A far more intelligent commentary on the Olympics, from Rudy Gersten on NationalReview.com. Gersten says what everyone should be thinking: the NBA players who are hiding from the Olympics are cowards. They claim security concerns are why they stay at home, which if true does make them cowards. The rest of the world and the other U.S. athletes are showing up, telling terrorists they will not be cowed. The reality is that these guys can't be bothered. The NBA does play a long season and for players like Shaq and Rasheed Wallace, they just finsihed their season not too long ago and start agin soon. They are more afraid of injury and losing their big paychecks that they are about terrorism and security.
Despite all of this, even the team that did bother to go to Athens is head and shoulders above any other team in the world, even those that sport one or two NBA players. Out ream has nothign BUT NBA players, and should nto lose even a siblge game. The worts part about it is that I don't think that most of these players even care that they are losing and shaming American basketball. It is time to go back to college players, send Duke or Kentucky or the NCAA champion to play. At least they know how to shoot the rock, pass the ball and play defense as a team.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Another quick point about Jim Caple's inane editorial...
In it he all but declares the U.S. to be the replacement of the old Soviet Union as the bad guy everyone roots against in the Olympic games...
You know how some American fans mourn the good old Olympic days when we could root against the Soviet Bloc teams and look down on their athletes as chemically enhanced, government-controlled ogres? Well, guess what. With the BALCO scandal, the untold millions of dollars invested in the team and our athletes' lucrative salaries and endorsement packages, that's exactly how we must look now to a lot of smaller, poorer countries. Which is to say, everyone.
The title of his editorial alone speaks volumes: "No one's cheering for Team USA" Hey Jimmie! I am still cheering for the US. I still get a little misty when our athletes stand on the podium and the Star Spangled Banner (a jingoistic, warmongering song if every there was one!) plays while they raise Old Glory. Wallow in your self-laothing all you like Jimmie boy, I still chant USA! USA! USA! and love my country. This is why no one is watching the Olympics, it has become an excuse for lttle pissant nations to wag a disapproving finger at America. Take your fencing, 20K womens walk and team table tennis and shove them. We kick around everyone in every sport we care about. If table tennis were big in America we would have the best team out there. We still have the best basketball team around, talent wise, even though they utterly lack motivation and discipline. That is undoubtedly President Bush's fault as well.
Hey Jim! If we were the same kind of repressive regime as the Soviet Union, you would be spending the next 20 years in a North Dakota gulag. People hated the USSR because they were a repressive, imperialist state. People hate the US because our model works better than theirs. No one tried to sneak into the USSR because of all the wonderful opportunities, they tried like the dickens to get OUT! America is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, all the mroe so because we tolerate morons like Jim Caple.
In it he all but declares the U.S. to be the replacement of the old Soviet Union as the bad guy everyone roots against in the Olympic games...
You know how some American fans mourn the good old Olympic days when we could root against the Soviet Bloc teams and look down on their athletes as chemically enhanced, government-controlled ogres? Well, guess what. With the BALCO scandal, the untold millions of dollars invested in the team and our athletes' lucrative salaries and endorsement packages, that's exactly how we must look now to a lot of smaller, poorer countries. Which is to say, everyone.
The title of his editorial alone speaks volumes: "No one's cheering for Team USA" Hey Jimmie! I am still cheering for the US. I still get a little misty when our athletes stand on the podium and the Star Spangled Banner (a jingoistic, warmongering song if every there was one!) plays while they raise Old Glory. Wallow in your self-laothing all you like Jimmie boy, I still chant USA! USA! USA! and love my country. This is why no one is watching the Olympics, it has become an excuse for lttle pissant nations to wag a disapproving finger at America. Take your fencing, 20K womens walk and team table tennis and shove them. We kick around everyone in every sport we care about. If table tennis were big in America we would have the best team out there. We still have the best basketball team around, talent wise, even though they utterly lack motivation and discipline. That is undoubtedly President Bush's fault as well.
Hey Jim! If we were the same kind of repressive regime as the Soviet Union, you would be spending the next 20 years in a North Dakota gulag. People hated the USSR because they were a repressive, imperialist state. People hate the US because our model works better than theirs. No one tried to sneak into the USSR because of all the wonderful opportunities, they tried like the dickens to get OUT! America is still the land of the free and the home of the brave, all the mroe so because we tolerate morons like Jim Caple.
This is why women shouldn't be sports commentators...
I don't care for Christine Brennan, a sports writer for USA Today, just in general. She is one of those shrill women in sports for whom it is always an us versus them mentality, in this case men versus women. She is especially inane in her commentary today.
American gymnist Paul Hamm was awarded a gold medal in the Olympics after a remarkable comeback. Now it turns out that a scoring error cost the Chinese gymnist the gold medal and Brennan is calling on Hamm to give the medal back. A couple of points. Do you suppose if the situation were reversed, would the Chinese gymnist give back the gold? Not bloody likely unless he wanted to face a few years in a re-education camp. Second, how many games and titles have been won and lost based on human error? I still seethe over a game (I think in 1990) between Michigan and Michigan State. Michigan was behind but driving towards the end zone. On fourth down, Desmond Howard beat his defender BADLY and was poised to catch the go-ahead touchdown pass. It was falling right into his hands and he NEVER dropped passes like that. The Spartan DB, who really had no choice, dragged him down by the jersey from behind. Blatant pass interference. Pass falls incomplete. RIGHT IN FRONT OF A REF!!! I mean literally the guy was right there. No flag. Michigan loses. You think the MSU coaches watched the film and offered to forfeit the game after the fact? Heck no! Nor should they. Human error is a part of the game. Even with instant replay calls still get messed up. Finally, gymnastics is all subjective anyway. A different panel of judges may have scored the event completely differently. It is like figure skating in that respect. In track, the guy who crosses the line first wins. In basketball the team who scores the most point wins. Who knows what the difference between winners and losers in gymanstics or figure skating.
I think this has a lot more to do with sports writers pretending to be deep thinkers and jumping on the journalistic bash America mentality. Jim Caple of ESPN.com takes a number of cheap shots at the Americans in his column today, praising the Iraqi soccer team at the expense of President Bush, even quoting one Iraqi who said he would be fighting the Americans if he weren't so darn busy playing soccer. What a patriot! You could just see Patrick Henry in his shoes "Give me liberty or give me death, as long as it doesn't interfere with my softball game!" What a blowhard. He wouldn't even be playing if we hadn't freed his country and as soon as they can reign in the terorrists we will be out of there.
Yes, as Caple points out, the NBA players on the USA Basketball team are playing shamefully but that is not an indictment of the US in general, rather the state of US basketball. As of this morning, the USA has 58 total medal, 10 more than second place China, of which 21 are gold, one fewer than the Chinese. We are doing great in these Olympics but all these pseudo-intellectual sports writers can do is bash America. Go back to writing pithy game recaps Jimmie boy, your political commentary betrays your utter ignorance.
I don't care for Christine Brennan, a sports writer for USA Today, just in general. She is one of those shrill women in sports for whom it is always an us versus them mentality, in this case men versus women. She is especially inane in her commentary today.
American gymnist Paul Hamm was awarded a gold medal in the Olympics after a remarkable comeback. Now it turns out that a scoring error cost the Chinese gymnist the gold medal and Brennan is calling on Hamm to give the medal back. A couple of points. Do you suppose if the situation were reversed, would the Chinese gymnist give back the gold? Not bloody likely unless he wanted to face a few years in a re-education camp. Second, how many games and titles have been won and lost based on human error? I still seethe over a game (I think in 1990) between Michigan and Michigan State. Michigan was behind but driving towards the end zone. On fourth down, Desmond Howard beat his defender BADLY and was poised to catch the go-ahead touchdown pass. It was falling right into his hands and he NEVER dropped passes like that. The Spartan DB, who really had no choice, dragged him down by the jersey from behind. Blatant pass interference. Pass falls incomplete. RIGHT IN FRONT OF A REF!!! I mean literally the guy was right there. No flag. Michigan loses. You think the MSU coaches watched the film and offered to forfeit the game after the fact? Heck no! Nor should they. Human error is a part of the game. Even with instant replay calls still get messed up. Finally, gymnastics is all subjective anyway. A different panel of judges may have scored the event completely differently. It is like figure skating in that respect. In track, the guy who crosses the line first wins. In basketball the team who scores the most point wins. Who knows what the difference between winners and losers in gymanstics or figure skating.
I think this has a lot more to do with sports writers pretending to be deep thinkers and jumping on the journalistic bash America mentality. Jim Caple of ESPN.com takes a number of cheap shots at the Americans in his column today, praising the Iraqi soccer team at the expense of President Bush, even quoting one Iraqi who said he would be fighting the Americans if he weren't so darn busy playing soccer. What a patriot! You could just see Patrick Henry in his shoes "Give me liberty or give me death, as long as it doesn't interfere with my softball game!" What a blowhard. He wouldn't even be playing if we hadn't freed his country and as soon as they can reign in the terorrists we will be out of there.
Yes, as Caple points out, the NBA players on the USA Basketball team are playing shamefully but that is not an indictment of the US in general, rather the state of US basketball. As of this morning, the USA has 58 total medal, 10 more than second place China, of which 21 are gold, one fewer than the Chinese. We are doing great in these Olympics but all these pseudo-intellectual sports writers can do is bash America. Go back to writing pithy game recaps Jimmie boy, your political commentary betrays your utter ignorance.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Legalism running amok...
This had to be one of the ugliest reports I have seen in a long time about Roman Catholicism and one that doesn't even involve priests molesting altar boys. The Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican have declared null and void a little girls first communion because the wafer she took for the host did not include any wheat. The reason it didn't was that the girl has an allergy to wheat gluten and even a little bit could kill her. As far as I can tell in the Bible, there isn't a mention of wheat in the last supper, yet the Diocese of Trenton refuses to allow this little girl to use a non-wheat wafer. The really infuriating thing is this:
Some Catholic churches allow no-gluten hosts, while others do not, said Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a California-based support group for sufferers.
So some diocese allow it and others don't? This is the kind of man-made rules we get from Rome that make no sense. Even if you buy into the unBiblical notion of transubstantiationism, the wafer is transformed into the body of Christ because of the priestly prayer not because of the ingredients.
Rome should worry more about setting it's own house in order rather than denying little girls communion because of an argument about wheat gluten.
This had to be one of the ugliest reports I have seen in a long time about Roman Catholicism and one that doesn't even involve priests molesting altar boys. The Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican have declared null and void a little girls first communion because the wafer she took for the host did not include any wheat. The reason it didn't was that the girl has an allergy to wheat gluten and even a little bit could kill her. As far as I can tell in the Bible, there isn't a mention of wheat in the last supper, yet the Diocese of Trenton refuses to allow this little girl to use a non-wheat wafer. The really infuriating thing is this:
Some Catholic churches allow no-gluten hosts, while others do not, said Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a California-based support group for sufferers.
So some diocese allow it and others don't? This is the kind of man-made rules we get from Rome that make no sense. Even if you buy into the unBiblical notion of transubstantiationism, the wafer is transformed into the body of Christ because of the priestly prayer not because of the ingredients.
Rome should worry more about setting it's own house in order rather than denying little girls communion because of an argument about wheat gluten.
This may seem like a cheap shot on my part, but it has an important message...
USA Today reports that police are investigating a suspected gang rape of a teen-age girl at Brigham Young University by football players. The girl was 17 and was in the school sponsored apartment that athletes stay in, alcohol was involved. Later in the story it also mentions several other BYU football players that are suspended:
Football players Marcus Whalen and Breyon Jones were suspended and are facing criminal charges that they assaulted and robbed an acquaintance in April.
An off-campus party involving alcohol and sex in January resulted in one football player being kicked off the team, three being suspended until at least spring 2005 and two players placed on probation.
The point here isn't to claim that the mormon run school is a den of iniquity (although it is a den of false doctrine). The point is that mormons act like they have a superior culture to everyday America (seen in the pride that BYU is listed as the most stone cold sober college in a ranking of party schools). The reality is that despite the commercials, mormons are sinners just like everyone else. They are not especially worthy, despite claiming to be worthy in temple recommend reviews. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That includes them. When they wake up to that reality, that they are sinners in need of salvation rather than gods in waiting, they might be able to see the true Gospel for what it is and really understand that grace means unmerited favor.
USA Today reports that police are investigating a suspected gang rape of a teen-age girl at Brigham Young University by football players. The girl was 17 and was in the school sponsored apartment that athletes stay in, alcohol was involved. Later in the story it also mentions several other BYU football players that are suspended:
Football players Marcus Whalen and Breyon Jones were suspended and are facing criminal charges that they assaulted and robbed an acquaintance in April.
An off-campus party involving alcohol and sex in January resulted in one football player being kicked off the team, three being suspended until at least spring 2005 and two players placed on probation.
The point here isn't to claim that the mormon run school is a den of iniquity (although it is a den of false doctrine). The point is that mormons act like they have a superior culture to everyday America (seen in the pride that BYU is listed as the most stone cold sober college in a ranking of party schools). The reality is that despite the commercials, mormons are sinners just like everyone else. They are not especially worthy, despite claiming to be worthy in temple recommend reviews. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That includes them. When they wake up to that reality, that they are sinners in need of salvation rather than gods in waiting, they might be able to see the true Gospel for what it is and really understand that grace means unmerited favor.
How bad an idea is this?
Fox News reports on a new wave of pastors using pop culture films to portray a Christian message. Some of the examples cited include:
The films analyzed on the Movieministry site include everything from “Princess Diaries 2” (“God exalts the humble”) and “Anchorman” (“What is love?”) to “Spider-Man 2” (“Confession is the first step of forgiveness”) and “The Notebook” (“God can step in where science cannot”).
There is nothing wrong with these movies as entertainment (although I haven't seen any of them except Spider Man 2), but why the need to dumb down the church to make a point? Many of those who are involved in this "ministry" are in california, and thus think those who are not keen on Hollywood are ignorant louts...
David Bruce, who runs HollywoodJesus.com and has a background in network television, said it’s foolish for the church to shun show biz.
“The church at its worst has been rock-throwing,” he said. “Hollywood is the easy whipping boy.”
Hollywood has made itself the whipping boy by churning out films full of vile language, soft core pornography and graphic violence. Worse, the overwhelming majority of films that address religious issues at all tend to mock and denigrate Christianity and revere eastern religions. How odd that we would not embrace this culture!
Hey, rather than movies how about we use a book to make our point. I know one that has a good Christian message. It is called the Bible!
Fox News reports on a new wave of pastors using pop culture films to portray a Christian message. Some of the examples cited include:
The films analyzed on the Movieministry site include everything from “Princess Diaries 2” (“God exalts the humble”) and “Anchorman” (“What is love?”) to “Spider-Man 2” (“Confession is the first step of forgiveness”) and “The Notebook” (“God can step in where science cannot”).
There is nothing wrong with these movies as entertainment (although I haven't seen any of them except Spider Man 2), but why the need to dumb down the church to make a point? Many of those who are involved in this "ministry" are in california, and thus think those who are not keen on Hollywood are ignorant louts...
David Bruce, who runs HollywoodJesus.com and has a background in network television, said it’s foolish for the church to shun show biz.
“The church at its worst has been rock-throwing,” he said. “Hollywood is the easy whipping boy.”
Hollywood has made itself the whipping boy by churning out films full of vile language, soft core pornography and graphic violence. Worse, the overwhelming majority of films that address religious issues at all tend to mock and denigrate Christianity and revere eastern religions. How odd that we would not embrace this culture!
Hey, rather than movies how about we use a book to make our point. I know one that has a good Christian message. It is called the Bible!
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Ok, this is weird...
Alan Keyes, who I love as a commentator and who I think is entertaining to listen to, has suggested a form of reparations for slavery? Front Page reports that Keyes said:
In a craven attempt to boost his faltering (read: hopeless) Senate campaign, Keyes said Monday that he would support exempting blacks from all taxation in order to repay the debt America owed them for enslaving their ancestors. Blacks would pay only Social Security taxes under his plan. The Chicago Tribune reported that Keyes justified his position with an appeal to ancient history, “When a city had been devastated (in the Roman empire), for a certain length of time – a generation or two – they exempted the damaged city from taxation.” Keyes, usually no fan of the morés of the later Roman Empire, said this would “compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited.”
How weird is that from him? I need to look into this further, as it sounds a bit suspicious.
By the way, why should I pay reparations out of my pocket to slaves that are dead and that my poor grandparent's families never owned anyway?
Alan Keyes, who I love as a commentator and who I think is entertaining to listen to, has suggested a form of reparations for slavery? Front Page reports that Keyes said:
In a craven attempt to boost his faltering (read: hopeless) Senate campaign, Keyes said Monday that he would support exempting blacks from all taxation in order to repay the debt America owed them for enslaving their ancestors. Blacks would pay only Social Security taxes under his plan. The Chicago Tribune reported that Keyes justified his position with an appeal to ancient history, “When a city had been devastated (in the Roman empire), for a certain length of time – a generation or two – they exempted the damaged city from taxation.” Keyes, usually no fan of the morés of the later Roman Empire, said this would “compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited.”
How weird is that from him? I need to look into this further, as it sounds a bit suspicious.
By the way, why should I pay reparations out of my pocket to slaves that are dead and that my poor grandparent's families never owned anyway?
Dr. Mohler presents a frightening review of a new book by one Sam Harris, entitled The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. What is truly scary is not that Harris is an atheist. Rather it was the militant anti-religion that he espouses. No freedom of religion for Harris, everything about faith is bad and everything bad that has ever happened came from people of faith. Perhaps an overstatement, but this book sounds scary and captures a growing mindset amongst the secularist crowd. No longer are they content to marginalize Christians, now they seek to outright eliminate us. This is a spiritual war where no Christian can sit on the sidelines and be content to be left alone.
I am just wiped out after a bunch of late nights in a row. Monday I got at in 1:30 AM after a Kentucky Baptist convention "understanding other beliefs" conference in Bowling Green, KY. Tuesday night I got home at midnight after the same thing in Elizabethtown. I still haven't recovered and tonight is Meet the Teachers night, which means we have 5 different classrooms to visit with the monkeys. Yikes!
Good for Alaska!
According to Fox News, Alaska governor Murkowski has decided to try to find oil next to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Since the tree huggers (or caribou huggers in this case) are styming efforts to drill in ANWR and help ease America's dependence on foreign oil, Murkowski figures he will drill on state land next to ANWR and see what they find. With luck they will hit a huge oil reserve and there will be nothing Greenpeace can do about it. 99% of Americans couldn't find ANWR on a map and will never see it. Yet eco-wackjobs in Manhattan and L.A. have decreed it off limits to drilling. It could fall off the face of the earth tomorrow and nobody would ever know. Unfortunately the same can't be said for L.A.
According to Fox News, Alaska governor Murkowski has decided to try to find oil next to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Since the tree huggers (or caribou huggers in this case) are styming efforts to drill in ANWR and help ease America's dependence on foreign oil, Murkowski figures he will drill on state land next to ANWR and see what they find. With luck they will hit a huge oil reserve and there will be nothing Greenpeace can do about it. 99% of Americans couldn't find ANWR on a map and will never see it. Yet eco-wackjobs in Manhattan and L.A. have decreed it off limits to drilling. It could fall off the face of the earth tomorrow and nobody would ever know. Unfortunately the same can't be said for L.A.
Boo hoo!
Poor John Kerry. He comes to Cinci (the most conservative city in Ohio) and speaks to the VFW convention. This is the same convention that enthusiatically greeted Bush on Monday. Apparently not all the vets were keen on applauding a guy who weasled out of Vietnam after 4 months, spread lies about his fellow soldiers still in the field getting shot at while he was in the states and basically voted to defund the military as much as possible during his Senate career. The American Spectator has the following story:
Sen. John Kerry is said by several advance staffers to have been visibly upset at the reception he received at the VFW convention on Wednesday in Cincinnati. "He was upset after the speech, visibly upset when he was out of public view," says a Kerry adviser, confirming the story.
Kerry was greeted by polite applause in the large auditorium, with many VFW members sitting with their arms crossed and not applauding at all. A few VFW members stood in the rear of the room with their backs turned to the dais. Kerry appeared thrown by the reception, giving a flat, sometimes-meandering speech that was intended to be a strong rebuttal of President Bush's announced troop pullback in Europe and Korea.
Here is a newsflash Johnnie-come-lately: People who vote for you in November are not voting for you because they like you. They are voting for you in spite of your nasty personality because they are voting AGAINST Bush!
Kerry went on to prove that he categorically is anti-Bush no matter what, complaining about the troop removals from Europe and Korea that are one of the smartest moves yet. Why have troops facing off against a Red Army that no longer exists? Maybe Kerry is afraid the Huns will attack Rome again? South Korea has plenty of money and people, and hates our guts so I say get them out of there and let the Koreans defend themselves against the madman. Kerry is so blindly opposed to Bush that even the most sensible policy suggestions are attacked as mean-spirited/angering our former allies/damaging good will etc.
What a tool.
Poor John Kerry. He comes to Cinci (the most conservative city in Ohio) and speaks to the VFW convention. This is the same convention that enthusiatically greeted Bush on Monday. Apparently not all the vets were keen on applauding a guy who weasled out of Vietnam after 4 months, spread lies about his fellow soldiers still in the field getting shot at while he was in the states and basically voted to defund the military as much as possible during his Senate career. The American Spectator has the following story:
Sen. John Kerry is said by several advance staffers to have been visibly upset at the reception he received at the VFW convention on Wednesday in Cincinnati. "He was upset after the speech, visibly upset when he was out of public view," says a Kerry adviser, confirming the story.
Kerry was greeted by polite applause in the large auditorium, with many VFW members sitting with their arms crossed and not applauding at all. A few VFW members stood in the rear of the room with their backs turned to the dais. Kerry appeared thrown by the reception, giving a flat, sometimes-meandering speech that was intended to be a strong rebuttal of President Bush's announced troop pullback in Europe and Korea.
Here is a newsflash Johnnie-come-lately: People who vote for you in November are not voting for you because they like you. They are voting for you in spite of your nasty personality because they are voting AGAINST Bush!
Kerry went on to prove that he categorically is anti-Bush no matter what, complaining about the troop removals from Europe and Korea that are one of the smartest moves yet. Why have troops facing off against a Red Army that no longer exists? Maybe Kerry is afraid the Huns will attack Rome again? South Korea has plenty of money and people, and hates our guts so I say get them out of there and let the Koreans defend themselves against the madman. Kerry is so blindly opposed to Bush that even the most sensible policy suggestions are attacked as mean-spirited/angering our former allies/damaging good will etc.
What a tool.
Interesting stuff from Salt Lake City...
The SL Trib is following the Sunstone conference, kind of a safe place for dissident mormons to explore ideas frowned upon by the hierarchy. Lots of excommunicated types or at least those shunned. Kind of a weird crowd, it is full of people who disagree with much of mormonism but yet want to stay in the mormon church. Kind of odd. Anyway, this is a piece about a feminist mormon who was excommunicated, and her story of the excommunication process is wrenching. This is one of the reasons we did not have any desire to go before the bishop after we told him we were leaving mormonism. I was not in the mood to face a board of inquisition so they could excommunicate me before I could resign, to make them feel like they were doing their duty.
Note I have little sympathy for the feminist movement in general, but her story is a sad one regardless.
The SL Trib is following the Sunstone conference, kind of a safe place for dissident mormons to explore ideas frowned upon by the hierarchy. Lots of excommunicated types or at least those shunned. Kind of a weird crowd, it is full of people who disagree with much of mormonism but yet want to stay in the mormon church. Kind of odd. Anyway, this is a piece about a feminist mormon who was excommunicated, and her story of the excommunication process is wrenching. This is one of the reasons we did not have any desire to go before the bishop after we told him we were leaving mormonism. I was not in the mood to face a board of inquisition so they could excommunicate me before I could resign, to make them feel like they were doing their duty.
Note I have little sympathy for the feminist movement in general, but her story is a sad one regardless.
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