Another important example of the failure of apocalypse is the mystical messiah Sabbatai Sevi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatai_Zevi). The great scholar of Kabbalah Gershom Scholem wrote a dense and fascinating account of the phenomenon. Sabbatai Sevi (1626-1676) was a false Messiah who garnered a large following across Europe in the 17th century, was arrested in Constantinople and, when given the choice between conversion to Islam and death, converted to Islam. So far, so good. But what is strange and revealing, and motivated Scholem to study the movement, was that this conversion on Sabbatai Sevi's part did not end his movement. Various explanations ("the Messiah must descend to the absolute depths," etc.) were proposed to explain the conversion, and his followers continued to worship him. No doubt Scholem, who was rather vehemently anti-communist, thought that there were parallels to European leftists who continued to believe in Bolshevism even after the show-trials and other failures of communist governments. Today, the persistence of right-wing nativist ideologies in the US, despite the disasters they just wrought, are another example of the same self-reinforcing immunity of world-views to objective refutation. So we shouldn't expect our political or religious opponents to recognize the errors of their ways, just because their ways are so obviously and demonstrably in error. It seems we don't work like that. We're prone to follow false Bobs and succumb to false slack.

The Olympics reached their political apogee in 1936 when they served to legitimize on the world stage the Nazi Regime. Since Munich in 1972 they have been a magnet for terrorism and they have proven to be a real estate boondoggle for every city they invade. The Olympic Committee is a nidus of corruption and graft. We owe to the Olympics the public career of the loathsome Mitt Romney. Anyone who cares about Chicago as a municipality and not as a developer's cash cow should pray to heaven that the city is spared this vulgar scam. And anyone who cares about athletics should pray to heaven that the travesty of the Olympics is put down as soon as possible. There. I said it.

"It was subtle of God to learn Greek when He wished to become an author -- and not to learn it better." - Beyond Good and Evil

That shocking quotation has been called into question. Here's what Scalia actually said: "There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction."

That's still pretty bad, and kind of amounts to the same thing, but those seem to be the actual words. My signature links to the source.

I know we're staying away from Japanese horror, but I can't help putting in a plug for Teruo Ishii's Horrors of Malformed Men. The final shot of the disarticulated brother and sister against a sky full of fireworks is worth the price of admission.