What a Bunch of Sickos

In the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism, I don’t have to discredit the other side; they do a fine job of discrediting themselves.  I gave two examples in my message on June 13, 2007, where two fatwas were issued in Egypt.  One recommended that women breastfeed their male co-workers, the other claimed that a woman who drank Mohammed’s urine was blessed.

Now we have another example.  Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament is trying to pass two new laws affecting women.  One lowers the minimum age of marriage to 14, the other allows a man to have sex with his wife if she has been dead for less than six hours.

Egyptian Woman Appeal Sex-After-Death, Teen Marriage Laws

 

 

I don’t think I need to talk about how disgusting the latter law is; the narrator of the above video does a good enough job on that.  In my message from December 10, 2011, I said that I hope the US never fights an enemy that practices necrophilia, because one thing I have learned from history is that when you fight the same enemy long enough, you will come to resemble him.  Well, now it looks like that’s going to happen.

And in a worst-case scenario, I have an idea how necrophilia could become acceptable here.  Liberals will promote it as an “alternative lifestyle,” just as they did with homosexuality.  Read this piece I posted four years ago on what an e-mail promoting that lifestyle, if you can call it a LIFE-style, would look like:

Equal Time for Necrophiliacs!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 37,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime

I have talked before about how society is changing faster than ever, to the point that we can no longer expect one generation’s lifestyle to be much like those before and after it.  For example, I remember the time when I told my daughter what television used to be like:  we had a black and white TV, which only had three channels if you didn’t count the occasional UHF station.  Cartoons were mostly confined to Saturday morning, and because we didn’t have remotes, we had to walk all the way across the room to change the channel.  Alas, my daughter didn’t have much sympathy for my plight.

Anyway, in previous messages (May 28, 2009, December 15, 2009, and January 7, 2011), I posted lists of things that are disappearing fast, and will probably be gone in our lifetime.  Now here’s a fourth list, which I’m sharing because most of the items did not appear on the others.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find out who wrote it; if you’re like me, you will find some of these disappearances disturbing.

9 Things That Will Disappear In Our Lifetime…….

Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come.

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. e-mail, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn’t read the newspaper. They certainly don’t subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music fromiTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you’re holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don’t need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they’ve always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It’s because innovative new music isn’t being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is “catalog items,” meaning traditional music that the public has heard for years, from older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, “Appetite for Self-Destruction” by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, “Before the Music Dies.”

(Unquote:  No wonder my home town doesn’t have a top 40 station.  However, the University of Kentucky has two radio stations playing artists you don’t hear elsewhere, and that gives me a spark of hope.  And some new artists are turning to nontraditional sources to get their music out, like YouTube.  Did you hear how the band Journey picked up a new member that way, out of a slum in the Philippines?)

7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they’re playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It’s time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. “Things” That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in “the cloud.” Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest “cloud services.” That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That’s the good news. But, will you actually own any of this “stuff” or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big “Poof?” Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That’s gone. It’s been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, “They” know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And “They” will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

All we will have that can’t be changed are memories.

Yellow Cardinal Sighting!

Normally among North American birds, a male cardinal is red, and a female cardinal is brown.  But what does an albino cardinal look like?  Did you say white?  No, a cardinal short on feather pigment is more likely to be pink or yellow, because the dominant pigment they have is red.

Yellow cardinals are so rare that the first one wasn’t captured until 1989.  Now today the local newspaper reported sightings of two yellow cardinals at a bird feeder in Gravel Switch, KY.  I looked on a map, and Gravel Switch is 45 miles southwest of here, located halfway between Danville and Lebanon.

Disclaimer:  There is a bird in Argentina and Uruguay called the yellow cardinal, but that’s a finch with a crest.  We’re talking about a mutated North American cardinal here.

Here’s the news story:

Rare yellow cardinals spotted in Boyle

A few days earlier, more pictures of the birds appeared here:

http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/yellow_NOCA.htm

And here is a technical explanation of how they got to be that color (a PDF file):

http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/kos_images/NOCA_pigments.pdf

So why am I writing about this?  Well, Kentucky has more than its share of wild birds, and this shows they still have some surprises for us.  Moreover, I have a soft spot for cardinals, since Leive, Lindy and I rescued one in 2006.  Later in the same year I speculated that may be one reason why I am now in Kentucky, because I was living in Florida when the incident happened:

By the Grace of God and a Female Cardinal

Population Figures After the Conquest, and the Columbian Exchange

(In the past few days, I uploaded another of my Latin American history notes; currently I am adding links to the Latin American history folder from my other history papers.  This one covers the fall and rise of population, from 1492 to 1650, and the main consequences of contact between the Old and New World.)

The behavior of the Spaniards in the New World was ruthless. Natives who resisted them were massacred; those who did not were enslaved. Put to work on the new Spanish plantations, or in mines, these unfortunates died, and died, and died. The tribes of the Caribbean, who had originally numbered something over 100,000, became extinct; in many mainland areas the population fell to a third of what it had been in 1492.

The ruthlessness of the conquistadors was exceptional even by sixteenth-century standards. It was the Indians’ misfortune that the first Europeans to reach America were not the diplomatic French, nor the practical English and Dutch, but Spanish soldiers who had no scientific curiosity, were thirsty for gold, and full of the bigotry that comes from a recent religious war (we noted earlier that Granada, the last Moorish state in Spain, only fell in 1492). The Crusader mentality and the Inquisition were very much alive in Spain; the Spaniards saw their New World activities as a holy war; to them the Indians were heathens that needed to be conquered and converted. The conquistadors made few intelligent observations of the civilizations that disappeared under their assault. They were as destructive and ruthless as the first British settlers in Tasmania, who shot Aborigines on sight and put out poisoned meat for them to find.

Fear of native numbers and devilish religious practices also encouraged brutality, especially when Hernando Cortez faced the murderous Aztecs. To the Spaniards, horrid deities like Huitzilopochtli, Coatlicue, and Coyolxauhqui made the devil of Christian theology look rather friendly, by comparison. If Cortez had lost, the best thing he could hope for was to be slain in battle; those enemies the Aztecs captured alive were taken up on the pyramids of Tenochtitlan, where their hearts were cut out and offered to the gods of ancient America. Thus, when Cortez ordered the burning of his ships, it really was a do-or-die situation for him and his troops.

But while the conquistadors were harsh men, tyranny was not new to Mexico; to non-Aztec tribes, the Spaniards were simply new masters who did not sacrifice their victims. In fact, the Spaniards were not directly responsible for most of the native deaths; nobody in the sixteenth century could commit genocide on such a scale. Nor could they have prevented the deaths, thanks to the primitive state of medicine in those days. The killers were European, but microbes, not men: smallpox⁽¹⁾, measles, typhus, whooping cough, and diphtheria. Two other deadly scourges, yellow fever and malaria, were brought by ship from Africa, and these mosquito-borne infections quickly made the jungles of Central and South America uninhabitable.

From the point of view of the smallpox virus, Native American communities were an ideal environment. The natives were genetically similar to one another, had never acquired immunity to the new diseases and, in Mexico, were overcrowded. As a result, mortality was exceptionally high from the start. It was only after several generations that the Indians gained some resistance. By the time their population recovered, they had been surpassed by the immigrant (European) and imported (African) populations.⁽²⁾

Nowadays historians lump the spread of diseases with the introduction of various plants, animals, people and cultures across the ocean, calling it the “Columbian Exchange.” We call it an exchange because it was not a one-sided transmission. The following picture shows twenty-five items that did well on both sides of the Atlantic; mind you; this is by no means a complete list. The exchange had an especially strong effect on the cuisines of both the Old and New World. Imagine Italy without tomatoes, Ireland without potatoes, Madagascar without vanilla, Thailand without chili peppers, Florida without oranges, or Brazil without coffee, and you’ll see what a difference foodstuffs can make.

Most of the introductions were beneficial, but a few plants and animals ran wild, when brought to an environment where they had no natural enemies. To give just one example, the tumbleweed is native to Russia, but now is so common in the North American desert that we usually think of places like Texas, when somebody mentions tumbleweeds. Fortunately, the New World and Old World ecosystems were both large enough to avoid total disruption; no alien flora or fauna caused devastation on the scale of, say, the rabbits in Australia. Probably the worst ecological disaster was on the North American Great Plains, where the white man hunted the buffalo to near-extinction, and replaced the native plants with farms growing wheat, corn, sunflowers, etc. Next to the diseases, the most dangerous aliens were the infamous killer bees, which were brought from Africa to Brazil in a misguided attempt to increase honey production, and have stung 300-400 people to death every year.

For a long time, the human newcomers to the New World were not very numerous. A century and a half after Columbus there were no more than 750,000 people of Old World ancestry in the western hemisphere. Half a million of these were Europeans, and among them, 100,000 had settled in Brazil, 250,000 in the Spanish colonies on the mainland, about 100,000 (half English, half Spanish) on the Caribbean islands, and about 50,000 (mostly English, but also a few French and Dutch) in North America. The African total was just under half that of the European and heavily concentrated in Brazil, where they were put to work first on sugar planations, and later in other industries like mining. As the English colonies in the Caribbean began to grow sugar their slave populations also rose rapidly, from 10% to 50% in a single generation; at the same time those English small landowners who could not afford large plantations and slaves emigrated to North America, leaving the island population much the same. All of these figures are approximate; not only is information scanty but in Latin America the distinctions between the races became blurred by the presence of mulatto (European-African) and Mestizo (European-Indian) populations, that had grown as large as the communities of Peninsulares (immigrants from Spain) and Criollos (pure European ancestry, but born in the colonies).⁽³⁾

---

 

FOOTNOTES

1. If you want to blame somebody for the epidemics, blame a young cabin boy named Juan Nepomucen. In 1520 he went on the expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to Mexico. Like Narvaez, he was captured and drafted into the army of Cortez. Nepomucen was sick with smallpox, and as he wandered across Mexico, he spread the terrible disease to the Indians he met. Thus, the “Typhoid Mary” of Mesoamerica wiped out whole tribes without firing a shot or even throwing a stone at them. He has been blamed for as many as three million deaths, making him the worst killer in the western hemisphere’s history.

2. The New World returned the favor by introducing syphilis to Europe in the 1490s. Like the diseases going west, it was a fast-sweeping, acute infection at first, but since it is a sexually transmitted disease, rather than one spread by casual contact, it never threatened to destroy the communities of the Old World.

3. We believe that by 1650, at least one million slaves had been shipped from Africa to the New World. However, as noted above, there were only a quarter million blacks living in the Americas in 1650. The discrepancy can be explained in part by the deaths on the voyages (which averaged 20% of a typical cargo), and by an unfavorable sex ratio (2 males were landed for every female). The most important factor, however, was that the slave’s life did not allow favorable conditions for reproduction. A considerable part of each year’s shipment went to replace those who died without leaving children. Not until the nineteenth century did living conditions improve to the point that the black American population became self-sustaining, and only after emancipation did it grow at a rate comparable to the white population.

Product Recall

PRODUCT RECALL

The Maker of all human beings (GOD) is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to a serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart.

This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect has been technically termed “Sub-sequential Internal Non-Morality, ” or more commonly known as S.I.N., as it is primarily expressed.

Some of the symptoms include:

1. Loss of direction
2. Foul vocal emissions
3. Amnesia of origin
4. Lack of peace and joy
5. Selfish or violent behavior
6. Depression or confusion in the mental component
7. Fearfulness
8. Idolatry
9. Rebellion

The Manufacturer, who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, is providing factory-authorized repair and service free of charge to correct this defect.

The Repair Technician, JESUS, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. There is no additional fee required.

The number to call for repair in all areas is: P-R-A-Y-E-R
Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Jesus, into the heart component.

No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Jesus will replace it with:

1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Patience
5. Kindness
6. Goodness
7. Faithfulness
8. Gentleness
9. Self control

Please see the operating manual, the B.I.B.L.E. (Believers’ Instructions Before Leaving Earth) for further details on the use of these fixes.

WARNING: Continuing to operate the human being unit without correction voids any manufacturer warranties, exposing the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded. For free emergency service, call on Jesus.

DANGER: The human being units not responding to this recall action will have to be scrapped in the furnace. The SIN defect will not be permitted to enter Heaven so as to prevent contamination of that facility. Thank you for your attention !

- GOD

P.S. Please assist where possible by notifying others of this
important recall notice, and you may contact the Father any
time by ‘Knee mail’.

Because He Lives !
“For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. “–Jer 29:11.

Knock It Off, Free Republic!

I have been a minor participant at Free Republic, the Internet’s leading conservative forum, since September 2004.  An online friend referred me to a discussion where members of Free Republic were talking about the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, and using my maps from this page to make a point.  I had to join FR to introduce myself to that group, and thank them for visiting.  Because that was right after the “Rathergate” scandal, I thus became one of the “Pajamahadeen” that had just brought down the Sauronic eye of CBS.

Being a “Freeper” has been an interesting and fun experience, but I am disturbed by a current trend on those boards.  For the past few weeks, at least since the latest fundraising drive ended, I have noticed that every new thread begins with a picture or video reminding us that Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate, supports abortion.  It doesn’t matter what the topic is, the anti-Mitt material pops up.

Personally, I think our current priorities ought to be making sure President Obama and his leftist pals don’t force their health care plan down our throats, and defeating as many moonbats as possible in next year’s congressional and gubernatorial elections, especially Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, Chris Dodd and Slobbering Barney Frank.  Then in 2011 or 2012 we can fight over who we want for the presidency.  Consequently, yesterday I posted the following on the Kentucky board:

Is anyone else getting sick and tired of the Mitt Romney bashing that goes on at the beginning of each new thread? Granted, he may not be conservative enough for most of us (my first choice for 2012 would probably be Sarah Palin or Duncan Hunter), but he just HAS to be better than the Chicago mob that rules Washington now. Somebody ought to tell Jim Robinson that BHO and his cabal are the real enemy, not Mitt. Sheesh, an outside observer looking at us now is probably getting the impression that Republicans eat their own. And as for Mitt Romney being a Mormon, well, I’m more concerned about Harry Reid’s Mormon faith. Does he HAVE any?

Four replies have appeared since then, and only one agrees with me.  The others just said we ought to do whatever we can to make Mitt Romney unelectable.  I guess I’m going to take a timeout from Free Republic.  Hopefully the Freepers will be acting more sensibly when I return.  ’Bye, see you guys next year.

Joseph’s Coins?

First, an update to the previous message.  Do football games ever get rained out? I guess I’ll find out today. It rained all night (with lightning), it’s raining now, and there’s an 80% chance of rain for the rest of the day, so I don’t think it will dry out in time for the game between the University of Kentucky and the Florida Gators.  The good news is that not a drop came in through the leaky back door, the one that gave us problems last winter.  I guess the wind wasn’t blowing the right way.

Yesterday I read a strange story from Israel National News, about some coins discovered in Egypt, which are supposedly from the time of Joseph.  They were quoting an article from Egypt’s Al-Ahram and MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, translated it.  Normally INN (also called Arutz Sheva) is my favorite Israeli news source, but somebody, either INN or Al-Ahram, didn’t do enough research, because I am full of questions and skepticism.  Here is part of the article:

“…discovered many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh’s court…”

An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

The report in Al-Ahram boasts that the find backs up the Koran’s claim that coins were used in Egypt during Joseph’s period. Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jacob, died around 1450 B.C.E., according to Jewish sources.

Excerpts from the Al-Ahram report, as translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):

“In an unprecedented find, a group of Egyptian researchers and archeologists has discovered a cache of coins from the time of the Pharaohs. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides decisive scientific evidence disproving the claim by some historians that the ancient Egyptians were unfamiliar with coins and conducted their trade through barter.

“The researchers discovered the coins when they sifted through thousands of small archeological artifacts stored in [the vaults of] the Museum of Egypt. [Initially] they took them for charms, but a thorough examination revealed that the coins bore the year in which they were minted and their value, or effigies of the pharaohs [who ruled] at the time of their minting. Some of the coins are from the time when Joseph lived in Egypt, and bear his name and portrait.

“There used to be a misconception that trade [in Ancient Egypt] was conducted through barter, and that Egyptian wheat, for example, was traded for other goods. But surprisingly, Koranic verses indicate clearly that coins were used in Egypt in the time of Joseph…

“Research team head Dr. Sa’id Muhammad Thabet said that during his archeological research on the Prophet Joseph, he had discovered in the vaults of the [Egyptian] Antiquities Authority and of the National Museum many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh’s court…

“Studies by Dr. Thabet’s team have revealed that what most archeologists took for a kind of charm, and others took for an ornament or adornment, is actually a coin. Several [facts led them to this conclusion]: first, [the fact that] many such coins have been found at various [archeological sites], and also [the fact that] they are round or oval in shape, and have two faces: one with an inscription, called the inscribed face, and one with an image, called the engraved face – just like the coins we use today.

“The archeological finding is also based on the fact that the inscribed face bore the name of Egypt, a date, and a value, while the engraved face bore the name and image of one of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs or gods, or else a symbol connected with these. Another telling fact is that the coins come in different sizes and are made of different materials, including ivory, precious stones, copper, silver, gold, etc.”

An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

The report in Al-Ahram boasts that the find backs up the Koran’s claim that coins were used in Egypt during Joseph’s period. Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jacob, died around 1450 B.C.E., according to Jewish sources.

Excerpts from the Al-Ahram report, as translated by Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):

“In an unprecedented find, a group of Egyptian researchers and archeologists has discovered a cache of coins from the time of the Pharaohs. Its importance lies in the fact that it provides decisive scientific evidence disproving the claim by some historians that the ancient Egyptians were unfamiliar with coins and conducted their trade through barter.

“The researchers discovered the coins when they sifted through thousands of small archeological artifacts stored in [the vaults of] the Museum of Egypt. [Initially] they took them for charms, but a thorough examination revealed that the coins bore the year in which they were minted and their value, or effigies of the pharaohs [who ruled] at the time of their minting. Some of the coins are from the time when Joseph lived in Egypt, and bear his name and portrait.

“There used to be a misconception that trade [in Ancient Egypt] was conducted through barter, and that Egyptian wheat, for example, was traded for other goods. But surprisingly, Koranic verses indicate clearly that coins were used in Egypt in the time of Joseph…

“Research team head Dr. Sa’id Muhammad Thabet said that during his archeological research on the Prophet Joseph, he had discovered in the vaults of the [Egyptian] Antiquities Authority and of the National Museum many charms from various eras before and after the period of Joseph, including one that bore his effigy as the minister of the treasury in the Egyptian pharaoh’s court…

“Studies by Dr. Thabet’s team have revealed that what most archeologists took for a kind of charm, and others took for an ornament or adornment, is actually a coin. Several [facts led them to this conclusion]: first, [the fact that] many such coins have been found at various [archeological sites], and also [the fact that] they are round or oval in shape, and have two faces: one with an inscription, called the inscribed face, and one with an image, called the engraved face – just like the coins we use today.

“The archeological finding is also based on the fact that the inscribed face bore the name of Egypt, a date, and a value, while the engraved face bore the name and image of one of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs or gods, or else a symbol connected with these. Another telling fact is that the coins come in different sizes and are made of different materials, including ivory, precious stones, copper, silver, gold, etc.”

Source:  http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133601

And here is my response:

Coins from the time of Joseph? Not bloody likely! First of all, most history texts will tell you that money is a Lydian invention, appearing no earlier than 700 B.C. We don’t see coins anywhere else until the Persians started minting Darics, around 520 B.C. Therefore I wouldn’t expect to find any Egyptian coins older than the XXVII dynasty.

Second, it would have helped if the story had mentioned which pharaoh was mentioned on the coins. Probably Thutmose III or Amenhotep II, if the 1450 B.C. date is correct, and they are going by the most widely accepted chronology. However, I don’t know of anybody who puts Joseph that late. Most chronologies have him living around 1662 or 1877 B.C., which would put him either in the Middle Kingdom or the Second Intermediate Period (also called the Hyksos era).

By the way, last spring they had a fine exhibit of 200 Egyptian artifacts at the University of Kentucky, which had been found a hundred years ago by the great Egyptologist, Sir Flinders Petrie. Among other things, I saw a black granite statue of an unnamed, tired-looking court official, from the late XII dynasty. The card on the glass case said he must been been a very important person, to receive a statue that was so realistic. Because of the date, I’m guessing that it’s none other than Potiphar, the former owner of Joseph. I heard once that the last important Middle Kingdom pharaoh, Amenemhet III, had a treasurer named Ptahwer, and this could be another spelling of the same name.

Third, Moslems also believe that Alexander the Great visited Mecca and practiced Islam. Since Mohammed was born 892 years after Alexander’s death, I think it’s safe to say that the Koran is not a reliable source on ancient history. Most Moslems aren’t interested in events before Mohammed’s lifetime anyway, and will dismiss it as the “Age of Ignorance.” On the other hand, the Biblical stories of Joseph and Moses seems to agree with the idea that Egypt had a barter economy; for example, Joseph taxed the people during the seven good years by taking one fifth of their crops and storing it. We don’t hear of him storing gold or silver, and when the Hebrews left Egypt, they took the jewelry of the Egyptians, not their money.

A Rat-Eating Plant

This blog is two and a half years old, and it seems to be becoming the place to report on strange plants and animals from Southeast Asia.  Just yesterday I wrote about Leive and I discovering the gac fruit (see above).  Here are the other messages I posted in that trend (I hope I didn’t forget any):

Indonesia:  The Real Lost World

One Man’s Treasure is Another Man’s Crap

Is This an Eagle, an Owl, or a Cat?

This Sounds Like the Bliblical Tree of Life

Now a pitcher plant has been discovered in the Philippines, big enough to digest rats that may drown in its water trap.  Their leaves collect and hold rain water, much like bromeliads; animals fall into the leaf traps, drown before they can get out, and are digested at leisure by the plant.  Pitcher plants are fairly common, especially in Indonesia, but all the ones I had heard of so far were only big enough to trap and digest insects.  This one has only been spotted on one mountain, on the island of Palawan.  Apparently some plants half the size were seen on Borneo that contained the remains of mice, so that’s why the scientists believe this one could handle a rat.

Click on the two links below to check out this real-life version of “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Spectacular Rat-Eating Plant Found on Palawan

Rat-Eating Plant Named After TV Naturalist

Korean War Maps

Yesterday I scanned two maps of the Korean War (the one fought in 1950-53) and uploaded them to The Xenophile Historian.  You can now see them on the Korean history page.  The source was The Five Worlds of Our Lives, a book Newsweek Magazine published in 1961.  Though they are black and white, I found them easier to understand than the color maps I’ve seen elsewhere, so they’ll do for the narrative.  Here is a thumbnail of each map; click on them to see the full-sized scans, which will open in a separate window.