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Monthly Archives: March 2015

The “Tip” of the Iceberg

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This is an interesting story:

Late last February, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA)— a conference comprised of historically African-American colleges and universities in the U.S.—held its annual basketball tournament in  Charlotte, N.C.

Conference participants stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel but many hotel guests were shocked to find an automatic “CIAA Service” surcharge of 15 percent added to their bills at the lobby bar during the annual event.

“When she [a Ritz-Carlton server] brought the receipt, there was a CIAA surcharge that was included,” diner Patrice Wright told WBTV. “And we thought that’s interesting because we have frequented the establishment several times and never had any surcharge that was associated with any organization that was in town.”

Wright and her husband –who were not affiliated with the CIAA–contacted the Ritz-Carlton to understand why the hotel was permitted to charge a fee related to the basketball tournament to non-participants.

“Due to the size of the CIAA event, we instituted a modest 15% service charge for our lobby beverage servers, on whom the event places significant demands throughout the weekend,” said the hotel.

Years back, I was in New Orleans for a Patriots football game. The game was on the same weekend as the annual football game between Southern and Grambling. The locals call it the Soul Bowl. I got in on a Friday and I was the only white person in my hotel. My friends arrives and we increased the diversity of the place infinitely.

Out in town, we noticed a few things. One was the French Quarter was all black, no whites other than us and some other Patriot fans who apparently did not know about the Soul Bowl. It was like being on the streets of Lagos. It was teaming with black people and white faces stood out like the sun.

The other thing we noticed was the lack of cabs. We did not see any cabs and just assumed it was a local thing. Later we learned that the cabbies stay away during the Soul Bowl. When the game was over on Saturday and those fans left, the place was full of cabs. That confirmed what we were told.

Finally, the French Quarter proprietors were strangely racist, even the black ones. At one place, a black doorman waved us ahead of the black people waiting in line. We were a little puzzled by what happened so we asked the waitress, who was black. She flat out said whites tip better and spend more than the people in line.

That last bit is something I hear black people say all the time. I have black friends who proudly say they do not tip at all. I’m not entirely sure why and I’m not alone. This recent WaPo story seems equally puzzled. If your are a French Quarter business, the Soul Bowl turns out to be terrible for business, which is why many of them close. It’s why the cabbies take off during that event.

The hotel in the story at the top may simply have instituted a mandatory tip policy for events. That’s not uncommon either. The thing they know that most people don’t is big events draw lots of deadbeats. The attendees are often there because they got free tickets or as part of a discount package. This becomes their cheap-o-vacation. That means no tips and stealing the towels is an issue. This “tax” is to cover those costs.

Of course, we live in a lunatic asylum so everyone jumps to the worst possible explanation by default. The irony of calling the hotel racist for charging a blacks-only event a premium is lost on everyone. If they hosted an AmRen event, they would excoriated for not charging a premium. But, that’s what happens when you let lunatics take over your country.

 

Starbucks Hates Black People

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There are no Starbucks in the ghetto, so I have to assume the CEO of Starbucks hates black people. I suspect most of my neighbors would have a tough time spending ten bucks for a coffee and muffin, served up by a snotty lesbian with a face full of fishing tackle. Still, it is not hard to imagine how this would go in my neighborhood.

But the executive, who oversees a coffee empire with 4,700 U.S. stores, has now taken on arguably the most polarizing political debate in the United States: race relations.

Starbucks published a full page ad in the New York Times on Sunday — a stark, black, page with a tiny caption “Shall We Overcome?” in the middle, and the words “RaceTogether” with the company logo, on the bottom right. The ad, along with a similar one on Monday in USA Today, is part of an initiative launched this week by the coffee store chain to stimulate conversation and debate about the race in America by getting employees to engage with customers about the perennially hot button subject.

Beginning on Monday, Starbucks baristas will have the option as they serve customers to hand cups on which they’ve handwritten the words “Race Together” and start a discussion about race. This Friday, each copy of USA Today — which has a daily print circulation of almost 2 million and is a partner of Starbucks in this initiative — will have the first of a series of insert with information about race relations, including a variety of perspectives on race. Starbucks coffee shops will also stock the insert.

White plutocrats like the people running Starbucks can have “conversations about race”: because everyone they know is white and has the same opinions about race. Their conversation about race is more of a cheer than a conversation. I suppose that’s why they think this is a great idea.

In more vibrant neighborhoods like mine, there’s no need to have a conversation about race. Everyone knows the deal. We also know it is best be polite to one another in order to keep the peace. If the local coffee shop hires a bitter lesbian and has her lecture the customers about race, there will be blood.

If Starbucks wants to do something about race relations, how about they open some shops in my neighborhood. They’ll need to cut the prices and knock it off with the weird names for things, but maybe the shops in the rich white people towns can pay a little more for social justice.

That’s never going to happen, of course, because it would require some skin in the game. It’s much easier to stand on the lawn of the mansion or in the boardroom lecturing the rest of us from behind a line of security guards.

Haven Monahan Strikes Again!

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Man, this guy is incredible. He replicated out on the West Coast and now he is back east side wreaking havoc on another college campus.

A Penn State University fraternity was suspended for a year Tuesday after police began investigating allegations that members used a private, invitation-only Facebook page to post photos of nude and partly nude women, some apparently asleep or passed out.

A former member of Kappa Delta Rho at the university’s flagship campus in State College tipped police off to the page, telling them in January that it had been used by members to share photos of “unsuspecting victims, drug sales and hazing,” according to a copy of a police warrant obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

The ex-member also provided authorities with printouts from the page.

I’ll just point out that the former member who ratted should get a beating that his grand children will feel. That aside, “private” and “invite-only” should be a clue here.

The fraternity’s national executive director, Joe Rosenberg, told the Penn State chapter in a letter on Tuesday that it is banned from most activities for the near future and must reorganize.

He said the suspension was “for the most serious misconduct, most serious disregard of fraternity rules, policies and property by the chapter.”

Chapter officials, who can appeal the decision, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

A Penn State administrator called the allegations a violation of the standards and values required for recognized student organizations.

“The evidence offered by the Facebook postings is appalling, offensive and inconsistent with the university community’s values and expectations,” Damon Sims, Penn State’s vice president for student affairs, said in a news release.

Sims said the school continues to investigate, and vowed that the university would find those responsible and hold them accountable.

Police said anyone who posted the photos could face misdemeanor charges of harassment or invasion of privacy, with a fine the most likely sentence.

Posting naked picture is now a crime? That would be news to the billion dollar porn industry. I guess the claim here is the women who got naked and passed out from drugs or drink did not consent to having their pictures taken. Here’s a top tip ladies. Don’t get so drunk that you pass out naked in a frat house. That way, you won’t wake up as a glazed doughnut or with your pics posted on-line.

The funny thing here is that the same people always saying the girls can play with the boys suddenly sound like a Victorians when the girls get into trouble. Guys have been doing rotten things to guys who pass at the party since the Viking age. Maybe all that feminist nonsense about girls being able to party with the boys was not right after all.

What’s a British Term for Bat Shit Crazy?

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Britain has arrested a teenager for a tweet.

A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of sending a racist tweet aimed at Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck.

The post was made after Welbeck netted the winning goal during an FA Cup quarter-final clash against his former club Manchester United on 9 March.

Manchester-born Welbeck joined the Gunners for £16m last summer.

The 15-year-old boy, from the Salisbury area, was arrested on suspicion of racial abuse and released on bail until 13 April, Wiltshire Police said.

I’m not a a free speech absolutist. I think people make a fetish over so-called free speech in order to avoid discussing freedom of association. I argue that freedom of association solves the modern problems of speech. In this case, the people who found the speech of the teenager offensive should have the right to ignore it. Problem solved.

Given the hysterical nature of anti-racism, it is no surprise that it leads to the policing of thought and speech. Anti-racism has been called a theodicy by some on the DR, but that is not quite right. The proponents are not trying to reconcile their conception of the supernatural with reality. They are trying to reconcile Rousseau-ism with reality. We need a new word.

That said, the religious become more fanatical when faced with dis-confirmation or an existential threat. Islam has lurched into lunacy in the face of the cultural encroachment of the West. Anti-racists have a tough time because humans are biologically racist. We are hard wired to cling to our kin and then those who resemble our kin.

The communications revolution has accelerated the decent into madness because it brings the anti-racist in contact with a tidal wave of reality. Rather than reconsider, the fanatic sees dis-confirmation as proof they must re-double their efforts. If that means rounding up children for the crime of hurting the feelings of a sports star, so be it.

The Prophet Algore Resurfaces

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Way back in the 2000 election, I was pretty sure Algore was having a nervous breakdown. His bizarre behavior in the debates suggested he was losing his grip under the strain of the campaign. His Zelig act in the second debate was one of the more disturbing things I’ve seen in politics. We came very close to putting a madman in the White House. Well, a different sort of madman than usual.

His Old testament prophet act following the election confirmed it for me. He went off into the wilderness, grew a beard and gained fifty pounds. Then, he came back with the good word, as it were, on global warming. His whole act had the feel of a guy thinking he is on a mission from God.

As his crusade grew more craven and ridiculous, he has faded from public view. That and Chocolate Jesus in the White House made the Prophet Al a redundancy. But, with Obama heading to the dustbin, it looks like the prophet is back with the good word again.

Bearing False Witness

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There are six things that the LORD strongly dislikes, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

—Proverbs 6:16–19

The Romans executes people who swore false oaths or made false accusations. But, they killed people for counterfeiting and adultery, too. How often the state punished someone for making false claims against another is unknown. But, life did not always count for much in the classical period. Commodus used to kill midgets in the arena just for entertainment so Rome is not a great guide to these things.

Similarly, the Muslims give 40 lashes for false witness, but they also stone homosexuals and whip adulterers. The Mohammedan is not wrong about everything, but they lack a sense of proportion in their punishments.

Bearing false witness has a long spiritual history in the West, of course, but not a long legal history. The crime of perjury was created in the 16th or 17th century in England. I would image it is the same in the rest of Europe. The rise of independent courts and impartial juries brought with it witness testimony as a formal part of a trial.

We need to rethink how we handle cases where the alleged victim clearly lied or made false accusations. This is a good example. This is ESPN so they leave out the part about video exonerating the accused, but the comments take up the slack. This football player was falsely accused of rape and has lost his career as a consequence.

Former San Francisco 49ers defensive end Ray McDonald confirmed to ESPN’s Josina Anderson on Monday that he plans to sue the woman accusing him of rape.

“I feel like what I am doing is the right thing because I know that I am not this bad person that people are making me out to be,” McDonald told ESPN on Monday. “I’ve been fired from my job. I know some teams don’t even want to talk to me because of this past accusation. All I am trying to do is clear my name and move on with my life.”

McDonald has been investigated by local law authorities on suspicion of sexual assault. He has not been charged with any crime.

The San Jose Mercury News earlier reported that McDonald’s lawyer, Steve M. DeFilippis, would file a lawsuit on Monday morning. McDonald has been trying to catch on with an NFL team since he was released by the 49ers in December for “a pattern of poor decision-making.”

“In the eyes of the NFL teams, the unresolved threat of charges being filed against him, even though factually unfounded, continues to present a roadblock to this remarkable athlete being able to move forward in his career,” DeFilippis said in a release. “This lawsuit is intended to vindicate him … and return his good name.”

According to court documents that were written by San Jose police investigators to obtain a search warrant for McDonald’s home, the accuser told authorities she fell and hit her head on the ground near the pool and has no memory of the sexual encounter that occurred in McDonald’s San Jose house, which police say occurred Dec. 14, a few hours after the 49ers returned from a 17-7 loss to the Seahawks in Seattle.

The woman stayed with McDonald at his home the next day and drank vodka with McDonald, according to the papers. That’s when McDonald conceded that a sexual encounter occurred, according to the court documents.

Suing this woman will do nothing. Maybe the player gets a statement from her that says he is not a rapist. Otherwise, nothing will happen to her. What should happen is she should spend ten years in the penitentiary. Sometimes, the best you can be is a warning to others and that’s what we have here. She should spend time in the can as a warning to other women who think this is a good idea.

Damsel in Distress Syndrome

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Steve Sailer has a post up about Hillary Clinton. I Posted something there which will be approved whenever Sailer decides to roll out of bed. The Unz site has a lot going for it, but the commenting system is a dumpster fire. Anyway, after posting it I thought about it some more and here are some things I should have added.

I never thought Hillary Clinton was all that interesting. In my work life, I’ve encountered her type many times. That’s the bitchy, middle-aged professional woman that is always pissed off because she cannot reconcile feminist orthodoxy with her reality. These are the broads who were marinated in feminism in college, but married well nonetheless.

They still have the feminist nonsense in their heads about how they can compete with the boys and take down the patrimony, but the reality is they just married well. Their husband makes a good living so they can live the life, but also “have a career.” In the case of Hillary Clinton, her career was being a screw up, who had a highly successful husband.

All the way back to Arkansas, Clinton seems to have been in over her head. The scandals with the shady land dealers are a prime example. Bill’s finger prints were never on those things. The same is true of the law firm shenanigans. The only thing anyone could ever pin on him were the bimbos and that’s nothing new in Southern politics.

As she enters the Bob Dole phase of her career, she is slightly more interesting. Instead of the bitchy middle-aged “professional” woman, she is a a boozy old gal that is a feature of the Washington cocktail circuit. These are the women who have been married to politicians their whole lives and have a cultured cynicism that comes from years of disappointment.

Like Bob Dole, she is probably a hoot after a few drinks, but you can always sense why no one in the political class thought enough of them to put them in charge of anything. They are the sort of people who never ask, “What if this doesn’t work?” As a consequence, they get jammed up on minor stuff.

This e-mail scandal is a classic Hillary bungle. The old rule in politics is “never write when you can speak, never speak when you can nod.” There’s nothing wrong with having a private e-mail account. It should have been two steps removed from the boss. Hillary should have dictated her correspondence and never e-mailed anyone in her official capacity, other than to send birthday wishes.

But, that’s been the story for three decades or more with this woman. As I mentioned on my Unz post, everyone forgets why Clinton lost in 2008 to Obama. Her and her people failed to account for the rule changes the DNC implemented for the 2008 primary. The Clinton team was operating under the old rules, prior to proportional allotment of delegates.

I’m going to play amateur psychiatrist here. I wonder if this serial bungling is a way to get attention from her husband. When I worked in DC, I saw this quite a bit. The wives of politicians are often just furniture. They stand next to hubby on stage and for photos, but otherwise hubby thinks about them as much as he thinks about the coffee maker.

There are more than a few drama queens in the political wife club. It’s how they get the attention of their husbands who spend all of their time with their staff. Hilliary’s scandals are the one thing she and Bill share together. Maybe there’s a damsel in distress syndrome going on here that drives these unforced errors.

I remain skeptical about her chances to be president. There’s a Bob Dole ’96 vibe here. The party does not have anyone ready that they trust and it is not looking like  good year to run anyway. May as well let the old broad have her day in the sun as the first female nominee. Otherwise, everyone will just go through the motions.

The Narcotic of Anti-Racism

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Political and social trends are looking more and more like weird cults that people join for a short while and then abandon for some new crackpot thing. Just a few years ago the comments sections of websites were filled with nutters ranting about the glories of sodomite marriage. Then, the sodomites were thrown out of the temple and trannies were the new thing.

Anti-racism is looking like one of those trends that may have a long shelf life. I saw this in the NYTimes. If you look at the comments, you can see why it is so intoxicating to the lunatics on the Left. This comment from a kook named Tim C is emblematic:

I literally do not find “anti-white” bias and “reverse racism” valid concepts. Race is a concept no one in America do not want to discuss. And by that, I mean, white Americans. Rather than have an intellectual proactive discussion that produces proactive solutions that push social progress, all we do is point blame at the victims and do not think to comprehend why white America aggresses without responsibility. We cannot be post-racial when we have not even been racial.

Those sentences are barely English – literally! But, you can bet he felt great after having typed them. He got to bang on publicly about the pale penis people, thus showing his piety. That’s the thing about anti-racism. it’s hard to mock someone for it. Start yammering about trannies or even sodomites and people will snicker.

In many respects, anti-racism is the perfect topic for the Cultural Marxist. The pale penis people will always be with us so there is no “winning” or end game like we had with homosexual marriage. Since blacks will also always be with us, the disparities are a social constant.

The key to these modern movements is that the promised land must be just over the next hill. That way, the believers can feel their are getting closer so they get worked up in a frenzy at anything that is seen as an obstacle. As the Greeks learned in the Peloponnesian War, fanaticism comes easy when the enemy is evil.

Sailer think the whole enterprise is coming apart, but I don’t know. Hatred of the pale penis people has psychic rewards that can’t be easily replaced. Even homosexuals get tired of being around homosexuals so having the gay friend gets old quickly. Being anti-white, even if you’re white, is all upside and no downside. It’s like heroin that helps you work harder and be more conscientious, as well as be in a perpetual dream state.

Just scan through those comments. They are clawing each others eyes out to get to the top of the piety pole. They are rats hooked on coke banging at the little button to get their next fix. That does not go away without something filling the void.

 

College Blues

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I think the only reason to read the NYTimes (or any other agit-prop daily) is to get a heads up about what the Left plans to do to us next. It’s like the scene from Men in Black where Agent K reads the supermarket tabloids for the real news. In the case of the NYTimes, there’s no news, just warnings.

This is from a few weeks back and I saved it figuring there would be other warnings from other places. It could make for blog post material. The other day I saw this on ZeroHedge. My bet is the Liberal Democrats are going to be testing a bunch of these ideas for the 2016 election. The idea is to promise the young free money so they will be vote for the Left. Inevitably, the other side will offer up their own basket of goodies to the millennials.

The NYTimes idea has been kicking around for years. I recall “new” Democrats yammering about this back in the 80’s. Their big idea back then was a thing called Teacher Corp. The students who went into teaching would get their loans forgiven. I forget the name of the other plan for non-teachers, but it was basically a lifetime tax. The graduate would pay a special tax for the rest of their working life to pay back the tuition.

These ideas all sound great if you are an economic illiterate. When you subsidize demand, prices rise. When you throttle the growth of supply, then prices rise even faster than the subsidy. That has been the policy in the US for decades. Free money from the state is given to student to use for college. Colleges wisely raised their prices to account for the free money. The state keeps upping the free money and the colleges keep raising prices.

Maybe there’s a connection?

If the government created a BMW purchase plan where everyone is eligible for a $5000 subsidy if they buy a BMW, the price of BMW’s will go up by $5,000. The reason is BMW is not stupid. They know that demand will suddenly spike so they can sell all of their cars at the former price plus the new premium. They may even cut supply to reduce costs.

That’s what has happened in America. At the end of WW2, we had eight Ivy League schools and 139 million people. Today we have eight Ivy League colleges and 339 million people. The student bodies of these schools are the same size as they were 70 years ago.

At the bottom end, we have many more state schools and many more seats in state schools, but the price is vastly greater, even accounting for inflation. The California system used to be free for California residents. That’s not longer the case. Amazingly and I’m sure it is a coincidence, most state colleges charge what students are able to borrow under Federal programs.

The trouble is the central planners are in a trap. The delinquency rates on the trillion in student debt are going up. Tuition rates are unsustainable as new students cannot borrow enough to cover the costs. Even if they could, the delinquency rates would just climb faster. Universities, for the most part, are trapped in a cost model that requires raising tuition rates at multiples of the inflation rate.

The doomsday crowd is way over the top on most things, but they may be right about student loans and the whole college racket. The little guys will be the first to go as they often have no reason to exist in the first place. The Sweet Briar closure is a typical example.

The fact is, no amount of clever policy can change reality. People with debts they cannot pay, don’t pay them. When costs rise to the point where prices are unsustainable, people stop buying the product. As the old saying goes, things that cannot last eventually end.

Christianity and ID

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I generally think of Christians in America as being on “my side” of things. By my side I mean opposed to Cultural Marxism, socialism and so forth. That’s not always true, of course. Many Evangelicals are socialists. Many are simply religious and will vote for anyone who is “born again.” Jimmy Carter won a big slice of the Evangelical vote thus allowing him to carry the South and win the election. I’ve known many Evangelicals that think the only issue that matters in politics is the religion of the politician.

American Evangelicals are interesting to me in that I’m not entirely sure the current version is, strictly speaking, Christian. They certainly share much with traditional Christianity, but they have some big differences too. The focus on the text of the Bible is one obvious departure. Traditional Christians understand that the Bible, as we know it, evolved over centuries. Translations have errors and never fully capture the nuance of the original. Therefore, a literal interpretation is not possible.

This leads to some rather strange circular reasoning when talking with an Evangelical about scripture. Pointing out what I just wrote above about the trouble with translation is met with a quote from the Bible. If you make mention of the fact that the Catholic Church selected the books of the Bible and you get some other quote from scripture. The Bible is proof that the Bible is literally the word of God. It is a tautological defense that only makes sense to those who already believe. It’s many skeptics think Evangelicals are a cult.

That does not mean Evangelicals are a cult or way outside the definition of Christian, but it certainly sets them apart from the Christian tradition. I’m painting with a broad a brush here, so bear with me. I’m thinking mainly about the narrow strains within the Evangelical movement. The followers of Joel Osteen, for example, are a different breed of cat from the old ladies at First Evangelical. Watch one of Osteen’s preacher shows and the word “cult” comes to mind. In another age, Osteen would have been burned at the stake as a heretic.

What got me thinking about this topic is some posts I saw recently, railing against evolution. There is a sub-culture in the self-taught Christian sphere that seems to be an off-shoot of intelligent design. It’s not that they believe in ID or creationism, but they think you’re crazy for “believing” in the false god Darwin or his false religion, evolution. It’s mostly anti-Darwinsim, if there was such a thing as Darwinism. It’s as if they created a secular religion they can criticize. Anyway, it go me thinking about what ID’ers believe.

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.

The implication here is that the designer, willy-nilly, chooses to rearrange the natural world as he/she/it sees fit. They carefully avoid discussing the designer as that would raise some uncomfortable issues, I’m assuming. Instead, they focus on the claims that certain natural phenomenon could not happen naturally and therefore must have been created by a designer for unexplained reasons. That last bit is important. The designer’s reasons are not only unknown; they are unknowable. Therefore, there is no need for inquiry.

The term for this is occasionalism. It is also explicitly anti-Christian. The foundation stone of Christianity is the fixed nature of God. When God makes a deal, he sticks to it and when he created heaven and earth, it was by fixed and discoverable rules. This idea, first promulgated by the Hellenized Jews, is a big deal in the evolution of religion. Instead of the super natural acting cynically and capriciously, God set the rules of nature and they are permanent. A rational God and a rational universe is the basis for Western civilization.

Now, creationism and intelligent design are harmless beliefs. Outside a few areas, people’s understanding nature is meaningless. Creationism is certainly inside the realm of traditional Christian theology, but intelligent designs seems to fall outside of it.  With creationism, God can be viewed as the watchmaker, who set all of the natural processes in motion. Young earth creationism is nuts, but the more common form is what the Church taught for a thousand years. Intelligent Design, in contrast, does not fit inside Christianity.