RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/23/oldest-intact-shipwreck-thought-to-be-ancient-greek-discovered-at-bottom-of-black-sea
Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the world’s oldest intact shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Sea where it appears to have lain undisturbed for more than 2,400 years.

The 23-metre (75ft) vessel, thought to be ancient Greek, was discovered with its mast, rudders and rowing benches all present and correct just over a mile below the surface. A lack of oxygen at that depth preserved it, the researchers said.

“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the principal investigator with the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (MAP), the team that made the find. “This will change our understanding of shipbuilding and seafaring in the ancient world.”

The ship is believed to have been a trading vessel of a type that researchers say has only previously been seen “on the side of ancient Greek pottery such as the ‘Siren Vase’ in the British Museum”.

That work, which dates from about the same period, depicts a similar vessel bearing Odysseus past the sirens, with the Homeric hero lashed to the mast to resist their songs.

The team reportedly said they intended to leave the vessel where it was found, but added that a small piece had been carbon dated by the University of Southampton and claimed the results “confirmed [it] as the oldest intact shipwreck known to mankind”. The team said the data would be published at the Black Sea MAP conference at the Wellcome Collection in London later this week.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/european-human-rights-court-defaming-muhammad-not-protected/

Defamatory statements about the prophet Muhammad are not covered by free-speech protections, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.

The Strasbourg-based court found that insulting the prophet “goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” and “could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace.”

In its ruling, the court rejected an Austrian woman’s claim that her previous conviction for characterizing Muhammad as a “pedophile” violated her free-speech rights, finding instead that the Austrian court had “carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected.”

In a series of public seminars, the women cited Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl, which, according to Islamic lore, was consummated when she was nine, as evidence of his pedophilia.

Muhammad “liked to do it with children,” the woman said during one of the seminars. “A 56-year-old and a 6-year-old? . . . What do we call it, if it is not pedophilia?”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/scotland-government-anti-hate-campaign-virtue-signals/

The Scottish government aims to protect people from real harm and also from those dreadful haters who might participate in wrongthink.

My blood is no use in America. What I mean is, as a native of the British Isles, born amid an epidemic of “mad cow” disease, I am theoretically a carrier of this brain-wasting affliction and, accordingly, forbidden from donating my sanguine elixir to U.S. blood banks — on the off chance it’s madly bad (or is that badly mad?).

At first, I thought this rather far-fetched. But when my visiting mother presented me with the Scotsman from last Friday — front page: “four cattle have been slaughtered in efforts to contain the first case of ‘mad cow’ disease in Scotland in a decade” — I reconsidered.

Incidentally, there is a strange quirk in Scots law protecting the bovine. According to the Licensing Act of 1872, it remains illegal to be drunk and in possession of a cow. But I digress. The Scotsman report reassured: “Authorities have said the public should not worry as no infected meat entered the food chain.”

Of course, this slaughter, like restrictive blood donation, is a precautionary measure intended to protect the general public from risk of serious harm. This is an obvious point, perhaps, but it is an important one by way of contrast.

Picture this, if you will: The Reverend David Robertson, a Protestant minister at St. Peter’s Free Church in Dundee and author of the delightful TheWeeFlea blog, was riding his bicycle through the lively Scottish city when one of the following signs caught his attention.