Category: Uncategorized

WORLD CUP PREDICTIONS

GROUP A
Germany
Ecuador

GROUP B
Sweden
England

GROUP C
Holland
Ivory Coast

GROUP D
Portugal
Mexico

GROUP E
Italy
USA

GROUP F
Brazil
Australia

GROUP G
France
Switzerland

GROUP H
Spain
Ukraine

Group E is the real group of death. The USA could easily upset the fractious Azzurri, Nedved could lead the Czechs over both the USA and Italy, pretty much anything could happen except for Ghana winning the group. Argentina is usually very good, but they are young this year and Ivory Coast is full of quality players playing in the English Premiership. The fact that Eboue and Toure play together in back at Arsenal is a big advantage as most of these teams simply haven’t played together very often.

Elements of NRO are very excited about Zarqawi’s death:

“When the history of the global conflict of our time—I call it “the War for the Free World”—is written it seems likely that June 7, 2006, will be seen as an important moment, perhaps even a tipping point, in that war’s Iraqi front.” – Frank Gaffney

“I believe this is a major coup. Zarqawi was the public face of the non-Iraqi side of the insurgency.” – Mackubin Thomas Owens

“Zarqawi’s death is very important at this juncture, for symbolic in addition to operational reasons. Although al Qaeda in Iraq was decentralized, the loss of its prime strategist there will insidiously have long-term repercussions.” – VDH

My prediction is that three months from now, there won’t be any sign that Zarqawi’s death ever happened. There won’t be any significant reduction in attacks, civilian fatalities or US casualties, nor will the pressure to end the Occupation have abated. A hallmark of 4th-generation warfare is its decentralized nature, therefore, taking out one so-called “leader” is unlikely to significantly disrupt anything. Note how the man who actually studies terrorism is markedly less inclined to interpret the killing as an important step, let alone a turning point.

“Zarqawi was a strange character—a thug without a constituency. He was never “part of” al Qaeda, just used it as a cover. His own clan in Jordan was after him; his ideological mentor, Al Maqdissi, criticized him, as did Al Zawahiri. Iraqi Sunni groups hated him—to say nothing about the Shias.” – Michael Radu, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center on Terrorism and Counter-terrorism.

How can someone be a “leader”, the “prime strategist” and “the public face” of an organization to which he did not belong? This strikes me as far too much ado about a minor success, which only highlights the administration’s weakening position. The insurgency seems to have survived without Hussein & Sons, after all, arguably a far more important loss.

Big boom, big bust. You can’t have a huge move like the one to 725 without a correction. I expect AU to fall to around 540, and AG to drop to 9.50 over the next month or two. That’s a reasonable point to jump in again, the mere fact that there are advertisements on WND encouraging people to buy in now at 680 – which is already 620 – is a contrarian indication that it’s too early to buy.

Jamie, do you recognize a turning point yet? I readily concede that you’ve smoked me over the last 18 months, but the charts sure look rather grim these days. The Wonder from Down Under makes an important point about psychology well worth reading for anyone regardless of their bearish or bullish instincts.

Bob miraculously reinvents the wheel from scratch.

ag·nos·tic: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god.

Ok, broadly, that defines me.

Until I see evidence that is more than just adrenalin surges, day dreams, heresay passed down a long line of story tellers, and/or personal feelings as proof that God or some god actually exists, I’ll stay that way.

However, you and your claims to moral superiority can go back to the rear of the classroom. To claim that religion is needed to give us proper and acceptable rules to live by — or whatever you may label them — is nothing more than advertising hype by church leaders and their dedicated followers.

I don’t claim to speak for any athiest or any other agnostic, but I have rules of conduct and a code of ethics as evey bit as valid as any to be attained from religiouly taught “morals”.

What Bob fails to understand is that Christians can only make a claim to moral superiority because their moral advantage over the agnostic is infinite. The agnostic possesses no morality of his own, let alone one that he can rationally apply to another individual. Bob is, quite likely, what most of us would consider to be a good and decent human being, a moral man, but it is no coincidence that his “rules of conduct” and “code of ethics” is identical to the Judeo-Christian morality of the society that spawned him.

With very, very few exceptions, no one ever sits down and seriously attempts to construct an individual morality. Instead, they absorb their rules of conduct and sense of morality from the dominant culture, then use their lack of faith to justify ignoring those elements that thwart their more powerful desires. This is why nearly every agnostic and atheist takes high-minded exception to the moral strictures against promiscuous sex, but not those against murder or a failure to be charitable.

Indeed, were Bob an agnostic in an Islamic culture, he would subscribe equally easily to polygamy, the execution of homosexuals and the stoning of sexually active women. “When in Rome…” is the sine qua non of the agnostic and the atheist alike. There are few godless martyrs in the pages of history; it is amusing that two of the names most often cited as such by atheists were an ordained priest and a devout Catholic.

The evidence provided by post-Christian cultures such as Scandinavia and England increasingly demonstrates that Bob’s assertion is incorrect and that religion is indeed required to provide a moral base for society, as irreligious men such as Socrates* and Voltaire have recognized for centuries. It is not an accident that the rise of Western civilization took place within Christendom, nor that the abandonment of Christianity should coincide with a decline towards barbarism, brutality and bad art.

*Yes, I know Socrates denied the charge of atheism. I didn’t buy his denial, obviously, neither did 280 Athenian jurors. His words notwithstanding, he managed to produced both an Alcibiades and a Critias, to say nothing of Plato.

This makes me laugh, but then, I have a rather dark sense of humor:

WOMEN are being sold off in “slave auctions” in the arrivals lounges of British airports, say authorities desperate to crack down on the burgeoning trade in trafficking humans.

The Crown Prosecution Service said foreign women were being sold as sex workers as soon as they arrived, and police are appealing to men who frequent brothels to contact them in confidence if they believe the prostitutes may be there against their will.

In one instance a slave auction took place outside a coffee shop in the arrivals hall of London-Gatwick airport, and it is believed similar auctions have taken place at airports across the country.

I wonder if British suffragettes would have fought so hard for the right to vote if they’d realized that sex slavery was also in the cards. It amazes me how the vast majority of atheists and agnostics simply don’t understand that they have no universal moral base on which to build a society, that their morals stem from being the inheritors of the societal momentum created by earlier, more religious generations. No world religion had a problem with slavery prior to White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity and as its influence wanes, an increase in slavery is predictable, if not inevitable.

It’s not so much that the barbarians are inside the gates as the fact that we of the West are becoming barbarians. The first two generations rediscover monogamous sex, the next two rediscover promiscuous sex and those that follow will likely institute rape and slavery. When there is no right, there is only might.

Now, one can certainly make the usual “correlation is not causation” argument here if one likes, but then, that would be prodigiously stupid.

Catkiller! has been listening to the radio:

It’s a word born of necessity and comes from The Blogger Whose Name We Dare Not Speak (who was called out yet again on Michael Medved’s show today).

I find it rather peculiar that the guy has a radio show and apparently continues to yammer on about my purported amore for the German National Socialist Workers Party, but has never done so much as send me an email or post a comment here, much less confront me on his show.

How have I been called out, anyhow? What sort of challenge is it that isn’t issued to the challengee? I’m beginning to suspect Mr. Medved is just too shy to speak with me directly thanks to the Brokeback crush he is harboring. Let’s examine the evidence:

1. Mustache? Check!
2. Way too interested in Hollywood? Check!
3. Jewish? Check!
4. Obsession with Nazis? Check! (Uh oh, anyone else sensing a BDSM vibe here?)

I’ve never listened to his show, but perhaps someone who does can inform us if he uses the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure or Bronski Beat to lead into a segment or has dedicated a show to the Oscars. If so, that should clinch it nicely and Zink can send Mr. Medved his Queer Party Friends membership card.

Anyhow, I think it’s great that the Republican Party’s big tent is large enough to accomodate a gay Jewish man as one of its public voices. It certainly puts the lie to the notion that the G.O.P. is for straight, white Christians only.

The Pan-Gargler provides a Dictionary of Progressive Principles:

Affirmative Action: Jobs must always be given to those who cannot perform them.

Multiculturalism: Society works best when its divided into many groups that hate each other.

Diversity: Society functions best when no one is permitted to think or voice prohibited ideas.

Disarmament: The best way for a country to defend itself is to rely upon the good will of its enemies.

Feminism: Societal collapse is a small price to pay for female superiority.

Racism: That which the progressive doesn’t like.

Fascism: That which the progressive doesn’t like or understand.

Sexism: That which makes the female progressive feel bad.

Capitalism: The indirect institution of socialism through big, regulated corporations instead of agencies of the government. This is actually corporatism, but if we called it that, someone might notice.

Meelhama agrees, to a limited extent:

Of course everything you wrote makes complete sense; but only if one accepts your categories.

1) You conflate Calvinism and Hyper-Calvinism.

2) More seriously, you conflate immanent and transcendent categories.

3) If theology Reformed to the Augustinian—and ostensibly—the Hebraic tradition is “not only psychologically nonsensical but bordering on the unbearably silly,” you just do not yet understand. Don’t quickly discount the very tradition that allows your own semi-pelagian evangelicalism.

4) Hermeneutics, like morality, is not a question of counting noses. Or, in this case, verses.

This is why I pay little attention to theologians. They are as unintelligible to the normal educated man, and as useless, as the post-modern academics. Dixiedog and a few others have made the mistake of attempting to shoehorn omniderigence into one of the theologians’ pre-established, oft-debated categories (is it Calvinism or Hyper-Calvinism?), not understanding that it does not describe a highly refined intellectual position but an actual belief that is held by ordinary people. Indeed, there are millions more people that subscribe to the idea of an omniderigent deity than have ever encountered the word “hermeneutics”.

Using high theology to describe common Christian beliefs about God is similar to evaluating precisely which brand of socialism the guy who just hates the rich and wants to stick it to them subscribes. It’s not merely impossible, it’s beside the point. The vanities of the theologians notwithstanding, not all considerations have been foreseen and sufficiently thought through, indeed, I’m nearly as often surprised by the shallowness of the thinkers who have supposedly settled great questions as I am by their wisdom.

My senior year of high school, a girl from our class rolled her car and was killed. Much was said about God’s Will and His wonderful, if rather short, plan for her life and so forth, but I was quite skeptical. Whereas others sought for a reason why she had died, I thought the answer was sitting right there in front of our faces. The laws of physics were in place, the girl liked to go fast – she was one of the better racers on the ski team – and the confluence of those two things plus the lack of a seatbelt and a tight curve of the road equaled one dead driver. QED.

Sure, it is eminently possible that an omniderigent God had intentionally splattered her brains solely for His ineffable glory, but that not only holds some rather disturbing implications, it is also completely unnecessary. The number of variables that go into every single event that occurs indicates that either we and everything else are complete automata or God allows a lot more freedom than most people either understand or want to believe.

There are at least two ways to program artificial intelligence of which I am aware. The traditional method is to attempt to construct rules for every possible situation. This works very well for simple actions and small numbers, but works less and less well as complexity increases. The organic method involves creating a few simple rules, then leaving the entities alone and watching their behavior evolve. Keep the good ones and weed out the undesirable; from the perspective of the AIs, it is supernatural selection. At any time, the programmer can step in and make sweeping or small changes, but for the most part, he simply watches as things progress towards the desired state.

Christians know God has a plan for humanity, of course, what we are debating here is the way in which that plan is put into effect. Omniderigistes believe that every little interaction is pre-programmed, (or perhaps managed live in the case of the exotemporal school), my own belief is that God, the Great Programmer, generally leaves Creation in our created hands, acting only when it is necessary for the operation of his plan or when we ask him to. To quote MC Hammer, “that’s why we pray”. You can call it vologence, I suppose, if you must.

This may strike some as a lowbrow argument, (would that make me a vole prole?), but I see hermeneutic debate being to the Christian what academic debate is to the engineer. It is entertaining, but irrelevant to the quotidian existence no matter what import its practitioners place upon it. Such discussions concern me no more than the storied debates concerning angels and pins.

PS – Words fail to express my disgust with you fraudulent philistines. 300+ comments and not one recognized a reference to higher Truth and Beauty? The correct response was either “what is the secret of your power” although I would have also accepted “you take the high road, I’ll take the low”. Where is that White Buffalo when you need him?

WB can’t find it:

I’ve exhausted my resources (including the web) for the meaning of “omniderigence”. Will you explain it’s meaning, please?

Another WND columnist, too, is curious:

Hi Vox, did you invent this?

OMNIDERIGENT adj.
Performing universal action, providing sole and total motivation; all-acting.

I certainly did not invent the concept, I merely constructed the word to describe it. It is a word I considered to be required for describing the logical and theological fallacy of those who interpret omniscience + omnipotence to equal X, X being the singular source of will and action in the universe.

It summarizes the popular idea of God as a detail-oriented puppet master and Man being without free will, merely playing out his assigned role in God’s grand master Plan. This notion of an encyclopedic Plan reduces every being, great and small, to insignificant sock puppets in God’s grand self-amusement, a concept which strikes me as not only psychologically nonsensical but bordering on the unbearably silly.

Despite its popularity, omniderigence is, in my opinion, a demonstrably anti-Biblical concept. The fact that God knows the number of hairs on a head or when a sparrow dies does not necessarily require Him to personally pluck them out one-by-one, or strike down the sparrow on the oak tree instead of the one on the birch.

And while it is true that there are one or two verses that omniderigistes can turn to for support – just ask the Calvinists for their favorites if they don’t spring to mind immediately – there are many, many more that can be cited in opposition. It is always amusing to see how people deal with God’s declaration that He can change His mind based solely on the actions of individuals that they claim are acting according to God’s will. When one finds oneself in opposition to the Lord’s own prayer, one would do well to, at the very least, seriously reconsider one’s position. For why pray that Our Father’s will be done on Earth if it is already being done here?

Furthermore, the omniderigent position reduces Jesus Christ’s frequent explanation of this world as a proving grounds; what is the point of testing for an answer that one already knows beyond any shadow of a doubt. If you think about it, omniderigence logically leads to the Gnostic heresy of a God that is not only responsible for evil, but actively wills it on a universal basis.

If you take offense at this post, there’s really no point in wasting your breath atacking me. Hold true to your beliefs and take it up with the one you believe is responsible for making me write these words.