Category: Uncategorized

This report of the Vikings’ clock management does exactly not bode well for the Eagles game:

With 36 seconds remaining and the ball on the Giants 30, Adrian Peterson, who would win the NFL rushing title, took a handoff and unadvisedly tried to veer to the outside, losing 2 yards. Time passed. And passed. And passed. That play ended with 29 seconds remaining. The Vikings held one timeout. Childress seemed to freeze as special teams coach Paul Ferraro and running backs coach Eric Bienemy gestured angrily at one another, and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier put his hand on Childress’ back, as if to urge him to action. Jackson gazed at the sideline for the next play, and Childress finally called his last timeout with nine seconds remaining, erasing any realistic chance of running a productive play.

Thank goodness they’re facing Andy Reid, who may actually be a worse game coach than Childress. While Childress very nearly bungled the end of the drive, it must be noted that he did the right thing in burning up the final 3:17 in order to deny the Giants the ball. Still, it makes one long for the stoic decisiveness of Bud Grant.

1. 0-16! It couldn’t happen to a better team. I love the Green Bay rivalry and I have a hate-respect attitude towards Chicago, but I have always despised the Lions. (Although I will absolutely defend their right to play on Thanksgiving Day.) My idea is that as a remembrance of their historic achievement, they should be forced to wear the snappy orange-and-cream colors of the classic Buccaneers creamsicle uniforms until they manage to win the NFC North. Which should be sometime around 2034 or so.

2. Still don’t like Brad Childress, but he did get them to the playoffs in his third year. But I would really like someone to explain to him that there is no degree of difficulty bonus in winning your division without an actual NFL quarterback. One thing that is seldom noted is that the Vikings defense continues to improve despite the fact that they’ve had three different defensive coordinators in three years. Childress should receive credit for this.

3. The bad news about the first-round game against the Eagles: Childress is a horrible game coach with no clock management skills. The good news: So is Andy Reid. The student clearly learned from the master.

4. Given the NFL’s willingness to modify its rules to protect its stars, can we expect there to be a handle on the next year’s ball for Adrian Peterson’s sake? You have to love the way he runs and the way he competes, but both his pass blocking and his fumbling are problems that need to be addressed. He badly whiffed on the sort of blitz pickup that Chester Taylor never misses. That’s the real reason he comes out on third down; he ‘s fine catching the ball out of the backfield.

5. The Tarvaris Jackson Experiment is really doing much, much better, but you can only go so far with the rote, pass-by-numbers approach. Watching him play reminds me of someone playing Maddens. That play-action roll-out and pass to the tight end running a square-out on the crucial third-and-short in the fourth quarter is one of my go-to audibles. Fortunately, AD draws the Sam linebacker more reliably than my Maddens RB. However, I’m still furious that the Vikings didn’t go after Drew Brees. Or Chad Pennington. Here’s hoping they have the sense to pursue Matt Cassell.

6. The Galacticos concept isn’t working any better for Dallas than it did for Real Madrid. Team sport, guys. TEAM sport.

7. I know New York beat Carolina. I’m not sure they can do it twice, though.

8. If I’d known how badly Peyton Manning was hurt early in the season, I wouldn’t have traded him. On the other hand, it’s nice to have Clinton Portis to go with Aaron Rodgers. Who, by the way, is hardly to blame for the fact that the Packers featured an NCAA-quality defense in 2008.

9. So, it turns out that putting a legend in a new jersey for one last hurrah didn’t end well. Wow, who could have ever imagined that! I suspect Brett Favre’s upcoming retirement will stick this time.

10. I am delighted that Antoine Winfield finally made the Pro Bowl. It’s so well-merited! He’s been my favorite Viking for the last three years and I’ve never seen a better defensive play than the one he made against the Packers, slipping between two pulling linemen and single-handedly stopping a screen behind the line. Unless it was the time that he dropped down to all fours, caused the pulling guard to fall over him, then popped up and nailed the ball carrier for no gain.

11. We need Denny Green back in the league. Wouldn’t you love to see him coaching the Raidess next year? Come on, Al! Denny is who you think he is, so go ahead and crown his ass!

12. Speaking of things badly needed, where was Drew Bledsoe and the Tony Homo blog last night. It practically screamed out for this sort of thing: “That was quick. 38 seconds into the second half: Another Romo fumble. If it’s any consolation, our halftime adjustments included Homo fumbling it more often. Coach’s logic was “as long as he’s not throwing it, we’re fine.” The scary thing is that excerpt is from last year, not last night’s game.

13. NFC North Champions. Skol Vikings!

Since we’re on the subject of atheism today, it’s worth noting that not all atheists are as obtusely blind to the objective and even scientific benefits of religion in general and Christianity in particular as the New Atheists and their mindless acolytes.

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good…. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

Now, the fact that Christianity is of real and tangible material benefit to people does not, of course, prove that its tenets are true. It merely proves they are beneficial. This is not irrelevant, indeed, it is important in proving that the core message of the New Atheism, that society would be better off if its members possessed less religious faith, is demonstrably false. But it is irrelevant regarding the fact or non-fact of God’s existence, much less the truth of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

On a related subject, it is interesting to note the reaction of many atheists to the conversion to Catholic Christianity of a man who was once one of the more notorious atheists active on the Internet. I don’t know the Raving Atheist nor do I have an opinion if his conversion is genuine or some sort of practical joke, but there is certainly a powerful Biblical precedent for this sort of dramatic turn from prosecutor to proselytiser. What escapes those now accusing the Raving Atheist of being mentally unstable is the observation that many of them regularly exhibit the same sort of instability and logical incoherence that was long exhibited by the Raving Atheist. In most cases, it’s very easy to observe that an individual’s atheism is more a symptom of an underlying psychological problem than the result of a long and objective rational inquiry.

It will be interesting if Matthew Paris eventually follows his observations to their rational conclusion. If Christianity is good for Africa, then presumably Europe’s turn away from Christianity is bad for Europe. In which case, Europeans would do well to reject their embrace of irreligion and paganism in favor of a return to their Christian roots.

Such a pity that the budding genre of misery lit + Holocaust memoir appears to have been aborted not long after its conception. Obviously, it was missing something vital. If only Misha had lived with werewolves… perhaps sexy urban werewolves prone to snappy dialogue!

On Saturday, Berkley Books canceled Rosenblat’s memoir, “Angel at the Fence.” Rosenblat acknowledged that he and his wife did not meet, as they had said for years, at a sub-camp of Buchenwald, where she allegedly sneaked him apples and bread. The book was supposed to come out in February…. Other Holocaust memoirists have devised greater fantasies. Misha Defonseca, author of “Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years,” pretended she was a Jewish girl who lived with wolves during the war, when she was actually a non-Jew who lived, without wolves, in Belgium.

Now, if you don’t buy into a fake Holocaust memoir, does that still make you a Holocaust denier?

It’s that kind of week for a lot of teams, thanks to the NFL’s refusal to throw away divisions and simply take the top twelve teams. I don’t have a lot of confidence in either the Vikings ability to beat the Giants and it’s probably not wise to count on the Texans finishing off the Bears either. Fortunately, the Giants passing game appears to have disappeared with Plaxico Burress and the Vikings are one team that can hope to shut down the Giants’ three-headed running beast, which if I recall correctly is down to two heads already. So, the possibility of victory exists if Tarvaris and AD can stop turning the ball over.

On the other hand, no one thought that the Vikes would be playing for anything this late in the season anyhow, so we have that going for us today.

There’s no reason anyone in the West, least of all those of European descent, should lift a finger to interfere with Zimbabwe’s collective suicide by agricultural incompetence. Indeed, left-liberals should applaud the African nation’s proactive approach to addressing the global population problem.

Since 2000, when Mr. Mugabe began encouraging the violent invasion of the country’s large, white-owned commercial farms — once the country’s largest employers — food production has collapsed, hunger has afflicted millions and the economy has never recovered.

As PJ O’Rourke once pointed out in Holidays in Hell, no mass starvation in the 20th century occurred as a result of natural causes such as drought. It was inevitably the result of government interference. The President of the Zimbabwean Senate, Edna Madzongwe, said: “Government takes what it wants.” But what she neglected to mention, let alone realize, is that government can only take; it is inherently unproductive.

It looks like we’re now into the death march stage, although the Christmas holiday may be in part to blame. Congratulations, all 108 of you who have soldiered on thus far. If you have, you’ve probably noticed some of the astounding similarities between then and now, particularly when it comes to mortgage-related issues. For next week, read Chapter 9: 1930.

Before the questions about the potential Obama home scandal begin to percolate into the mainstream news now that WND has caught scent of the trail. You’d be surprised how many news stories “broken” by the major newspapers can be traced back to WND, even if it wasn’t initially their investigation.

WND confirmed the tax bill for the Obama home is mailed to Miceli, not to Obama or the Northern Trust account through which Obama has claimed the home was purchased. Records from the Cook County Treasurer’s Office give the PIN number for the Obama property as 20-11-115-037-0000 and list Miceli as the person who receives Obama’s property tax invoice by mail. Eric Herman, a spokesman for the Cook County assessor, confirmed to WND that the Treasurer’s Office records were correct and that Miceli did receive the Obama property tax invoice by mail.

So, who really did buy the house? Who owns it now? It’s certainly possible that there’s an innocent explanation for why Rezko’s lawyer should be paying the property taxes on Obama’s house, but something smells very, very fishy indeed in Cook County… and his chief-of-staff can’t serve as a firebreak this time. In any case, the situation is clearly something that has to be investigated in detail. The media will do its best to cover for the President-elect, but given that the house ownership and tax returns are matters of public record, they may not be able to do so for long.

Lest you wonder why I have such complete contempt for the intellectual pretensions of atheists, here’s an attempted criticism of The Irrational Atheist from an atheist who, quite naturally, thinks that there’s no need to read a book in order to decry it because it is, and I quote: “a book that sprouts such lies….”

Given the scale of the inquisitions and the Christian crusades and the centuries of conflict incurred by these religious conflicts, it is quite difficult to put an exact figure, not to mention the fact that these conflicts inflicted caused wholesale destruction of other cultures, such as the Atzecs (Victims of the Spanish inquisitors), the French Cathars (a French minority Christian sect) and countless others.

I have no doubts at all that it’s very difficult for someone who believes the Aztecs were victims of the Spanish inquisitors – and even cites Wikipedia to “prove” it – to count anything over four. As is so often the case, the tremendously amusing thing about atheists isn’t that they’re stupid, but that they genuinely believe themselves to be tremendously intelligent and well-informed while publicly demonstrating the precise opposite.

Now, there are certainly many very intelligent and reasonable individuals who happen to lack religious faith. However, such individuals almost invariably describe themselves as “agnostic”.