Roman Catholic Traddies Dreaming On The Feast of St. Andrew

What if for the Feast of St. Andrew (patron of Constantinople), the Pope had restored the Patriarchate of Constantinople? By appointing a Catholic as Patriarch, that is what Pope Leo XIII did for the venerable Church of St. Mark in Alexandria: "We ... from the plenitude of apostolic power restore the Catholic Patriarchate of Alexandria and establish it for the Copts. ... To us it is most desired that the dissenting Copts look upon the Catholic Hierarchy in truth before God; that is to say the hierarchy which on account of communion with the Chair of Peter and his successors alone can legitimately restore the Church founded by St. Mark, and alone is heir of the entire memory, whatever has been faithfully handed on to the Alexandrian Patriarchate from those ancient forebears." (Acta Sanctae Sedis 28, p. 257-260, anno 1895-1896)

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Some of the comments are quite revealing.

Pretty much everything you eat is associated with cancer, so relax and dig in

It is, perhaps, one of the most common health-care headlines: A new study linking a new food with a cancer risk. Search for “foods associated with cancer” and Google returns 196 million results, including new studies this month on salt, aspartame and high-carb diets.

Well, good news! You probably don’t have to pay much attention to any of those studies: The vast majority of studies purporting to link foods to cancer have incredibly weak associations, often insignificant, according to new research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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Move Update

Good news (for a change); we have been promised that internet will be up and running sometime Monday at the new domicile. Of course we will have to see. But if true, it would mean a very short down time for the blog and email.

Christians, liberals left out as Islamists back Egypt's draft constitution

CAIRO -- Islamists approved a draft constitution for Egypt early Friday without the participation of liberal and Christian members, seeking to pre-empt a court ruling that could dissolve their panel with a rushed, marathon vote that further inflames the conflict between the opposition and President Mohammed Morsi.

The vote by the constituent assembly advanced a charter with an Islamist bent that rights experts say could give Muslim clerics oversight over legislation and bring restrictions on freedom of speech, women's rights and other liberties.

The draft, which the assembly plans to deliver to the president Saturday, must be put to a nationwide referendum within 30 days. Morsi said Thursday it will be held "soon."

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Two-thirds of millionaires left Britain to avoid 50% tax rate

Almost two-thirds of the country’s million-pound earners disappeared from Britain after the introduction of the 50p top rate of tax, figures have disclosed.

In the 2009-10 tax year, more than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs.

This number fell to just 6,000 after Gordon Brown introduced the new 50p top rate of income tax shortly before the last general election.

The figures have been seized upon by the Conservatives to claim that increasing the highest rate of tax actually led to a loss in revenues for the Government.

It is believed that rich Britons moved abroad or took steps to avoid paying the new levy by reducing their taxable incomes.

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Senate Votes to Protect Some From Military Imprisonment

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted late on Thursday to prohibit the government from imprisoning American citizens and green card holders apprehended in the United States in indefinite detention without trial.

While the move appeared to bolster protections for domestic civil liberties, it was opposed by an array of rights groups who claimed it implied that other types of people inside the United States could be placed in military detention, opening the door to using the military to perform police functions.

The measure was an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which is now pending on the Senate floor, and was sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. The Senate approved adding it to the bill by a vote of 67 to 29.

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After UN Vote Israel Authorizes New Settlements In Disputed Lands

JERUSALEM — As the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the Palestinians’ status Thursday night, Israel took steps toward building housing in a controversial area of East Jerusalem known as E1, where Jewish settlements have long been seen as the death knell for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Friday that the decision was made late Thursday night to move forward on “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for housing units in E1, which would connect the large settlement of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and therefore make it impossible to connect the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem to Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Israel also authorized the construction of 3,000 housing units in other parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the official said.

The prime minister’s office refused to comment on whether the settlement expansion — first reported on Twitter by a reporter for the Israeli daily Haaretz — was punishment for the Palestinians’ success in upgrading its status from nonmember observer entity to nonmember observer state at the United Nations, but it was widely seen as such. The United States, one of only eight countries that stood with Israel in voting against the Palestinians’ upgrade, has for two decades vigorously opposed construction in E1, a 3,000-acre expanse of hilly parkland where a police station was opened in 2008.

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Someone explain to me why we are arming a nation engaged in aggressive policies of colonialism and territorial annexation?

Moving - Limited Posting For a While

This weekend I am relocating and anticipate that there will be a period of extremely limited blogging until I get internet service up and running at the new domicile. Likewise expect delays in response to email. Making matters even more fun is that we are expecting some perfectly dreadful weather over the weekend. Why would I have even hoped for anything else?

So yeah, Friday will likely be the last day of regular blogging for a little while. Tomorrow night I am probably going to set all comments for moderation in order to prevent abusive or SPAM posts. Again please be patient if your comment takes a couple of days to get through.

Top 10 Reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained

10. A man’s place is in the army.
9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.
8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.
7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.
5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.
4. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.
1. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.

From blog reader Eric.

White House Sends Leftward Budget Proposals To Congress

WASHINGTON — House Republicans said on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner presented the House speaker, John A. Boehner, a detailed proposal to avert the year-end fiscal crisis with $1.6 trillion in tax increases over 10 years, an immediate new round of stimulus spending, home mortgage refinancing and a permanent end to Congressional control over statutory borrowing limits.

The proposal, loaded with Democratic priorities and short on detailed spending cuts, was likely to meet strong Republican resistance. In exchange for locking in the $1.6 trillion in added revenues, President Obama embraced $400 billion in savings from Medicare and other entitlements, to be worked out next year, with no guarantees.

He did propose some upfront cuts in programs like farm price supports, but did not specify an amount or any details. And senior Republican aides familiar with the offer said those initial spending cuts might well be outnumbered by upfront spending increases, including at least $50 billion in infrastructure spending, mortgage relief, an extension of unemployment insurance and a deferral of automatic cuts to physician reimbursements under Medicare.

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Britain: Judge issues damning report on the press

LONDON — The leader of a major inquiry into the standards of British newspapers triggered by the phone hacking scandal offered an excoriating critique of the press as a whole on Thursday, saying it displayed “significant and reckless disregard for accuracy,” and urged the press to form an independent regulator to be underpinned by law.

The report singled out Rupert Murdoch’s defunct tabloid The News of the World for sharp criticism.

“Too many stories in too many newspapers were the subject of complaints from too many people with too little in the way of titles taking responsibility, or considering the consequences for the individuals involved,” the head of the inquiry, Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson, said in a 46-page summary of the findings in his long-awaited, 1,987-page report published in four volumes.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Sir Brian said, referring to what form new and tighter regulations should take. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

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UN upgrades Palestinian status, bolstering statehood claim

The U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution on Thursday giving implicit recognition to Palestinian statehood despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding funds for the West Bank government.

The resolution, which lifts the Palestinian Authority's U.N. observer status from "entity" to "non-member state," like the Vatican possesses, easily passed the 193-nation General Assembly with 138 nations voting in favor, and nine opposed, including the United States. Forty-one countries abstained, including the United Kingdom.

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China Mafia-Style Hack Attack Drives California Firm to Brink

During his civil lawsuit against the People’s Republic of China, Brian Milburn says he never once saw one of the country’s lawyers. He read no court documents from China’s attorneys because they filed none. The voluminous case record at the U.S. District courthouse in Santa Ana contains a single communication from China: a curt letter to the U.S. State Department, urging that the suit be dismissed.

That doesn’t mean Milburn’s adversary had no contact with him.

For three years, a group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software Inc., Milburn’s family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company’s parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national Internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April.

In between, the hackers assailed Solid Oak’s computer systems, shutting down web and e-mail servers, spying on an employee with her webcam, and gaining access to sensitive files in a battle that caused company revenues to tumble and brought it within a hair’s breadth of collapse.

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HT: MG

Coming Soon: An American 'Downton Abbey'

Julian Fellowes, the creator of the British period drama “Downton Abbey,” has concluded a deal to create a new period drama for NBC based on the Gilded Age of New York City, the network announced on Tuesday.

The new television drama will be produced by the NBC Universal television studio.

In its release, NBC described the series, which will be called “The Gilded Age,” as an “epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance, and the vast fortunes they made — and spent — in late 19th century New York.”

Mr. Fellowes said in a statement, “This was a vivid time with dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king.”

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I suppose it was inevitable, but I have doubts about this. It's an interesting period in history to be sure. My fear though is that this will just be a sort of "Dallas" set in the 1880's instead of a serious exploration of Gilded Age Society. Yes, money and greed were big factors but there were other issues too. It was the age of the industrial revolution and a massive gulf between the plutocrats of Fifth Avenue and the slums and tenements of the Lower East Side. It was the age of remarkable social reform movements from Temperance to Women's Suffrage. And it was also the period when you saw the first wave of political radicalism in the Anarchist movement and later the early Marxists.

The track record of Americans when it comes to period drama is spotty at best. We have had some great ones like Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire. But we also routinely produce lackluster period pieces that can't seem to confine themselves to the era they are supposed to be in or they try to be hybrid soap operas or sitcoms. I remember that an attempt was made to create an the American Upstairs Downstairs in the 70's and it flopped badly.

We will have to see if this is more Edith Wharton or J.R.Ewing in top hat and frock coat.

Now Touring, the Debt Duo, Simpson-Bowles

WASHINGTON — Theirs is an improbable buddy act that is making for unlikely entertainment from campuses to corporations on a most serious subject: the federal debt. The proof of their appeal: some business groups pay them $40,000 each per appearance. Really. To discuss budgets and baselines.

Ladies and gentlemen, coming soon to your city or town (if they have not been there already, and maybe even if they have) are the latest odd couple of politics: the 67-year-old Democratic straight man, Erskine B. Bowles of Charlotte, N.C., and his corny 81-year-old, 6-foot-7 Republican sidekick, Alan K. Simpson of Cody, Wyo.

Since the perceived failure two years ago next week of the bipartisan fiscal commission they led for President Obama, they have been on the road, sometimes solo but often together, perfecting a sort of Off Broadway show that has kept their panel’s recommendations alive, and made them a little money as well.

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BP Is Barred From Taking Government Contracts

WASHINGTON — The United States government has temporarily banned the British oil company BP from new federal contracts, citing the company’s “lack of business integrity.”

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Islamists Drafting Egypt’s Constitution Vow Quick Finish

CAIRO — Leaders of the assembly drafting a new constitution said Wednesday that they would complete their work by the next morning, a move that appeared aimed at trying to defuse a political crisis that has gripped Egypt since the president issued an edict that put his decisions above judicial scrutiny.

If successful, the assembly could make moot the power struggle between President Mohamed Morsi and the courts because the president’s expanded powers were set to expire with the implementation of a new constitution.

But given the heated environment, it seemed just as likely that a draft constitution — one adopted over the objections of the opposition — would instead inflame an escalating political battle between Mr. Morsi and his critics. On Tuesday, the opposition brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets to denounce his attempt to assert a power above the courts and over the Islamist domination of the assembly drafting the national charter. 

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Europe sees US debt crisis as dire as its own

Now it’s Europe’s turn to worry about U.S. economy.

American officials have been wringing their hands for the past two years about the heavy burden of government debt piling up in Europe. On Tuesday, Europe’s Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that the U.S. "fiscal cliff" threatens prospects for the eurozone’s economic recovery.

“We’re talking here about the medium and long-term viability of the United States economy,” OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria told CNBC. “Not only to avoid the fiscal cliff but then get to a moment where (U.S.) debt stops rising and the debt to GDP starts coming down to an area where we call all breathe more comfortably.”

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Yes, the modern world sucks

Asbury Park Summer 1905. The golden age of straw boaters, parasols and the art of the promenade. Click here for full screen size.


Paris at the Exposition Universelle of 1900

Egyptians stage mass protests against Morsi edict

CAIRO — Egyptian opposition forces rallied across the country Tuesday in the biggest show of dissent against the country’s first democratically elected leader since he precipitated a political crisis last week with an apparent bid to assume near-absolute power.

A loose coalition of rights groups, liberals and secularists poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and other public spaces, urging President Mohamed Morsi to rescind a decree he issued Thursday that granted him the authority to legislate without judicial oversight.

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