When Mr. S.D. sent the following article to me this week I knew I would be blogging about it, and accordingly, it went straight to my "final seven" folder right away, which is a rare occurrence. Normally, I sort email articles as I receive them into a "semi-finals" and "finals" folder, and at the end of the week, comb through both and pull articles for blogging which go into the "final seven". Not this one; it went directly to the final seven. I think you'll see why once we get to my high octane speculation of the day. But first, the article:

Isis Makes Up to $100 Million a Year Smuggling Ancient Artifacts From Iraq and Syria

What makes this article so delicious, from a certain point of view, is that it comes from a lamestream corporate controlled media "source" like Newsweek; it's not a conspiracy theory coming from an "alt media" site. So here's what I want to concentrate on:

The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) makes as much as $100 million annually by trafficking looted antiquities out of Iraq and Syria and selling them on the black market. The Wall Street Journal reported that while it was not possible to put a precise figure on the amount of revenue generated for ISIS by the trade of the artifacts, an unnamed French security official believed it to be around $100 million. Estimates from other sources ranged from the low tens of millions upward. Read more: Christian retailer Hobby Lobby stole Middle East history to make a Bible museum in Washington