I know there's a hate crime here somewhere.

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, "The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals, some of whom lived a century or two apart.

It has long been known that variant copies of the Koran exist, including some found in 1972 in a paper grave at Sa'na in Yemen, the subject of a cover story in the January 1999 Atlantic Monthly. Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

Who shut down the archives and "occulted" the photographs of early variant Korans? Why, the Nazis, of course:

...

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. The most recent of many books on this subject, Matthias Kuntzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred, was reviewed January 13 in the New York Times by Jeffrey Goldberg, who reports

Kuntzel makes a bold and consequential argument: the dissemination of European models of anti-Semitism among Muslims was not haphazard, but an actual project of the Nazi Party, meant to turn Muslims against Jews and Zionism. He says that in the years before World War II, two Muslim leaders in particular willingly and knowingly carried Nazi ideology directly to the Muslim masses. They were Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, and the Egyptian proto-Islamist Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But hopefully those fragments will soon be viewed by historians:

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.

Nice work, Jews. First the Ron Paul newsletters, and now this.

No wonder you guys control the world.

But Can Islam Withstand Britney? Surely this must be a religion's greatest test.

Thanks to JackM.

Posted by: Ace at 06:16 PM | Comments (31)
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Here's message to us, living today, before the coming of the Dark Times:

Here's his message to the "chemically lobotomized" slaves of the "psychopathic technomancy" that has killed 80% of the world's population and herded the rest into prison cities:

Have I mentioned Ron Paul's been on this maniac's show six bazillion times? Or that Ron Paul actively courts this sort of psychopath as supporters?

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 05:46 PM | Comments (85)
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Yesterday the NY Times ran a major front page story that catalogued 121 homicides attributed to Iraq and Afghanistan vets after returning home. In a long story (9 pages on the web), the Times paints a vivid picture of violence prone vets spreading death and mayhem around the country.

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

Naturally several bloggers didnÂ’t think this story passed the smell test.

John at Powerline found the odor a bit off putting and takes the Times to task for shoddy reporting:

Now put yourself in the place of a newspaper editor. Suppose you are asked to evaluate whether your paper should run a long article on a nationwide epidemic of murders committed by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan--a crime wave that, your reporter suggests, constitutes a "cross-country trail of death and heartbreak." Suppose that the reporter who proposes to write the article says it will be a searing indictment of the U.S. military's inadequate attention to post-traumatic stress disorder. Suppose further that you are not a complete idiot.

Given that last assumption, I'm pretty sure your first question will be: "How does the murder rate among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan compare to the murder rate for young American men generally?" Remarkably, this is a question the New York Times did not think to ask. Or, if the Times asked the question and figured out the answer, the paper preferred not to report it.

He actually did the math and found that according to the TimesÂ’ own numbers, the homicide rate among servicemen is lower than the rest of the population. Substantially lower.

According to the paper 9 people worked on this story, yet none of them bothered to do this elemental bit of reporting? How could that happen?

Also at Powerline, check out this Letter to the Editor of the Times outlining the real world damage this type of crap can do to a whole generation of vets.

Much like The New Republic, The Times is hell-bent on smearing the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They did it after Vietnam and they are trying to do it again. Fortunately this time there are ways to get the truth out early and often before the approved leftist storyline becomes accepted history.

Posted by: DrewM. at 05:45 PM | Comments (130)
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From a couple of RPI profs:

...When stars are born, they often emit jets of matter moving at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. The impact of these jets onto surrounding material creates an extreme and sudden disturbance. This material does not have time to react to the sudden pile-up of energy and mass. Shock waves lash out into the surrounding plasma to expel the sudden force. These shock waves spread material through space, potentially “seeding” new solar systems with chemicals that may be important for life.

“Now that we understand how fast and far these waves move in space, we can begin to understand how chemicals, including chemicals necessary for life, can be formed by shock waves and spread around the universe to form new stars, planets, and life,” Roberge said.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:43 PM | Comments (20)
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At 8. I know almost no one watches this show and yeah, it jumped the shark long ago, but if you're one of the eight people still watching it the second half of the season starts tonight.

Posted by: Ace at 04:54 PM | Comments (31)
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There's no percentage in it, I guess.

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (62)
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Senator John Kerry blamed the efficient violence of US "militants" on their youth and lack of education and job opportunities.

The U.S. military said on Monday it had killed 60 militants during a week-long offensive in northern Iraq against al Qaeda which has proved a resilient foe and has resisted previous attempts to drive it from the region.

...

The military said in a statement that U.S. and Iraqi forces had killed 60 militants, detained 193 and found 79 weapons caches containing thousands of rounds of ammunition, explosives and home-made bombs during the offensive in northern Iraq.

Troops had found one cache in an underground bunker complex with several rooms during operations in Diyala, a volatile, religiously mixed province north of Baghdad.

But the fighting has not been one-sided. Police said seven policemen were killed when the house they were searching blew up in the town of Buhriz just south of Baquba, Diyala's capital.

Six U.S. soldiers were killed in Diyala last week when a house booby-trapped with explosives collapsed on top of them. It was the single greatest loss of life by U.S. troops so far during the operation.

A similar offensive targeting al Qaeda in Diyala last summer failed to drive out the Sunni Islamist group because many militants escaped before the well-flagged operation.

A series of U.S. and Iraqi operations against al Qaeda in the second half of 2007 largely drove the group from the capital and western Anbar province, and they are now regrouping in the north, U.S. officials say.

Posted by: Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (23)
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Joe Biden sends him a congratulatory magnum bottle of cherry slushee.

Posted by: Ace at 02:17 PM | Comments (19)
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*Well sorta. He is actually in fourth but well with in the margin of error.

Fred's tank is up above 950k.

HT: Allah

Update: The Jawas have graph that looks pretty Fredalicious.

That's One Way To Put It... [Ace]: And at Fred '08, they are putting it that way. It is true enough; he's at 16% and rising and Huck and Rudy are only slightly ahead.

But his friend John McCain is at 28%. It's not like there's not a lot of polite but firm disagreement he can offer to contrast himself with Senator McAmnesty. The latest "Straight Talk" on taxes would make for a good ad.

But he's not doing it, or at least not making any sort of comparisons with John McCain that would actually hurt John McCain.

Thompson's gotten most of the soft Huckabee supporters he can get. (His gains are Huck's losses in the latest poll.) So attacking Huckabee is now on the bad side of diminishing returns.

On the other hand, there's McCain's 28% and all those supporters who are willing to throw in with him, but not particularly eager to do so.

McCain's newfound support is very shaky, very contingent, and very soft. I'm kinda-sorta in that camp. I'm coming around to the idea of a McCain candidacy and selling myself on the positives. But I'm still looking for a good alternative. Is Fred going to man up and whack McCain and take his voters?

Or is he just fucking around?

Posted by: Open Blog at 02:15 PM | Comments (56)
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OLD! Scroll down to see Liberrocky and Ace discuss the new numbers.

Update: The new numbers for South Carolina are out. McCain is nine points out in front of Huckabee, who seems to be losing ground to Thompson. Unfortunately for the Fredheads, Thompson does not appear to be gaining ground quick enough.

John McCain 28%
Mike Huckabee 19%
Mitt Romney 17%
Fred Thompson 16%
Rudy Giuliani 5%
Ron Paul 5%

Thompson has been directly challenging Huckabee on the campaign trail and hoping to gain some traction that will keep his campaign afloat. Earlier this year, Thompson had hoped to exploit dissatisfaction with the rest of the field and emerge as the choice for conservatives. When his campaign failed to take off, Huckabee saw the same opening and capitalized on it in a way Thompson did not. As recently as November, Thompson was tied for the lead in South Carolina.

The race remains very fluid with 8% of voters undecided and 11% saying thereÂ’s a good chance they could change their mind.

Original Post:
/C3PO whine.

Republicans will vote in Michigan on Tuesday and Nevada and South Carolina on Saturday. I'm already mad at voters in both states, and I don't even know why.

According to the latest polls, Romney and McCain are within the margin in Michigan, but there's no telling how crossover Democrats will affect the outcome. I think Romney is in make-or-break territory this week, no matter how much money his campaign has left (which may not be much after all). As voters settle in on the big winners, he will only see his numbers sink farther. I suspect his campaign knows it, too. By pulling their ads in South Carolina and Florida, they've put all their eggs in one high-risk basket.

South Carolina is a bit of a mystery at the moment. The last reputable poll there was conducted on Wednesday, which means we still haven't seen how things shook out after the debate in which Fred Thompson woke up. Both Huckabee and Paul took marvelous beatings led by Thompson, which Romney and McCain joined, and that's bound to show up in the polls which were conducted over the weekend. At last report, Huckabee and McCain were vying for the top spot, and you know which one of those devils I dislike more.

One thing to consider: I'm tired of the primaries, but you can bet that the candidates are ready to fall down and sleep for a month.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:04 PM | Comments (25)
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