[conspire] Having a great time at the ol' Bar Og

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> So this is the Lebanese idea of a terrible nightmare for a cartoonist in
> Norway ... which is to attack Helsinki in a suicide attack expecting to
> get 80 Swedish virgins.

For the record, the bullshit myth is of a reward of _72_ virgins.  
Even though my Arabic is bad and getting worse from lack of trying, I 
can say with considerable confidence that there's nothing in either the
Quran or that Hadith about any such thing, even though, times of
composition being what they were, there was rather a lot about
compensations of the sacrifice of martyrdom for one's religion under
whatever circumstances deemed to make that a good idea.

Much about the propaganda of religious recruitment, yet the Cecil Adams
crew in Chicago, like me, finding the myth to nonetheless be bullshit,
here:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2329/does-the-koran-really-promise-islamic-martyrs-72-virgins

> what a fucking mess that would be...

You should have seen the football (you benighted colonials would say
'soccer') match between a visiting Swedish team and hosting Norwegians
that occurred when my parents were visiting Norway in 1950.  _That_ was 
a fucking mess.  My parents wondered if there were a riot going on.
Turns out, it was just a football match.

You Lebanese might not understand that, though.  ;->