Working Theory

Yesterday I reasoned out a theory to something that has been bugging me for the past few weeks: when during the reign of King Hezekiah was Manasseh declared heir apparent? Hezekiah was 25 years old when he was crowned and, according to my calculations, there was very little coregency between him and his father, King Ahaz. So Hezekiah served solo for the first few years of his reign.

Conventional thinking has Hezekiah becoming king after the fall of Samaria (supposedly fell in 722 BC), but that doesn't jive with the Biblical narrative. Given that, its difficult to trust the conventional data for the split of Israel (931 BC). So we must start at the end and work backwards. Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar the second time in 586 BC. Working backwards we know that Manasseh was crowned as heir in 696 BC. But Manasseh was crowned when he was 12 years old. Because of his youth (and the fact that his father was king for 29 years) I am assuming that there was a period where both were king at the same time. In the rest of the Bible, you can cross check the reign of a Judah king vs the reign of an Israel king and vice versa. This keeps one honest in figuring out where each king reigned. Manasseh doesn't have that check so we have a floating point in the timeline.

My theory goes like this. In the 14th year of Hezekiah, he became very ill. The prophet Isaiah himself came to see the king and told him to put his house in order because he was going to die. Hezekiah prayed and God elected to heal him and let him reign for another 15 years because of how faithful Hezekiah had been. But Hezekiah was skeptical and asked for sign. God gave him one and Hezekiah recovered (see 2Kings 20:1-11). It is my working theory that when Hezekiah was told to put his house in order, the first thing he did was declare his heir to the throne, Manasseh. As such, Manasseh would have been crowned an anointed, even though he was only 12. But Hezekiah recovered and reigned for another 15 years, overlapping his son's reign of 55 years. Using this date, we push back the beginning of Hezekiah's reign to 710 BC and the fall of Samaria to 704 BC.

Now, I have to work out the details of how this cracks the reigns of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon of Assyria, but I'm working on that. Mostly through the theory that Sargon and Sennacherib were the same person, but that's the subject of another post.

Questions

Soundfuryhas posted a group of blogs from Iraqis under the May 20th entry "Carnival of the Liberated. Obviously its not a completely rounded viewpoint as its from people who speak some English and have access to the internet, but it is some information that's direct from the source and not screened through a media outlet.

Whilst I was reading it this morning, I noticed that one of the blogs had a set of 4 questions for Americans. It was posted 6 days ago and he already had 181 responses so I didn't bother to put in my $.02 there, but I thought I would repeat it here and let you thinking about how you would answer:

1) What is your opinion of the Kurdish situation and will the US establish an experiment in the region?

2) The US started the war claiming that Iraq had WMDs. Where are the said WMDs?

3) Weren't these weapons given to Iraq by the US in the first place?

4) Wasn't Osama Bin Laden created by American policy?

Now, I've cleaned the questions up a little bit in terms of grammar and gone after what I believe is the bloggers intent to ask. I'll offer my own answers to the questions here.

1) I know the Kurds are progressing faster in the rebuilding process mostly due to their great unification. They are extremely worried about the new government being formed and are fearful that the new government will carry on the old Iraqi policy of "dealing" with the Kurds. That being said, I don't believe that the US will attempt to break off the Kurdish region into a separate state. Political alliances with Turkey (NATO) will not allow the US to officially recognize an independent state of Kurdistan barring complete military victory over an invading Turkish army. So, no, I don't think that the US is toying with the idea of setting up an independent state.

2) Large standing stockpiles of WMDs most likely do not exist. Saddam did have some but I imagine that they were only for last minute localized use only. The advance came too quickly for him to deploy anything, even in isolated pockets. Iraq did have scientists who, given the raw materials, could probably make large stockpiles in a relatively short amount of time. However, I believe that the WMD story was a red herring supplied mostly by incorrect intelligence. Most of the intelligence came from Iraqis in exile who had a vested interest in seeing the US move to remove Saddam.

3) Not exactly. We supplied Iraq with large amounts of conventional weapons to deal with Iran during the war of the 1980's, but as a rule, we don't like adding to the club of large weapons. Its a lot easier to browbeat your "ally" if you can hold nastier weapons over his head. Now, might the CIA have introduced small amounts of chemical agents which Saddam replicated? Its possible. But I certainly wouldn't ever say that the US gave the weapons to Iraq in the first place.

4) (I couldn't exactly replicate the tone of this question the way he asked it. It was more of a hostile accusation rather than the simplification I have.) No. Osama Bin Laden was funded by the American government as part of the guerilla movement against the invading Soviet army. The US never contributed to his development of extreme Islamic thinking and did not set him up with large amounts of weapons and money after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. He was given his original start by the US, but he was not formed or continued by the US or US policy.

Your answers may differ. Feel free to leave them here or there.

Danny Graves: Double Agent?

Mrs. X and I went to see a baseball game last night. Roger Clemens of the Houston Astros was pitching against someone I had never heard of for the Cincinnati Reds but who has apparently started in 8 games this season. Shows how much I watch the starting pitching staff of the hometown team. Anyway, Mrs. X, myself and most of population of Cincinnati was down on the riverfront either watching the game, watching the Shania Twain concert going on next door, or racing speedboats down the Ohio River, presumably to escape the river patrol nestled in their Kentucky harbors. Did you know that Kentucky actually owns the Ohio River and the bridges going across it? Amazing the things you learn each day.

Before I go into the game, I need to chastise Great American Ballpark for not selling programs and scorecards on the 400 and 500 level. After walking around the entire ring and asking a souvenir vendor where they were, I had to walk down to the 300 level, which is about 4 flights of steps for those keeping count. At least I didn't have to buy a program to get the scorecard, which a lot of ballparks are making you do now. I know I need the exercise but would it be that inconvenient to sell scorecards on all levels? That and $4.50 for a large soda is blackmail.

So the game. It was quite good. Clemens stuck out 8 batters, including Griffey twice (apparently he only knows how to hit balls when he's gone down in defeat three or four times prior in the game). But Clemens also gave up 6 runs over 5 innings. Not his best performance. The Reds went up 4-0 at one point and then Houston battled back to tie it in the 5th. The Reds then went up 6-4 and chased Clemens from the game. In the 6th, the Reds bullpen tried to give it away again. Leadoff single, fortunate double play, pinch hit homerun (6-5), single, two walks loading the bases. At this point a new reliever was brought in and Jeff Kent got a little to eager for a grand slam and struck out. 7th inning starts with a leadoff double who gets home on a sac fly after the third Reds reliever is brought in. Its now 6-6. This third reliever, Todd Jones, actually seems to know how to pitch and goes the rest of the 7th and the 8th without giving up a hit or a walk. Meanwhile the Houston bullpen, which isn't that great, allows the Reds to go ahead in the 8th for an 8-6 lead.

I'm going to start a new paragraph here because I want to discuss my Danny Graves conspiracy theory. I've watched a few Reds games on TV and seen highlights of several more. Danny Graves currently is leading the league in saves. Not really saying much because that just means he comes in more often then people like Eric Gagne because the scores are closer. You don't need your closer if you're leading 10-2. In the games I have seen where Graves is pitching, I have never seen him fully protect a lead. He has always either given up at least the insurance run or blown the save. I imagine he's gone a couple of games where he hasn't given up a run but I haven't seen any. On the scoreboard when he came in, it showed he had an ERA of almost 3. Terrible for a closer, who should have an ERA of around 1 or 1.5 at worst. So my theory is that Danny Graves is secretly taking bribes from other teams to give them near meat pitches. Only incompetence on the other side and good defense has allowed him to escape with only 4 or 5 blown saves.

Now, last night. Graves comes in and he's starting with the number 4 hitter, Jeff Kent. Lead off single. Next batter, Lance Berkman, hits a double and Kent goes to third. Next batter, bloop single, Kent scores (8-7), Berkman goes to third. At this point we have a conversation on the mound and the fans are getting twitchy. Next batter is Richard Hildago. There was possibly a hit and run option on because Hildago hits a chopper to third and Berkman is already halfway home. He's cut off and the Reds catcher tags him out. So now Graves has runners on first and second with one out. The 8th man hits a pop fly to the shortstop. Two outs. Pinch hitter for the pitcher, Jose Vizcaino, who has been around for a while. The man takes the first pitch and rifles it down the line. Would have been an easy RBI double and maybe scored two if the third baseman had not made this brilliant dive and caught it in mid-air. Game over, Reds win 8-7. The fans clapped and cheered for at least a full minute after the game was over, no thanks to Danny Graves.

We managed to get ahead of the crowds coming out of the game and back to the car before traffic got too bad. Only took us about an hour after that to get home, which did include a detour around the primary downtown exit to I-75 to one a couple miles north. Mrs. X was a little nervous, as she had to pee and was not in the mood for adventure, but we made it back safely. We're going to another game in July against St. Louis and I'm hoping it will be as good a game.

Staying in the sports mood briefly, congrats to Tampa Bay and Calgary for making it to the Stanley Cup finals. My best man has an old friend who plays for Calgary so I'll be cheering for Canada this week to take the cup. That and it just seems wrong for a city that never drops below freezing to win the hockey championship, but that's just me talking out loud.

Perception, Perception

Being one of the late end of Gen X, I tend to be very cynical and disgusted with Baby Boomers as a whole. Every war isn't Vietnam and sometimes people do have to die to get things accomplished. Could you even imagine what would happen if we had battles like we had in the Civil War or WWI now? Two specific regiments during the Battle of Gettysburg suffered over 80% casualties. This is an exception, but as a rule any unit that didn't suffer upwards of 30% casualties was a rare thing. But people took that in stride because there was no other way to shape the information. Example: During the Civil War 75% of military age white males fought in the war which was 15% of the white population. Upwards of 90% of the African-American population of military age (and some over and under it) fought. Rather hard to tell someone how the war is going other than the way it is going. But you compare that to now where we have around 125,000 troops in Iraq relative to a population around 300 million. That's about .05% of the population. Big difference. Its also a lot easier to spin the story.

Up until Vietnam, it was all about kicking the other guy's tail on the battlefield. Then, in the late 60's it became about perception. You could still be kicking the other guy's can but if your support structure thought that your butt was being handed to you, then you were becoming hard pressed. As a good example, I'll give you this:

Army A is in a region where Army B is trying to establish control. Army A has driven Army B out of 92% of the territory they are trying to take over. Army B then launches an attack on Army A. Army B does not take any territory in its attack and has 35,000 soldiers killed and 60,000 wounded. Army A suffers less than 4,000 soldiers killed.

Now, in most history text books you would say that Army A was the victor and Army B would probably lose the war within a short span of time. But not when you throw perception into the mix. That example is knows as the Tet Offensive with Army A being the American and S. Vietnamese army and Army B being the NVA. We are taught in school that the Tet Offensive was the turning point of the war. Some people would probably tell you that the US lost that battle and that led to our decline.

War has always been perceived in the wrong way by the people at home. At the First Battle of Manassas, spectators came to watch because they thought a battle would be "romantic." People still didn't have any idea what was involved in war when they began to see the images from Vietnam. Then they saw people bleeding and dying and it hit home as to what war really involved. People still have this glorified notion of war today where they think that an objective can be achieved without people dying. If people do expect dying, they declare it'll be the most horrible thing and that we'll have Civil War numbers again. Then it doesn't happen and the people slip into the woodwork to make morbid predictions later.

To date we have lost about 800 men in Iraq. I respect the opinions of those who feel that its 800 men to many. Opposition to war in the first place I can respect. But for the flip floppers who want to leave because we now have "lost too many" I have no respect and this includes many in the media. The US lost almost the same number of troops during a training exercise for D-Day in 1944 due to swamped boats and malfunctioning equipment. War is a terrible thing and should be used as a last resort but I feel I should remind people of a quote by Gen. William T. Sherman, "War is cruelty. There is no way to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

Marine and soldier blogs report none of the same situations that the mainstream media does. But if you pick up any paper or watch the news tonight, you'll think we're about to have the entire army in Iraq killed and the entire Middle East explode against us. Perception is everything and it is perception that can grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

The Spurs were up 2-0 and they let the Lakers come back and beat them 4-2. Now I have to listen to another three weeks of crap about what a brave hero Kobe Bryant is and how its so great that Payton and Malone are going to get their championships. LA, you can kiss my ass. I never thought I would actually hate a team more than the Yankees (and being a Boston fan, that's saying something) but at least the Yankees have guys you can like and appreciate on their team. The Lakers have no redeeming qualities. There are no nice guys you can root for and respect the quality of their play. Its all "give me the damn ball" and "I'm so big that I can foul and not get called for it because the refs will dismiss it." If Sacramento wins the series between them and Minnesota then I look for the Lakers to be in the finals in 5 games or less. Minnesota might be able to push them to 6 but I don't think they have the experience to get over the hump. Maybe the Pacers can be a little more than a speed bump for the Lakers but without a true center, I just don't see the Pacers being able to overcome the odds and that just sucks because it would have been nice to see Reggie Miller retire on top.

On a side note, I'm going to stray in the realm of Mrs. X for a little bit. I don't watch American Idol but I hear about it from Mrs. X and I did catch a little bit of it during the final 4 while she was staying at my place (I was on the computer in the other room). First, all of you who say that the show is racist, shut up. People are so eager to cry racism when things don't go their way that its lost all meaning. The final 6 of this year included three African-Americans and a Hawaiian of Asian descent. Two out of three of a minority doesn't seem to be overly racist does it? Some have have also tried to cry racism by pointing back to the first season when Tamyra Gray finished fourth. Never mind the fact that, as Mrs. X tells me, she had a terrible performance that night. Imagine harking back to the days when people were actually judged based on the quality of their performance each time.

Now, did Jasmine deserve to get kicked off? Yes. I heard it in the other room and she was God awful. But Simon said that she would be okay if all of Hawaii voted for her and it appears that they might have. They also enjoy the advantage of being 6 hours behind EDT and get to hit the phone lines when there is less call traffic. Advantage Jasmine. I would also like to point out that LaToya and Fantasia sing very similar styles and will easily split votes. In addition, both have somewhat outstanding personality flaws. Fantasia is seen as a stuck up bitch while LaToya is referred to as cold and somewhat stiff. So there are many reasons besides race that seem to be driving things. Of course, there is also manipulation by Fox. Mrs. X told me when this season started, that she thought AI would be pushing hard to get a minority female or a teen (preferably both). So the viewers have been subjected to the judges slurping it up to Fantasia (who would be easily manipulated by her handlers to do whatever they told her to do. Diana would be an agreeable second choice as her youth would allow her handlers to make all the decisions for her for the first two years. But I think that Fox has steered things adequately for a Fantasia victory. Outrage is high enough that Jasmine will be voted off third no matter how well she does. Then, all the diva voters will converge, along with a bunch of others who have been stirred up by the racism card fears. I personally hope Diana wins just to see things turned on its ear.

Odds and Ends

Stupid Lakers. 0.4 seconds left in the game and they had to hit the miracle shot. Well, San Antonio still has two games to get it in gear and maybe the Lakers will fall to the winner of the Sacramento/Minnesota series. If I hear any more about how great Kobe is for doing this while on trial or what a hero he is, I'm going to find some way of getting revenge on the sports media. I don't know how, but I'll do it.

Meanwhile San Jose woke up and smacked Calgary around last night as did Tampa Bay to Philadelphia. At this point I really don't care who wins the cup. All four teams are ones that I have no great like or dislike for. A lot of people seem to be pulling for Jeremy Roenick of Philadelphia so go him.

Mrs. X went back to Columbus today. She's have a special weekend with the girls and then a light clean and readyment of the apartment for bar preparation studies. Hopefully she doesn't throw her back out getting that box up the stairs. She'll be back in town Wednesday and then its off to see the Reds lose to Houston on Saturday. I'm hoping we see Clemens pitch but all I really want is a good game.

The Incompetence of Mainstream Media

Interesting this new format. It would be nice if I could actually see some of it but the computer at work has decided that I don't need to see anything remotely related to a GIF file. As such, I'll have to do what I can to get information across without using all the nice tools that blogger gives us.

Most people know that I'm not a great fan of the media. Mrs. X and I joke all the time about how Fox is "unbiased news coverage" and we all know that everyone else is just varying shades to the left. The chief problem from all news outlets is the desire for sensationalism because this sells air time. Unfortunately, any well reasoned thoughts that are out there are squashed quickly. Aside from the prison scandal and the beheading of an American, the media would lead you to believe that we are getting our butts wiped over there. Whether this is deliberate or just an effect of going for the "grab you" headline is up to your political persuasion.

However, I would just say that I am still not hearing the true measure of whether the war should be discontinued. That is the soldiers themselves who are coming back. In the 70's we had large numbers of veterans (Mr. Kerry among them) who came back and said that what we were doing was wrong and that the war is unwinnable. I'm not hearing that now. In fact, from the array of blogs that I check in with, most military people seem to think that this is worth it. An example is this letter that was sent to a blogger from a soldier she knows. I will warn you that he's writing in the heat of the moment in a very us vs. them tone.

But these type of things are never covered in the mainstream media. Same with the UN oil-for-food scandal. I've seen very little coverage of that on the news because it doesn't grab you until you have a trial going and even then, procedure will get you so down that you won't care. Its not the nice and juicy Laci Peterson kind of trial. Or check on the Boston Globe's prison rape photos. They published very explicit photos of white males raping arabic females assuming they were from the prison scandal and then finding out afterward that they were taken from a porn site. You would think the fact that almost no female Iraqis have been imprisoned as combatants would have been their first clue. But its all just a rush to grab the next big headline rather than properly inform the public as to what is going on.

So, investigate for yourself and keep an open mind to what you see on TV or read on-line. There are always at least two sides to every story.

Friends Isn't Seinfeld

Well, Friends is ending tonight and I'll be spending the time letting Mrs. X cry on my shoulder for her disappearing show. Of course, that's nothing compared to what NBC will be doing after the end of May with Friends and Frasier leaving while fans of West Wing are starting to campaign for its demise to preserve the integrity of its memory. Bad times for them.

Of course, there have been all kinds of critiques of Friends and even more in the last week. The common thing that people peg Friends for, typically in a negative fashion, is that its not Seinfeld. Now, for me, this isn't a bad thing because I actually didn't like Seinfeld. But irregardless, I don't think its fair to say a show isn't good because it isn't like another show. Now, Friends did try to be like Seinfeld at first but it jumped away from that during the first season.

But, no, the show wasn't dark or overly cynical. It was escapism. It also certainly wasn't grounded in reality given the way the characters seemed to be able to afford things and the great number of discontinuities in each episode. But lets enjoy a thing for what it was and not what it was not. If you don't like something for what it is not, don't watch it. I don't watch a lot of things on TV and I'm doing fairly well for it.

And because its been a whole 2 days since I've last mentioned sports, I'll recap:
NHL: Calgary vs. San Jose and Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia
NBA: Spurs up 2-0 on Lakers. Go Spurs!
MLB: All you people who said the Yankees were done are idiots.

Shout Out Time

A great big shout out congratulations to Mrs. X for finishing with her last law school exam. We have graduation on Friday and then happy partying with families.

Also a very happy birthday to her and my brother-in-law (same birthday). If my sister is reading this, I have a card and it is going out in the mail today. So don't get into too much of a snit. ;)

The UN is Useless

This is an opinion I've held for a long time and I don't need any recent events to reinforce this opinion, but it does tend to stir the blood and cause one to react. Over the past few weeks, documents and information have surfaced that members of the United Nations were accepting bribes in the oil for food program. Now, this is not news to me. I think we all are smart enough to know that some greasing of palms always goes on in these types of programs, international or domestic. The interesting thing is how high up the ladder it goes. The head of the oil for food program has been indicted as well as one of the heads of President Jacque Chirac's political party, members of the Russian presidential staff, and God only knows how many little men in Arab and European businesses. For more information, go here.

The central problem with the UN is that its like Congress only 100 times worse because you have patriotism to one's country as opposed to one's state in the mix. Most American politicians are fairly harmless if they know they can get reelected. Of course, nothing gets done, but that's another rant. The UN is so bogged down with bureaucracy that they can't even agree with what to do with themselves. They have no independent power to enforce any of their resolutions and most importantly, they are always brought in to maintain the status quo rather than actually address the source of any problem. The recent outbreak of violence in former Yugoslavia and the tensions associated with that is a good example and the UN has been trying to sort out that conflict for nearly 10 years now.

On a less serious note, I'm happy to admit that I have been wrong. Over the past few weeks I've been saying that it would just be quicker to give the Stanley Cup to Detroit. Well, the Red Wings were eliminated by the Calgary Flames last night. I'm quite happy about that. Now, we just have to have San Jose knock out Colorado and we'll have a playoffs that's independent of all the past few winners. Nice to see a little new blood in the water right before the league goes under for a little while.