You forgot enslaved. Islam has no problems with slaves...or women for that matter, they are merely the possession of the Muslim man. It isn't clear Judism or Christianity did either, but they were reformed. Islam is unreformable lest the ones using it for subjugation have no salve for their conscience.

So, Muslims are trying to do to Europe what the Chinese are doing to Xinxiang.

Can't. In Islam, Allah is so other that he never communicates directly with men (women have no souls so good Muslims need not worry about them except as chattel). Of course, you may have noticed that Islam has an escape clause (ain't it always the way), Allah can communicate to an angel who can then go ahead and communicate with men. Typically, this happens in their dreams, it provides a certain amount of deniability should anyone get the instructions wrong. So it wouldn't necessarily be Allah screwing up, it would necessarily be men.

Oh, and there's no use looking for a modern prophet to shoot in Allah's stead. Mohammed had a galaxy size ego and declared he would be the Last Prophet. If that doesn't smell scam, nothing does.

Also of curious note, Mohammed used to cadge his nickels by knocking over camel trains. Then in his late 30's, he hears voices and goes off into the mountains to hear them better. Late stage schizophrenia, classic case. Many schizophrenics come over as all religious, Mohammed was no different. Back then, schizophrenia was not recognized as being mentally ill, instead if you heard voices, it clearly must have been some diety or angel. So Mohammed took Judism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, etc., the extant religions of the time, put them in a blender, and comes out with Islam, of which he's the only prophet, the Last Prophet...scam, scam, scam.

I don't think so. I rather think the purpose was to strike fear in (1) Europeans who might value their freedom of expression to pillory Mohammed, and (2) fellow Muslims who might have some ideas about reforming Islam. The latter really scares the Muslim nutjobs...hell, it scares the Muslim clergy, Muslim rulers, just about anyone who has been using Islam to keep political control. In that sense, Islam has nothing to do with religion, it is merely a wreath of fig leaves to cover the sins of the powerful and those who wish to become powerful. Mohammed was no better and his spawn, Islam, shows just how corrupt the entire endeavor actually is.

I think we need to look for the obvious. Any life form that eats gets gas. So all we need look for are giant gas plumes in the Universe. I see we have several candidates so the problem is essentially solved and we can get back to doing real science.

Why in Kentucky, we have a museum showing humans riding dinosaurs. Naturally, dinosaurs would not take kindly to being ridden, so that probably is unrealistic. What would be realistic is to see a caveman lighting a match at the wrong time.

Well, in my mind, Jesus will return some day. There will be rolling peals of thunder, clouds will part, the trumpets will blare, and He will majestically float to Earth. He'll be meeting and greeting..."Hi ya, how ya doing?" After a few hours of this, He looks at his watch, and says that time is awasting. The peals of thunder start again, the trumpets blare, He majestically floats upward, the clouds close in. And His promise of return has been fulfilled. He's a busy guy.

While I don't agree with the WSJ editorial, it was just that, an editorial. They have a right to their own spin on their editorial page. If that means they come across as narrow-minded squits with a scientific IQ of 0, well, so be it.

Isn't this how upper level managers are created? A corporate officer has vacuum for a brain and sees something whizzy on his computer screen. The whizzy thing is a neutrino, normally it is innocuous and rarely interacts with anything. However, in special circumstance the corporate officer accepts the neutrino and a new upper level manager is born.

While I agree with the sentiment, the Tea Party will whine and complain it is government pushing around the private sector, and then the effected companies will lobby their favorite Tea Party members for special exemptions. The cry will be that it should be the industry response to competitive conditions that produces security, blah, burble, furble, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I put security in the same bag as clean air and water. It requires a government mandate and constant vigilance. Companies are still trying to get Congress to allow them to pollute to their little black hearts' content all the name of "jobs" or whatever gas Limbaugh is passing this week.
 

Nah, OOP is fine in the right places, the crystal healing therapy is agile programming.

"the right to bear arms was pretty clearly a protection of the people's ability to effectively rebel against a lawful but non-representative government."

Not really, it was said in reference to a well-regulated militia. The Point was that the founders knew very well the problems a small determined group could cause.

Anyhow, the 2 year old in Idaho who managed to shoot his mother with her own weapon had a right bear arms too, the Constitution made no mention of age.

You haven't been listening to Nork propaganda, they treat Kimmy as a god-king. The indoctrination is indistinguishable from religious indoctrination.

That said, the highly well-adusted Norks might still do something incredibly stupid believing their own press releases. They could easily believe the U.S. and the Sorks won't do to them what they did to the U.S. and/or the Sorks. There's no fixing stupid.

You mean non-mathematical truths. And you have an archaic notion of definition. When Hilbert constructed modern geometry as an axiomatic system, Frege blew a gasket and claimed he had no definitions to base it upon. Hilbert replied (more or less in his best Popeye imitation replacing the first person with the third, but still using Popeye's voice), it is what it is. And the best we can hope for is consistency, the axioms hold of all which falls under them, it's your job to figure out what does and doesn't fall under them. Frege pulled out the last of his hair because he hated being humiliated with a Popeye voice and went to Freud seeking relief, whereupon Freud said that sometimes an axiomatic system is just an axiomatic system.

Okay, I made that last bit up (except for the Popeye voice), but you should get out the 19th century more often.

There's an easy answer to that book: the author was an alien and sent here just to gin up that sort of misinformation. Let's hear what that expert of all things alien has to say about it:

Interviewer: So, Giorgio, what do you have to say about these stories that the aliens landed in N. Mexico at Roswell?

Giorgio A. Tsoukalos: Well, the aliens are known sneaks and liars, I wouldn't put it past them to plant these stories and then claim the aliens did it.

Interviewer: But....but if the aliens planted the stories, then the aliens are here among us, yes?

Giorgio: Don't be so sure, they could be only acting like they are here among us to fool us into accepting their kind.

Interviewer: Ummm....you mean cats are involved?

Giorgio: You didn't hear this from me, but have you ever met a cat who wasn't from an alien world? The feigned inability to open food cans so we'll do it for them, the total disregard for clear directions we give them, letting mice loose in the house so we'll think cats are worthwhile for us to provide a warm house and sanitary needs? C'mon, we're enslaved and they didn't have to fire a shot.

Interviewer: I can SEE the Light!!!

Giorgio: Thank you, thank you, my hair glows in the dark.

Thank you for that commercial. Where else do you advertize, I cannot get enough of this.