Istanbul, Bosporus History

National Geographic has produced a fascination video that describes the amazing engineering feat of the crossing of the Bosporus with a train tunnel 160 feet deep.  In the course of building this tunnel, started in 2005 and supposed to be finished in 2010, a major archeological find was made that has delayed the completion of the project until 2013 or later.  The Marmaray Tunnel website is here where you will find most interesting facts about the construction of the tunnel.  BTW, the spelling of what most of us know of Marmara apparently has morphed into Marmaray in the case of this tunnel, at least on their site..  What makes this project especially interesting is the fact the tunnel is being built 12 miles from one of the world's most active faults, the North Anatolian Fault.  Some scientists believe the area is overdue for a major quake within the next few years.

A test!

Is this humbling or what?????


Subject:  1895 8th grade final exam

-- Take this test and pass it on to your more literate friends.   What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895... Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?  This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal. 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS - 1895  Grammar (Time, one hour) 1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters. 2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.  3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph 4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'  5. Define case; illustrate each case. 6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.  7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.  Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes) 1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic. 2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?  3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?  4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?  5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton. 6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.  7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre? 8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent. 9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?  10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt  U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes) 1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided 2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus  3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War. 4. Show the territorial growth of the United States  5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas  6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.  7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe? 8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.  Orthography (Time, one hour)  [Do we even know what this is??] 1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication 2. What are elementary sounds? How classified? 3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals  4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.' (HUH?) 5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule. 6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.  7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup. 8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.  9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays. 10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks  and by syllabication.  Geography (Time, one hour) 1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend? 2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?  3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean? 4. Describe the mountains of North America  5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla, Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco  6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics ofEurope and give the capital of each.. 8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?  9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers. 10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.  Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.  Gives the saying 'he only had an 8th grade education' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?! No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade. They already knew more than they needed to know! No, I don't have the answers! And I don't think I ever did!

Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman

This segment on Bloomberg in which Ron Paul and Paul Krugman air their differences in a 15 minute video clip is an extremely vivid example of liberal and conservative differences on a host of subjects related to the economy and governance.  Krugman is a Keynsian and Paul a von Misean.  Their discussion has been going on since these two schools of economic thought emerged in the aftermath of WWI, now almost 100 years ago.  It's worth noting that Freidrich Hayek,  a student of von Mises',  a contemporary of Keynes, and maybe the best known to Americans of all the Austrians, was actually in the Austrian government when the horrific inflation of the German currency occurred in the aftermath of WWI, the event that led to the destruction of the savings off the German middle class, the rise of the Nazis and the devastation of WWII.  There is an inbred fear of inflation bred into the Austrian School of Economics that seems to lead to an inbred fear of fiat money.  You see this same attitude reflected in Ron Paul's comments.  Krugman dismisses all Paul's fears, including the idea of rejecting central banking and a returning  to the gold standard by saying the worldwide economy and financial scene is so complicated at this point that no one can even accurately describe what money actually is.  How this debate ends up over the next decade or so will determine where  the US and world economy ends up.  It's the issues of big government versus smaller government, individual freedoms versus collective group rights, capitalism versus socialism, and so forth.  It seems pretty clear from the examples of the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, and now much of Europe, that socialism does not work.  The discussion seems to be coming down to what is the proper definition of Capitalism.  Is it closer to the definition of the Austrian School or the version that has evolved since the Hoover-Roosevelt period when Big Government was unleashed in an attempt to eliminate its inherent uncertainties and risks?  In other words how much managing can Capitalism take before it stops functioning as the worldwide engine of prosperity it has been?  Quite a question!

Perhaps Paul Krugman can explain this chart of his in light of this quote of Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morganthau Jr., who famously said, in 1939 after six years of  New Deal Keynsian spending programs :"“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.”  Of course what he meant by that was the unemployment rate was virtually the same as it was when Roosevelt came into office  in 1933.   Despite the facts Keynsians stick by their man, for some reason.

OR?

They're on to him, finally

Two events this past week suggest Obama's days in the White House are numbered.  The first was the recall vote in Wisconsin and the second the WH presser at which O pronounced the private  sector economy was "fine".  Coming on the heels of the comfortable win by Governor Walker in his recall election, Obama's line suggests he's seriously out of touch with reality.  Presently over 23 million Americans are out of work or looking for work and in either event nothing  is "fine" in an economy producing as few jobs and opportunities as ours.  Walker's recall election victory in a traditionally liberal blue state tells all the socialists in the country that the "jig is up".  It is also clear that democrats are nervous and many have given up on Obama's chances in November..  It is amusing to watch some of the "talking heads" on so-called news program panels moving away from their previous slavish pro-Obama stands to much more  critical positions. Even the always reliable Lanny Davis, a frontline political advisor to Clinton, has turned highly negative.   Ah yes, even the rats are leaving the sinking ship.  Good riddance.  Meanwhile our peripatetic president attends fund raisers at such a clip, (more at this stage of the election cycle than both Bushes and Clinton combined!) that it's hard to keep track of his physical whereabouts.  It's usually a good bet that he's either in Hollywood with his flaky pals George Clooney, et al, or in New York where the other big money pot is, or in one of the battleground states he has to win stay employed for the next four years. Obama would do well to dust off his curriculum vitae, get some competent ghost writer to help embellish it, and begin looking right now.  This is not the best of times to have to look for work, especially if your work experience and record is iffy.

The coming collapse

Peter Schiff is above all else a realist.  He tells the world here what he thinks is coming our way in very short order, and it's not pretty.  Anyone having read any of the number of books about currency collapses in earlier times would have to agree with Schiff's prediction about our currency because causes of financial implosions are pretty much the same over and over. Typically, excessive debt creation results in excessive speculation which results in excessive creation of fiat money which results in inflation and currency debasement.  Currency debasement results in the destruction of savings and the middle class.  It appears we are somewhere around the excessive creation of fiat money stage of this cycle, about to be visited by inflation and major currency debasement.  Whether this cycle is too far along to save the day or not, we're about to find out.  A friend has just completed his own careful and exhaustive analysis of our circumstances and concludes with a series of speculative and fundamental questions everyone should at the very least be asking themselves about now.  There may be other questions, but here are his:

1).  What are the odds of muddling through this financial quagmire in Europe and the US?
2).  What are the odds of experiencing a major shock -- default in Spain or a major European country, collapse of the        
       Euro, major bank failure(s) in Europe or the US, Israel invading Iran, etc?
3).  How do we protect ourselves on the downside?
4).  How can we protect our children and grandchildren?
5).  What should we invest in?
6).  Where should we live?

The left's love affair with Castro's Cuba

The Castro brothers have now run Cuba for nearly eighty years and the results are horrific.
But this state of affairs seems quite agreeable to the liberals who worship these two socialist thugs.  Clearly what they must like, since it can't be the Cubans's historically low standard of living,  is the fact everyone is equally poor.  It is this inference that tells the rest of us that liberals are simply garden variety socialists.  Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand, and other loons from La La Land, along with Jimmy Carter and most liberal politicians, are forever touting Castro's leadership and accomplishments although the rest of us have difficulty seeing either.  For those who've been to the Bund, Shanghai's famous waterfront overlooking the newest section of the city called Podung Area and the Huangpu River, may have marveled at all the high rises that have sprung up over the last thirty plus years.  In fact Shanghai now has many more high rises than New York City and more under construction.  Part of one well-known Shanghai guide's presentation is to point out a particular high rise, among those many, owned by a Cuban.  Not just any Cuban, mind you, but Fidel's very own brother Raul.  And there you have socialism in a nutshell.  The people live in penury, and the dear leaders buy themselves real estate in the world's fastest growing city which, by the way, doesn't happen to be in Cuba.  Nice.  Wonder how many Castro apologists know about this scam.  But then again who cares as long as everyone is equal.  And so it goes in the ObamaLand of Hollywood and liberal political precincts.

Pudong Area from the Bund.