Crunching numbers, avoiding the Beast

Carl Bialik explores the limits of numbering, from Internet IPs to Social Security, while avoiding the sign of the Beast:

Social Security numbers should also last well into the later part of this century, according to Social Security Administration spokeswoman Cynthia W. Edwards. The agency has assigned about 450 million numbers, including 5.8 million last year, but nearly a billion are possible -- not quite a billion because some numbers, including those that start with 666, aren't allowed.

Tom Judd, the routing-number administrator for the American Bankers Association, isn't as accommodating when banks want to avoid that Number of the Beast from the Book of Revelation. "We had a bank call up, mad," because 666 was in its assigned routing number. Others have complained about numbers that included 1313, double bad luck if you're so inclined. But Mr. Judd stood firm. Customers who don't like seeing that number on their check "will have to go to another bank," he says.

Bible bending Netanyahu

Fareed Zakaria says that everything you know about Iran is wrong. Including the notion that Iran is "a messianic, apocalyptic cult"

One of Netanyahu's advisers said of Iran, "Think Amalek." The Bible says that the Amalekites were dedicated enemies of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Now, were the president of Iran and his advisers to have cited a religious text that gave divine sanction for the annihilation of an entire race, they would be called, well, messianic.

Obama as Moses

Tony Auth, copyright 2009 Universal Press Syndicate