Mark Twain at the Territorial Enterprise Puns

im looking everywhere and i cant find any information about the mummy in S23Ep4 ??? did the body ever get identified?? i read that mark twain made a hoax about "the petrified man" but that doesnt seem to be related. i wanna know what the deal is with this freakin mummy

On a side note (but same episode), why did Data find it justifiable to risk altering the timeline by selling the card shark his highly technologically advanced combadge? It doesn't seem logical to risk so much for one's own good.

“I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety- nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise--perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it--and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end.

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race--the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.”

“To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character, one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of their lustre; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no illustrious man of four of five centuries ago whose character would meet the test at all points.” -- Mark Twain ("Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc") (1896)

I truly, genuinely hate this particular argument that TBM folks make about the origins of the Book of Mormon.

"It must be divine! No way little old uneducated Joseph could have written this!!"

First, we manage to teach millions of children to read and write in just a few years.... but somehow they think it's impossible that Joseph smith learned to read and write?

Also, having an elementary school education does not prevent one from writing a book. Though he definitely educated himself various ways throughout his life, Mark Twain's formal education ended in elementary school... and he wrote a fuck ton of books.

Plenty of idiots have written books. It isn't miraculous.

Worrying about the finitude of life, I can relate: the reason I try to pick a good movie to watch instead of a bad one it's because I know I'll not be here forever.

The worrying about not knowing the afterlife (if there is one), I can't relate that much, that Twain quote sums up one of the reasons.