Isn't the quest for the historical Jesus already something of a regular feature of the History Channel?  I see the face of former priest John Dominic Crossan so often that I swear he must have an equity position in the network.  His exposition of his "Jesus Seminar" is getting pretty threadbare from over exposure isn't it, really?

I think a better candidate would be a series "In Search Of the Historical Muhammad."  If you care to go rummaging around in the archives you can find my earlier post reviewing Robert Spencer's recent book as a place to begin the investigations

Umm, You need to adjust your figure for time zone differences and the International Dateline.  For most of us Election Day will be Tuesday, November 6.  We don't want anyone to get confused and show up  at the polling station a day late. 

Hear Hear!  I lived and worked in Singapore in the late 1990s.  If you have to live in a big city, Singapore is the city you want to live in.  And forget all of the stuff you've heard about chewing gum and spitting on sidewalks.  Abiding by the rules of behavior is not the least bit onerous. 

If you're a golfer, it's a short ferry ride over to the courses and resorts Batam.  It's just a quick hop to the Malayan beaches at Penang or, if you're adventurous, you can ride the Orient Express train all the way up the Malay Peninsula to Bangkok.

The downsides?  They tax income beginning with the very first dollar of earnings - though at a very low rate.  However, they only tax money brought into the country, so if you salary is deposited off-shore, you're only taxed on what you use for living expenses.  Any per diem, however,  is separately taxed at a very high rate. Expats cannot live in any government-built or subsidized housing, but the island abounds in freehold condo units.   And expat children must be privately educated - very expensive.

Maybe a better slogan would be "Deus lo Volt!" (God Wills It!), which was the rallying cry of the First Crusade.  However, "you can't beat sumthin' with nuthin'," might be more appropriate because the West - by its own volition - is going into this fight unarmed .

I once spent some time going to school at Boeing in Seattle. On one of the few days off we had I went to the Pike St. Market, got some cold-cuts, crusty bread, and a split of wine, then rode the ferry over to Bremerton and back while having a picnic up on the roof of the boat.  It was a perfect way to spend an autumn afternoon.

Funny, but I don't know of a case where talking to a reporter didn't prove to be counter-productive.  They can never seem to get the little things right, yet we still trust them to shape or view of the world.  No wonder we're always disappointed.

You understand that under the protocols governing the exchange of diplomatic missions between nations, the host nations - in this case Libya and Egypt - are required to provide for the  security of the embassy and the protection of the diplomats?  

There are no free-floating, spontaneous mobs in these countries.  There is most assuredly government-involvement in these attacks.

There world is an ugly place my friend, we have shown weakness and we are reaping the inevitable consequences. 

Prosecuted?  Cite the statue under which you'd bring a prosecution. Do you really think the proper response to this attack is to take depositions or subject the perpetrators  to a severe cross examination?

Attacking a consulate or embassy and murdering an ambassador is an act of war.  

On that  fateful day I was home in Miami wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, having just quit a job I hated flying jumbo jets.  I switched on the television to check the opening numbers from Wall Street and saw the second airplane hit the WTC.  I made a few phone calls and shortly thereafter I was in Afghanistan.

The military culture.  By that do you mean being part of something bigger than yourself?  Being forced to reach beyond your self-imposed limits to accomplish things you never knew you were capable of?   Learning to respect authority, and to internalize the motto, "Stand next to me and you'll never stand alone."  To know that once you have claimed the title of Marine that you are a Marine for the rest of your life; that there are comrades who care about you and that wherever you are in the world, on November 10 there is a celebration somewhere nearby, to which you are welcome to celebrate the Corps Birthday?  

If that's what you mean by the military culture then Yes, I'd like to see the schools adopt that model.

1993 Range Rover LWB.  Probably the best designed and worst made vehicle in history.  Things broke that just don't break on a normal automobile - like the ignition switch...twice!  ($650 for the replacement part.  And, Yes, it was made by Lucas.)

Tough!

While I understand what you're saying, it is still a fact that gold, throughout the ages, has been seen a not only as a pretty bauble, but also as a store of value in an uncertain world.  This was true of the Roman gold-solidus, and the Byzantine Bezant; specie that once played the same reserve-currency role as the dollar today or Sterling a century ago.

While I'm not sure exactly how you'd link the kind of economic growth  we've grown used to a money supply based on mining and not printing, fiat-based currencies controlled by politicians have become a universal plague on mankind.  And while a gold standard does tend to have a deflationary bias, at some point we have to unwind the excesses of the past two generations and reset a more sensible value to the dollar.

Philosophy begins with three fundamental questions: What kind of beings are we?  How is it that we come to know anything?  What is the proper kind of life for beings such as ourselves?  The record suggests that humans have been reflecting on  these questions for thousands of years.

We flatter ourselves that moderns discovered science. But the Ionian Greeks, in a time before Socrates, were already arguing as to whether natural phenomena could best be explained by natural causes rather than divine intervention.  

Heraclitus, for example, argued that the cosmos was ever-changing in a manner we still embrace today.  Parmenides argued for a steady-state universe as did the modern astronomer Fred Hoyle.

It is arrogant to assume that the thinkers of the past have nothing to teach us, or their ideas no longer speak to our own times.  But that logical fallacy was bequeathed to us by Bacon and the Enlightenment thinkers who convinced us that the ideas of the past were as the thoughts of children, while our own ideas, because they were new, were superior.  Yet as Newton said, "If I have seen father it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." 

♫ "To put your dog on the roof ain't very nice, I much prefer mine served over brown rice." ♫

Hows that for a lyric?

There is no prize - and certainly no political office - for which I would be willing to sacrifice my integrity.  With all of the things that can make me lie awake at O-dark-thirty tossing and turning and unable to sleep, I could not face my conscience accusing me of  betraying my core self by playing false to another  trying to win the approval of the mob.

"...To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."