Diana picked up a book off the bargain table at Borders called "Don't Know Much About the Bible". The author has also written "Don't Know Much About History" and "Don't Know Much About Geography". It's supposed to be sort of a layman's guide to the Bible: if you didn't go to Sunday school as a kid, here's what you missed and what you need to know.

She thought this would be good for her to read -- maybe she'd learn something about why I've gotten so interested in the Bible -- and it might be good for Rachel to read, too. But I got hold of the book first, and my opinion can be summed up by saying that this guy picked a good title for his book. He really doesn't know much about the Bible, and he didn't try very hard to learn.

The book is a catalog of the usual nonsense that unbelievers come up with: the JEDP Documentary hypothesis, the two creation stories in Genesis, the mystery of who Adam and Eve's children would have married, who were the other people that Cain was worried would kill him after he murdered Abel. David didn't write all of the Psalms, in fact he may have written none of them. The gospels contradict one another about the events following Jesus' arrest. Etc, etc, etc.

I kept thinking that if the author had been as skeptical of all the scholarly theories as he is of the Bible itself, and if he had gone to the same lengths in questioning the credibility of, for example, the JEDP theory, as its originators did in questioning the credibility of the Bible, he might have come up with some original thoughts. But he's only skeptical about the Bible, and not about the theories that cast doubt on it.

(Coincidentally, I just got a book from the library written by the papyrologist who a few years ago dated a papyrus scrap containing part of the gospel of Matthew to 60 A.D. That makes it by far the earliest New Testament manuscript, and creates some serious problems for the people who say that the gospel stories were essentially made up, after the people who actually knew Jesus, and lived through those events, had died. Establishing that Matthew was written in the year 60 or earlier means that it would have been read by people who had first-hand knowledge of the events recorded there. None of the rebuttals or corrections from the witnesses have yet come to light. It even raises the possibility that the stories of Jesus might be true! Could it be?)

The JEDP theory is, like evolution, accepted by almost everyone even though there's no evidence for it. It seems to rely heavily on the idea that the material which became the Pentateuch was passed down orally for many generations, because writing didn't exist until later. Gee, now that archaeology has shown that writing did exist as far back as 2500 B.C., could we reconsider that?

Let me deal real quickly with the idea that the story of Cain and Abel shows that there were other people than Adam and Eve's descendants. Our "scholarly" author refers to Cain's statement that "whoever finds me [in his wanderings] will kill me" and wonders who else there was beside Adam, Eve, and Cain.

Here's where his presuppositions are obvious. He makes absolutely no effort to find an explanation. He just assumes that these people are descended from someone other than Adam.

The story of Cain and Abel is in Genesis 4:1-17. If you examine the passage in an attempt to figure it out, rather than being ready to dismiss it as quickly as possible, with some curiosity, you might wonder when this occurred -- how much time had passed since Adam and Eve left the garden? How old were Cain and Abel?

(Genesis 5:4 says that Adam had sons and daughters, by the way, if you're wondering who Cain, Abel, and Seth might have married.)

Assume that everyone marries and has 6 children, by age 25. Here's how the population grows:

Year 25. Adam and Eve, +6 children.
Year 50. The 8 above, + (3 couples* 6) children = 26 total.
Year 75. The 26 above, + (9 couples* 6) children = 98 total.
Year 100. The 98 above, + (36 couples * 6) children = 216 + 98 = 314.
Year 125. The 314 above, + (108 couples * 6) children = 648 + 314 = 962.

This is a pretty simple and unsophisticated calculation. I think the assumptions are conservative; with lifespans running above 900 years there's no reason to think that people would stop having children by age 25, or that they wouldn't have more than 6 children. You can vary the assumptions however you like, but it won't change the basic point: there are a lot of people before much time has gone by.

Sex is a family value

ROME - Premier Silvio Berlusconi has promised Italians he would lower taxes and raise pensions. His latest campaign pledge is rather personal: no sex until April 9 elections, an Italian newspaper reported Sunday....

[T]he no-sex vow was made during a campaign rally in Cagliari, Sardinia, on Saturday with a popular TV preacher on the island and his followers.

The clergyman, Rev. Massimiliano Pusceddu, praised the premier for what he described as a defense of family values and promised that his followers would support the conservative leader because "if the left wins it will be the moral end for this country." ...

Berlusconi replied... "Dear Father Massimiliano. I thank you a lot. I will try to meet your expectations, and I promise from now on, 2 1/2 months of absolute sexual abstinence, until April 9."

Perhaps it's one campaign promise his wife hopes he breaks. And as silly as the American political scene is, the Italians have always got us beat, hands down. From porno actresses who go topless at campaign rallies to Mussolini's granddaughter running on a revived Il Duce ticket, there's never a dull moment. Sometimes I wish I was Italian.

But even though I wonder how much sex he has anyway (he'll turn 70 this year) there is something cosmically silly about defending "family values" by promising not to have sex with your trophy wife for three months.

What he ought to say is, "God created us he and she, and we're going to save Italy by heing-and-sheing enough to bring our pathetic birthrate up past the 1.2 births/woman that currently guarantees my wife will wear a burkha before she dies."

Maybe I just don't understand politics after all...

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Animal Senate

This situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

And they're just the guys to do it:

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said he would vote Monday to filibuster Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court, but he conceded the effort would be futile and criticized Democrats for failing to persuade Americans to take notice of the court's changing ideological face....

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said he also would vote to keep debate open Monday, but he questioned the wisdom of a filibuster and predicted it would fail.

The GOP must thank God every night for feckless opponents such as these. Honest to God, I half hope the Dems will win back the house this fall just to keep the GOP honest (hahahaha) but they have all seemed to take their cue from John Kerry. He's a guy who has been on every side of every issue; his party pursues futile courses of action while publicly questioning the wisdom of those very courses.

Yeah, that's going to raise the confidence level of the voting public.

Here's a little advice to Mr. Obama (who has impressed me - no foolies - no little bit) and it's worth every penny it cost you: They know. The American public knows what Bush is doing and they are, for the most part on board with it.

Now why is that? After all, a million bloggers, myself included, write millions of words complaining that Bush is wrong about this or that, yet the vast majority either goes along or doesn't care enough to stand in the way. What's a Democrat gotta do?

The first thing they have to do is realize the world has changed since the 30s. Honest to God, these Dems, when they present a program at all, rely on the FDR-era coalition of blacks, union workers, feministas, and fellow travelers. Guys, it's not working and will never work again. When your support comes from those demographic areas which are not replacing themselves (abortion proponents, gays, urban DINKs) your base is going to erode over time. You've gotta get a new base. Period.

The other first thing (I know) they've gotta do is propose some ideas of their own. The Dems are like the GOP 'moderates' of the 1970s, who (the old joke went) if the Dems had proposed burning down the Library of Congress, would have insisted it be phased in over three years. Stalling is not a program. It may be all you have (hell, it IS all you have today) but it will never do anything but allow GWB to set the tone.

The important thing in a democracy is NOT how the voters answer the questions. The primary issue in democracy is who gets to ask the questions.

Until the Democrats toss their current leadership, implode, and re-build on a completely different party structure, they are never going to have any questions to ask that the voters have not already answered to the GOP's satisfaction.

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And these are the moderates

GAZA, Jan. 27 -- In the wake of a crushing electoral defeat for the ruling Fatah party, young militants from the group staged an angry demonstration Friday evening and fired guns in the air outside the home of the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who was not present at the time...

The gunmen also marched into the courtyard of the nearby parliament building and set several cars ablaze.

Can you imagine the Young Democrats rioting outside John Kerry's House, shooting automatics and setting cars ablaze? Oh, yeah. Bringing democracy to the Middle East is a policy worth pursuing, at all costs.

And all costs will be paid. In blood.

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Not Potent Enough

NAIROBI, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A starving Kenyan woman placed a powerful tribal curse on God, accusing him of sending famine, and died in her sleep, local newspapers said on Thursday.

The woman from eastern Kenya's drought-ravaged Kangundo district decided to invoke a dreaded oath from the Kamba community, famed for its potent witchcraft, media reports said.

No comment seems fitting, does it?

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Not to contuse a supine equine

but I was reading a little book called "...A More Perfect Union" by NYU history professor Harold Hammond when I came across something interesting. The book takes each article and section of the Constitution and explains it in detail, noting on several occasions that the Constitution is the law of the land and that it can't be changed except through the amendment process.

I was interested in how he was going to explain Article I, Section 10, which demands that states accept nothing but gold and silver in payment of debts.

He writes (p.92):

Payment of state debts in anything but precious metals was, of course, later amended."

Really? I wonder how? I don't remember seeing a constitutional amendment to that effect, and other than a self-confident "of course," he doesn't explain. It doesn't even make the index.

I wonder if the "originalists" would even touch this. Probably not, because while it's written in plain English, it would truly overturn society.

So I guess the Founding Fathers will have to be proven right the hard way...

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I think she should resign in protest

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Alito will join justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in the court's conservative wing and apply "originalist" interpretations to court decisions.

"If an originalist analysis was applied to the Fourteenth Amendment... the principle of one man, one vote would not govern the way we elect our representatives," Feinstein said.

It's always funny when senators complain about "one man one vote," the judicial creation that makes states and cities re-apportion their districts so everyone would reside in a district with (relatively) equal numbers of voters.

Is it a good idea? Yes. Does the Constitution demand it? Well, let's look at the body in which Feinstein serves. As senator from California, DiFi represents about 36 million people. Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming represents about 3% of that number. As dissenting justice John Harlan pointed out, this decision makes the Senate itself unconstitutional.

One man one vote is one of those judicial creations that ought to be overturned, not because the idea is bad, but because the Constitution doesn't demand legislative bodies to apportion themselves that way. Whether it's a good idea is irrelevant; "originalist" in this case means no more than "what the Consitution really says."

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Hot for Teacher

Nicole Long, a former Ohio teacher charged with having sex with a
17-year-old student, pleaded guilty yesterday.

Accused of sexual battery, Long, formerly a teacher at Ayersville High School, was facing a maximum sentence of five years behind bars and a $10,000 fine, WTOL-TV of Toledo reported.

Prosecutors are recommending a short jail term and probation for Long, 29, along with the revocation of her teaching credential.

Now I'll be the first one to admit that teachers boning their students is no way to run a railroad. But does anyone really think jailtime (or even arrest) is warranted just because a 29-year-old and a 17-year-old hooked up? Had it been Friday night at Twisters, no one would have even noticed (except the boy's friends, who'd have been giving high 5s all around).

So why does this become something the judicial system has to be involved in?

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Yeah, that could hurt

A Japanese nurse who tore off patients' toenails and fingernails because of a work grudge has been jailed for three years and eight months. A court imprisoned Akemi Sato after she admitted tearing 49 nails from six female patients at a hospital in Kyoto, western Japan in 2004.

The patients were all immobile after strokes or other illnesses.

I'm feeling a bit like like these patients this morning...not only does my 'luxury' hotel have no internet, but the software company I'm at has no Firefox. I know, boohoo. But I really, really hate IE. Really.

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On the Road

Just so you know, I'm currently sitting in the lobby of the Reniassance in downtown St. Louis and will fly to Williamsburg tomorrow for the rest of the week. Blogging will be minimal at best.

However, just in case you get too cheered in my absence, it was just reported that Kuwait probably only has half the oil they have previously claimed. That's not remotely surprising, since OPEC production targets are based on reserves. It has been to the advantage of OPEC countries to wildly inflate those numbers in order to be able to produce more.

Let's just hope Saudi did not fall prey to the same temptation...

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Don't forget to Fiddle

Steven LaTulippe says don't leave out the important things:

If society is going to hell in a hand basket, these folks ask, what practical advice do I have to offer?

...Despite the mess, enjoy life:

This may seem obvious, even puerile, but it is nevertheless an important point. In many ways, Epicurus was the wisest of the classical Greeks. He counseled his countrymen to esteem happiness as a major value. The Epicurean man cherishes time with his family, entertaining conversation with his friends, and quiet moments contemplating the beauty of nature. He enjoys superb cuisine, occasionally indulges in fine wine and aromatic cigars, and is inspired by art, music and intellectual pursuits...

Too many libertarians are downcast, or even apocalyptic, in their attitudes. Hiding in a bunker with a pallet of canned rations won’t do anyone any good. Having a positive attitude, on the other hand, is the key to living a joyful existence.

For the most part, there is little any of us can do to alter the big picture anyway, so why should we give them the satisfaction of making us miserable?

Life is too short. Come what may, it should be lived to the fullest.

Sage advice. It's easy to get caught up in too much worrying, too much activism. Though politics is the civil religion of the day (and its ubiquity is comparable to the influence of Catholicism during the late middle ages) the fact remains that there is is little anyone can do to stop the bleeding. It is, however, easy to waste one's life trying, to the exclusion of life itself.

The little things, like holding your daughter's hand on a moonlit boardwalk, are far more important than how you vote, how many yard signs you pound, or how many petitions you sign.

Besides, daughters are much more of a joy than politicians anyway.

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Fred starts a rickshaw factory
"After all, a man's got to do something for a living"

People deserve what they tolerate, say I, which is a frightening thought. Actually I love watching it. I’d sell tickets if I could. I’ve heard of countries going tits-up because they got stomped on by some other country, or got their trade cut off, but most of them don’t do it unless they have to. With us, it’s on purpose.

Meanwhile, you might be smart to get a wheelbarrow and fill it with cement and let your kids get a start on pulling it. Success after all goes to the economically adaptive, yet rickshaws may be trickier than we envision. Those who can’t pull will clean toilets. Have your children memorize the names of the streets while they still have you to read for them—unless, that is, you aren’t among the college graduates who can read.

We must look to the future.

I'm shocked - SHOCKED - at the recent news that fewer than 1/3 of college grads can be considered literate, down 10% in 10 years. Two thirds of those to whom we award diplomas have gone thru (at least) 16 years of schooling, been passed off to other teachers 16 times, and yet have failed to learn the single most important thing they should have learned from our professional educators.

Of course, it's not just reading. Beth let me read a few of the stories penned by her fellow KU students and I was astounded by the inability of some of these students to be considered even moderately competent in their major area of study. One "story", plagiarized from the movie "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (not even the names were changed to protect the idiot) by a 5th-year senior English major, was noteworthy not only for its lack of standardized spelling and punctuation, but for its consistent ability to ignore the simple idea that a sentence ought to contain a verb. "Her brown hair like a dog" is not a sentence.

There are of course as many excuses for our poor performance as there are stupid Americans, lazy teachers, and busy parents. None of them matter. When the world's engineers think primarily in Chinese, Americans will be pulling their rickshaws sooner or later.

I have a bad bad feeling it's going to be sooner.

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What to do?

Todd asks the obvious question:

Bill, what PAC or organization is best to rally for the cause? Concord Coalition? There has to be something better to do about this than dig a well, hoard guns-n-ammo, and stockpile gold/silver.

While I wouldn't discourage anyone from helping those orgs, I don't believe there is a political solution. Congress and the Prez are too short-sighted and profligate, and no one gets re-elected for taking away the punch bowl. Barring a political solution, I don't see anything better to do than to save the things worth saving, one person and family at a time.

But why does there have to be something better to do than digging a well, buying a gun and some gold and silver?

A well is a no-brainer for those who can. Heck, even occasional commenter and fine little brother Pifford T (who really dodged a bullet when the Jets passed on Mike Tice) has a well in his house in the city. Sure it came with the house, but why pay for the city to take water out of a river when you can take it for free out of the ground and know that you have clean water no matter what? I truly think the reason that people who can won't take such a step is psychological. If they do, then it's "serious." And we are not a serious people.

But on "stockpiling" gold, no one ever really does any more than one stockpiles mutual funds. What they do is accumulate gold, which is true wealth and always has been. Gold is wealth because it is no one else's debt. It is also both rare and undervalued.

For perspective it might be worthwhile to make a comparison between this element and other financial numbers. For example, all the gold mined in the past 2000 years adds up to the equivalent of about $2 trillion at today's prices. That's less than what the US government spends in a single year. And according to Richard Russell of the Dow Theory Letters (one of the most respected market commentators in the world): "The capitalization of all the legitimate producing gold mines on the planet Earth is around $120 billion. You could trade 'em all for Google and have money left over." All the gold mines in the world are valued less by the market than a single search engine. If that's not undervalued, nothing is. Well, silver is, and by far greater amounts than gold, since there is less silver than gold in the world (silver is used up in most industrial applications whereas gold is not).

It's interesting to look at the psychology as represented in the language. One 'accumulates' shares of Google, but one 'stockpiles' gold. Better minds than mine will need to explain the difference.

But let's say the dollar and the economy that relies on it is a car stuck on the tracks and a debt train is coming. If the train is not stopped at a certain time it will hit the car. It's certainly not a bad analogy, as debt has crashed numerous economies in the past.

The first thing to do is obviously to try to move the car or stop the train. That's the political solution. Yet when we hire politicians to push, some of them argue about whether there are really a train coming and the others start to strip the car down, hauling off what they can. The train draws closer, because more politicians are onboard promising the riders that they'll get to their destination and nothing can stop them. Maybe it would be better to create a new coalition of politicians, ones who are not interested in removing the radio or are willing to stop the train, but at some point it becomes obvious that the car is not going to be moved in time. That's the time to get the kids out and get away from the coming explosion.

George Soros once said that the path to success in investing is to find the trend whose premise is false and bet against it. The premise that we can go on accumulating debt and trading paper dollars for real goods forever is false. At some point it must end. Maybe it's this year and maybe it's 10 years away. I have no idea. But I do have a pretty good idea that however long it takes, there are a lot of politicians who are hoping that trend goes on past the next election.

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Life Imitates Wierd Al

Tell me why I need another pet rock
Tell me why I got that Alf alarm clock
Tell me why I bid on Shatner's old toupee
They had it on eBay
-- Wierd Al Yankovic, "Ebay"

LOS ANGELES - An online casino has a piece of Capt. Kirk.

Actor William Shatner has sold his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity, it was announced Tuesday. Shatner reached agreement Monday to sell the stone to GoldenPalace.com.

If you've ever considered it strange that a major part of the economy of the Middle Ages was dedicated to trafficing in the body parts (and alleged body parts) of the saints, realize we haven't really come that far.

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Pat Robertson is back
and this time he's black

Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that "God is mad at America" and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.

"Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin, who is black, said as he and other city leaders marked Martin Luther King Day.

Let's see if Ralph Neys and the ACLU get all twisted in knots over God getting the blame once again.

That blame is reserved solely for George Bush.

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Giant Chicks

THE popular image of Tyrannosaurus rex and other killer dinosaurs may have to be changed as a scientific consensus emerges that many were covered with feathers...

Gareth Dyke, a palaeontologist of University College Dublin, will tell the BA Festival of Science being held in the city that most such creatures were coated with delicate feathery plumage that could even have been multi-coloured. Fossil evidence that such dinosaurs were feathered is now “irrefutable”.

“The way these creatures are depicted can no longer be considered scientifically accurate,” he said. “All the evidence is that they looked more like birds than reptiles. Tyrannosaurs might have resembled giant chicks.”

So if the way dinosaurs are currently depicted 'can no longer be considered scientifically accurate,' how do we know the new depictions will be scientifically accurate? And how do we compare 'scientifically accurate' with just plain accurate? Does the existence of a modifier deny the accuracy?

Personally, I think the existence of huge, feathered dinosaurs would be pretty darned funny. Calling somebody 'chicken' would certianly take on new meaning.

How long until we discover that Grendel was really a tyrannosaurus and that Beowulf actually lived 65 million years ago?

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Fortune Magazine sees the elephant in the room

...if Congress mandates a (pension plan) premium hike, as it probably will, then more companies will just dump their plans on the PBGC, redoubling the need for more funds, leading to more premium hikes, and so on. If you can see any way taxpayers will not get billed for a giant bailout, please e-mail Congress immediately.

And then there's the greatest pension crisis of all: Social Security. We've stayed in denial thanks to the so-called trust fund, that magical place where the plan's annual surpluses are sent to be invested until we need them. But since those surpluses must by law be invested in government bonds, they have simply been handed over to the U.S. Treasury and spent by Congress.

The trust fund is in fact meaningless, a bit of marketing hooey cooked up in the '30s. When Social Security's annual surpluses end in just six or seven years, the battle over whose ox to gore in order to cover the plan's obligations will be truly epic.

The hard reality is that for decades we haven't told ourselves the truth about pensions. Now, as the first baby-boomers turn 60, we must finally confront reality -- and absolutely no one will like it.

Six or seven years, if the dollar lasts that long. That's when the budget deficit (which was announced to be $400 billion next year rather than $341 billion) takes off in earnest, because right now workers are paying more in social Security than the gov't pays out. Government then spends the money, leaving a note in a filing cabinet (called in FDR-speak, a "trust fund") to tell how much they spent while masking the real deficit by that amount. Once the tipover point occurs, Congress will not only have no SocSec surplus to hide the real budget deficit, but they'll have to start paying it back. It can't be done, especialy not in an environment where the gov't is spending hundreds of billions on overseas wars, hurricane cleanups, and every problem that Bush can manage to throw dollars at.

The dollars aren't there and must be printed.

So what to do? I hear it all the time, "OK smart guy, if you're right and the dollar's dead, what are we to do about it?"

The first thing to do is to realize that the government is not going to save you or most likely anyone else. The coming economic catastrophe is completely the fault of the government acting in the way that the majority of your neighbors wants them to and your neighbors will want more of the same as it gets worse. The solution is not political: your future is your responsibility.

The second thing to realize is that pension promises can't be kept. Not by the government, not by companies. The existence of a baby boom generation followed by falling birth rates sealed the fate of these ponzi plans that assumed an ever-larger group of workers to pay the way of retirees. Unless you are retired now, you'll probably not live out a long life on a pension.

The third thing to realize is that when the dollar collapses due to the printing of trillions of them, debts will be wiped out. Good deal, right? You'll be able to pay off your house with worthless money. But how much does the bank owe you? If you have saved any money or invested your 401(k) in bonds, say goodbye. Our economy runs on debt and our dollars represent debt. Wipe out debt and you destroy commerce. Destroy commerce and your employer no longer needs you.

The fourth thing to realize is that prices, especially of imports, are going to rise far, far faster than incomes. The lying CPI, which does not even measure real inflation anyway, is already higher than the average wage increase. As the dollar dies, the American dream and standard of living dies with it.

The last and most important thing to realize is that sheep get sheared. Always. Most people are going to suffer horribly, so you must do things they are not doing. It's time to leave the flock.

Once you realize those five things, really come to accept them, what to do becomes a lot simpler:

Get out of debt. Sure, all debts will be paid off in worthless dollars in the long run, but in the meantime you'll be paying a boatload of interest at quickly-rising rates that could be much better spent. Not everyone can do it completely (and our economy, built as it is, would collapse if they tried) but you can do it at least a little. The more the better.

Put something aside now, but not in long-term dollars. There are a million "investments" that one can use for retirement and the one thing that they all have in common is that they have value independent of the dollar. Gold, silver, copper, collector's items like rare coins and stamps, small commercial real estate (small enough that you don't have to go in hoc to buy...yes, it can be found, but not in big cities) farmland, currencies of stable resource-exporting or fiscally-responsible countries (Switzerland, Canada, Australia), guns and ammo, food. The point is to buy and save things that will retain value and to purchase what you'll have to purchase tomorrow anyway at inflated prices. We're not going into the dark ages, but through a dark time. There is a world of difference. You can't prepare for the end of the world, so other than prayer, don't bother with that.

Shoot financial albatrosses. If anything is costing you money and you're not getting any benefit from it, get rid of it. Re-prioritizing your finances can free up dollars today that can be much better used. Get used to living with fewer baubles, especially if they are imported. Grow some food. Dig a well.

If you have a 401(k) make sure it's not in long-term bonds. Bond prices are nearly as high as they'll ever get, so not only are you accepting low rates over long years, you'll probably get a huge capital loss once rates start to rise in earnest. If you have no choice but to hold debt, hold it in as short a maturity as you can...90 days t-bills and commercial paper pay almost the same as the 10-year bond anyway, and will benefit from rising rates. Long-term debt will suffer from it.

Stocks are fine, so long as they are the right stocks. The Dow has returned nothing for 5 years, the NASDAQ has delivered a bloodbath to buy-and-holders. I expect that will continue. But solid, profitable, debt-free companies are always worth owning at the right price and those companies in the resource sector (especially oil, gas, and gold) own resources that are going to fly in value. If you can get individual stocks in your 401(k) try to get coal miners, oil producers, and gold mines. If you only have a few pennies to spare, open an account at Ameritrade Izone ($5 a trade) and start buying small producers, spreading your few dollars among as many profitable companies as you can afford. Make your own mutual fund for safety, because it's a dangerous world and it's going to get worse.

Start a second job, don't "get" one. Not everyone can start and run a successful company, but everyone can find a successful hobby and everyone can make a little money at it, even if it's refurbishing bicycles or selling baby clothes on Ebay. Having a little income outside your current employer will allow you a measure of financial freedom and allow you to build assets and expertise. Learn a trade; your job is not guaranteed, but your skills are.

Finally, decide where you want to live in hard times and move there or have a plan to get there. No one can "bug-out" of society completely, but I personally would not want to live in NYC when blackouts occur nor in SanFran when real estate prices are halved. Everything reverts to the mean eventually, and those paying for houses on interest-only and ARM mortgages are going to have their heads handed to them. Angry, hungry people make bad neighbors.

Since the government severed the final dollar/gold link in 1971, the dollar has been on a crash course. Deficits, budgets, pensions, debt, A credit bubble, a stock bubble, a real estate bubble, even peak oil are coming together to create what some have called the Perfect Financial Storm. Doing what were doing is guaranteed to bring misery, yet the vast majority will continue to do it and rely on Uncle Sam to pick up the pieces.

There's and old ditty about "all the king's horses and all the kings men" trying just that. Far better to make your personal retirement humpty-dumpty out of something other than eggshells.

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Look, I came here for an argument
I'm sorry, but this is abuse:

SURREY, January 10, 2006 – British Columbia home schooling parents are dismayed after discovering harsh comments about home schooling made by Jim McMurtry, Liberal party candidate for South Surrey, B.C., in the September/October 2003 edition of Teacher Magazine.

McMurtry wrote that parents who educate their children at home are “condemning their children to an impoverished, friendless, and segregated learning environment.” Home schooling parents, he said, “participate in what can be perceived as a form of child abuse.”

I always found it a little comical that the biggest criticism my public school teacher relatives had against homeschooling was that my daughter was going to miss out on prom. Of course, since that's what school is about (oh, that and football for the boys) it is de-facto child abuse for a parent to dedicate a significant percentage of her life educating her children rather than enriching shareholders and teachers' unions. Children are irreparably damaged by being denied an age-segregated environment where they can learn manners and attitudes from those who are learning the same from them. We all have to be socialized, right?

There are two "real" societal issues in regards to homeschooling that all homeschooling parents will face, and the first explains why the above quote probably didn't raise any eyebrows in the teacher's mag in which it first appeared: homeschoolers are 'stealing' from the public schools. Seriously. My wife was accosted in the grocery store once by a teacher with just such an accusation. The fact that our kids were not in school meant that the local school got less money that it would have otherwise. Hence homeschoolers are thieves. Thieves are bad people. Child abusers are bad people. Ergo by public-school-teacher logic, its not a hard jump to Homeschoolers are child abusers. All that's needed is to make up an argument - however silly - to justify the accusation.

The second issue buttresses the first in the minds of those who have a vested interest in the 'success' (increased budgets) of the public schools. The decision to homeschool for whatever reason one chooses is an indictment of the public schools. One relative got offended when she found out we were homeschooling because she had put her kids in public schools. Therefore, we were criticizing her and her decisions. Such could not stand, of course.

The sad truth is that the public schools create pack animals of both children and their parents (who were probably themselves public school graduates). To purposely turn your backs on the free and excellent education provided by public schools is to invite all sorts of accusations, all of which are probably considered true in the minds of those offended that you choose be different than most people. Who do you think you are to decide against what the experts and the majority want? A child abuser?

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And we wonder why health care is so expensive

A 9-year-old boy in California who suffered from uncontrollable head jerking movements after long hours of video game playing stopped the twitching after his doctor banned him from playing PlayStation, according to a report.

Nicholas Lavin said that he played PlayStation constantly over the holidays at his home in San Diego and began to notice that his head would jerk back and forth.

"I would do funny things with my head," Nicholas said.

Lavin's mother said her son began to twitch so badly that she took him to the family's pediatrician.

The doctor told her he was not allowed to play PlayStation anymore. Once he stopped playing PlayStation, the twitching stopped, according to the report.

Here we have a doctor who probably spent a quarter million dollars to go to med school and spends squillions on continuing ed and insurance, employs nurses and lab technicians, and never sees his own kids.

His job? Order other people's kids not to play 10 hours of Halo a day.

I wonder how much Mom paid for her worthless parenting degree...

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Funny how it all comes back to Genesis

Rerun so it could be archived properly:

A total of 3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four "founding mothers" who lived in Europe at least 1,000 years ago, according to a study by Israeli geneticists.

The four women were part of a small group which founded the Ashkenazi community, established in Europe after migration from the Middle East, and was ultimately descended from Jews who migrated to Italy in the first and second centuries AD.

Of course, I have no idea if the genetics are correct. Not being a geneticist, I'm not in a position to say anything with certainty. I do find it interesting, however, how the possibility parallels the assertion that each of the tribes in the ancient world trace themselves back to one or two people. It seems that certain men (and women) were so blessed that their direct offspring became the nations vying for territory and resources in the couldron that was the ancient world. Everyone else managed to die off or at least be forgotten.

But the name "Ashkenazi" is what caught my attention. Most people look at early Genesis as simply mythology and especially at the genealogies therein as made-up and without meaning in our modern day. But certain names pass through the generations unaltered and, like the genetic clues discovered by Behar and Skoracki here, lead us back to the obscure and mostly unrecorded past. "Ashkenaz" is not a Jewish name, but a gentile (and specifically European) one. So how does it get attached to a significant percentage of the world's Jews?

It happens like this: Ashkenaz appears in the Genesis genealogies as the son of Gomer, the son of Japeth. Japeth, according to Jewish tradition (and Josephus' and Nennius' histories) is the father of the European nations, turning up among later Europeans as Iupater, Jove (Jupiter), and Sceaf, and among the Indians as Pra-Japati. The Europeans considered their own ancestors divine - so their claims to be 'decended from the gods' were in that sense very real to them - and Japeth always finds himself among the pantheon.

Language scholar Arthur Custance, who traced Ashkenaz through linguistics, place-names, and inscriptions for his PhD, wrote the following:

One of the sons of Gomer was named Ashkenaz. With the assistance of historical notices from antiquity, ancient and modern place names, and various other means, it has been possible to trace the spread of the descendants of Ashkenaz up into Europe, where the name underwent certain changes in form, appearing sometimes as Sakasene, and more familiarly as Saxon and finally in the compound word Scandi-navia.

Jews, of course, being driven place to place throughout late antiquity, found themselves strangers in strange lands, and one of those lands gave them (among other Jews) the name "Ashkenazi Jews." Why? Because they dwelt as Jews among the Ashkenazi. But how could there be Ashkenazi if there was no Ashkenaz? How could there be linguistic connections and historical place names if the man never existed? Yet how could he exist if Genesis is just a collection of Hebrew fables? It's unlikely (to say the least) that the Germanic tribes would have taken upon themselves names from Hebrew mythology, especially as they had probably never had any interaction with the Hebrews until late antiquity. The Germanic tribes (especially the Saxons, descended from Ashkenaz) had their own genealogies and would be pretty unlikely candidates to co-opt Hebrew names for themselves in any case.

Which leads us to a strange probability: There were Saxons and Scandanavians and Ashkenazi Jews because there was an Ashkenaz. There were Germans because there was a Gomer. In other words, the mythology (at least of the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, which traces the names of those who lived immediately after the flood) reflects reality. It is history. We glean precious little from it (try fitting 500 years of history into one page of text sometime and see how much detail you get) but we find that the main post-flood genealogy in Genesis, however vaguely, gives us a true account of the descent and spread of post-flood peoples.

When people ask why I 'take the Bible literally,' other than explaining that there are many, many things I don't know I answer that I take it literally because there are people today who claim descent (even if they don't remember why) from real people that we meet on its pages. And if those people existed, then the Bible tells us, most likely, where they came from.

Labels: bible

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I see brown people

MIDLAND, TEXAS - Some say it could have been a terrorist plot that was stopped dead in its tracks.

This morning, we don't know why six people of Middle Eastern origin tried to purchase as many as 60 prepaid cell phones from the new Wal-Mart Superstore in south Midland...

The cell phones the suspects were trying to buy look very similar to the phones many of us carry. But, because the phones are prepaid (and don’t have a contract), they’re tough for authorities to track. That makes them a favorite for terrorists and gangsters who want to remain beneath the radar.

How long until pre-paid cell phones are themselves banned? They are obviously as dangerous as machine guns, another implement that "terrorists and gangsters" have been known to use, and anyone trying to purchase them is a de facto terrorist. I mean, who else would want to remain beneath the radar?

Welcome to the home of the brave.

UPDATE:

They don't have any ties to terrorism. That's what the FBI is saying about a group of Middle Easterners who tried to buy a bunch of prepaid cell phones from a Midland store.

The men and women tried to purchase 'a quantity' of phones from the new Wal-Mart Superstore in south Midland December 18th. Many were worried because the phones the suspects tried to buy have been used before to detonate bombs.

Nope. And I suppose it never occured to those who worry about brown people on phones that if it was a terrorist operation, they'd probably have just ordered a case of them through the 7-11s they all work at, rather than buying them from Wal Mart...

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Discovered 'for significant history'

A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus.

The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.

Here's something I've never understood: how can you 'discover' something that already has people living on it? I mean seriously. When Columbus got here, there had been two and a half millennia worth of civilization that had, for much of the time, rivaled Europe in complexity and 'advancement'. I might as well 'discover' Missouri when I get to Sam's Club in Joplin tomorrow.

And it's not like it's that big a deal anyway. Columbus (and Zheng He for that matter) were simply the latest (or at least the best-remembered) of a long line of explorers and traders who 'discovered' America, including the Egyptians, the Irish Celts, the Phonecians, the Norse, and probably the Libyans as well. Had the Romans been better sailors (or lost the Punic Wars) it might have never been lost to be re-discovered anyway.

I guess one could say Columbus found America so well that there was never a reason for anyone to do so again, and that would be true. But I'm sure the Chavin and Maya Civilizations, founded about the same time Helen's face launched a thousand ships, would be surprised to find out they were lost in the first place.

Everywhere Japeth went, Ham was there before him.

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Will somebody get this guy the hell off TV?

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has sent a letter apologizing for suggesting that Ariel Sharon's massive stroke was divine punishment for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.

Robertson's comments drew widespread condemnation from other Christian leaders, President Bush and Israeli officials, who canceled plans to include the American evangelist in the construction of a Christian tourist center in northern Israel.

I'll bet by now the AP and NYTimes have assigned a full-time reporter to watch CBN so they can be the first to report whatever idiocy is coming next. Why people send money to this clown is beyond me.

Christians have no monopoly on idiots. But it sure feels that way sometimes.

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It's all over but the voting

Asked about his view on the power of the president, Judge Alito said that no president is above the law, even during wartime. "It's particularly important that we adhere to the Bill of Rights in times of war and times of national crisis because that's when there's the greatest temptation to depart from them."

But Senator Edward Kennedy countered that Judge Alito's judicial record indicates that he favoured government over the rights of individuals. "Time and again, even in routine matters involving average Americans, you give enormous, almost total, deference to the exercise of governmental powers." ...

Republicans hold a majority of 55 to 45 in the U.S. Senate and, despite the questioning, it's seen as unlikely that Democrats will succeed in blocking his appointment.

If after 6 weeks of rummaging through garbage cans and trying to make his wife cry (they succeeded...Dems are so manly) the only thing the Dems can bang Alito on is the fact that we once belonged to an organization where another member said something nasty about blacks, the Dems might as well pack it in. Alito is going on the court.

There should not be any doubt: the man is everything the Hard-Hearted Harbinger of Haggis was not.

Schumer is worried that Alito will vote to overturn Roe. Of course he will and of course he should. But one of the funniest things to see will be Teddy's face contorted into a purple rage when Alito says the government has no right over individuals when it's HIS pet coercions that are in the crosshairs (and oh are there plenty of them. Teddy is not exactly a libertarian). But all that being said, the Dems have not shown that the man is unqualified for the position, and therefore he will likely sit in it.

For the next 30 years. I dunno... the sight of Schumer pretending that he was actually interested in Alito's answers just made me giggle...

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World's Smallest Violin

Actor Sean Penn added to the enthusiasm of the day by stressing that all of the nation's anti-war activism was taking hold and was starting to work—while admitting that the stress of living under the current administration was making it tough for him to quit smoking.

Bush is apparently responsible for a lot of stuff, both good and bad. But now he's responsible for the fact that Sean Penn can't give up cigarettes? I think now I've heard it all.

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Replace 'Anarchism' with 'Libertarianism'

You scored as Anarchism. Anarchism 100% Republican 67% Democrat 33% Green 0% Nazi 0% Fascism 0% Communism 0% Socialist 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

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Alec's Ashtray Outperforms His 401(k)

Losing money making money. That sounds strange, but that's exactly what occurred when The United States Mint produced 95% copper/5% zinc cents in 1982. Material and production costs exceeded $0.01 to manufacture the cent and they changed the composition to 97.5% zinc mid-year (how they're still made today).

Now, the copper in the pre-1982 cent wasn't worth more than a cent at the time---it took 23 years for that to happen. On February 18, 2005 copper settled at $1.5126/lb and the pre-1982 copper cent had an intrinsic value of $0.01006437...

Fast forward to January 6, 2006 where copper settled at $2.1208/lb. ... Do the math and you come up with $0.0141171. What does that mean? If you have 100 pre-1982 cents, you now have $1.41 in copper/zinc (40% gain in one year). On a percentage basis, the coins in my car ashtray doubled the gains made in my 401K last year...

It is a collosal indictment of our thieving government that they have stolen so much value from the dollar that old pennies are now worth more in metal value than they are as "money." It happened in the 60s, and for the same reason... the government so inflated the dollar that silver, which had spend the better part of 2 centuries at about .29/oz., took off on its way to $50/oz. The coins disappeared from circulation, replaced by copper-nickel tokens that even have ridged edges, as if someone would scrape the side of these sad sack tokens to recover the 'value'. Now the basest of the base, the lowly penny (at least its pre-1982 incarnation) is worth 40% more melted into a blob than it is with "in God We Trust" minted on it.

The nickel - itself created as a token to replace the silver half-dime - it not far behind: according to coinflation, the metal value is now >70% of the face value. It will cost the government 6c to mint a nickel this year.

Yes, I save my pre-1982 pennies in a 1-liter Diet Mountain Dew bottle at work. Why would I spend money that's now actually worth something?

Mr. Gresham strikes again...

Update: As one of my forays out of the dollar (e.g. one of the things I'm "saving") is collector coins, which always do well in inflationary times. Just for fun, I bought some uncleaned Roman coins to see what kinds of treasures I could unearth. Upon receiving my first batch, I was shocked (SHOCKED) at the size of them: they are freaking tiny. Rome did the same thing the US is doing (sans the "technology called the printing press") and the result was the same. The result of the same action will always be the same consequence.

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Makes you wonder how some books get published

A UVic mathematician's new book discusses the extraordinary idea that our calendars are more than 1,000 years off:

Happy 2006! Wait, not so fast. Should we really be saying "Happy 942?"

The thought that we're ahead of ourselves chronologically seems far-fetched, but it's the subject of a new book by University of Victoria mathematician Dr. Florin Diacu...

Diacu admits that an interest in history is unusual for a mathematician, but his research in celestial mechanics—the motion of celestial bodies such as planets and stars—ties the two together. "If you look at planets today you can see where they were in the past. We can tell their movements with good accuracy for about 20 million years in the past and the future."

Not having read the book (or heard the theory) I'm of course not in a position to make any comment on it other than that I'm extremely skeptical. But there are a few points worth making:

1. The modern science of chronology was established by Joseph Scalinger, a harsh critic of the cumbersome Gregorian calendar, in circa ~1600. The Gregorian calendar, whose complexity makes it very difficult to reconstruct chronology accurately, had recently replaced the Julian calendar, one of several times throughout history calendar systems have needed replacement.

2. The assumption that people before us were too stupid to define a working calendar but lived with it for a millennium anyway is universal, but unlikely. There is most likely something else going on that causes our calendars to become outdated every millennium or so.

3. Diacu's idea that our chronology is incorrect is based on an assumption that, "if you look at the planets today, you can see where they were in the past." In other words, planets make a good clock because their motion is predictable and consistent, and he uses that consistency to show that our calendars are incorrect. But all ancient calendars were based on the movement of planets and their moons - most notably ours - yet they all needed replacing at some point.

What does it all mean? Heck if I know. I just wonder how many people would actually pay $25 for a book that tells them we're still in the Dark Ages...

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Buh-Bye Buck

The Financial Times bears bad news:

China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds – a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

Economists estimate that more that 70 per cent of the reserves are invested in US dollar assets, which has helped to sustain the recent large US deficits. If China were to stop acquiring such a large proportion of dollars with its reserves – currently accumulating at about $15bn (€12.4bn) a month – it could put heavy downward pressure on the greenback.

Being as how China has been to this point the single largest supporter of the dollar (and fastest accumulator of US debt) to say this bodes ill for the buck is like saying Shanghai is crowded. Hate to say I told you so, but reality catches up with everyone, sooner or later...

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bw Asks a Good Question(tm)

"...do you think the bigger, more open dangers the left is practicing warrant laws forbidding the destruction of the society as a whole? By degree, the not so harmful practices of the left are increasingly more harmful and unavoidable FOR ALL, are they not? In other words, why Enable?"

I know you probably hate when people answer a question of principle as, "It Depends," but it depends, if for no other reason that I don't know for certain what practices you're talking about. So let me lay something out and we can certainly try to fit certain practices into the matrix here.

The first principle, I think, comes directly from the Declaration of Independence. When our forefathers stood up against tyranny in the form of a king (there's the problem of executive power again) they laid out the very purpose of government: that to protect the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (understood as property and its use), governments are established among men. All government (and "lawful" law) is no more than the collective defense of rights that individuals have. Individuals have the right to life, and since they have that right, they may gather together and defend that right collectively. In this case, the "right" to defend life is delegated to an entity, government, that acts on their behalf. They have the right to liberty and property, so they establish a government to prevent rape and kidnapping and theft. In each case, what the government can do is a reflection of what the individuals have a right to do: defend themselves.

The second principle is one of limiting that government. For government to be an effective entity, it must be more powerful than any individual (how can it protect you if it is weaker than you or your attacker?) yet governments are composed of men who are, if history serves as any guide, also liable to use that power to deprive you of life, liberty, and property. So government must be strong in the areas where it acts as the collective protector of rights, yet it must be limited in scope and power, lest it itself become a new King George: a power without equal that abuses that power more than those it is designed to suppress. We do that through elections and impeachment in the case of individuals who abuse that power, but we have a Constitution that defines the limitations of that power.

Now, before we can answer to what extent government can keep people from "destroying society" we must ask what that means. Does it mean acting in ways that the majority does not approve of? Or does it mean suppressing the liberties of others in ways that make it impossible for them to form a society? I would suggest that the major entity that is capable of doing the latter is itself government (or individuals acting on its behalf). In the absense of government, gangs or mafias or other criminal organizations can do so. And yes, in the case where a gang suppresses society through violence or extortion, it is a primary responsibility of government to prevent that.

Unfortunately, when most people talk about others "destroying society" they mean the first, that if Mr. X and Mr. Y are allowed to marry, or if Ms. P is allowed to rent her body out by the hour or if Mr. D is able to put whatever chemicals he wishes into his veins, that will destroy society. I agree to this small extent: X, Y, P, and D are all members of society and to the extent that they harm themselves they harm society. But as a principle, that's a dangerous one to enforce, because it's just as harmful for Mr. A to skydive as it is for Mr. Q to frequent bath houses; either may destroy themselves in doing so, and in each case, if one makes the argument that what is dangerous (potentially destructive) to a member of society must be banned because it is potentially destructive to society as a whole, the list of bans will be very long and include smoking, eating french fries, riding motorcycles, skiing, driving while tired...all those things are dangerous, yet as soon as we try to implement that list, we have created a government which has stopped protecting liberty and begun abusing it. If liberty means anything, it means the right to do what you wish so long as you accept the hurts that act might inflict on you.

A second example - where 'danger' is not so much the issue as is 'morality' - might be polygamy. America bans it because the majority, being of European stock, finds the practice abhorrent. Many would argue that if we allowed men or women to marry multiple partners, they would destroy society. They might change society as it is presently constituted, but many societies have existed (and still exist) where plural marriage was, if not the norm, at least not unheard of. Lest one argue that a Christian, for example, must oppose it for religious reasons, I would say that many of the patriarchs whom Jews and Christians look to as spiritual guides were polygamists. Polygamy has never been a Christian institution, but neither is single marriage itself: that is simply required to be eligible for church leadership. And Christianity, as a voluntary organization, only has the right to enforce morality for its own members (1Cor 5:12-3). The rest is God's job.

Now, to what extent does government have the right (even the responsibility) to 'protect' society? I would say that it has very little, if for no other reason than that the individuals whose rights it collectively defends have no right to impose society on their neighbors.

Heinlein ("The Moon is a Harsh Mistress") asked THE question about the dilemma of government: to what extent is it moral for the group to do what the individual cannot? If you have no right to forcibly keep your neighbor from endangering himself by not wearing a seatbelt or by sleeping with someone else's wife, then government, which has only the rights you delegate to it, can have no such right. That they do so anyway is a tyrannical act, because it acts absolutely and without external restraint. If I can't force you to wear your seatbelt, then neither can all your neighbors. If one or a group of them does, they are denying your liberty - the very thing government was established to prevent.

The bottom line issue for both right and left is that they misinterpret government and its laws as society, but they are not. Society is the totality of human relationships and it follows certain norms in certian places and at certain times because influences (geographic, religious, technological, traditional) act upon humans and because humans must make tradeoffs. The nuclear family 'works' best at times, but polygamy at others (e.g. in a pastoral society with a dearth of men). Voluntary organizations, from marriage to the Lion's Club to the church to business all interact to make up society. But left and right both envision a model society and try to use government (which is at its bottom, coercion) to force their neighbors to comply with their vision of society. If they envision a society where everyone lives in a certain marriage, they define it and pass laws. If they envision one where everyone is safe from blunders, they define the blunders and pass laws. If they envision one where everyone gets a certain amount of the collective economic pie, they define who must foot the bill and pass laws. But what they are doing, bottom line, is stealing and enslaving, the very things government was established to prevent.

So the short answer (heh-heh) is that society cannot be destroyed so long as government prevents people from denying other individuals their right to life, liberty, and property and refrains from denying those rights themselves. The society that lives under a regimen where those are protected may take on strange forms or it may not, but that society will reflect what the majority of individuals, in their own calculation of what brings them happiness, decide to do with their own lives.

The postscript, "Why enable?" is interesting. To enable means to supply with means; it is a positive act. If I rescue you from the effects of your drunkenness by continuously bailing you out of jail, I'm enabling you. But if I refrain from forcibly keeping you from drinking, no matter how much you injure yourself, I am simply respecting your freedom. I do think that government, in its efforts to protect people from the effects of their own actions, does enable, because it provides the means that allow people to continue in harmful acts where they might have to stop if left to suffer the consequences. Government, then, is the only entity that can enable everyone simultaneously, and is probably the largest factor in the "destruction of society" as defined by those who wish to use government to mold it. But government is certainly not enabling anyone by letting them suffer the consequences of their own free choices.

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Twice a day, a broken clock is right

Occasionally I like to scour the left half of the web, and not only because I like to check up on the opposition. Frankly, reading liberals (well, SOME liberals) gives me cause to think, like reading some conservatives give me cause to shake my head. While I live conservatively, I don't find (unlike most of the new conservatives) the need to enforce that by law. But I'll be honest, most liberals are flaming lunatics. I read them anyway, because there are a few that are not. In fact, there are a few that, even if they get the specifics wrong or like to spin uncontrollably, manage to see the big picture.

Mike Whitney appears to be one of them. He writes:

The vulnerability of the dollar, skittering atop an ocean of red ink, has become the Achilles heel of the empire. Washington may believe that its weakness is well-concealed behind a wall of high-tech weaponry and media propaganda, but potential adversaries will certainly know where to strike if they are forced to respond...

When the dollar collapses, the baling-wire of economic coercion that keeps the empire sewn together will quickly unravel.

Now, leaving aside his rather reckless (or at least unexplained) assertions that GWOT is not about terror or oil but the dollar, his conclusion is perfectly right on. The economic problem with GWOT, and especially Iraq, is that it forces us to spend money that must be borrowed or printed into circulation.

The American war machine runs on paper dollars. It's a simple statement of fact. ALL nations have historically abused their own currencies in order to make war more affordable. While Whitney apparently finds especial glee in bashing the US over it, the fact is that the US is no worse (and certainly no better) than any other nation in that regard.

And while Whitney seems to use "greenback" as a pseudonym for "Federal Reserve Note," he misses an excellent possible support for his argument: the original greenback was itself a fiat printed currency issued by the Union to pay for the Civil War. Nations *always* use printed money to pay for war. Rather than an argument that "GWB is bad," it's a better argument that nations should not print currency; they should mine it. That way war would be too expensive. But I digress...

The major problem with what GWB is doing, deficit-wise, is that as a fiat currency, the dollar is inherently weak. It has lost 96% of its value since the Fed was created to "stabilize prices." When the Fed was created, gold was ~$20 an ounce. Today it's north of $500. Gold has not changed. Ponder that.

When you combine an inherently weak medium of exchange with twin deficits - a budget deficit created by out-of-control spending and a trade deficit created by a Fed-induced credit expansion - the only possible result is the destruction of the currency. It follows as night follows day. And the destruction of the currency is the destruction of the grease that keeps the economy running. How would you get paid or pay for anything if you didn't know, day-to-day, what a dollar was worth? And if you don't trust the dollar the economy implodes, because economic activity comes to reflect the inherent chaos of a currency that merely (and poorly) pretends to have value.

That was a long way to say this: The dollar is inherently no different than the Argentine Peso with one exception: it is a reserve currency. It is used by other nations' central banks to "back" their own pesos and Euros, and therefore other nations have an incentive to protect its value. But with that comes a trust, and that trust is that WE will protect its value.

That's a trust we have forsaken through deficit spending and unheard-of credit creation. Add to that a world nervous about our imperial intentions and you create a situation where nations must re-evaluate that support.

None of that would matter if we didn't print our money. The world could go to hell in a silver-plated handbasket, and so long as our currency had value, we could survive. But we are today dependent upon printed dollars, and the value of those dollars is dependent to a large extent upon the goodwill of other nations, especially to the extent that we rely on them to cover our twin deficits. The more Iraqs we have, the more we must print our money and the more we scare those people who maintain the value of the grease of our economy.

So Whitney, while perhaps a little over-the-top in specifics, gets the big pic right: if we go after Iran, we may see the end of the dollar. What happens after that no one can say, but the title of Caesar has never been officially retired, and people who look to government for meaning have never been shy to appoint one.

If we think the world is drenched in blood now, just wait until the day that six billion people come to understand that everything they have worked their lives for is denominated in paper nothings. I'm sorry to say that it just may be the Land of the Free that appoints one first, but as millions of Americans now look to Washington for bread and circuses, I feel that old history bug crawling up the back of our collective leg to take a big bite...

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Principle v. Politics

George Ure conflates the two:

George Bush is questioning democrats over their failure to give him a rubber stamp on the administrations request for renewal of the Patriot Act, saying it's politically motivated. I'm not sure about your feelings, but preserving Constitutional rights doesn't seem "political" unless your administration is trying to plead ignorance on things like domestic spying on US citizens.

It's not a matter of feelings, but of fact. The Patriot Act (damn its black heart) is being 'renewed,' meaning, as everyone knows, that it is already the law. The Democrats already went along with it once, and with overwhelming numbers. If they oppose it now over principle, then they either have changed their principles since they supported it in overwhelming numbers 4 years ago or they're playing politics.

Look, I hope the Dems DO manage to stop Patriot, though I have little doubt they'll ultimately fold, simply because it's not about principle, but politics. Doesn't make them wrong, obviously, but "right for the wrong reasons" is no worthy political platform.

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Gold on a Tear

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Gold in New York climbed 2.6 percent, the most since February 2002, on speculation that investors will buy bullion as an alternative to currencies because of concern about accelerating inflation.

Gold's rally was sparked by the dollar's biggest decline in three months against the euro, after a report showed the pace of U.S. manufacturing slowed. Gold jumped 18 percent in 2005 for the fifth straight annual gain, even as the dollar climbed 15 percent. The precious metal rose in all currencies last year, paced by a 36 percent value increase in yen and euros.

"We're trying to get exposure to gold as a hedge for a weakening dollar and the twin deficits,'' said Matthew Rudolf...

It only gets worse from here on out. As the "twin deficits" (budget and trade) continue to hit new records, the dollar hangs over a precipice. The question people ask is, of course, "How high can gold go?" That's the wrong question. The right question is "How low can the dollar go?" The price of gold will be the inverse of that.

I may be a rarity in the investing world, but I do think that silver is going to outperform gold, on a percentage basis, by an order of magnitude. The reasons are simple: there is less silver than gold and silver is starting 9/10 off its old high where gold starts a mere 2/3 from the top.

Some wiseguy once wrote, "A prudent man foreseeth the trouble, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished." Take that FWIW. Trouble's coming.

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There is no Blue

Blue dust swirls as the spaceship descends to the surface of the small planet, and as it settles a man climbs out of the ship. Several dog-sized creatures sniff the air and approach the man, tails wagging. The man finds it strange that these creatures should look so much like terrestrial dogs; they are almost a perfect copy, except that they have no eyes.

As the man walks carefully toward them, one of them begins to speak.

"Greetings."

"How do you know my language?" the man asks with just a bit of surprise.

"El Borak needed me to in order to make this story work," and the dogs giggle and the author smiles.

"This is certainly a beautiful blue planet you have," the man says, waving his hand toward the horizon.

"A what planet?" comes the startled answer.

"Blue planet. Everything here is blue: the water, the plants, the dirt."

"Surely you are mistaken," the dog answers. "The water is cold, the dirt is hard, the plants tasty. But this 'blue' you speak of does not exist."

There is no blue for the dogs, of course, because they cannot see it. All that exists to them is what they can perceive through the senses. Pretty foolish, no? Yet we do the same thing without even thinking of it.

When I googled "There is no bigfoot" I came across a piece I linked before called the "Skeptical Manifesto," which had the following to say, after laying out affirmative declarations that many things from Bigfoot to God to flying saucers do not exist:

Science either can or will be able eventually to explain all things that happen here in the real world. If you have problems, your best bet is to look to science or to yourself for solutions, not to pseudoscience and phony mysticism.

It's a perfect example of the religion of Scientism:

Scientism's single-minded adherence to only the empirical, or testable, makes it a strictly scientific worldview...In essence, scientism sees science as the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth.

Of course, for science to be "the absolute and only justifyable access to truth," then those things that are true must be perceivable by human beings, because science is, first and foremost: "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena."

If you can't see it, can't categorize its causes and hypothetical effects, then it doesn't exist, just like 'blue' doesn't exist on a planet of blind dogs. We deduce atoms because we see their effects. We see stars, we hear music. Then we assume that nothing we haven't seen, counted, or repeated exists.

The funny thing is that millions of educated adults (and in many case, the millions of adults who are most educated) should rely on the silly assumption that just because I can't see, taste, feel, smell, or hear something, it doesn't exist. I don't see that evolution guarantees that we random mutations should have been given a set of sensory perceivers that will perceive everything there is.

Maybe we have been, and maybe not. But to believe and assert such, while making the believer very "scientific," makes him no closer to the truth than is a blind dog.

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Frustration

Ok, so I'm at my office today... few boxes of books to pack up and bills to pay, and figured I'd play Icewind Dale for a little until my neighbor gets back in his house and I can call to him about getting rid of a few cows.

Background: I bought IWD a few years ago when it first came out and I loved it. As much as I enjoyed Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, IWD was always a bit more fun, if only because it was lighter on story (which tends to be pretty stupid) and heavier on hack-and-slash. But I could never complete it because the machine would crash on entering Chapter 6. No idea why; I tried patches, reinstalls... nope, not gonna work. So I gave it up (and besides, IWD-II came out).

A few weeks ago I found the disks and had a few free hours, so I installed it on my new machine, worked thru Chapters 1-5 and this afternoon got ready for the final battle that was denied me by the gods of faulty motherboard design. Saved the game, and opened the door to the final chapter.

Crash. AAAAARRRRGH!

Oh, well, Neverwinter will have a new edition out in a few months. I guess I can wait that long...

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For Bethany

Hello my friend we meet again
It's been a while where should we begin?
Feels like forever

Within my heart are memories of perfect love that you gave to me
Oh, I remember

When you are with me I'm free, I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice

We've seen our share of ups and downs
Oh, how quickly life can turn around
In an instant

It feels so good to reunite within yourself and within your mind
Let's find peace there

'Cause when you are with me I'm free, I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My sacrifice

Lyrics by Creed

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As a Little Child

And some parents brought infants to Jesus that he might touch them, but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus said, "Allow little children to come to me and do not stop them: for of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I tell you, whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no way enter in."

I was reminded of these words this weekend. Last Thursday, we received three little kids through police protective custody, and when I say "little" I mean just that. They are young (5,3,2) but they are also tiny, a result of what our social worker called, "the worst neglect I've seen in years." They came to us filthy and hungry and scared and withdrawn. They look like cancer patients and after three baths we finally managed to get rid of what my sister-in-law (also a foster mom) called "the smell of poverty." It's more the "smell of neglect," because it doesn't take much money to wash your kids and make sure they brush their teeth. There's a court hearing tomorrow to determine if they'll go home or to relatives or whether they'll remain in foster care temporarily. I expect we'll have them a while.

But as we were getting the crew ready for bed last night, after baths and pajamas and books, the oldest girl started crying. I got down on a knee and held her hands. "What's the matter, sweetie?"

"I want my mommy."

What can you say to that? I can't promise that she'll see her. Until the court decides what to do with them I can't promise anything. But I was amazed.

Here's a kid who had literally nothing. She has, maybe for the first time ever, a warm bed, shoes that fit, enough to eat, hugs and care. But she loves and misses her mother more than all that. She loves her mother unconditionally, even though that love has not been returned.

Maybe that's what Jesus is talking about. "As a child" does not mean that unless you enter the kingdom of God before your fifth birthday you can't get in, but that you have to display the love and the faith that comes naturally to small children.

It's not about what God can give us, though that is everything. We aren't called on to be obedient little kids so Go will love us. We're called on to love, unconditionally, even when we don't understand, even when we're scared, even when we're in a strange home with strange people. We've got to show the faith of Job, who undergoing a trial he did not understand, said, "though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

Little kids have that faith, that trust, and in their cases it may be misplaced or it may be that we adults simply don't understand that faith.

But that's the faith that is required of us.

Labels: christianity

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Yes, I laughed

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two would-be suicide bombers blew themselves up while strapping on explosives in an Afghan town bordering Pakistan on Thursday, police said.

No one else was hurt in the blast near the market in Spin Boldak, Afghan border force commander Abdul Raziq told Reuters.

Hat tip: (BOTW)

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Here we go again

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow warned lawmakers on Thursday that a legally set limit on the government's ability to borrow will be hit in mid-February and urged Congress to raise it quickly.

Failure to do so potentially risks throwing the country into its first default in history, Snow warned in what has become virtually an annual rite as U.S. borrowing needs spiral.

If there's one word that describes the current government fiscal situation it's "acceleration." The problem is not simply that debt is increasing (though that IS a problem) but that it is increasing at an increasing rate. As El Presidente finds more and more critical problems at which to throw borrowed and newly-printed money, the fiscal condition of the US spins, frankly, out of control.

I have no doubt that the US will not default, at least not this year and not voluntarily. Congress will bicker and strut, big-spending Democrats will criticize the big-spending president, and big-spending Republicans will talk about how all this new spending is absolutely necessary. And just think how be it would be if we had a Democrat, they will muse, as if the Democrats - who are less competent than the GOP in everything, including driving the ship of state onto the rocks - ever managed to accumulate so much debt so quickly. LBJ is a piker compared to Bush.

But while debt default is not coming quickly, it is coming. The American economy is an amazing beast. It can be beaten, starved, and abused, yet it rolls on. If there's a way for it to continue on, it will. But the only thing that can really destroy it is government, not by destroying incentives or by piling on regulations (these things may slow it, but like a bionic pack mule, it marches on) but by destroying the fuel that runs it: the dollar.

The dollar remains in a holding pattern compared to other fiat (paper) currencies like the Euro and the Yen, about 10% off the lows of a year ago. That shows not so much strength, but like a Vikings game against the Saints, displays merely the ineptitude of the competition. Rather the weakness of the dollar is showing up when compared to things that are real, like gold and silver and cattle and natural gas. All commodities are experiencing a bull run, not merely because China is buying all they can (though that helps) but because the currency in which they are measured, the dollar, is heading for its true value.

Congress will step up to the plate next month and increase the debt ceiling and the markets will breathe a collective sigh of relief. Uncle Sam is not going to default.

But in reality, an increase in the debt ceiling, now an "annual rite" as Bush finds more and more problems that demand money be created from thin air to deal with, is simply another step closer to the day when there are no more steps. All that remains is an Icarus-like flight from the top of the debt-tower toward the sun. And the end will be about as pretty.

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Buh-Bye

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Mike Tice left the Metrodome a winner, but it didn't matter.

Tice was fired Sunday, despite the Minnesota Vikings' 34-10 victory over the Chicago Bears that gave them a winning record after a poor start.

Yeah, I'm happy. And I really do hope Tice gets on somewhere, because he's a decent position coach. He's just a terrible head coach.

Maybe Green Bay. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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