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got to where we have got, so long as they admit that, really, abortion's absolutely fine, so long as they don't have "outdated" views on sex, etc.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.