Frazz by Jef Mallett for November 03, 2012

how about a camelbak?

Crusaders were not looking for the Grail. They were looking to occupy land and make money from the mid-east trade routes. Questers were looking for the Grail.

Just to point out that Fraz is probably wearing this for training, where there are no nice volunteers with drinks along the way.

I only run a few miles, but even in winter I want water; I wear a waist style camelback and it works for me.

Water you need, the rest are just wants.

olddog- not to occupy, to take back what was occupied by Muhammed’s boys

massha: Muslims had lived there in the majority for some six centuries, in peace with significant Jewish and Christian minorities (as well as a few smaller non-Arab ethnoi). It, and the Golden Horn were the only trade route between Europe, Asia, and Africa and they wanted the money. The first city to be looted by the Crusaders was the Christian city of Byzantium.

how does everyone feel about the nyc marathon being canceled this year?

Why wouldn’t they cancel it? I couldn’t believe they took so long to do so, given the resources required to run it and the more critical areas in which those resources are currently needed.

I hate all those camelbacks and related. I’ve tried a few. They all taste like plastic. If not immediately, even after washing, then soon after purchase. If they taste like plastic, you’re consuming plastic. Yuck.

By a Camelbak instead, Frazz

C’mon, Jane, you’ve known Frazz long enough to realize he’s on a Quest, and the last thing you want to do in such a situation is actually FIND the Holy Grail—then you’d have to stop searching, and what fun would that be?

Should add that I’m not surprised to see Mallat once again touting revisionist history that blames the Europeans for the ills in the world.

mklange: Paying taxes? That’s “tribute”? Muslims paid 2.5% of everything they owned each year as a religious tax, but that went to the poor – “redistribution of wealth” in your language. Others financed the government, so there was a vested interest in keeping “people of the book” (Jews and Christians – the Bible) prosperous so they were due more taxes..In the late 1940s, Christians were 20% of the population of Nazareth, a figure which had remained essentially steady since Ottoman days. Now it is under 5% and dropping. A Reformed or “secular” Jew is a second class citizen of Israel under the Likud. Christians and Muslims, being primarily Arab, are barely even considered human. But the US must follow all Likud orders – especially in genocide against Arabs and preventing Labour from forming a government.