By virtue of moving into the SEC, Missouri's talent level will improve because they will be able to recruit Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. I expect Mizzou (and A&M) to be on par with Arkansas and South Carolina, a step above Kentucky and the Mississippi schools but below Auburn and Georgia.

That is true. So though my FACTS were wrong (left out Josh Freeman and Blaine Gabbert from just the past 3 years) the point is still good, which is the claim that the Big 12 QBs are better than the SEC ones are false. I still remember everyone talking about how much better the Big 12 QBs were in 2008 ... that notorious comment by OU CB Dominique Franks that Tebow would be like the #8 QB in the Big 12. But when bowl season and NFL draft time came, turned out that only 2 or 3 of those guys were anything more than the product of the system.

Yeah, the SEC East being so weak is an aberration too. Unfortunately, it is an aberration that will last next year too. Which is why it is in Mizzou's interests to play in the SEC in 2012. You might actually contend for the SEC East in 2012! 2013 and definitely 2014 not so much, but 2012 definitely and 2013 maybe ...

"the charismata became an issue again with the rise of the Pentecostal movement in the 1900s and the Charismatic Movement in the 1960s"

Sorry, but that is untrue. There have been charismatic outbreaks going as far back as the Anabaptist revivals in the 1500s. Further, even the American Pentecostal movement that began in the 1900s was merely an attempt by Charles Parham and company to replicate the British Pentecostal movement (i.e. Smith Wigglesworth) that had been going on in England for quite some time that seems to have been the result of mixing poorly understood John Wesley teachings with those of Quakers and other groups.

That said, though I have yet to see Biblical warrant for full-blown cessationism, I myself am no longer a Pentecostal, having left those doctrines behind for good about 2 years ago I guess. And I do agree with what you say about the lack of theological depth among certain "New Calvinists", and that their position on cessationism by not only Driscoll but also a far more serious and influential figure like Wayne Grudem is being evidence of it.

I do have a problem with the "confessional" issue though. First of all, how Biblical is the emphasis on confessions along the lines of Westminster? Now I am aware that the Jewish synagogues had their own versions of what can be called "confessions" and naturally this was carried over to the early church whose members were mostly Jewish for a time. Still, is the emphasis on confessions more western (theology) than Biblical (doctrine)?

Second, one reason why many contemporary Calvinists do not emphasize the confessions is that they don't agree with key parts of them. For instance, you have dispensational/fundamentalist Calvinists like John MacArthur and Albert Pendarvis - and neither can exactly be called a "New Calvinist" - who don't want to have anything to do with the amillennial and covenant theology tinged aspects of most of the older confessions. I suppose for them the solution would be to write their own, but since it would not be widely known or adopted and instead result in pretty much every church or group of churches having their own "confessions" floating around - similar to the "statement of faith" or "what we believe" that you can find at most individual churches, to speak nothing of the various denominational statements - what would be the point?

So I guess my statement on theological thinness is going to have to be the same as a Supreme Court justice when asked for his position on indecency: "I can't come up with a definition for it, but I know it when I see it!"

"It seems some people in this country are vested in continuing to use race as an excuse for failure. "

Are you referring to the legions of white people who claim to have lost jobs, promotions or spots in college because of affirmative action?

And your attempting to draw equivalence between the accident, an isolated incident, that harmed your brother and someone being murdered on purpose and no charges being filed is great. It is even greater that you only limit race problems in this country to the 1960s and 1970s, and completely ignore the 200 years of slavery and segregation prior to that.

Your approach to this issue is extremely problematic and most unhelpful.