The Great Wall of Solomon

Remember from an earlier post that biblical verses were discovered on tenth century pottery, casting sharp doubt on the documentary hypothesis? Well this just in from AP, a section of wall was found running 70 meters just outside of Jerusalem's Old City along with a gate house. Dating from the tenth century as well, providing good evidence that there existed a strong, centralized government in Jerusalem at the time capable of such monumental construction. There are some nay-sayers who say this is no evidence at all, mostly because they either don't want the Bible to be true or because they don't want the Jewish presence in the holy land to be true to perpetuate the myth of a single ethnic group known as the Palestinians who lived in the area always. Both sides present their case in the AP article, which is very short and does not use any big words like hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Is this a remnant of the city built by Solomon? I'm excited to find out.



-Dee

War and Religion

I was asked to comment on the notion that war causes religion. Such a task is too great for any ordinary mortal and possibly even Evel Knievel, and so I decided to look at the first crusade and the war on terror, thinking that if I could show they were not caused by religion than the strongest case for the argument that religion causes war would be defeated. Here is ten minutes of musings on the relation of religion and warfare (cut down from twenty minutes).



-Dee

The Mullet Militia

I should use this as my profile picture because this guy looks sexier than I do.

The Revenge of The Return of ¡Climategate!

A story over the weekend yields shocking news! (note: the first link is to a summary, the second is the full story)



"Phil Jones, former head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, made a number of eye-popping statements to the BBC's climate reporter on Sunday."



"The embattled ex-head of the research center at the heart of the Climate-gate scandal dropped a bombshell over the weekend, admitting in an interview with the BBC that there has been no global warming over the past 15 years."



Jones has stepped down as head of the Climate "Research" Unit. Despite admitting that all the data were faked, that they only took tree rings from ONE tree and that no warming has taken place in over a decade, Jones is still confident that the world is warming and that it's our (YOUR) fault, damn it! He is so invested in this global warming hoax that he's even fooled himself into believing it, or at least he is a convincing liar and only wants to keep us fooled to keep him funded.



-Dee

Urban Mysteries

On my day out today I came across the following puzzles:



1. Why are candy bars smaller than they used to be yet at the same time they are five times more expensive and are advertised as being "large size"?

2. Why do stores sell so much utter crap no one could possibly use or want?

3. Why do people complain about the racial makeup of the women on a Vanity Fair cover when we're supposed to be in a "post-racial" society?

4. Why is coffee so expensive when it's just hot bean juice?