Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

It is argued in the previous paragraphs that the fences Ceuta and
Melilla will continue to influence negatively Morocco’s relations with
Spain and the EU. Spain’s policy to fence the two enclaves’ borders
reflects contradictory pressures in the region. While the Mediterranean
sphere has witnessed an increasing number of cultural and economic
cooperation projects in the last two decades, new physical and virtual
walls are being built in the region to achieve “Fortress Europe”.

The U.S.-Mexico border wall marks the fault line between two different
worlds. Regardless of how many billions of dollars will be spent on
the further fortification and militarization of the common border, illegal
cross-border activities will continue so long as there is a huge disparity
in economic prosperity, political stability and social security between
the two countries.
Regional integration and advanced partnerships may reduce the
attractiveness of emigration, but they cannot erase the American dream
from the mind of millions of Latin Americans who will continue to seek
new ways to reach the America El Dorado — regularly or irregularly.

The common denominator of new immigration policies taken
by the host countries in the last two decades is the linking between
immigration policy and border-control management on one hand,
and between the immigration policy and security issues on the other
hand.

[…]

Security concerns remain a main determinant of the current border-
control policies which aim at preventing infiltration of members of
armed groups, irregular migration, goods smuggling, drug trafficking
and other clandestine cross-border activities. In some cases, border
fortification reflects the desire to impose unilaterally the de facto border.

[…]

One of the paradoxes of “globalization” is that an increasingly
interconnected and interdependent world is simultaneously marked by
intensified militarization and fortification of national borders. Today,
some regions — whether in North America, the Mediterranean or some
Asian sub-regions — are being pulled in two different directions: one
toward more complementarity and integration (e.g., NAFTA, Union for
Mediterranean, ASEAN, SAARC) and another toward the erection of
further tangible and intangible border barriers.

Despite relentless efforts by receiving countries to prevent
unauthorized border-crossing by immigrants, drug smugglers
and dissidents, these groups have not been deterred. Rather, they
have adapted to the strategies designed to impede their movement,
developing new ways and means to circumvent such barriers.

[…]

Though military walls may reach some short-term goals by
destabilizing the enemy, armed groups can adapt to the new situation
by developing missiles that can exceed the height of these barriers,
by digging tunnels or by penetrating the enemy lines using forged
documents as has been seen in Palestine and Kashmir.

Kama Sutra

AN ABRIDGED KORAN recreates the historical order of the Koran of Mohammed's day. The first chapters start with Mohammed's first recitation and the last chapters are those he recited before he died. Mohammed's life gives the Koran clarity, meaning, and order. When the Koran and Mohammed's life are brought together, the Koran becomes a powerful epic story.

AN ABRIDGED KORAN is identical to A SIMPLE KORAN except it has all of the repetition removed. For instance, the story of Moses and the Pharaoh is told 39 times. In AN ABRIDGED KORAN the story is told only once. Read AN ABRIDGED KORAN. It will change the way you see the world.

how much of the doctrine was influenced by (or has influenced) the way how the text was (wrongly) translated.

The way I "read" books like these is to skim through intro and conclusion to see if there's a chapter I want to delve into deeper. I'd argue it's slightly better than reading the newspaper summary of a book.

[Koran] has its moments but overall it's terrible. Much more so than the Bible, imo.

shame on you Belfrager

Shadows from the Walls of Death, printed in 1874 and measuring about 22 by 30 inches, is a noteworthy book for two reasons: its rarity, and the fact that, if you touch it, it might kill you. It contains just under a hundred wallpaper samples, each of which is saturated with potentially dangerous levels of arsenic.

The book is the work of Dr. Robert M. Kedzie, a Union surgeon during the American Civil War and later professor of chemistry at Michigan State Agricultural college (now MSU). When he came to serve on the state’s Board of Health in the 1870s, he set out to raise awareness about the dangers of arsenic-pigmented wallpaper. Though a lethal toxin, arsenic can be mixed with copper and made into beautiful paints and pigments, most commonly Scheele’s Green or Paris Green. This was no fringe phenomenon: near the end of the 19th century, the American Medical Association estimated that as much as 65 percent of all wallpaper in the United States contained arsenic.

Apparently there's such a thing as poisonous books.

Of course. For example, in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, Aristotle's Poetics Book II was poisoned.