Tex's Place

In this presentation, Dr. Jay Smith discusses his historical and polemical approach to examining the origins of Islam , specifically challenging the Standard Islamic Narrative (SIN) regarding the existence of Muhammad , the origin of the Quran , and the city of Mecca . Key Themes and Arguments Methodology and Polemics ( 0:00 - 22:51 ): Dr. Smith shares his background as a missionary in London (1992) and his transition to using historical-critical methods and polemics —a form of debate intended to expose contradictions in Islamic claims—to engage with Muslims. He argues that traditional apologetics are often insufficient when faced with historical evidence. The Problem with Islamic Sources ( 31:00 - 41:51 , 57:51 - 1:18:30 ): A central thesis is that the primary Islamic texts—such as the Sira (biographies), Hadith (sayings), and Tafsir (commentaries)—were written centuries after Muhammad supposedly lived (often 4th to 9th century after his death). Smith claims t...

By Rusty Weiss A researcher who helped train models at OpenAI and Anthropic has resigned from the latter, warning that leading AI labs are racing toward systems they privately fear could slip beyond human control — a warning a current Anthropic team lead then publicly echoed in shocking terms. Jacob Coxon said he spent the past three years on pretraining research at both companies before finally deciding to walk out, arguing neither is acting responsibly as they pursue self-improving superintelligence. In a resignation thread on X, he said the people building the technology understand the stakes and are gambling with the public anyway. “Do not underestimate the power of this technology," warned Coxon. "These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources." “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." I resigned from Anthropic today...

By Ward Clark Reports are now coming in about a one-hour telephone conversation between Russia's President Putin and President Donald Trump. Reports have it that President Trump reportedly told the Russian president that the full restoration of relations between the U.S. and Russia - a reset, if you like - would depend on Russia making peace with Ukraine.  It's unclear what Russia's reaction to that will be . U.S. President Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin that a swift resolution to the Ukraine war could pave the way for the countries to fully restore trade and economic ties, according to a Kremlin readout of a call between the two leaders. Trump and Putin were said to have exchanged views on the results of the recent visits to Moscow and Kyiv by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner , who have sought to revive stalled diplomatic talks to bring an end to the conflict. This may well be a case of jaw-jaw being better than war-war, but President...

By Teri Christoph Democrats may be sleeping on a Senate race they likely assumed they had in the bag. After all, it's taking place in the deep-blue leftist utopia of Minnesota – home of Democrats Tim "Jazz Hands" Walz and Peggy "Crazy Eyes" Flanagan – we're talking about here. A new poll (well, survey ) that nobody is talking about might disabuse the left of the notion that they have this race, between the aforementioned Flanagan and Republican Michele Tafoya , all locked up.  The League of American Workers survey, conducted by TIPP Insights and released Tuesday, has sitting lieutenant governor Flanagan leading Tafoya by a measly two points – 40 percent to 38 percent with 14 percent undecided – among registered voters. That has Tafoya within the survey's margin of error of 2.7 percent. MINNESOTA POLL By TIPP (A) SENATE 🟦 Peggy Flanagan: 44% 🟥 Michele Tafoya: 42% 🟨 Other: 4% —— GOVERNOR 🟦 Amy Klobuchar: 50% 🟥 Lisa Demuth: 40% 🟨 Other: 3% —— @L...

Aerial illustration of a data center (inkl.com) By Amrith Ramkumar , Richard Rubin and Neil Mehta Over a decade ago, Ohio lawmakers exempted tech companies from sales taxes on computer servers and other equipment needed for data centers, betting that changes worth millions of dollars would lure much-needed investment to the state. It worked, turning Ohio into one of the leading destinations for data centers. But then the artificial-intelligence boom supersized the tax exemption, pushing it to more than $1.5 billion last year, more than 10 times the original state estimate. Voter outrage after news outlet Signal Ohio reported the scale of the provision prompted Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to pause new applications for the sales-tax exemption in May. Now, some state lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. Tristan Rader, want to repeal the sales-tax exemption and renegotiate past deals with companies such as Amazon.com, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google that secured exemptions f...

By Hannah Nightingale Four children were killed in a suspected murder-suicide in which they were drugged by their mother and grandmother and lay dead for 13 days before their bodies were found in upstate New York . Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon were found dead by police at their home with the body of their dead mother Sarah Myers, 44, and their grandmother, Amy Steadman, 64. Mother and grandmother plotted for weeks to m*rder four kids in Mechanicville then called it protection. Sarah Myers, 44, and her mother Amy Steadman, 64, began discussing how to k*ll Harper Harmon, 13, Hudson Harmon, 11, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn as early as… pic.twitter.com/2ZgQnVuZq0 — Blue Lives Matter (@bluelivesmtr) August 5, 2026 Police believe that the mother and grandmother poisoned the children as well as repeatedly stabbed Gavin to death on June 10 ahead of a planned reunion with their father, before they killed themselves. R...

By DARREN SMITH Adam Brandao , 24, is a Christian rapper who publicly shares his testimony after leaving Islam. In an exclusive interview with Britannia Daily, he recalls the friendship, the prayer experiment and the three knocks on a door that he says changed the course of his life. There was a time when Adam Brandao would have crossed the street to avoid a Christian. Raised in a Muslim household where faith was woven into everyday life, he says he absorbed a hostility towards Christianity almost without noticing. “I became a product of my environment and began to see Christians as stupid,” he says. “I began to hate the God they worshipped.” Today, that same God is the subject of his music. Brandao now writes and performs Christian rap and shares his story openly online — a decision that has cost him relationships, drawn hostility from his former community, and, he says, given him a peace he never knew growing up. A serious young Muslim Bra...

By Matt Margolis If you thought CBS News might get more honest now that Bari Weiss is running the newsroom, this week's Afghanistan coverage should make you furious. Five years after Joe Biden's chaotic, humiliating withdrawal handed the Taliban the keys to America's abandoned arsenal, CBS News correspondent Imtiaz Tyab gave a report from Kabul, standing in front of U.S. military vehicles that Taliban fighters now control. It’s not in dispute how or when they got this equipment, yet Tyab’s report dismissed one of the most thoroughly documented failures of the Biden presidency and dressed it up as a matter of opinion. He told viewers, "President Trump has bitterly criticized the Biden administration for what he says is abandoning billions of dollars of military hardware like this.” The wording is no accident. He didn’t say "the Biden administration abandoned billions in military hardware,” he framed it as an accusation against Donald Trump. CBS just walked the ...

Britain and Israel have genuine strategic interests in common even when their governments disagree sharply, but diplomatic relations require reciprocity. By JPOST EDITORIAL Political signals have consequences. London has already imposed sanctions on Israeli ministers, restricted arms exports, suspended trade negotiations, and recognized a Palestinian state. The settlement ban adds another layer to a relationship that Britain simultaneously insists remains strategically important. That contradiction was unusually visible on Tuesday. British ministers stressed that Israel remains an important security partner and that intelligence and security cooperation should continue. Miliband himself emphasized Britain’s continuing relationship with Israel even as he announced the new policy. Yet only a day earlier, UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese called on Britain to go considerably further and progressively suspend intelligence cooperation with Israel. Britai...

The foreperson said she began filling out forms before the juror reversed course during deliberations in Massachusetts By Brittany Miller Three people who served on the jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial are speaking publicly for the first time after last week's mistrial, saying a lone holdout prevented the panel from reaching a unanimous verdict. The jurors, including the foreperson, said one juror acknowledged having reasonable doubt but still refused to find Clancy not guilty by reason of insanity, according to interviews with NBC10 Boston. The jurors' accounts offer the first public glimpse inside the deliberations that ended in a deadlocked jury. The mistrial came after days of deliberations in the closely watched case against Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children in January 2023.  "He admitted he had reasonable doubt and I started filling out the forms, I was so excited," the foreperson told NBC10 Boston. But ...

By AMICHAI STEIN, REUTERS, ARIELLA ROITMAN Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed on Wednesday it attacked two US vessels and eight oil tankers in the Gulf in response to what it called a US attack on five Iranian tankers, Iranian state media reported, citing a statement from the group. The group said it attacked 10 ships attempting to cross what it described as a "prohibited and unsafe" area of the Strait of Hormuz. Earlier on Wednesday, the IRGC confirmed in a statement on Iranian media that it had attacked a US base in the eastern Jordanian city of Al Azraq with ballistic missiles in retaliation for earlier US attacks on Iranian oil tankers. This came following reports of missiles being launched from 12 different cities across Iran in the heaviest barrage since the end of Operation Roaring Lion, Army Radio reported late Tuesday night, citing Iranian media. At least 35 missiles were launched towards Jordan, according to Israeli n...