtail their typical birthday service in light of Mad-Cow Disease, but global warming will certainly make the services in the oak wood in traditional druidic robes more comfortable.

When you put up your stocking on the mantel and put out the turnips for Gouger, Rooter, Tusker, and Snouter as well as the pork pie and sherry for the Hogfather, you can rest assured the Sun will come up, because it just slipped around back to return the lager it rented.

Enjoy! You have nothing to fear, except that sniveling little creep with the camera/phone at the office party or the eggnog that was put out rather early causing you to suspect that the bits on top aren’t nutmeg. [The pictures probably won’t appear on the ‘Net and the brandy will surely take care of the salmonella.]

In another classic case of misdirection, the Pentagon is responding to Spc. Thomas Wilson’s question to Rumsfeld in Kuwait by talking about the great strides they have made in upgrading the armor on Humvees. While I’m sure the Specialist is pleased to know about these improved Humvees, he was probably hoping for information about providing armor for the vehicles his unit operates: trucks and tractor-trailers.

Not only is there no existing program to upgrade the vehicles for transport units, there isn’t even a plan to start such a program. For those who remember the recent case of the Guardsmen who refused to haul the tainted fuel, this was their basic complaint.

To be sure, there are explosive devices that will take out tanks, but the transport units would like enough protection to stop bullets from AK-47s and shrapnel.

As has been known for centuries: armies are dependent on supply lines. The fact that our Army truckers are not supplied with: armor, maps, GPS units, or radios, shows the basic failure of our current Defense Department leadership. This isn’t a new problem that is the result of the shift from conventional to guerrilla warfare, this problem has been part of the entire operation: anybody remember Jessica Lynch and her transportation unit?