Crucifixion in the UK

In light of the massive protests of the recent Israeli attacks in Gaza taking place in London, of all places, to say nothing of the UK's recent adoption of some aspects of Sharia law, it's interesting to note how more advanced Sharia legal systems have progressed:

On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.

Somehow, I don't quite think this is the progress that the multiculturalist progressives were expecting. But, as the evolutionary biologists are often forced to explain, progress is only visible in hindsight. Barring any grand supernatural designs or genuine prophetic gifts, there's absolutely no way to reliably predict future human events.

The college scam

It's actually worse than you probably think:

Hickey got caught in an increasingly common trap in the nation's $85-billion student loan market. She borrowed heavily, presuming that all her debt was part of the federal student loan program. But most of the money she borrowed was actually in private loans, the fastest-growing segment of the student loan market. Private loans have no relation to the federal loan program, with one exception: In many cases, they are offered by the same for-profit companies that provide federally funded student loans.... Whereas federally guaranteed loans have fixed interest rates, currently either 6% or 6.8%, private loans are more like credit card debt. Interest rates aren't fixed and often run 15% or more, not counting fees.

It might make sense to go $140,000 into debt if you're getting a law degree from an Ivy League school or a medical degree. It probably isn't worth it for a postgraduate science degree or an MBA, at least not in the present economic environment. But how could any advisor possibly recommend that kind of debt for an undergraduate photography degree. If one assumes that the degree is worth an additional $15k per year to the young woman, then it's going to take about 14 years for her just to break even, assuming that she doesn't get married, have kids, or spend any time unemployed.

The bizarre idea that the value of a college degree is incalculable is downright cretinous. It's important to recognize that such values are not only calculable, they are calculated in detail by the many institutions that sell college degrees and the various parasitical organizations that live off the proceeds of encouraging those transactions. Unless your degree is going to lead directly to a six-digit salary, it's almost definitely not worth going into debt to buy it.

The end of tolerance

At last, the beginning of the end arrives:

Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance." It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore."

Equality has always been a fraud and the cultural tolerance model based on it is little more than assisted societal suicide. I have several Dutch friends and none of them have much sympathy for the once-famed Dutch tolerance anymore. It's well past time for Europeans to reject the multicultural charade that began with the short-sighted importation of the "temporary" Turkish Gastarbeitern, because the sooner it is ended and the percentage of the non-national populations is reduced, the less bloodshed there will be in the long run.

As I've mentioned before, the high tide of secular eutopian ideals has been reached and the pendulum is now swinging back, fortunately before those ideals managed to completely enervate the West. I'm optimistic that the European Union will begin to see secessions in the next ten years, most likely starting with Italy and Britain. However, it's been Germany that's been most resistant on the economic front of late, so if they were to pull out, the entire house of cards would tumble almost immediately.

Oh, Sweet Francis

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.

Thoughts on the regular season

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!

Atheists for Christianity

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.

Perhaps they lacked were-seals

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?

Win and you're in

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.

At the Black Gate IV

I've mentioned my experience in being mentored, but I don't think I've ever even alluded to my past failure at helping other writers before. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea how editors like John and Howard manage to survive the slush pile, based on my thankfully brief experiences as a workshop critiquer and editorial assistant at a publishing house. I mean, for all that I mock the idiot wereseal fiction that is so mystifyingly popular now, it's far from the worst fiction that's being legally committed in public today.

Zimbabwe solves the population problem

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.

America's Great Depression section VIII

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.

I give it two weeks

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.

Atheism: the nadir

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".

The next marriage cause

Actually, it occurs to me that this news may be of most interest to young women who blithely assume that the extension of the child-bearing years courtesy of modern medical technology comes without problematic consequences:

In an age of sexual liberation, marriage between cousins remains taboo, at least in the United States — and from a scientific perspective, laws against the unions are a socially legitimized form of genetic and sexual discrimination. That argument, raised Monday in an editorial in Public Library of Science Biology, may turn the stomachs of people raised to disapprove of any form of incest. But dispassioned analysis suggests that cousin marriage is no more troubling than childbearing by middle-aged women.

I have the impression that many twenty-something women might feel just a little differently about planning to put off marriage and children if they knew that their plans involved the birth-defect equivalent of MARRYING THEIR COUSIN, however low the risks might be. Anyhow, it should be amusing to learn how the homogamy advocates will defend their lack of support for cousin marriage... and even more amusing when they advocate both.

Merry Christmas

Late last night, I achieved something I had hitherto believed unthinkable. I actually managed to wrap a present in such a manner that the seasonal pattern on the wrapping paper aligned perfectly. The Christmas tree remained a flawless Christmas tree, the teddy bear remained a perfect teddy bear, and the candy cane remained an unbroken candy cane. I was surprised to experience a brief moment of melancholy, as this uncharacteristically perfect present reminded me of my father, who has always been a wrapper of presents par extraordinaire.

But it quickly passed. For Christmas is not a time for regrets, it is instead a day filled with all the joy inherent in celebrating the birth of Man's Redeemer. The story of Christmas told in the Gospels is a dark one filled with oppression, cruelty, jealousy, and murder, and yet it is a strangely uplifting one. For the birth of the child is the birth of a new hope, and the light on the distant horizon is the Light of all the World.

Et Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis; et vidimus gloriam eius, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre, penum gratiae et veritas.

What I wish for all of you this Christmas is that no matter what you may happen to believe about life, the universe, and everything, today you would know at least one moment of that perfect and incredulous joy that one sees on a young child's face upon catching sight of the Christmas tree and realizing that Santa Claus really did pay a visit the night before.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The urge to dabble

Is the urge to destroy. TMQ's quixotic hatred for divisional rivalries demonstrates an uncharacteristic failure to understand why divisions are integral to the NFL:

When the regular season concludes, there is a chance that two 8-8 teams will advance to the playoffs, and a chance that two 10-6 teams will not. It is possible that two 8-8 teams will make the playoffs while an 11-5 team does not. The mere fact that this is possible as the final weekend arrives tells you the NFL playoff system is broken. It must be replaced by a seeded tournament.

What a great idea! In fact, why not get rid of divisions and conferences altogether? Why not get rid of the entire regular season and replace with a big 32-team tournament seeded based on the results of the previous seasontournament? TMQ appears to have forgotten that in last year's Super Bowl, a 16-0 Patriots team was beaten by a 10-6 Giants team. Football is not all about the record, hence the expression "any given Sunday". The NFL is arguably the most successful sports league on the planet, so why do otherwise intelligent people insist on attempting to ruin it?

Divisions are what keep people interested when their team is out of it. Simply going to a top-twelve team system will mean that far more teams will be out of contention towards the end of the season, thus reducing fan interest. TMQ should know this, since he's the one who pointed out how total fan interest actually flags during the playoffs.

But... but... it's PEER-REVIEWED

Ergo it must be Science and therefore beyond criticism from mere unscientific mortals:

[M]any producers of bogus “work” actually have high standing in academic world.... It is sad that some academic institutions and, in larger extent, some publishers back those people up. For example, Elsevier has a journal called Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, included unfortunately in the A+ category in quality by the Australian Academy of Sciences, in a powerful commercial citation factory called Current Contents and with high “impact factor” over 3. It is not that in Chaos etc. there are no good papers, some are normal regular hard science. But, a significant and very visible percentage of papers there belong to one and the same group of people including the very editor, certain El Naschie, a person with many bogus affiliations, and writing in recent years papers with practically no arguments but high predictions based on numerology, coincidences and fancy pictures combining Lie algebras, chaos theory and so on, at the layman level.

That fine scientist Daniel Dennett would, of course, insist that non-scientists should readily place their trust in everything El Naschie publishes in peer-reviewed journals because a few physicists have really precise models that correspond very well with observable reality.

I'm not sure if the profession of science is entirely broken yet, but there's little question that it's breaking under the weight of its own corruption and hubris. As always, it's the economists who have the last laugh. Well, the cynical ones, anyhow. "Dismal science" is really a misnomer; a much better description would be "the mordant science".

UPDATE - Slashdot informs us that it just keeps getting better:

[A software-]generated paper has been accepted with review by the 2008 International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE).... Even better, fake author Herbert Schlangemann has been selected as session chair (PDF) for that conference.

Vox vs the experts

The clock is ticking down on the house price challenge. Needless to say I'm feeling even better about my estimate now that the November numbers are in.

Experts: “Existing-home prices are expected to decline 1.7 percent to a median of $218,200 for all of this year and hold essentially even in 2008 at $218,300."

Vox: I'm expecting a decline that would project to $175k or less by the end of the year.

Dec 23, 2008: Sales prices for existing U.S. homes fell the most on record in November, tearing a deeper hole into households’ already tattered finances. The median resale price fell 13 percent from a year before, to $181,300, “probably the largest price decline since the Great Depression,” National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in Washington.

If housing prices fall the same amount from November to December as they did the previous month, I'll end up off by $1,100, compared to $42,200 for the experts. That would be a margin of error of less than one percent, compared to 24 percent. Now perhaps some of you will understand why I don't tend to be impressed by many "scientific" models.

Contemplating iPhone

So, I'm in the market for a smartphone. Any ideas or testimonials? I looked at the Xperia X1, but absolutely hated the cheap little silver buttons, wasn't impressed with the Panels UI, and I don't like the idea switching to Windows mobile very much either. The HTC phones were doooogggg-sloooooow. (I swear, after looking at one badly-designed phone interface after another, I'm somewhat tempted to go into phone design.) The main thing for which I use my phone now is to run eReader and the iPhone is sort of cool with that, but I can't believe there's no simple way to send your books directly to your phone. I so despise Apple's damned tech-fascism! No SD card or USB connection? What primitive techno-hell is this? And yes, I know the eReader workaround - upload your books to a server and then download it from the web - but that's simply unacceptable. The Nokia N95 looks all right, but the screen is too small.

I've basically concluded that I should just wait for a great Symbian- or Android-based phone with a tallscreen, but I'm curious to know what others who read a lot on their smartphones think. My willingness to wait for another six-to-nine months is somewhat limited by the fact that my Palm-OS Treo reboots itself about twice an hour, including every third time I change applications.

Mailvox: dealing with an atheist

AL asks for advice:

Could you write an article on how to reach a friend who is an arrogant and dogmatic atheist? This guy's thinking is seriously messed up, and he is living in a strange self-contradictory worldview that I don't know how to chip away at. Part of me wants to walk away because he seems a lost cause, but I hope that God can do something radical.

My recommendation would be to give him a Christmas present. According to Amazon, there is still time to get it with the one-day shipping option. Then, when you give it to him, tell him while you're perfectly aware that he'll disagree with it and think it's all stupid and so forth, you'd like him, as a super-smart master of scientific and rational thought, to explain all of the numerous errors that must be contained within it to you.

It's pretty unlikely that he'll abandon either his arrogance or his atheist dogma, but he will almost certainly be a lot more circumspect about broadcasting that dogma in public once he's been forced to privately acknowledge to himself - it usually seems to happen somewhere in the middle of Chapter IV - that he's standing on an intellectual foundation of broken glass. Perhaps you've noted that despite the way in which very few atheists will admit to even having heard of TIA, one simply doesn't hear the "religion causes war" theme being spouted anywhere nearly as often as prior to the book's release.