As a fellow worker at play in the fields of the mind, you are very aware that this blame tendency generally accompanies an insecure sense of self.
Jamie Irons
Let’s hope he has overreached in his leftist agenda to the point where, in effect, the ‘B’ in ‘blame duck’ will be silent.
Thats quacky but it querks!
I LOVE IT!!!!
Greetings:
Sweet, but I’m sticking with Barack Who’sVain Obama.
Great! Hope it gets around. Now onto Pelosi and Reid.
You quack me up.
And yes, I’m already going to Hell, thank you.
Perot, 92.
Blame Duck! I like it. Well if it quacks like a duck, blame it, that’s what I say.
TmjUtah, I’m one just like you, in ’92. And I’m cured of third-party seductions forever as a result. Never Again.
Incidentally, I just read that, somewhere in Colorado, residents of a homeless camp have put up a sign saying, “Welcome to Obamaville, the Fastest Growing Community in Colorado.” Hooverville is history, yes? Far out!
Anyone want to place any bets on how long that one is allowed to stay up?
Hah!
betsy –
Make no mistake here. I probably won’t vote third party again, either. But I may very well not vote at all.
I’m done doing “lesser” when all the choices are stone evil.
Better to bring the collapse quickly and be prepared (as much as an individual can be) than to hold one’s nose and vote for “lesser evil” , only to then watch the rot eat deeper and deeper into society and THEN fall into the abyss…
TmjUtah.
I don’t think I will ever not vote at all. There is nearly always going to be a lesser of two evils–especially given the way things are looking now. In fact, given the way things are looking now, I’d say I’m pretty sure I prefer aimlessness to purpose. The way things are looking now, purpose is deadly. With aimlessness, at least we have the potential of co-opting, or at the least, of shaping.
TmjUtah,
Never forget that one can be prepared for the worst no matter which party wins. Also, not voting is a vote, too–it’s a vote for the other side. And my interpretation is that the Democrats are always the true enemy.
Preparation for the worst is independent of placing a bet on hope.
TmjUtah . .
Listen to betsybounds. She is right! 🙂
TMJ & Betsy – Perfect. You both will wear the chains quite fashionably.
Chains?
What form will those take?
Speech codes?
Land use regulations that finally and forever make it true that you just “rent” land… never own it?
Confiscatory taxes?
“Green” mandates that triple energy costs… when energy is available?
Estate tax rates that effectively kill the last family businesses?
Imprisonment for not buying an insurance product mandated by government?
I’m already a racist, homophobic, sexist, God botherer.
White, straight, conservative, and Christian.
It wouldn’t matter what party I was in… I AM the enemy of The Won’s minions.
Oh, and that “will” up there…. that was an intentional gaffe. The chains are already on, folks.
The question is, when do we do something about it?
2010 is the last, best hope for correcting the worst of our errors.
But I don’t think it’s going to work…
Always vote. At the very least, TMJ, you are neutralizing Ragnar’s vote.
“Blame DucK”, eh? Don’t look back now, Daffy, someone might be gainin’ on you!
That is pretty good. He’s a Blameduck President. Excellent!
Blame duck:LOL.
TmjUtah, Gary, MikeMc et al: good at quacking jokes.
TmjUtah, I was going to vote for Perot in 1992, but decided he was off the deep end when he accused Bush of sabotaging his daughter’s wedding. Years later I made the acquaintance of someone who had done some work for Perot’s company circa 1992. He informed me that Perot’s employees told him that their boss was daft, to put it charitably.
I can respect those who intentionally do not vote. My respect diminishes to the extent that laziness is the cause of non-voting.
Voting minor party and write-in still has signaling value. And I dream of the day when the oppressors give me quorum counts and a none-of-the-above option. A genuine majority will be self-limiting.
“Blame duck” is perfect!
His Rasmussen daily tracking numbers are in free fall. Yesterday, they hit a new low of -16 — and today, it’s down to -19 ! The “lame” part of “blame” is taking on new meaning.
I can imagine that, fairly soon unless the audience is very, very carefully selected, someone in the audience is going to loudly BOO when the Blame Duck casts blame on Bush.
The question is whether the MSM will report the outburst.
Maybe I should illuminate:
I voted for Perot because Bush lied – he raised taxes!
At the time, there was no internet. At the time, I didn’t know about the “tax summit”.
I didn’t know that Foley and Mitchell teed Bush Sr. up like a Titleist by promising substantial budget cuts in exchange for a modest tax increase.
I paraphrase how the knife was administered:
“It’s for the good of the country, George. And I salute you for a damned gutsy political move.”
Hand shakes all around. Foley and Mitchell leave the Oval Office.
“Call CNN. Call Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather. NPR already has the script. The talking point is ‘Bush Lied’. I think we can cut our ad buy budget by at least twenty percent.”
I was a double victim of media manipulation. Bush gave ONE speech on a weeknight, explaining the budget summit, and the resulting agreement. If you weren’t watching THAT speech, you never saw it again. As a class act, Bush didn’t even go to great lengths to cover his ass because he had the personal assurances of the majority leadership that they would do their part. On the other hand, they only reported the Perot silliness that they felt they couldn’t conceal.
Trust a Democrat with your reputation? Then you better sleep on your back, or you’ll wake up with a condom in your a** and a quarter in your hand.
And your wallet will be gone.
fin.
Hell, I was forty years old before I knew how the Vietnam war really ended. We in effect defaulted on the honor of the United States of America, and not about anything as mundane as money. And to this day, the Democrat/Leftist axis maintains “improve our standing overseas” as some sort of alt-universe campaign plank.
We abandon people to slaughter. Who in their right minds would think we wouldn’t abandon our financial obligations? It’s a case of “the lesser evil” for the world, you know; the world doesn’t have an option but to pretend “there will always be Tbills, and they will be honored”.
Besides, if healthcare passes in its current forum, I’ll be a convicted felon by 2012. For not participating.
Wonder what political activity I’ll have to practice then?
This put me of mind of the 80s movie, Howard the Duck
Howard T. Duck: On my planet, we don’t say die, we say… HEY! NOT MY SHORTS!
Howard T. Duck: No one laughs at a master of Quack Fu!
Blame Duck
Barack who’s Vain Obama
Yes – This president takes the cake in blaming in his speeches.
He never acknowledges alternative ideas – saying the Republicans are just in favor of the status quo.
Juan Williams said the same thing in the Fox News Sunday program.
My issue is not just ∅bama. My issue is the conduct of the Democrats and liberals in general in LYING
You Democrat LIARS keep saying the same things over and over even when presented with information to the contrary.
If we just said as conservatives that Democrats are only in favor of the status quo – nobody would believe it.
You have the legacy state run media on your side and you can get away with it…… You will go to hell Bob Beckel, Juan Williams and Jame Carville.
99% of the country cares about doing what is right. You freaks care about destruction and lying and duping so many Americans.
People vote for your side Bob Beckel because they are misinformed…
Well I guess it’s true that Perot was-or at least may be-nuts, but I was living in Texas in 1992, and people either don’t know or forget that he was very well-liked in Texas. He had sponsored the rescue of his own employees who were caught in the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979, hired the rescue team, and traveled himself to pick them all up in Turkey after they all made it across the Turkey-Iran border (see On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett). It’s really a terrific story, really it is. He was also responsible for some very important and popular Texas education reforms in the early 1980s, and was heartily disliked by the teachers’ unions. But he had a fine history and reputation with a great many ordinary Texans. So when he made his presidential run, people there were pleased and proud. He blew it later, and the whole daughter’s-wedding sabotage bit was, a bit exotic–to say no more. But a lot of people continued to support him because of his solid reputation prior to that.
I’m sorry I voted for him because of what that did to the outcome, but the reasons I and others voted for him sure didn’t seem frivolous at the time!
I’ll vote for a conservative when I can find one.
I won’t vote for a Republican who is not a conservative. It’s a waste of time, and in the end just aids the statist agenda.
Controlled economies always collapse. A good way to mitigate the damage is to make it happen before the entire society is rotted to the core. The Soviets retracted from public, but understood that no matter what followed after the fall, there would still be a requirement for bosses.
Which they knew how to do…
Our government is designed to be responsible for specific duties – not, as it has behaved for the last sixty years, to be ‘in charge’ of anything.
We must act to put ‘responsibility’ squarely back in the public perception of government. And then demand accountability.
So – I’ll vote for anyone who appears to be committed to the Constitution. Not for anyone else, not as a second, less evil option.
Have a fine one.
Cost is exacerbated by trial laywers and malpractice lawsuits and government regulation and people who don’t want to pay their way and who came to the country illegally.
Therefore, cost is run up my Democrats.
Dear Democrat voter,
I was a Demcrat voter before 1991. Today’s Democrat politician is not about solving problems. They are about creating problems. Please engage with us and bring about positive change. Thank you.
Baklava
TmJ wrote, “I won’t vote for a Republican who is not a conservative. It’s a waste of time, and in the end just aids the statist agenda.”
Blame Duck:
IF it flies, quacks, poops, has webbed footsies, feathers, a bill and beady little concupiscent eyes like a durned Blame Duck…IT IS ONE!
The Bamma’s cowardly-tepid finger pointing looks like it is no longer getting any ground with Americans. Bummer, huh, Rahm and Axie?? Nobody to blame in the 2010 elections except His Majesty.
“Blame DucK”,,,,,,,,,,,, works for me, it’s more respectful for the POTUS than )(*&%#@^*(%$^**^%#@#^*(
Although I do not wish to argue with TMJ or Baklava, I still feel a vote for any republican is better than not neutralizing an equal vote for a democrat, by staying out of the game altogether.
Gentlemen, no vote, no bitching rights.
That was a fun read.
Funny how such a simple post can generate so many comments.
Neo, you wascally wabbit!
br549…Amen.
betsybounds: your description of what Perot had done illustrates why, when I voted fourth party that year, I did so with great sadness. Like you say, Perot had done a lot of good things.
After I cast my last Demo vote for Jimmah in 1976, I voted third or fourth party most of the time until I realized that as toxic as the Demos were, it was better to hold my nose. and vote for someone who had a chance of winning. It was Al Gore’s nonsense after the 2000 election, a year when I voted third party, that made me decide that it wasn’t sufficient to not vote Democratic, it was necessary to defeat Democrats.
br549
Amen.
Given a Ned Lamont vs. Joe Lieberman.
Hands down Joe Lieberman.
Given an John McCain vs. Obama.
McCain hands down.
And on the Huckabee show today? Nancy Skinner vs. Mike Huckabee?
Nancy’s question was, “What would Jesus be? A denier?”
Huckabee’s answer was, “A truth seeker”.
WOO HOO You go Mike.
The sad thing about all this is that Obama is not only weak to us – which means he can’t pass his legislation, he is also weak to foreign leaders, which may result in war.
Its fun to poke fun at Obama’s leadership. Its another to watch foreign hostile leaders take advantage of it.
The funny thing about all of this, is that medicine and energy really do need to be reformed. Medicine with cross state insurance purchases and liability reform, energy with offshore drilling and nuclear power.
If the Republicans were in power, there would be no way they could pass those things. But because Obama came to power, and highlighted the issues, when the Republicans take over, they will have the ability to do so. In that sense Obama is a help to the country, and it was a good idea to vote for him ( though I did not). But that is only true if the center holds, and the Republicans get another chance.
That’s quite a risk. Hats off to the founders for writing a constitution which seems to hold during times like these, regardless of the efforts of Obama and his friends.
James
James,
Your post reminds me of an old joke–I may not recall it exactly correctly, but it goes something like this: There was a high-rise window washer who made a wrong step and fell from a great height. As he was falling past an open window on the 50th floor, someone yelled out to ask him how he was doing. He yelled back, “So far, so good!”
That’s what’s very handy about Obama’s culture. There’s always the “other” to point the finger at when things don’t go right. If indeed he is a one term President, I’ll be willing to bet that the phrase “They never gave him a chance” or something quite similar will be the word on the street and the MSM.
Obama’s still fighting “The Man”, even though he is now “The Man”. There’s that nagging problem of dissent, dissent that he was always taught that was reserved for a select few.
We can only hope and pray this is over quickly.
Hell, I feel blessed to even be allowed to enter this blog, much lees be allowed to say something. And when I do, it is with hat in hand. There are many fine people who come in here.
It has taken many decades for our country to be at the crossroads it is today. If we are successful at bringing it back from the brink of where it stands, it too, will take decades. We can’t sleep. Our efforts aren’t even for us. I have three wonderful children, and a grandson who makes my heart soar. For me, it is for them.
dont know where to put this… so here it is..
they are finally going to leak the contents of the original koran… i said a long time ago that they were rewritten and the versions disseminatd by the mufti that was hitlers side kick. the originals were thought to be lost in the bombing of cities during wwii, when the museum was completely destroyed. turned out that someone hid them in their own homes, and so they came out. but as quickly as this was reported… silence fell.
well, just as good is a paper grave recently found in yemen..
In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, in Yemen, a gravesite containing a mash of old parchment pages was discovered. It became clear that this parchment hoard is an example of what is sometimes referred to as a “paper grave.” In this case, the site was the resting place for tens of thousands of fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Using a technique called “carbon dating,” some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard were dated back to the seventh and eighth centuries, or Islam’s first two centuries. Until now, three ancient copies of the Koran were said to exist. One copy in the Library of Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and another in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, date from the eighth century. A copy kept in the British Library in London dates from the late seventh century. But the Sana’a parchment pages are even older. Moreover, these pages are written in a script that originates from the Hijaz–the region of Arabia where the prophet Muhammad purportedly lived. This makes the Yemeni Korans not only the oldest to have survived, but one of the earliest copies of the Koran ever.
In 1981, the first scientific undertaking to study the Yemeni Koran was initiated by a group headed by Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography based at Saarland University, in Saarbré¼cken, Germany. Puin and his group recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments. Their preliminary inspection revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Interestingly, some of the sheets were also palimpsests–versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off or erased versions.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Moorthy is quite right: the idea that the Koran is perfect and uncreated, with no textual variants, is central to Islamic proselytizing. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says the Koran “was memorized by Muhammad and then dictated to his companions. The text of the Qur’an was cross-checked during the life of the Prophet. The 114 chapters of the Qur’an have remained unchanged through the centuries.” This idea is also central to the worldview of jihadist groups. Osama bin Laden bragged in his 2002 letter to the American people that the Koran “will remain preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Qur’an is the miracle until the Day of Judgment.”
The textual variants in the Yemeni Koran, simply by showing that the text is not always and everywhere the same, explode the mainstream Islamic belief that the Koran was delivered in perfect form to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and has always been miraculously preserved from variant readings.
Yet oddly enough, early Islamic traditions recorded in the Hadith assume the existence of variant readings of the Koran. The impetus for collecting Muhammad’s revelations into a single volume came after Muhammad and other important early Muslims started dying off. Late in the year Muhammad died, 632, a group of Arab tribes that Muhammad had conquered and brought into the Muslim fold revolted. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, led the Muslims into battle to subdue them.
The two sides met in the Battle of Yamama, in which some of the Muslims who had memorized segments of the Koran were killed. One Islamic tradition notes that “many (of the passages) of the Qur’an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama…but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had [the first three caliphs] Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur’an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them.” Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif )
The official compiler of the Koran, Zaid ibn Thabit, explained that he “started locating Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Khuzaima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else.” Zaid’s recollection testifies to the ad hoc nature of his work. For example, it was Khuzaima himself, Zaid’s sole source for the last two verses of sura 9, who approached Zaid and informed him of the omission: “I see you have overlooked (two) verses and have not written them.” When he had recited them, an influential companion of Muhammad and the future third caliph, Utman, declared, “I bear witness that these verses are from Allah.” And so they were included in the Koran (9:128-129).
Other sections of the Koran, some mandating stringent punishments for unbelievers and other violators of Islamic law, were lost altogether. One early Muslim declared, “Let none of you say, ‘I have acquired the whole of the Qur’an.’ How does he know what all of it is when much of the Qur’an has disappeared? Rather let him say ‘I have acquired what has survived’” (As-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur’an ). Other Koranic verses dropped out of the text without replacement. One of these stated, “The religion with Allah is al-Hanifiyyah (the Upright Way) rather than that of the Jews or the Christians, and those who do good will not go unrewarded.” Al-Tirmidhi, the compiler of one of the six collections of Hadith, or Islamic traditions, that Muslims consider to be the most reliable, said that this verse was at one time part of sura 98. It is not found there, however, in Zaid’s canonical version.
and please no jokes as to the battle of yo mama
Artfldgr: link, please?
(A Google search for “yemen quran” turns up some interesting commentary, but most of it is editorial-style; I’d love to see something from original sources, e.g. the researchers who actually inspected the documents.)
Proving that the Quran has undergone editing over the years would be a significant step indeed. We’d have many more to go, before Islam becomes just another religion — instead of the ideology and form of government that it is today. But it’s a start.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
hey daniel..
i put the link up a couple of times before
i dont have the link to the other korans..
that was one article, i put the links up, and have a really hard time finding it.
i did give enough to find it though if you look hard.
a museum germany, etc…
i just did a quick loko and came up with this
arabiguitar.blogspot.com/2009/12/yemeni-koran-all-korans-are-not-same.html
this has the article that i am referring to above, but that article does not ahve the information as to the cache.
that was held by the nazis, who ended up having an instuite for koranic studies. (i dont know the name)
Like Nazism and Communism in the
1930’s, radical Islam has emerged as the most important political and ideological
movement in world politics today. And like Nazism, it places hatred of the Jews at the
center of its ideology and policy. Dr. Kuentzel demonstrates that the Israeli-Arab conflict
is not the cause of this Jew hatred, but on the contrary, the conflict has been exacerbated
by the ideology and politics of radical Islamists.
While Nazism was discredited in Europe after Germany’s defeat in WWII, it was not
discredited in the Arab world. Rather, Nazi views about the Jews became incorporated
into the politics and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Just as Nazism produced an
anti-Semitism of unprecedented radicalism compared to its European predecessors, so the
Islamists have produced a strain of anti-Semitism that surpasses in violence and hatred
the anti-Jewish sentiments that had been an element of previous theologically based
Islamic teachings.
HERE IT IS!
you lucked out..
the last attempt it came up
The Lost Archive
Missing for a half century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive research on Islam’s holy text
online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html
On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran.
The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God’s word. The wartime destruction made the project “outright impossible,” Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.
Mr. Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars — and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.
Mystery and misfortune bedeviled the Munich archive from the start. The scholar who launched it perished in an odd climbing accident in 1933. His successor died in a 1941 plane crash. Mr. Spitaler, who inherited the Quran collection and then hid it, fared better. He lived to age 93.
The rolls of film, kept in cigar boxes, plastic trays and an old cookie tin, are now in a safe in Berlin. The photos of the old manuscripts will form the foundation of a computer data base that Ms. Neuwirth’s team believes will help tease out the history of Islam’s founding text. The result, says Michael Marx, the project’s research director, could be the first “critical edition” of the Quran — an attempt to divine what the original text looked like and to explore overlaps with the Bible and other Christian and Jewish literature.
In 1933, a few months after Hitler became chancellor, Mr. Bergstré¤sser, an experienced climber, died in the Bavarian Alps. His body was never given an autopsy; rumors spread of suicide or foul play.
His work was taken up by Otto Pretzl, another German Arabist. He too set off with a Leica. In a 1934 journey to Morocco, he wangled his way into a royal library containing an old copy of the Quran and won over initially suspicious clerics, he said in a handwritten report about his trip.
The Nazis began to use Arabists early in the war when German forces began pushing into regions with large Muslim populations, first North Africa and then the Soviet Union. Scholars were used to broadcast propaganda and to help set up mullah schools for Muslims recruited into the German armed forces.
Mr. Pretzl, the manuscript collector, appears to have worked largely in military intelligence. He interrogated Arabic-speaking soldiers captured in the invasion of France, then, according to some accounts, set off on a mission to stir up an Arab uprising against British troops in Iraq. His plane crashed.
Very funny!
As a fellow worker at play in the fields of the mind, you are very aware that this blame tendency generally accompanies an insecure sense of self.
Jamie Irons
Let’s hope he has overreached in his leftist agenda to the point where, in effect, the ‘B’ in ‘blame duck’ will be silent.
Thats quacky but it querks!
I LOVE IT!!!!
Greetings:
Sweet, but I’m sticking with Barack Who’sVain Obama.
Great! Hope it gets around. Now onto Pelosi and Reid.
You quack me up.
And yes, I’m already going to Hell, thank you.
Perot, 92.
Blame Duck! I like it. Well if it quacks like a duck, blame it, that’s what I say.
TmjUtah, I’m one just like you, in ’92. And I’m cured of third-party seductions forever as a result. Never Again.
Incidentally, I just read that, somewhere in Colorado, residents of a homeless camp have put up a sign saying, “Welcome to Obamaville, the Fastest Growing Community in Colorado.” Hooverville is history, yes? Far out!
Anyone want to place any bets on how long that one is allowed to stay up?
Hah!
betsy –
Make no mistake here. I probably won’t vote third party again, either. But I may very well not vote at all.
I’m done doing “lesser” when all the choices are stone evil.
Better to bring the collapse quickly and be prepared (as much as an individual can be) than to hold one’s nose and vote for “lesser evil” , only to then watch the rot eat deeper and deeper into society and THEN fall into the abyss…
TmjUtah.
I don’t think I will ever not vote at all. There is nearly always going to be a lesser of two evils–especially given the way things are looking now. In fact, given the way things are looking now, I’d say I’m pretty sure I prefer aimlessness to purpose. The way things are looking now, purpose is deadly. With aimlessness, at least we have the potential of co-opting, or at the least, of shaping.
TmjUtah,
Never forget that one can be prepared for the worst no matter which party wins. Also, not voting is a vote, too–it’s a vote for the other side. And my interpretation is that the Democrats are always the true enemy.
Preparation for the worst is independent of placing a bet on hope.
TmjUtah . .
Listen to betsybounds. She is right! 🙂
TMJ & Betsy – Perfect. You both will wear the chains quite fashionably.
Chains?
What form will those take?
Speech codes?
Land use regulations that finally and forever make it true that you just “rent” land… never own it?
Confiscatory taxes?
“Green” mandates that triple energy costs… when energy is available?
Estate tax rates that effectively kill the last family businesses?
Imprisonment for not buying an insurance product mandated by government?
I’m already a racist, homophobic, sexist, God botherer.
White, straight, conservative, and Christian.
It wouldn’t matter what party I was in… I AM the enemy of The Won’s minions.
Oh, and that “will” up there…. that was an intentional gaffe. The chains are already on, folks.
The question is, when do we do something about it?
2010 is the last, best hope for correcting the worst of our errors.
But I don’t think it’s going to work…
Always vote. At the very least, TMJ, you are neutralizing Ragnar’s vote.
“Blame DucK”, eh? Don’t look back now, Daffy, someone might be gainin’ on you!
That is pretty good. He’s a Blameduck President. Excellent!
Blame duck:LOL.
TmjUtah, Gary, MikeMc et al: good at quacking jokes.
TmjUtah, I was going to vote for Perot in 1992, but decided he was off the deep end when he accused Bush of sabotaging his daughter’s wedding. Years later I made the acquaintance of someone who had done some work for Perot’s company circa 1992. He informed me that Perot’s employees told him that their boss was daft, to put it charitably.
I can respect those who intentionally do not vote. My respect diminishes to the extent that laziness is the cause of non-voting.
Voting minor party and write-in still has signaling value. And I dream of the day when the oppressors give me quorum counts and a none-of-the-above option. A genuine majority will be self-limiting.
“Blame duck” is perfect!
His Rasmussen daily tracking numbers are in free fall. Yesterday, they hit a new low of -16 — and today, it’s down to -19 ! The “lame” part of “blame” is taking on new meaning.
I can imagine that, fairly soon unless the audience is very, very carefully selected, someone in the audience is going to loudly BOO when the Blame Duck casts blame on Bush.
The question is whether the MSM will report the outburst.
Maybe I should illuminate:
I voted for Perot because Bush lied – he raised taxes!
At the time, there was no internet. At the time, I didn’t know about the “tax summit”.
I didn’t know that Foley and Mitchell teed Bush Sr. up like a Titleist by promising substantial budget cuts in exchange for a modest tax increase.
I paraphrase how the knife was administered:
“It’s for the good of the country, George. And I salute you for a damned gutsy political move.”
Hand shakes all around. Foley and Mitchell leave the Oval Office.
“Call CNN. Call Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather. NPR already has the script. The talking point is ‘Bush Lied’. I think we can cut our ad buy budget by at least twenty percent.”
I was a double victim of media manipulation. Bush gave ONE speech on a weeknight, explaining the budget summit, and the resulting agreement. If you weren’t watching THAT speech, you never saw it again. As a class act, Bush didn’t even go to great lengths to cover his ass because he had the personal assurances of the majority leadership that they would do their part. On the other hand, they only reported the Perot silliness that they felt they couldn’t conceal.
Trust a Democrat with your reputation? Then you better sleep on your back, or you’ll wake up with a condom in your a** and a quarter in your hand.
And your wallet will be gone.
fin.
Hell, I was forty years old before I knew how the Vietnam war really ended. We in effect defaulted on the honor of the United States of America, and not about anything as mundane as money. And to this day, the Democrat/Leftist axis maintains “improve our standing overseas” as some sort of alt-universe campaign plank.
We abandon people to slaughter. Who in their right minds would think we wouldn’t abandon our financial obligations? It’s a case of “the lesser evil” for the world, you know; the world doesn’t have an option but to pretend “there will always be Tbills, and they will be honored”.
Besides, if healthcare passes in its current forum, I’ll be a convicted felon by 2012. For not participating.
Wonder what political activity I’ll have to practice then?
This put me of mind of the 80s movie, Howard the Duck
Blame Duck
Barack who’s Vain Obama
Yes – This president takes the cake in blaming in his speeches.
He never acknowledges alternative ideas – saying the Republicans are just in favor of the status quo.
Juan Williams said the same thing in the Fox News Sunday program.
My issue is not just ∅bama. My issue is the conduct of the Democrats and liberals in general in LYING
You Democrat LIARS keep saying the same things over and over even when presented with information to the contrary.
If we just said as conservatives that Democrats are only in favor of the status quo – nobody would believe it.
You have the legacy state run media on your side and you can get away with it…… You will go to hell Bob Beckel, Juan Williams and Jame Carville.
99% of the country cares about doing what is right. You freaks care about destruction and lying and duping so many Americans.
People vote for your side Bob Beckel because they are misinformed…
Well I guess it’s true that Perot was-or at least may be-nuts, but I was living in Texas in 1992, and people either don’t know or forget that he was very well-liked in Texas. He had sponsored the rescue of his own employees who were caught in the Iranian Islamic revolution in 1979, hired the rescue team, and traveled himself to pick them all up in Turkey after they all made it across the Turkey-Iran border (see On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett). It’s really a terrific story, really it is. He was also responsible for some very important and popular Texas education reforms in the early 1980s, and was heartily disliked by the teachers’ unions. But he had a fine history and reputation with a great many ordinary Texans. So when he made his presidential run, people there were pleased and proud. He blew it later, and the whole daughter’s-wedding sabotage bit was, a bit exotic–to say no more. But a lot of people continued to support him because of his solid reputation prior to that.
I’m sorry I voted for him because of what that did to the outcome, but the reasons I and others voted for him sure didn’t seem frivolous at the time!
I’ll vote for a conservative when I can find one.
I won’t vote for a Republican who is not a conservative. It’s a waste of time, and in the end just aids the statist agenda.
Controlled economies always collapse. A good way to mitigate the damage is to make it happen before the entire society is rotted to the core. The Soviets retracted from public, but understood that no matter what followed after the fall, there would still be a requirement for bosses.
Which they knew how to do…
Our government is designed to be responsible for specific duties – not, as it has behaved for the last sixty years, to be ‘in charge’ of anything.
We must act to put ‘responsibility’ squarely back in the public perception of government. And then demand accountability.
So – I’ll vote for anyone who appears to be committed to the Constitution. Not for anyone else, not as a second, less evil option.
Have a fine one.
Cost is exacerbated by trial laywers and malpractice lawsuits and government regulation and people who don’t want to pay their way and who came to the country illegally.
Therefore, cost is run up my Democrats.
Dear Democrat voter,
I was a Demcrat voter before 1991. Today’s Democrat politician is not about solving problems. They are about creating problems. Please engage with us and bring about positive change. Thank you.
Baklava
TmJ wrote, “I won’t vote for a Republican who is not a conservative. It’s a waste of time, and in the end just aids the statist agenda.”
Amen.
Obotomy.
The Duck stops here.
Y’all should read “The Obama Timeline” (see http://www.colony14.net )
Blame Duck:
IF it flies, quacks, poops, has webbed footsies, feathers, a bill and beady little concupiscent eyes like a durned Blame Duck…IT IS ONE!
The Bamma’s cowardly-tepid finger pointing looks like it is no longer getting any ground with Americans. Bummer, huh, Rahm and Axie?? Nobody to blame in the 2010 elections except His Majesty.
“Blame DucK”,,,,,,,,,,,, works for me, it’s more respectful for the POTUS than )(*&%#@^*(%$^**^%#@#^*(
Although I do not wish to argue with TMJ or Baklava, I still feel a vote for any republican is better than not neutralizing an equal vote for a democrat, by staying out of the game altogether.
Gentlemen, no vote, no bitching rights.
That was a fun read.
Funny how such a simple post can generate so many comments.
Neo, you wascally wabbit!
br549…Amen.
betsybounds: your description of what Perot had done illustrates why, when I voted fourth party that year, I did so with great sadness. Like you say, Perot had done a lot of good things.
After I cast my last Demo vote for Jimmah in 1976, I voted third or fourth party most of the time until I realized that as toxic as the Demos were, it was better to hold my nose. and vote for someone who had a chance of winning. It was Al Gore’s nonsense after the 2000 election, a year when I voted third party, that made me decide that it wasn’t sufficient to not vote Democratic, it was necessary to defeat Democrats.
br549
Amen.
Given a Ned Lamont vs. Joe Lieberman.
Hands down Joe Lieberman.
Given an John McCain vs. Obama.
McCain hands down.
And on the Huckabee show today? Nancy Skinner vs. Mike Huckabee?
Nancy’s question was, “What would Jesus be? A denier?”
Huckabee’s answer was, “A truth seeker”.
WOO HOO You go Mike.
The sad thing about all this is that Obama is not only weak to us – which means he can’t pass his legislation, he is also weak to foreign leaders, which may result in war.
Its fun to poke fun at Obama’s leadership. Its another to watch foreign hostile leaders take advantage of it.
The funny thing about all of this, is that medicine and energy really do need to be reformed. Medicine with cross state insurance purchases and liability reform, energy with offshore drilling and nuclear power.
If the Republicans were in power, there would be no way they could pass those things. But because Obama came to power, and highlighted the issues, when the Republicans take over, they will have the ability to do so. In that sense Obama is a help to the country, and it was a good idea to vote for him ( though I did not). But that is only true if the center holds, and the Republicans get another chance.
That’s quite a risk. Hats off to the founders for writing a constitution which seems to hold during times like these, regardless of the efforts of Obama and his friends.
James
James,
Your post reminds me of an old joke–I may not recall it exactly correctly, but it goes something like this: There was a high-rise window washer who made a wrong step and fell from a great height. As he was falling past an open window on the 50th floor, someone yelled out to ask him how he was doing. He yelled back, “So far, so good!”
That’s what’s very handy about Obama’s culture. There’s always the “other” to point the finger at when things don’t go right. If indeed he is a one term President, I’ll be willing to bet that the phrase “They never gave him a chance” or something quite similar will be the word on the street and the MSM.
Obama’s still fighting “The Man”, even though he is now “The Man”. There’s that nagging problem of dissent, dissent that he was always taught that was reserved for a select few.
We can only hope and pray this is over quickly.
Hell, I feel blessed to even be allowed to enter this blog, much lees be allowed to say something. And when I do, it is with hat in hand. There are many fine people who come in here.
It has taken many decades for our country to be at the crossroads it is today. If we are successful at bringing it back from the brink of where it stands, it too, will take decades. We can’t sleep. Our efforts aren’t even for us. I have three wonderful children, and a grandson who makes my heart soar. For me, it is for them.
dont know where to put this… so here it is..
they are finally going to leak the contents of the original koran… i said a long time ago that they were rewritten and the versions disseminatd by the mufti that was hitlers side kick. the originals were thought to be lost in the bombing of cities during wwii, when the museum was completely destroyed. turned out that someone hid them in their own homes, and so they came out. but as quickly as this was reported… silence fell.
well, just as good is a paper grave recently found in yemen..
In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana’a, in Yemen, a gravesite containing a mash of old parchment pages was discovered. It became clear that this parchment hoard is an example of what is sometimes referred to as a “paper grave.” In this case, the site was the resting place for tens of thousands of fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Using a technique called “carbon dating,” some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard were dated back to the seventh and eighth centuries, or Islam’s first two centuries. Until now, three ancient copies of the Koran were said to exist. One copy in the Library of Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and another in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, date from the eighth century. A copy kept in the British Library in London dates from the late seventh century. But the Sana’a parchment pages are even older. Moreover, these pages are written in a script that originates from the Hijaz–the region of Arabia where the prophet Muhammad purportedly lived. This makes the Yemeni Korans not only the oldest to have survived, but one of the earliest copies of the Koran ever.
In 1981, the first scientific undertaking to study the Yemeni Koran was initiated by a group headed by Gerd-R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography based at Saarland University, in Saarbré¼cken, Germany. Puin and his group recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments. Their preliminary inspection revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Interestingly, some of the sheets were also palimpsests–versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off or erased versions.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Moorthy is quite right: the idea that the Koran is perfect and uncreated, with no textual variants, is central to Islamic proselytizing. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says the Koran “was memorized by Muhammad and then dictated to his companions. The text of the Qur’an was cross-checked during the life of the Prophet. The 114 chapters of the Qur’an have remained unchanged through the centuries.” This idea is also central to the worldview of jihadist groups. Osama bin Laden bragged in his 2002 letter to the American people that the Koran “will remain preserved and unchanged, after the other Divine books and messages have been changed. The Qur’an is the miracle until the Day of Judgment.”
The textual variants in the Yemeni Koran, simply by showing that the text is not always and everywhere the same, explode the mainstream Islamic belief that the Koran was delivered in perfect form to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and has always been miraculously preserved from variant readings.
Yet oddly enough, early Islamic traditions recorded in the Hadith assume the existence of variant readings of the Koran. The impetus for collecting Muhammad’s revelations into a single volume came after Muhammad and other important early Muslims started dying off. Late in the year Muhammad died, 632, a group of Arab tribes that Muhammad had conquered and brought into the Muslim fold revolted. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, led the Muslims into battle to subdue them.
The two sides met in the Battle of Yamama, in which some of the Muslims who had memorized segments of the Koran were killed. One Islamic tradition notes that “many (of the passages) of the Qur’an that were sent down were known by those who died on the day of Yamama…but they were not known (by those who) survived them, nor were they written down, nor had [the first three caliphs] Abu Bakr, Umar or Uthman (by that time) collected the Qur’an, nor were they found with even one (person) after them.” Ibn Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Masahif )
The official compiler of the Koran, Zaid ibn Thabit, explained that he “started locating Quranic material and collecting it from parchments, scapula, leaf-stalks of date palms and from the memories of men (who knew it by heart). I found with Khuzaima two Verses of Surat-at-Tauba which I had not found with anybody else.” Zaid’s recollection testifies to the ad hoc nature of his work. For example, it was Khuzaima himself, Zaid’s sole source for the last two verses of sura 9, who approached Zaid and informed him of the omission: “I see you have overlooked (two) verses and have not written them.” When he had recited them, an influential companion of Muhammad and the future third caliph, Utman, declared, “I bear witness that these verses are from Allah.” And so they were included in the Koran (9:128-129).
Other sections of the Koran, some mandating stringent punishments for unbelievers and other violators of Islamic law, were lost altogether. One early Muslim declared, “Let none of you say, ‘I have acquired the whole of the Qur’an.’ How does he know what all of it is when much of the Qur’an has disappeared? Rather let him say ‘I have acquired what has survived’” (As-Suyuti, Al-Itqan fii Ulum al-Qur’an ). Other Koranic verses dropped out of the text without replacement. One of these stated, “The religion with Allah is al-Hanifiyyah (the Upright Way) rather than that of the Jews or the Christians, and those who do good will not go unrewarded.” Al-Tirmidhi, the compiler of one of the six collections of Hadith, or Islamic traditions, that Muslims consider to be the most reliable, said that this verse was at one time part of sura 98. It is not found there, however, in Zaid’s canonical version.
and please no jokes as to the battle of yo mama
Artfldgr: link, please?
(A Google search for “yemen quran” turns up some interesting commentary, but most of it is editorial-style; I’d love to see something from original sources, e.g. the researchers who actually inspected the documents.)
Proving that the Quran has undergone editing over the years would be a significant step indeed. We’d have many more to go, before Islam becomes just another religion — instead of the ideology and form of government that it is today. But it’s a start.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
hey daniel..
i put the link up a couple of times before
i dont have the link to the other korans..
that was one article, i put the links up, and have a really hard time finding it.
i did give enough to find it though if you look hard.
a museum germany, etc…
i just did a quick loko and came up with this
arabiguitar.blogspot.com/2009/12/yemeni-koran-all-korans-are-not-same.html
this has the article that i am referring to above, but that article does not ahve the information as to the cache.
that was held by the nazis, who ended up having an instuite for koranic studies. (i dont know the name)
here is a link noting kuentzel… but i am not familiar with him…
http://www.hmwatch.org/Sourcedocuments/Introduction%20of%20Kuentzel.pdf
Like Nazism and Communism in the
1930’s, radical Islam has emerged as the most important political and ideological
movement in world politics today. And like Nazism, it places hatred of the Jews at the
center of its ideology and policy. Dr. Kuentzel demonstrates that the Israeli-Arab conflict
is not the cause of this Jew hatred, but on the contrary, the conflict has been exacerbated
by the ideology and politics of radical Islamists.
While Nazism was discredited in Europe after Germany’s defeat in WWII, it was not
discredited in the Arab world. Rather, Nazi views about the Jews became incorporated
into the politics and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Just as Nazism produced an
anti-Semitism of unprecedented radicalism compared to its European predecessors, so the
Islamists have produced a strain of anti-Semitism that surpasses in violence and hatred
the anti-Jewish sentiments that had been an element of previous theologically based
Islamic teachings.
HERE IT IS!
you lucked out..
the last attempt it came up
The Lost Archive
Missing for a half century, a cache of photos spurs sensitive research on Islam’s holy text
online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html
On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Quran.
The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Quran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God’s word. The wartime destruction made the project “outright impossible,” Mr. Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.
Mr. Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars — and a Quran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave.
Mystery and misfortune bedeviled the Munich archive from the start. The scholar who launched it perished in an odd climbing accident in 1933. His successor died in a 1941 plane crash. Mr. Spitaler, who inherited the Quran collection and then hid it, fared better. He lived to age 93.
The rolls of film, kept in cigar boxes, plastic trays and an old cookie tin, are now in a safe in Berlin. The photos of the old manuscripts will form the foundation of a computer data base that Ms. Neuwirth’s team believes will help tease out the history of Islam’s founding text. The result, says Michael Marx, the project’s research director, could be the first “critical edition” of the Quran — an attempt to divine what the original text looked like and to explore overlaps with the Bible and other Christian and Jewish literature.
In 1933, a few months after Hitler became chancellor, Mr. Bergstré¤sser, an experienced climber, died in the Bavarian Alps. His body was never given an autopsy; rumors spread of suicide or foul play.
His work was taken up by Otto Pretzl, another German Arabist. He too set off with a Leica. In a 1934 journey to Morocco, he wangled his way into a royal library containing an old copy of the Quran and won over initially suspicious clerics, he said in a handwritten report about his trip.
The Nazis began to use Arabists early in the war when German forces began pushing into regions with large Muslim populations, first North Africa and then the Soviet Union. Scholars were used to broadcast propaganda and to help set up mullah schools for Muslims recruited into the German armed forces.
Mr. Pretzl, the manuscript collector, appears to have worked largely in military intelligence. He interrogated Arabic-speaking soldiers captured in the invasion of France, then, according to some accounts, set off on a mission to stir up an Arab uprising against British troops in Iraq. His plane crashed.
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