Apparently, the sort of people who think the world is coming to an end next week got very, very excited because they believed that an old Irish manuscript psalter (a book of Psalms) that was recently found in a bog was evidence that Israel was about to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

The news reports said that Psalm 83 was visible. This got the gullible into a lather, because in the King James Bible favored by a certain kind of Protestant literalist, Psalm 83 laments the attempts by her enemies to wipe the people of Israel out. The literalists were sure this was a Memo from God.

However, after being flooded with requests, the National Museum of Ireland was forced to make a clarifying announcement. What a shame that our national fruitcakiness about religion is getting to be such an international joke.

Museum seeks to calm over psalm – Yahoo! News

In modern versions of the Bible, Psalm 83 is a lament to God over other nations’ attempts to wipe out Israel and many commentators wondered at the coincidence of such a discovery at a time of heightened tension in the Middle East.

The above mention of Psalm 83 has led to misconceptions about the revealed wording and may be a source of concern for people who believe Psalm 83 deals with ‘the wiping out of Israel’,” the museum said in its clarification.

The confusion arose because the manuscript uses an old Latin translation of the Bible known at the Vulgate, which numbers the psalms differently from the later King James version, the 1611 English translation from which many modern texts derive.

“The Director of the National Museum of Ireland … would like to highlight that the text visible on the manuscript does not refer to wiping out Israel but to the ‘vale of tears’,” the museum said.

The vale of tears is in Psalm 84 in the King James version.

This is funny because the Irish monks who would have used the psalter were Catholics, and the King James translation of the Bible that the literalists were no doubt underlining and highlighting in their pre-apocalyptic euphoria would not exist for another 800 years or so.

If you listen carefully, you can hear the heavenly host of angels trumpeting to the Lord with a mighty “Bwah! Bwah! Bwah! BWAAAAAH!” sound. Just one of His amusing little practical jokes, I suppose.

Woman killed by own car | Chicago Tribune

Natividad Andrea Torres, of Wheeling, suffered fatal head and leg injuries and died this morning at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, a Cook County medical examiner’s office spokesman said.

At 10:38 a.m. Thursday, Torres was backing up her 1998 Ford Contour in the middle lane of westbound Lake Cook Road just east of Milwaukee Avenue on the border of Wheeling and Buffalo Grove, when she fell out of the driver’s side door, Buffalo Grove Police Sgt. Mark Bucalo said.

So many things wrong with this picture:

• backing up in the middle lane of a VERY busy street
• with the car door open while leaning out
• while apparently not wearing a seatbelt
• and somehow jamming the gas pedal when falling
• so that the car kept moving as she was dragged

A friend speculates that she dropped something and was looking for it. The lack of common sense is astounding, however. Was anyone else in the car with her? It sounds too ludicrous to be true, but if she was pushed out, it’s a little more plausible.

Israel set war plan more than a year ago / Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon

I saw this cited at NewsHounds and realized this is why Condi was so adamant against an immediate cease-fire – it’s a timetable thing. Also, she probably wanted our shipment of smart bombs to be delivered and signed for before she started hollering about stopping the carnage.

adn.com | alaska : Ship’s crew rescued

Nearly two dozen crew members were hoisted to safety in rescue helicopters late Monday night from a giant car-carrying ship that had listed onto its side in the North Pacific Ocean, according to the Alaska Air National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The 23 crew members of the Cougar Ace, wearing red survival suits, perched on a wall of the ship’s superstructure in choppy seas as two Air Guard HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters and a Coast Guard helicopter lowered slings and pulled them to safety. The rescue operation began shortly after 9 p.m. and was completed by about 10 p.m.

“They did pack them in, as many as they humanly could, into all three helicopters,” said Maj. Mike Haller of the Air National Guard. “They did it one at a time, and quickly.”

The helicopters then headed for Adak, about 230 miles away.

The Singapore-registered Cougar Ace, carrying nearly 5,000 vehicles, had sent out an SOS Sunday at 11:09 p.m. The 654-foot vessel had begun to list and was taking on water, according to the Coast Guard. By midafternoon Monday, the Coast Guard reported that the ship was listing to 90 degrees, almost flat on its side in the sea.

As the rescue commenced, the seas were at 10 feet with 30-knot winds. Haller said chopper crews described those conditions as “very sporty.”

This is why I love, love, LOVE the Coast Guard, and Air-Sea Rescue guys. No matter how horrific or challenging the conditions, they get the job done and call it “sporty.”

The Alaska Air National Guard sent choppers that had to be refueled enroute with a tanker plane, plus there was all kinds of inter-service cooperation and coordination. Pretty damn fine sporty, if you ask me. Well done, guys.

Now it remains to be seen if a gigantic ship full of Japanese cars and fuel oil that’s lying on its side on the water will be salvaged, cause an environmental catastrophe, or sink. Something must have gone seriously wacky in the holds, and it’s a wonder no one was more seriously hurt.

Middle East” href=”http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1193108.ece”>Independent Online Edition > Middle East

“Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: “The parties have moved to plan B.” He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. “There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west,” he said.

…
“The government is all in the Green Zone like the previous one and they have left the streets to the terrorists,” said Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Iraqi politician. He said the situation would be made worse by the war in Lebanon because it would intensify the struggle between Iran and the US being staged in Iraq. The Iraqi crisis would now receive much reduced international attention.

The switch of American and British media attention to Lebanon and away from the rapidly deteriorating situation in Baghdad is much to the political benefit of Mr Blair and Mr Bush.

“Maliki’s trip to Washington is all part of the US domestic agenda to put a good face on things for November,” a European diplomat in Baghdad was quoted as saying.

It’s all about the photo op. Prime Minister Maliki will be seen and photographed and mouthing the words that his non-Iraqi US “advisors” tell him to mouth.

FOX”News” spin on this story is that “senior US commanders are revising their strategy” on Iraq. The recent upswing in Iraqi civilian deaths, especially in Baghdad, is described as a “failed Baghdad security plan by the Iraqi government.”

That’s the one praised by Bush on his surprise visit to Iraq a few weeks back.

That’s the strategery – blame the Iraqis for failing to stand up. Because of course, how can they stand up if they’re all lying around being dead ‘n shit?

Meanwhile, if the Iraqis are serious about a pragmatic division of the country, that sets up the next 2 generations’ worth of Balkanized violence nicely, unless they get people to swap locations voluntarily (which will never happen, because there will always be mixed areas).

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Wear | Two killed as artwork ‘lifts off’

Two people have been killed and 12 injured after a giant, inflatable sculpture blew free from its moorings in the north-east of England. Many were inside the artwork, which consists of connected rooms, when it lifted 30ft into the air at Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street, County Durham

I like modern art, and I like edgy installation pieces – when I lived in Seattle, the annual arts festival Bumbershoot was one of my favorites during the year (aside from being really expensive). But entering a large art piece and going for an unscheduled ride would tend to put me off art for a while. Interior images of this particular installation are interesting, but if it comes to Chicago, I’ll pass. It’s a shame for the artist, of course – it’ll come
down to fingerpointing between the artist and the local authorities and organizers – this will be one of those “blame the bad guy(wires)” things.