Month: July 2016

Adrien Chen’s 2015 article about Russia’s army of paid trolls.

Adrien Chen’s 2015 article about Russia’s army of paid trolls.

More recently Chen has noticed that Twitter accounts that were originally set up to spread panic about ebola are now promoting Trump. Some presumably become black flag Bernie boosters?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html?_r=1&referer=http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/25/situation-report-is-moscow-trying-to-influence-u-s-election-serious-questions-over-dnc-hack-turkey-releases-coup-doc-china-mad-over-thaad-tough-days-for-germany-and-lots-more/

In other words, the Russian story is a smokescreen sent up by Clinton boosters to bury the real one.

In other words, the Russian story is a smokescreen sent up by Clinton boosters to bury the real one. The evidence is, shall we say, pretty sketchy but who cares? It serves its purpose which is to replace one conspiracy theory (now proven) with another more outlandish one.

http://fair.org/home/with-dnc-leaks-former-conspiracy-theory-is-now-true-and-no-big-deal/

In which a pedant protests too much about a meme he saw on the internet.

In which a pedant protests too much about a meme he saw on the internet.

The flood myth is actually a Sumerian story inherited by the Hebrews (and indeed the entire Eastern Mediterranean). This meme is simply wrong in saying that they didn’t record a major flood. They did and the flood seriously set their civilisation back. The Sumerian king list has entries from before and after the flood.

Dumuzid, the Shepherd “the shepherd”10 sars 

“Then Bad-tibira fell and the kingship was taken to Larag.”En-sipad-zid-ana8 sars “Then Larag fell and the kingship was taken to Zimbir.”En-men-dur-ana5 sars and 5 ners “Then Zimbir fell and the kingship was taken to 

Shuruppak

“Ubara-Tutu5 sars and 1 ner

“Then the flood swept over.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_King_List

Note King Dumuzid (Tammuz) is still the name of a month in the Hebrew and Arab calendars.

It’s not hard to imagine what a great flood meant to a low lying civilisation build on the delta of two great rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. The flood was a real event, a deluge that temporarily turned the region into a sea and probably killed a lot of people. It’s also likely that Noah, also known as Ziusudra and Artrahasis and Utnapishtim was a king of the city of Shuruppak (the last city mentioned in the king list before the flood) and his ark was very likely a traditional Sumerian house made of reeds which could float on the waters. You can read a slightly later version of the flood story in the tablet xi of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

http://m.sparknotes.com/lit/gilgamesh/section9.rhtml

The Christians understand very little of the stories they tell but ancient Sumer (situated in southern Iraq) was the source of many of them. Abraham was said to have been born in Sumer and the modern country Iraq was named after the city of Gilgamesh. It remains a place worthy of endless study and fascination (instead of bombing and continuous destruction).

Via Ramin Honary​​​​​​​