The Real Culprits In This Meltdown

From Investor's Business Daily.

The Real Culprits In This Meltdown

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.

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Read More: Business & Regulation

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Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.

As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.

Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.

Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.

In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk.

But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America.

At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households.

The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

And the worst is far from over. By the time it is, we'll all be paying for Clinton's social experiment, one that Obama hopes to trump with a whole new round of meddling in the housing and jobs markets. In fact, the social experiment Obama has planned could dwarf both the Great Society and New Deal in size and scope.

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

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OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.......[more]

Congressional recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign cash.

The UK increases scrutiny of university degrees. From the BBC. Another one.

Teacher Salaries in Washington, via Seattle P-I.

How Fannie and Freddie weren't reined-in

A good explanation of how the Fannie and Freddie were allowed to brew from MSNBC.com.


....Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ascendant, giants of the mortgage finance business and key players in the Clinton administration's drive to expand homeownership.....

...In October 1992, a brief debate unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives over a bill to create a new regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On one side stood Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican concerned that Congress was "hamstringing" this new regulator at the behest of the companies. He warned that the two companies were changing "from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few."

On the other side stood Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who said the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans.

Congress chose to create a weak regulator......

.....The Clinton administration wanted to expand the share of Americans who owned homes, which had stagnated below 65 percent throughout the 1980s. Encouraging the growth of the two companies was a key part of that plan......

....The result was a period of unrestrained growth for the companies. They had pioneered the business of selling bundled mortgage loans to investors and now, as demand from investors soared, so did their profits.....

.....Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enjoyed the nearest thing to a license to print money. The companies borrowed money at below-market interest rates based on the perception that the government guaranteed repayment,.....

.......In 2003, Richard H. Baker (R-La.), chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee with oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, got information from OFHEO on the salaries paid to executives at both companies. Fannie Mae threatened to sue Baker if he released it, he recalled. Fearing the expense of a court battle, he kept the data secret for a year. Baker, who left office in February, said he had never received a comparable threat from another company in 21 years in Congress. "The political arrogance exhibited in their heyday, there has never been before or since a private entity that exerted that kind of political power,".....

College Football's Highest-Paid Losers

From Forbes Magazine.

College Daze

by Charles Murray
Published in Forbes Magazine 9/1/2008

College is not all it's cracked up to be. Dumbed-down courses, flaky majors and grade inflation have conspired to make the letters B.A. close to meaningless. But another problem with today's colleges is more insidious: They are no longer a good place for young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Today's colleges are structured to prolong adolescence, not to midwife maturity....[more]

College is not a Must

From the CSM

College is not a Must

........The total damage inflicted on students by the college-is-for-everyone mentality is incalculable. Students who cannot measure up to the demands for a college curriculum are made to feel like failures...........

Age of shroud of Turin disputed again

A Times of London story......

......A LEADING expert on the shroud of Turin has won the support of an Oxford University laboratory for new carbon dating tests on the venerated but controversial relic, which was dismissed two decades ago as a fake. ......

.....John Jackson, a physicist at Colorado University and a prominent expert on the relic, has argued that the tests were skewed by 1,300 years because of high levels of carbon monoxide. He said many other elements of the shroud, including details of the image, indicate that it is much more ancient......

Turin shroud controversy envelops pair

A Seattle Times Story...


.....Raised in Brooklyn, Rebecca Jackson, 60, was 34 when she decided to enlist in the Army and ended up at Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, as a cook.

In 1990, she was watching a documentary on the shroud when it occurred to her that the image of the man's face looked like her grandfather's. She tracked down Jackson, who had appeared in the film and lived in Colorado Springs, to talk about her reaction. Their shared interest led to a relationship. Her religious conversion followed..........

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

Wall Street Journal
CHARLES MURRAY

August 13, 2008; Page A17

Imagine that America had no system of post-secondary education, and you were a member of a task force assigned to create one from scratch. One of your colleagues submits this proposal:

First, we will set up a single goal to represent educational success, which will take four years to achieve no matter what is being taught. We will attach an economic reward to it that seldom has anything to do with what has been learned. We will urge large numbers of people who do not possess adequate ability to try to achieve the goal, wait until they have spent a lot of time and money, and then deny it to them. We will stigmatize everyone who doesn't meet the goal. We will call the goal a "BA."

You would conclude that your colleague was cruel, not to say insane. But that's the system we have in place.

Finding a better way should be easy. The BA acquired its current inflated status by accident. Advanced skills for people with brains really did get more valuable over the course of the 20th century, but the acquisition of those skills got conflated with the existing system of colleges, which had evolved the BA for completely different purposes.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses....[more]

America's best colleges

Forbes' list of America's best colleges.

How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science

An opinion piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Excerpts:

• "the shortage of Americans holding or pursuing advanced degrees in fields like computer science defies conventional market explanations. The average annual salary in the field is more than $100,000. Meanwhile, we have a robust supply of high-IQ baristas and college graduates with jobs that a generation ago would not even have required a high-school diploma."
• "Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market's demand for their knowledge and skills."
• "Success in the sciences unquestionably takes a lot of hard work, sustained over many years. Students usually have to catch the science bug in grade school and stick with it to develop the competencies in math and the mastery of complex theories they need to progress up the ladder. Those who succeed at the level where they can eventually pursue graduate degrees must have not only abundant intellectual talent but also a powerful interest in sticking to a long course of cumulative study."
• "on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn — and worse, fail to develop as "whole persons" — if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren't among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who "feel good" about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments."
• "The intellectual lassitude we breed in students, their unearned and inflated self-confidence, undercuts both the self-discipline and the intellectual modesty that is needed for the apprentice years in the sciences."

Wall Street Journal's Rankings of Colleges and Universities

As you can guess it's by income. By university, by major.

A few western/northwestern universities

School Name	Region	Starting Median Salary	Mid-Career Median Salary	Mid-Career 10th Percentile Salary	Mid-Career 25th Percentile Salary	Mid-Career 75th Percentile Salary	Mid-Career 90th Percentile Salary
Boise State University (BSU)	Western	$40,800.00	$69,500.00	$37,400.00	$48,700.00	$87,500.00	$110,000.00
Idaho State University	Western	$44,900.00	$73,400.00	$35,400.00	$49,600.00	$101,000.00	$143,000.00
University of Idaho	Western	$44,900.00	$82,000.00	$43,000.00	$56,700.00	$104,000.00	$142,000.00
Washington State University (WSU)	Western	$45,300.00	$84,700.00	$43,600.00	$59,000.00	$113,000.00	$162,000.00
Utah State University	Western	$43,800.00	$78,700.00	$41,600.00	$55,400.00	$101,000.00	$132,000.00
Gonzaga University	Western	$44,900.00	$76,000.00	$47,000.00	$57,400.00	$103,000.00	$138,000.00
Montana State University - Bozeman	Western	$46,600.00	$77,500.00	$40,200.00	$58,100.00	$111,000.00	$151,000.00
New Mexico State University	Western	$44,300.00	$79,500.00	$37,400.00	$53,800.00	$102,000.00	$131,000.00
University of Arizona	Western	$47,500.00	$86,100.00	$44,800.00	$61,700.00	$117,000.00	$160,000.00
University of Montana	Western	$37,300.00	$71,900.00	$37,000.00	$51,500.00	$96,400.00	$138,000.00
University of Washington (UW)	Western	$48,800.00	$85,300.00	$47,000.00	$59,800.00	$115,000.00	$149,000.00
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)	Western	$45,200.00	$71,600.00	$39,000.00	$52,400.00	$100,000.00	$128,000.00
University of Nevada, Reno (UNR)	Western	$46,500.00	$82,900.00	$41,900.00	$54,600.00	$113,000.00	$143,000.00
University of New Mexico (UNM)	Western	$41,600.00	$81,600.00	$41,800.00	$59,100.00	$105,000.00	$141,000.00
University of Oregon	Western	$42,200.00	$78,400.00	$38,100.00	$56,200.00	$117,000.00	$186,000.00
Oregon State University (OSU)	Western	$45,100.00	$83,300.00	$46,900.00	$64,000.00	$113,000.00	$146,000.00

Math Is Harder for Girls . . . and also, it seems, for the New York Times.

Heather MacDonald blogs on that Science study touting average scores for girls and boys on the whole being equal.

The New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts say otherwise. A new study has “found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests,” claims a July 25 article by Tamar Lewin—thus, the underrepresentation of women on science faculties must result from bias. Actually, the study, summarized in the July 25 issue of Science, shows something quite different: while boys’ and girls’ average scores are similar, boys outnumber girls among students in both the highest and the lowest score ranges. Either the Times is deliberately concealing the results of the study or its reporter cannot understand the most basic science reporting...................[more]

A NY Times blogger also differed with Lewin.

10,000 Diploma Mill Degrees

Spokane diploma mill recipients, from the Spokesman-Review.

Obama's $845 billion U.N. plan forwarded to U.S. Senate floor

It's always easier to be charitable with someone else's money. From WND:




ELECTION 2008
Obama's $845 billion U.N. plan forwarded to U.S. Senate floor
'Global Poverty Act' to cost each citizen $2,500 or more

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Posted: July 25, 2008
12:30 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world.

The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe..............[more]

......He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years, he said, would amount to $845 billion "over and above what the U.S. already spends.".....[more]

The National Debt, Deficit, and Liabilities

This year's deficit is about $162 million, that's small change compared to the total liability. From USA Today:

Taxpayers' bill leaps by trillions
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

The federal government's long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection of the mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement.

That's double the red ink of a year earlier.

Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security and other government programs, a USA TODAY analysis found. That's nearly $500,000 per household.

When obligations of state and local governments are added, the total rises to $61.7 trillion, or $531,472 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages. .......

......Big new liabilities taken on in 2007:

• Medicare: $1.2 trillion.
• Social Security: $900 billion.
• Civil servant retirement: $106 billion.
• Veteran benefits: $34 billion.

The multitrillion-dollar loss is a more meaningful financial number than the official deficit, says Tom Allen, chairman of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, which helps set federal accounting rules.
Medicare has an unfunded liability of $30.4 trillion.................

Some fun from the Times of London

From The Times

July 25, 2008

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”............[more]

Evidence of Sex Discrimination in the Sciences?

From a NY Times blog:

July 23, 2008, 3:38 pm

Sex, Bias and Data

By John Tierney

Debra Rolison, a chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory, gave a talk eight years ago at the National Academies of Science. It was called, “A Title IX Challenge to Academic Chemistry: Isn’t a Millennium of Affirmative Action for White Men Sufficient?” Now that her proposal to actively apply Title IX to physical sciences and engineering has been adopted at federal agencies (as I wrote in my Findings column), I’ve been looking at the evidence for bias against women in science. After considering physics last week, let’s examine chemistry and some other fields........

.......You’ll find sweeping assertions of discrimination in academia against female scientists if you read the executive summary of the National Academy of Sciences’ 2006 report, which was issued by a committee led by Donna Shalala. But if you look in the report for evidence of bias, you find studies showing that female graduate students in general (and those without children in particular) are as likely as men to finish their studies, and that they’re as likely to have mentors and assistantship support. According to the report, there were some differences in productivity — male graduate students published more than female students, and tenured male professors published about 8 percent more than female tenured professors — but when men and women were up for tenure, they received it at similar rates.........

........I was also interested to see Dr. Nelson’s comparable figures for white males, because it certainly looks as if their “millennium of affirmative action” has ended. Dr. Nelson found that white male Ph.D.’s are overrepresented among assistant professors in just three disciplines: chemistry, biological sciences and psychology. They roughly break even in two other fields, political science and sociology. And they’re underrepresented in everything else — 10 of the 15 disciplines surveyed by Dr. Nelson.

The Dumbest Generation

A book review.

Was Redlining Good?

Thomas Sowell's take on the mortgage crisis.

Create your own slide rule

Warning - ultra nerd territory here. I've been looking for a site that has PDF's of slide rules. I calculate gas mileage in my car and have found that calculators can't hold up in the heat of a car interior. I used a slide rule in H.S. as in the mid-70's calculators were still expensive, about $70 or I guess about $200 in today's money. Here's a good web site:

http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/build.html

Generate a Barack Obama Quote!

Click on the link above.

My entries:

Plural Noun (something bad):
Plural Noun (something really bad):
Plural Noun (something really, really bad!):
Plural Noun (something good):
Vague positive concept:
Vague negative concept:

Generate a Barack Obama Quote!

"You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about Global Warming. Well I think Americans are tired of the same old oil men. Ordinary Americans believe in Liberals, they want less
Republicans, they just aren't sure if their leaders believe in Jobs."
Generate your Barack Obama quote at Buttafly.com

The Declining Value of the College Degree - WSJ

CAREERS

By GREG IP

A four-year college degree, seen for generations as a ticket to a better life, is no longer enough to guarantee a steadily rising paycheck.

Just ask Bea Dewing. After she earned a bachelor's degree -- her second -- in computer science from Maryland's Frostburg State University in 1986, she enjoyed almost unbroken advances in wages, eventually earning $89,000 a year as a data modeler for Sprint Corp. in Lawrence, Kan. Then, in 2002, Sprint laid her off....[more]

Graduate School Rankings by US News

Graduate School Rankings by US News

An explanation of the housing bubble from Jerry Pournelle:

Published at MND:

Jerry Pournelle

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Law of Unintended Consequences

July 16, 2008 at 10:58 am · Filed under Analysis, Current Events, Economics, OP/ED, Vox Populi

I told you it would happen. I’ve been telling you for years: you can’t pump money into the housing market, and keep lowering the interest rates, without creating a bubble; and eventually the bubble will burst. Water runs downhill. Eventually it reaches bottom no matter what you wish.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were invented to create a housing bubble. I can’t think that those who created those government owned private companies — they used to be really profitable for their stockholders — didn’t know that pumping more money into the housing market would drive housing prices to ridiculously high levels. Surely at least some Congress critters have studied elementary economics? If you make low cost guaranteed loans restricted to investing in Quaker Oats what do you think will happen? I wonder how many Congress critters profited from the bubbles? Either directly or in big campaign contributions from those who did?

The intent of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was to make it easier for more Americans to own a house. A noble ambition, and one that the FHA was doing pretty well with; but FHA didn’t insure loans that looked too risky. Not good enough. There were people out there who wanted a house. They had awful jobs, and often they were minority people, and they wanted to own a house. They were tired of renting. Like the chap who is losing his house in Anaheim: he paid $480,000 for a house, but his income is about $700 a month, and now he’s facing foreclosure. Big surprise. Add enough instances of this and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own a trillion dollars worth of unsalable housing. Unsalable at anything like the amount loaned on it, anyway. So: something must be done....[more]

Federal Student Aid Default Rates by Universities

With the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crises in mind what about the Federal Student Aid program? Here's a database.

Note added at 5:00 pm:

From Inside Higher Ed:

.......Why does all of this matter? Because the rapid expansion of student debt, combined with the soft-pedaling of debt’s true meaning, has served to forestall higher education’s inevitable day of reckoning when it comes to price. While a few massively wealthy institutions have recently taken steps to reduce borrowing at the margins for the middle- and upper-middle class, constantly rising prices and debt to match remain the norm elsewhere

There are two main culprits here. Traditional colleges and universities, protected from competition by regulatory barriers and buoyed by public subsidies and rising demand, have managed to avoid most of the difficult choices inherent to becoming more efficient and restraining price........

Sounds like the housing bubble?

Gabriel's Revelation

Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.....[more]

Also in that story:

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

The Bibilical Archeology Review story:

Does a “Dead Sea Scroll in stone” cast new light on early Jewish and Christian views of the messiah? That is the question raised by an intriguing ancient text, a question now being debated in newspapers, web sites and blogs.

The text, called “Gabriel’s Vision” by Ada Yardeni, the Israeli scholar who first published it, is written in ink on stone and dates to about the late first century B.C. and early first century A.D. The text first came to wide attention when our print publication, Biblical Archaeology Review published Yardeni’s “A New Dead Sea Scroll in Stone?” in its January/February 2008 issue (Yardeni pointed out that had the text been written on leather, she would have thought of it as another Dead Sea Scroll fragment).

“Gabriel’s Vision” consists of 87 lines, divided into two columns. The text is written in the first person, apparently by someone named Gabriel, and contains numerous Biblical phrases. It is an apocalyptic text and seems to have been written by a supporter of the Davidic dynasty. You can read Yardeni’s BAR article by clicking on the link above and you can also see her transcription of the Hebrew text and her English translation.

But now the story has taken on a new twist. A major New York Times article (July 6, 2008) described research by Hebrew University textual scholar Israel Knohl, which claims that “Gabriel’s Vision” provides important new insights into the early Jewish and Christian concepts of the messiah. A more complete article tracking Knohl’s research—by the man himself—will be published in the September/October 2008 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review....[more]

The English Translation from BAR (note that there is no mention of a Simon):

http://www.bib-arch.org/news/dssinstone_english.pdf

Translation (Semitic sounds in caps and\or italics)
Column A
(Lines 1-6 are unintelligible)
7. [… ]the sons of Israel …[…]…
8. […]… […]…
9. [… ]the word of YHW[H …]…[…]
10. […]… I\you asked …
11. YHWH, you ask me. Thus said the Lord of Hosts:
12. […]… from my(?) house, Israel, and I will tell the greatness(es?) of Jerusalem.
13. [Thus] said YHWH, the Lord of Israel: Behold, all the nations are
14. … against(?)\to(?) Jerusalem and …,
15. [o]ne, two, three, fourty(?) prophets(?) and the returners(?),
16. [and] the Hasidin(?). My servant, David, asked from before Ephraim(?)
17. [to?] put the sign(?) I ask from you. Because He said, (namely,)
18. [Y]HWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: …
19. sanctity(?)\sanctify(?) Israel! In three days you shall know, that(?)\for(?) He said,
20. (namely,) YHWH the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: The evil broke (down)
21. before justice. Ask me and I will tell you what 22this bad 21plant is,
22. lwbnsd/r/k (=? [To me? in libation?]) you are standing, the messenger\angel. He
23. … (= will ordain you?) to Torah(?). Blessed be the Glory of YHWH the Lord, from
24. his seat. “In a little while”, qyTuT (=a brawl?\ tiny?) it is, “and I will shake the
25. … of? heaven and the earth”. Here is the Glory of YHWH the Lord of
26. Hosts, the Lord of Israel. These are the chariots, seven,
27. [un]to(?) the gate(?) of Jerusalem, and the gates of Judah, and … for the
sake of
28. … His(?) angel, Michael, and to all the others(?) ask\asked
29. …. Thus He said, YHWH the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of
30. Israel: One, two, three, four, five, six,
31. [se]ven, these(?) are(?) His(?) angel …. 'What is it', said the blossom(?)\diadem(?)
32. …[…]… and (the?) … (= leader?/ruler?), the second,
33. … Jerusalem…. three, in\of the greatness(es?) of
34. […]…[…]…
35. […]…, who saw a man … working(?) and […]…
36. that he … […]… from(?) Jerusalem(?)
37. … on(?) … the exile(?) of …,
38. the exile(?) of …, Lord …, and I will see
39. …[…] Jerusalem, He will say, YHWH of
40. Hosts, …
41. […]… that will lift(?) …
42. […]… in all the
43. […]…
44. […]…
Column B
(Lines 45-50 are unintelligible)
51. Your people(?)\with you(?) …[…]
52. … the [me]ssengers(?)\[a]ngels(?)[ …]…
53. on\against His/My people. And …[…]…
54. [… ]three days(?). This is (that) which(?) …[… ]He(?)
55. the Lord(?)\these(?)[ …]…[…]
56. see(?) …[…]
57. closed(?). The blood of the slaughters(?)\sacrifices(?) of Jerusalem. For He said,
YHWH of Hos[ts],
58. the Lord of Israel: For He said, YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of
59. Israel: …
60. […]… me(?) the spirit?\wind of(?) …
61. …[…]…
62. in it(?) …[…]…[…]
63. …[…]…[…]
64. …[…]… loved(?)/… …[…]
65. The three saints of the world\eternity from\of …[…]
66. […]… peace he? said, to\in you we trust(?) …
67. Inform him of the blood of this chariot of them(?) …[…]
68. Many lovers He has, YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …
69. Thus He said, (namely,) YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …:
70. Prophets have I sent to my people, three. And I say
71. that I have seen …[…]…
72. the place for the sake of(?) David the servant of YHWH[ …]…[…]
73. the heaven and the earth. Blessed be …[…]
74. men(?). “Showing mercy unto thousands”, … mercy […].
75. Three shepherds went out to?/of? Israel …[…].
76. If there is a priest, if there are sons of saints …[…]
77. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
83. to me(?), out of three - the small one, whom(?) I took, I, Gabri’el.
84. YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of(?)[ Israel …]…[….]
85. Then you will stand …[…]…
86. …\
87. in(?) … eternity(?)/… \

The Fall of the US Auto Industry

Forbes Columnist Jerry Flint outlines the reasons, and the solutions but the ultimate blame for the almost assured fall is:

• But the blame has to fall on Detroit's executives. They didn't know enough about their own business to build better cars than the foreigners did, and they were unprepared for a change that was sure to come, sooner or later.

I blame the MBA-ization of American industry. Together with the education degree the MBA is a going to be the downfall of the USA. Both degrees are superficial treatments purporting to teach pupils 'how to' rather than a basal knowledge required to properly navigate their endeavors. Hence we have k-12 math teachers that know no math, industry managers that don't have the vision of their foreign counterparts. Outside of one year in the early 90's GM has never had a CEO that had experience in engineering, design, R&D, or manufacturing. They've all been bean counters, no car guys. GM is losing $1 billion a month with no end in sight. They just bean counted themselves to death. GM isn't the only American corporation that fits this mold, most do.

Alexander Nevsky - The Battle on the Ice

Alexander Nevsky

The Immortal Yi Soon Shin - Battle of Hansan Island (2/2)

The Immortal Yi Soon Shin - Battle of Hansan Island (1/2)

Yi Sun-sin

1600 Battle of Sekigahara 関ヶ原の戦い 4 of 4

1600 Battle of Sekigahara 関ヶ原の戦い 3 of 4

1600 Battle of Sekigahara 関ヶ原の戦い 2 of 4

1600 Battle of Sekigahara

Rob Roy Swordfight

THE VOODOO SCIENCES

A CHAOS MANOR SPECIAL REPORT

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

THE VOODOO SCIENCES

This report is in two parts. Part one discusses the subject in a general way. Part Two began as the C. P. Snow Memorial Lecture in Ithaca, NY and was later revised for publication. Both discuss the subject as so are included here, but of the two, the second is the better known. I consider both important. (JEP, 2007).....[more]

Henry V Agincourt II

Henry V Agincourt I

Henry V- Speech

Monty Python - Spam

monty python stoning clip

Gladiator - Battle Romans v. Germans

Braveheart - Freedom

Macbeth - The Fight Scene

The Roman Polanski Version

Antietam - Glory

Mongol III

Mongol II

Mongol I

Hanson Brothers

Bloody Peasant

Just a Flesh Wound

Putting on the foil

1st Century AD History and the New Testament

A PBS discussion of the 1st century backdrop in the New Testament mostly from Josephus.

[Josephus' two books] are two of our prime sources for the history of this period. And Josephus gives a kind of catalog for what the major groups are within first century Judaism.... He talks about the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes. He also mentions another group, [for whom] my label is Insurrectionists..........

The Pharisees are known to everybody from the New Testament where they enjoy a very negative press. They clearly are seen as the opponents of Jesus and "the bad guys." Who the Pharisees really were is a different question entirely, once we get past the Jewish polemic, the anti-Pharisee polemic of the gospels. And we realize the Pharisees were a conspicuous Jewish group. They seem to have been a scholarly group or a group of Jews who, as Josephus the historian says, had a reputation as the most meticulous observers of the ancestral laws. So here is a group which claim expertise [in] understanding the Torah of Moses and claimed expertise in the observance of the laws. And apparently most Jews were prepared to accept that claim.... Their opponents, of course, were the Sadducees, who were no less pious than the Pharisees, but the Sadducees did not believe in the authoritative nature of the ancestral laws. What did the Sadducees do then, exactly, we don't really know. Except the Sadducees apparently had a great deal of following among the well-to-do, among the priestly classes, and seem to have been characterized primarily by two things. One, they opposed the Pharisees and two, they denied belief in the resurrection of the dead, a belief that the Pharisees espoused and the Sadducees denied. And this, of course, made the Sadducees famous as we see very clearly in the New Testament passages where the only thing in the gospels you know about the Sadducees is basically that they deny the belief in the resurrection...........

A Fair Description of the modern American University

A Fair Description of the modern American University

By UD

How do we get American students out of the basement of the ivory tower?

You remember the recent Atlantic magazine article, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, whose author, an English professor at a university of last resort, argues that we’ve got to stop admitting to college people who simply cannot make it in that setting, who will not graduate, who will flunk and flunk again required courses like English composition.

UD commented on the article here.

The problem with deciding that such people — people who’ve read very few books, who can’t write a basic essay, who are probably functionally illiterate — shouldn’t waste their time, money, and dignity at a university, is that a college degree makes an enormous difference in terms of your employability, and in terms of the type of job and level of salary you can expect. We all seem to agree that, in most cases, you’ll lead a much better work life if you’ve graduated from college.

One solution to this problem has been the establishment of bogus colleges and universities which, after four years of nothingness, hand you a diploma. One hears stories of professors dismissed from their positions at places like these because they tried to give low grades to students. Live the pretense.

This is an expensive ritual, and eventually the government, subsidizing a good deal of it, is going to get interested in testing to see whether students at these schools learn anything. When it becomes clear that many don’t, funds may be withdrawn..[More]