A Free Download for October: Creation and Cosmos - The Literal Values of Genesis 2nd Edition

For the month of October 2013 a free EPUB download of the second edition of my book Creation and Cosmos; The Literal Values of Genesis is available at

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/garrison-clifford-gibson/creation-and-cosmos-the-literal-values-of-genesis/ebook/product-20564034.html

 Many people haven't a good idea of the relationship between the Bible and scientific knowledge in a very substantive way. Philosophers like considering questions of larger issues that many haven't given enough thought to as well as to reconsider issues ossified with time. For the past century individuals have contemplated the rich field of the cosmos and its creation analytically. These are my thoughts on the topic.

A Free Download for October - A Place for Faith (poetry)

A free EPUB download of my book of poems A Place for Faith  is available through October 2013 at

http://www.lulu.com/shop/gary-clifford-gibson/a-place-for-faith/ebook/product-20866390.html

A Free Download for October - St. Novilistricka - Dimensions (science fiction)

A free EPUB download of my philosophical novel St. Novilistricka - Dimensions is available through October 30, 2013 at;

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/gary-c-gibson/st-novilistricka-dimensions-second-edition/ebook/product-20602351.html

Globalists Joust Over U.S. Budget In Debt Ceiling Clash

Where the Republicans and Democrats went wrong after the end of the cold war was in going entirely global while applying deregulation domestically to its financial markets letting the best laid scams of mice and Wall Street elites run roughshod over national democracy. As is the case when select conflicts are resolved Gresham's law of bad money following good developed. The intellectually deficient applied their half-baked concepts about capitalism in a global political environment without substantial resistance.

As when hubris strikes a cruise ship captain taking his vessel to fast and to close to a tourist sight running aground, or when a oil super tanker captain sleeps off some booze and let's his 3rd mate run onto a reef, and even when a hot shot pilot flies an aircraft under a wire to only catch it and crash America's financial and Wall Street elites supported by politicians of the second rank swell with theory and practiced basic incompetent political economy. So the world today at least in the West is somewhat worse off and of course the self-righteous gospel of unregulated capital is undiminished though the consequence of that is no more than bankruptcy of the United States and consolidation of wealth unto global plutocracy.

In the present amusing Congressional clash over Obamacare and federal default the inability of either Democrats or Republicans to work for the good of the nation is evident. Since the left to the Democrats through a workers of the world unite phase of a third Internationale or Comintern conditioning the effort to go global and belittle nationalism has gone forward. Paradoxically the capitalist elite side is even more global than the Democrats now, although some Republican followers of the rich make noises about nationalism, there is no national party. Republicans and Democrats make unpleasant Nazi noises about anything like a nationalist party that concentrates on making all of the citizens of the nation prosperous or being national debt free.

It is an insult to posit straight white American men as Nazis for being nationalist especially so since they are the group that defeated the Nazis in war as well as the confederates. In each case they were fighting against the emergence of global elites, oligarchies, dictators or monarchs to power in order to defend the principles of national democracy and true egalitarianism. That system still works best, in spite of the sophism, propaganda and power in support to global capitalism or collectivism transcending borders.

People Need Borders-Mammals Don't (They Die Off in Fragmented Forests)

An interesting article in New Scientist today noted that mammals die off in fragmented forests. The process takes only 25 years.

The U.S.A.'s forests are mostly fragmented. Divide and conquer and defeating the enemy in detail works in war as well as against wild mammals. Mammals are having a tough time of it. I would think especially so when there are a lot of people venturing in and through via highways. Mammals tend to become road kills and stew meat themselves with easy human access.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24273-mammals-in-fragmented-forests-die-out-within-25-years.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|online-news#.UkSlAdKsg6Y

The good news is that the pace of deforestation in the Amazon has slowed down a little.

Obama, Cruz and the Birther Challenge; Revolution and Reversible Errors

Presidential candidate Barrack Obama encountered heavy political resistance by opponents claiming young Barrack was foreign born. So far Senator and possible Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz has experienced the phenomena. A birther movement hasn't yet surfaced to challenge his foreign birth (product du Canada). Ted Cruz was born in Canada and hence is technically most likely a British subject (in the fine print Canada didn't sever all relationship to the British Empire). If elected President Ted Cruz would be the first British subject President leading the United States since King George III (not a brother of George W. or H.W. Bush) and the British colonial status ended.

The American Revolution against foreign princes and powers embodied in the form of the British Empire in particular developed a constitution that excluded non-native born citizens from serving as President. That was just a practical matter to prevent America from lapsing back into colonial status. With Wall Street quite global, and Barrack Obama's father born in a British colony (Kenya) it is possible that America already has its first British subject President after the colonial revolution occurred even if Barrack Obama was born in Jakarta and provided with a Hawaiian birth certificate. If he is a native Hawaiian then at least he is native born although possibly a British subject.

Senator Cruz could go into the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. to denounce his Canadian citizenship in front of the Canadian Ambassador then step outside and burn his Canadian Maple Leaf diaper yet he would still remain foreign born. That initial foot in the door of attack upon the native born requirement can be first significant crack in the hull of national sovereignty. The boundaries and borders issues are the foundation of a free society with citizens not subject to foreign powers. Political self-determination only occurs with real territorial sovereignty and rulers from the same polity as oneself.

Reversing the principles of the Constitution a little bit at a time has been a developing trend one since the end of the cold was. The left is too happy to denounce nationalism and secure borders. Yet the founding revolutionaries were all about boundaries and sovereign borders issues and paid with blood to secure the rights and privileges too may Americans are ready to relinquish. Never let it be said that any cat is spoilt, never spit into the wind nor fail to defend one's borders and economic sovereignty so far as possible.

Wall Street's globalism and the outsourcing of jobs have made concentrating wealth more interesting than improving the well being of the U.S. economy for all citizens in this generation. The trend has been for long-term downgrading of the earnings and employment prospects for a generation or two while the influential find better investments abroad. America's poor and middle class haven't been well served by their political leaders. Putting a foreign-born President in office and one that is even a British subject would be a sort of cherry on top to those globalists more allegiant to a Plutocracy than the United States.

Senator Cruz may be able to learn enough advanced economic theory given enough time and investment of effort to understand something of why the economy and environment is all f'd up and getting worse for so many Americans off Wall Street. I wish the Senator well in the effort. Participation in civic affairs is a good thing.

The Republican Party ought not follow up on the Democrat Party's selection of a candidate of dubious national origin with one of their own confirmed and immeasurably worse. It is important to defend the principal of the healthy forest and not lose track for the trees. Making the American Revolution a reversible error corrected by electing the foreign born and or subjects of her majesty the Queen to the highest office is just not the way things are supposed to be. The Republic has attacks and erosion from a world of political and economic avenues that sap the will of the people of the United States to be free and prosperous. The propaganda in support of their own worst interests is relentless. They may be persuaded by degrees to give up their special status and become ruled by oppressive foreign or domestic elites making them just another collection of numbers amidst a planetful of proles.

Sen. Cruz's About Obamacare and 1950's Style Free Enterprise

Canadian and U.S. citizen U.S. Senator Ted Cruz gave a rambling Castro-style never-ending discourse the evils of Obamacare and it's deleterious impact upon free enterprise overnight in something of a filibuster that isn't a filibuster with a vote scheduled to take place. Obamacare certainly has a lot of wickedness to it, yet it is impossible to want to take medical coverage from expanded Medicare for those poor living in 26 states that are slated to get it. Regardless of the merits or lack thereof of Obamacare I wanted to write something about the sophomoric ideas of Senator Cruz on the topic of how free enterprise works and how the middle class becomes prosperous.

If the Senator wants to become the next puppet President (an American tradition since Bill Clinton) he needs to develop more mature palaver about free enterprise and how it is the engine that makes wealth concentrate best yet still making it seem as if the permissible support businesses owned by the middle class are in some way actually the main stream of things today rather than the tail following the 1% around.

In the 1950's the ideas of the Senator actually were closer to coinciding with reality. In that largely before-the-computer era networking and defacto insider networking were not the prevalent kickback loops dominating the economy as they are today. Individual effort and character actually mattered. It was still possible inn America to invent something and afford to patent it as contrasted to here and now. Today invention patents  and profits trickle up  to the global corporations that employ most of the inventors or at least lawyers that can make multi-million dollar patent defenses beyond the means of America's poor and middle class.

The poor and middle-class in America today are far less able to upscale their individual enterprises before running in to the ubiquitous corporate ownership of everything and every existing financial transaction skimming or taking over about everything that might make a buck. Character is of lesser value now than the 1950s; at least virtue is in disrepute and raving collectivist characteristics and role modelling is what promotes individuals in the collectives and networks totalizing the global economy and outsourcing American independence to a plutocracy. I wish that Senator Cruz had addressed the real economic challenges facing America today instead of presenting a 1950s vision of a free enterprise utopia that is continuously under assault by Wall Street and Harvard University.

Harvard University affiliation seems necessary for a modern puppet President who can exploit its vast global networking alumni to kick back and control about everything. Harvard alumni are America's Rhodes  scholars reinforcing the global power of corrupt elites that care virtually nothing about individual American interests or national independence.

Senator Cruz was born in Canada and is the son of a Cuban immigrant.  A first generation political class immigrant he has joined the alternative way to move up to the middle class and beyond through government employment. Government jobs are some of the best existing in America regarding job security, pay and benefits. It is the lifeboat of security while the poor and formerly middle class jump overboard into the economic waters dominated by global and Harvard Wall Street sharks smelling for economic blood wherever it may be in the dark pool ocean of networked enterprise.

One can applaud Senator Cruz's effort to repeal Obamacare through the game of economic chicken that would crash the car of state into the wall of federal spending limits due to take effect October 17th of this year. Americans are good at criticizing and posturing. He is all-American in that regard and deficient like most in accurate economic and historical logic. Without ideas about how the economy actually functions these days and the way in which networking and the ad hoc collectivism of concentrated wealth dominates economic development it would be difficult to correct that situation to the advantages of poor and middle class Americans.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/25/us-usa-fiscal-cruz-idUSBRE98O02K20130925

President Obama Doesn't Have a Budget Negotiating Game; Appoint a Czar

Shouldn't Pres. Obama Appoint A Budget Czar For Negotiations?

America has a surfeit of Nobel Prize winning economists such as Joseph Stiglitz. Isn't it possible that some of them might have ideas about budget reform that the President does not? One wonders if the President refuses to negotiate on the budget spending cap and Obamacare because he doesn't know what is in the Federal budget being a lawyer rather than an economist?

It should be possible for a good economist made budget czar to easily cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal budget of wasteful programs that Republicans like and want funded. Are new carpets installed in U.S. Senate offices-cut that out? Do subsidies exist or federal spending occur that benefits Republicans-then be responsible and stop it.

Sometimes it is necessary to steer the ship of state toward the safe harbor of reduction of national debt. The better way to accomplish that is to improve the efficiency of existing programmatic spending structures through reform rather than the inaccuracy of generic cuts. It should for example be possible to reform Obamacare even before it's fully implemented by cutting out the part about increasing Medicaid spending that only works in half the states and replacing that with an expanded V.A. hospital system that will include treatment for the poor. New construction of hospital and clinics in remote sites could provide jobs for documented construction workers. All of the nation's poor would be included and the nation would have a better public treatment structure in the event of national emergency such as could occur in event of nuclear, chemical or biological war.

Plainly the serious threats to national security collectively and to individuals are in the sort of harm to health the poor may experience any or even every day while the prosperous are aloof. They may experience the threats for real only in times of mass disaster when they run to the Federal government like Republican Gov. Chris Christie did pleading for billions and billions of money when hurricane Sandy splashed New Jersey with storm waves or change their minds about public medical provisioning such as Republican Governor Schwarzenneger had after suffering a compound fracture of a leg skiing at Sun Valley Idaho.

Negotiating with Republicans on the federal budget ought to be fun. More fun even that playing bullet chess. What's up with the President anyway; too much time on the golf course?

Federal Failures at Old Navy Yard and V.A. Hospitals

The Federal government failed to provide adequate security at the Washington Naval Yard that would screen out unauthorized guns with metal detectors and failed to adequately council a former active duty naval reservist that twice sought help at V.A. Hospitals. President Obama at a memorial criticized civil gun ownership instead of Federal failures in security and V.A. service. The public is not really at fault-who else can they vote for besides Republicans and Democrats that aren't very accurate at budget balancing or border security?

Psychiatric counseling should be decriminalized if people are to be free to seek that sort of medical help if they want it without needing to be concerned about picks up the legal ticks from a plethora of sources that attach themselves to undermine his or her civil liberty. In fact it would be opportune to reform the historical legal context for criminal trials in order to remove the prospect for psychiatric opinion developing as force of law.

A new trial format would have three parts instead of two as at present wherein guilt or innocence is determined followed by sentencing. Phase one is a structure inappropriate for using psychiatric opinion.

1) Findings of fact

2) Conclusion of law

3) Public response

A finding of fact phase would determine if the person charged did the deed or not. Phase two would determine if those convicted in phase one should be held responsible or discharged. Phase three would act as the sentencing phase for those found convicted and responsible.

Is there subjective software of logic an individual develops in response to the experience of hearing voices? The political dialectical evolution of dysfunction of the Congress at managing the nation's public affairs might be an analogy for the internal dialectical evolution of plausible explanations an individual might develop to account for the anomaly of unattributable internal voices. No one believes it's possibly anything besides holistic organic dysfunction, yet there are other possibilities...

The Veteran Hears Voices, Buys a Gun and Visits The Old Navy Yard

The veteran lives in a room alone

in a white room with black curtains

he hears the call of duty

traffic and the world passes outside

while inside is another room with an open door

someone else he doesn't know is in it

a ventriloquist, a cell phone left behind, an alien from someplace beyond

gently, mockingly, relentlessly giving words of impossible distraction

that he overhears incredulously before incredulity turns to despair

Troubled by constant distraction from the unknown twit

-no one is in the spare room hidden behind a door that can't be found

the veteran considers the possibilities of who and what the enemy is

an enemy that deceives and confounds, tricks and provides news

an extra-sensory invader

beating a punitive sunchopated tinnitus on eardrums when better incentives are needed to stop his impermissible political thought

Hearing voices, the vet visits a Veteran's Hospital for help

an emergency room gut specialist looks around at the sick and injured

wondering what goes on in the meathead before him

The Doc doesn't enumerate a list of logically possible source of voices that haven't got a corresponding credible source

1) Extra-terrestrial super-real communiqués

2) Covert government or criminal tech assaults

3) Demons

4) Silent focused sound waves audible only to the ears they are beamed at by an unknown foe

5) An implanted transmitter too small to detect

6) Short-circuiting or malfunctioning brain neurons that generate audible words independently of one's will

7) A fib in a jihadist plan to disarm Americans

A list of possibilities that would inform the vet of possible existential explanations wasn't given

neither was a chemical remedy offered to work on possibility six

looking at the vet he said nothing, it's just audio hallucinations

A threatening condemnation -the veteran hears voices in the real world that don't exist- asserting his mind wrongly exists

it's an epistemological insult

of the first kind

if there ever was

Although the traduction

might be a little inaccurate

even the vet knows his mysterious voices don't correspond to regular embodied leprechauns in his brain

-he knows he isn't the King of France

rich as Bill Gates or an N.B.A. star

His use of the word voices was confused the issue

an example of the indeterminacy of translation

what else could he say?

what would the inexperienced understand of his lexicon without sharing

since voices in the mind differ substantially from voices with a normal cause

With the fundamental attack on the integrity of his mind said

it was just one of many possibilities

he contemplates his mind as a homeroom

into which voices enter from outside the curtain

mostly adverse opinions

a foe says his mind is not real

that he doesn't know himself

The voice of the gut doc and that of the voice in the spare room are different

yet equal in some respects

neither is self

one has a visible corporeal, well-paid body

maybe it worked at Ft. Hood

or was a trainee neuroscientist in Denver

while the voice of the other has a hidden entry to the brain

like a virus preying upon the host, at best

each spoofs the integrity of self, the veteran self

who perceives the attacks of the others as phenomena?

In less than utopia, in civil society

experiencing the enemy as something necessarily tolerated

from the spare, vacant room from where the voices enter his mind-room

there are no claims of reality

the fiat of simple fact and power overcomes doubt

- real secret voices enter his mind

Voices from an source unknown

maybe echoes of federal training

with strengthened skepticism he soldiers on

following his own lead

-to thine own self be true

master of his fate, captain of his soul

conforming to war

A better prayer would have been 'Jesus savior pilot me

over life's tempestuous seas'

the V.A. Doc never explained

there is no MNR mapping of the source of the voices in the spare room

nothing would be fixed

even with expensive chemical carpet bombing of his brain with drugs

besides, if the veteran waited a hundred years the voices would never occur in a Veteran's hospital for study

With sympathy from the emergency room guy, a sleeping pill and a Band-Aid

the frustrated, bewildered sailor wanders off into the night

thinking about buying a gun for self-defense

against a bulletproof enemy

too difficult to stop

that might have infiltrated the Old Navy Yard.

Unemployment Rate for U.S. Poor at 20%, Repubs Vote to Cut Food for Poor

It is remarkable how terrible the present U.S. government is. People have noticed-especially the long-term jobless. The Republican majority in the U.S. House voted to cut four billion a year from the food stamp program recently, and though that won't pass through the Democrat controlled Senate it is a confirmation that the privileged invariably victimize the poor in order to swill up as much wealth as they possibly can. The Democrats have generally been aiding and abetting the trend toward kicking back wealth to the richest through deregulation and tax cuts.

Republicans also seek to cut medical benefits for the poor by non-funding Obamacare until it can be buried. While Obamacare was never really designed for the poor-in about half of the states Medicaid won't expand to cover the poor without insurance, in 25 states the poor might have been able to get medical relief and saved for a lot to build a shack on if they didn't have to go to an emergency room and become indebted for the remainder of their lives.

The continuing electronic printing of free money to give the rich on Wall Street provides doubling down benefits for the ultra-fast dark pool stock traders using supercomputers to harvest millions and billions from speed of light skimming on global currency changes and other financial facts. It is probable that those Wall Street insiders producing nothing material for the public-just profits for-themselves and maybe excess capitol to invest in Chinese industrial development and more anywhere on the planet cheap profits can be had. The poor in the United States undoubtedly would prefer to earn $17,000 a year instead of relying on a hundred dollars or two of food stamps to stay alive each month yet to the most rich they are just lint in a colony of the plutocracy to be marginalized rather than promoted.

The certainty about the U.S. Government these days is that they will never, ever fix anything or rationally balance the nation's accounts and interests. While the national debt is nearly $17 trillion dollars they will do vast deficit spending and have the Federal Reserve issue new crisp electronic currency to globalists at the rate of 809 billion per month. One month of that free money could fund the food stamp gap republicans want to force for the next 20 years. It is certain that the military-industrial complex will seek new foreign wars and that the Democrats will not stop illegal immigration even while the U6 unemployment rate is 15%. Republican and Democrat politicians agree in effect that the 49 million poor Americans can be set aside and trashed with so much cheap foreign labor available to replace them illegally as well as legally. Government works for the rich best with the middle class kissing ass on the global corporate employers to timid or incompetent to restore adequate taxation, a balanced federal budget or eliminate of public debt. 

The national media pundits when not raving brainwashing programming the public are bought and paid for by the rich. One never hears the words of the middle class or poor on their own broadcast time segments. U.S. politics are controlled by corporate leverage on free speech and the atheist agenda let's the public be degraded from the insiders without moral troubles into malleable swine. The U.S. Government has no intention of creating full employment or expanding V.A. Hospitals nationally to provide treatment for the poor that aren't veterans instead of ineffective Obamacare. Republicans seeking to cut Obamacare have no rational, practical alternative medical provisioning for the poor. It seems that the servants of wealth actually believe they are better human beings or that anyone really could experience the American Dream without selling his or her soul to the Devil-silly twits.

It is absolutely certain that their isn't a snowball's chance in hell that the U.S. Government leadership of the next decade will become world leaders on eliminating greenhouse gases, eliminating pollution of the oceans, halt loss of wild and restorable ecospheric habitat or create full employment within a sustainable natural resource foundation. The reason for the bad things is the bad social philosophy that has made this an age of greed. With a legacy of good national achievement from prior generations the present generation can be full of self-delusion about their moral and social worth today as they kick the poor around and prefer foreign conflicts instead of foreign admiration for excellence in renewable economic policy and procedures with liberty and justice for all.

Fundamentally it is original sin that dooms the present generation of politicians to incompetence. Remarkable political incompetence as if they were blind.

New Aircraft Carrier To Cost About $13 Billion Before Cost Overruns

Thirteen billion dollars is quite a chunk of change to pay for a Ford-class aircraft carrier that is also the biggest target on the ocean. It seems more of a global policing for the plutocracy kind of expense rather than a 3rd world war sort of investment. Starting a scientific and production facility on the moon might have been started with that as a down payment.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/06/huntington-carrier-idUSL2N0H201C20130906

One wonders about the cost of clouds of miniature stealth flying fish anti-ship vehicles able to draw fuel for fuel cells from sea water that could loiter around waiting to detonate themselves on the very large boats. There must be a trillion sorts of anti-ship weapons delivery systems that could be innovated to crater an aircraft carrier deck. Are aircraft carriers still relevant? What about making fighter and bomber aircraft that can land on or in the water and refuel themselves?

art credit of Ford Class aircraft carrier U.S. Navy (via wikipedia)

Global Warming in 2013 Is Like the Terminator Saying-"I'll be back"

Global warming land surface temperatures this year stabilized yet that halt in the measurable advance may be just temporary. Perhaps all the ice melt cooled things down a little, yet the ocean temperature is said to have increased even so. 

What is evident is that Co2 concentration in the ocean is a long-term problem that hasn't halted at all and the rate of it's increase is still going up. The ocean has a limited capacity to absorb atmospheric Co2  and ocean acidity is increasing meaning that the fishing may get very bad on the waves ahead.

A fair report on global warming in 2013 was put together by a writer at Mother Jones.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/global-warming-slowdown-ipcc

New Alaska State Library & Museum Construction Advances

With construction of a new Alaska State Library and Museum scheduled for completion early in 2016 a grant has been awarded to start movement of pieces from 12 museums and cultural centers as well as from several individuals that will merge to form a 32,000 piece collection. One hopes global warming sea level rise will not require a reverse flow some day.

It might be interesting if the state natural history museum began a global warming collection to document the changes in the state from the past to the present era. 

http://www.adn.com/2013/09/10/3067451/state-museum-receives-grant-to.html

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/global-warming-slowdown-ipcc

Spaced Security at Washington Naval Yard

 Incredible as it seems the Washington Naval Yard security had no screening for guns of employees and contractors walking in to the building each day. Instead they relied on the honor system with the assumption that having passed an initial security check no one ever again required screening for weapons on site. The Naval Academy itself dropped the honor system decades ago.

Unfortunately the security lapse in the nation's capitol left twelve civilians dead. The President mentioned that another mass shooting had occurred, and it is tragic when mass is shot, yet that shouldn't be an excuse for the government to further disarm American citizens or substitute psychological profiling for common sense security measures that wouldn't let any contract employee take his shotgun and pistols t'work.

At least Starbucks has upgraded their security measures in response to the mass shooting and banned policemen with guns from troubling those slurping up coffee who don't like policemen or others legally carrying a weapon. Policemen will have to go to that Guns, Donuts and Coffee shop down the street it seems where the defense contractors go.

The politicians are familiar with mass markets, mass political opinion and mass shootings and so know how to go for the juggler politically speaking. Tossing a lot of postures into the broadcast air while classified work at the Washington Naval Yard continues on next wave ships with electro-magnetohydrodynamic drives (e.m.h.d's) that have fuel cells to power them when traveling ashore as hovercraft, or maybe e.m.h.d. spaceships exploiting charged electro-magnetic fields instead of water to flit about the solar system and to Alpha Centauri B doesn't need to develop as an excuse to attack civilians for the fault of government worker's lack of creative thought on security issues-such as don't let people take shotguns to work.

One wonders if security is any better at the Naval Yard than the N.S.A.? The naval yard probably doesn't let people take a cell phone into classified areas yet one can take in a shotgun properly bagged as a large loaf of French bread? While they are going to stick something in their computer thumb drives to stop downloading of government secrets will they let them take pictures of computer screens with cell phones or tiny fiber optic lapel camera lenses?

Making life easy for Wikileaks and hard for sailors with visits to government neuroscientists for screening may be a good bureaucratic way to posture up security. Physical security that prevents access to government facilities with a weapon cannot be replaced by psychological testing in a nation of 300 million souls. Even rational people may hate the government and seek to replace it with a better country ruled by a dictator of one.

No Obama-Nixoncare Medicaid Coverage Expansion for Poor in Alaska

In the state of Alaska medical coverage of the poor won't be arriving with the increase of Medicaid through Obamacare provision anytime while a Republican Governor is in office. Gov. Sean Parnell apparently threw the poor under the bus refusing to sign off on the Medicare expansion that the U..S. Supreme's left up to the states.  That's a better way to red-line states and keep the poor out compelling them to live in Warshinkclump D.C., California, N.Y. etc if they need a gall bladder removed. With a 21% unemployment rate for those earning fewer than $21,000 annually getting sick is dangerously costly. With medical debt easily piling up more than the price of a home or real estate it is realistic to consider buying a tent except in brown bear turf.

Juneau Alaska the state capitol is said to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the U.S.A. (poor millionaires though compared to those of the real wealth concentrations such as N.Y.C. and Boston). In Alaska the poor are sometimes frozen into leaving the state after a winter or two of concentration at the extremely overcrowded Brother Francis Shelter in Anchorage or perhaps finding no work amidst the state workers and elites of Juneau though they scan Alexsys (The state of Alaska's dept of labor online job resource) religiously hoping for an interview though disadvantaged by not being an immigrant or homosexual.

The war on poverty morphed into the war on the poor somewhere along the way one might think. Pain and freezing homelessness can keep the U6 homeless from getting a beachhead of living in Alaska. Pulling teeth costs money in the north. For emergency dental it might cost two or three hundred dollars to have a tooth and immediate pain terminated. For serious medical problems the poor except for a few class exceptions will need to pile up debt at the emergency room and remain in the U6 of underemployed or unemployed that comprises about 15% of the people of the United States with the same number approximately comprising the poor of the U.S. population.

Obamacare is basically a laundered Richard M. Nixon corporate health care plan and of course in the era of concentrated wealth the President let the poor bite the bullet first in order to get the middle class on board. Mayor Sullivan of Anchorage already made it illegal to camp in Anchorage. Now if the homeless need emergency frostbite treatment or appendectomy and go to the emergency room they will be billed themselves without any sort of Medicaid assistance.

What should have been done instead of Obama-Nixoncare was just free health care for the poor and the U6 at an expanded V.A. Hospital system with outlet clinics and shuttle buses to major medical centers for those that needed it. Simple, cheaper, practical and humanitarian. That should be who Americans are.

Terrorist Hit On Washington Navy Yard? Twelve Dead

In a brazen daylight anti-personnel attack at the nations oldest naval shore installation, the Washington Navy Yard twelve people were killed possibly including the shooter identified as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year old contractor from Ft. Worth New York while authorities hunt for two additional suspects seen with a handgun and a rifle (That turned out not to be actual perps).

It is reported now that the shooter heard voices that were not just raving broadcasters, but from some non-traditional source such as demons, martinets or brain hay-wiring.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/aaron-alexis-identified-navy-yard-shooter_n_3935770.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24111481#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Some have reported that the nation's penal institutions are being used as terrorist training camps. That leads one to wonder if the mixed race report on the suspects at large-black and white, were part of a criminal training gang.

Terrorists from the Middle East at war on American interests have a fundamentally different metaphysical orientation than Christian Americans. Like godless atheists that believe this world is it before the Big Sleep some Mohammedans have a this world is useful only for evangelization with force attitude. Godless atheists want their 72 virgins here and now while Mohammedan radicals expect there's as soon as they break on through to the other side by killing godless atheists and becoming martyrs.

Godless atheists use treachery, force and lies to evangelize the world along with brainwashing media and corrupting global economics, and those technological channels of progress in turn enable those chasing 72 virgins and a fully stocked refrigerator in a cast right wing heavenly condo to easily fly about the world in pursuit of targets of opportunity such as a gay friendly naval yard in Washington D.C.

It is said that no Christian churches exist in Yemen and that the penalty for Christian evangelization is death. The Obama administration supporters also have an antipathetic attitude toward Christian faith. 

The attack at the Washington naval Yard may have been just a disgruntled worker taking revenge on government workers with job security, however improbable that seems. If it was another act of p.r. terrorism on America that should stimulate reform of the U.S. corrections system in such a way that it cannot serve as a terror training facility.

Probably those arrested for recreational drug use and no other crimes should be moved out of the normal criminal corrections systems and their arrest records (for new cases) made into some sort of a temporary, non-criminal paradigm such that after discharge from corrections hold in a separate facility than that of criminals they will not have any criminal conviction history.

Khat and Green Jobs; Advantage Greed

There was some demand for the video game called Advantage Greed with quantitative trading, dark pools, quantitative easing, collateralized debt obligations, tranches, hostile takeovers, leveraged buy out, hedge funds, mutual funds, down sizing, outsourcing, cheap foreign labor, cheap immigrant labor, externalities of ecosphere, plutocracy, oligarchy, concentrating wealth networking loops, public holding of a 17 trillion of dollar bag of debt, corporate welfare, higher-ed secret societies and government-corporate insider kickbacken, a revolving door military-industrial government complex, secret societies and swell graphics with lots of action and bosomy yet intelligent babes. I think that was before the rage of twittering overcame the country.

Then after 16 years of democrat party leaderships (looking to the entire Clinton and Obama terms) at deregulating Wall Street extending tax cuts for the rich and flooding the nation with cheap illegal alien workers the gaming seemed not as escapist for idealistic Republicans. Change has meant a ho-hum what's new sort of acquiescence in the concentration of wealth and forgetfulness of the war on poverty. Fortunately the administration threw in some new spice and still has wars in poor countries to stimulate a little action for defense industry fat cats.

Selecting to defend the defense of marriage act and pushing for a gay friendly military was just a start for President Obama. He has ordered the U.S. Government to stop enforcing laws against recreational marijuana use. Yet how will that set with the First Lady as advocate for health and lean diets for schoolchildren and the fat?

As has been pointed out people using marijuana get the munchies and put on weight. That makes them more tranquil and tolerant of wealth trickling upward in every networked transaction. Who needs to know or care what's what?

Khat is a mild natural leaf amphetamine that lets users chew it and skip meals while working harder. It's grown a lot in Yemen and might be considered equally as valid as marijuana for effecting body weight. It's said also to be a mild euphoric. Is the Obama administration considering advocating for khat chewing as well as marijuana?

If there is a good side to khat chewing it's that it would create green jobs in the U.S.A. that can't be outsourced. Khat chewing makes the teeth of a use turn green requiring more trips to the dentist for teeth cleaning and those dentists spend dollars locally. It may also create a demand for spittoon sales that have been in a slump since the effects of tobacco of causing cancer were discovered. One might do some data mining to learn if the government is considering promoting khat production in California's Central Valley by discovering if they have given medical research funds to find out if khat is at all carcinogenic.

Ig Nobel Prize Winning 'Beer Goggle' - U.S. Government Public Debt Nears $17 Trillion

When the Obama administration failed twice to let the Bush II era tax cuts expire the better opportunity to rescue the U.S. economy from the long range crisis of deep public debt was averted. At least the beer goggle effect that occurs when people think they look better after drinking a few beers was researched adequately in 2012. Some government economists may discover a real way to balance the federal budget and pay down public debt one day too.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24061992 Ig Nobel Prize Award for'Beer Goggle'

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Capital-Exchange/2011/02/08/Capital-Exchange-Simple-Solution-Let-the-Bush-Tax-Cuts-Expire

http://www.moneynews.com/Economy/budget-debt-ceiling-Obama-US/2013/09/01/id/523326

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Potential Syrian Political Settlement Evolution by Design v. 2.0 Syraq

Modern civil war may end when one side or the others delivers a knock out punch or alternatively when rebel forces burn out. If international forces support rebels an end may occur when they stop supporting the rebels. If international forces for-themselves have too many dead boots on the ground a political settlement can be a band-aid for retreat from the civil war to friendlier climes.

In the case of the Syrian civil war a realpolitik political settlement logic could be construction of a new synthetic state uniting Syria with Iraq called Syraq.

Syria's were drawn up in 1923 after Britain defeated the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the First World War along with Germany giving the French control of the newly delimited state. Over the next few decades strife often reached the region and the French lost control granting independence to Syria on the way. Hafez Assad led the first Alawite government starting in 1970. Modern Syrian history is as interesting as the history of modern Iraq- wars and strife, repression and survival epics, espionage, intrigue and pathos. Even the inventor of Baathism was from Syria.

Today a political settlement of the Syrian civil war imposed by rich, powerful global martinets giving power to Sunni rebels would mean the right of a majority to purge minority tribes and sects is supported by elites. It is improbable that a western-style democratic pluralism would follow a Sunni takeover of Syria. Sunni Syria probably would not usher an Age of Aquarius and democracy as ostensibly some non-Syrian interventionists may believe.

The Sunni of the Middle East are intolerant of Shi'a mosques. None for instance are in Palestine, Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Christians are attacked in Iraq and Egypt. Saudi Arabia does not allow Protestant Churches in Mecca, tourism in the kingdom is broadly suppressed, twerking occurs only in private-it's not Boston, San Francisco or Washington D.C.. The U.S. administration does little to condemn the Saudis for religious bigotry or hate speech toward Christians.

A better political settlement could be to join Syria onto Iraq. A new Kurdish state would be made in the midst of the new nation so it would end up being a three-state federation. Protecting the rights of minorities in Syria means dividing Syria into thirds with Kurds taking a third, Alawites, Shi'a and Druze sharing a third and non-Kurdish Sunnis taking a third. Each state would have a governor and very interesting parliamentary meetings in Baghdad-the future capitol of Syraq I would guess. The political parties of the new nation would be in a rough balance that might help stabilize Iraq as well as Syria.

It is unreasonable for the Obama administration to regard Syria as a nation of immigrants that can just vote for a democratic government if President Bashir Assad the Alawite strong man is removed. Ethnic group and religious groups mean more to people of that region than in modern America. They have fought as tribes for thousands of years to survive. They tend to bump out and displace rival tribes rather than to tolerate and regard them as equal citizens of a geographic area called a nation.

Syraq would be something of a political experiment that might work. Syraq is a potential emergent synthesis that could start a new contemporary history of democracy in the Middle East. Yet we see a lack of creative political thought in U.S. administrations since the Reagan era. King Cove Alaska for example needs an environment-trashing road built 13 miles through a wildlife refuge so people can get to an all-weather airport off the island. Wildlife needs to be protected from human predation. The better solution would be construction of a sealed people pipeline for an electric shuttle vehicle that would let people travel through without an ability to harm the wildlife. Because nothing like that is usually done its not on the Department of the Interior's easy solutions page. Nothing so far has been mentioned by State so far about Syraq either. Syraq isn't on their easy solutions page.

2nd Kings 18-20... ( Assyria and King Hezekiah-King James Version)

"18 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

2 Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Abi, the daughter of Zachariah.

3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that David his father did.

4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan.

5 He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

6 For he clave to the Lord, and departed not from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses.

7 And the Lord was with him; and he prospered whithersoever he went forth: and he rebelled against the king of Assyria, and served him not.

8 He smote the Philistines, even unto Gaza, and the borders thereof, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.

9 And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it.

10 And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is in the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

11 And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes:

12 Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them.

13 Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

14 And Hezekiah king of Judah sent to the king of Assyria to Lachish, saying, I have offended; return from me: that which thou puttest on me will I bear. And the king of Assyria appointed unto Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold.

15 And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house.

16 At that time did Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

17 And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller's field.

18 And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder.

19 And Rabshakeh said unto them, Speak ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?

20 Thou sayest, (but they are but vain words,) I have counsel and strength for the war. Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me?

21 Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.

22 But if ye say unto me, We trust in the Lord our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?

23 Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my lord the king of Assyria, and I will deliver thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.

24 How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master's servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

25 Am I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

26 Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.

27 But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

28 Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and spake, saying, Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria:

29 Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you out of his hand:

30 Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

31 Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern:

32 Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.

33 Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

34 Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?

35 Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?

36 But the people held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king's commandment was, saying, Answer him not.

37 Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

19 And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

2 And he sent Eliakim, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz.

3 And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.

4 It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard: wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that are left.

5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.

7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.

8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

9 And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria.

11 Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered?

12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar?

13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah?

14 And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.

15 And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth.

16 Lord, bow down thine ear, and hear: open, Lord, thine eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent him to reproach the living God.

17 Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

18 And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them.

19 Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even thou only.

20 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.

21 This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him; The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.

22 Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel.

23 By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.

24 I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places.

25 Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.

26 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up.

27 But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against me.

28 Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

29 And this shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof.

30 And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.

31 For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.

32 Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.

33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.

34 For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.

37 And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

20 In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.

2 Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, saying,

3 I beseech thee, O Lord, remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.

4 And it came to pass, afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came to him, saying,

5 Turn again, and tell Hezekiah the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee: on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of the Lord.

6 And I will add unto thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.

7 And Isaiah said, Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.

8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day?

9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

12 At that time Berodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah: for he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.

13 And Hezekiah hearkened unto them, and shewed them all the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not.

14 Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, They are come from a far country, even from Babylon.

15 And he said, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All the things that are in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them.

16 And Isaiah said unto Hezekiah, Hear the word of the Lord.

17 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the Lord.

18 And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.

19 Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?

20 And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

21 And Hezekiah slept with his fathers: and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria