I was reading a little from the BBC News web page tonight and the lead story was about some new announcement from the vatican reaffirming that homosexuals cannot be priests. No big shock there. It was also mentioned that the church's official position is that homosexual acts are sinful yada yada yada, again, no news here. When I read the line, though, where it said that the official position is that homosexuals should in no way be discriminated against I had to laugh. I guess they mean except by the church itself. I wonder if they even think of that "position" as confused; I'm sure the word hypocritical wouldn't even enter their thoughts.

All three "experts" on ESPN's pregame show just picked the Buccaneers to beat the Bears today and I agree that TB should win but I just don't know. I'll tell you this much. the Bears aren't going to let Cadillac Williams beat them; if the Bucs win it'll have to be because of Chris Simms. Good chance for him to show the world what he can do (or not). We shall see. Bears by 3.

Reggie Bush. I finally saw him in some game action that I watched for a while as opposed to a Sports Center highlight or something. Yikes! Two plays stand out (I was watching an ESPN instant classic replay of last Saturday night's game against Fresno State). On the first he takes the ball going right on a running play, bounces outside, has a guy coming over to head him off, turns on enough speed so the guy is running full out in the hopes of getting to a point on which they are converging in time to make a tackle, so Bush, now that he's got the guy committed to that line just cuts it back left and accelerates and the poor dude just collapses. He puts another similar move on the next guy which takes him back outside (by now he's inside the 20) scoots past him, then drops his center and powers into the safety or whoever that's finally in front of him, drives him forward into another guy and finally they all go down as Bush reaches the ball forward to the goal line. No touchdown. The other one I had seen on Sports Center Saturday night but didn't realize that he was untouched on the play. He raced everybody to a spot on the left sideline, 25 or so yards down the field; then, with everybody just haulin' ass trying to get there and head him off, he just stopped.And was immediately going again diagonally to the right and just beat everybody to the right pylon, was probably another 35 or 40 yards downfield. Can you say Red Grange?

Terrell Owens. The arbitrator finally ruled today and it was 100% not in T.O.'s favor. Good. I think the Eagles did exactly what they should have done and yes they are well within their rights to not release him until they decide they're tired of paying him to stay away. After this Sunday's game against the Packers they have to start paying him again, some ungodly amount, as much for every game that he won't be playing in as any ten high school teachers make in a year and of course he won't be happy. Well too bad! I can't help thinking about him as a Packer next year; Brett Favre has never had a target like that in his life. I'm reminded of the movie "Good Will Hunting", T.O being Will and the Robin Williams character still out there somewhere. The dumbass no doubt has had some bad stuff in his life and has unresolved issues and all; he's got so much talent that it seems a shame to not allow it to be used and all so how about just like in the movie, he gets another chance but he has to see someone twice a week or whatever and work through some of it. Redemption could be just around the corner. It just means swallowing his pride a little, or maybe a lot, and start going with the flow instead of against it at every opportunity.

Here are some thoughts of mine on the origins of the Universe, the Earth and the human race.

First, the Universe. I believe that which we know as the Universe has always been and will always be, in one form or another. It is, in my opinion, eternal and infinite. God didn't create it; it can't have been created as it has always existed. Some people believe that God existed before the Universe, existed before anything else. There was only God, who doesn't exist in space/time. So I guess they believe that there was no space/time before "the Creation", just a great void (and God). If you want to accept this, go ahead. I do not.

Next, the Earth. The Earth came about in the same way that all the planets did. Matter and energy were cast across the Universe by the Big Bang and formed into stars, planets and whatever else according to a set of rules that I do not pretend to fully understand. At this point it would be easy to say, "a super intelligent, all-powerful being was the cause of all this and brought order to the chaos." This would be God. The question would then be "how did God originate and what is God?" Some would give an answer such as, "God is eternal and is so complex and mysterious that we mere humans can never hope to understand him/her/it." In my opinion God is a creation of man in an attempt to explain the nature and origin of the Universe. I fail to see any benefit in replacing one mystery with another and in the absence of any evidence of this super being I choose to accept a Universe without a creator.

Finally then, the human race. What are we? Life in general is an amazing thing to contemplate; human life even more so. Why are we different? From where did we get this capacity for self-awareness and intelligent thought? Evolution attempts to explain this by saying that we are just the latest, most advanced example of a living organism. Primitive man was capable of intelligent thought (at least compared to lower forms of life) and had a measure of self-awareness (as do cats and dogs and monkeys and chimps and whales and dolphins and horses and cows, etc...), we are just the evolved to this point example of the species. What about life in general, though. How did that come about? Could it be that such a set of circumstances existed that it was inevitable? Why are we here? Perhaps there is no answer to that, we just are. You need your life to have meaning though. Well it does. It means something to you and to people around you to some degree. As far as it having some greater meaning I think you're out of luck. As for your eternal soul, I don't believe that such a thing exists. You and I are mortal and finite and, in the big picture, very insignificant. This, in my opinion, is the principle reason for the popularity of western religion; it tells you that you are significant and eternal and that your life has great meaning. Believe it if you like, and maybe respect the rights of others to not do so.

I don't know why but I'm half way pumped for the Bears and Panthers tomorrow (today). I'm actually going to set my alarm so I can watch the whole thing; they better not let me down. The Bears haven't been getting a lot of respect so far, perhaps rightly so, but that could all change with a win in this one. They both like to play the same style, run the ball and play defense; the difference could well be that the Panthers have a veteran QB and the Bears are playing a rookie. Both teams average 31 rushing attempts per game, however, the Bears gain 135.3 yds./game, 4.4 yds/carry (3rd in NFC), the Panthers average just 91.8 and 3.0 (12th). If the Bears can somewhat contain Steve Smith I think they win this game.