Sunday Night Ramblings -- September 30, 2018

LOL. This is one article I'm not even going to read. This is the guy that said the Bakken was dead back in 2016 or thereabouts.

Metonyms: by the way, I agree with the headline above. "Literally," I don't think WTI will hit $100 within the next 18 months but figuratively, and as a metonym, I'm not so sure we won't see "$100-oil" in the next year and a half. For many people $75-WTI is as good (or as bad) as $100 oil. For the US investor heavily invested in energy, $75-WTI might be a whole lot better than $100-WTI (recession, demand destruction); on the other hand, for the $12-an-hour In N' Out employee (advertised starting wage  here in Grapevine, TX), there may not be a whole lot of difference between $75-WTI and $100-WTI (can't afford gasoline at any price).

Futures: holy mackerel! It will be a lot different by tomorrow morning -- it always is -- but right now, Dow (irrelevant) futures are up 120 points and WTI is up another quarter percent. TSLA will surge. Trust me. TSLA is going to surge. Elon Musk "beat" the SEC. And Tesla emerges in a much stronger position. This is huge. If I had a farm, I would "bet the farm." But I don't have a farm. I don't even own a house. [During the past two hours, Dow futures have been melting up; at 8:14 p.m. CDT, Dow futures are at 136, up from 120 when I first looked.] [October 1, 2018: overall market is surging, the Dow is up 230 points; TSLA up $45; up 17%.]

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or what you think you may have read here.

Trade wars: China's economy is losing steam as tariffs start to sink in. -- WSJ. China is trying to run out the clock. They have at least two more years.

Unrest: Iran struggles with unrest in pivotal oil hub. -- WSJ. John Kerry, no doubt, telling the Iranians to hang in there. It will be better in two years. 

Ryder Cup: Wow, the US team was shellacked. This is beyond embarrassing. I believe I saw that together, Mickelson and Tiger Woods went 0-6-0. That's zero wins, six losses, and zero ties. I don't golf but I could have done that -- zero wins, six losses, and zero ties. Rickie Fowler didn't do much better: I believe Rickie Foweler's card for the tournament was 1-3-0. Jordan Spieth: 0-6 career singles record in Ryder Cup. Phil Mickelson: 22nd career match lost (most in Ryder Cup history). Dustin Johnson: 1-4-0; worst record in Ryder Cup by sitting world No. 1 player. If you can handle the blood, see this link.

State rights:

• Iowa: can a farmer with four-acres of land force the closure of a multi-billion pipeline that benefits millions?
• North Dakota: can a state take land from "rightful" owners by drawing new maps?
• for me, these are fascinating questions.

Irony: my wife is fascinated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My wife tells me her husband -- RBG's husband -- was a very, very successful tax attorney. Tongue-in-cheek, trying to get her strongly Democratic goat, I asked my wife what a "very, very successful tax attorney" did. She did not take the bait; she said, "I don't know." And then went back to reading the article.

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The Bible Page

I was completely unaware that there was a controversy about the "existence of King David." It is, I understand, a fact -- as much as anything can be factual -- that there existed a historical Moses, Abraham, Jesus, and Solomon. They may not have done everything attributed to them in the Bible, but it's my understanding there's little controversy they really existed.

I assumed that David was of the same group. But apparently not. Apparently there is a huge argument whether he existed. I stumbled across that in the current issue of The London Review of Books in an essay, "Nobody's Perfect," by Diarmaid MacCulloch, page 21:

If King David is mythical, what does that do to modern Jewish claims to a place in the land of Israel, achieved by feats of arms to equal his own?

"If King David is mythical?" I never knew.

So, quickly, an internet search:

Until very recently, there was no evidence outside the Bible for the existence of King David. There are no references to him in Egyptian, Syrian or Assyrian documents of the time, and the many archaeological digs in the City of David failed to turn up so much as a mention of his name. Then, on July 21, 1993, a team of archaeologists led by Prof. Avraham Biran, excavating Tel Dan in the northern Galilee, found a triangular piece of basalt rock, measuring 23 x 36 cm. inscribed in Aramaic. It was subsequently identified as part of a victory pillar erected by the king of Syria and later smashed by an Israelite ruler. The inscription, which dates to the ninth century BCE, that is to say, about a century after David was thought to have ruled Israel, includes the words Beit David ("House" or "Dynasty" of David"). It is the first near-contemporaneous reference to David ever found. It is not conclusive; but it does strongly indicate that a king called David established a dynasty in Israel during the relevant period.  

So, there you have it. There is doubt among scholars whether King David ever existed.

It turns out that an archaeological dig twenty miles south of Jerusalem, Khirbet Qeiyafa, may have evidence that supports the view that David was a real historical figure. If you can't get to the London Review of Books, there is wiki, and, the Khirbet Qeiyafa site itself. 

Of all the things that one might question about the Old Testament, it seems questioning the "reality" of a historical David is beyond the pale. But then, that's just me.