Awesome!  I loved it so much that after hearing one time, and then not again for 15 years, it was still so stuck in my head that I had to track it down.  So beautiful! 

It sounds like they’re where the Anglicans were in 1930.

Some people tell me that contraception-as-a-sin was a universal teaching of the Church until recent times i.e. there was agreement on this among Papists, the EO and Protestants. Do you have any idea if this is true?

Joseph,

What does ROCOR teach about contraception? Some Catholics criticize the EO for taking a permissive attitude towards contraception in modern times.

Here’s something to contemplate. Soviet society was dystopic but the Russian people survived the experience.
The West is destroying itself, demographically through mass immigration and chosen sterility. So we may not be able to imitate their revival.

This still seems objectionable from the reactionary point of view: “nothing wrong with women pursuing careers, politics, business and many other spheres”

Though I left the Russian Church decades ago, I have always respected how truly spiritual and fearless many of the monks and hierarchs have been in criticizing the demonic forces that assail men in these dark days. I believe that the centrality of podvig in traditional Orthodox Christianity gives these men the spiritual insight and steadfastness so lacking in most of Western Christianity, especially since Vatican II.

Such a loss for us.

Very timely post for me. I am a continuing Anglican in the Traditional Anglican Communion (no connection other than an historic one to Canterbury.) I am in the process of converting to the Anglican Ordinariate. I had no idea there was a Western Rite in the ROCOR.
Some of the priests in the Anglican Continuum claim that a few generations ago, the Orthodox recognized the validity of Anglican Holy Orders and that Orthodox Christians were allowed to take sacrament at Anglican Churches. I don’t which group of EO they are referring to.

Yeah, nothing new here. We’ve understood for a long time that dogs are remarkably good (better than we are) at reading body language.

If Roman hyper-rationalism can cause legalism, then so can Eastern mysticism (do I misunderstand the East? I’m pretty ignorant of Orthodox basics.). For example, I hear some talk of Eastern “horror” upon seeing that Papists don’t face East when praying.

Of interest:

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/03/dear-cardinals-think-ecumenically.html

“It is very likely that the new Pope will be Italian, as before John Paul II”: it is the prediction given to public television Vesti 24 by Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Department of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. ... “I hope that the new Pope is a traditionalist,” he concluded.

“Hence, they usually adopt the framework and the principles of the enemy unaware..”

This reminds me of the whole “abortion is racist” theme that’s so popular on the so-called “right.”

It is interesting to note that there wasn’t a Protestant Reformation in the east.
Isn’t categorizing sins necessary for the sacrament of confession & absolution? One must have some idea what must be confessed and absolved. Otherwise, you have the Protestant “general” confession.
I’m interested. What, in general, is the Eastern alternative? Just “following God” as Auster puts it?

Is the obsession with surety really “Western” or is it particularly Protestant? I am reading a basic Catholic/Papist apologetic s book and the author notes that this characteristic is Lutheran not Pauline.

Joseph,

Is there any near term possibility of the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia reuniting with the Russian Orthodox Church? I would assume that with the Communists gone, there would be good prospects for this development.

What do you think of “theistic evolution” or “bio-Logos” as advocated by people like Francis Collins?
Using an analogy, at work here we have written computer codes that arrive at an (approximate) answer through a stochastic process. We later found that this answer could have been calculated through a deterministic process that required more effort (e.g. solving a very difficult integral).
Why can’t life have came into being in a similar way where God is the programmer who could see the outcome but chose to arrive at the outcome through a stochastic process where the “random number generator” could consist of various things such as the physical phenomena that cause mutations. And, of course, the programmer can still intervene in the model at various points where necessary. This would be true for evolution and for events where He definitively intervened e.g. the Incarnation.
P.S. you are a very thoughtful writer and it is my misfortune that I have only now discovered your work

My patriline came out of Cinncinati’s German-Catholic community. They originally came from lower-Saxony in northwest Germany. My great-grandfather, Papa Joe, worked for the city and my grandfather graduated from University of Cincinnati’s medical school.

We still enjoy eating Goetta in my family.

I am saddened to hear of Auster’s condition.
I discovered VFR in 2004. Originally, Jim Kalb and Mark Richardson were participants. If you like Auster, you will like Kalb and Richardson.

Maybe you’re right. Russia seems to be recovering. They went through their leftist phase pretty quickly (by historic standards). They survived it and now it looks like they have a future.

I thought this was an exceptionally good comment.

Here’s what our local ROCOR parish’s website says to visitors:

“All are welcome to the church services. All visitors are asked to follow these simple rules as posted in the church:

Everyone should dress in a manner becoming the house of God - that is: simply, modestly not to make a show. Women must have their heads covered (either with a scarf, kerchief or a hat) and not in slacks or wearing lipstick. Men must not wear shorts.

Men stand on the right side, women stand on the left side of the church”

Very good.

Is the ROCOR where the Orthodox reactionaries flock to ?

Hello,

I thought your comment at the Orthosphere was excellent.
Somehow I was under the impression that you were a Catholic from Cincinnati. That interested me since my paternal ancestors were Catholics from Cincinnati’s German community.
I am curious about Orthodoxy in America and the ROCOR. We have a OCA church near us but I have never investigated it.

P.S. I am a high Church Anglican but I am in the process of leaving Anglicanism (it’s schizophrenic and doesn’t know if it wants to be Protestant or Catholic/Orthodox).

I agree with you that Charlton’s pessimism is misplaced.  If he thinks that Christian monarchy was objectively superior to modern democracy, then he also ought to believe that it is capable of reasserting itself over modern democracy.  If it can’t do that, then in what sense was it superior? 

And if Charlton has bought into the modernist idea that the world progresses inevitably in certain directions and can never go back, then his thinking is clouded by the very modernism he is criticizing. 

And again, if movement toward democracy is seen as an irreversible sort of progress, then one wonders in what sense Christian monarchy was superior.

The very belief that Christian monarchy was superior to modern democracy ought to give one hope that the monarchy will someday return.

Hey, I enjoyed reading this article. You really have put some serious time, thought, and energy into your site. Really interesting. I love you, son.

Honest and insightful Sailer surely is, but I think he has Marin a bit wrong. I think it’s much simpler. Prosperous liberals feel guilty employing whites for menial jobs, because they view such work as inherently beneath folks of their own gens. They are able to understand their employment of poor Mexicans as menial servant as an act of generosity to the downtrodden Other - as a form of charity.

I felt a bit of deja vu as I wrote this, so I’m not sure if we’ve been over this before or not…

I’ve tried arguing your side of this issue with liberals before for the sake of finding the real reasons behind many of my liberal instincts. I’ve concluded that this is probably a false argument you’re making. No one in their right mind will ever believe that bestiality or pedophilia is morally acceptable, partly BECAUSE OF the principles of liberalism—the animal probably is not consenting, and the child is too young to know what he/she is doing, so their will is not valid. Also, incest leads to genetic issues, which is why natural selection or something like that causes us to be repulsed by it. I have no problem with polygamy or gay marriage because this does not apply. Same with prostitution. Auster is right that the Left defines what the Right is, but I’m willing to bet that the projection he makes is incorrect.

Also, I frequently read the Orthosphere and in one article Kristor cites articles about people who have married themselves, the Eiffel Tower, etc. Well, these people have mental disorders or issues of some kind. Of course, this raises the question of what is truly abnormal behavior (what constitutes a mental disorder?) and what is within the bounds of normalcy, which seems to refute liberalism from your perspective. But really, loving other human beings is on a different order than loving yourself, or an object that can’t return love. Bottom line: consistent liberals will always accept much of the things Scalia lists, and they will never accept other parts of it.

With all due respect, both you and Kristor don’t understand something here. It is not merely random chance. That is a 19th century science. Today, it is radioactivity causing genetic damage, resulting in mutation, and mutations are tested through the process of natural selection - or in the case of animal breeding, artificial selection. It’s random only in the sense that a shot fired at a crowd randomly hits someone, yet that person’s death is caused by the killer, not random chance. The ur-cause is radioactivity.

Thanks for the wishes, and for the link!

“if the world is not intelligible, no statements have to be 100% correct all the time, so you can just interpret it with “mostly/usually” prefixed…

Why? I think it is known as a “Nietzsche test” but it is only valid as long as we are dealing with universally, ultimately, absolutely valid true or false statements while I am not?”

The universe’s not being intelligible would eliminate the possibility of if-then conditionals.

Plus the universally quantified “no statements” denial is self-contradictory. Are 100% of statements not required to be 100% correct 100% of the time? If so, how do you ever get to predicate that universal qualification (“100%”) without self-contradiction and arbitrary self-exemption?

I like that the director really made these actors belt it out while filming. I am anxious to see how this translates over to the big screen. Also, Hathaway as Fantine, holy smokes. This looks like a knock-out role.

>What do these statements *themselves* predict?

Perhaps nothing but it is not a problem because if the world is not intelligible, no statements have to be 100% correct all the time, so you can just interpret it with “mostly/usually” prefixed…

Why? I think it is known as a “Nietzsche test” but it is only valid as long as we are dealing with universally, ultimately, absolutely valid true or false statements while I am not?

“truth equals prediction. A statement or rather a model is true so far that it is capable of predicting some kind of experience, and no model is perfect, hence no model is fully, absolutely true, they have merely more truth content or less truth content.”

What do these statements *themselves* predict?

“Just why exactly should the universe be intelligible or rational?”

The question itself assumes intelligibility and rationality of the universe, in requesting reasons for the entire universe’s intelligibility and rationality. The same point applies to the denial of the universe’s intelligibility and rationality. Is the question or denial concerning the entire universe *itself* intelligible and rational?

Moreover, to know that “a limited understanding and a limited explanation of things is perfectly possible without it,” requires the same universe-wide intelligibility and rationality in order to argue the equally universal qualification statement about things generally.

Dear Joseph,

Reading this + a lot of Ed Feser lately, I think if you could convince me that the universe is rational and intelligible, then you could convince me that God exists and Aristotelo-Thomist theology is essentially right, because the rest more or less follows from it. But this is precisely the one I thing I disagree with (and hence stay atheist for the momen).

Just why exactly should the universe be intelligible or rational? It should only be so if we somehow assume that our thoughts are in some “ultimate” sense true. That ultimate truth exists. That there can be a map that perfectly describes the terrain, that there can be a perfect model of the universe, that the universe is made of… words.

But why should we believe in such a thing? A limited understanding and a limited explanation of things is perfectly possible without it.

I am thinking about the operationalist worldview which is more or less the standard philosophy of science these days: truth equals prediction. A statement or rather a model is true so far that it is capable of predicting some kind of experience, and no model is perfect, hence no model is fully, absolutely true, they have merely more truth content or less truth content.

From the operationalist view, our minds, thoughts, words, models, understanding, reasoning is capable of predicting some amount of experience sometimes. Reason sometimes works. Why exactly we don’t know, as the why itself is a part of science hence the why must also be a predictive statement and here things can get tricky, but we can live without knowing why. We can simply live so that we know that for whatever reason our minds just happen to be so that they are capable of some partial understanding of the universe i.e. more or less accurately predict this or that, but not perfectly, not ultimately, not on the level of generating ultimate, perfect truths that survive reality checks from here to infinity.

Perhaps we should not even use the word truth or falsehood, right or wrong in the operationalist logic, we should just say more useful models or less useful models.

(Of course very often doubt reason works. Very often our very logical ideas fail to survive a reality check.)

So to sum it up, for example: the statement “dolphins are mammals” is not ultimately true, and it represents not some kind final understanding, not a matter of right or wrong, but is mere a useful model for predicting what we will experience when we observe dolphins mating and reproducing.

I am not sure I agree with what I wrote fully, I kind of sense it in my bones that truth must mean something deeper than this, but this is the modern view of science and I haven’t seen any really good arguments against it.

What is your argument against it?

thanks from Marianna Oboeva )))

Update Comprehension Of Culture-Genetics
Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People by Harry Ostrer
A genetic history of a cultural phenotype is the progeny of its cultural history.
Genetics is the progeny of culture. Culture, the reaction to and exploitation of circumstances, shapes the genetic expressions and profile. Genes are organisms, life’s primal organisms.
See Darwin, Pavlov and cause and cure of addictions…
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/

However, I am suspicious of the Metropolitan’s critics when they cite his involvement in the prolife movement, his signing the Manhattan Declaration, and his attempt to open monasteries in Washington, D.C. as evidence of his recklessness.

Where do his critics cite that? His “official” critics, that is. Monomakhos says that’s what his critics object to. But Monomakhos’s reporting is not strictly veridical.

Wonderful essay, Joseph. Thanks.

http://youtu.be/ahXIMUkSXX0

I prefer vihart’s video on this matter.

Perhaps they see this less as a sacrament and more of prayer in action, something like joining hands for the “Our Father.”

The British Isles had a different experience from the rest of classical civilization. When the Romans withdrew from Britain, the barbarians who then invaded had no interest in participating in classical civilization. This is why we speak a Germanic language, unlike the Franks, the Lombards, and the Visigoths. In Europe and Africa it was just the opposite.

Nevertheless by the early 7th century both Ireland and western Britain - neither of which had been under Roman control - were active participants in the high civilization of late antiquity. NB: classical civilization had spread beyond the ancient borders of the Empire into Ireland. This is an indication of the vitality of that civilization, even after the political order of the Empire had devolved into local kingdoms.

Thus it was the Irish who evangelized Britain and Scotland, Angleland and the Danelaw. They ignited in the English a passion for all things ancient, with the result that the study of Latin became so fashionable among them that the English became the leading scholars of Latin in the world. When Charlemagne wanted top drawer scholars and clerics for his court, he turned to England.

I highly recommend Scott’s book. The evidence he adduces is, as Dr. Bertonneau says, just massive. Tom’s essay doesn’t mention a tenth of it.

4. Another very important question is whether incremental Vioxx mortality persisted after each person stopped taking Vioxx. Of course, Merck claimed that the answer was no. However, that may not be true. See “Study: Health Risk Remains a Year After Quitting Vioxx” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5400413&ps=rs). Quote
““It was very surprising to me,’’ says Steven Nissen, acting chief of cardiovascular medicine at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic. “I had always assumed that if you stop taking the drug, the risk would go away.’’
Nissen says this data shows that’s not true.
“What it shows us is that you can stop taking Vioxx, and based upon this study, for the next year, you’re still at increased risk. And, in fact, the amount of increase is almost exactly the same as we saw during the three years that people were actually taking the drug,’’ Nissen said.”
Note also the author (Nissen). Assuming Nissen is correct, the 2004 Vioxx recall thesis is wrong.
5. As the reader can see, all of the Vioxx mortality models falsify the 1999 / 2004 Vioxx thesis. The 18 months to trouble model (See “Vioxx: 18 Months to Trouble? - http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2006/06/26/vioxx_18_months_to_trouble.php) rules out any connection between the introduction of Vioxx in 1999 and any incremental deaths. The front-loaded model (die now or not at all) allows for a major 1999 impact (with sufficiently accelerated Vioxx adoption in late 1999), but falsifies the 2004 impact of the recall. The linear cumulative risk model (apparently preferred by Merck’s critics) falsifies 1999 and 2004. The persistent risk thesis contradicts the front-loaded model and undermines any claims related to the recall.
6. The NVSS data and the CDC data show declines in CVD mortality from 1998 to 1999. The decline may have been less than other years, but a decline is a decline. If Vioxx was really responsible for 500,000 deaths, the data should have a large spike. No such spike exists. The smaller decline in 1999 is certainly interesting and may have been related to COX-2 sales. Note that Celebrex was introduced very early in 1999 and reached huge volumes in that year (unlike Vioxx). That’s not to say that Celebrex is responsible for the lesser decline in CVD mortality in 1999. However, it is a better fit.
7. The CDC noted the upsurge in mortality in 1999 and analyzed it. See “Deaths: Preliminary Data for 1999” (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_03.pdf). Quote
“The preliminary number of deaths in the United States for 1999 totaled 2,391,630, an increase of 54,374 from the 1998 total. The crude death rate increased from 864.7 per 100,000 population in 1998 to 877.0 per 100,000 in 1999. The two influenza outbreaks of 1999 contributed to the large increase in the number of deaths (10–12), especially among the older age groups and for several chronic diseases.”
A later report (Deaths: Final Data for 2004 - http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_19.pdf) makes the same point. Quote
“Since 1980, the age-adjusted death rate has decreased every year except 1983, 1985, 1988, 1993, and 1999. During these years, influenza outbreaks contributed to increased mortality in the United States (14,15).”
See the 1998 - 2001 P&I mortality data online (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2001-2002/01-02summary.htm) for additional information. Note that the first 1999 mortality spike was in March (two months before Vioxx was introduced). 2004 deaths were lower than 2003. Once again, the P&I data provides some insight. Note the huge spike in late 2003 and the absence of such a spike in 2004. See http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2004-2005/04-05summary.htm for a graph.
Thank you
Peter Schaeffer

3. It is very unclear if Vioxx caused front-end (the most vulnerable first) or back-end mortality (a cumulative effect). This is an important issue and contrary indications exist. See “Q&A: Vioxx’s Health Risks” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5415884). Merck tried to claim that there was no adverse impact prior to 18 months. See Figure 2 from “Cardiovascular Events Associated with Rofecoxib in a Colorectal Adenoma Chemoprevention Trial 2005/03/17” (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa050493). If this claim was/is correct, the entire 1999 / Vioxx thesis is falsified. However, it does not appear to be true (which is why I have avoided it so far).
Based on additional data and some corrections to the methods used in the original paper, the NEJM published a correction. See “Correction - Cardiovascular Events Associated with Rofecoxib in a Colorectal Adenoma Chemoprevention Trial 2006/07/13” (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMx060029). To get a better understanding of the correction, see “Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Rofecoxib 2006/07/13” (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc066260). The letters from Nissen and Furberg (noted Merck critics) are instructive. They reject the 18 month thesis and suggest an essentially linear cumulative risk model. I quote (from Nissen).
“The original article included a post hoc hypothesis that curves for confirmed thrombotic events would not begin to diverge until after 18 months of exposure to rofecoxib. However, all intention-to-treat analyses in the newly released report show that the event curves begin to diverge much earlier, generally within four to six months. The most useful Kaplan–Meier curves, involving intention-to-treat analysis of the APTC end point, show divergence after only three months of exposure to rofecoxib”
At least one author appears to support the 18 month hypothesis (maybe). See “Time-to-Event Analyses for Long-Term Treatments — The APPROVe Trial 2006/07/13” (http://www.nejm.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1056/NEJMp068137&iid=f02).
Note that none of the NEJM data shows any hint of front-loaded risks. The Merck model claims no incremental risk before 18 months. The contrary analysis seems to show greater risk much sooner. However, the risk is cumulative and linear. The longer a person took Vioxx the more likely they were to have some kind of heart failure as a consequence. Stated differently, they were at greater risk starting soon after they took Vioxx and eventually the risks added up.
As should be clear, this is deeply problematic for any effort to blame Vioxx for 1999 mortality. Vioxx was dispensed for 7.33 months in 1999 at a rate of 661,000 prescriptions per month. In 2000, the rate was 1.719 million prescriptions per month. It would appear that far more people took Vioxx in 2000, than in 1999. However, a preson could try to argue that Vioxx usage accelerated in 1999 and that the full 2000 rate was reached late in 1999. Perhaps. However, let’s assume that it is true. This means that very few 1999 Vioxx users would have been taking it for 4-6 months (or even 3 months) in 1999. Let’s go further and drop any risk onset delay and assume a purely linear model (incremental risks start on day one). That makes the total Vioxx risk equal to the number of prescriptions (which quadrupled between 1999 and 2000). This falsifies the 1999 Vioxx thesis immediately.
However, let’s go further and assume a very front loaded risk profile (you either die quickly or you don’t die at all) and that Vioxx prescriptions accelerated to the 2000 rate by the end of 1999. With that combination of assumptions, the incremental mortality should have been in 1999. However, it also means that in 2004 there was no one left to die. Clearly Vioxx wasn’t adding a lot of new users by 2004 (sales had been declining since 2001). With a front loaded model, the Vioxx recall should not have reduced 2004 mortality.

A few more notes
1. Vioxx volumes declined by 30% from 2003 to 2004. For the entire year of 2003, Vioxx was dispensed at a rate of 1.663 million prescriptions per month. For the first 9 months of 2004, the rate was 1.555 million prescriptions per month. That’s a decline of 6.5%. Of course, after 2004-09-30 the prescription rate was zero. As the reader can see the decline in Vioxx usage, pre-recall was quite small. Note that Vioxx volumes peaked in 2001 and declined thereafter. Why is not clear. However, Bextra was approved in 2002 and was commercially successful.
Stated differently, if Vioxx usage fell significantly before the recall it would show up in the prescription numbers. It doesn’t. My data does show a 30% fall from 2003 to 2004. However, that is for the entire year. You can get similar data by checking http://www.modernmedicine.com, This is a “Voice of the Pharmacist” website. The data is retail-only. It very closely matches the statistics I have produced so far (ultimately derived from the same sources, apparently).
2. Of course, the actual cost of manufacturing brand name pharmaceuticals is a small fraction of the price (much less true for biologics). However, the $8.4 billion cited below is not the “cost” of making the free samples. It’s almost entirely the cost of sending detail agents to doctor offices. If you check the link, you will see that the $8.4 expense included 116 million detail agent visits to doctor offices. At an average cost of $72.41 per visit, obviously the money was spent on wages, salaries, and travel expenses, not manufacturing samples.

4. Drug companies do give away samples that could impact total consumption in 1999. However, volumes appear to be low compared to prescriptions. In 2007, drug companies spent $8.4 billion giving out samples. See “Pharma scales back drug samples to physician offices” (http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/03/26/prl20326.htm). Total prescription sales were $286.5 billion (IMS Health).
The notion that Vioxx early adopters were more at risk is conceivable, but lacking in any substantiation. Why would doctors single out patients with the greatest CVD risk, as the first users of Vioxx?  To make such a claim,  the TAC needs facts or at least a mechanism (in my opinion). If Vioxx had been the first COX-2 drug on the market this would be a stronger thesis.  A person could argue that the sickest patients (in general), with the most pain, were the first users. However, Celebrex was approved on December 31, 1998.
5. TAC’s use of overall and 65+ death rates suffers from several large problems. The biggest problem is that Vioxx apparently caused heart problems (all of Vioxx’s critics agree on this point). However, there is nothing in the heart disease data to support the TAC thesis. Online data shows that the CVD death rate fell from 1998 to 1999. To be precise the CDC has two sets of data from 1998. The standard data shows a fall for all age groups except for the 85+ group. Overall the rate falls from 268.2 to 265.9. Row 44 (the modified data) shows a slight rise overall (from 264.4 to 265.9) and big falls for the 65-75 group and the 75-84 group. The 85+ group rises as well. Any hint of a spike is absent. The 1999 versus 2000 CVD data show CVD death rates falling for everyone (as Vioxx sales quadrupled).
Let’s look at this another way. An incremental 100,00 deaths per year is roughly 33 per hundred thousand for the entire population. No shifts of that magnitude show up in the CVD data.
The NVSS (National Vital Statistics System) data makes the same point. The Major cardiovascular death rate fell from 1998 to 1999 (and kept falling in 2000) for all groups except for the 85+ cohort as Vioxx sales soared. Even the 85+ cohort is below 1998 levels in 2000. There is a big fall from 2003 to 2004. However, that should have occurred in 2005. The data has other big falls as well (1988 to 1989, 1989 to 1990, 2000 to 2001, and 2005 to 2006).
The subcategories (Heart disease, Heart attack, Chronic ischemic heart disease, Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, Heart failure, and Stroke) show the same pattern. Most fall from 1998 to 1999 and 2000. Heart failure and Stroke rise slightly. If Vioxx was nearly deadly as TAC’s assert s , it would show up in the NVSS CVD data. It doesn’t.
As a check, I graphed CVD mortality from 1998 to 2007. The Vioxx effect is not apparent. The expected spike from 1999 to 2000 and crash from 2004 to 2005 are clearly absent.
Thank you
Peter Schaeffer
P.S. David Graham estimates that Vioxx might have caused 88,000 to 139,000 additional heart attacks / strokes with a 30-40% mortality rate. That’s certainly plausible and not contradicted by the CVD data. Of course, total COX-2 mortality must have been higher because of the side effects of Bextra / Celebrex.  As everyone knows, Celebrex remains on the market.

A few more notes (part 1)
1. There were rumors that Vioxx was dangerous before the recall. Indeed the claims predate FDA approval (clearly another story). However, rumors aren’t numbers. There were 19.959 million Vioxx prescriptions in 2003 versus 13.994 million in 2004. That’s a fall of 5.965 million. However, the fall from 2004 to 2005 was 13.994 million. Yet, somehow raw (but not AA) death rates fell from 2003 to 2004 and rose from 2004 to 2005. 2004 Vioxx prescriptions were 70.11% of 2003. That’s only slightly below the 75% we would expect from the withdrawal date. In other words, physician avoidance (pre-recall) was quite modest at best.
2. Total COX-2 sales did not plummet in 2004. The IMS data shows that they were flat or down slightly. Let me quote from “IMS Health, National Sales PerspectivesTM, 2/2005″
“Despite the negative publicity and the voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx®, the COX-2 inhibitor class was flat for 2004 with sales of over $5.3 billion. Celebrex® remained the largest product with sales of $2.7 billion and Vioxx® achieved sales of $1.8 billion in the first nine months of the year before being withdrawn on September 29.” The link is http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/imshealth/menuitem.a46c6d4df3db4b3d88f611019418c22a/?vgnextoid=003a1d3be7a29110VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextfmt=default
Other sources show Celebrex and Bexta sales peaking in 2004. Another report from IMS makes this point and suggests a decline in total COX-2 sales. See “Biotech Remains Industry Growth Engine, With 17 Percent Sales Growth”. The key quotes are
“Merck’s surprise, voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx® in September and potential safety concerns associated with other pain relief medications resulted in doctors switching patients away from Vioxx or starting them on other COX-2 products. Patient volume for the remaining COX-2s initially increased by more than 25 percent following the withdrawal, driven by a 15 percent increase in new therapy starts and a two-thirds share of all Vioxx switches.
“Over time, COX-2 usage has declined to below pre-Vioxx withdrawal levels, due in part to further safety concerns about this class of drugs,” said Lisa Morris, global director, IMS longitudinal services. “By year-end, the prescription COX-2 and NSAID market saw a 9 percent decline in total patients.” The link is http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/imshealth/menuitem.a46c6d4df3db4b3d88f611019418c22a/?vgnextoid=933a1d3be7a29110VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextchannel=41a67900b55a5110VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextfmt=default. The 9% decline may have been versus the third quarter of 2004 which means that total COX-2 prescriptions could have easily equaled 2003 (which appears to be the case).
See also “Sales rise for Celebrex and Bextra after Vioxx withdrawal” (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-11-30-painkillers_x.htm)
“Pfizer’s Celebrex gained a majority of sales for new-generation painkillers in the month after Merck & Co. yanked Vioxx due to safety concerns, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information company.”
3. 2005 was a very different story. Vioxx sales were zero of course. Bexta went off the market on April 7th, 2005. Bextra did generate substantial revenues in the first quarter of 2005. However, the retail data (not the entire story) show Bextra growing from 2003 to 2004 (to over $250 million per quarter) and then falling to $148.370 million for all of 2005. Once again this is retail only data. Even though Celebrex stayed on the market with FDA approval, sales crashed in 2005. See “Sales plummet as cox-2 miasma vexes consumers” (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3374/is_10_27/ai_n15341417/). Quote
“According to IMS Health, sales of cox-2 inhibitors have plummeted 65 percent for the first five months of 2005, representing $1.5 billion in lost sales of Bextra, Celebrex and Vioxx. Of those three drugs, only Celebrex remains on the market. And now, two other cox-2 inhibitors that were in the drug development pipeline at the time of the Vioxx withdrawal are not expected to make it to market any time soon–if at all.”
Another source gives a 48% fall in Celebrex sales in 2005. See “Pfizer to resume airing ads for Celebrex” (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2007-04-01-celebrex-usat_N.htm). Quote
“The return of Celebrex to TV follows its financial comeback. Celebrex sales hit $3.3 billion in 2004 then dropped 48% in the year after Vioxx’s withdrawal. Last year, Celebrex sales were $2 billion. Still, it ranks behind ibuprofen and naproxen in arthritis prescriptions, according to market tracker Verispan. Before the Vioxx recall, Celebrex was ahead of naproxen but behind ibuprofen.”
Let’s recap for a moment. COX-2 volumes were flat from 2003 to 2004 and death rates fell. COX-2 volumes crashed in 2005 and death rates rose. This is not the correlation the TAC is suggesting.

A few more notes.
1. If Vioxx had anything approaching the impact TAC (The American Conservative) is suggesting, it would have shown up in the CVD death statistics first and foremost. It doesn’t.
2. Vioxx was withdrawn on September 30th, 2004. Many folks probably continued to take their pills for a few weeks longer. If Vioxx was really so deadly that removing it from the market for the last 3 months of 2004 had a material effect, then much larger increased in death rates should have shown up sooner. Indeed, since it was still on the market for most of 2004, the largest impact on death rates should have been from 2004 to 2005. In fact, the crude death rate rose from 2004 to 2005. Evidently, removing Vioxx raised death rates.
3. The age-adjusted death rates tell a more useful story. The age-adjusted (AA) death rate plunged from 2003 (832.7) to 2004 (800.8). From 2004 (800.8) to 2005 (798.5) it was almost flat. Removing Vioxx from the market stopped (for a while) progress in reducing death rates.
4. The introduction of Vioxx provides even stronger evidence. Vioxx was introduced on May 20th of 1999. However, sales were slow at first. Only 4.845 million prescriptions were written in 1999. The number of prescriptions rose to 20.630 million in 2000 and 25.406 million in 2001 (the peak year). The crude death rate rose from 847.3 in 1998 to 857.0 in 1999. However, it fell to 854.0 in 2000, and 848.5. Evidently an extra 15 million Vioxx prescriptions in 2000 reduced the death rate as did another 5 million in 2001.
5. The AA death rates tell an even better story. The AA death rate rose from 870.6 in 1998 to 875.6 in 1999. However, the extra 15 million Vioxx prescriptions reduced it to 869.0 in 2000 and another 5 million Vioxx prescriptions reduced it to 854.5 in 2001. As mentioned above, the AA death rate falls from 832.7 in 2003 to 800.8 in 2004 (with Vioxx still on the market for most of the year). It then essentially flat lines in 2005 (798.8).
6. The use of crude death rates is ultimately misleading. The American population is obviously aging. AA death rates make considerably more sense. In a few years, the baby boomers will start dying off in large numbers. The crude death might even rise. What does that demonstrate other than the pig coming out the other end of the Python?
7.  Obvioiusly everyone will die eventually and that 500,000 is an estimate of premature deaths. Premature by how much? A year? A month? One second? If the reduction is material it should show up in death rates (AA and crude). It doesn’t.
8. Death rates rise and fall for reasons clearly unrelated to Vioxx. The crude death rate rose from 1994 (866.1) to 1995 (868.3) and from 816.5 in 2004 to 825.9 in 2005.
9. See Table 8 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_08.pdf for a comparison of 1998 versus 1999 death rates. The overall death rate fell in the 65-74 cohort while rising 75-84 cohort and the 85+ cohort. CVD fell in both the 65-74 cohort and the 75-84 cohort from 1998 to 1999. The CVD death rate rose for the 85+ cohort from 1998 to 1999.
See also Table 9 in http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr50/nvsr50_15.pdf for a 1999 to 2000 comparison. As Vioxx prescriptions soared (quadrupling to 20 million) all 65+ death rates fell. The CVD 65+ death rate also fell.
10. In the last pre-Vioxx year the overall death rate was 847.3. In 2003 with Vioxx going strong, it was 841.9. In 2004 (14 million Vioxx prescriptions) it was 816.5. Of course, the age-adjusted data show that Vioxx “saved” even more lives. The 1998 AA rate was 870.6. The 2003 rate 832.7. The 2004 rate was 800.8.
11. The crude death rate was essentially flat from 2004 to 2005 when it should have fallen the most. The 65+ data is more dramatic. Table 9 of http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_10.pdf shows 65+ mortality rates fell every year from 1999 to 2008. So did the CVD death rates.
12. Any alleged linkage between Vioxx going off the market in 2004 and mortality statistics suffer from a basic flaw. Vioxx was recalled on September 30. September 30th isn’t Jan 1.
Thank you
Peter Schaeffer
P.S. I am not claiming that Vioxx was harmless. NSAIDs are (apparently) intrinsically dangerous. However, the incremental deaths were too few to show up in the overall mortality statistics and more decisively, too few to show up in the CVD mortality statistics.

The TAC needs to do some fact checking before publishing something like this. If Vioxx actually resulted in 500,000 premature deaths it would have shown up in the overall death rate. It didn’t. See “National Vital Statistics Reports” (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf). The overall and age-adjusted death rates fell from 1999 to 2005. Indeed, the age-adjusted death rate fell faster after 1999 than it did before.
If the 500,000 statistic was correct, there should have been at least 100,000 incremental deaths in the peak year from Vioxx. That’s 33 per 100,000 for the entire U.S. See any blips in the data of the magnitude? They don’t stand out…
Of course, the incremental deaths should really show up in the CVD (cardiovascular disease) mortality statistics. They don’t. See “US Death Rates 1975-2009″ (http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2009_pops09/results_merged/topic_graph_heartdis_cancer.pdf). Also see some Arizona specific data (“Trends in Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates of Deaths due to Cardiovascular Disease, Arizona and US, 1980-2004″ – http://www.azdhs.gov/azcvd/documents/pdf/az-burden-of-cardiovascular-disease.pdf). The Arizona data is not by itself particularly important (state level death rate variations are huge). However, the Arizona data exactly tracks the U.S. overall data.
Is it possible that Vioxx resulted in 50,000 deaths over the period in question? Sure. I don’t have anything approaching the background to evaluate such a claim. I wouldn’t be surprised either way as to the truth. For the record, I do have opinions on topics like this. I spent years deflating Thiomersal / autism claims…
However, there is a larger issue here. NSAIDs (Celebrex, Vioxx, Bextra, etc.) are all associated with incremental mortality. Indeed, even Naproxen (also a COX-2 NSAID) has been linked to higher death rates. However, these drugs are simply too valuable to give up. Ask the people who take them, if anyone has any doubts. For many, NSAIDs are the difference between a normal life and ongoing, severe pain.
This is why the FDA panel voted 31-1 to keep Celebrex on the market. The same panel also voted 17-15 to keep Vioxx for sale. Even excluding panelists with industry ties, the vote was 8-14 (losing) to approve Vioxx. If Vioxx was really as bad as some allege, why did 8 panelists (with no industry ties) favor its continued sale? Why was the vote in favor of Celebrex (which is also linked to CVD) almost unanimous? See “10 on FDA Vioxx panel had ties to companies ” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7031927/ns/health-arthritis/t/fda-vioxx-panel-had-ties-companies/#.T6lukFJpe18)
Thank you
Peter Schaeffer
P.S. I have no ties to the drug industry (other than as a customer). I was once prescribed Naproxen many years ago. It was astonishingly helpful even though I only took it for a week or two. I have taken Aleve (OTC Naproxen) from time to time.

Also, I just looked at the date on this and it seems like it was written around the time you got into a 3 hour long debate with a mutual acquaintance on just this topic. Back then I had had no comprehension of what either of you were really saying though. Good times though!

I just had to say, reading Bonald’s “In Defense of Religion,”—particularly the part that shows that the nature of being is evidence that something omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent has to be behind everything—got me interested in going back to read this article. A lightbulb went off beginning at your sentence “Yet, we know that constituent parts are not unique.” Having read Plato’s “Republic” I always had a gross misunderstanding of the Theory of Forms—something like, “if there are many chairs, there must literally be some Form of a chair floating around in a place like Heaven.” But your piece makes it clear. I guess it really doesn’t make sense that the universe or all the multiverses are eternal after all. The otherwise inexplicable nature of why all atoms have the same basic structure is what hit home for me. Combined with Bonald’s piece it makes me a theist, although I hate feeling like an easily convinced person. If I had come back a few months later and told you of my theism, it would seem more right. One of C.S. Lewis’ pieces on faith in “Mere Christianity” acknowledges how the emotional gets in the way of the rational to cause us to lose whatever we believe and I’ve experienced it many times. These are truly rational reasons for beliefs though, so it should work out. Anyway, great piece!

This is off topic, but I thought you might find this interesting. It’s in this weekend’s WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577221603720817864.html

My personal thoughts are that the problems are right—you especially are at the liberty to observe them where you live and in your home city I’d imagine, but the solutions are silly and could be satirical. Religion works because of an us vs the world mentality—maybe it’s just the Strauss and Kristol in me, but community based on our common humanity is paradoxically impossible, at least as I see it. There can only be community in opposition to something else. I’d be curious about your thoughts.

I remember that post! I just reread it again. I have also concluded that if Christianity is true, Orthodoxy is the correct branch, based on theology, philosophy, and the secular history of the Church. I love Plato’s Republic as well, and also find the parallels between Socrates and Jesus to be fascinating. One thing we can agree on is that the search for truth and living the best life is a journey worth embarking on, instead of just being sheep who follow whatever TV or even “public intellectuals,” the Sophists of our day want us to believe. Your blog is very much appreciated, and I thank you for your kind wishes and hope your journey continues to bear good fruit.

Nifty. So a henadic string is rather like a worldline in formal configuration space, with the actualized henadic strings weaving or knitting or knotting or netting or braiding together as a cosmogony. Like the nets carved on omphaloi. Obviously it’s a very *thick* tapestry, in every formal dimension.

Matter, then, as the principle of individuation, is for species of mundane beings the capacity of the whole cosmos of tying knots.

There’s more to be gleaned from the notion of tying as a way to visualize ontological togethernesses, as Whitehead called them. I shall have to ponder that.

Joseph, I thank you for the honor you do me, in noticing my comment.

You write:

“I have never found the Aristotelian doctrine convincing that “matter” is the individuating principle, even if we interpret matter liberally as a potential time and space for being to manifest in some particular way. Each particular moment brings together a great host of formal input, and I do not see the need for a non-formal, receptive principle to render it understandable.”

The notion is made difficult by our natural tendency to understand matter as stuff that takes up space, the way physics used to understand it before about 1890; stuff that can undergo change, as of momentum or location. Such stuff, even if it exists as anything more than a heuristic, is but one sort of the much broader Aristotelian notion of matter, which is, precisely, the mere potentiality of a “particular moment (that) brings together a great host of formal input.” Such mere potentiality cannot exist on its own; but only as implicit in some state of affairs or other, so that matter is that aspect of a state of affairs by which it may give rise to another.

So, it is not a principle in its own right. Nor are form, end or ficience principles.

What’s a henadic string?

Well, I don’t know about submitting something on UFO’s to VFR. Since Lawrence took ill, I don’t like to take up a moment of his time with anything that he is not *obviously* interested in discussing at the moment. The guy has a lot on his plate, he’s exhausted a lot of the time, and he is doing really important work. But I’ll send him a quick query, asking if he would be interested.

But I’m happy to respond to your question, because it was indeed an arresting experience. It’s not so much that I thought UFO’s were just hogwash, as that I had never been particularly interested in them. My default attitude was open-minded skepticism, if that makes any sense.

My son and I were driving home to the Bay Area from his summer camp in the Sierra Nevada, driving along one of those high remote two-lane blacktop state roads through the immense forest. The sky was immaculately blue. We were the only car visible. My son was looking up, and noticed 3 tiny bright lights high up in the sky, arranged in a perfect triangle, and apparently hovering in one place. I looked, too. It was definitely not a plane. Nor was it a satellite, nor a reflection in the windshield. As we drove for many miles, it remained in exactly the same place. We wondered if it was a UFO, or maybe a high tech plane of some sort that, being so advanced, didn’t look like a plane at all.

After a while we got bored looking at it, and our attention wandered. I didn’t think much of it after that, until my son called me into the TV room a few weeks later to look at a program on the History Channel about UFO’s. There was a newsreel on the screen showing a massive UFO sighting over Mexico City, that had featured thousands of UFOs. Lo, they were bright little dots, arranged in stable triangles. I have since seen this same sort of ship in many photographs and newsreels of UFOs.

Before I saw that triangle of lights, I had never seen a photo of UFOs that looked anything like it. So, my interpretation was not supplied from my unconscious. No; it goes quite the other way. What I saw turns out to be one of about 5 sorts of ships that are routinely seen.

If indeed they are ships. I almost wonder if there may not be life forms living in the upper atmosphere that we know nothing about. Like men of war in the sea. Those look like alien ships, too. 

I should say that I have not seen a “couple” UFOs, but only one. But it was so amazingly similar to the UFOs in the sky over Mexico, that I have zero doubt I was looking at images of UFOs in that newsreel, too. I am now convinced there is something out there, but I’m not at all convinced its aliens. However, I remain pretty uninterested in the subject, so ...

I now recall that in our discussion last year of the Falls both of Adam and Lucifer we both took note several times of the sheer unintelligibility of evil. I recall also that the zero both of goodness and rationality (& ipso facto of intelligibility) is the zero of being.

So the mysteries at the roots of freedom, of being, and of evil may be all impenetrable because we and our acts come ultimately from nothing.

@ Joseph: You write:

“I find it difficult to understand anything undetermined. The world that we witness is one of intelligible causality, and it is bizarre to think of the will as free. Yet, we have the experience of a faculty that suggests uncaused action.”

I sympathize. I don’t have any answers, but I do have a clue. It seems to me that the mystery of the freedom of the will is deeply linked to the mystery of the coming into being of novel entities. A being that is determined ex ante cannot be really said to come into being at the point when it attains actuality; for, really, it is not a separate entity at all, but rather a mere function of its factors, an *aspect* of its factors. It is not, apart from its factors; so, it is not. If we are to say then that we really do exist, it must be the case that we are undetermined ex ante, at least a little bit. And the “ex ante” refers to priority in the orders both of time and of logic. But this is to say that there is an element of our coming into being which is ultimately mysterious - which is, precisely, not intelligible.

NB that this doesn’t make the world fundamentally unintelligible. It just means that the world is intelligible, through and through, *but only ex post.* [This is tantamount to saying that creatures are contingent, for an entirely perfectly completely predictable event would be, not contingent, but necessary - the two notions, of contingent being and of not completely intelligible being, have their source in the same wellspring.] Looking back, we can see the reasons for things. Looking forward, from within the moment of creation, the springs of our being are hidden from us. Where did this moment I am now “in” come from? It came, ultimately, from nothing, so far as we can tell. The mystery at the seed of each moment of our own becoming may be “what it’s like to be created ex nihilo.” Nothingness *just is* unintelligibility, no? In a world governed by a rational omnipotent God, there could be no such thing as an unintelligible actuality. So, what is, is ipso facto intelligible, through and through, at least in principle. What is not, and what is not yet, are not intelligible; if they were, they would already be (they would be past); but this is just the same thing, is it not, as to say, “what is not, and what is not yet, simply do not exist.” 

If we do really exist, then, we were not completely determined ex ante. And this gap in intelligibility, this volume of as yet but partial existence, seems to be the playground of the will.

How fitting that Heisengberg should have discovered an irreducible uncertainty at the root of physics, that absolutely rules out prediction, even in principle. How fitting that the physicists who study consciousness generally locate human freedom in the ontological room opened up by that uncertainty.

@ Tyler: You find it hard to believe that our planet matters. Yeah, me too. But it is important to remember that the reason we find it hard to believe that is that we are very small minds. God, on the other hand, has what you might call infinite computational capacity. To an omniscient mind with infinite computational resources, the life of even the smallest thing - a bird, an electron - would be of tremendous value. For, remember that for God, there would be no such need as we feel to decide between goods that we shall experience - that we shall buy with our next moments of life. God can experience all actual goods to their fullest extent. Nothing can cost him; for him, there are no trade-offs. So, because he need not choose between goods, God is able to value them all. The life of the sparrow is as important to him as the life of the Andromeda Galaxy. And, finally, the life of any creature, no matter how vast or glorious, is to God’s enjoyment of himself, as any creature’s vastness is to God’s immensity. Whether x is a sparrow or the Andromeda Galaxy, x/God = 1/infinity. I.e., infinitesimally small. So God’s appreciation of the Andromeda Galaxy is as difficult to understand, as his appreciation and love of poor Tyler doing his finance homework.

Many, many of the problems that non-believers run into when contemplating God are due to the fact that they are, naturally enough, and with good intentions, treating God as if he were something less than God.

Actually, I just reread some of your pieces, and I think I understand your arguments. In reality I think we disagree because I instinctively find it hard to believe that our little planet matters in a ridiculously huge universe. God came to live on this of all planets? I know this is flawed reasoning—you could likewise argue that it seems too amazing that random chance and evolutionary processes alone led to life. Perhaps its just my philosophical ignorance, but it seems that the history of philosophy is people coming up with excuses to believe what they were predisposed to believe anyway. Your quote from Kuhn sums it up. Your Criterial Argument piece is right. I don’t want to believe in God. Part of me does—everlasting life seems better than death. But then again Penn Jillette asked Piers Morgan “are you afraid of 1892? No? Then why fear 2092?” Of course the last conscious second before death may be terrifying, but enjoying the here and now seems better than saying prayers and getting up early on Sundays.

Anyway… I’ve got to get back to my Finance homework (one of the most meaningless yet practical of all professions!). But I do appreciate your writing and just wanted to put aside any false perception that maybe I can be convinced. I’d like to think I could, but I doubt it.

My computer is being weird today, so I’m not sure if my last comment got through. I made a wise remark about how the demerit system of the world has still not instilled in me the virtues of attention to detail or diligence—the first time I tried to post, I forgot to put in my email address and had to start over!

Thanks for answering my question. That was quite a tour-de-force of Western thought. I’m just wondering, if you find the time, could you answer this: what fundamentally convinces you of your worldview? I’ve read your criterial argument and have heard you argue that math proves there is a God. I’ve also read literally all of your posts on metaphysics, but if you could please dumb down your basic clue as to the fact that reality is as you believe it is I would much appreciate it.

Joseph: great essay. I think you are right.

Tyler: The mere exercise of the will is not tantamount to the worship thereof, particularly when it is constrained by an intellectual knowledge of truth. By the same token, to say that the will ought to be subordinated to the intellect is not at all to denigrate the will, but only to coordinate it to its proper role in the economy of the person. 

Rosenberg is quite right in saying that if there is no truth then the will is an illusion. If there is no truth, then “the will exists” is false. But then, so is “there is no truth.”

I used to feel the same way about UFO’s. Then I saw a couple.

As a someone who generally lines up with Right-libertarianism but has sympathy with neocon and Straussian thought, I appreciate the point you are making. I’m also an atheist (though I was a Protestant years ago as you may remember). So I guess my problem is that I don’t see how nihilism dictates worship of the will. If everything is meaningless, so is my will (and consistent nihilists like Alex Rosenberg would argue that the will is an illusion to begin with). From a godless viewpoint parts of your reactionary philosophy could be defended.

But my real question for you is how do you truly avoid worshipping the will? You are exercising your will by writing about your philosophy—if enough people come to agree with you, and your ideal society came to be, it would be an act of human will. The restrictions on human will that you like would come into being through human will, would they not?

I could have sworn this was going to be a satirical video when I first looked at it. Hard to believe the Catholic Church went along with this.

If we drown her, we will know if she is a witch.

Dear Joseph,
Chill.  It’s a good movie.
God bless,
- Jim Morlino
director, The War of the Vendee

Very cool.  I’m a little surprised that they were so interested in the bones….  Maybe they eat the marrow?

Many people have a bad idea about telemarketer. however , in many third world countries it is sometimes the only decent jobs in countries where unemployment is so high. This story should help dispel a few misconceptions and even apparent hatred of the telemarketers.

Bonus for getting a mention!

Also, I believe your link is dead.

http://www.amazon.com/Fundex-Sno-Cone-Sno-Cone-Machine/dp/B000XQ8ZDU

You have a country where half the country works for the government, and the other half doesn’t pay their taxes to the government. I don’t know why the Greeks thought that it could continue to go on this way without a major crisis.

This is the first I’ve heard that the tourist centre at Niagara Falls is too commercialized.  This, if true, would surprise me as usually Canadians tend not to spoil the natural beauty of a place with too much construction.

also, bonus…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3174T-3-59Q

I love vihart!

Have you seen her story about Wind?

Jack Johnson is crying right now.

I feel like this might turn into a real life “Rio.”

Jesus’ dead body came back to life after three literal days, Elisha’s bones made a dead man come back to life, Elisha used a stick to make an axe head float, the Blessed Virgin gave birth to God in the flesh, Naaman dipped himself in the Jordan 7 times and his leprosy was gone, Phillip immediately vanished out of the Eunich’s sight after he baptized him, a napkin used to wipe Paul’s face healed people who touched it, the Holy Spirit made people speak in different languages instantly (no Rosetta Stone programs in those days!), Icons cry and drip oil, Holy Fire appears at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but God didn’t create the world in 6 days? 

I don’t trust science, and since science is always changing and finding itself to be wrong, I am opting to believe what the Scriptures say, literally, “because the Bible tells me so.”  Why all the time-wasting talk about the ridiculous notion and theory called evolution? 

People say “well, what was a day before the sun appeared? Could have been a gazillion years!”  Well, the sun was created on day 4, so then did the day (yom) suddenly become a literal day?  I think it is best if all the self-proclaimed geniuses that speak for God and somehow know how He created everything should zip the lip.  Quit talking about evolution. 

I love your blog, though.  And your defense of Orthodoxy.