{"id":911,"date":"2010-07-11T08:46:58","date_gmt":"2010-07-11T08:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus.html"},"modified":"2010-07-11T08:46:58","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T08:46:58","slug":"down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus.html","title":{"rendered":"Down with Paul the Psychic Oranje-hating Octopus!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"pauloctopus.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/199\/import\/pauloctopus.jpg\" width=\"460\" height=\"307\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0 auto 20px\" \/><\/span><br \/>\nPaul the Octopus, who lives in a German aquarium, has correctly predicted the winners of Germany&#8217;s last seven World Cup matches, including yesterday&#8217;s third-place victory over Uruguay. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.people.com\/people\/article\/0,,20400686,00.html\">He has selected Spain to beat the Netherlands today in the World Cup final. <\/a> While I am made nervous by this &#8212; apparently the chances that the creature would choose correctly seven times in a row are 1 in 128 &#8212; I look forward today to the Oranje overthrowing the tyranny of the clairvoyant cephalopod in the same way<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Eighty_Years'_War\"> their forefathers cast off the yoke of the Spanish crown<\/a> in the 16th and 17th centuries. May the Lion devour both Spain and Pablo el Pulpo!<br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"hupflag.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/199\/import\/hupflag.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"text-align: center;margin: 0 auto 20px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul the Octopus, who lives in a German aquarium, has correctly predicted the winners of Germany&#8217;s last seven World Cup matches, including yesterday&#8217;s third-place victory over Uruguay. He has selected Spain to beat the Netherlands today in the World Cup final. While I am made nervous by this &#8212; apparently the chances that the creature&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-varia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Down with Paul the Psychic Oranje-hating Octopus! - Rod Dreher<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Down with Paul the Psychic Oranje-hating Octopus! - Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paul the Octopus, who lives in a German aquarium, has correctly predicted the winners of Germany&#8217;s last seven World Cup matches, including yesterday&#8217;s third-place victory over Uruguay. He has selected Spain to beat the Netherlands today in the World Cup final. While I am made nervous by this &#8212; apparently the chances that the creature&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-11T08:46:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/roddreher\/files\/import\/pauloctopus.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rod Dreher\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Down with Paul the Psychic Oranje-hating Octopus! - Rod Dreher","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/roddreher\/2010\/07\/down-with-paul-the-psychic-oranje-hating-octopus.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Down with Paul the Psychic Oranje-hating Octopus! - Rod Dreher","og_description":"Paul the Octopus, who lives in a German aquarium, has correctly predicted the winners of Germany&#8217;s last seven World Cup matches, including yesterday&#8217;s third-place victory over Uruguay. 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