A Dump Truck of News

The GOP debate from several viewpoints.  Fact checking. Lack of presidential qualities. And how much nuking and bombing do they want?  Because fear works... or at least it did during the Bush era.  Will it work again? Because the GOP really really really wants to start WWIII because that's what they're good at.  War.  Because it's good business.

Tom Tomorrow.

Who let the fascist dogs out?  The GOP thought they could contain them....kept feeding them raw meat... encouraging them to distrust government...

(And why AREN'T we talking about the Saudi role in terrorism?)

If everyone is going to carry a gun, we need this new invention to stop bleeding to be a mandatory item too.

Homes on Mars.

This El Nino seems to be extra special.

Badass women of WWII.

Liberals live in their own bubble too.

George Bush ignored several pre-9/11 warnings to avoid a paper trail... but we knew this.

The melting of the permafrost brings all sorts of things to light.

The Bible?  Or the Koran?

Mr. Rogers was truly an excellent man.

George Takei takes on mayor who thought interment was a good idea.

British Muslims tell off Daesh.

ARRRrrrrrrrrrr....

Talk like a pirate day... or maybe not.



Damned females getting all the jobs!  Or something.

Dogs.

Roman tile floor found in Turkey.

Russia has a huge site of diamonds... enough to flood the world with sparklies.  And drop the bottom out of the diamond business....

Put a burka on it!

Soon, EVERYONE will have a giant marble to run their electronics, their house, their car.....



The Bible is more violent than the Koran.

Update:  Found over via Bryan of Why Now?'s place:


Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day

(We came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show was"dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if I fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Bonus pickup lines (when the ones above don't work, as they often won't)

They don’t call me Long John because my head is so big.

You’re drinking a Salty Dog? How’d you like to try the real thing?

Wanna shiver me timbers?

I’ve sailed the seven seas, and you’re the sleekest schooner I’ve ever sighted.

Brwaack! Polly want a cracker? … Oh, wait. That’s for Talk Like a PARROT Day.

That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Let's get together and haul some keel.

That’s some treasure chest you’ve got there.

Top Ten Pickup Lines for the Lady Pirates

By popular demand ...

10. What are YOU doing here?

9. Is that a belayin' pin in yer britches, or are ye ... (this one is never completed)

8. Come show me how ye bury yer treasure, lad!

7. So, tell me, why do they call ye, "Cap'n Feathersword?"

6. That's quite a cutlass ye got thar, what ye need is a good scabbard!

5. Aye, I guarantee ye, I've had a twenty percent decrease in me "lice ratio!"

4. I've crushed seventeen men's skulls between me thighs!

3. C'mon, lad, shiver me timbers!

2. RAMMING SPEED!

...and the number one Female Pirate Pick-up Line:

1. You. Pants Off. Now!

You can make any of the holy books

Justify almost anything:

Wasn't there another religious leader named Jones

Who did really horrible things in the name of the Lord and got a lot of people killed?



Remember how it turned out he was a ego-bloated pseudo-messianic psycho who just wanted to get people to follow him off a cliff to show how powerful he was?

God has nothing to do with your stupidity and your frantic wish for a Holy War to fill your coffers, sir. And you are putting our soldiers in danger.



Thanks a whole fucking lot for making the world even more dangerous.

No 70 virgins?

70 RAISINS?

There seems to be a discrepancy in the history and translation of the Koran:

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

Why would the Nazis care? I think they were doing all sorts of work setting up for their 1000 year Reich and were into all sorts of research. (Hard work creating your own reality, you know.) Why would they keep a variant of the Koran yet suppress it?:

Why were the Nazis so eager to suppress Koranic criticism? Most likely, the answer lies in their alliance with Islamist leaders, who shared their hatred of the Jews and also sought leverage against the British in the Middle East.

What will happen now?

When the Atlantic Monthly story on Koranic criticism appeared nine years ago, author Toby Lester expected early results from the Yemeni finds.

Von Bothmer, Puin, and other scholars will finally have a chance to scrutinize the texts and to publish their findings freely - a prospect that thrills Puin. "So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word," he says. "They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us to do this.

In 2005, Puin published a collection of articles under the title, Die dunklen Anfange. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und fruhen Geschichte des Islam ("The dark beginnings: new research on the origin and early history of Islam," Hans Schiller Verlag, 2005). This drew on the work of the pseudonymous German philologist "Christoph Luxenburg", who sought to prove that incomprehensible passages in the Koran were written in Syriac-Aramaic rather than Arabic. Luxenburg's thesis became notorious for explaining that the "virgins" provided to Islamic jihadis in paradise were only raisins. The Koran, according to the research of Puin and his associates, copied a great deal of extant Christian material.

[snip]

The Islamic world is forced to adopt an openly irrational stance, employing its power to intimidate scholars and frustrate the search for truth. It is impossible for Muslims to propose a dialogue with Western religions, as 38 Islamic scholars did in an October 13 letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, and rule the subject of text criticism out of the discussion.

[snip]

Throughout the Internet, Islamist sites denounce the work of a handful of marginalized scholars as evidence of a plot by Christian missionaries to sabotage Islam. What the Muslim world cannot conceal is its vulnerability and fear in the face of Koranic criticism. In the great battle for converts through the Global South, this may turn out to be a paralyzing disadvantage.

Sounds vaguely like some of our own homegrown fundamentalists who become rabid and froth at the mouth when challenged on biblical translation....

We need this really big arena where all religious literalists can gather clutching their own specific translation of their holy book. Then they can attack each other with their gospels and hymnals. Last one standing wins....

Update: Suggested in comments by DistributorCap:

Ellison swears in on a Koran

once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Ellison shows class and introduces himself to Virgil Goode.