"The Circassians, also known by their endonym Adyghe, are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia, some of whom migrated to the Levant areas in exile after the Russo-Circassian War which spanned 101 years in the 19th century."

It also got him back in the headlines while simultaneously making a populist play to his base, knowing all the while he risked nothing because he was just going to sign the bill anyway.

He'll be the ruler-in-exile, the kingmaker of the right going into 2022 and perhaps 2024.

That depends on which bible you mean....there are many.

Really? Lost to history?! Hardly....lost to the ignorant and uneducated maybe, but even atheists like me know full well Jesus the man was a Jew, and definitely not a European or "white". Roman/Italian artists knew this, but worked for a Roman church so portrayed him in their image.

Genetic purity?! Lol. I guess that means no one has EVER become Jewish, you're either born one by two pure Jewish parents or not. Hardly reality, and would reject nearly every person in Israel (or elsewhere). Just because there is a long standing religious/cultural taboo against marriage outside the culture, it still happens, as does conversion. Racial/genetic purity is a fallacy debunked by genetic testing.

Prophecy is a leap. No prophecy has been correctly interpreted until AFTER the events supposedly prophesied occurred. It's ridiculous to go back after the fact and claim "see, now that I know exactly how to interpret the unclear prophecy I couldn't decipher before, it's a 100% perfect prediction" but never be able to predict the future. That's the same nonsensical logic mediums use.

The second temple was also the third, since the true second temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by a number of Jewish exile groups returning to the Levant from Babylon under the Achaemenid-appointed governor Zerubbabel. However, during the reign of Herod the Great, the Second Temple was completely refurbished, and the original structure was totally overhauled into the large and magnificent edifices and facades that are more recognizable. Logically, the third temple was the one destroyed by Romans, the second replaced by Herod but the new one was still called the second temple anyway. (To avoid contradicting prophecy? ;-) )

If the dome of the rock, the second most holy place in Islam, is destroyed, expect Jerusalem to follow soon after, as that will definitely start a religious war between nuclear powers.

Herodotus is credited with using the term Palestinian first, in the 5th century BCE as an ethnonym, making no distinction between Arabs, Jews, or other cultures inhabiting of the area. Romans adopted the term as the official administrative name for the region in the 2nd century CE, "Palestine" as a stand-alone term then came into widespread use, printed on coins, in inscriptions and even in rabbinic texts.

I think you are confused about the history, here's a primer...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

The area was populated by various people's including Jews until the Jewish–Roman wars of 66–136 CE, during which the Romans expelled most of the Jews from the area (well, really they arguably left voluntarily because they refused to be second class citizens barred from practicing their religion freely) and replaced it with the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, the Arabs were already there, not invaders or immigrants. When Assyrians (Mesopotamians) invaded in circa 722 BCE, they ruled empirically, meaning only the Jewish ruling elite left, returning in 538 BCE under Cyrus the Great....so no, the Arabs didn't just settle after the Jews were dispersed.

It's patently ridiculous to say the Arab nations were unprovoked, Jewish illegal immigration led to a hostile takeover of the region by illegal immigrants with rapid expansion of their territories into their neighbors continuing through today. The Jews defeated the Arabs thanks to American backing and exponentially better hardware. It was only their right if might makes right, and the Arab nations are under no obligation to let them keep what they stole any more than the Jews were obligated to let the Arab nations retain control in the first place. If Iran, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or any combination can take it, by your logic they have every right to do so.

I do agree, in the end there will be more conflict until the area becomes uninhabitable....largely because every religion's prophecies end with them in control, and no one wants to admit it's all nonsensical iron age tribalism at work.

Everybody's singing the same song
It goes "tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight"
I never realized these artists thought so much about dying

But truth be told we all have the same end
Could make you cry, cry, cry, cry, cry
But I'm telling you
This is the best news you're getting all week

Oh sure it's ruling the airwaves
What remains of the airwaves
And we're frankly thankful for the market psychology you're hipping us to

And all the hits are saying the same thing
There's only tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight
Then life is finite
But shit, it feels like forever
It feels like forever

Oh is everybody feeling the same stuff?
We're all wild
Except for you
And you know who you are
This is a love song

And you're getting older
I promise you this; you're getting older
And there's improvements unless
You're such a winner
That the future's a nightmare
And there's nothing I can do
Nothing anyone can do about this

And oh, I'm offering you a chance to get even
But oh, you know very well the dialect of negation
Sure enemies haunt you with spit and derision
But friends are the ones who can put you in an exile
But that's not right

And you're too sharp to be used
Or you're too shocked from being used
By these bullying children of the fabulous
Raffling off limited edition shoes

And what's it you do again?
Oh I'm a reminder
The hobbled veteran of the disk shop inquisition
Set to parry the cocksure of men's sick filth
With my own late era middle-aged ramblings

Every lover favors the same things
It's all "touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me tonight"
We maybe realize what it is we need before we die

And luck is always better than skill at things
We're flying blind
Oh good gracious
I sound like my mom

But out of the little rooms and onto the streets
You've lost your internet and we've lost our memory
We had a paper trail that led to our secrets
But embarrassing pictures have now all been deleted
By versions of selves that we thought were the best ones
'Till versions of versions of others repeating
Come laughing at everything we thought was important
While still making mistakes that you thought you had learned from
And reasonable people know better than you
That cost in the long run but they don't know the short game
And terrible people know better than you
They're used and abused of the once so dear listener
So you will be badgered and taunted until death
You're missing a party that you'll never get over
You hate the idea that you're wasting your youth
That you stood in the background oh until you got older
But that's all lies
That's all lies

Liberty is the answer. You have to convince Americans that they don't stand for simple freedom, they stand for motherfucking liberty; which accounts for all people, not one people or the other.

Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The argument of "defensive measures" sounds quite different if you take into account:
1) Operation Mongoose, 2) the history of US-led terror campaigns and regime changes in Central America (Guatemala, anyone?), 3) the killing of Soviet technicians on Cuba by Cuban exiles, armed and trained by the US, 4) the century-long almost pathological need by the US to control Cuba. Not to mention of the Soviets had knowledge of the secret deployment of missiles to Okinawa just months earlier.

Don't make JFK out to be a man of peace. He signed National Security Memorandum No 181 in August of '62, which detailed regime change followed by an invasion of Cuba. He put into place a terror campaign against Cuba to bring them back into line. A terror campaign that was resumed a mere week after the crisis by blowing up a factory, causing the death of 400+ on November 8th.

Also, the offer came from Khrushchev, not the other way around, if I remember correctly. And while the Soviets didn't wage a terror campaign against Turkey or Italy once the outdated Jupiter missiles had been removed, we all know what has been done to Cuba over the following decades.

My experiences are in direct conflict with your worldview and opinion of the kindness of some Christians. Judged at my own wedding reception in beautiful, nonjudgmental southern california, I was called out and asked if I believed in Jesus and I said no. Why would I say otherwise if it was not true?

Not all of the Christians in our families objected, but many of them did. In fact, many of them refused to be a part of our marriage and begged my wife to leave me. Since then, no one speaks to me on a personal level. They might not have all openly judged me but I'm practically an exile. A thought criminal unfit to converse with on topics of church and state. All of the christians in my life are guilty of this shunning.

The sad thing is, I never make it a big deal (other than when I post my thoughts onto the internet -- where I dump all of my problems) and I don't challenge the beliefs of the people I love -- but they sure do.

You aren't wrong in your logic that not all xtians are judgmental, but you're wrong in your overemphasis of it. Christians need no defender of the faith because God is on their side.

In my own experience and social strata, almost all Christians commit some form of microaggression or judgement upon my lack of faith. Even my wife can't help but occasionally sprinkle a bit of the ol' christian guilt upon my head from time to time. And then she has the gall to talk to me about Christians being treated unfairly.

But that's my life, not yours. I'm sure your flavor of Christ worship is much less judgmental. I don't believe it, but maybe in time I will meet one of these majestic nonjudgemental Christians who don't constantly believe the rest of us will burn in hell for all eternity while they frolic in the basking glow of a jealous, hating God. Sorry, loving... I'm sure it's only love and not a pyschopath's Barbie playset made entirely of humans enslaved to an all powerful being capable of anything.

It seems really strange from an outside perspective. It isn't all that long ago - at least in my memory - when certain types of American were almost celebrating that they were willing to torture and maim people if they 'got their answers'. Even if some of those people were innocent, it was an acceptable price to pay.

When Ed Snowden came out and told us that our governments were spying on us, trawling through our data and tracking our entire history online and in reality through surveillance cameras. The majority of America was against Snowden (in all the polls I've seen) - in any other day he would have been given the Nobel peace prize and celebrated as an all-time hero that stood up to impossible odds just to give the human race full disclosure on their 'freedom'. That's the stuff of legend, the stuff that people should be talking about in 1000 years time like we talk about Genghis Khan or something. Instead he was treated like a traitor and forced to live in exile in Russia because it was the only country that wouldn't hand him over to the torturing, controlling, law-breaking bastards he'd just made to look very stupid..... Gee, I wonder why he didn't want to face "criminal proceedings"? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear - except if you cross the wrong people?

Not too long ago freedom WAS an acceptable sacrifice for security.

When a lunatic got hold of an automatic rifle, killed 50 people and injured another 50, the prevailing argument seems to be "Hey, hey, let's not over react here, we can't sacrifice our freedom because of one terrorist act."

The only difference in this situation is that it isn't about "other people's" freedom and "my security" any more. It is about "my" freedom and "other people's" security.

You probably weren't one of those people, but I think it's fair to preface my comment with that contradiction.

I accept you have a decent point in this case; people shouldn't lose their freedom because the FBI made a mistake. But that's not the question being asked, let's talk about the general case rather than this specific one. The question is does legislation exist that will make mass shootings less common in the US? And I think the answer is yes, but I also think that culture is the biggest factor, not just access to guns.

As an example of what I mean - what if there were legislation that limited his ability to get hold of the weapon, registered that he had expressed an interest with the FBI who could then investigate based on his history? And maybe some other legislation could make it harder in general for him to just go and borrow one of his friends', or steal one from a local lax firing range, or whatever other illegal means exist to get hold of one.... perhaps because there were less in circulation, or those that were in circulation were more stringently secured?

At the end of the day it might not stop him getting hold of one, but it might make it harder and he might have second thoughts or make a mistake and be caught if it were harder. Hell, at least then the families of the dead would be able to say that a CRIME was committed when this fucking lunatic who had been under investigation was allowed to get access to a weapon that could so easily kill or maim a hundred people.

I doubt he's evil. That would be SUCH a terribly lame and predictable twist. That will kill the film for me immediately.

I'm expecting him to be in self-exile, carrying a weight from killing his father, and to keep himself from the dark side. He's probably just anti-social.

I think everyone is going to get the force in this one. I think they're going to pull a Buffy-finale, and "The Force Awakens" refers to the power to use the Force being spread to every living thing.

That has nothing to do with Luke, (unless his self-exile is some sort of journey culminating in his self sacrifice to facilitate a change of that kind, or something) I just needed a platform to share my theories.

I think the previous drama over Clarkson have been quite overblown tbh. The slope thing was ignorance from the production as much as it was Clarkson. I'm not convinced he even said nigger, and comedians have made India (and others) the butt of more tasteless jokes without complaint. Frankly, I have found him more disagreeable when it comes to his dismissal of speeding and climate change, attitudes which in my opinion may well have done far more damage than making off-hand remarks about the work ethics of Mexicans.

I think a lot of "Clarkson" is a bit of an act. Likewise with Hamster and May, they are playing caricatures. Unfortunately for Clarkson, I think he ended up caricaturing himself to some degree. It has been difficult to determine where Clarkson the person ended and where Clarkson the personality started. Perhaps even he wasn't sure where the line was.

Anyway, I think the decision to sack him (or rather, not renew his contract) is right. Sadly, because of the previous threats (empty?) to get rid of him following each blunder, Clarkson's dismissal will be seen as a coup rather than the fair application of the same rules we all expect to be judged by.

I'll be interested to see what happens to Top Gear. My guess would be that Clarkson has not been exiled, but suspended for an undisclosed period. I'd start watching the show again if they brought in new hosts, and I'd probably keep watching if the show wasn't quite so blokey with quite such predictable characters making staged goofs every show.

"Some people would say" -- does not necessarily indicate future tense.
I would say (see?) it is often used to more politely present a point.
Other people would say (again..) that he is referring to what people might say to tyson if they were present in the interview, and so he is saying what they would say if they were present.

For all any of us knows, two or three people asked him to ask the question and he's completely accurate and right. As i already stated, i'm interested in that question even if you aren't, so he's completely right in his statement, other people WOULD say that. Me - and probably others. Though you don't address any of that in your reply.

I don't understand what you mean in your first paragraph about the public - i never said that you had interviewed them nor that you should (??). What we are discussing is the value of mike tyson's endorsement, and an endorsement is for the listeners, the public. So what i am referring to is the viewing public of a TV show on which mike tyson has appeared and offered his personal endorsement to.

In fact, you specifically said that he has a duty of care to his audience to explain his sources, so it seemed to me that your primary concern was the public's full understanding of the interview... is that not the case? I think you may have contradicted yourself here - i asked you what that duty of care was, and that's a hard question to answer without referring to the "public thought". Perhaps that's why you didn't bother addressing it in your reply. I'm doing my best to keep the discussion going, but i don't understand what this paragraph refers to or what it means.

Finally the legal battle that you linked to me. As i already reminded you, we are not his judges and it is not a courtroom, so it is utterly irrelevant to the case. Furthermore, the world is bigger than one country and this is an international website with a plethora of opinions. In exchange i'd like you to read the introductory paragraph about protection of sources which finishes with several particular comments about the united states, and one addressed directly about the US - the land of the free and home of the exiled whistle-blowers. Please remember as you read that this refers to a legal setting, and really has nothing to do with the example in this video about which you incorrectly assert that he has a duty to expose his sources. Which you still have not made clear. However i wanted to make clear that i think protection of sources is imperative to combating corruption which is absolutely rife in this day and age of illegal wars, illegal detention, worldwide spying and tracking of individuals by the NSA and Great Britain's intelligence agencies, expenses scandals, etc.

You haven't answered even half of the questions i posed to you in my first comment, i'm all ears. Or eyes. Whatever.

Proof that all black comedians are forced into drag as Dave Chappelle said after he returned from his self exile.

You still have those little fortresses offshore, don't you?

Can't be that hard to find one that hasn't been turned into a luxurious retreat or a pirate radio station. Pick a cosy one, name it Piers' Tears and exile this little twat once and for all.

@Sarzy, @lucky760:

To's output can be roughly divided into three categories:
- Straight Film Noir influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville, including his early Milkyway Image productions, his The Mission / Exiled / Vengeance sort-of-trilogy, etc, with a special mention for Election 1 & 2.
- Somewhat more 'commercial' ventures: Running Out Of Time, Full Time Killer, Drug wars, and Breaking News... Less edgy, but better production value.
- And his more 'out there' attempts, that are usually crime films with some surreal aspect: Running On Karma (Shaolin-monk-turned-stripper sees people's past incarnations, tries to reverse their karma), Throwdown (everyone is a secret Judo master), Mad Detective (schizo detective can see people's inner personality and dialogue with them)...

He sometimes misses the mark, but his films are usually worth their salt (this often extends to other Milkyway films he produces).

Breaking News, it turns out, is a minor To film. It's well directed (as you can see by yourselves), and it's definitely fun to watch, but ... it's just that his other films are better! My advice : start with PTU, Exiled, or Full Time Killer. Then if you like what you see, go for the rest.

And if you like Running On Karma, check out Wai Ka Fai, To's writer / Milkyway co-founder and sometimes-director. That guy is good.

Happy Christmas, @graterbot, and best wishes for your return from exile in 2014