Ok, I'll take pilgrim's challenge. :-)

"God is Soverign" theology holds another major tenet. All is done for God's glory, to reveal who He is, and to glorify Himself. Some events glorify His love and mercy, and others glorify His awesome holiness for example.

All of redemptive history was planned, executed, and recorded to reveal and display God's glory. It was never about "choice" or discovery on His part, but a progressive revelation of who He is to us.

When the bible describes God as "testing" us, the test is not for Him to "learn" anything, but to reveal something to us that He already knows.

The purpose of the scouts was exactly as you say, to inform the people, and to cause exactly the reaction planned from the beginning, so that more of God would be revealed. The real purpose was to reveal their lack of faith of course. A powerful demonstration that witnessing miracles cannot impart faith. Kinda destroys the whole "miracle-evangelism" thing don't you think?

Predestination does not convert people into dominoes or automatons, that is fatalism and is a misunderstanding of predestination.

Even though God planned everything from the beginning, we are still responsible for our actions. Our will, while not so free as we might imagine, is still culpable when we sin.

The second question is about God getting angry, repenting of making man, and Moses "talking" Him out of it.

Again this was a planned scene to reveal both God's holiness, or hatred of sin (lack of faith in this case), and His mercy and lovingkindness. It is one of the greatest examples of intercessory prayer in the Bible, and as such was done for our edification. Paul writes millenia later in the New Testament that all scripture is for the purpose of edifying us, the elect.

God regularly manipulates people and events to achieve His purposes, nothing escapes, all is according to plan, including your presence here in this forum.

Welcome, btw. :-)

Allow me to be the first to recommend the great Calvinists themselves as the best sources on Calvinism, such as Spurgeon, Edwards, Arthur Pink, and of course Calvin himself.

All of them can be had freely on the internet:
www.spurgeon.org
www.jonathanedwards.com
www.pbministries.org/books/pink/pinks_archive.htm
www.ccel.org/c/calvin

- Kurt