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John C. Wright offers a compelling argument that it is not, in fact, the reduction of characters to superficial cardboard cutouts caused by the absence of religion from science fiction that causes SF/F to remain in its literary ghetto.

1. Germany always overperforms in the big tournaments.

2. Portugal continues to play the knockout stage with both hands locked firmly around their throats.

3. Don’t count on quality performances from teams with national coaches who announce their departures for greener pastures during the tournament.

4. Be wary of teams with decent offensive firepower that haven’t really been tested in the back. Yes, this means you, Spain. Schweinsteiger, Podolski and Ballack played absolute hell with the Portuguese back four.

This was the first game that Germany played like the pre-tournament favorites they were. I still don’t think they’ll win the whole thing; Portugal did get two goals back on them and neither the Portuguese attack or midfield is as strong as those possessed by Holland and Spain. But still, it was an impressive performance, especially following three lackluster showings and a second-place finish in the weakest group of the tournament.

Here’s 10 reasons to download it. I’ve noticed that it’s a bit snappier than the previous version and uses less memory too. Now I’m just waiting for OpenOffice 3.0 and that PDF import feature….

I keep telling you that the atheist icons really aren’t that intelligent or well-educated, and while many have begun to accept that reality, some of their acolytes have proved harder to convince. Which is strange, since they tend to reveal their historical ignorance almost every time they open their mouths. In his column about his new book today, Pat Buchanan embarrasses the blundering blitherbuss Christopher Hitchens:

And why did Hitler invade Russia? This writer quotes Hitler 10 times as saying that only by knocking out Russia could he convince Britain it could not win and must end the war.

Hitchens mocks this view, invoking the Hitler-madman theory.

“Could we have a better definition of derangement and megalomania than the case of a dictator who overrules his own generals and invades Russia in wintertime …?”

Christopher, Hitler invaded Russia on June 22.

Hitler was no madman, he was simply evil. As for his decision to invade Russia, like both his predecessor and his successors, (Napoleon and the EU), he became overconfident due to his previous successes. Hitler had previously overruled a number of his more cautious generals in the past and been proven right to have done so. And as for Hitchens, it should come as little surprise that he confuses a literary bon mot about never invading Russia in the winter with actual knowledge of the historical Operation Barbarossa.

I realize some people may have laughed when I pointed out in The Irrational Atheist that gamers actually know more about this sort of thing than most journalists and academics, but it’s absolutely true. No ASLer or CMOB player could ever make such a boneheaded mistake.

UPDATE – It’s amusing, but when Spacebunny dropped the post in my office after I posted this, I opened up a large envelope which turned out to contain the premier issue of the new magazine from Strategy & Tactics, World at War: The Strategy and Tactics of World War II. The first game included? Barbarossa: East Front 1941-1945. One relevant point I’ve already noticed in my initial scan of the lead article – fantastic maps, by the way – is that German strategic intelligence informed Hitler and his generals that there were 200 combat divisions in the Soviet order of battle, of which only 50-75 were on the front facing Germany; in fact, the Soviets had 360 divisions at their disposal. Thus, neither Hitler nor his generals were aware that Zhukov and Stalin were waging a war of attrition for the first year of the war, especially since the capture of 390,000 troops and 4,500 tanks at Smolensk and Minsk led the German High Command to believe that they were successfully repeating their previous blitzkriegs of France and the Low Countries.

The group stage went pretty much as I expected. The only disappointment was that there wasn’t a decent third team in Germany’s group, as they would have almost surely flamed out if there had been a Sweden or a Czech Republic there. The only real surprise was Holland, as not even my Ajax friend expected them to beat both France and Italy. I figured them for a loss to Italy and maybe a tie with France. Speaking of the Azurri, they finished strong, as usual, and put Les Blues away without any trouble. But Spain looks tough, very tough, and I don’t think the oft-confused Italian defense is going to shut down Villa, Fabregas, and company. Turkey shouldn’t be in the quarters at all; they got lucky against both the Swiss and the Czechs. But, as the Greeks showed four years ago, a little timely luck can take you a long way in this tournament.

Here’s what I expect:

Portugal over Germany
Croatia over Turkey
Holland over Russia
Spain over Italy

The two I’m less confident about are Portugal and Croatia, since Portugal has a history of choking and Germany has a history of over-performing. But the Portuguese have played much better this tournament and while Cristiano Ronaldo is a complete cheeseball, he’s not a choker. Croatia is a more complete team than either the Swiss or the Czechs, but who knows if the Turkish luck has run out or not. I’d be surprised if Italy beat Spain and shocked if Russia beat an increasingly impressive Holland.

I don’t know if they read my column at Cato, but clearly I’m not the only one who saw Boumedienne as a political shot across the bows:

Brink Lindsey of Cato offers an interesting argument on Boumedienne in this Bloggingheads.TV. He says we should read Boumedienne not as a case expanding the civil liberties of armed alien enemies, but as a separation of powers case: a limit on untrammelled executive power. That point is legally wrong, I think, but psychologically acute…. because it is probably true that the court would have shown greater deference to the administration’s proposed military tribunals had it ever got around to initiating any. The court’s reasoning in Boumedienne may be lousy. But its instincts are perhaps understandable.

Better too much habeus than not enough. Especially since it’s long past time to be expecting any of the three branches of the federal government to pay any attention to the actual law.

Everybody wins. The Big Three get their championship, David Stern gets his theme for the next three NBA seasons, and the Black Mamba gets his motivation for his villanous and triumphant return next year. Once you understand the narrative, you can see how the NBA is supposed to play out. First the Celts win, then the Lakers, and then it’s best 2 of 3 as the Big Three are headed for retirement….

Now, why couldn’t the Timberwolves have traded for Pierce and Allen instead? Oh, that’s right, it wouldn’t have fit the script; I suppose the statute of limitations has run out on Minneapolis seeking revenge on Los Angeles for stealing the Lakers.

There was a small protest London today, with a number of not-terribly youthful youth handing out flyers to advertise an anti-Nazi rally against… the anti-EU British National Party. You have to be either pretty young or pretty stupid to not recognize that the organization that is most similar to the Nazis would probably be the anti-democratic, anti-free speech one led by Germans that has taken over nearly the entire continent of Europe.

In a sane world, no one who is still in college or is employed by a college would be permitted to have any say in anyone’s affairs but their own. There’s a reason the Constitution doesn’t permit anyone to run for office until they’re 35; let the under-30s drink and do all the drugs they want and none of them will give a damn about not voting anyhow.

Now they’re just begging for trouble:

Two male priests exchanged vows and rings in a ceremony that was conducted using one of the church’s most traditional wedding rites – a decision seen as blasphemous by conservatives.

Do you want science? Here’s a falsifiable hypothesis: a Christian society that turns from God will, over the course of 100 years, devolve into a violent, dictatorial and pagan society rather than the shiny, democratic secular science fiction society that so many atheists expect.

Whoop-de-damn-do. I wouldn’t have minded in the least if the blithering idiots at Wikipedia had collectively decided to nuke the entry for me there, but apparently they decided that I am notable enough or whatever. Oh, hurrah!

The result was keep. There is substantial support for the retention of this article by established users, while no users with > 50 edits support its deletion. Furthermore, the references provided in Theodore_Beale#Notes indicate sufficient coverage of Theodore Beale in third-party reliable sources to establish a presumption of his notability per the general notability guideline. John254 02:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

What I find bizarre is that every other writer who uses a pen name seems to be listed by that pen name, but since Wikipedia appears to be run by the same sort of near-illiterate left-wingers that one so often finds among my critics, in my case, the listing is done the opposite way round. It makes no difference, but I did count at least three factual errors on the current page; for example, I certainly didn’t do the Archangel comic books by myself, I can’t even draw. My Dad has never been a publisher of any kind, with WND or anywhere else. And on what planet is a blog called Martini Revolution considered a “reliable source”?

I also noticed that unlike every other writer’s page I’ve read there, from my new buddy Sam’s to my not-quite-as-new pal Derb’s, there is infinitely more space devoted to “controversies” than there is to any of my actual views on Christianity, omniderigence, libertarianism, Austrian economics, war, the probability of Japanese invasion in 1942, feminism, atheism, music, or game design. So, since I’m not permitted to write up such things myself, it would be nice if someone here who is sufficiently familiar with my perspective would consider taking the time to do so.