  The landscape of dark matter direct detection has been profoundly altered by
the slew of recent experiments. While some have claimed signals consistent with
dark matter, others have seen few, if any, events consistent with dark matter.
The results of the putative detections are often incompatible with each other
in the context of naive spin-independent scattering, as well as with the null
results. In particular, in light of the conflicts between the DM interpretation
of the three events recently reported by the CDMS-Si experiment and the first
results of the LUX experiment, there is a strong need to revisit the
assumptions that go into the DM interpretations of both signals and limits. We
attempt to reexamine a number of particle physics, astrophysics and
experimental uncertainties. Specifically, we examine exothermic scattering,
isospin-dependent couplings, modified halo models through astrophysics
independent techniques, and variations in the assumptions about the
scintillation light in liquid Xenon. We find that only a highly tuned
isospin-dependent scenario remains as a viable explanation of the claimed
detections, unless the scintillation properties of LXe are dramatically
different from the assumptions used by the LUX experiment.
