Some say "No thanks" to Facebook

Tyson Balcomb quit Facebook after a chance encounter on an elevator. He found himself standing next to a woman he had never met — yet through Facebook he knew what her older brother looked like, that she was from a tiny island off the coast of Washington and that she had recently visited the Space Needle in Seattle.

“I knew all these things about her, but I’d never even talked to her,” said Mr. Balcomb, a pre-med student in Oregon who had some real-life friends in common with the woman. “At that point I thought, maybe this is a little unhealthy.”

As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership: more than 800 million active users around the world, Facebook says, and roughly 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population.

But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try.

One of Facebook’s main selling points is that it builds closer ties among friends and colleagues. But some who steer clear of the site say it can have the opposite effect of making them feel more, not less, alienated.

“I wasn’t calling my friends anymore,” said Ashleigh Elser, 24, who is in graduate school in Charlottesville, Va. “I was just seeing their pictures and updates and felt like that was really connecting to them.”

To be sure, the Facebook-free life has its disadvantages in an era when people announce all kinds of major life milestones on the Web. Ms. Elser has missed engagements and pictures of new-born babies. But none of that hurt as much as the gap she said her Facebook account had created between her and her closest friends. So she shut it down.

Read the rest here.

Don't look for me on Facebook.  You won't find me.

An Update

Back on Dec 1st I posted a news item about the idiot lawyer in Minnesota who filed a legal brief packed with anti-Catholic slurs.  So over the top was it that if I had not double checked the source I would have wagered money that it was from the Onion.  Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bill Donahue of the Catholic League has filed a petition with the state bar to sanction the attorney in question.  And the judge has issued an order for the attorney to show cause why she should not be held in contempt of court and fined $10,000.  Under the circumstances I think the fine rather light, but otherwise I'm on board with the rest.

HT: Lowering the Bar

Anglican Expatriates; Wither now?

Fr. Anthony Chadwick has posted an interesting piece on his excellent blog English Catholic.  It is an invitation from Bishop Roald Flemestad of the Nordic Catholic Church for those traditional Anglicans seeking a new home to consider his church. Now I have no real objection to anyone tooting their own church's horn and putting out the welcome mat. But I do find it interesting that this piece which was originally published by Forward in Faith, a highly regarded Trad Anglican organization, is being treated as seriously at is. Here we have huge numbers of people who have slaughtered entire forests and filled up gazillions of Gigabytes online with the endless debate over the merits of entering into communion with Rome, and now there is serious discussion among some of the PNCC or the Nordic Catholic Church? And yet there has been one thing notable for its absense in all of the discussion among disaffected Anglicans on the subject of where to go, which I addressed in the following comment.

I find it curious that so many Anglicans who come to the realization that their communion is self destructing, fail to consider one of the most obvious potential answers to the question “wither now?” For those with a Protestant mindset and who seek “a church” there are no shortage of options. Pick one. But for those possessed of a catholic mindset, which is to say those seeking “The Church,” I would think one’s choices are essentially limited, Rome or Orthodoxy. And yet for all the debate (ad infinitum) of the pro’s and con’s of entering communion with Rome, it is passing far beyond rare to see an even remotely serious discussion of Orthodoxy. All of which leaves me to wonder why the more or less universal dismissal of the the world’s second largest communion, one with a credible claim to catholicity at least as sound as Rome’s? A dismissal,that again, appears to be so universally accepted as to not even warrant sober discussion.

What if Greece abandons the Euro?

LONDON — It would be Europe’s worst nightmare: after weeks of rumors, the Greek prime minister announces late on a Saturday night that the country will abandon the euro currency and return to the drachma.

Instead of business as usual on Monday morning, lines of angry Greeks form at the shuttered doors of the country’s banks, trying to get at their frozen deposits. The drachma’s value plummets more than 60 percent against the euro, and prices soar at the few shops willing to open.

Soon, the country’s international credit lines are cut after Greece, as part of the prime minister’s move, defaults on its debt.

As the country descends into chaos, the military seizes control of the government.

Read the rest here.

Russian Orthodox Church Adds Voice to Calls for Election Reform

MOSCOW — The Russian Orthodox Church added its influential voice over the weekend to calls for a just election process in Russia. The step followed demonstrations across the country that called for a recount or a fresh vote, and outpourings from individual members of the church’s clergy, who reflected popular anger at the flawed Dec. 4 election.

“It is evident that the secretive nature of certain elements of the electoral system concerns people, and there must be more public control over this system,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the most prominent spokesman for the church, in remarks to a widely followed Orthodox news Web site. “We must decide together how to do this through civilized public dialogue.”

The pronouncement by Father Chaplin, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s synodal department of church and society relations, was especially significant because he is often criticized as an apologist for the Kremlin. He has made several conservative statements in the past year, including a call for an Orthodox dress code in Russia, that have stirred controversy.

In a telephone interview on Sunday night, Father Chaplin said that if the church obtained proven documentation of election violations from named sources, it would be ready to take it up with government officials.

“If there are proven facts, then of course we’re going to examine them, present them to the church hierarchy and discuss them with the Central Election Commission and other government bodies,” he said.

Father Chaplin’s remarks to the Web site appeared intended to get the church back out in front of individual clergy members’ condemnations of election rigging, a first for the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church. The comments might suggest the government is accommodating the critique of the political system, perhaps because it has become too widespread to stifle.

“It’s amazing that this awakening of civic consciousness has affected the church as well, and not just lay people but clergy, too,” Sergei Chapnin, editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, said last week, on the sidelines of a seminar about Russia’s historical identity, before the new statement by Father Chaplin.

Read the rest here.

1928: Al Smith and the great anti-Catholic hysteria

Click on photo to enlarge.

...The response to this belief was public and private, during a campaign that lasted only two months, from September to November. Yet feelings were so strong that they swirled into a hurricane of abuse, a crescendo of fear and hate blasting through eight weeks. The school board of Daytona Beach, Fla., sent a note home with every student. It read simply: “We must prevent the election of Alfred E. Smith to the Presidency. If he is elected President, you will not be allowed to have or read a Bible.” Fliers informed voters that if Smith took the White House, all Protestant marriages would be annulled, their offspring rendered illegitimate on the spot.

Opponents blanketed the country with photos of the recently completed Holland Tunnel, the caption stating that this was the secret passage being built between Rome and Washington, to transport the pope to his new abode. Countless copies of a small cartoon appeared on lampposts and mailboxes everywhere. Titled “Cabinet Meeting — If Al Were President,” it showed the cabinet room, with the pope seated at the head of the table, surrounded by priests and bishops. Over in the corner was Al Smith, dressed in a bellboy’s uniform, carrying a serving platter, on top of which was a jug of whiskey. Summing up, the minister of the largest Baptist congregation in Oklahoma City announced, “If you vote for Al Smith you’re voting against Christ and you’ll all be damned.”

The Ku Klux Klan became actively involved in preventing a Catholic from ever getting near the White House, going all out to defeat Smith. One Klan leader mailed thousands of postcards after Democrats nominated the New Yorker, stating firmly, “We now face the darkest hour in American history. In a convention ruled by political Romanism, anti-Christ has won.” A Klan colleague in remote North Manchester, Ind., warned his audience, in booming tones, of the imminent arrival of the pope: “He may even be on the northbound train tomorrow! He may! He may! Be warned! America is for Americans! Watch the trains!” When I interviewed Hugh L. Carey, only the second Roman Catholic governor of New York, for my Smith biography, he remembered Klan parades in Hicksville when he was 9 years old and how frightened he was, because “there was a real anti-Catholic sentiment.”

Read the rest here.

Austerity waits in the wings as America delays the debt crunch

2011 began with Congress digesting a report called The Moment of Truth. Commissioned by President Barack Obama and co-authored by two experienced Washington hands, its 66 pages pulled few punches.

America's debt was the greatest threat to the country's national security, it argued, before laying out a comprehensive plan to cut it. As the year draws to an end, and the report gathers dust, it is hard to escape the irony that the Pentagon is now facing a $500m (£319m) cut to its own budget from the start of 2013. That the Defence Department is in the line of fire sums up a year of failure by politicians to confront a national debt that quietly passed the $15 trillion mark last month. It's been a two-part failure and is worth briefly recapping.

In early August, Congress just avoided default by raising the country's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. As part of that deal, $900m in cuts were agreed on and a committee established to find another $1.2 trillion of savings by the end of November. Failure to do so would trigger automatic cuts in government spending, including the Pentagon. A day before the Thanksgiving holiday, the committee's 12 members admitted they couldn't agree.

Bond investors haven't blinked at the lack of progress this year. The yield on the 10-year US government bond has hovered close to a record low for the past six months. Many on this side of the Atlantic know that the explanation for the bond market's leniency lies in Europe.

Unsure whether the euro will survive, global investors have poured money into the US Treasury market. Analysts at Bank of America estimate that the yield on the 10-year bond would be half a percentage point higher without Europe's woes.

But with 2012 coming into view, there's an uneasy recognition in Washington and on Wall Street that America's reckoning on the deficit is moving closer. "We've seen a lot of European countries take a bath this year," said Bill Frenzel, the former top Republican on the House of Representatives Budget Committee. "For a country that can't pay our bills, it's miraculous that our interest rates haven't gone up. It can't last," he says.

Read the rest here.

Say it aint so! National League MVP Ryan Braun Busted In Dope Test

According to Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn of ESPN.com, Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun has tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

Braun, who won the 2011 National League MVP Award, is disputing the result through arbitration. If it is upheld, he will face a 50-game suspension.

It should be noted that Major League Baseball has not once overturned the result of a PED test.

Read the rest here.

Russians rally against Putin and corruption

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Russians walked purposefully to a square in the center of Moscow on Saturday, speaking up against their authoritarian government after years of silence and marking a dividing point in the rule of Vladimir Putin.

People raised their voices in cities and towns across the country, an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 in Moscow, another 10,000 in St. Petersburg. In a buoyant mood, they celebrated a widespread feeling that something had changed as they gathered in the largest opposition protests Putin has ever encountered.

While no one was calling it a revolution — bloggers dubbed it The Great December Evolution — protesters demanded free elections and called for their leaders to listen to them. Organizers promised to hold an even bigger rally on Dec. 24.

Putin no doubt will win the presidency in March, putting him in position to rule for another 12 years. But by the end of the demonstration, change had already begun. Heavily armored police stood silently and respectfully and made no arrests here, unlike earlier in the week. Two government-owned television stations, Channel One and NTV, broadcast straightforward reports of the demonstration after ignoring the others over the last week. And in a message from his jail cell, blogger Alexei Navalny told Russians they had brought about the most important transformation simply by standing in the square.

Read the rest here.

The End of Canterbury

The archbishop of Canterbury is going to resign next year. At least that’s the story making the rounds of newspapers in London, and the interesting part is not that the 61-year-old Rowan Williams should be willing to give up another decade in the job. Or even, if the Telegraph is right, that the clergy and his fellow bishops are working to push him out.

No, the interesting news about the looming resignation is how little attention anyone appears to be paying to it. The Church of England just doesn’t seem to matter all that much, fading from the world’s stage only slightly more slowly than the British Empire that planted it across the globe.

Theological consequences will follow the dwindling of Anglican identity—the claim, ever since Queen Elizabeth I, that the Church of England represents the great middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism. Ecclesiological consequences, as well, will follow the end of Anglican unity: the disappearance of a coherent, worldwide denomination, led by the archbishop of Canterbury, for those who hold a certain moderate form of Christian belief.

Christianity will survive in other forms, of course, both theologically and denominationally. In the long run, the great tragedy of the fading of Canterbury and the looming breakup of the Anglican communion may be the geopolitical consequences—fraying the already weak ties between the global South and Western civilization.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Supreme Court blocks redistricting plan for Texas

The Supreme Court Friday night blocked a redistricting plan for Texas drawn by a panel of federal judges, putting the justices in the middle of a partisan battle over how the state’s electoral maps should change to recognize the state’s burgeoning minority population.

Texas had objected to the judicially drawn maps, which analysts said would increase chances for Democrats and minorities, and favored maps drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature. Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) requested the Supreme Court’s intervention; the justices will hear arguments Jan. 9.

Read the rest here.

Five myths about Ron Paul

Ron Paul is the Rodney Dangerfield of Republican presidential candidates. The 12-term Texas congressman ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket back in 1988 and was widely seen as a sideshow in 2008, despite finishing third in the GOP field behind John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Why, despite a small but devoted set of supporters, does this 76-year-old obstetrician turned politician routinely get no respect from the media and GOP operatives? Let’s take a look at what “Dr. No” — a nickname grounded in his medical career and his penchant for voting against any bill increasing the size of government — really stands for.

1. Ron Paul is not a “top-tier” candidate.

At some point in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the mainstream media became more obsessed than usual with designating GOP hopefuls as “top-tier” candidates, meaning “people we want to talk about because we find them interesting or funny or scary.” Or more plainly: “anybody but Ron Paul.”

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has been accorded top-tier status from the start, but otherwise it’s been a rogues’ gallery. As their numbers soared, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and pizza magnate Herman Cain enjoyed stints in the top tier, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich is now ensconced in that blessed circle.

Back in August, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) was designated “top tier” after winning Iowa’s Ames Straw Poll.Paul was not, despite losing to her by only about 150 votes. And when Paul won the presidential straw poll of about 2,000 attendees at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit in Washington in October, the contest’s organizer pronounced him “an outlier in this poll.”

Yet Paul is doing increasingly well in national and state-level polls. He’s running in second place in Iowa ahead of the Jan. 3 caucuses and third in the New Hampshire primary — the first two contests for the GOP nomination. And now that Cain has dropped out, Paul’s stock is likely to keep climbing. The congressman is no less a top-tier candidate than anyone else in the race.

2. Ron Paul is a doctrinaire libertarian.

Yes, he once ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket and was accurately described by New York Times columnist Gail Collins last month as against “gun control, the death penalty, the C.I.A., the Civil Rights Act, prosecuting flag-burners, hate crime legislation, foreign aid, the military draft under any circumstances, campaign finance reform, the war on drugs, the war on terror and the war on porn.” But Paul parts company with many libertarians on many issues.

These include immigration, where he favors ending birthright citizenship and reducing the number of newcomers until the welfare state is dismantled. Paul says abortion law should be settled at the state level, but in Congress in 2005, 2007, 2009 and this year he introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, which would define life as beginning at conception.

In theory he supports free-trade agreements, but he votes against them, dismissing them as “managed trade.” He’s known for adding earmarks to spending bills he votes against, thus bringing home pork while maintaining his “Dr. No” credentials. As a result, says David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute, Paul is “an imperfect messenger” for libertarians’ small-government gospel.

3. Ron Paul’s call to “end the Fed” is crazy.

Paul’s 2009 “End the Fed” manifesto pretty much gives away the plot in the title. But the book sold well and drew respectful notices not just from folk singer Arlo Guthrie and actor Vince Vaughn, but also from the likes of media magnate and former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes. “History,” Forbes wrote in a review of Paul’s book, “will judge that Paul had it right when it came to the Fed and its often misbegotten monetary policies.” David Stockman, the former Republican congressman and Reagan budget director, has said that “our monetary system is out of control” and that Paul is the “one guy who understands it.”

Read the rest here.

Somebody goofed

I just checked three different weather sites and all of them are reporting the current temperature in Modesto CA as one (1) degree above zero.  Granted it's chilly out.  But it aint no wheres near zero.  I seriously doubt it has ever gotten that cold here for as far back as they have records.  The projected low tonight is 32.  My guess is someone at the airport or wherever they record the temperature for the weather people missed a digit, probably the number four, that should have gone before the one.  I wonder how long before someone catches the ooops.

A Risk Once Unthinkable

Are customer accounts at brokerage firms safe?

Until the collapse of MF Global, that’s a question I thought I’d never have to ask.

Brokerage firms are required by law to maintain segregated accounts holding all client assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money market funds and cash. The law was passed after the 1929 crash, in the depths of the Depression, to make sure that customer assets were there at all times, ready to be disbursed even if everyone asked for their money at once.

This obligation to protect customer assets “is considered sacrosanct,” Robert Cook, director of the division of trading and markets at the Securities and Exchange Commission, told me this week. “It’s considered a sacred obligation.”

Lehman Brothers may have engaged in many foolhardy practices, but even in the firm’s last days, when officials were desperate for cash, no one dared touch customer assets, which remained safely segregated despite the firm’s collapse.

And then came the revelation that an estimated $1.2 billion in customer assets had vanished at MF Global, the large brokerage and futures trading firm headed by Jon S. Corzine, the former Goldman Sachs executive and Democratic politician, that collapsed in late October after a catastrophic bet on European sovereign debt.

How could such a thing happen? I had always assumed it was impossible and that strict internal controls existed at all brokerage firms so that firm officials couldn’t tap segregated customer funds even if they were willing to break the law. Thanks to MF Global, it’s now apparent that isn’t necessarily true. “If people are determined to misuse customer funds, they will misuse them,” said Ananda Radhakrishnan, the director of the division of clearing and risk at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

Read the rest here.

Europe: Major Bank Failures Are Imminent

Senior analysts and traders warned of impending bank failures as a summit intended to solve the European crisis failed to deliver a solution that eased concerns over bank funding.

The European Central Bank admitted it had held meetings about providing emergency funding to the region's struggling banks, however City figures said a "collateral crunch" was looming.

"If anyone thinks things are getting better then they simply don't understand how severe the problems are. I think a major bank could fail within weeks," said one London-based executive at a major global bank.

Read the rest here

As Europe Moves Toward Stronger Union Britain Holds Out; Risking Isolation

BRUSSELS — A landmark summit of the 27-nation European Union ended here Friday with both a pledge and wedge: A pledge among nations to work toward a new treaty binding them more closely together in a pact to save the euro, and a wedge between the continent and Britain, which opted to sit it out.

In a summit portrayed by leaders as a make-or-break moment in the decades-long march toward European unity following World War II, the outcome signaled the growing clout of Germany and a potentially wayward path for Britain.

The veto by British Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative euro-skeptic who cherishes the pound and looks askance at heavy-handed European regulations in British affairs, underscored his nation’s long unease with relinquishing national powers to the E.U. and left London isolated in a region now moving toward deeper integration without it. His move left Britain’s Guardian newspaper asking, “Will it be Splendid Isolation, or Miserable?”

Read the rest here.

Why don't we form some sort of loose confederation consisting primarily of the English speaking nations of the world like the US, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and some of the Caribbean states?  It could promote free trade and commerce within the confederation while respecting national sovereignty.  It could also provide a purely defensive military alliance that would replace many of the globalist organizations like NATO that have become instruments for interventionist foreign policies.

Russia braces for massive anti-Putin protests

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities are allowing the opposition to hold a massive Moscow protest against election fraud following a violent police crackdown on unsanctioned demonstrations earlier this week, rally organizers said Friday.

The decision to let up to 30,000 protesters rally on Saturday on a square across the river from the Kremlin appears to be an attempt to avoid the violence that occurred at demonstrations after last Sunday's parliamentary election.

Election authorities on Friday officially declared the vote valid, handing the victory to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. The party won 49 percent of the vote, but was granted 53 percent of seats in the lower house of Parliament because of votes redistributed from the three parties that did not meet the 5 percent threshold.

Russia's opposition parties and observers said that even that result was highly inflated because of vote rigging, and international monitors also pointed to ballot stuffing.

Read he rest here.

Huge Bank Accused of Gouging Customers

The accusations are as outrageous as they are plentiful: Hundreds of “robocalls” -- in one case, 800 to a single person -- to collect auto loan debts; illegal repossession of cars from active duty military deployed overseas; late fees assessed three years after the fact and then compounded into $2,000 or $3,000 bills; harassing calls to friends, neighbors, co-workers -- even children -- on cell phones. And now, a flurry of lawsuits filed around the country, and lawyers fighting over potential clients.

The defendant in the lawsuits is Europe’s largest bank, Banco Santander S.A., which is preparing to make a big push into U.S. retail banking. But many Americans already have been introduced to the Spanish financial powerhouse, a first encounter that many liken to a nightmare.

Read the rest here.

Banks are the enemy.

Albert Pujols is moving to California (for $250 Million)

Welcome to California Mr. Pujols. Please ignore the giggling from the state tax office in Sacramento. They are all Angels fans... really.

Last night the buzz coming from the winter meetings was that Albert Pujols wasn’t anywhere near making a decision, but either that was wrong or things changed dramatically overnight.

Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports reports that Pujols has agreed to sign with the Angels, getting a 10-year contract worth between $250 million and $260 million.

Wow. It didn’t take Jerry Dipoto long to make a huge splash as general manager.

Until now Alex Rodriguez was the only player in baseball history to secure a contract in excess of $200 million and according to Brown the massive deal also includes a full no-trade clause, which was something the Marlins reportedly were never willing to give Pujols.

Read the rest here.

Perry bets the house on social conservatives

Rick Perry's campaign has pivoted to make a play for Iowa's socially conservative voters in the closing weeks of the primary campaign.

Perry's campaign, in the midst of a $1 million ad buy in the Hawkeye State, has highlighted the Texas governor's evangelical Christian faith in its two most recent ads.

"[Y]ou don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school," Perry said in his new ad, "Strong," released Wednesday. "As President, I'll end Obama's war on religion. And I'll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage."

In his previous ad, "Faith," he said: "Now some liberals say that faith is a sign of weakness. Well, they're wrong."

The spots appear to be part of an emergent strategy by Perry's campaign to focus on bread-and-butter social conservatism in a last-ditch effort to revive his campaign before Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses, where social issues loom large.

Read the rest here.