King Herod's Tomb Discovered in 2007-Subsequent Excavations Provide Confirmation

An interesting article in Biblical Archeology Review (BAR) describes why the late author (died in October 2010 after an archeology accident at the site) believes much evidence exists to support his conclusion that the tomb of King Herod the Great of Judah has been found in Israel.

Herod built a city 12 years after fleeing from a Haesmonian rival, Mattathias Antigonus, supported by Parthians. Herod fled toward Masada and battled with Antigonus at the site where he would build his city. Herod won the battle and was reappointed King of Judah by the Romans.

http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=37&Issue=1&ArticleID=7

King Herod remained ruler of Judah until the birth of Jesus Christ around the year 4 b.c. Fittingly he died about the time the true ruler of Israel was born.

Miller-Murkowski Senate Contest Reaches Alaska High Court/etc.

So close to Christmas I should have some secrets of the Magi sort of report to write; how the space shuttle is visible in the northern night sky this time of year doesn't make that cut, nor does the helpful information that public toilet seat liners work best if you tear off the 'tongue' portion and flip the solid part forwar before setting it down instead of letting the tongue droop into the water and fall in. The Alaska Senate campaign is slightly more interesting yet not much.

The daughter of the 'Godfather' of present state politics former U.S. Senator and Governor Frank Murkowski won the race by 12,000 votes as an independent after losing the Republican primary. She won with thousands of crossover female democratic votes and repaid them by voting to end 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. During the campaign she said that Joe Miller would leave Alaskan with nothing out in the cold. I remembered that last night when I broke my notebook computer sleeping in my ten at about zero degrees, broke with a foot of new snow. The rich have a way of being the poor and desrving themselves even with millions and millions-wicked souls.

Miller took his suit to the Supreme Court Friday and it will decide if the state should throw out 10,000 contested ballots on which the spelling of Lisa Murkowski was not precise. This is not a trivial issue.

If a write-in name is not exact and requires discretionaryy interpretation of voter intent to award the vote to a candidate, there are numerous possibilities for corruption too obvious to mention. One example is the echo candidacy made to allow discretion by partisan election officials.

Lisa Murkowski is running as a registered write in, so the anti-Lisa M party decides to run their own write in candidacy for Lisa B Murkowsky as opposed tothe Lisa P Murkowski allowing sympathetic interpreters to award votes to the Lisa B candidacy. We find the amazonn.com effect of near misses ambiguity made to pull in hits or votes for a popular candicay part of the modern world of alpha numeric selection and dislike anything besides exact matches on either web sites to counting votes.

If Joe Miller loses in the Alaska State Court he may take it to the U.S. Supreme Court where it may be right up there with hanging chads as a controversy that could stand clarification. In Alaska an establishment exists that kicks back jobs and opportunity to an insider elite subserviant to global corporate resource developers over local and also is a prime hog on the federal pork barrel also kicking back to favorite insiders leaving the rest out in the cold. I would not doubt that some cheating might have occurred to swing the election Murkowski's way. A federal judge has certified the election yet declared as well that should the courts decide in favor of Miller and the erroneous ballots are thrown out, a recount held and possibilities of fraudulent votes investigated such that Miller wins 2000 more votes and takes the Senate seat, the certification can be changed to Miller.

If anyone has any idea how to repair the video screen of a notebook computer that is not cracked but just totally dysfunctional after being rolled over by a hip in a sleeping bag-let me know. Also of use would be instructions on how to transfer data from the notebook to another computer if the screen is not visible to log on and so forth.

Nation's Unemployment Rate Is Of Secondary Importance to U.S. Politicians and Corporatists

Federal economic policy presently is to serve the corporate world and concentration of wealth. Both major political parties have signed off on tax cut extensions for the wealthy. Each party supports free trade agreements that allows global corporations to export their products here freely. The corporate world and its profits are of primary concern to the wealthy and for their sycophantic employees. Corporate relocates labor globally in contracts and sub-contractual relationships. Neither the federal government and nits Harvard elites nor the Corporate elites are much concerned about keeping full employment in the United States nor driving up the value of labor in the United States.

So the nation's unemployed are in effect 'Waiting for Godot' like Samuel Beckett's character's Vladimir and Estragon for jobs that just might not appear. There is a surplus of unskilled labor in the world today and nationalism is not on the Congressional agenda. Employers are still outsourcing and consolidating increasing productivity and profits but no employment. There are lots of Japanese and multi-national factories in Mexico near the border taking advantage of NAFTA. To really increase employment in the U.S.A. economic reform to support national interest would need to occur and that isn't likely soon.

The Mexican border allows millions of illegal cheap workers to undermine the value of unskilled labor in the U.S.A. and in the construction industry, and Americans are becoming corporate sycophants rather than supporters of Democracy. The Obama-Falin-Romney style candidates are just yes-persons for global corporatism. That is not good for the world environment, for the prospects of unskilled and unemployed Americans.or much else for those on the wrong side of the great corporate divide in the U.S.A.

Wouldn't a Larger, Cheaper Draft Military Be Better for Afghanistan?

Since the volunteer military has had to fight a protracted nation rebuilding war the price for getting people to serve has skyrocketed. Wouldn't a return to a traditional military draft in order to keep a larger number of much lower cost recruits in Afghanistan be a more effective way to subdue the Taliban and unemployment in the United States?

Some Alaskans and those stranded for the winter in Alaska descry military service and man's inhumanity to man (or woman) yet are aware that if in a kill zone the best response is to move full speed ahead. Maybe the best way to have peace and security in Afganistan is just to move full speed ahead with a draft and remove the Bernie Madhof era corporate contracting Defense Dept. budget issues the Cheney-Halliburton-Bush I & II people dumped as if flummery were for the benefit of the U.S.A..

Privates in the Army famously got paid little before the volunteer era, and even after the volunteer military became a fact the wages were fairly low before the 9-11. With national unemployment presently between 10 and 20% it makes little sense to pay $21,000 a year for a recuit to serve in that nice, high, central Asian nation with such a wonderful people and beautiful scenery and clean air.

Americans are people very concerned about civil rights and a few care not to destroy what remains of the precious planetary fluids unpolluted that sustain life. Perhaps given an opportunity to lace on the boots of freedom the nation's recruitment offices will be overflowing as they were during the Spanish American war if they know they are serving not for money but instead for the satisfaction of knowing they have brought human warmth and compassion to those beyond the corporate networks.

Military draftees could receive free job training and maybe 500 dollars a month iincluding combat pay for the adventure of a lifetime and the opportunity ito serve the oppressed people of central Asia. Regular Army cooking could replace the sky-high Halliburton style of contract haute cuisine and Americans could return to being Americans with a history of public service.

The volunteer military has become top-heavy with military contractors charging premium prices and getting no bang for the buck in some instances. Elite military units could continue to handle much of the difficult combat tasks, yet ordinary Americans could handle a vast range of commonplace in-the-foxhole drudge duty and enjoy the opportunity to fire all of the guns on full automatic cycle even if at targets. Ordinary Americans could also provide the more common touch with Afghan civilians perhaps lacking in the Star Wars troopers like volunteer military.

With a draft to fill the ranks and deploy perhaps a 150,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan their could also be a large increase in Peace Corps type volunteers to build up a better high-tech, low maint. cost economic infrastructure for Afghanistan. Plainly to be effective in restoring liberty to the people of Afghanistan a more affordable, sustainable presence to reinforce peaceful social development in required.

Senate Votes to End Don't Ask Don't Tell- President Obama Will Start 'Men Without Chests' Military Era

President Obama will sign the measure this week to end D.A.D.T.-the policy requiring homosexuals to keep their non-heterosexuality to themselves. The change in Republican votes may have involved some secret deals for supporting tax cuts for the rich by Democrats. The tax cut extension passed last week.

A noted historian James Van Creeveld classified such personnel composition transitions within the 'Men Without Chests' era in his book 'The Culture of War'. Such transitions historically are implicit within a socially decadent cycle of civilization. Same-sex socialization in the military coincides with both major political parties in agreement on tax cuts for the wealthy that allow 1-2% of the people to own 25% of the nation's wealth as that concentration continues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/18/AR2010121801729.html

Congress/Obama Jobs Policy for Working Class 2010-2012: Wait for Godot

President Obama ran a campaign of hope for jobs and economic recovery. After two years ten to twenty percent of Americans out of work are waiting for Godot like Samuel Beckett's characters Vladimir and Estragon.

Tax cuts for the rich at historically low rates, an unsecured Mexican border admitting millions of illegal workers, foreign terrorists and smuggled explosives are governors working against tightening up U.S. labor supply. The other maladroit labor influences are the general surplus of cheap unskilled workers globally and corporate global relocation of workers and goods to maximally increase profits for their shareholders. A Democracy should prioritize looking after its own national interests.

Unfortunately as the highest value of wealth is founded presently on a quantitative consumption principle of non-renewable resources it may be that Adam Smith's Capital theory actual works with an invisible brain of minimal I.Q. to produce the most stupid environmental policy possible besides the invisible hand to pickpocket world resources most efficiently from Democracy and responsible small scale free enterprise.

Capitulating with a sigh to the incessant rhythm of sweet Republican economic admonishments by Senator McConnel and President Obama lame duck Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at last yielded on tax cuts for the millionaires and billionaires for another two years-effectively until at least 2021. Waiting for the economist Godot these last two years unemployed independent voters now sit like Otis Redding at the dock of the bay watching the economic cruise ship of the rich sail away.

Captain Aguirre and the crew of the good ship S.S. 'Wrath of God' have a rich and sumptuous menu of Adam Smith on opium hor d'ouvres to devour as they consolidate wealth and expand financial network controls with the U.S. Government deeply in their pocket.

Creating headlines year after year now with deeper federal debt anticipated to grow to more than 20 trillion dollars by 2015, writers that council the fundamental wrong direction of globalism instead of nationalism, of public debt instead of solvency, of a healthy environment instead of one in decay, of full employment and a stable population within secure borders free of illegal immigrant workers seem as out in the cold as Ronald Reagan's economist David Stockman. Lifting up their horns to gore common sense political economics is no problem for the rich that own the media as well as increasingly, everything else.

Extra-Universes Bumping Into Our's May Have Made Their Marks in Rorshach'd WMAP Images

Scientific technological investigations of the early history of the physical universe lead to a profusion of innovative cosmological theories. N.A.S.A. Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Survey imaging provides the opportunity to regard a relic image of the energy deployment 300,000 years after the initial singular inflation of the Universe (1) in which we live.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19887-microwave-radiation-map-hints-at-other-universes.html

One may seem what one wants in some scientific data. At the least, interpretations of the data must generally be drawn to association with substantially existing theories.

Because of the incompleteness and inconsistencies of the standard model of micro and macro cosmology string and membrane theories were stimulated into development along with mathematical constructions of various cosmological configurations. A wealth of new observational data such as WMAP and the apparent existence of dark energy and the increasing rate of expansion of space (though perhaps not time if separate from space as a field) have also served to stimulate new cosmological construction models. The WMAP images of the early energy picture of the Universe have permitted informed Rorschach interpretations of the ‘ink blot’ of the early universe.

Matter and anti-matter paradoxically combine to form one stable condition in which a Universe is not inflated into being. With the rise of field destabilization matter and anti-matter inflate parting ways and then recombine to annihilate each other as the recombination of the oppositely spinning particle pairs yielding energy in the process. There is a slight surplus of matter left over from the beginning as the chirility of matter has a slight advantage over anti-matter in recombination. Perhaps just one particle in a billion of matter survived the initial expansion and recombination in some theoretical portraits of the history of the Universe.

Matter and anti-matter may have existed as a super-particle or membrane before improbably processed into division. The concepts of The One have a religious significance as well as philosophical and scientific. Logically a monistic universe may divide into sub-component parts of a contingent nature. Ideas of a unification of physical forces in The One also tend to have a potential to surpass and nullify anything that temporally existed outside that state of divine mystery. Plotinus the neo-aPlatonist philosopher wrote 54 tractates on the subject of The One (as God) in a work called 'The Enneads. Well, to return to physical cosmology...

The One state is uncertain with knowledge incomplete. The WMAP images have given some cosmologists reason to postulate that other Universes bumped into the inflating Universe leaving holes or empty spaces in the more regularized field.

Of course these surmises about other Universes jostling ours like cedar saplings competing for light in a wild evolutionary field of infinite universes are made with several unproven elements in the foundations. Constructing a real building of tremendous size with many missing and hypothetical pieces isn’t safe. In cosmology building such abstract models is a tool for learning and research.

Making the anthropic principle seem normal within an evolutionary paradigm requires that the fine tuning of physical constants suitable for life isn’t a miraculous fact; instead it requires an infinite number of Universes to exist in order that natural selection of ‘just right’ universes for life amidst billions that are not can be explained without resort to faith in God. Well, learning science and Christian thought together several decades ago I regard maintaining separation between the two as unnatural and another hobgoblin of small minds, a zillion universes or just one, it is useful not to always expect particular answers about physical cosmology a priori.

Senate Moves Obama Tax Cuts Forward/Lards Up Spending Bill With 'Thousands of Earmarks'

The U.S. Congress seem like drug addicts with a need to spend. Screw the budget, screw the public debt-those seem to be the sentiments of the U.S. Senate today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121405271.html thousands of earmarks in Senate spending bill

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/tax-cut-extension-deal-passes-first-senate-test/

U.S. public debt is nearly 14 billion dollars, and probably will double in seven years the way the lunatics are legislating.

The Democrats are disingenuous on the Obama tax cuts; they can let the cuts expire and get the Republicans to sign off on tax cuts for those earning less than $100,000 annually next year-how could the Republicans flunk on giving tax credits to anyone?

Select Parameters for Reforming the U.S. Economy (philosophically considered)

I've given the concept of how to rectify the American democracy thought enough to be aware of the problem that too large of social organization pose to society. A democracy does have a lot of power theoretically and they must to be really sovereign. A democracy must not allow any kind of social organization to form that rivals the government for real political power. It also must delete from existence disproportionate influence upon the government by elites.
One can consider Sparta and it's egalitarian social power and disdain for the accumulation of wealth. One can also consider the Athenian democracy and its battle with the elitists such as Socrates who wished to restore an oligarchy-Socrates was put to death for inciting three rebellions by youth. A democracy is in a perennial battle with elites that seek to subdue the people and hitch them as draft donkeys to pull their special field for nothing.

America today has basically lost the battle for liberty too corporatism and globalists. President Obama's tax cuts and Chinese outsourcing of jobs seems a Harvard marketing strategy Presidency. The President next may advocate small business in America produce authentic candy excrement that Americans will love to bite-in order to stimulate business...imagine the possibilities 'eat s... and be happy in a corporatist yoke America!

Then the Griswald-Palin administration may entertain the nation four years as social benefits are cut and the national debt reaches toward 30 trillion dollars from the 20 trillion the President plans on.

I believe it may be too late to repair the U.S.A. and that the tax cuts may become permanent because Republicans will take the Senate in 2012 as well as the Presidency I guess. Toynbean fin de sicle circumstances may evolve as the sea level rises globally.

I would have used a few remedies to radically transform the United States into an ecological economic, low-entropy nationalist economy featuring trade of serious international comparative advantage. I would limit the number of companies any citizen could own shares in to three. The maximum number of employees any business could have would be 5000. All citizens would have a minimum income in today's dollars of 6000 annually. Every citizen would own a small home with 1% interest at age 24 and the total cost would be no more than $30,000. There would be a zero net loss of biota on any land construction project.

II believe that II would secure the Mexican border against illegal immigration by making a field of berms and a canal to carry-evaporate-condense salt water to produce fresh water from Phoenix to the Gulf of Mexico. With water produced from siphoning saltwater from the higher Pacific than Gulf of Mexico and releasing it near Deming N.M. into the canal, providing a little extra solar power to makeup for the water removed, it might be possible to refill ancient Lake Bonneville than covered much of Utah until 10 or 15 thousand years ago. A fresh water lake 1000 feet higher in depth than today's Great Salt Lake, I would use the water to trickle out through spillways in Arizona and California for irrigation. Salt Lake City residents would be moved to lakefront property farther away. Perhaps the extra evaporation in the Rockies will help relieve future draughts caused by global warming.

I suppose the cost of ecologically recovering the United States into a new high tech insinuation of human benign occupational relationship would be about 150 trillion dollars. At least full employment could result from all the scientific research funded by society and of taxing the rich at a rate commensurate with U.S. history until the Regan administration. President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to tax the rich at a 100% rate during W.W. II and got just 93%. The tax rate in 1980 on the rich was 71%. The networks of ownership of the rich reduce social liberty to transform society reactively as a democracy must to challenging circumstances to a minimal level. One may see the resistance of corporate media today to global warming-a peer reviewed phenomenon and discern that corporatist influence is really quite a devastating influence on politics and ecological reform as well as full employment.

It is a fallacy that high taxation rates on the rich must somehow develop a socialist economy. A free enterprise founded democracy with a limit on capitalization of any individual or business is reasonable and consistent with democratic defense against oligarchy, tyranny and aristocracy. One cannot find the pro football player who can shovel 300 times more dirt in a day than an ordinary laborer. The social inheritance of inventing machines for mass production should not be used to give credit to individuals that leverage investment advantages to own everything as if they 'worked' for such wealth. A Warren Buffet or Bill Gates may be fair enough individuals in today's economy, yet no such capital accumulation serves the nationalist, ecological or environmental cause substantially. Neither does the accumulation of wealth beyond a certain percent of that of the average individual in a modern economy liberate society and free enterprise competition so much as repress it.

Never in the history of the present U.S. democracy has a rectification of fundamental economic parameters occurred. The founders existed in a mostly agrarian an exploratory society with increasing against in the under populated wilderness. It was not a full society without naturally occurring opportunity to own land. The founders did not by apricots from Turkey and hay for horses from Saudi Arabia. Without a direct reconstruction of the American economy to concentrate upon making a more human, personable, full-employment, ecologically recovering nationalist free enterprise society (one that lets pro football teams pay for their own sports stadia) things ahead politically may become very Orwellian I might guess.

Obama Tax Cuts, Large Science and Environmentalism Philosophically Considered

Hegelian dialects and Darwinian evolution may be abstracted synthetically by Marx towards a general millenarian idea of progress. Obviously homo faber is a theme of hierarchical advance. The reasons for dialectical or tri-electical neuro-technique invention by homo sapiens are fairly well understood now. It is possible to create cultures of synthetic reasoning for technical and scientifically founded innovation. These do not oppose empiricism or environmental sciences obviously; neither does large or small science presuppose or validate a given political-social epistemological theory such as Marxism. I like C.S. Pierce's tri-electical theory of mind's synthetic promulgation of new concepts as well an others of the 19th century. neuro-cognitive epistemological nominalism is a more existential introspection field than physical as is possible today.

In reading Dr. Henry Pollack's 2009 book; 'A World Without Ice' I found that Pollack mentioned the peer reviewed screening of the generally validated scientific finding of global warming. He compared that to the anti-global warming polemics distributed by the corporatist broadcast media outlets. That point is fascinating and an example of how science is while objective simultaneously non-political so far as it is scientific.

A question about the world being made a better place through knowledge and scientific method rightly should also consider if it isn't politics and democracy in particular that should select what of science should be applied broadly to the world. I mention this because the world assuredly is at several simultaneously challenging empirical-environmental crossroads from which to choose political directions.

We find the Obama tax cuts and January meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao an abnegation of democracy and surrender to global corporatism. In U.S. history high taxes on the wealthy was an effective and essential way to pay for war and recession especially concurrently. Abe Lincoln started income taxes on the rich (those making more than $800 a year) during the civil war. Roosevelt wanted a 100% tax on the rich during the Second World War and got 93%. President Eisenhower benefited the U.S.with a tax rate higher than 70% on the rich-not until President Reagan's 1981 tax cuts did the rate on the rich in the most of the 20th century fall below 70%. With a 14 billion dollar public debt-scheduled to reach 20 billion or so in four years, and likely to triple in 20 years without tax increases and more effective publics pending in the United States the role of science will continue to increasingly be selected by elite corporate leadership and concentrated powers of wealth.

I believe that politics rather than science determines the social well-being of the public and affect of science on the public. A selection criterion of greed rather than empirical good for mankind tends to produce a bad environment patched up a little post hoc by government action against substantial media-corporate opposition. Instead of blaming science or knowledge for the mal-adaptations of technology to the environment and society it is more accurate to give politics the credit for destroying the health of the world environment.

I have no difficulty in imagining a 70% tax rate on those earning more than $250,000.annually in the United States with the excess, after the public debt is paid off, being invested in environmental restoration. I believe the restoration of the environment such as filtering out unnatural pollutants from watersheds would cost at least 150 trillion dollars. That would create a lot of jobs as well as new scientific research.

Democracy must be able to take the bull by the horns and rope it down. The rich and corporate concentrations of wealth allowed to increase unchecked can entirely subvert the free market and the freedom of then people of the United States through networking ownership and universal effective power. Democracy can adapt to a modern world being wary of corporations taking over government as Jefferson anticipated.

Corporations could be limited in size of employees and financial endowment as a percentage of the national wealth. Individuals too could be limited on capital concentration too a percent of the national wealth. Stock ownership by an individual might be restricted to just three corporations.

It is unlikely that any sort of social reformation returning to a realistic democratic environment without vast corporate networks owning and corrupting democracy nationally and internationally will occur. That fact seems to doom social evolution away from ecological restoration and toward a number of dystopian futures not so far off. it is a challenge to envision how a rectification toward a real democracy and free enterprise individualism might be actualized.

One wonders how erroneous apostles of Adam Smith as Karl Marx evolving through capitalism's trial, error and invisible hand of multilateral dialectic evolutionary utilitarianism can be distracted from such metaphysical rubbish when technological engines pay so well in material output providing comfort and power beyond necessity. Such security in comfort redundantly recurring along with the glory of scientifically and socially ignorant acquisitivness make the prospects for large science goading public politics into working for the public good in a more effective and efficient manner, unlikely.