Author: VD

BP asks: First, I thank you for your Worldnetdaily commentaries. Yours is one of the few columns I always read. But I do have a question about your last column. How is it that you, a Mensa member, consistently writes a thought-provoking column, soundly grounded in reality, despite being cursed with a high intelligence? You need a column to explain the success of highly intelligent people. Interestingly enough, In my close circle of friends, personal and economic success seems to have a small negative correlation with intelligence. But at the subnormal levels life is definite difficulty among those I know.



You are, of course, quite welcome. As confusing as life can be for the super-bright, there’s no question that it’s much tougher for the stupid. They deserve our pity, our respect and our help, though never our contempt, and there is no justification to proclaim ourselves a self-selected elite worthy to rule over them, however distasteful their aesthetics and appalling leisures may be to we happy arrogant few. However, I suggest that you could argue my column is anything but successful. There are plenty of columns written by the less-than-brilliant that appear in hundreds of papers around the country, while mine is dismissed by editors – even those open to my political ideology – as being over the heads of their readers, which may be why it only appears in precisely two places. I’ve been told by numerous parties to dumb it down, (excuse me, make it more accessible), if I wish to increase the odds of my success. A columnist more focused on the financial success and fame of his column would certainly do so. I considered it for about a week.

And, I won’t. Why not? Not out of some prideful quasi-artistic pique, but because as a conventionally unfocused megabrain, I have other interests that claim my attention, some of which are significantly more lucrative than mediahood, some of which are orders of magnitude less so. I’ve concluded that my media career, such as it is, is nothing more than a hobby so I’m free to write as I please. For example, these last two columns are about as close as I’ll get to the political horse race that will dominate 80 percent of everyone else’s columns for the rest of the year; how many variations on “why Bush is bad” and “why Clark is stupid” do we really need to read? A lot more than I want to write, I’m sure.

So, you see, I can be just as functionally-stupid in my own way. But at least I know it. General Clark doesn’t.

I’ve added an RSS feed, though I’m not sure what the best way to let people know about it is, and I’m also curious to see if it will increase or cut down on blog traffic, but I thought I’d give it a whirl anyhow. The feed is http://feeds.blogstreet.com/39490.rss.

One of the reasons I felt pretty comfortable making the assertions I did in today’s column is that I am not only in the high-powered intellectual range myself, but I have three close acquaintances and two extended-family members who also are. The brightest of the bunch, interestingly enough, is the one who would almost certainly be accounted the biggest failure in social, career and societal contribution terms. Horn lived in the basement of the Digital Ghetto for about two years, taking a low-level tech job only when he ran out of money – usually being promoted twice within the first three months. He would also almost always make some simple, but astoundingly brilliant suggestion to modify the company’s procedures that would be immediately enacted by a surprised and happy management.

Then, as soon as he’d stashed a bit of money in the bank, he’d lose interest and stop showing up for work. Most people who knew him blamed his behavior on the copious amount of chemicals he added to his bloodstream, but that wasn’t it at all. He always knew what he was doing – indeed, he had a far better idea than most people I know – he simply didn’t have much interest in the trappings of a normal life. I also saw, first-hand, how his irrepressible curiosity prevented him from accomplishing much, as he’d spend an evening writing a lovely, melodic song on the synthesizers, then not bother to save the MIDI file because he’d thought up an interesting new synthetic chemical formula or conceived a design for a monstrous superbong that required two men to move. That one, he actually built. “The filtration is excellent!” Yeah, and if the police come, we can just push it over and drown them.

It was always interesting to live with him, though. And it certainly does sharpen the intellect to have someone walk into your room at three in the morning and lead off with “So what do you think Kant meant when….” Please, please, tell me this is a nightmare….

I’m not in Horn’s league where raw upstairs firepower is concerned, but Space Bunny would probably tell you that I have the same distaste for focus, even though chemicals don’t figure into my interests. My next company could quite reasonably justify a ten-digit market cap in five years, assuming that I don’t get too distracted with writing my next fantasy novel or designing the multi-level stratego-tactical historical wargame I’ve been pondering since 1992. That will sound ridiculous to most people, of course, and yet I’m truly as interested in the third concept as the first. I’ve certainly put more time into it.

What’s frightening, to me, is the notion of intelligent people who are able to focus because they so slaver after power over others. That is why I think that anyone who is willing to put themselves through the grueling rigor of the campaign process should be barred as being psychologically unfit for office.

NFL Championships 2-0. Playoffs 6-4.

Carolina rushed for 155 yards, just as I expected, and saw excellent results from keeping the middle lanes closed so Donovan McNabb couldn’t run. John Fox did a great job of sticking to his game plan, running the ball right down the Eagles’ throats and refraining from the temptation to get unnecessarily cute. I was sure that Carolina would win when he told the halftime reporter that Carolina needed to run the ball more when they already had a 60-40 run-pass ratio. McNabb played tough, like he always does, but anyone looking for reasons why Philadelphia has dropped three straight NFC championships has to look at this reality: “In three NFC championship games, McNabb is 54-for-101 for 514 yards with one touchdown and five interceptions, and just nine rushes for 53 yards.”

But football is a team game, of course, and there’s nothing I despise more than the media assigning all glory and blame to the quarterback. Last week, the receivers came through; this week they didn’t. The way I saw it, Philadelphia’s luck ran out and their not-so-secret weaknesses were exposed by a team led by a coaching staff that knew how to exploit them.

As for the other game, it was a perfect example of the sports media hyperventilating about a hot quarterback and forgetting that great defense paired with a serviceable offense usually wins championships. Yes, we all remember the 1999 Rams, but that was an all-time great offense with three dangerous receivers, not one, and a better RB. Peyton Manning isn’t easily taken out of his game, but it can be done, and the hard-hitting in the secondary reminded me of when the Ravens beat up the Raiders in the AFC championship game. The Patriots offense is boring, but it works and Tom Brady throws the bravest five-yard outs in the league. I saw two passes that, if thrown by a less accurate quarterback, would almost certainly have gone the other way for six. Fantastic OL line protection too.

Both games were a pleasure to watch even if the outcomes were never really in doubt, reminding you that professional football is not just a display of raw speed and power but also the world’s most intellectually intriguing sport. Only one game left… I’m already day-dreaming about August.

And we have the proof. It is, however, as Wellington once said of Waterloo, a damned close-run thing, though.

Vox Day: 45.23809523809524% nerd blood flows through your veins.

Big Chilly: 47.61904761904762% nerd blood flows through your veins.

Space Bunny: 9.52% – and she’s tremendously embarrassed that she scored that high.

JD writes: Here’s the quote from you with which I take issue: “since God refrains from using his omnipotence to enforce virtue, the human polity should do likewise and refrain from using its power to the greatest extent possible.” To the absolute contrary, God DOES enforce virtue. God describes His approach as such: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (EXO. 34: 7) You may not immediately see it right in the instance that virtue is broken, but He most certainly DOES enforce virtue. You can bet your eternal life on it! If He doesn’t enforce virtue, then explain death.

I see no need to explain death. What I do see is the need for JD to explain that if God is enforcing virtue in the sense that I used the term “enforce”, how is it possible for man to sin? I never argued that nonvirtuous behavior has no consequences, nor did I argue that society must accept nonvirtuous behavior in others, I stated that society must stop most of its efforts to prevent by force. JD does not, I think, seriously mean to suggest that God is doing his utmost to prevent nonvirtuous behavior by force, that since it exists he is therefore helpless to prevent nonvirtuous behavior, and yet that is what JD ends up implying here. Society, on the other hand, is actually helpless in this regard; while it can certainly try to enforce virtue; history suggests that it will not only fail miserably, but will also sacrifice individual freedom and ultimately destroy itself in the process.



I suggest you rethink your stance on this suddenly popular notion of God as a “hands off” God. If God is our example of how to live, and the Bible is His only given word for us to reference, then we must also be hands on in our approach. I’m not saying we should be a theocracy. God’s laws are Spiritual, and you can’t enforce a Spiritual law with a physical one. But I am saying the Founding Fathers built their law as best as they could on what they read in the Bible, and so we should continue with that.

I do wish people would learn to read with precision and in context. How is a failure to use every means at one’s disposal synonymous with doing nothing? It isn’t. By JD’s description, you’d think I was a deist, not a Southern Baptist, although he does hint at some understanding at where I’m coming from in stating that Spiritual and physical laws are not identical. There is nothing “hands off” about placing the responsibility for enforcing virtue in the hands of the people instead of relying on their government to do it for them; quite the contrary. It is truly amazing to me how many people seem to equate the government doing nothing with nothing happening. The government isn’t providing the nation with any football games today, and yet I suspect more than a few people will be paying attention to a pair of sporting events taking place nevertheless in Philadelpha and Foxboro.

Furthermore, I submit that my notion of Christian Libertarianism is much closer to how the Founding Fathers built their law than how modern liberals and conservatives interpret Constitutional philosopy as they together continue to assemble the leviathanic monstrosity of state-enforced virtue. JD’s heart is clearly in the right place, but I conclude that, like most conservatives, he has not fully comprehended the implications of his position and the assumptions from which it is necessarily derived.

So writes the Original Cyberpunk: With regard to President Bush’s Mars exploration proposal, R. J. Steiner asks in this morning’s Opinion section, “Can we not [use this money] to reduce the percentage of poor and homeless?”

The answer is no, apparently we cannot. In 1970, 12.6-percent of the U.S.population (25.4 million people) lived in poverty. In 1997, when PresidentClinton ended welfare as we know it in the midst of the best economy in 40years, 13.3-percent of the U.S. population (35.6 million people) lived inpoverty.It therefore appears that all the 30-year, $5.4 *trillion* dollar War on Poverty produced was a net gain 10 million more poor people at a cost of $540 per unit produced.

Given that result, I’d much rather spend a few billion to see photos of human footprints on Mars.

BS loses it: VOX DAY PICKS AGAINST MY BELOVED COLTS!!! HOW DARE HE!!!??? … picking against my Colts just like he did last week in picking those panty-wearing Chiefs to beat Peyton and Co. Can’t everyone just accept the inevitable and annoint Peyton the greatest quarterback of all time and realize that the gleam in Peyton’s eye only means one thing….the Lombardi Trophy is coming home to Naptown baby! We’re going to be marching around the downtown circle in Colts blue and white! Let’s go ahead and elect Peyton as mayor of Indianapolis and governor of Indiana while we’re at it, all the while having a band play ROCKY TOP as loud as humanly possible!

I had a suspicion that Baseball Savant wouldn’t take that pick well…. He cracks me up, though. Is Naptown actually a nickname? That has got to be the lamest city moniker since “the Little Apple” for Minneapolis. And what is Rocky Top? Wait, don’t tell me, I couldn’t possibly care. BS reminds me of a Vikings friend down in Florida who’d never even been to Minnesota, but was downright despondent whenever the Vikes would lose. Watching part of that 1998 season with a lunatic like him was awesome.

BS has to cut me slack, though. My mother is a huge Bert Jones fan. 5 points if you remember him.

I’m all for hot pants in women’s soccer. It is ironic that Herr Blatter will probably be far more infamous for this statement, which is actually quite reasonable from a marketing point of view, than for the fact that he is one of the most outrageously corrupt officials ever to grace the sporting world. His re-election to FIFA presidency was a masterpiece of political intrigue.

Playoff predictions so far, an underwhelming 4-4, with a disastrous 1-3 last weekend. This may be why I’m not found on ESPN, while the Sports Guy is 8-0. This looks like a decent set of games; I don’t know if they’ll be as good as last week, but then, that was one of the best playoff rounds ever.

Patriots over Colts

I’ve been a Tony Dungy fan for longer than most people have ever heard of him, as in college he was the star quarterback for the Golden Gophers. I even argued that Dennis Green should be fired and replaced by his then-defensive coordinator when Mr. Dungy was still with the Vikings. However, Indianapolis only won by a touchdown against a team without a defense, and historically, teams depending on great quarterbacking usually break down at some point in the postseason. I’d like to see the Colts win, but I don’t expect them to. And now I’ll duck, before Baseball Savant finishes frothing at the mouth and lets fly.

Panthers over Eagles

I don’t buy the QB of destiny argument, which is the strongest argument I’ve heard for Philadelphia all week. Carolina is a well-coached, well-disciplined team, and barring two breakdowns in the called pass on third-and-11 in FG range and the failure to call a timeout before the first FG attempt in OT, John Fox has impressed me. I don’t see him choking in the 4th like Mike Martz and Mike Sherman did. Donovan McNabb is playing as well as he has since 2002, which gives the Eagles a chance but hardly strikes fear into the heart of a powerful defense such as the Panthers. They weren’t run over by the Greatest Show on Turf in the Eddie Dome; they won’t be single-handedly taken apart by McNabb either. DeShaun Foster is a really good running back and I expect Carolina to have more than 150 yards rushing regardless of whether it’s him, Stephen Davis or some combination therein.