What would She say?

She'll let her intercessors deal with soccer, for She plays the game they play in heaven.

If rugby is "the game they play in heaven", then I would rather end up in the other place when I die. Anyway, today's prayers are "In Guus we trust".

I value Alan Matheson's comments . I like sport and I have been trying to work out what it is about this current World Cup fiesta that bothers me.

Sport is good, the competition can be healthy but somehow it so easily gets mixed up with nationalism, winning at all costs , putting down the other side, complaining about the umpiring etc.

It's easy to make fun of the last century focus on 'playing the game', learning to lose graciously and being humble in victory. However, I think that we were taught back then some values and attitudes towards sport which have been lost somewhere as sport has become more professional and as it has become more used by politicians as a way of identifying with winners and a a way of boosting our 'national identity.'

I find myself often questioning the whole idea of nationalism, which is after all a relatively recent phenomenon in world history. At our church recently we have been asking the question, Can one be a disciple of Christ and an enthusiastic nationalist?

Am I taking this all too seriously or is there really something a bit perverted in our fetish to be true Australians and to name things we don't like as un-Australian?

Perhaps God will scratch His head, roll His eyes, wonder where the heck He went wrong then go and water His radishes.

As soccer is based on rules, what is gradually happening worldwide with soccer is something the Americans the way they are going will never achieve in the next 100 years, that is fair play.

Just read in the latest Guardian how George W' has become like the earlier British Georges who routined the right to override laws passed by the legislature. According to journalist Martin Kettle, on April 13 the Boston globe journalist Charlie Savage wrote a report whose contents become more astonishing the more one thinks about it. President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 Congressional laws since he took office. But much worse than that - he changes the laws after he has given the okay with his signature.

You can bet your life that the above filthy strategy has not come from Georgie Boy alone but from low-class looking
offsiders like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Co, whom going by camera shots you would not feel like inviting through your door.

Certainly any American President or his retinue who tinkers with the US Constitution like this should be liable for impeachment even more than Tricky Dicky Nixon.

Finally, it might be suggested that because our Johnny Howard is even out-playing the 19th century statesman in this neo-age of Anglipholic imperialism, we might
wonder if he also has the above heinous tricks up his sleeve?

>>President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 Congressional laws since he took office.<<

bushbred, this is hardly a new position for US Presidents to adopt.

There is a famous David Frost interview with Richard Nixon dating from 1977 that went:

FROST: So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.

NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.

FROST: By definition.

NIXON: Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.

Savour that: "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal"

http://www.landmarkcases.org/nixon/nixonview.html