Angry birds vs peace doves

(Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)

I don't know why I think this is funny - it probably wasn't very funny for those two doves - but I had to laugh:

Two white doves that were released by children standing alongside Pope Francis as a peace gesture have been attacked by other birds.

As tens of thousands of people watched in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, a seagull and a large black crow swept down on the doves right after they were set free from an open window of the Apostolic Palace.

One dove lost some feathers as it broke free from the gull. But the crow pecked repeatedly at the other dove.

It was not clear what happened to the doves as they flew off.

(Gregorio Borgia, AP)

You know what's really funny? This same thing happened last year! Heh, heh. I guess the Vatican doesn't learn from experience, huh?

And why shouldn't I laugh? Releasing doves? That was nothing but a carefully choreographed spectacle to promote the Catholic Church. Children? Check. News cameras? Check. 'Tens of thousands' of adoring fans below the window? Check and double-check.

(Gregorio Borgia, AP)

What did they think was going to happen to the doves, anyway? Were they just releasing tame doves into the wild? How long do you think they would last?

That would be like releasing white chickens into the wild. These pure-white doves are no less artificial, no less domesticated. Now, I don't know, maybe the plan was that they'd return home on their own - if they survived. But if not, it would be far kinder just to wring their necks.

(Gregorio Borgia, AP)

And what did those 'tens of thousands' of superstitious Catholics think of this? Did they imagine that magic was involved? Remember, these are the same people who believe in exorcisms. Did they think that Satan was just playing Angry Birds?

Then what about 'God'? Is he such a wimp that he can't even protect peace doves released by the Pope? You see why I laugh?

Monday morning investment quarterbacking

Bill Nygren, portfolio manager at the Oakmark Funds, has some interesting commentary in his fourth quarter (2013) report:

Investing shares a lot of similarities with sports. Good decisions often lead to bad outcomes and vice-versa. [Note that I'm skipping his introduction about sports, since that doesn't interest me.] ...

One of the most important contributors to successful long-term investing is asset allocation. Investors evaluate the tradeoff between higher returns on riskier assets, such as stocks, and lower returns on more stable assets, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. In constructing a portfolio, they try to balance their desire for maximum returns with their ability to withstand volatility. Long-term data clearly demonstrates that stocks, though more volatile than bonds, have rewarded investors with higher returns. Statistics compiled by Ibbotson Associates show that since 1926, stocks have produced an average annual return of 10% while U.S. Treasury bonds have returned less than 6%. Long-term investors in stocks have been well rewarded for accepting the risk of short-term loss. Obviously, if one could avoid owning stocks in the negative years, one’s return would be even higher (and one’s risk would be lower) than if one used a buy-and-hold approach. With this in mind, many investors attempt to time their investments in stocks. But almost every study has concluded that trying to time the market is futile for most investors.

And yet, despite all of the evidence that stocks are the highest returning asset class over the long term and despite all of the evidence that almost nobody can time the market, the financial media usually treats bears as being more thoughtful than bulls. This is a pet peeve of mine because I believe it is a disservice to individual investors. Much like with Monday morning quarterbacking, investors need to consider the probabilities. Since the stock market has to either go up or go down, you might think this is a 50/50 proposition. However, the S&P 500 Index has had 24 down years since 1926; in other words, in 88 years, only 27% of the years have produced a loss. The probability of a down year has been about the same as the probability of an eight-point underdog winning a football game. It happens, but it isn’t a bet you’d make unless you got good odds. In short, history shows a much higher burden of proof is on the people who predict that the market will fall, rather than on those who predict it will go higher.

When we look back on the S&P 500 gaining over 30% in 2013, it will seem like owning stocks was an easy call. The market had been moving higher in preceding years, valuations weren’t demanding, and the economic recovery was still quite young. But the bears argued that it was foolish to invest after stocks reached a new high in March. They argued that slowing growth in China threatened our economic recovery and that it was too risky to invest when our government was so dysfunctional that it shut itself down. Additionally, they predicted that the Fed tapering would bring a screeching halt to the positive returns. As Gilda Radner’s Saturday Night Live character Roseanne Roseannadanna said 35 years ago, “It just goes to show you, it's always something--if it ain't one thing, it's another." There has always been something for investors to fear, not just last year but every year, yet the market has averaged a 10% annual gain and has gone up in 73% of the years since 1926.

Let me start by saying that there's one thing I don't like about his comments. He seems to be defining "risk" as "volatility." The fact is, when you're an investor, there are all sorts of different risks. But for someone like me, volatility is almost completely immaterial.

Unless I'll be forced to sell when the stock market is down (and I think I've taken prudent steps to counter that possibility) or I'll panic during a market crash (and given that I got through the 2008 economic collapse just fine), why should volatility concern me?

Sure, I'm human, and I hate to see my investments decrease in value - especially since they normally go down a lot faster than they go up (though not nearly as often). But volatility isn't a big risk for me,... and I've got some very volatile holdings.

However, there are two points he made which I really liked. First, good decisions don't always lead to good outcomes, especially in the short term. And bad decisions can make you money,... sometimes.

It's always valuable to look back at the decisions you've made and see what the outcome was. But just because an investment decreased in value, that doesn't mean your decision was wrong - not given what you knew at the time. You have to look at it more closely than that.

Now, sure, you might always be tempted to say that you were right, that it was just the stupid market that was wrong. But sometimes, that's true. More generally, you can make all the right decisions and still be disappointed in the outcome. That's because you can't predict everything (and you should certainly know that).

This past year, the stock market has boomed. If you were in the market at all, you probably felt like a genius. But that's probably not the case. And you're not going to learn to make better decisions if you don't recognize that.

Yes, look at the past. Look at the recent past and look at the long-term. Look at how your decisions have turned out. But also remember why you made those decisions and look at whether your reasoning was valid, however the results ended up.

If I bought a lottery ticket and actually won the lottery, would that mean that buying lottery tickets was a good idea? Sure, it worked out for me that time, and I'd be very happy with the result. But if you look at the odds, it was still a bad decision. (Note that I've never actually won the lottery - or even bought a lottery ticket.)

It can be the same way with investing. You can have good results without making a good decision. But I wouldn't bet on it happening regularly. Likewise, just because you lost money, that doesn't mean your reasoning wasn't sound. It could be that your reasoning wasn't sound, and I'd examine that possibility very carefully. If you keep losing money, I suggest that you've probably overlooked something. But it doesn't have to be that you made the wrong decision.

The second part of this is to remember that the stock market goes up over time. Maybe that will end someday, I don't know. (If it does, we'll probably have bigger things to worry about than our stock market portfolios.) But so far, the stock market - over the long term - has been the closest you can get to a sure thing. If you stay invested long enough, you'll make money.

My holdings generally go down a lot faster than they go up, but they go up far more often. This past year has been especially great, unusually great, and the past five years (despite a down year in 2011) has been absolutely incredible. Of course, that's because the economic collapse at the end of the Bush Administration was so severe that we were at a very low level five years ago. I really don't expect another investment opportunity like that in my lifetime.

But what about this year? What about 2014? I have no idea. A down market wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, but an up market wouldn't really surprise me, either. (Another year like 2013 would surprise me, but look at the late 1990s if you don't think that can happen.)

The thing is, if you bet that the stock market will go down, you might make money. You might even make a lot of money. If you're right. But the odds are against you, because the long-term direction of the stock market is up. That's gambling, not investing.

I'm not a gambler, because I don't like to make bets where the odds are against me. If you buy a lottery ticket, you might win big, but it's a lousy bet. If you go to a casino, you might come out ahead, but it's a lousy bet. Casinos don't make vast sums of money because your odds of winning are good. Just the reverse, in fact.

But your odds are good if you invest in the stock market and avoid making stupid mistakes. (Many small investors do make stupid mistakes, of course. I've done it myself. I probably still do. But that's not what this post is about.) But long-term investors have the odds on their side, which is the exact opposite of gambling.

(I might also point out that investors have the government firmly on their side, too, since most investors are wealthy. Investors pay far lower taxes than people who work for a living, and there are an abundance of ways to avoid taxes altogether. Most of those government policies help the wealthy more than you and me, but we can still take advantage of them.)

At any rate, the stock market will go down someday. And the fact that 2013 was such a boom year (following a great year in 2012, too) probably makes it more likely that 2014 will be down, just because prices are higher now. But will last week be the start of a bear market? I have no idea.

I'm definitely cautious (well, as cautious as I get, which isn't very). I've made a few minor adjustments to my portfolio. But as they say, markets climb a wall of worry. The time to get scared is when that stops, when everyone seems to think that the market will continue going up. Except for those times of "irrational exuberance," I'd just consider such worries as little more than noise.

Over the long term, the odds are in your favor. In the short term, well, who knows? Not me. And not anyone else, either. (You can guess and get it right. But what does that really tell you?)  Bears have the odds against them. They can still make money, just like you can still make money in a casino, but it's not easy. (Besides, successful bears tend to focus their picks on individual stocks, not the market as a whole.)

Maybe it's a personality quirk, but I don't like gambling. I positively hate the idea of betting against the odds. That's a sucker's game, and I don't want to feel like a sucker. So I don't gamble. I risk my money, yes. I take on a lot of risk - more than most people would feel comfortable with. But I always want the odds on my side.

What's wrong with religion in public schools?

From NBC KNTV:

Though a death certificate has been issued for Jahi McMath, many of the 13-year-old Oakland girl’s classmates still believe the “quiet leader” who laughed at jokes that weren't funny will one day return to school — if they just pray hard enough.

“The school told us that she’s not officially dead yet,” said Dymond Allen, one of Jahi's friends at EC Reems Academy of Technology and Arts in East Oakland, a public charter school that serves mostly disadvantaged kids. “And we should keep her in our prayers. I still hope. And God has the last say-so.”

Say what? "The school told us"? This is a public school. What right does a public school have to promote prayer, or to promote magical-thinking in general? (Note that this is supposed to be an "academy of technology," not Hogwarts.)

People have the right to believe whatever they want, and if those students want to pray, that's entirely their own business. But when the school gets involved, that's a violation of freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Not to mention being incredibly stupid. Now, yes, if even half the things they say about Jahi McMath are true, this is a horrible tragedy. Heck, it's a tragedy when any 13-year-old dies, and this seems especially senseless. Jesus, dying from a tonsillectomy? How could a good god allow something like that?

Her friends and family want to believe that there's still some hope, but frankly, they're being preyed on by the Catholic Church. But never mind all that. That's entirely up to the people involved. What's absolutely wrong here is having a public school weigh in on the side of magic.

In this particular case, I wouldn't expect a public school to weigh in on either side, since this is about religious belief. Would you want a public school to tell its students that prayer is useless? Of course not. Me, neither. (A public school could report the failure of prayer in scientific studies, but not as a direct attack on religious belief - and probably not for 13-year-olds, anyway.) That's why the separation of church and state is one of America's fundamental principles.

But maybe you're wondering what's so wrong with it? Well, how about this:

Like many people I have encountered who were raised in a Christian environment, I was indifferent to what I felt were minor infractions of the law that protects the separation of church and state. ... But then, when my stepson, who has been raised a Buddhist, enrolled in the sixth grade at our local school, Negreet High, it became personal, and I could no longer turn a blind eye to the very real harms that occur when school officials violate the separation of church and state.

My stepson started at Negreet in the same class as one of my children. By the end of the first week of school, he was having serious stomach issues and anxiety. We couldn't figure out why. In the mornings, my wife would pull over on the side of the road as they approached school so he could throw up. At first, we thought he was sick and we let him stay home. Soon it became apparent that this was not a cold, but something much worse. Our children informed us that their teacher had been chastising and bullying my stepson for his Buddhist beliefs.

On a science test, their teacher had included a fill-in-the-blank question: "ISN'T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" When my stepson didn't know the answer ("Lord"), she belittled him in front of the entire class. When he wrote in "Lord Buddha" on another exam, she marked it wrong. As she was returning that exam to students, one student proclaimed aloud that "people are stupid if they think God is not real." In response, my stepson's teacher agreed, telling the class, "Yes! That is right! I had a student miss that on his test." The entire class broke out in laughter at my stepson.

The same teacher also told our children that the Bible is "100 percent true," that the Earth was created by God 6,000 years ago, and that evolution is "impossible" and a "stupid theory made up by stupid people who don't want to believe in God." She's also told the class that Buddhism is "stupid."

We were shocked, but we quickly learned from our children that these types of activities were not unusual. School officials were repeatedly imposing their religious beliefs on students in myriad ways.

Again, this was a public school. But this was probably just the result of one bad teacher, right? I'll bet the principal had something to say about this, don't you think?

When we went to the school to meet with the principal, we saw a large picture of Jesus over the school's main doors, a Bible verse on the school's electronic marquee, and numerous religious posters and pictures on the walls. Religious images and messages are displayed throughout the school, in fact.

We learned from our children that official prayers, typically led by the principal or teachers, are routinely incorporated into class and school events ...

We discovered that school officials were distributing religious literature to students. For example, one of our other son's teachers passed out copies of a book from the "Truth For Youth" program, a revivalist ministry. The book included the entire New Testament of the Bible as well as cartoons that denounce evolution and trumpet the evils of birth control, premarital sex, rock music, alcohol, pornography, homosexuality, sorcery, and witchcraft.

OK, then, how about just one bad school? It couldn't be more than that, could it?

We assumed that the Superintendent was not aware of all the unlawful activities at Negreet and would want to know about them so she could rectify the situation, but we could not have been more wrong. She was dismissive and told us that we live in the "Bible Belt" and that this is just how things are. ...

My wife and I were floored. I tried to point out that the "Bible Belt" was not a separate country and that we were still entitled to religious liberty as guaranteed by the Constitution. She would have none of it, however. She asked whether my stepson had to be raised as a Buddhist and even suggested that he "change" his faith to better fit in.

Simple, huh? If you don't want to suffer religious discrimination - in a public school - just change your religion. Problem solved, right?

I wonder how those people would feel if things were reversed, if a public school were pushing some other religion than their own. Would they think that changing their own religion would be a good solution to the problem?

That's why we require a strict separation between church and state in America. That's why we're supposed to have that separation, anyway, even if it doesn't always work out that way in practice. And that's why we need to be vigilant about violations of the law.

Like most people, I suspect, this guy, this parent, had never been particularly concerned about "minor infractions of the law that protects the separation of church and state." But it doesn't seem so minor when it happens to your kids, does it?

And when they switched schools, when his stepson left Negreet High School for a different public school (because, according to the superintendent of the school district, there were "more Asians" there), they found the same thing: "school officials regularly promote Christianity."

It's not just Buddhists. I've heard personal stories from Jews raised in the Deep South, for example, that shame us all. And atheists are regularly bullied almost everywhere.

But if it were Christians suffering discrimination, I'd feel just the same. That's the great thing about the separation of church and state - it protects us all.

Let's play Prophet Quest

Nice! A video that combines two of my interests. :)

(Trust me. Just watch it.)

Fantastic news about wealth inequality!

Isn't this wonderful? The 85 richest people in the world have as much money as the 3,500,000,000 poorest people - half the planet!

What an incentive, huh? Just think if you could become one of those 85 people! Let's see, with 7 billion people on the planet (rounded down), your odds would be worse than 1 in 82 million.

The odds are 240 times better that you'll die from exploding fireworks, a thousand times better that you'll be killed by lightning, a million times better than you'll die in an auto accident. I'm not going to guarantee those exact figures, but you get the point.

Of course, many of those 85 people were born rich. They probably didn't inherit all of their wealth, but they started off with advantages most people could only dream of.

And even people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett didn't start out dirt poor. They didn't start out hungry, with terrible schools and zero prospects. They didn't start out in an America with wealth and income inequality as bad as it is today.

(The Atlantic)

And if you do make it, what about all those other 3,499,999,999 people? Do you care nothing about anyone else? I'd rather that everyone was doing reasonably well, instead of 85 people lording it over billions of peons - even if I were one of those 85 people.

Remember the America where our goal was a strong middle class, instead of a handful of aristocrats and a horde of serfs? Am I showing my age? Yeah, that almost seems quaint these days, doesn't it? Helping the rich become even richer seems to have become the default.

The loon in this video, incidentally, is Kevin O'Leary, and no, he's not on Fox. Oddly enough, he's in Canada. I guess they've got their crazy people there, too, huh?

The Bible, Pt. 24: Leviticus, Chapter 9 - 12

This continues my reading of the Bible, as an ordinary layman with no particular expertise, from Pt. 23. The entire series can be found here, and note that all quotes are from the King James Bible.

Chapter 9:

1 And it came to pass on the eighth day, that Moses called Aaron and his sons, and the elders of Israel;

2 And he said unto Aaron, Take thee a young calf for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering, without blemish, and offer them before the LORD.

3 And unto the children of Israel thou shalt speak, saying, Take ye a kid of the goats for a sin offering; and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, for a burnt offering;

4 Also a bullock and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before the LORD; and a meat offering mingled with oil: for to day the LORD will appear unto you.

5 And they brought that which Moses commanded before the tabernacle of the congregation: and all the congregation drew near and stood before the LORD.

6 And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD commanded that ye should do: and the glory of the LORD shall appear unto you.

Well, this is going to be spectacular, don't you think? God is actually going to appear to the hoi polloi?

But they're going to kill seven animals at once, not to mention "a meat offering mingled with oil." How could God fail to be impressed? This will put him in a good mood, I'll bet!

8 Aaron therefore went unto the altar, and slew the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself.

9 And the sons of Aaron brought the blood unto him: and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar:

...

12 And he slew the burnt offering; and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled round about upon the altar.

...

15 And he brought the people's offering, and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin, as the first.

...

18 He slew also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings, which was for the people: and Aaron's sons presented unto him the blood, which he sprinkled upon the altar round about,

Note that I'm skipping a lot of this - mostly the cutting up and burning of the sacrifices, which we've seen described in chapter after chapter already.

24 And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.

That's it? The fire flares up, on an altar covered with the grease from seven animals? My stove has done that, when I've gotten a bit too exuberant in frying bacon. I guess I didn't realize that was a miracle!

Chapter 10:

1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.

2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

OK, that has not happened with my stove - not yet, at least.

Note that Aaron is still head-priest, despite that piddling matter of creating a new god, a golden calf, for the Israelites to worship after Yahweh had ignored them for a whole month.

But God doesn't like the particular kind of incense that two of his sons burn for him, and so they're toast. Literally! Well, God has his priorities, I guess.

3 Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.

...

6 And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled.

And the family can't even mourn them, lest God get pissed. I guess I can understand why Aaron was looking for a new god, can't you?

14 And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in a clean place; thou, and thy sons, and thy daughters with thee: for they be thy due, and thy sons' due, which are given out of the sacrifices of peace offerings of the children of Israel.

Well, would you look at that! "And thy daughters with thee." This is the first we've seen in any chapter that the women of the family can eat the sacrificial leftovers, too!

This is called a "wave offering" here (and in the previous chapter, too), but it's clearly meat. (Admittedly, I don't know what parts of what animal "the wave breast and heave shoulder" actually are.) But it's the fact that women are actually allowed to join the feast, too, that really surprises me.

16 And Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying,

17 Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD?

18 Behold, the blood of it was not brought in within the holy place: ye should indeed have eaten it in the holy place, as I commanded.

Moses is angry that Aaron's two remaining sons haven't eaten all of the goat sacrifice, as they were supposed to. But given that they had seven animals to eat - two calves, two rams, a goat, a lamb, and a steer - plus that meat-and-oil offering, and that their two brothers had just been murdered by God in front of their eyes, I think that he could have cut them some slack, don't you?

Chapter 11:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.

3 Whatsoever parteth the hoof, and is clovenfooted, and cheweth the cud, among the beasts, that shall ye eat.

4 Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

This chapter describes what's clean and unclean to eat (and not just eat, either, since even touching unclean animals - dead or alive - will make you unclean).

Many animals are mentioned specifically. For example, camels, rabbits, and pigs are all unclean. (Rabbits are supposed to be unclean because they "chew the cud," though actually, they don't. Gee, I wonder why God didn't know that?)

And you can eat fish - anything with fins and scales - but no other seafood. There's a long list of birds, too, which are also an "abomination," including:

19 And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

Um, say what? A bat isn't a bird. Wouldn't you think that the all-knowing creator of the universe would know that?

22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.

23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

OK, so you can eat some insects - locusts and 'bald locusts' (no one seems to know what was meant there), beetles (meaning crickets, apparently), and grasshoppers. However, you can't eat any insects with four feet.

Given that there aren't any insects with four feet, that shouldn't be too difficult, huh?

You can't eat mice, or ferrets, or snakes, or moles - really, most of this isn't too tough. But you can't eat snails, so no escargot for you! Still, God's ban on pork and seafood are the real biggies.

45 For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

46 This is the law of the beasts, and of the fowl, and of every living creature that moveth in the waters, and of every creature that creepeth upon the earth:

47 To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten.

Luckily, Christians don't pay any attention to Leviticus. So far, there's absolutely nothing in this chapter which any Christian thinks twice about - not the blood sacrifices and not the dietary restrictions.

Gee, I wonder if there's any part of Leviticus Christians do think they should follow? :)

Chapter 12:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.

...

5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.

6 And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:

Earlier, remember, these Israelites were required to sacrifice a lamb to redeem their firstborn sons - indeed, to sacrifice the firstborn males of every animal, not just human beings. But now, women are required to sacrifice a lamb, as well as a young pigeon or turtledove, for every single child. What's going on here? Is God just getting more and more bloodthirsty as we go along?

Note, too, that women are "unclean" after giving birth - and giving birth to a daughter makes them unclean for twice as long as giving birth to a son. Just in case daughters started to think they might be as good as sons, you know.

This is a very short chapter, though. I guess there's just not that much to say about women, huh? Well, I suppose I'll stop here, for now, anyway. These posts have been getting pretty long lately - too long. The next few chapters contain a lot of verses (though I'm not sure how much I'll have to say about them), and... well, I'm struggling to stay interested right now.

So we'll save them for next time.

___
Note: Links to this whole series are available here.

The Made Easy series

This is both an explanation of an entire series of videos, the Made Easy Series, and a useful primer about how rational people decide what's true and what isn't.

The Made Easy Series includes videos about the history of the universe, the origin of life, the evolution of life, the age of the Earth, and the scientific method, among others. These are videos about science, and they'd be great for educational purposes, I suspect.

This one, however - the last in the series - does mention faith-based thinking. He warns in the description that it contains religious content and can't be used in the public schools. Luckily, I can still post it here. :)

Seriously, though, that's a shame, because the message in this one should be taught to schoolchildren. You could do that without mentioning religion. It's easy enough to explain why scientific thinking - evidence-based thinking - is valuable, without mentioning faith-based thinking at all.

White people the real victims of racism?

(image from Psychology Today)

Articles like this just blow me away (and not in a good sense). The headline says it all: "Study Finds White Americans Believe They Experience More Racism Than African Americans."

Say what? I'm a white man, and I'm pretty sure this is one of the stupidest beliefs I've ever heard. Ever. And I've heard a lot of stupid beliefs!

Here's an excerpt:

There’s a saying that “the new racism is to deny that racism exists.” If that is the case, it may explain a study conducted by researchers from Tufts University’s School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. Their findings claim that self-described white Americans believe they have “replaced blacks” as the primary victims of racial discrimination in contemporary America.

The authors say that their study highlights how the expectations of a “post-racial” society, predicted or imagined in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidency, has far from been achieved.

The study finds that while both Caucasian and African Americans agree that anti-black racism has decreased over the last 60 years, whites believe that anti-white racism has increased. Moreover, the study finds that the majority of Caucasians believe that anti-white racism is a “bigger problem” than what African Americans face.

Talk about faith-based thinking! Do we even need to discuss this? Well, apparently we do. I can't imagine any American being dumb enough to believe this, but... well, it's just astonishing, isn't it?

The article continues:

Tufts Associate Professor of Psychology Samuel Sommers, PhD is the co-author of the article “Whites See Racism as a Zero-sum Game that They Are Now Losing,” from the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. He comments that ”It’s a pretty surprising finding when you think of the wide range of disparities that still exist in society, most of which show black Americans with worse outcomes than whites in areas such as income, home ownership, health and employment.” ...

An astounding 11% of Caucasian respondents assigned the maximum rating of 10 to the seriousness of anti-white discrimination. Compare that with only 2% who reported the same of anti-black racism. Caucasians, the study found, often believe that racial equality is “a zero sum game,” where one group gains at the expense of others.

Get that? More than 1 in 10 whites thought that anti-white discrimination couldn't get any worse, that it was at the absolute maximum in America!

If that doesn't blow you away, it should! I don't think I've ever witnessed one instance of anti-white discrimination my entire life, neither directed at me or at anyone else I've ever known.

In fact, the very existence of anti-white discrimination, the idea that I might be discriminated against on the basis of my race, has never crossed my mind. Ever! Not in my childhood, my youth, my working years, or now. It's just never been a consideration.

But we white people are supposed to be facing discrimination and bigotry? Really? How dumb can you get?

This is depressing, isn't it? That Americans of any race could be this dumb? The only bit of hope I can gather from this is that the sample size of the study was very, very small (only 209 Caucasians and 208 African Americans). Maybe they just got a particularly dumb batch of white people?

Oh, and racial equality is not a zero sum game! Nor is equality in the areas of religion, sex, or gender, for that matter. Equality in general is not a zero sum game - just the reverse, in fact. Letting everyone participate fully in the American dream enriches us all.

If there's a problem in America, it's that we're not quite there yet. We've come a long way, but we've still got a ways to go. And as a straight white man, I'm looking forward to that. Equal rights for everyone else doesn't threaten me one little bit.

Creationism vs science

Quite a contrast, isn't it? Would you really pick primitive, bronze-age mythology?

The Bible, Pt. 23: Leviticus, Chapter 1 - 8

I'm starting Leviticus now, after finishing Exodus in Part 22 last time, in my reading of the Christian Bible. All quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the King James version.

Leviticus, Chapter 1:

1 And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.

...

5 And he shall kill the bullock before the LORD: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

6 And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.

7 And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire:

8 And the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar:

9 But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

Oh, god! Last time, I said I hoped we were done with the interior decorating stuff, and it seems that we are. But what do I get instead? Chapter after chapter of recipes!

OK, not exactly recipes, I suppose, though it gets pretty close to that sometimes. No, these are detailed instructions about how God wants his blood sacrifices prepared - 8 chapters worth! (Note that God is talking to Moses from the tabernacle now, since he's moved into his new home.)

I'm going to skim through this stuff very quickly, because it's mostly just repeating the same thing over and over again. But before I do, let me just re-post this paragraph from Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity (1976), which I first noted back in Part 17:

But the God of the Jews was still alive and roaring in his Temple, demanding blood... (N)othing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale. The place was as vast as a small city. There were literally thousands of priests, attendants, temple-soldiers and minions. To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish diaspora life... was quite lost amid the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the sluices of blood, the abattoir stench, the unconcealed and unconcealable machinery of tribal religion inflated by modern wealth to an industrial scale. (p. 13-14)

That's what we're talking about here. This is where they got God's instructions for all that. And I have to wonder just how modern Christians rationalize this. After all, this isn't just the God of the Jews, but the Christian God, and the Muslim Allah, too. (And no, none of them do this stuff anymore.)

The Bible emphasizes over and over again how God demands blood sacrifices and how he relishes the sweet savor of burnt flesh. But I went to church for years as a kid, and I never noticed any of that stuff. So what happened?

Did God turn vegetarian, then? If so, why did he change his mind? Did he just lose his taste for blood? Or did he finally have his bloodlust sated, perhaps in the extravagant gore of sacrificing himself to himself to appease himself (the crucifixion)? Remember, this is supposed to be the same god. This is the Christian holy book I'm reading, after all.

And Christians always tell me that their god is eternal, unchanging, timeless. So this Old Testament god is still the god you worship today, then? Really?

Or is this part of the Bible just fiction? But if that's the case, what makes you think that any of it is real? And how do you determine which parts are real and which parts aren't? Do you have any evidence that some parts are real? Or do you just decide which parts you want to believe and which parts you don't?

None of this stuff has ever made sense to me, and the more I read, the less it does. But keep these questions in mind as we continue through this gore-splattered manual of blood sacrifice. (Again, I'll get through it as quickly as possible, just skimming the surface, but there's a lot of it.)

14 And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the LORD be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons.

15 And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:

16 And he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes:

17 And he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

When it's sheep, goats, or cattle, the sacrifices usually must be male and "without blemish." God isn't so picky when it comes to birds, though - or maybe it's just harder to tell the males from the females, in some cases.

Chapter 2:

1 And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:

2 And he shall bring it to Aaron's sons the priests: and he shall take thereout his handful of the flour thereof, and of the oil thereof, with all the frankincense thereof; and the priest shall burn the memorial of it upon the altar, to be an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD:

3 And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.

I wasn't kidding about the recipes, or not entirely. Well, note that the priests will eat some of this. Not all of it gets sacrificed to the Lord. (Note that Aaron doesn't seem to have been demoted for his little faux pas of creating a new god, in the form of a golden calf, for the Israelites to worship instead of Yahweh.)

And although the vast majority of this is about the blood sacrifice of live animals, that's not entirely the case. Some offerings are "baken in the oven" or even fried up in a frying pan:

4 And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.

5 And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.

6 Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.

7 And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.

...

10 And that which is left of the meat offering shall be Aaron's and his sons': it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire.

One thing God can't abide, though, is yeast. As we've seen previously, he insists on unleavened bread. He doesn't like honey, either - at least, not in "any offering of the LORD made by fire." And although you can make an offering of fine fruit, that's not supposed to be burnt on the altar. (What they are supposed to do with it is left unsaid.)

Chapter 3:

1 And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.

2 And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and Aaron's sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.

3 And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD; the fat that covereth the inwards, and all the fat that is upon the inwards,

Most of this is specific instructions for sacrifices of various animals for various reasons, not just the required sacrifice I wrote about earlier of all firstborn male animals (and people, though you're supposed to substitute a lamb for your son - there are no instructions for human sacrifice here).

In this particular context, I really don't know what "peace offerings" are, but it's one of the few times you can actually sacrifice female animals. (They still must be "without blemish," of course.) The instructions are very similar, but we see separate verses for sacrificing lambs and for sacrificing goats.

16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD'S.

17 It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.

In any case, though, the fat and the blood must be reserved for God. You can't eat any of that. It's a "perpetual statute for your generations" that you must eat neither fat nor blood.

Hmm,... my grandmother - oddly enough, a devout Catholic - used to finish up a rare steak, bacon, or any other meat by taking a piece of white bread and sopping up all the leftover fat and other juices on her plate, so she wouldn't miss a bit of it. (She lived to age 99, too.)

She also liked blood sausage (as I do). So I guess that statute wasn't so 'perpetual' after all, huh?

Chapter 4:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

...

3 If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish unto the LORD for a sin offering.

4 And he shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD; and shall lay his hand upon the bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the LORD.

5 And the priest that is anointed shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle of the congregation:

6 And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the LORD, before the vail of the sanctuary.

7 And the priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation; and shall pour all the blood of the bullock at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

The previous chapter was about "peace offerings," while this one is about "sin offerings" - specifically, when you sin through ignorance.

The first part of this seems to be referring to when a priest sins, but it's followed by the instructions for when anyone else sins, too. In both cases, they must sacrifice a steer (in very specific ways, of course).

Ironically, though, if a ruler sins, he only has to sacrifice a kid (a young goat) - a male or a female, depending on the circumstances - or a female lamb, depending on other circumstances. And all this is described, of course, in detail, repeated for each specific circumstance.

The killing, the blood, and the burning are all very, very similar, though.

Chapter 5:

1 And if a soul sin, and hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, whether he hath seen or known of it; if he do not utter it, then he shall bear his iniquity.

2 Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty.

3 Or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever uncleanness it be that a man shall be defiled withal, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty.

...

6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD for his sin which he hath sinned, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.

More about sin offerings. In most of these, you're guilty even if you don't know about it (which would seem to imply that you need to make sin offerings even if you don't think that you've actually done anything wrong).

In this case, though, if you can't afford a lamb, two turtledoves or young pigeons will do. (The details about how you sacrifice these various animals seem to be very similar - if not identical - to what we've already read over and over again.)

14 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

15 If a soul commit a trespass, and sin through ignorance, in the holy things of the LORD; then he shall bring for his trespass unto the LORD a ram without blemish out of the flocks, with thy estimation by shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for a trespass offering:

So how does a "trespass offering" differ from a "sin offering," except for requiring a ram as sacrifice? In both cases, these are clearly explained as being sins through ignorance.

Chapter 6:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the LORD, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour;

3 Or have found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely; in any of all these that a man doeth, sinning therein:

4 Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found,

5 Or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering.

6 And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest:

These, on the other hand, are deliberate sins - or crimes, as we'd consider them. You still have to make the same "trespass offering" to the Lord, but you also must make amends to the people you've sinned against. (Still, it's hardly "get tough on crime," is it? You just have to give back whatever you "took violently away"?)

8 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

9 Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.

...

16 And the remainder thereof shall Aaron and his sons eat: with unleavened bread shall it be eaten in the holy place; in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation they shall eat it.

...

18 All the males among the children of Aaron shall eat of it. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations concerning the offerings of the LORD made by fire: every one that toucheth them shall be holy.

Again, Aaron doesn't seem to have suffered any downside from that whole creating-a-new-god-to-worship thing. Indeed, he and his male ancestors - only the males, of course (did you really expect any differently?) - will eat very well from the leftovers of all the blood sacrifices they perform.

Remember, these are holy, so we certainly can't have any women touching them!

The chapter concludes with instructions about what sacrifices the priests are allowed to eat - indeed, commanded to eat - and what they aren't.

Chapter 7:

1 Likewise this is the law of the trespass offering: it is most holy.

2 In the place where they kill the burnt offering shall they kill the trespass offering: and the blood thereof shall he sprinkle round about upon the altar.

3 And he shall offer of it all the fat thereof; the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards,

More of the same.

Really, I'm struggling to even stay awake, at this point. And what can I say that's different in this chapter? That one priest gets "the skin of the burnt offering" for himself? That they can eat some stuff only on the day it is offered, but others for two days (however, on no account for three, because that's an "abomination")?

There's a lot of talk about unclean things here - and even "abominable unclean things," which are different, apparently - and unclean beasts, and "the uncleanliness of man," but no information about what those things actually are. I suppose that comes up later, but it seems odd, given the excruciating detail here about blood sacrifices.

The chapter concludes with:

38 Which the LORD commanded Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to offer their oblations unto the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai.

I'm not sure if this means the first time Moses spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mt. Sinai, or the second time. Either way, it indicates a brief flashback, I guess.

However, note that this directly contradicts the very first verse in Leviticus, which clearly indicates that God is talking to Moses from the tabernacle which they had just built for him, in accordance with those instructions on Mt. Sinai, at the very end of Exodus.

You can't have it both ways. Either God is telling these things to Moses on the top of Mt. Sinai, when he also got the instructions for building the tabernacle, or he's speaking from the tabernacle after they built it. This is a clear contradiction.

Chapter 8:

1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, and a bullock for the sin offering, and two rams, and a basket of unleavened bread;

3 And gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Here, again, we're back after the tabernacle has been built, not when Moses got the commandments on Mt. Sinai. We also see, again, that Aaron is still head priest.

Really, if even creating a new god out of gold and leading the congregation in worshiping it (dancing and singing around it, naked), instead of the real god, isn't a disqualification to be head priest, what would be?

8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.

I should have mentioned this before, but the Urim and Thummim are like flipping a coin to make a decision (only when you think that God is influencing the coin toss, of course). They're something every priest needs to have in his pocket.

13 And Moses brought Aaron's sons, and put coats upon them, and girded them with girdles, and put bonnets upon them; as the LORD commanded Moses.

14 And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin offering.

15 And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.

The rest of this chapter - and, really, the next couple of chapters, too - is just Moses following through with the instructions we've been reading. Here, he garbs the priests (Aaron and his sons), pours the anointing oil over their heads, and sacrifices a steer and a ram (two rams?) - pouring the blood all around, then cutting up and burning both animals exactly as God has commanded.

Had enough yet? I certainly have! My apologies, but I didn't write this stuff. I'm only commenting on it.

I think this is a good place to stop, for now. There's more blood sacrifice coming up, but the instructions are over, I think. Now it's time for the Israelites to follow orders - or try, at least. But we'll get to that next time.

___
Note: This entire series of Bible commentary is available here.

The Young Turks

I don't suppose these videos have much in common, except that they're examples of what I like about TYT - The Young Turks - and what I hate about the right-wing (typified by Fox 'News').

OK, these are all hosted by John Iadarola, and I find him particularly impressive. But I don't always agree with anyone, and that certainly includes The Young Turks. Still, they're far more often right than wrong, and even when I disagree in some respect, they're always worth hearing.

For example, it can't be said often enough that Republican efforts 'to end voter fraud' are simply about voter suppression - about trying to hang on to power even when only 20% of Americans self-identify as Republicans.

Remember, there's a record of everyone who votes, so nothing would be simpler than to identify voter fraud,... if it really happened. It's a secret how you vote, but certainly not that you do vote. So if voter fraud really occurred in significant numbers, nothing would be easier than to prove that.



This video is about the recent bipartisan Senate report on the tragedy in Benghazi, where four Americans died. Republicans - especially those at Fox 'News' - have been beating a dead horse here, as that report has made abundantly clear.

But that's not going to stop them. That's certainly not going to stop Bill O'Reilly. Anyway, both John Iadarola and Ben Mankiewicz make some superb points here. Again, this is why I like TYT.



Finally, abortion. Is there be a crazier issue in America? (Well, OK, guns.) But naturally, you've got a bunch of men trying to dictate to women about their own bodies, their own health.

And a lot of women go along with it. A lot of women - not most, admittedly, but a lot - vote Republican. And a lot of those women seem to want men to make the decisions. Well, look at the Catholic Church, too.

These aren't people who are going to stop with abortion. They want to eliminate birth control, too. And who knows what after that? This is about controlling women, it really is. And, of course, none of this is going to affect the wealthy in the slightest.

All three of these issues are important, but there are lots of important issues, aren't there? Anyway, I thought I'd combine these into one post.

Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny

Thorwal in the daytime: tunnel vision

According to Steam, Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny, which was released in July of last year, "is a faithful remake of the 1992 original, adored by a generation of Role Players and one of the most successful RPG’s of the 1990’s."

Well, that last part is true, I suppose. I did enjoy the original game by Attic Entertainment (published by Sir-Tech, the English version was released in 1993), and its two sequels, too. I don't recall being wild about them, but I've always enjoyed party-based, turn-based RPGs - and those kinds of games are few and far between these days.

Which is why I decided to give this one a try, despite what everyone said about it. (Wikipedia notes: "On account of the many bugs that make it unplayable as of August 2013, the game is widely considered to be the worst alpha release ever sold as a finished game.")

I'm not sure I'd ever seen a game which didn't have any supporters,... before this one, I mean. I swear, this remake was universally reviled. But they've been patching it for five months (indeed, I only had it crash once in the admittedly brief time I played it), the price of it had been slashed, and I found it on sale, to boot.

And I was curious, since I'd played the original. Besides, I wanted to support the idea of party-based, turn-based games, at least. As I say, they're hard to find these days. And how bad could this one be? Long story short, save your money for Wasteland 2. (Um, please note that Wasteland 2 is still in beta, so I haven't played it, and I don't actually know how it will turn out, though I'm certainly hopeful.)

OK, you start Realms of Arkania in a temple - it doesn't seem to matter which temple - where you can keep the game's six pre-generated starting characters, switch them for other pre-generated characters (in both cases, you can change their names and images, if you wish), or create your own.

Being an old-school RPG fan, I started to create my own, but I ended up using a few of the existing characters, too. It's not that the process was time-consuming - although, yes, it's really time-consuming - but more that it was just awkward and frustrating. (That's pretty much the story of this game in a nutshell. They should have called it Realms of Arkania: Awkward and Frustrating.)

OK, character creation wasn't all that bad, I suppose, not by itself (though not good). After all, you only go through it once. And given how anal we RPG fans can be, creating a character has often been nearly a game in itself. (Have you ever played a game for three hours without actually starting the game? I have. Between reading the manual and creating your characters, that wasn't even unusual. Not here, though. There's hardly a manual at all.)

In Realms of Arkania, you start out rolling for stats - positive attributes like Strength, Courage, etc. Depending on what class you want, there are certain minimum requirements. (A warrior needs a certain minimum of Strength, for example.) However, when you roll for stats in this game, you don't get to see the results immediately. Instead, you just see one number at a time and have to decide in which attribute to put it.

Thus, you can get to the end of the process and not be able to create the character you want, because you don't meet the minimum requirements. More often, you get to the end of the process with a character who's just not going to be very good at his assigned role. So you do the same thing all over again. And again, and again.

Oh, did I say "the end of the process"? Hardly. Because after you do this with the positive attributes, you have to do the same thing with negative attributes (like Claustrophobia, Agoraphobia, etc.). This time, of course, low numbers are best. And again, certain classes have particular requirements, so you can get to the end and find that you simply can't create the character you wanted, or just that you don't like the results. So you have to start all over from the beginning.

This isn't much fun, but none of it would be a big deal in itself. I had a bigger problem afterwards, when designing spell-casters, because you had to decide ahead of time how many points to put into physical skills and how many into spell abilities (which is where you go next in this character-creation process).

These are just two tabs on the same character sheet, so why can't you just switch back and forth as needed, until all of your allotted points are used up? But no, you have to do one and then the other, for no real reason that I could see. Again, this is just awkward and frustrating, because it was hard to tell ahead of time where I wanted to invest those points.

And this is something that happens not just at character creation, but every time you level up - not to mention that you only have a chance to succeed at raising an attribute or a skill. Sometimes, you just waste a point, because it fails to do anything at all. Again, it's not a big deal, but it certainly isn't fun.

When we left the temple (which was, like nearly every other place in town, just a static screen, not an actual building we could investigate), we were on a street in Thorwal (see the first screenshot). It's a big town, but we couldn't explore it for long, because we started in the late afternoon/early evening, and it quickly got dark.

What kind of design decision was that? Why not start us off in the morning, so we could at least look around a bit? Well, we couldn't explore in the dark, and since it was strongly hinted that we needed to enter a tavern to get information, that's what we did.

This is just a static screen, not an actual room

Note that there are taverns everywhere in town, but they're all virtually identical. None of them are actual buildings which you can enter and look around. You just get a screen where you can choose a few very actions - notably, in this case, the option to talk to the bartender.

You have three choices: you can choose to order a beer, you can try to ask questions without ordering a beer, or you can buy a round for the house. That's it - always those three options. I never tried the third option, because my party didn't have much money, and there was no indication of how much beer would even cost us.

If you try the second option, sometimes the bartender will just give you beer (which you drink automatically) and sometimes, after a bit more discussion, he'll kick you out of the tavern. So, in effect, you must drink at least one beer to get any benefit to entering the tavern at all.

Inevitably, someone else comes along right afterwards and offers to buy you another beer. He'll then talk with you a bit and give you some information. Well, that's why you're there, right?

However, two beers are way too much for your party of rough, tough adventurers. After two beers each, my whole group was drunk and puking in the street afterwards. (Did I say two beers? When I jumped into the game to get a screenshot just now, my whole party ended up puking in the street after one beer. And these are the heroes expected to save civilization!)

The first tavern you enter - whichever one it is - will give you the information you need: first, that the Hetman is looking for heroes, and second, that there's a quest at the Old Bailey. As far as I can tell, that's it. You can stick around and get more information, but none of it seems useful or even interesting.

OK, maybe now is the time to talk about the horrible voice acting in the game, since this is where it gets completely ridiculous. The way it works is this: You might hear the same piece of very poor voice acting whatever the information you're being told at the time. The voice just pauses when it gets to the one line of actual information - presumably so you can read it for yourself - then continues on with the rest of the paragraph. It's just nuts.

Who in the world thought that was a good idea? Why have voice acting at all, then? The first thing I did in this game was to turn off the music (just because I always turn off the music in games, so that's not a criticism of the music in this one), but the second thing I did was to turn off the audio for the voice acting. Trust me, the game is far better without hearing it.

Anyway, we left the tavern, drunk and puking - which is apparently how you always leave the tavern - and it was dark by then, so we found an inn. Again, this was just a screenshot, not a real building you can enter.

Nice choices at the inn - all completely useless

You can talk to the innkeeper, too, but there's absolutely nothing to be gained by that. You've got three choices, all of which lead to... well, nothing at all, really - even your second option, which is to say, "Make up the dorm, then send in your daughter, your wife, and your son - naked and in that order!"

Come on, did someone actually think that was funny? Was the game developed by particularly immature 13-year-olds? Well, I tried that option once, just for this review, and it didn't have any more effect than the other two choices. So the whole thing turns out to be meaningless and stupid!

No, you might as well ignore talking to the innkeeper. Instead, just rent a room for the night. The dormitory is cheapest, and we spent the night just fine. The next day was sunny (that's when I took that first screenshot, at the start of this post), and we were able to look around the town, eventually finding both the Hetman and the Old Bailey.

See that guy walking around in the screenshot? There are several people walking around the town, but you can't interact with any of them. You can't talk to them; you can't even fight them. They exist because towns are supposed to have people, I guess. I suppose it's like all the buildings that don't have interiors, huh? What a waste!

Also, note how limited your view is. It's tunnel vision, like wearing blinders. You've got absolutely no peripheral vision. The best way to explore the town, I found, is just to run around rapidly and then see what was filled in on your map. There really isn't anything to find, anyway. If you could navigate using just the map, skipping the scenery, you wouldn't miss anything.

I saved the game at this point, although there was also an automatic save when we spent the night at the inn. Would you believe that, after saving the game, you have to close three separate windows before continuing with the game again? Three! Why? No idea.

When you talk to the Hetman, he'll start you on the main quest of the game, just by telling you what it's about. Well, and he'll give you a document which will get you into the armory - so you can equip the party for free, supposedly. After that, you're on your own.

The Old Bailey, which isn't far away, is your introductory dungeon, basically. It's a side-quest. You talk to a guy who gives you some starting cash - again, for equipment - and you're supposed to come back when you're ready.

So, OK, we went to the armory to get some better equipment. When we showed our authorization from the Hetman, the attendant told us that everything under 10 ducats (the largest coin in the game) would be free. Later, after reloading my saved game and trying this again (for reasons I'll get to in a moment), he said that everything under 30 ducats was free.

But, in both cases, he lied. We had to pay for even the cheapest items, and we could have gotten everything for the same price at the weapon shops in town. Maybe this was supposed to do something, but it didn't.

We didn't have much money, but I bought a set of the cheapest leather armor for everyone,... and then discovered that one of my characters wasn't allowed to wear it (a class restriction which the game didn't bother to tell me about), so I had to sell it back for pennies on the dollar. Lovely, huh?

But I did the best I could with the money I had available, then returned to the Old Bailey, where we were taken down to the cellars. Then I was told that it would be dark, so we'd need either torches or a lantern and oil, plus a tinderbox to light them. I also encountered a locked door, for which we needed a lockpick.

So I reloaded my saved game and went to buy that stuff, instead of armor. We had to look around to find everything, and the lockpick was horrendously expensive (equivalent to nearly five suits of armor). Well, I figured that it must be a fine set of burglar tools - something which would last us a long time.

Nope. On our first attempt to unlock that door, the lockpick broke (without opening the door). So I had two of my characters just bash it down. No problem. It smashed open on the first try, and there didn't seem to be any downside to doing that.

But I'd just spent nearly all of my money on something completely useless! Now, sure, many games have flimsy lockpicks which are always breaking. But in those cases, lockpicks are the cheapest item in the game. You just buy dozens of them (when you can't find enough just lying around in every dungeon).

Sure, I have played games where you need expensive burglar tools to unlock doors and chests, but they don't break. So what's up with this in Realms of Arkania. Did no one beta test this game?

Well, at least the lantern, oil, and tinderbox worked OK, once I figured out that I had to light the lantern and then equip it. (I could light it just fine when it was equipped, but it wouldn't give off any light.) So we set off to explore.

One of the first rooms was a supply room which included, among other rather useless stuff, a bunch of rations. Apparently, you need to eat regularly in this game. (I didn't play long enough to find out.) But all of the stuff in the room popped up on the screen when we just walked inside. Looking around the room afterwards was just a complete waste of time.

Again, what were the developers thinking? Unlike the buildings in town, this area actually had rooms. And they'd put at least some effort into the graphics, so there were cabinets and such in the room. But you couldn't open them. You couldn't interact with anything in the room. And you couldn't look around to find items which might have been hidden or overlooked or just stored there.

Was Realms of Arkania developed by people who'd never actually played a game - or, at least, an RPG - themselves? We RPG fans like to explore, and we like to find treasure. If you're going to the trouble to build a dungeon for us (and by "dungeon," I mean any dangerous area to explore and loot), why wouldn't you try to make it at least minimally interesting, at least minimally entertaining?

At any rate, we left the room and headed down the corridor, through the smashed door, and finally had our first combat encounter. And that's when I decided that life was too short to waste on games like this.

Turn-based combat is always relatively slow, of course, but it can be very tactical. And it can be showy enough, too - visually and acoustically. It can be exciting. It can be fun. But this was none of these things.

Nice combat formation, huh?

First, you can't see your enemies coming in Realms of Arkania. The first you know, you get a "To battle" message (which you have to close manually, for some reason) and you're switched to a separate battle screen that looks like a small chessboard. Note how claustrophobic it is.

There are no formations. In tactical combat, you normally put your heavily-armored characters - your tanks - in front. Archers and other lightly armored troops are behind them, with your magic-users at the back, where they can be somewhat protected from direct attack. Here you start in one big, randomized clump, your characters in no particular order and even looking in different directions.

Each character gets a turn (I don't know if that's entirely random or not) and a certain number of action points. You can move and attack, if you don't move too far, but I'm not sure how far that is. (I never bothered to figure it out.)

Disappointingly, there are no attacks of opportunity, no backstabbing, and no flanking, so there's nothing tactical in moving, either. In my first combat, against two robbers (remember, I had six characters, myself), I put my warrior and my axe-wielding dwarf on opposite sides of one of them. That seemed to have no effect at all, as my dwarf missed almost every single attack with his axe at the back of the enemy faced away from him.

And yes, the vast majority of my attacks of every kind were misses. Do you know how boring that is? True, these were only Level 1 characters, but how about just doing low damage? The sound effects were poor, too. I was particularly disappointed at the sound of shooting a bow. Games had better sound effects than this two decades ago!

(Note that I had one character armed with a sling, so she could carry the lantern in her left hand. But in combat, there was no sign of the lantern, and she appeared to be carrying, and shooting, a bow, not a sling. Just one more indication of how slap-dash this game really is.)

But worst, by far, were the spell-casters. Now, there are a lot of things I don't like about the magic system in this game, starting with the nonsense words for spell names, so you can't remember what each spell does, and the poor spell selection. But that might not be so bad if they could actually cast spells.

Instead, the spells of my casters just fizzled, over and over again. That's not fun. The spells themselves were extremely short-ranged. Well, it's a tiny little battlefield, anyway, I guess. But combine that with no attacks of opportunity, and enemies could just walk up to my unarmored spellcasters and hack away. Not that they were smart enough to do that.

On the rare occasion that a spell succeeded, the result was underwhelming in the extreme. There's a spell called Lightning - one of the few with a descriptive name - which is supposed to blind enemies. Wouldn't you think that a Lightning spell would be showy? Heck, if a lightning bolt was too much trouble, even a simple blast of light would have worked.

But no, this spell resulted - on the rare occasions that it worked - in a very understated, very generic kind of magical effect that could have been used for anything (and might have been, given how seldom my magical spells worked at all). And what was the result? Nothing, as far as I could tell. This was supposed to blind enemies, but that enemy bowman still seemed to have no trouble with his ranged attacks.

And there was no indication of how long the effect was supposed to last, either. Given that it seemed to do nothing anyway, I didn't worry about that much.

Eventually, we killed one robber and the other ran away (i.e. he took four steps to the edge of the battle screen and disappeared - despite being flanked by both of my warrior characters). All in all, this might be the most underwhelming combat I've ever seen in a game. Heck, Pool of Radiance, clear back in 1988, was far better than this!

Apparently, this remake of Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny was completely unplayable when it was released last summer. Well, I can't say that now. You can play it. I just don't know why you'd want to.

___
Note: My computer game reviews, tips, and other posts are here.

The Bible, verse by verse: Rape the Slave

This guy is doing the same thing I'm doing with my Bible series, apparently. Only he's commenting in a series of videos.

I haven't watched the previous videos in the series, but if this is an example, they're probably quite entertaining. I'll make sure I stay ahead of him with my Bible posts, though. I want to form my own opinions, before I hear others.

But if you don't like reading long-winded explanations, then what are you dong here? Er, no, I meant, then you might prefer the video format. I thought I'd provide the link, anyway.

Don't say it, Chris!

(Tim Eagan)

Shot dead for texting

For chrissake, what are we doing to our country?

Cenk Uygur is right. Anger is a natural human emotion. But if you don't have a gun immediately to hand, it's unlikely to end up with someone's death.

But you've just got to have your steel penis substitute, huh? I mean, what would you do without your steel courage? How could you manage with just your natural courage, puny as it is?

And so, of course, George Zimmerman stalked and killed an unarmed black teenager, only because he had his steel courage with him.

Awhile back, two concealed-carry morons each disliked how the other was driving, and since they both had their steel courage with them, they stopped to fight it out - and killed each other.

This time, some idiot gets mad at texting in a theater, for chrissake, so he shoots and kills an innocent man (and injures the man's wife in the process).

How did we get to be such a nation of cowards, anyway? Do these gun nuts just watch too much television, or what? Hey, stroke your Precious at home, if you must, but please don't carry it around us sane people.