First Stuxnet, then DuQu, now Flame.

Another virus has been found to be targeting Iran's computers. This one, Flame, isn't so much taking over or damaging, but simply spying.

When was Barack Obama born in Hawaii? Not before 1991.

I reproduce the information at this website below:

The Vetting - Exclusive - Obama's Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: 'Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii'

 

Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):

 

Obama the Pseudo-President

I guess I haven't written much about Barack Obama's ineligibility to run for President in 2012, basically because he's going to run anyway, and the growing evidence of his ineligibility for the office isn't going to change that any, especially since the Supreme Court refuses to even examine it. But just in case anyone hadn't heard this already, Obama's Secret Service Registration, like every official document he has ever allowed released that may give any clue to his past, has been showed to be a forgery. And not only forged, but poorly done. American airmen in WWII prison camps did a more convincing jobs with the fake German ID's they crafted from scratch to aid in their numerous escape attempts.

The emergence of an albino race?

As of the beginning of this month, my initial post on albinism has become the most-read post on this blog (it would have happened a month earlier, but Easter intervened). For some reason much fewer hits come to subsequent albinism posts. Nevertheless, I'm writing another one now to share that I have received news of albinism over three generations. In other words, there is someone whose parents, siblings, spouse, and children are all albinos. Here is the link. Here is a link to the story of albino brothers who married albino sisters, still resulting in only two generations of albinos. In both of these families, the albino marriages were arranged in an environment where it would have been difficult to marry anyone else, and with no thought that the marriages would result in 100% albino children. This was able to happen only in a culture where albinism was so rare that the factors that caused it and passed it on were totally unknown. The one family is Indian Hindu; the other, Pakistani Muslim.

Kenneth Miller's motion to dismiss for failure to state an offense or for improper venue is denied.

Well, no surprise, Kenneth Miller's motion to dismiss for failure to state an offense or for improper venue is denied. The Court did leave open the possibility that Vermont may not be the appropriate venue for the charges, and requests supporting evidence from the Prosecution. What strikes me the most is the assumption, for the purposes of trying Kenneth Miller, that Lisa Miller is already guilty of the charges in which Kenneth Miller is being tried as an accomplice. This flies in the face of the concept that guilt cannot be assumed but must be first proven. Lisa Miller is not available to try, however, and we don't do trials in absentia in America, so they are going after Ken. And he will have his day in court.

Israel lines up landing sites for upcoming Iran raid

The irresistible force draws ever nearer to the immovable object. Woe to him who stands between. UPDATE APRIL 27 from DEBKAFile Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak arrived in Washington Thursday, April 19 with tough questions for US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about the administration’s dialogue with Iran, on the lines of, “What’s going on? Is there a deal? Don’t tell me what you have settled with the Iranians, just your minimal demands, your bottom line.” The questions reflected Israel’s concern at being kept in the dark about US-Iranian back-track negotiations and American concessions, including President Barak Obama’s willingness to yield on full transparency and international nuclear watchdog inspections at Iran’s nuclear sites. According to our sources, they focused on the fresh intelligence reaching the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran has begun moving military nuclear facilities to secret locations not covered in the confidential deal evolving between the Obama administration and Tehran.

Not a good week for the "natural-born citizen" conspiracy

Why is it that just about every single time I stick my neck out to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt as to the legitimacy of his presidency, I end up having to retract it? This just in--There are no State Department records showing that Barack Obama Sr. traveled to Kenya for his son's birth. There are, in fact, no immigration records at all, for that entire week. They are ALL missing. Do you realize the magnitude of this scam? There is absolutely no evidence, whether documentary, court testimony, or forensic, to disprove Barack Obama's legend. It's all either sealed or missing. In its place we have only anecdotal evidence, and it is contradictory. This man has something MASSIVE to hide.

USA trained Iranian assasins at secret camp in Nevada

The story is all on this blog.

David vs. Goliath, The Battle of Champions--round two

Since writing my first post about Goliath, I've found a passage in Livy's History of Ancient Rome that closely parallels the story of David and Goliath. I've printed the passage in full, highlighting the correlations to the biblical account. This battle took place around 360 B.C.
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The dictator, having in consequence of the alarm of a Gallic tumult proclaimed a cessation of civil business, obliged all the younger citizens to take the military oath; and marching out of the city with a very powerful army, encamped on the hither bank of the Anio. The bridge lay between the armies, neither party choosing to break it down lest it should be construed as an indication of fear. Frequent skirmishes were fought for the possession of the bridge, but so indecisive that it could not be clearly discovered to which party it belonged. While affairs were in this posture, a Gaul of a stature remarkably large advanced on the bridge then unoccupied, and with a loud voice called out, "Let the bravest man that Rome can produce come forth here to battle, that the event of a combat between us two may determine which of the nations is to be held superior in war."

The young Roman nobility were for a long time silent, ashamed to refuse the challenge yet unwilling to claim the first post of danger. Then Titus Manlius son of Lucius, the same who had freed his father from the persecution of the tribune, advancing from his station to the dictator, said: "General, I would on no account leave my post to fight without your orders, not though I should see a certain prospect of victory; but if you permit me, I wish to show that brute who makes such an insolent parade in the front of the enemy's army that I am sprung from that family which beat down an army of Gauls from the Tarpcian rock."

 The dictator answered Titus Manlius, "I honour your bravery and your dutiful regard to your father and to your country; go, and with the help of the gods, show the Roman name invincible." The youth was then armed by his companions, took a footman's shield, and girded on a Spanish sword adapted to close fight.

As soon as they had fitted on his armour and ornaments they conducted him out towards the Gaul, who showed a savage joy and the ancients have thought that circumstance also worth mention even thrust out his tongue in derision. They then retired to their posts, and the two champions were left in the middle space in the manner of a spectacle, rather than according to the rules of combat, very unequally matched in the eyes of such as judged by sight and appearance. The one had a body of enormous size glittering in a vest of various colours, having armour painted and inlaid with gold; the other was of the middle stature among soldiers, and his mien devoid of ostentation in arms calculated for ready use more than for show. On his side there was no song of defiance, no capering, nor vain flourishing of arms; but his breast replete with resolution and silent rage, reserved all its fierceness for the decision of the contest.  

They took their ground between the two armies while the minds of such great numbers of men on both sides were suspended between hope and fear. The Gaul, like some huge mass ready to crush the other under it stretching forward his shield with his left hand, discharged an ineffectual blow on the edge of his sword with great noise on the armour of Manlius as he approached; while the Roman, pushing aside the lower part of his antagonist's shield with his own and insinuating himself between that and his body, closed in with him in such a manner as to be in no danger of a wound. He then raised the point of his sword and with one and then a second thrust, piercing the belly and groin of his foe, laid him prostrate on the ground, of which he covered a vast extent The body, without offering it any other indignity, he despoiled of a torc only, which, bloody as it was, he threw round his own neck.

Astonishment and dismay held the Gauls motionless.The Romans in rapture advanced from their posts to meet their champion, and with congratulations and praises, conducted him to the dictator. Among the unpolished jests which they threw out, according to the soldier's custom, composed in a manner somewhat resembling verses, the appellation Torquatus was heard joined with his name, which being generally adopted, has since done honour to the descendants of that whole line. The dictator also presented him with a golden crown, and in a public speech extolled the action in the highest terms. In fact, that combat was of so great consequence with respect to the general issue of the campaign, that on the night following, the army of the Gauls, abandoning their camp in hurry and confusion, removed into the territory of Tibur.
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In what follows, we also see a remarkable correlation with the story of Saul's attempted execution of his son Jonathan for breaking military discipline:
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At the same time strict commands were given that no Roman should come out of his rank to fight in single combat with the enemy; a necessary regulation, as the Latins were so like, in every respect, to the Romans, that there would have been fatal confusion had there been any mingling together before the battle. Just as this command had been given out, young Titus Manlius, the son of the consul, met a Latin leader, who called him by name and challenged him to fight hand to hand. The youth was emulous of the honour his father had gained by his own combat at the same age with the Gaul, but forgot both the present edict and that his father had scrupulously asked permission before accepting the challenge. He at once came forward, and after a brave conflict, slew his adversary, and taking his armour, presented himself at his father's tent and laid the spoils at his feet.  But Manlius Torquatus was a man of principles. He collected his troops and surprised them by not honouring his son for the glorious defeat of an enemy. Instead, he said he would not allow disobedience and lack of discipline, and ordered to strike off his own son's head. The Roman army won the battle, but when Manlius Torquatus returned to Rome, the Senate refused to give him the usual marks of honour. The severity he had shown went way too far for the Roman people.

ADDED APRIL 30, 2012

I could also mention the Greek account of Nestor and Ereuthalion, champion of the Achaewoi-- another parallel to, and roughly contemporaneous with,  Goliath. The differences between the two heroes who took on these giants, and David, however, is profound. They trusted in long battle training, skillfully wrought weapons, and military strategy. David, on the other hand, had no military training, rejected the use of military armour, and went into battle armed with a simple shepherd's sling. What did he trust in? Only the LORD his God, and with that, he triumphed despite the incredible odds.

Wives or women? The NNIV in Acts 17:4

In a previous post I addressed the question of gender-specific translation in Acts 17:11-12. Inasmuch as this verse is very similar to 17:4, I'll address the same question there.

Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.

This is one of the few verses in the NNIV in which the previous ONIV text, unchanged in the TNIV, received a touch-up, from "not a few" to "quite a few."  Apparently just the fact that it had 'women' in it brought it under the special review of the CBT, who were generally too busy to fix anything in the TNIV other than what had been brought up on gender-related grounds.

Interestingly enough, while the Thessalonians were explicitly mentioned in v. 11-12, they aren't mentioned here--even though the city in which people believed isn't mentioned in either verse, and their racial identity isn't explicit in either verse. Were the NIV to have followed the same scheme as it did in v. 11-12, v. 4 would read "Some of the Thessalonian Jews."

Now, what we have here in the NNIV are three subsets of Thessalonians:
1) Members of the Jewish synagogue;
2) Greek Proselytes;
3) Prominent women (the reading of D-05 & p127 is explicitly "wives of prominent men).

In this, the NNIV is only making explicit what is already implicit in the context. But in separating the first two subsets, the text implies that these Greek proselytes didn't attend the Jewish synagogue. But let's look closer at this last subset, because the NNIV is the first major bible version edited after p127 was published in 2009.

p127, like most papyri, exhibits a rather erratic text, but unlike most papyri of the first five centuries (its fifth-century date making it approximately contemporaneous with D-05), it doesn't contain an Alexandrian text. Furthermore, although it reads with 05 in several places where D-05 had a singular reading (this being one of them), it actually seems to chart a third course of its own overall.

Most places, the CBT more or less ignored readings of D, especially if they were singular. But not in Mark 1:41, where only in the 2001 TNIV did they make the switch to "indignant" from "filled with compassion" in describing Jesus as he healed the leper. And in fact this reading is found in only two Greek manuscripts, D being one of them (actually, as it turns out--not that the CBT would have known that--the other manuscript doesn't even follow D at all). Following such paucity of evidence, they were obliged to put in the footnote, "Many manuscripts, Jesus was filled with compassion.

But here in Acts, it suited their purposes to ignore the reading of D+1, as it would interfere with their agenda of always bringing women to the fore whenever possible.

Persio-Israeli war update

I try not to overburden my readers with the latest updates on the impending Persio-American war (now in its third year of immanency), but there's another twist to the situation that isn't being talked about much: the proxy nature of the Syrian Civil War. With offensive weapons from Iran and a Russian missile shield, Bashir al Assad had nearly succeeded in wiping out his opposition. But then the Saudis stepped in, with more arms trucked in across Jordan.

So what is shaping up is a Shia-Sunni struggle for the control of the Caliphate, with the Shia forces of Iran and Syria on one side, and the Sunni-ruled states of the Gulf Coast Cooperative on the other. And this is already a hot war, even without Israel and America joining the Sunni side. But things are looking better and better for a Saudi air corridor opening up for Israeli jets to fly unimpeded to within a few minutes flight of Iran's nuclear reactor.

One other twist: it's in Russia's best interests, as an oil exporting nation, for turmoil in the Mideast to cut off the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz and thus drive up the price of crude. The present conflict plays right into their hands, so now we have an erstwhile Superpower interested in keeping up the conflict with or without the involvement of their erstwhile rival, the United States.

Kenneth Miller Case: The Prosecution's Response

Tristam Coffin has offered up his rebuttal of Kenneth Miller's Motion to Dismiss. I won't go over it all in detail, but here are my initial impressions:

 [The Motion] suggests that Janet Jenkins should have visited IMJ in Nicaragua or could have obtained an order preventing Lisa Miller from taking the child to Nicaragua if she did not wish her to go. Def. Mot. ¶ 18. In addition to ignoring the facts that Lisa Miller did not tell Janet Jenkins or the family court of her plan to remove the child to Nicaragua, that Lisa Miller intentionally avoided flying out of or through the United States in order to make her removal more difficult to track, that Lisa Miller and her daughter dressed as Mennonites during and after their travel, that they took false names once in Nicaragua, and that Lisa Miller made no effort to inform Janet Jenkins or the Rutland Family Court of her location once she took the child to Nicaragua, this argument fails to raise a valid issue.

This was kind of a dumb move on the defense's part. It is now obvious when Lisa Miller left Virginia with IMJ that she a) had no intention of allowing Janet Jenkins any further contact with IMJ and b) intended to go where Ms Jenkins couldn't follow. The defense could have chosen not to contest this in pre-trial motions, and it was less than fully honest to even suggest otherwise. I suspect that the Defendant's Counsel is padding his bill and agree with the Prosecution on this point.

Further, the statute protects the court-ordered parental rights of all individuals, not only biological parents. See United States v. Alahmad, 211 F.3d 538, 540-41 (10th Cir. 2000) (upholding conviction of father who took child out of country preventing maternal grandmother from exercising court-assigned parental rights). 

This is an extremely feeble response. Grandparents have rights based on a biological relationship. This was a case of two different people, both with a biological relationship to the child. No court has ever ruled to take a child away from the biological parent and give it to someone neither related to the child, nor listed on the birth certificate, merely on grounds that the real parent wanted the child all to himself.

 This protection for state court custody determinations parallels Congress's requirement that states give each other's custody orders full faith and credit. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738A, titled "Full Faith and Credit Given to Child Custody Determinations," Congress requires states to respect each other's child custody determinations when those determinations are made by a court with appropriate authority, and further assigns a court with initial responsibility for a child custody matter to retain jurisdiction over that matter. See 28 U.S.C. § 1738A; see also Miller- Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, 276 Va. 19, 23 (2008) (upholding Virginal Appeals court decision according full faith and credit to Vermont's assignments of parental rights in dispute between Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins).

This is where it becomes a Constitutional Issue. Can the Virginia Appeals Court strike down the application of Virginia's Constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage, without striking down the prohibition itself? This is not for a federal judge in Vermont to decide.


At the time Lisa Miller kidnapped IMJ in September 2009, Janet Jenkins had parental rights. . . Those rights had to be honored by other states, including Virginia. . . Jenkins's parental rights were expanded in November 2009 when Miller's abduction of IMJ was discovered. Lisa Miller's removal of her child also anticipated this transfer of custody and strove to frustrate it. Because Janet Jenkins had visitation rights – parental rights under the IPKA – at the time Lisa Miller took IMJ to Nicaragua, Lisa Miller's removal of IMJ from the United States in 2009 violated Janet Jenkins's parental rights. Further, Lisa Miller's removal of IMJ also frustrated the anticipated transfer of primary physical and legal custody from Lisa Miller to Jenkins, again violating Jenkins's parental rights. Kenneth Miller's assertion that Janet Jenkins had no parental rights over IMJ in Virginia is incorrect. 

This is a dispute between the jurisdiction of two different states; clearly something that will have to be decided by the Supreme Court. For that, Defense is going to have to file another Motion.

Janet Jenkins had parental rights to IMJ throughout the United States at the time of Lisa Miller's departure; rights Lisa Miller knew would expand when she took IMJ away. 3. Lisa Miller's Parental Rights do not Negate her Crime Kenneth Miller suggests that somehow because Lisa Miller had her own parental rights to IMJ, and in fact had primary physical custody of IMJ in September 2009, that she could not have violated the IPKA by removing IMJ from the United States, even if such a removal violated Janet Jenkins's parental rights. As the appellate courts have made clear, however, the rights of the removing parent do not defend against a violation of the IPKA.1 In United States v. Miller, the Second Circuit upheld a decision from this Court finding a mother, who had primary custody of the child, guilty of international parental kidnapping because the removal of the child violated the father's parental rights, rights to limited, supervised visitation. 

It's looking pretty clear that this case is against Lisa Miller, not Kenneth Miller. In order to have enough evidence to indict, there has to be indication that Ken Miller, not Lisa Miller, was aware that what he was helping her to do was illegal. No such allegations have yet been made, yet they are essential to the charges.

 While Kenneth Miller does not dispute that Lisa Miller's removal of the child was intended to obstruct Jenkins's exercise of lawful parental rights, the timing of Lisa Miller's actions, during a period when the Rutland Family court had made clear that if Lisa Miller did not allow Jenkins's visitation that the court would transfer primary physical and legal custody of IMJ to Jenkins, strongly supports the conclusion that Lisa Miller's goal in removing the child was to continue to frustrate the current visitation orders and prevent any transfer of primary custody from Miller to Jenkins. As in Miller, Lisa Miller's intent may be inferred from her knowledge of the court's orders and the circumstances surrounding her departure. long as [one parent] had `parental rights'– a term encompassing even mere visitation rights- [the other parent] was not permitted to take the children outside the United States with the intent to obstruct those rights."

Sounds like a great case against Lisa Miller. But not against Kenneth.

Ignorance of the law is also no defense. In Fazal-Ur-Raheman-Fazal, the removing parent argued that he could not be convicted of international parental kidnapping because his actions did not violate Massachusetts law, and because he was not aware that they violated federal law. Id. The First Circuit quickly dismissed this argument, explaining that it did not matter if the defendant's actions were legal in a particular state or if the defendant was "confused about Congress's authority to prohibit conduct not proscribed by state law;" removing a child from the United States in violation of parental rights violates the IPKA. Id.; see also United States v. Sardana, 2004 WL 1340298 (2d Cir. June 16, 2004) (unpublished)(finding no requirement that defendant knew his acts were unlawful and no defense that defendant believed his acts were legal). 

Ah, but ignorance of the law is a defense for purposes of "intending to frustrate lawful parental rights." One simply cannot intend to frustrate lawful rights while ignorant of the law, and of rights deriving from that law. Tristram Coffin is has no grounds on which to stand, here.


In this case, the indictment, which clearly states that the alleged conduct occurred "in the District of Vermont and elsewhere," properly alleges venue in Vermont. The Court should not, therefore, dismiss the indictment for lack of venue at this stage. If material facts related to this allegation remain in dispute after evidence is submitted at trial, the court should submit the question of venue to the jury for determination under the preponderance of the evidence standard. In this case, the evidence submitted will establish that venue is proper in the District of Vermont. 

But the alleged conduct did not occur in the District of Vermont. It all occurred elsewhere. Thus the indictment is wrong on its face. And this is not just a conflict of two conflicting venues for the same crime; this is a question of being tried in one state for conduct in another state; conduct that was not even illegal in the state in which it was committed. The Constitution expressly forbids this.

By statute, where an offense extends across several districts, it may be prosecuted in any district in which it was begun, continued or completed. 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a); Royer, 549 F.3d at 893.

Amen And Vermont was none of those, unless you count the fact that he was taken to Vermont for the express purpose of arresting him for the crime--which flies in the face of American Liberty.

In this case, the Government will argue in the alternative that, to the extent the offense is a continuing offense, venue based on the essential elements of the offense is proper in Vermont and, to the extent the essential nature of the offense arises outside the United States, venue is proper in Vermont as the district of arrest.

The Prosecution could have pushed this point in the case of Timothy Miller, whose conduct was solely outside of the US--but they dropped the charges in that case. In this case, however, all of Kenneth Miller's culpable conduct took place within the US, or at least at a specified border crossing leading out of a particular place in the US. Once Lisa Miller crossed out of the US, Ken Miller's part in the escape plan was over.


Kenneth Miller is charged with aiding and abetting international parental kidnapping. The elements of the offense are 1) Kenneth Miller knew that the crime charged (removing the child from the country in order to obstruct parental rights) was to be committed or was being committed; 2) Kenneth Miller knowingly did some act for the purpose of aiding/encouraging the commission of that crime; 3) Ken Miller acted with the intention of causing the charged crime to be committed; and 4) Lisa Miller committed the charged crime (meaning (a) the child was previously in the United States; (b) Lisa Miller took the child from the United States to another country; and (c) Lisa Miller acted with the intent to obstruct the lawful parental rights of Janet Jenkins.

It sounds to me that assuming Lisa Miller's guilt is an essential element in the case, and that shouldn't be allowed. That should wait on a guilty verdict in her trial. But beyond that, the charges allege to have read Kenneth Miller's mind. Absent a confession, phone tapping, or email intercept to show that he did know that what he was doing was for the purposes of being illegal, this is an unsubstantiated charge and should be thrown out of court. The prosecution is conflating the actions of Lisa Miller with those of Ken Miller, in order to hobble together a charge that implicates her without implicating him. Since it's Ken Miller who is on trial, not Lisa, the prosecution cannot assume her guilt as the only basis for accusing him.

Well, this case is obviously going to drag on for a while. The Prosecution is obviously hoping to get IMJ back to her wicked stepmother before she turns 18, but there's something they may not have thought of. If Lisa Miller can just keep her daughter home for another 3 or 4 years, she'll be sent off to Ms Jenkins already old enough to have her own Internet account. And we already know what having one's own Youtube or Facebook account can do to expose parental misconduct. If what Lisa Miller is alleging about how her daughter was being treated by Ms Jenkins is true--and resumes, should this custody battle go her way--the whole world will be able to see the evidence for themselves.

The Old Math: Nominal Figures and Biblical Numbers

I have touched on the topic of Biblical Numbers in earlier posts; in this one I shall attempt to wrap up the entire topic as it relates to the supposed accuracy of Bible Translations.

 I once worked in a factory where one of the items we handled was an electrical device with an "8-ft" cord. Now everyone knows that an 8-foot cord is longer than a 6-foot cord and shorter than a 9-foot cord. But do they know that it is exactly 96.0 inches? Well, no. Electrical cords of that length could easily be stretched by the major part of an inch, but for purposes of reaching the nearest electrical outlet, precision right down to the inch really isn't necessary. So I had to chuckle when I saw, on the Spanish side of the box, the measurements of this same 8-ft cord given as 243 cm. Now that does happen to be 8.0 feet, but I really doubt that anyone ever got out a tape measure and measured that cord right down to the nearest centimetre. What they basically had was a 2½ metre cord; they just didn't realise that for their purposes of measurement, that was equal to 8 feet.

Take an even more obvious example of round numbers in measurement. Ever heard of a 2 by 4? If you live in a single-family house in North America, it's most likely that you have. It is the standard size piece of lumber for wall construction. But it's not 2 by 4 inches, or even 2 by 4 centimetres; it's actually 1-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches, to the nearest quarter-inch. To avoid false advertising, lumber stores have to note that all lumber measurements are given in "nominal sizes," but everybody already knows that to be accurate, they have to subtract 1/4 to 3/4 of an inch from the nominal size. Even though the lumber is planed to greater precision, it's just not practical to name any more precise a measurement than the nearest inch.

And thus we come to Biblical numbers. Ever notice that Bible measurements are always given in whole numbers, rounding off to more and more zeros as the numbers get bigger? You'll never find a hundred and one or a million and two of anything in the Bible.

Take Job's wealth as a fine example. Do you really think he had exactly 7000 sheep, 3000 camels, 1000 oxen, 500 asses, and 10 children? Well, we do know about the children, because there were 7 sons and 3 daughters. But obviously the other numbers were rounded off to the nearest hundred--or maybe even the nearest thousand.

The most precise figures given in the Scriptures are always for the ages of Biblical figures. Methusaleh, for example, lived 969 years. That's obviously not rounding off to the nearest thousand, hundred, ten, or even five. Rounding off to the nearest year gives us a known level of precision for calculating the age of the earth, but after ten generations, we can't be precise to the year any more; ten years is more like it. So in giving broad chronological timespans, note that the Bible always rounds off to the nearest decade or even the nearest century:

-Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
-For three hundred years Israel occupied Heshbon, Aroer, the surrounding settlements and all the towns along the Arnon.
-Now the time that the children of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years.
-This was four hundred and eighty years after the people of Israel were rescued from their slavery in Egypt.

These are nominal figures. Sometimes they indicate more precision than is evident; sometimes they don't. Abraham's and Sarah's ages seem to have just happened to both end in zero when Isaac was born, for example. But when the Bible is showing a higher level of precision than is evident, it has ways of saying so:

And he said to them, "I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and the LORD has said to me, 'You shall not cross this Jordan.' --Deut. 31:2 (this verse is probably the source of the Jewish tradition that a prophet always died on the anniversary of his life beginning)

And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. --Exodus 12:41

And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. --1 Samuel 17:4

Aha. This is actually the only time anyone in the Bible was given a height in partial cubits.  Really??? It may seem incredible to not be any more precise than the nearest 20 inches when giving someone's height, but consider:

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? --Matthew 6:27

Perhaps the British can serve us an an example. Before succumbing to the metric system, they typically weighed things in stone rather than pounds (pounds being reserved for referring to their specie). Now, the nominal weight of a stone is fourteen pounds. Obviously saying that a newborn baby weighed one stone would be meaningless unless the number were in fact precise to the pound; in that case one would have to say something like "the baby weighed an entire stone!" But for purposes of giving the weight of an adult a stone was not exactly fourteen pounds; it only represented an approximate range. So an eighteen-stone man was one of considerable size or girth--about 250 pounds.

So, back to Goliath. For some reason his height is given more precisely than any other person in the Bible. By the way, Ishbi-Benob is actually the only other person in the Bible whose height is given (five cubits, which may then have been in the same range as Goliath's), but Christian History tells us that the Apostle Paul was only three cubits tall. Many are the commentators who leap to the conclusion that Paul was therefore 4' 6", but they are committing the fallacy of overprecision. Not only is their cubit itself too precise, they aren't even rounding to the nearest cubit. Since 3½ cubits is the normal height for a person, all we can say for sure is that Paul was about 10 inches shorter than normal, give or take several inches. He could well have been five foot even.

So for Goliath, we have a more precise measurement for his height: to the nearest five or so inches. Since other giants of antiquity are listed at seven cubits, even his 6½ cubits kept him out of the record books. Were he two cubits less than that, however, the half a cubit by which he was shorter than Ishbi-Benob would definitely put him in the junior league of giants. Only if he were a particularly short giant would it make sense to add that extra cubit--even as a 4½ year old is careful to add that extra half year, it representing as it does a whole eighth of his lifespan. This would also make more sense, given that King Saul, as a tall short man, must have been pretty close in height to Goliath, a short tall man. Yet even though he had his own suit of armor and a sword, he was willing--the coward--to send a shepherd boy, who had neither, up against Goliath.  It would also make sense that David could find Goliath's sword, although obviously bigger than normal, to be of some use to him; perhaps it was more like a dagger to Goliath.  When David said "There is none like it" he could well have been referring to its patented forging, rather than its unique size.

One last note: An Egyptian text gives an interesting height to the giants of Canaan:

"The face of the pass is dangerous with Shasu, hidden under the bushes. Some of them are 4 or 5 cubits, nose to foot, with wild faces."

Note that "four cubits and a span" falls right in the middle of that range. And that "six cubits and a span" puts Goliath way out of it.

The New Math: The NIV and Sarah's Three Measures of Flour

"And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth."                                                       --Genesis 18:6 KJV

Okay, so the inquiring reader may want to know just how much is "three measures." How about turning to that bastion of contemporaneous scholarship, the 1978 NIV?


So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread."   [a] That is, probably about 20 quarts (about 22 liters)                --Genesis 18:6 NIV78

Dear me. Like the ill-fated Mars Mission of 1999, which overshot its goal, the CBT suffered from an inability to correctly convert to metric. Twenty quarts is in fact less than 19 liters. Kind of embarrassing for something billed as "The First Truly International English Version." Ah well, this one certainly didn't get past the revision of 1984, surely.

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of fine flour and knead it and bake some bread."   [a] That is, probably about 20 quarts (about 22 liters)              --NIV84

Dear, dear me. The CBT's scholarship isn't looking so scholarly here, is it.  Well, the TNIV was the epitome of scholarly scholarship, correcting all the gross outdated language of that childish project, the NIV. It reads:

So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. "Quick," he said, "get three seahs[a] of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread."   [a] That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms  --  TNIV04

Oh. A measure, then, is now 12 pounds, rather than 13 and a third cups (the way modern people actually measure flour). So we have now moved from ill-fated scholarship to pedantry. Are we really expected to believe that Sarah used up most of a 50-pound bag of flour just to slap together a meal for her husband and his three visitors? Come on! If they aren't even sure of the amount, why guess such a large number?

Well, the TNIV was a source of embarrassment alright, but its faults, thank heaven, have now been rectified once and for all in the NNIV of 2011. Right?


So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs[a] of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.” [a] That is, probably about 36 pounds or about 16 kilograms --NIV11

EDITED ON MARCH 27-28, 2012
Okay, so the CBT don't turn out to be quite so stupid after all, but scholarly. VERY scholarly. What they were using here were DRY quarts. A 'dry quart' is one thirty-second of a bushel, or 67.2 cubic inches. In other words, more than a liter, rather than less. Sheesh. Someone reading the NIV because the KJV was too hard to understand is not going to know that flour is OF COURSE always measured in 'dry' rather than 'liquid' quarts. Especially since anyone who ever measures out four cups of flour for a recipe uses a 'liquid' cup measure to do so. Furthermore, anyone turning to the more detailed notes under the "Table of Weights and Measures" in the back of the 1985 NIV Study Bible will be told that a dry quart and a liquid quart are, respectively, LESS and MORE than a liter.

If late 20th-century recipe books that actually called for a quart of flour didn't use dry quarts, and if the NIV editors couldn't even keep straight which was which, why ever would the New International Version use them?

END EDITS.

On a related note, there is one other place in the Scriptures where "three measures" is mentioned:

Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.                          --Matthew 13:33 KJV

Well, we already know what "3 measures" were in 1978 over in Genesis. What were they in 1973 in Matthew?

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a] Greek three satas (about a bushel)

Okay, I guess this is another measurement entirely; a bushel is 37 quarts [32 DRY quarts--ed.] or 35 liters. But where's the metric? Oh, it must not have come along until 1978:

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a] Greek three satas (probably about 1/2 bushel or 22 liters)                                              ---NIV78,84

Good Grief! We've cut our bushel in half! Not quite in half, though, as 22 liters is  62 per cent of 35. More like two-thirds of a bushel, but who's keeping track?  Sigh. Let's see what improvements came along in 2001:

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.” [a]Or about 27 kilograms --TNIV, NNIV

Okay, so now everything is in weight rather than volume (did the CBT really commission somebody to go weigh a liter of hand-ground flour for this project?), with a liter of flour weighing 1227 grams.

Back to Genesis:
16 kilograms = 22 liters. That's 1375 grams per liter, pretty close when you're rounding off. But since when did half a bushel, or even 62% of a bushel of flour, weigh sixty pounds? By my calculations a whole bushel of flour (as if anyone ever measures it in bushels) should come up to only about 55 pounds.  Oh, I know. It all depends on whether Sarah measured it before sifting, or after! Maybe she measured it in heaping teaspoons, and added some "for good measure."

Actually, all this misses the point of converting significant figures. Trying to specify, down to the liter or pound, how much flour was involved is taking literal translation to its extreme--something proponents of the NIV said we should never, ever try at home. The point is that Sarah prepared a huge amount of bread for Abraham's guests, and that it's possible to leaven a huge amount of flour just by putting a little active yeast in it to grow. But by trying to prove how scholarly they were, the CBT ended up wearing dunce caps.

GabeToday has gone dark, so I'm passing on his last 2 posts here, until such a time as he comes back up.

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2012

SECONDS BEFORE MIDNIGHT

Despite all the pre-election talk, Barack Hussein Obama will not lift a finger to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. 

Beyond getting re-elected, he is not interested in listening to anything that anyone is saying- from any side. 

He will not do anything tangible to cut off the head of the Iranian snake.

Notwithstanding the AIPAC pronouncements and the subsequent White House meetings, the net sum of the outcome will be, that Iran will possess the bomb and unlike the Koreans who can temporarily be bought with food aid to keep their bomb in the basement, the Iranians can and will use theirs in some form, to ensure the survival of their regime.

And therein lays the Gordian knot. 

Due to complete military and political impotency, America and the West are unable to effect a regime change in Teheran- the only hope of stopping the Islamic nuclear train. 

If you have doubts about it, just look at the net results of all the recent talk and no tangible action in Syria. 

When everything is said and done, Bashar Assad will stay in power because the West became a toothless, impotent paper tiger. Vladimir Putin knows it, the Chinese know it and the Islamo-Fascists in Teheran know it.

While all the talk was focused on whether or not Obama will or will not help Israel launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran, it seems that most parties forgot the sad truth: that since the end of WWII, with all its might, the United States consistently failed to successfully bring to conclusion a single military action that would have resulted in a meaningful regime change anywhere on the Globe.

The still divided and problematic Korea frozen in the 1950s impasse, the utter US fiasco in Viet Nam that resulted in 58,151 American dead, the mess in Afghanistan, the Islamic bomb in Pakistan and the shameful failures in even over-turning the regime of the nuisance that is Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, (not to mention the irritating longevity of the Communist regime of dictator Fidel Castro) should be reason enough for the Jews to understand, that asking America’s protection for a false sense of security is a hopeless pipedream.

While the “war on terror”, the hanging of Saddam, the lynching of Qaddafi the secret elimination of Bin Laden, the jailing of Mubarak, the betrayal of Hariri and the beefing up the stature of the megalomaniac Turkish clown Erdogan generally played well in the media, in the eyes of the world America allowed itself to be tragically marginalized to the point of no return.

With Putin and his KGB ideology and oil wealth intact- now back in the saddle, the iron-willed Chinese ambitions going unchecked- and a rotting and scared Saudi regime sitting on the oil tap, with a second unpredictable Islamic nuclear power about to enter the scene, no Western nation can safely sit on its laurels, no matter who is elected in November in Washington.

Israel’s leaders would be well advised to take their destiny into their own hands and do whatever is necessary on their own to ensure the survival of their state. 

Those who ask why, should remember, that a short few decades ago US-led Allies refused to bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz as it was not in their strategic interest at the time.

And we all know the results.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

The time has come to act!

With a de facto nuclear Iran promising to make Israel disappear from the map, and the US administration way too preoccupied with getting re-elected while naively still talking embargoes, it looks like Israel will have to go it alone.

To be sure, no one wants to see this happen.

Back in 2004 when I told Presidential hopeful Howard Dean about Iran posing an “existential threat” to Israel, even some Jewish leaders present in the room referred to me as “unrealistic”.

The same year during the preparation of the approaching 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz where my entire family was murdered, I repeated my prediction of an “existential threat” from a fundamentalist Iran to Slava Kantor the president of the European Jewish Congress, and he too at first dismissed my opinion.

Ironically, in later years he based his entire public career on the foundation of my theory.

Subsequently, based on my urging, Kantor became President of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe.

Later in 2004 I recall, that over a friendly lunch hosted in a private home in New York to welcome Austrian Presidential hopeful Benita Ferrero-Waldner who served as the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, I got into a heated argument with the naïve European politician.

I made the point, that the Holocaust could happen due to the existence two basic components: an ideology (as spelled out in Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”) and Nazi Germany’s latest technology at the time-pressed into service to carry out the resulting “Final Solution”.

I pointed it out to the polite but tragically naive European leader, that Ahmadinejad’s genocidal fundamentalist threat to wipe Israel off the map, is only awaiting the second necessary component: the technology to carry it out.

At the time, I was nearly asked by my clearly embarrassed hosts to leave the table for my remarks.

On October 26, 2005 Mahmud Ahmadinejad at he infamous "World Without Zionism"conference in Asia, delivered his “Israel must be wiped off the map” speech, he finally spelled it out for the world to hear: “Our dear Imam (referring to Ayatollah Khomeini) said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. Is it possible to create a new front in the heart of an old front. This would be a defeat and whoever accepts the legitimacy of this regime has in fact, signed the defeat of the Islamic world. Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. I have no doubt that the new wave that has started in Palestine, and we witness it in the Islamic world too, will eliminate this disgraceful stain from the Islamic world.”

Suddenly my earlier predictions took on a new meaning.

Which brings us back to today’s situation.

While busily screwing up the entire Middle East with the idiotically false promises of the “Arab Spring”, the sad fact is that Barack Hussein Obama never had the testicular fortitude to rein in the real enemies of freedom: the fundamentalist nut jobs in Iran and their cheering section in Venezuela and other places.

Even when presented with hard evidence of Iranian missiles with unconventional payloads being readied to be lobbed at the American heartland, the White House is pretending that it is not happening.

The net result of US impotence: Israel now finds itself having to face a looming existential threat alone.

Every time Israel’s leaders approach the point of decision, Barack Obama promptly dispatches his most senior military and intelligence chiefs to jerk Israel’s chain, as to not upset his seemingly singular priority: his re-election aspirations.

Over recent months I had several first hand opportunities to speak with the most senior levels of military, intelligence and political leaders in Israel and the more I spoke with them, the more concerned I grew.

Diplomatic efforts, sanctions and public pronouncements aside, something concrete needs to be done soon.

In the meantime, Israel must get ready to face the inevitable.

This weekend, the Jewish nation took an important step in that direction by appointing a very capable and charismatic leader as the new commander of the Israel Air Force.

The appointment of a new air force chief traditionally makes headlines in Israel, but this time the appointment is particularly compelling, due to the very real and imminent possibility that this commander will be ordered by the government to oversee a preventive strike on Iran’s well-protected and distant nuclear infrastructure.

A seasoned military officer, 53 year old Major General Amir Eshel is the right man to be at the controls in facing a nuclear Iran. Eshel is a capable military leader with an impressive record as a professional soldier.

If his name sounds familiar, it is; because General Eshel was the leader of the memorable Israel Air Force flyover in the gray skies over the Auschwitz concentration camp in 2003.

His words broadcast over the radio of his F-16 aircraft emblazoned with the blue Star of David - flying over the ashes of his ancestors incinerated by hatred - now take on an ominous new meaning in today’s Israel threatened by nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Islamo-Faschist madmen of Teheran.

As his plane ducked in low over the infamous Nazi death camp, Eshel, the son of Holocaust survivors, read out the following statement which was broadcast on the ground: “We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel."

Powerful words.

Powerful emotions.

Powerful motivation.

Action in the Kenneth Miller case 2:11-CR-161-1

The White Man continues to get a lot of inquiries regarding the Ken Miller kidnapping case, so it's only fair that I disclose the most recent activity.

Kenneth L. Miller has, as of February 29, 2012, filed a Motion To Dismiss, on two grounds:

1) The government has failed to allege crucial elements of the offence;

2) The government has no standing to prosecute this case in Vermont, and the case has no standing in Virginia.

This second point is a constitutional question. Can the Federal Government try a case in a state where no elements of the alleged crime occurred?

This goes all the way back to the List of Grievances in the Declaration of Independence:

"-For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences"

 Ironically, this worked in reverse in Ken Miller's case, as he was brought westward across the Atlantic, from the FUK to the USA, to face these trumped-up charges.

The framers of this document specifically had this problem in mind when they enshrined the following into the Constitution:

"The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed."

If Tristam Coffin doesn't back down on this one, it's going all the way to the Supreme Court.

Goliath--a real, for-true giant? Or just a really big guy?

Recently there's been a lot of research into the question of one aspect of the famous story of David and Goliath: the giant's height.

There are two, or even three aspects to the question, which we shall address in turn:

1) How many cubits tall was Goliath (a question of textual criticism)?
2) How long was a cubit (a question of archaeology)?
3) How reliable is the Bible's account (a question of theology)?

For the first question, the evidence is pretty straightforward: The Masoretic Text and the Vulgate, its Latin translation, pegs his height at "six cubits and a span," and the English translations of Josephus and 4QSamA, along with those of many manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint, read "four cubits and a span."  There are even a couple of  Greek manuscripts that read "five cubits and a span." Clearly, there was some tampering with the text. I found the following chart online, which I edited slightly but can't vouch for its accuracy (it matches information given by Clyde Billington and J. D. Hays):

Evidence for 6½ Cubits	Evidence for 5½ Cubits	Evidence for 4½ Cubits
The Masoretic Text	Septuagint  ms n	Most mss of the Septuagint (LXX), c. 150 BC
Septuagint ms o	Codex Venetus (ms v, 8th century	4QSam(a), a Dead Sea Scroll, c.50 BC
Codex Sigma'		Josephus, a Jewish historian about 70-90 AD in Antiquities, IV, 171.
Symmachus' Greek, 200 AD		Lucian recension, a 3rd century LXX revision
Origen's Hexapla, 3rd century		Codex Vaticanus, 4th century Greek ms
Vulgate, 4th century AD		Codex Alexandrinus, 5th century Greek ms

What we should note from this difference is that throughout the history of Christendom, children getting a religious education got two very different ideas of Goliath's height. Were they Orthodox, they probably visualized Goliath as being very tall, but not particularly gigantic: between 6' 9" and 8 feet tall. Were they Jews or Catholics, however, they all envisioned him as being somewhere between 9'9" and 11 feet tall.  The problem with this latter height, however, is that it exceeds the height of anyone known to science, and would physically result in a monstrosity too encumbered with his own weight to be of any good in battle.

But this objection begs the question of the length of a cubit--the second question. A cubit, we know, is the distance from the tip of the middle finger to the bend of the elbow. A person is typically 3½ of his own cubits tall (the White Man is 3.57 of his cubits tall). So for Goliath to be even 4½ cubits tall, we would have to be speaking of an objective measurement, outside of his own body. Define the length of this measurement, and only then we can decide whether Goliath was merely tall, or a true giant--regardless of the text followed.

Well, the standard modern definition of the cubit is 18 inches, resulting in standard height of 5 feet 3 inches. But we are not interested in the modern length of the cubit, but the ancient one. And for that, several different lengths have been determined, anywhere from 445 (17½") to 610 mm (24"), with a most likely length of about 524 mm (20.6 "). Note that the NIV's definition of a cubit, based on conversion figures given in the footnotes, has ranged from 18 to 21.65 inches. Taking a most likely range of 20.5 to 21.5 inches, the two texts would give Goliath a height of 92.25" to 96.75" and 133.25 to 139.75 inches respectively; in other words, he was either about 8 feet tall, or about 11½ feet tall. The first is at the upper range of what is attainable through genetics and diet; the second is physically impossible for homo sapiens, as witnessed by anyone with a giantism disorder continually growing until dying from complications of their extreme size before attaining anything over about 9 feet in height.

As for the third question, Bible commentators have traditionally accepted the larger size for Goliath, especially as it is even smaller than the reported height of Og of Bashan and other figures from ancient history. They quote from Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Pliny:


"The tallest man that hath been seen in our days was one name Gabara, who, in the days of Claudius, the late Emperor, was brought out of Arabia: he was [over 6½ cubits] tall."

as well as Josephus:
"A Jew, named Eleazar, whom Vitellius sent to Rome, was seven cubits high."

But again, this begs the question of "how long is a cubit?"  Let's look at the mention in the book of Deuteronomy, which contains this interesting note on "the last of the Rephaim:"

"For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man."

So, Og was specifically called a giant (Repha)--a word not used in 1 Samuel, as he was the last of the race. Because of this qualification, Hebrew mythology states that Og was one of the Nephilim who rode out the Flood clinging to the back of the Ark. How else could they account for his enormous size? But note the qualification to his size: it was measured in "the cubit of a man."  And we still don't know exactly how long that was.

Here's an idea. Let's assume that the Pyramids of Egypt were an exact number of cubits wide at the base, and see if that gets us a standard to work with. It turns out that the dimensions of the Egyptian Royal Cubit, already known, are an exact fit for the Great Pyramid: 440 cubits wide, 280 cubits high (each stone layer then being one and a third cubits high), and 356 cubits deep. The ridge length even comes out to the quarter-cubit, and the inclination is 5½ palms per cubit. The cubit in question? 52.4 cm or 20.6 inches. With a cubit that size, anyone over six of them in height is going to be a monster; but anyone four and a half of those cubits high is what normal-sized people would call a giant. So we're stuck with a really huge bed for King Og--but left with no specific measurements of the giant himself, leaving the jury still out on whether or not humans really could grow to fantastic size back in ancient times.

One further biblical reference must be mentioned: 1 Chronicles 11:23, which refers to a five-cubit tall Egyptian warrior. If Goliath was half a cubit shorter, then it's no wonder he is never directly referred to as a 'giant', because as giants go, he would have been less than average height. So is it any surprise that he volunteered as the Philistines' champion? Shorter soldiers (and basketball players) are known for being bolder and more aggressive, as if to make up in courage for what they lack in height. If  4QSam(a) is right, Goliath was a short tall man.

So, how tall was Goliath--was he a human giant, or a genetic monstrosity? I'm going to go with the 4½ cubit measurement and say that he was just a giant. Here are my reasons:

1. The Egyptian Royal Cubit puts his height at the upper range for a healthy human, but only if we read the Hebrew number as a daleth rather than a waw (the difference is that the larger number has a side-stroke that is a bit shorter than the smaller number). 

 2. While it is possible, even probable, that the Rephaim were genetically capable of reaching superhuman heights, Goliath is never directly referred to as a 'giant' (Repha or Gibbor). Instead he is connected with 'the sons of the Rapha of Gath' (a slightly different spelling in the Masoretic Text), apparently a rather tall race of Philistines. He and his four 'brothers' were huge, as evidenced by the size of their armour, but not gigantic.


3. It is apparent that humans in general were taller directly after the time of the Flood (The Egyptian Royal Cubit yields a standard height of six feet tall), but as the natural cubit shrank, followed by the standard cubit ('the cubit of a man'), Goliath's height of 4½ cubits was no longer commensurate with the size of his armour. People retained knowledge of a then-extinct race of giants, and assumed them to be taller than they really were--but definitely taller than the 6½ feet that Goliath's height now yielded. Thus the shortened stroke of the numeral, yielding a taller height for the giant, became accepted in the continued transmission of the Hebrew text--from whence it found its way into all later translations thereof.

A couple of postscripts:

1. Adam Clarke mentions a man of the name of John Middleton, born at Hale, near Warrington, in Lancashire, in the reign of James the First, who was more than nine feet high. "Dr. Plott, in his history of Staffordshire, says, that `his hand, from the carpus to the end of the middle finger, was seventeen inches, his palms eight inches and a half broad, and his whole height was nine feet three inches; wanting but six inches of the height of Goliath of Gath.'"

Indeed this is the height listed on The Childe of Hale's tombstone, but I'm still waiting on confirmation of the actual size of his burial plot. The descriptions of his physical prowess better fit someone of about eight feet in height (feet and inches not having been yet effectively standardised at his death). 

2. It was common in ancient Egyptian artwork to picture royalty as much taller than the common people, or even of their own royal sister-wives. But even among royalty, there is a possibility that some were depicted as being truly taller than others; this picture, for instance:

Note the comparison in heights between the figures to the leftmost and rightmost of the picture. Note also that the tallest two figures are dressed differently than all the others, and have been subsequently defaced (along with both of the animals).

Like I said, this is a hot topic in Biblical research lately. I'm already compiling information for another post that will look at the textual question more closely.

An Albino Race--or not.

My posts on albinism fast turned out to be the most popular destinations on this website, outpacing reads about Arthur Blessitt's divorce ten to one this week. I've continued to keep my eyes out for more information on the subject, which has resulted in a couple of discoveries: One, that some of my own cousins probably carry the albinism gene; the other being possible evidence for an actual race of albinos along the southernmost Caribbean coast:

 "The Kuna have a very high incidence rate of albinism. In Kuna mythology, albinos (or sipus) were given a special place. Albinos in Kuna culture are considered a special race of people, and have the specific duty of defending the Moon against a dragon which tries to eat it during an eclipse. Only they are allowed outside on the night of an eclipse and used specially made bows and arrows to shoot down the dragon."

Well, these claims don't bear up so well under scrutiny--especially the 'special race' part. Since carriers of the albinism gene are indistinguishable in the general population, it has never been possible to isolate the albino population into a separate race. If albinos are encouraged only to marry other albinos, an albino population will immediately emerge, but this still will not serve to keep albinism out of the general population; only a controlled breeding program empowered by the modern science of genetics could succeed in that. And no one has tried it, nor is ever likely to, as albinism is a very debilitating condition. I have now received some reports of two successive generations of albinos, but not yet of three.

But back to the Kuna/Cunas of Panama. Despite their accepted social status, the physical limitations of their defect keeps Kuna albinos from fully engaging in Kuna society (albino men are limited occupationally to traditionally feminine or adolescent roles). Yet albinism persists, due mainly to the small tribal gene pool (compounded, it would appear, by a high rate of incest), misunderstanding of the genetic cause ('moon children' have traditionally been thought to form due to Lamarckian influence at some point in the development of the foetus), and lack of meaningful artificial selection against it (the herbal remedies against fetal albinism being totally useless, racial infanticide being traditionally frowned upon, and the miscegenation prohibition unenforceable in the face of rampant fornication).

The Kunas, despite their unusually high percentage of albinos and social acceptance thereof, generally do not allow them to marry, and take active steps (however futile) against passing on the gene through non-albino carriers. So much for a 'special race,' if such a term actually means anything.

A few cogent observations could be made on what we have learned so far:

- Environment has not appeared to be a factor in the development of a high percentage of albinos in a population. In fact, the populations with the most albinos are very close to the equator, where climactic conditions make albinism the least survivable.

- Albinos are anywhere from two to two hundred times more likely to be found in dark races than in light ones, despite the much more obvious stigma that they would carry among people who look so much different then themselves. Three concentrations of albinism have been identified so far: The Hopi/Zuni of Arizona, the Kuna of Darien, and the general population of Tanzania.

- The main common factor behind the various ethnogeographical concentrations of albinism seems to be animism, functioning in three ways: one, sexual promiscuity resulting in uncontrolled inbreeding; two, a strong resistance to a scientific approach for preventing the passing on of the trait; and three, a typical association of whiteness with heightened spiritual power or influence. This last factor could be a result of the fallacious cause-and-effect reasoning of animists: an albino shaman did something that was perceived to be a demonstration of great spiritual power, and the source of that power was then attributed to his or her whiteness.

There is much we are still learning about the cultural factors behind the preponderance of albinism, but one thing seems sure: No albino race has apparently ever existed, nor is one ever likely to.

The Death of the Life Sentence

I have earlier posted about the death of capital punishment in the USA for any crime other than murder, Caryl Chessman being the last person to be convicted of such a crime, in 1948. But following his eventual execution an unheard-of twelve years later, even executions for first degree murder fell sharply. As a a result, there are still people in prison who killed as long as 40 or 50 years ago. The longest case I am now aware of was that of Thomas Hagan, aka Talmage Hayer and Mujahid Halim, who, after 16 rejections by the parole board, was finally released in 2010, forty-five years after his conviction for the part he played in the assassination of Malcomb X. The two other assassins had already been out for about 15 years. Not very far behind him is Sirhan Sirhan, who has been denied parole 14 times for his role in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. None of the other assassins were ever brought to trial. In each case, there appear to be political considerations for keeping these men behind bars for so long.

In another case, the parole board actually appears determined to take the phrase "life in prison" seriously, due to the heinous--and, admittedly, political--nature of the murder: Charles Manson, who entered Death Row in 1971 for the role he played in the murder of Sharon Tate, had not yet been executed when his sentence was changed to life; he has been denied parole 11 times. His codefendent Charles Watson has been refused parole 14 times, Leslie Van Houten 19 times, and Patricia Krenwinkel 13 times. Susan Atkins died of brain cancer in prison after 18 rejections of parole. The nearly 40 years she spent as a female in prison were a record for the California penal system--a record now held by Krenwinkel, as Van Houten spent some time out on bond during a 1977 retrial.

Note that all of these murderers had originally been given a death sentence, with the exception of the black-on-black killing of Malcomb X, in which they were given 20 years (thus the mid-'80 release) to life. But a sentence of life in prison for murder, originally handed down as such (and I include in that definition any sentence of 80 years or more, which by definition could be considered tantamount to life), has--as far as I know--never resulted in any death by reason of old age ending such a sentence; in any case, no one has ever yet served even 50 years of such a sentence. In a word, it is meaningless.

The replacement of execution with an imaginary life sentence dates as far back as 1924, when Clarance Darrow talked his underage clients Leopold and Loeb into pleading guilty to murder, not because they were actually admitting their culpability, but as a means of avoiding the death sentence. He succeeded in convincing their judge that the boys could not be held responsible for the brutal premeditated murder of Bobby Franks, and they were sentenced them to the intrinsically meaningless "Life plus 99 years."  It should come as no surprise that neither defendant spent any more than 33 years behind bars for the murder.

It is possible, even likely, that one of Tate's murderers will end up serving 50 years in prison for the crime. But I venture to predict that no American criminal, sentenced after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on execution in 1976, will ever again serve over 30 years in prison for any heinous crime--and, for those committed to mental institutions for murder, I predict an even shorter timeframe.

ADDED ON APRIL 3, 2012
I should clarify that I speak here of State crimes. Forty years ago, murder was not a federal crime, and until recent decades, federal executions (for espionage, treason, and desertion) had also diminished to nothingness. But since the mid-1990's, it has become fashionable to try murderers in federal court, where they are more likely to receive a death sentence--but don't always. Under this new regime, life sentences in lieu of execution probably will mean exactly that. But this is a new system yet, so only time will tell.

Why is Christmas on December 25th?

There are ten federal holidays in the United States in 2012, in addition to the fifty-four Sundays, which are specifically named in the Constitution as days of rest from Government work. Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday in November, and the rest all fall on a Monday--with one sole exception. Christmas falls on December 25, a Tuesday.

What is it about December 25 that would make it the last  fixed holiday on the government calendar?

Well, for many centuries December 25 has been the date that Christians celebrate the Birth of Christ. Now, Eastern Christians are famous for observing this celebration on the 6th of January, but this is nothing more than the perpetuation of the December 25th celebration despite the secular adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

And this date has been observed for far longer than the schism between the Eastern and Western churches. In what is the earliest extant reference to what is now known as Christmas, the date on which the birth of Christ occurred was recorded, in Greek, by a writer named Hippolytus of Rome, in his Commentary on Daniel:

“For when the times from the foundation of the world and from Adam are reckoned, they furnish this matter quite clearly to us who seek an answer. For the first advent of our Lord in the flesh, when he was born in Bethlehem, eight days before the kalends of January [December 25th], the 4th day of the week [Wednesday], while Augustus was in his forty-second year, [2 or 3BC] but from Adam five thousand and five hundred years. He suffered in the thirty third year, 8 days before the kalends of April [March 25th], the Day of Preparation, the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar [29 or 30 AD], while Rufus and Roubellion and Gaius Caesar, for the 4th time, and Gaius Cestius Saturninus were Consuls. And so it is absolutely necessary for six thousand years to be fulfilled, so that the Sabbath rest may come, the holy day, in which God rested from all his works which he began to do. And so from the generation of Christ it is necessary to count the remaining five hundred years to the consummation of the six thousand years, and in this way the end will be."

 This dates back to the first decade of the third century; a full hundred years before the State took over the Church. Obviously the Christian observance of Christmas goes way, way back: but why? There is nothing in the Scripture itself to give us the exact year, much less the exact day, when Jesus was born. So why was it so important to Christians that they know when it was?

Well, here's a new idea I just ran across. Whether it's factual or not, I don't know; but it does appear to account for the evidence. Creation Ministries International posted this on their website:

The real source of the 25 December date is an extra-biblical Jewishtradition, called the ‘integral year’. This means that a prophet’s lifespan would be an exact number of years, so he would die on an anniversary of his conception, the real beginning of life. Jesus’ death was calculated as March 25^th by the Western church, and April 6^th by the Eastern Church. Therefore this same date was celebrated as the date Christ was conceived. Nine months later is December 25^th or January 6^th, and the latter date is still celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox church (and many branches of the Western church celebrate ‘Epiphany’ on the same day, now to commemorate the arrival of the magi and their three gifts).

Actually, this again is just the effect of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by the Western Church.

Continuing on in Hippolytus, we can see that, like most chronographers, he did have an agenda:

 24.5. But because in the fifth and a half time the Savior arrived in the world bearing the incorruptible ark, that is his own body, John says, “and it was the sixth hour,” so that half of the day may be demonstrated, a day of the Lord is like thousand years.  And so the half of these is five hundred
years.
24.6 . . . .Because after the people returned from Babylon four hundred and thirty and four years occurred until the generation of Christ, it is easy to perceive what has been set before.  32.2. For since the first covenant with the sons of Israel was given after four hundred and thirty-four years, it is absolutely necessary for the second also likewise to be determined in the same time, so that it may be expected by the people and may be easily recognized by the believers.

There's one more thing to consider: The reading of Matthew 1:18.
Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ ἡ γέννησις  --Majority reading in Greek;  Latin version corresponds; "birth of Jesus"
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις   --Reading of the oldest papyri & uncials, corresponding to "beginning" in some Coptic & Syriac manuscripts; "conception of Jesus"


Hippolytus uses the term “genesis (γένεσις) of Christ,” and it's clear that this refers to His conception, not birth. From a conception date of March 25 (the anniversary date of Creation, observed for many centuries in Christendom as New Years Day, having been fixed at a time when this Julian date corresponded to the spring equinox) derives the date of Jesus’ birth as December 25.

I should add that although there is a bit of discrepancy amongst the various medieval manuscripts of Hippolytus, a statue located at the entrance of the Vatican contains a canon-table self-dated rather precisely to the beginning of 222 A.D. On it is Hippolytus' date for Christ's conception: Wednesday, April 2, 2 B.C. So whilst Hippolytus and his copyists down through the ages did play around a bit with the precise year of Christ's birth (4 BC is the critical consensus, as adopted by Ussher), and sometimes confused it with the date of his conception, Wednesday, December 25 can be nailed down as the original date.