Unsure...

I can't work out what I think about this article on the religious right in Kansas in the US.

Is the article applauding the Christians in Kansas for stopping holding to what the Bible says? On the other hand, the kind of things that have come out of Kansas (God hates gays for example), are pretty dispicable and un-biblical in the extreme. God hates sin, that's for sure, but anyone homosexual is no different to anyone else in that we're all sinners, and God loves everyone enough to have sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross to take that sin upon himself so we can know God.

However, it seems the undertone of the article in the BBC is rather like most articles that come in the Economist - Christians are ok so long as they believe what everyone else believes - so long as they take evolution as the only plausible way we have got to where we have got, so long as they admit that, really, abortion's absolutely fine, so long as they don't have "outdated" views on sex, etc.

Yet what makes Christians distinct if they do that? Nothing. And what is a Christian, if it is not someone who follows Christ, hence believes in the Bible, hence takes his lead from the Bible? Now if that Bible states God created the world, and everything in it (like life - who are we to decide when to end it?), and states that sex is an amazing thing - but for marriage alone, then shouldn't Christians believe and argue in these things?

Beaten to it!

It was my intention at some point to look into the effect of playing soccer at altitude after FIFA slapped a ban on playing football above 2,500 metres (8,125 feet) last year (and subsequently revoked it after protests). However, Patrick McSharry, another Oxford scholar, has beaten me to it!

Never mind...

Original Sin

I've just returned from a conference on international economic development, an area which I'm not a huge expert by any stretch of the imagination - but a recent paper I've written with someone else happens to fall into this area of economics.

I was surprised that a number of people talked about original sin quite frequently - naturally this was the name some economists have given to some practice carried out in the financial sectors of economies - if a country can only borrow money denominated in foreign currency, then it is guily of original sin.

Naturally, once these countries begin to be able to borrow in their own currency, they can get around original sin. Now if the name wasn't already a bit of a misnomer, it certainly becomes it here. Sin is, as Wikipedia describes it, a Christian doctrine, and it can be defined simply as rejecting God. Sin cannot be got around by different practices, or by any human action, the Bible teaches. The only way around it is through trusting in the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross 2,000 odd years ago, something I'll be celebrating on Tuesday...

Deutschland ist rad!

I don't know what it is about Germany, but I love the place! Everything is so orderly and neat and tidy, things work, the people are usually very helpful indeed, and they have Christmas markets! And beer...

I'm in Bonn for a few days for a conference. I've roughly finished my presentation work (have to discuss someone else's paper and present my own (joint) paper tomorrow), and so I'm sitting back in my hotel room. The internet costs and is metered, while I have only a single bed, and no desk to work on, no ironing board, iron, or thingie to stick my rechargable toothbrush (which went flat in my case) into to recharge. But it's still great - I get free breakfast here, all I can eat breakfast no less. And I walk out of the hotel, two minutes down the road and I'm at the central station and the subway/U-bahn/underground, which takes me to the conference venue in minutes and minutes...

To To:, to CC:, or to BCC:?

I just read an amusing article in the Economist about etiquette when new technology comes along. One of the questions about emailing was the To or BCC question (you're writing to many people, do you put their addresses in To or BCC?), and the article writer, without any ambiguity, said the answer was to BCC, with your own address in the To.

Now I hate getting emails that have done that, because you have no idea who else got the email. So I'm firmly a To person, if nothing else, because within friendship groups, others can re-use emails sent round if all addresses are in the To field, whereas that's not possible with BCC. Also it seems a little secretive and shady to put addresses in the BCC field. So I don't agree!

A bunch of moaners

Well, England are about to, it seems, appoint an Italian, Fabio Capello, as the new national coach.

Yet it's greeted with a load of moaning, because he's not English. What happened to the last English manager? Hasn't he just produced possibly the worst set of performances imaginable given the quality of players before him?

And where are all these English managers queuing up to manage the team?

Paul Ince talks about how discouraging it is. Maybe that's England's problem is this kind of mentality. Capello won't be in the job forever, and there will be more chances in the future to manage England. It's hardly like it's banished forever the possibility the manager will be English.

More questionable assertions about English football

Gordon Taylor asserts quotes are definitely needed to deal with the "crisis" in English football.

However, he cites the Italian league as being a great example of how a league should work, where both the league does well, and the national team. Now, are there quotas in the Italian league? (The answer is no).

Protectionism never works, and won't work in football either. It will promote the mediocre, and will not solve England's problems either short term or long term.

Dawkins in Christian admission shock

Richard Dawkins calls himself a cultural Christian - he enjoys singing carols, which begs the question - why does he like singing about things he completely disagrees with?!

Leaving Toronto

It's nearing 9pm Eastern Time, and I have another two hours to kill at Toronto airport before catching my flight back to Heathrow. It's been an eventful few days here in Toronto. I arrived on Thursday evening, and quickly got acquainted to the notorious traffic I'm told Toronto suffers from. Even getting the bus back out to the airport tonight, a Sunday evening, took a long time as traffic was very heavy.

I certainly experienced that Canada gets cold, and even then I only experienced a mild version of this: at worst it was about -4 degrees here; while I've been here, it's been -29 in both Winnipeg and Edmonton, so it's been quite warm relatively here!

I've experienced the problem with not informing NatWest that I was going to be in Canada, as very quickly my debit card was blocked, and looking online, my balance hasn't been affected so it's unlikely to be fraud elsewhere. Thankfully my credit card remained useful.

I've remembered that Tim Hortons is pretty damn useful - they're cheap, and they're everywhere! Other things I've been reminded about: Not being allowed to cross the road apart from at specified crossings, and cars that can turn right when the lights are on red, having to ask for the washrooms and not the toilets (or even bathrooms apparently in Canada!), and the distinct lack of privacy afforded in public washrooms/bathrooms/toilets - big gaping hopes between the doors!

I enjoyed Toronto. It would have been better had the weather not been quite so cold, and not snowing, as it was today, on my day of sight-seeing. It meant that heading up the CN Tower, the world's largest building, didn't give particularly spectacular sights, because the top of the tower was obscured in clouds and visibility was low due to the snow.

But never mind, there'll always be some other time I'm sure to explore what Toronto has to offer. Toronto doesn't have numbered streets as far as I could work out; all had names, and slightly strange names like Bloor, and Yonge, and Harbord. They even have a railway station here, with real trains going to real places! I guess there's a lot more towns nearby that make a train service realistic in this part of Canada, whereas over in Alberta there's about 4 big towns a long way apart from each other.

Anyhow, enough rambling about Toronto.

What's going on at Newcastle?!

You might think Newcastle fans never learn; they're calling for Sam Allardyce, a manager in charge for all of 16 matches so far, to go!

One day soon I'll investigate something which I'm certain of; a club with a stable manager over a number of years will succeed more than one that chops and changes all the time.

Newcastle have been chopping and changing for years now, and they've been doing badly as a result. Keegan was there a long time, and he did pretty well for them. The examples of other managers in a job a long time and doing well are many. Man Utd under Alex Ferguson, Crewe Alexandra under Dario Gradi, Leicester City under Martin O'Neill...

There are some exceptions; Jose Mourinho is one. That's why he should be the new England manager!

Economist Letters

Sadly this link doesn't pull up the actual letter that caught my attention in this week's print copy of the Economist, but it was someone suggesting that the increase in church attendance and religiosity in the States was entirely driven by "non-spiritual" factors such as movement into suburbs, and a need for community from somewhere.

I'm quite sure this is true. The Bible is clear that Christianity is not man seeking God, but God seeking man. On our own, we try to avoid God, and keep Him out of our lives as much as we can. Right now I'm blogging and not doing something useful like communing with God in one of various ways (prayer, reading Bible, reading Christian-based literature). Thankfully God reaches out to us, and provides Jesus to take the punishment we deserve for this rejection of God (eternal separation from God and all He's created - i.e. everything - since that's what we short-sightedly want isn't it?!).

Thankfully Christianity isn't about what I do, but about what Jesus did.

So, just like part of my attendance at church is the social side of things (going to the pub after church), I'm sure a big part of the US attendance is similarly motivated. It's human nature after all, and what the Bible predicts fully well.

Does David Cameron ever shut up?

I guess not, given he's leader of the opposition and has to try as best he can to get in power. However, constantly harping on and on about something that really doesn't appear to need harping on about don't really seem to me to be good strategy.

However I am biased. There's no way I ever want to see a Tory government in power ever again. There are Tories I sometimes like, and really wouldn't mind if they were in power. Michael Howard's not that bad, and I always liked Ken Clarke (probably because he wasn't anti-Europe, as most Tories appear to be), and Boris Johnson, for his comedy appeal.

But Cameron? I really hope we never have to have four or five plus years of him in power. On the other hand, I may well be in another country by then, which may make such a thing bearable. In the meantime, keep going Gordon...