December 4, 2009
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I just finished Richard Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? It’s a classic popularization of the Documentary Hypothesis, which claims that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) is actually a medley of four earlier sources called J (the Yahwist), E (the Elohist), D (the Deuteronomist), and P (the Priestly source). Friedman’s survey of two centuries of Biblical detective work is quite fascinating. What truly shocked me, however, was learning that a bunch of liberal theologians converged on a vulgar Public Choice theory of the evolution of their most sacred book.

Friedman begins by explaining that J and E are the earliest sources. The most obvious difference between the two is that J always calls God “Yahweh,” while E initially calls him “Elohim.” But it’s the non-obvious differences that are telling. He presents strong evidence that the author of J came from Judah, the southern Jewish kingdom, while the author of E came from Israel, the northern Jewish kingdom. J elevates Aaron and slights Moses; E does the opposite.

What’s going on? Friedman explains that these two countries had conflicting religious establishments. Those in the north - or at least a major faction - were Mushite (claiming descent from Moses); those in the south were Aaronite (claiming descent from Aaron). Through this lens, J and E turn out to be thinly-veiled bids for money and power. Here’s one example of how E tries to push Mushite interests:

Recall that the [Mushite] priests of Shiloh suffered the loss of their place in the priestly hierarchy under King Solomon. Their chief… was expelled from Jerusalem. The other chief priest… who was regarded as a descendant of Aaron, meanwhile remained in power… The Shiloh prophet Ahijah instigated the northern tribes’ secession, and he designated Jeroboam as the northern king. The Shiloh priests’ hopes for the new kingdom, however, were frustrated when Jeroboam established the golden calf religious centers at Dan and Beth-El, and he did not appoint them as priests there. For this old family of priests, what should have been a time of liberation had been turned into a religious betrayal. The symbol of their exclusion in Israel was the golden calves. The symbol of their exclusion in Judah was Aaron. Someone from that family, the author of E, wrote a story that said that soon after the Israelites’ liberation from slavery, they committed heresy. What was the heresy? They worshipped a golden calf! Who made the golden calf? Aaron! [emphasis original]
The Public Choice of the Ancient Hebrews, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty •
September 19, 2008
Glass Steagall: The Real History
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Did the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act cause the housing bubble?
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September 8, 2008
“ …While many smaller animals such as squirrels, raccoons and opossums never left, Dr. Foster says that large animals and birds are now making big comebacks: bear, moose, coyotes, beavers, turkeys, eagles, osprey and the ubiquitous deer. One reason is that the comeback of the forest has afforded them habitat and protection. At the same time, people who live in sprawling leafy suburbs offer them safety and lots of food. It is a wildlife-damage-control professional’s dream come true. Mr. LaFountain specializes in beavers, which abound in the Bay State. Their population has tripled since 1996 to 70,000 and counting, say wildlife officials — more beavers than when Paul Revere made his midnight ride in 1775. When they flood driveways, inundate septic systems, threaten to contaminate wells or gnaw down prized trees, Mr. LaFountain’s phone rings…. ….The great Eastern forest has been coming back since the middle of the 19th century. It’s not all back and it’s not the same forest. But about 70% of the land that was forested in 1600 is forest again today, says Douglas W. MacCleery, a senior policy analyst with the U.S. Forest Service. That’s about 737 million acres — nearly two-thirds of it in the eastern third of the nation. While some replanting was done, especially in the South, most of the Eastern forest grew back naturally. Some states in the Northeast have been regaining their forest since the Erie Canal opened up the Midwest and farmers moved to better cropland there. Left untended, abandoned farmland reverts to forests in a matter of decades. Massachusetts and Connecticut — once a virtually unbroken sea of trees — had lost 70% of their forests by the Civil War. Today, nearly two-thirds of their land is covered with trees. Similarly deforested, Vermont is now 80% woods, New Hampshire 90%. New York, only 25% forest in 1880, is 66% forest today.
Don’t Call It A Comeback - The Corner on National Review Online •
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Q: In a recent survey you said that you would support abstinence-until-marriage education but that you would not support explicit sex-ed programs. What are explicit sex-ed programs, and does that include talking about condoms in school?

Sarah Palin: No, I don’t think that it includes something that is relatively benign. Explicit means explicit. No, I am pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I’m not anti-contraception. But yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don’t have a problem with that. That doesn’t scare me, so it’s something that I would support also.
The Corner on National Review Online •
What Did Obama Do As A Community Organizer?

But Obama’s time in Chicago also revealed the conventionality of his approach to the underlying problems of the South Side. Is the area crippled by a culture of dysfunction? Demand summer jobs. Push for an after-school program. Convince the city to spend more on this or that. It was the same old stuff; Obama could think outside the box on ways to organize people, but not on what he was organizing them for.

When he left for law school, Obama wondered what he had accomplished as an organizer. He certainly had some achievements, but he did not — perhaps could not — concede that there might be something wrong with his approach to Chicago’s problems. Instead of questioning his own premises, he concluded that he simply needed more power to get the job done. So he made plans to run for political office. And in each successive office, he has concluded that he did not have enough power to get the job done, so now he is running for the most powerful office in the land.

And what if he gets it? He’ll be the biggest, strongest organizer in the world. He’ll dazzle the country with his message of hope and possibility. But we shouldn’t expect much to actually get done.

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Game Changer

“All I ever really needed to know I learned on the basketball court.”

That’s Sarah Palin, circa 2004, when she was merely, as the Obama campaign would say, “the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience.”

More than once on her way to becoming a national political phenom as John McCain’s running mate, Palin has said she owes it all to playing hoops. But she’s not just talking about basketball.

She’s talking about girls’ basketball.

In Alaska.

In the seventies.

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September 6, 2008
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Community-Organizers come from outside of the community. An outside organization hires, trains and dispatches (assigns) them to a community in order to mobilize the community to seek the kind of solutions that the organization wants. Communities don’t ask for these people to be sent, they show up and start taking over.

Ultimately, the organization seeks to harness the political power of a community for the elitists’ own ends. 
Chicago Boyz  » Blog Archive  » Vote Harvesters •
Palin Rumors | Explorations

Keeping a list of all of the busted rumors. It’s almost like some people in the media don’t like her.

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September 5, 2008
Killing talk radio by Brian C. Anderson,Adam D. Thierer - The New Criterion
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