Iran cash might fund Ground Zero mosque
The developers of the Ground Zero mosque are refusing to flat out reject cash for the project from Holocaust-denying Iranian nuke nut Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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Tag Archives: religion
Medieval Spain: Myth and Reality
On the current Blackberry controversy….
Gulf states order Blackberry users to cover their phones in a tiny burqa
Some businessmen believe that making their phone wear a burqa can be very liberating. “It’s great,” said one, “with the veil in place I am free to walk about with my Blackberry in public without the feeling that people are staring lustily at my multi-media application. It also covers my shame for not owning an iPhone.”
The Saudi government have promised that anyone who refuses to dress their Blackberry in a burqa will face harsh punishment. “I am not saying exactly what we will do,” said their Minister for Justice, “but suffice to say that it isn’t so easy to text with your toes.”
Via BoingBoing
The Ancient Hebrew View of the Universe
A scientific diagram of the ancient Hebrew cosmos, with a larger picture here, and a cautionary note:
The Bible is not a book of science. It was written in a pre-scientific era and its main purpose was to communicate moral and spiritual lessons. The Children of Israel had no advantage over their neighbors when it came to matters of science. In fact, this erroneous concept of the cosmos was quite common for that era. The Hebrews were inspired by nothing more than their political and religious motivations.
IIRC, this view came from Babylonia, and hence ultimately from the Sumerians.
Via the Episcopal Cafe.
Now I need to listen to Bill Cosby’s routine about Noah and the Ark again ;-)>
We won’t see this on Mythbusters
The return of Mayan-style human sacrifice
…some of the best historical stories hide behind the most oblique academic titles. Take, for example, Vera Tiesler and Andrea Cucina, ‘Procedures in Human Heart Extraction and Ritual Meaning: A Taphonomic Assessment of Anthropogenic Marks in Classic Maya Skeletons’ (Latin American Antiquity 17 2006).
Briefly, then, members of the staff of the Medical Forensic Service in Mérida (Mexico) took three corpses. The staff pinioned the corpses out on the table in the style of illustrations of Mayan sacrifices (‘overextended position’). They then proceeded to remove the heart from the three corpses, following a different technique on each body, employing Mayan cutting instruments (‘bifacial obsidian knives’) instead of scalpels. They also removed the liver and other organs. All this was done to see whether marks were left on the skeleton.
“O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz….”
Or perhaps a Jaguar….
Seen on my lunch hour walk in downtown Minneapolis.
Saudi woman beats up virtue cop
Question of the Day
From my sister:
Can you still call them “Pigs in Blankets” if you are using kosher hot dogs?
A River in Egypt
The future of the Catholic Chuch
The abuse scandals won’t kill the Catholic Church—but it will make it look a whole lot different.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 
