MTGradwell

"Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues".

Imagine no ancient statues to be blown up.

Religion is part of every human culture that has ever existed. Sometimes suppressed but never entirely absent, it is an essential element of humanity's heritage. Almost every item of art that has ever existed takes its inspiration from religion. And often it is the only thing that stops society descending into perpetual total carnage. "Thou shalt not kill", "Do unto others ..", "love thy neighbour" could perhaps have been thought up by a non-religious person, but it takes religion to spread the message & to get people to accept that these notions are for everybody, and not just for the gullible.

There have been attempts to eradicate religion. To have a chance of success, though, you have to be realistic and accept that you can't eradicate them all in one go. Instead you have to pick one to start with. Also, since the last big attempt failed, we'd obviously have to work on an even larger scale next time around. And maybe pick on a different religion. If you pick one that's geographcially located in an oil region, as a bonus you get lots of oil when the job's completed.

Whether it's a good idea or not, that's the course we're on. Not because Arabs have a religion. That's the excuse. It's because they have oil. And the people who want the oil DON'T want it just so they can fill their altar lamps. posted 07/23/2008 at 12:07:03

I don't get it. It wasn't the bible that made Pilate the Procurator (according to the mention in Tacitus) and Prefect (according to the inscription in Caesarea) of Judaea. Pilate was a big player in the Middle East long before the Bible mentioned him. For that you can credit maybe the school he went to, and the people who promoted him, all long since forgotten.

But it's true that Pilate would be just as much forgotten as the people who promoted him, if it hadn't been for the bible filling out some of the character details, and making him into a person instead of just a name on a list.

Oh, there's the paragraph in Josephus about how Jews rioted against him because he spent money from the sacred treasury on an aqueduct, and about his harsh putting down of that uprising. But who today would know about that detail, or give it a second thought, if this wasn't the biblical Pilate we were talking about? posted 07/09/2008 at 07:19:48

Not exactly. I'm admitting that the "historical" references to Jesus are sparse, but the same is true of Pilate, who nevertheless turned out to be more than just a piece of fiction. And the same is true of practically anyone else who wasn't an emperor or very close to one. "Historical" accounts are if anything even more selective in what they focus on than religious ones are. However there's a large number of accounts which are not considered to be historical, because they're written from a religious perspective, but they aren't just hearsay either. There'd be a lot more, too, if there hadn't been a concerted effort to stamp out all but the "canonical" accounts. As it says near the end of John: "There is much else that Jesus did. If it were all to be recorded in detail, I suppose the world could not hold the books that would be written". posted 07/08/2008 at 19:55:52

The tablet apparently refers to a 'prince of princes' slain by the evil government. There is a *suggestion* by Israel Knohl that this refers to the death a Jewish prince called Simon who led a revolt against Herod. How Mr. Knoll arrives at this idea is anybody's guess. He doesn't say that the tablet refers by name to a person called Simon.

The church says that the early church appropriated a ready-made legend - a collection of prophecies in the Old Testament - and applied it to Jesus. It has never said anything different from that. If Hitchens wanted to say that there was no actual resurrection, he could have said it at any time. This tablet doesn't change that. What it does do is bolster the Gospel claim that significant aspects of the Gospel story were anticipated beforehand, and in particular those prophecies which anticipated a dying-and-rising Messiah really were widely seen as saying that, and weren't just reinterpreted to mean that after the event. posted 07/08/2008 at 11:11:26

Adlib: It's possible to predict something before it happens. But you can only say "I told you so" and expect to have any credibility *after* the event. Saying "I told you so" after you've made a prophecy that *hasn't* yet come to fruition just doesn't impress anybody.

The Old Testament contains prophecies, as does the stone tablet being discussed in this thread, apparently. The New Testament is (among other things) a "we told you so". That's why it is written (mostly) after the events it describes. posted 07/08/2008 at 10:34:59

I've been wondering what the texts were that were supposed to have not appeared until around 1100 AD. Thanks for supplying this detail.

There are bibles which show the Greek original alongside the translation, and it's there in the Greek. Regardless of which Greek version is used, it's in there. It's there in the Vulgate, which is a Latin translation said to have been done between 382 and 405 AD.

The only site I've found which questions the passage (http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/aprilweb-only/117-31.0.html) says that "it is missing from the earliest and most reliable manuscripts" (whatever that means), but admits that it is present in 5th-century Greek manuscripts, and that it was "alluded to by Greek writers as early as the 2nd century". The passage is missing from the earliest known near-complete copy of John's gospel, but as with other missing passages it's marked by a dot and space, as if the scribe intended to fill it in later, and left space for it to be inserted.

Since all we have of original second-century gospel manuscripts is a few small fragments, it wouldn't be surprising if the "cast the first stone" passage wasn't among those fragments.

So where are the claims that this passage, or any other biblical passage, didn't appear until around 1100? What is the evidence supporting these claims? posted 07/08/2008 at 10:02:20

Exactly the same was said about Pontius Pilate, that he was a fictional character. There were no historical references to him outside of a mention in Tacitus and a brief paragraph in Josephus; pretty similar to the amount of historical reference that there is to Jesus. But then an inscription referring to him was found - on the underside of a stone seating slab at the amphitheatre in Caesarea. Part of one of his great monuments had been recycled as a seat.

It's the same with almost every once-great historical figure. Usually we don't even know that there's a person we know nothing about, because the entire historical record of that person is gone. Others are like Ozymandias, two vast and trunkless legs of stone and.. "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

The exceptions are the monarchs who ran the most powerful empires in history, their families, and the philosophers they considered to be important. Even seconds-in-command are mostly just names. Everyone else is dust. Pilate was essentially in charge of Judaea, but you wouldn't know it from the way his inscriptions were recycled and lost. If he hadn't crossed paths with someone who ultimately became famous, the one known inscription referring to him would probably have been discarded as something of no significance.

Any official records of Jesus' crucifixion, would have been in Pilate's collection. Since there's so little record even of Pilate, is it surprising that we don't have Pilate's filing cabinet? posted 07/08/2008 at 08:37:24

Actually it doesn't specifically refers to a named historical person other than Jesus. It refers, we are told, to a "'prince of princes' slain by the evil government".

Israel Knoll suggests that this refers to the death of a Jewish prince called Simon who led a revolt against King Herod; but how Mr. Knoll arrives at this suggestion is anybody's guess. He certainly doesn't say that that tablet refers by name to anyone called Simon. And I don't know of any Simon who was supposed to be raised after three days. Do you? posted 07/08/2008 at 07:48:15

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, belief in resurrection was common in the Middle East. The OT says that both Elisha and Elijah raised people from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus, and the daughter of Jairus, and others. Peter and Paul both continued the tradition. Various OT prophets wrote of a general resurrection, in which vast multitudes would be resurrected. What makes Christ's own resurrection maybe slightly different is that it's the only biblical account of a person raising *himself* from the dead.

That just anyone can rise from the dead is thought by some to be the whole point of Christianity; "there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." (Acts 24:15 KJV)".

That said, I can't see any evidence connecting this stone tablet to anyone called Simon, I don't know of any Simon who was said to be raised after three days, and having read through the accounts fairly carefully I still don't know where Israel Knohl gets these notions from. As far as I can tell, he isn't saying that Simon is actually named in the tablet, and according to the NY times article "Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus". posted 07/08/2008 at 07:36:08

The Tablet talks about a "'prince of princes' slain by the evil government".

Israel Knoll suggests that this refers to the death of a Jewish prince called Simon who led a revolt against King Herod. This is presumably a reference to Simon of Peraea, who revolted against Herod the Great's son Herod Archelaus in 4BC, immediately after Herod the Great's death. I don't know of anyone else who comes close to fitting the description. But why Mr. Knoll thinks that the tablet might refer to this person, or to any other Simon, I have no idea.

Simon of Peraea caused considerable trouble, burning and plundering palaces, before being hunted down and having his head lopped off by the commander of Herod's infantry. I know of no suggestion that he might have returned to life three days later, or that anyone might have considered him to be more than just an ex-slave who got ideas above his station and became a temporarily-successful plunderer. To say that the tablet might refer to him seems to be "reaching". posted 07/07/2008 at 20:41:40

Perhaps. There are cycles to this sort of thing. Many a country was "converted" because the king converted, and the people had little say in the matter. But the early Church was an extremely dangerous thing to belong to. People didn't join it without lots of careful thought, because joining it was the kind of thing that could get them killed. If people wanted to bleat unthinkingly, it made more sense to bleat for paganism. posted 07/07/2008 at 18:01:42

If you think some unnamed 1st century BC writer was definitely going to get the name right, of someone yet to be born, then you're a truer believer than the truest of true believers. Even Isaiah said "and he shall be called Emanuel, a name which means 'God is with us'". Not one of the passages cited as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus mentions him correctly by name. That would be too easy, like the prophets supposedly encoding references to 20th century events into the bible numerically, presumably because they had nothing better to do.

The stone is said to refer to a 'prince of princes' slain by the evil government. There is a *suggestion* by Israel Knohl that this refers to the death a Jewish prince called Simon who led a revolt against Herod. Presumably Mr. Knohl suggests this because it's impossible for a prophecy to predate the events it prophecies. Or maybe Simon came to life after three days, as the stone said he would. That would certainly be an unusual enough event to narrow down the list of persons possibly being referring to.

The stone is faded and uses obscure archaic language, so its' exact meaning is open to question. For years it wasn't considered to be a messianic text at all, still less one that referred to a specific messiah called Simon. But if it did turn out to be about Simon, that wouldn't undermine Christianity even slightly. How could it? posted 07/07/2008 at 17:47:12

The claim that Jesus wasn't the Messiah the Jews were expecting is based squarely on the notion that they *weren't* expecting their Messiah to have to die and come back to life. That they were expecting his career to be one of pure triumph. That the "suffering servant" in Isaiah, and similar passages, were not widely considered to be descriptions and prophecies of the Messiah, except after the event of Jesus' death. In short, that there was nothing at all even slightly resembling the group that must have been responsible for the stone tablet described in this article.

It is this prong of the Anti-Christian attack which is utterly destroyed by the stone, assuming it to be a genuine article. But that doesn't matter to the anti-Christians, for whom logic is never a strong suit. As long as they proclaim loudly and repeatedly that Christianity is undermined, millions of unthinking voices will bleat in agreement, and treat the strongest supporting evidence for Christianity as if it is a disproof. posted 07/07/2008 at 17:18:58

"some Jewish sects before Christ believed a messiah would save them - but not before he was killed and brought back to life after three days."

- and isn't that exactly what the New Testament, and Matthew in particular, says over and over? After practically every major event, including Christ's death and resurrection: "All this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord declared through the prophet" ... "for this is what the prophet wrote" .... "This was to fulfill the words spoken through the prophets" and so on, with appropriate quotations to show exactly how each Old Testament Messianic prophecy had been fulfilled. The implication is that the Gospel narrative had already effectively been disseminated in all its details, and widely believed, long before Jesus appeared.

Now if this stone had said of the messiah that *she* would be raised after *six* days, say, or that *she* wouldn't be raised but would only pretend to be, that would be different. But what Christian, of any denomination, doesn't believe that there were pre-Christian Jewish sects which expected in a messiah, and which expected him to die and be raised again in three days? How is detailed independent corroboration supposed to undermine this belief? How does detailed corroboration undermine anything? posted 07/07/2008 at 12:59:47

"Historical homeland"? According to the Bible, Abraham, the "father of the Jews", was from Mesopotamia. His descendants were slaves in Egypt for centuries. Moses, who led the Israelites out of Egypt, wandered around in the desert, in places like Sinai, for forty years, and never saw the "promised land".

True, his descendants soon extirpated the natives of the region around Jerusalem, and established a kingdom there. But it was never very extensive. Coastal regions like Gaza still belonged to the Philistines. And then the Israelites were conquered and exiled. Most disappeared from the records. Only the tribe of Judah continued to be known, and they were exiled to Babylon (Mesopotamia). Full circle, so to speak. Shortly after the Babylonian Jews returned from exile they were conquered again, by Greeks and Romans, and mostly scattered all over the known world. Those who remained mostly became Christian or, later, Muslim.

So what makes this land, which Jews have occupied for so little of their history, their "homeland"? The notion that it was given to them by God. Nothing else. Most of the Jews converging on this homeland are Caucasians, unrelated to anyone from this "homeland", but they consider themselves to be Jews because their ancestors were converted in the 10th century or later, even though they themselves do not necessarily profess any religious belief. They still believe in a "promised land" because it's supposedly advantageous to do so. posted 07/09/2008 at 08:15:51

The "Holocaust Denial Convention" Was actually called the "International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust". It was described by the Iranian foreign minister as seeking "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust ... [but] to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue".

There were various Jewish attendees, and if you google you'll find images of Ahnedinajad warmly greeting some obviously very Hasidic Jewish Neturai Karta members. Not the sort of image usually associated with rank anti semitism.

By contrast, Israel is a typical Caucasian incursion into and displacement of Semitic people (arabs) in the Middle East, firmly in the tradition of the crusades. Israel, and the zionism that supports it, has almost succeeded in destroying what remained of Judaism after WW2, while simultaneously keeping the entire middle East in a state of turmoil. In the 1950s there were many Jews in countries such as Iraq, where they'd been for millennia. Zionists forced them to relocate to Israel, to suport the failing state there. This has been an unmitigated disaster, both for Jews everywhere and for the arabs displaced by the failing state, and for the entire Middle East. And yet, to criticise Israel or Zionism is to be labelled an anti-semite.

The cartoon contest was organised by an Iranian newspaper, in response to what were seen as blasphemous cartoons about Mohammed in western newspapers. Nothing to do with Ahmadinejad, and only marginally to do with Israel. posted 07/08/2008 at 13:31:36

Whereas we all know, of course, that a "failed plan" that "created only violence and atrocities" should *never* be cancelled. Have I got it right? posted 07/08/2008 at 12:46:14

Iran is "constantly threating to destroy Israel" only in the fevered imaginations of those batshit 101's who are desperate to see the US initiate yet another war of aggression and annexation in the middle east.

In 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, quoting the late Ayatollah Khomeini, said: "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel

This was mistranslated as "Israel must be wiped off the map", and soon every hawk was in a frenzy, copying and pasting the mistranslation while omitting to mention that it was a) a mistranslation and b) a quotation from a long-ago speech by a dead ayatollah.

On the basis of this one false quote, soon hundreds of congressmen and other major politicians were queuing up to denounce this "call for genocide". In doing so they ratcheted up their own war rhetoric by several orders of magnitude. The lust for death and destruction is tangible and frightening - but it isn't coming from Iran. posted 07/06/2008 at 06:33:23

It's a ruse, a trap. After all Americans have come together and shouted spontaneously in unison "we agree with you, Rush! Now retire! do it now!" he'll smile and say "just kidding". Don't do it, Americans. posted 07/04/2008 at 06:06:15

Er, you have a copyright infringement if you have a copyright, and it's infringed. You have a copyright if you have authorship. That's the only requirement. You don't actually have to write copyright (c) blablabla on every page. And Laurie Kilmartin can clearly demonstrate authorship because that's her, and very obviously her, sat in front of the camera with her son. It could be argued that she's transferred the copyright to Comedy News Ventures, because it says at the foot of every 236.com page I've looked at recently "© 2007-2008 Comedy News Ventures, Inc". In that case it would be up to Comedy News Ventures to pursue the lawsuit, but whoever it is that eventually pursues the case it would seem to be an open-and-shut one. posted 07/05/2008 at 15:46:28

Jason357: To reproduce someone's copyrighted work without authorization is copyright infringement (unless it comes under the heading of "fair use"). To do the same without even giving an attribution is at the very least verging on plagiarism, since it creates the impression that the copyist is in fact the author. But to do the same thing again **while claiming to have created the work in question** is the very definition of plagiarism, as given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry that you link to. There can hardly be a more open-and-shut case. If this isn't plagiarism then there is no such thing as plagiarism, and the word itself is meaningless and redundant. posted 07/03/2008 at 13:16:50

Maybe Kerry wasn't that strong a candidate. However, I believe that this fact was established more in the post-mortems than in the runup to the election. During the runup, he was a strong candidate, and his position wasn't eroded by party in-fighting the way Obama's has been. The points against him were actually non-issues. He was "French" (which he wasn't). His war record was "questionable" (which it wasn't, unlike McCain's). Why, the only worse imaginable grounds for dismissal of an otherwise strong candidate would be if he shouted "yee-ha!" in a moment of excitement. Furthermore, Kerry didn't even need to be strong. As I said: a dog, put up against Bush, should have won.

The biggest factor against Obama is not race but the gaffe factor. McCain commits more gaffes, but they don't matter because they go unreported. Remember how Obama proclaimed Jerusalem unequivocally to be the capital of Israel - a claim which is the biggest bone of contention in the Middle East? How he promised to ban all imports of Chinese toys, then hastily had to bactrack? etc., etc? posted 07/02/2008 at 07:01:41

Just one question: In what way is this different from the absolutely guaranteed slam-dunk crushing victory of John Kerry over George W Bush in 2004?

"The most despised president in 150 years was nearing the end of his two corruption-ridden terms," - and his corruption was just as evident then, and fresher in the mind. A dog, put up against him, should have won by an enormous margin simply because it was not him. Today we have John McCain who, no matter how often or how effusively he is endorsed by Bush, isn't actually Bush. That one fact alone should give him a massive advantage over the W of 2004. Meanwhile, the Democratic party is emerging from one of the most bruising internal battles in its history. Or is it? Is it emerging, or is it sinking? Have the Clintonites who said they could neversupport Obama ceased to exist? And the press has hardly gotten started. By the time they're finished even you will be at least half-convinced that Obama is a muslim, and McCain single-handedly won the Vietnam war and engineered our tremendous victory in Iraq. posted 07/02/2008 at 00:17:08

The headline has apparently been modified since you wrote that, but "all your base are belong to us" is a phrase from the famously bad English translation of the Japanese computer game "Zero Wing". posted 07/01/2008 at 23:52:33

'Without a definition of "God" or "atheism," who really knows the state of unbelief that an atheist feels?'

But we do have definitions, and the definition of "atheist" at least is particularly simple: one who does not believe in any god or gods. However one defines a "god", that would seem to preclude the existence of atheists who believe in one. Presumably, then, the 21% of atheists who 'believe in God or a universal spirit' actually believe in a "universal spirit", which they somehow conceive as being different from a god.

Meanwhile, though, with 10% of them praying once a week, they seem to be a more religious and, yes, a more godly bunch than the Catholics surveyed. Theee in ten Catholics describing God as "an impersonal force"?!

Are you sure the Pew poll people didn't just accidentally transpose two columns, reporting the atheist views in the Catholic column and vice-versa? posted 07/02/2008 at 23:53:23

"There is not a single argument here that would be new."

If you want a new argument, why not try asking for one? Ask and you shall receive.

"Nobody has even tried to inform themselves about the facts of science" .. and you know this how?

The basic premise of the article here is that we shouldn't postulate an intelligent designer because the basic design of lifeforms, ourselves included, is demonstrably unintelligent. As "proof" we are given supposedly better alternatives, eg. four spinal columns instead of just one. But these alternatives are for the most part so ludicrous that they demonstrate only a lack of intelligence on the part of their (human) designer. As such, they serve only to demonstrate the superiority of natural designs over designs which are unquestionably the work of a human (and supposedly intelligent) designer.

The only alternative designs which have some merit are those which take their inspiration from nature, e.g. the claim that the human retina is back to front, based on comparison with the retina of a squid; but while the retina of a squid is undoubtedly the right way round (for a squid), the same design would not work for most vertebrates, which need eyes which can rotate rapidly in their sockets.

If I raise points like this repeatedly, it's because no so-called scientist has addressed them, nor will they, ever. Addressing them would require thinking outside the box. posted 07/03/2008 at 17:49:47

Intelligent design isn't science .... but this is?? Imagine the box-like rigidity of a torso with four slender columns rather than one thick but flexible central column. Imagine how easy it would be to take out one column with just a light blow, and how lopsided the resulting configuration would be. As for eyes ... squid have their retinas the supposed "right" way around, and as a result their optic nerves are so thick that they can hardly turn their eyeballs at all. Great for visual acuity, great for communication, which is what they use their eyes for so it's clearly the right solution for them, but they'll never swing through the trees.

As for human intelligence being sub-optimal, this is clearly true, but nothing exemplifies it better than the woefully sub-optimal "intelligent" alternative designs for living creatures that humans regularly come up with. posted 07/01/2008 at 05:40:30

The original story was correct, Huffpo ran with it, and were right to do so. Huffpo actually has a good record with stories, but they occasionally crash and burn spectacularly when it comes to headlines, as they have done on this occasion. When a tribe hasn't been known about since 1910, and nobody has known for certain whether they still exist or not since that date, isn't it appropriate to call them uncontacted? There isn't a person alive today who has contacted the tribe. Nobody who knows anything about them other than the fact that they exist, and prior to the taking of the aerial photograph even that was in doubt. Probably little more than that was known about them even in 1910. If no-one had contacted you since 1910, wouldn't it be appropriate to call you uncontacted? Wouldn't you feel at least a little bit uncontacted?

The photo was taken in good faith, and the reports initially distributed with it were true. There was no hoax. There is no hoax. A hoax would be if those tribesmen were caucasians painted up and pretending to be tribesmen, If only it were possible to get people to read beyond the headline and ascertain the facts, they would know that there is no hoax here. But recent years have shown this to be an impossible dream. So, if Huffpo must have irresponsible headlines, it should at least ensure that they're directed at deserving targets. What have those tribesmen done to us? posted 06/23/2008 at 18:33:35

Because it was known in 1910 that there were people in the area- the tribe isn't "lost"? If your exact location was unknown since 1910, and nobody knew if you were still alive or not since then, would you not be "lost"? Even now, nobody outside these tribes can say what their language is, or how they live their lives. Since previous overflights showed only empty huts, nobody could say for certain even that there was anybody still there.

Yet it is true that they aren't lost. They know where they are, even if they don't know our name for the place, or that it is part of a continent located on a globe, or even that we exist except as giant buzzing birds. It's us that are lost. They may make war on neighboring tribes, we don't know about that, but they don't destroy entire civilizations and ways of life to get hold of a few logs, or of some flammable liquid that comes from under the ground. We do. Whenever it looks like we can't get any more lost, we surpass ourselves. Now we'll happily allow the habitat of these people to be destroyed because it was, after all, just a hoax. posted 06/23/2008 at 11:39:47

People look back on the 60's and 70's as a sort of golden age, because back then we could send people to the moon. But could we do it with sartorial elegance? NO! This time the world is going to see a moon expedition done properly, the way it should be done. posted 06/17/2008 at 19:01:30

How DARE they?? Everyone knows that chimpy is the only monkey ever to run for president.

From thesockobama.com website:

"AN APOLOGY
We are very apologetic to all who were upset by our toy idea.
We will not be proceeding with the manufacturing of this toy.
Thank you.
GD"

Nothing to see here folks, move along now. posted 06/16/2008 at 03:10:11

Yes. That first sentence is pretty strange: "Japan, a country not known for its overweight people..."?? posted 06/16/2008 at 02:55:18

One day, probably in less than forty years, all personal home computers will be this powerful. However, we won't get to see them in operation in our lifetime. By extrapolating current trends in boot-up times we can determine that about eighty years will elapse from initial switch-on to Windows being loaded and ready for action. posted 06/09/2008 at 19:17:55

Putting women's panties on prisoners' heads is not torture, but it is throughly demeaning and degrading - for everybody in the Western world.

"I, in no way, will ever apologize that someone put panties on the head of this 9/11 terrorist and treated him without respect .. That man should have no respect." - That's how to miss the point.

To a world that hates us for our degradation, hatefulness and stupidity - NOT for our freedoms - such episodes demonstrate that the people imposing the panties are the ones who have no respect either for themselves or for any others, and who are themselves therefore utterly undeserving of any respect. Such episodes tell us NOTHING about the detainees. We don't know whether they committed any crimes or not, and in any case the use of panties doesn't affect their criminal nature or lack thereof in any way. However, these episodes tell us almost everything that needs to be known about the interrogators. I say "almost" because we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that far worse things have been done. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, some horrific videos became public, but far worse was withheld. Reportedly, things like people having their heads bashed against a wall untill their skulls cracked open. You know - stuff that almost goes beyond the acceptable limits of pranks and hazings. posted 06/06/2008 at 15:21:38

Is this Jonah's "April Fool's" article? No Brit would ever associate the name "Mosley" with communism, and few would link their relatives the Mitfords with anything like that either. Oswald Mosley was, as you indicate, an extreme Nazi. As for the Mitfords, Diana, who married Oswald, was imprisoned during WW2 for her fascist beliefs, which she never renounced even though she lived till 2003. Unity Valkyrie Mitford was famous for her adulation of and friendship with Adolf Hitler. Their father was a traditional conservative - not fascist, but hardly a liberal and definitely opposed to communism, and their mother strongly supported her fascist daughters ... only Jessica became a communist, and because she spent most of her life in the US most Britons know nothing about her, and it's doubtful that she had much contact with or influence on the rest of her family. posted 04/01/2008 at 14:56:06

"The military is a weapon, just like a gun. It's the man who pulls that trigger that is at fault".

Interesting analogy. Do you think that none of the troops have ever pulled a trigger?

The "doing what they were trained to do" excuse generally didn't work at Nuremberg. The only safety, both for those troops who have overstepped the mark and those who sent them in, is to never get defeated, ever. That might seem like an easy challenge at the moment, but history is littered with the wreckage of empires that all thought they would last forever. posted 03/27/2008 at 18:55:46

Who is smearing them? Federal prosecutors, that's who. The congressmen did find out who was paying for the trip. It was paid for by a charity called "Life for Relief and Development". Also, you say that you are talking about the 600,000 documents that just came out, but you are the only one doing so. "It show a direct connection". Says who? There's certainly nothing about 600,000 documents in the article above. Al-Hanooti said he couldn't discuss the specifics of the case since he had seen none of the evidence against him. No-one is giving any hints about what the evidence might be, though it seems to be a safe guess that it's the same "evidence" that was brought up against George Galloway. Do you know something that the rest of us don't? posted 03/27/2008 at 09:38:10

It'll be a fun experience, but it isn't space tourism. There's a reason why SpaceShipOne had to top 62 miles to be counted as a spaceship. It's generally accepted that space begins 100km (62.1 miles) up, because it's theoretically possible to reach lower heights using just conventional aeronautics. Also, NASA doesn't count people as astronauts unless they've been more than 50 miles (80km) up, so participants in this a) won't have been into space, and b) won't be astronauts and c) won't even get to float weightlessly. It's just a rocket-assisted plane ride that gives you a view from slightly higher up than the average plane ride.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line posted 03/27/2008 at 07:30:27

Wright isn't exaggerating what occurred. He's downplaying it, letting the miscreants off the hook. Instead of bringing up the truly horrific crime which happened, he cites a lesser offence which did not. This muddying of the water is a mistake, but is the opposite of what Wright's accused of.

Think about it. "Federal researchers refused to treat a group of black men who already had syphilis, LONG AFTER A CURE HAD BEEN FOUND" (my emphasis). If those men HAD been deliberately infected, that would be a vile assault, but a relatively minor one. The victims could have been treated, and would eventually have emerged relatively unscathed, instead of dying horribly.

Some excuse this as "only" a failure to act. But the researchers weren't just doing nothing. They provided pills which they knew had no effect. They recorded progress, plotted charts, produced reports, and generally pretended to be doctors. This required rather more effort than just telling the victims the truth would have. How is that a crime of omission? Victims might have sought timely treatment if they hadn't thought they were already receiving it. They were actively dissuaded from getting help.

Furthermore, this had to be premeditated. It takes a special kind of viciousness to face someone you know is dying, who you could save simply by telling them the truth about their condition, and instead going through an elaborate charade resulting in their death. For it to happen year after year ... How can anyone not be angry about posted 03/26/2008 at 10:18:14