Signs of Deflationary Depression Increase in Europe

All key measures of eurozone inflation fell dramatically in October, stunning the markets and leaving the region dangerously close to a Japan-style deflation trap.

Consumer price inflation (CPI) plunged from 1.1pc to 0.7pc, the lowest since the financial crash in 2008-2009. “This is a massive downward surprise,” said Gizem Kara from BNP Paribas.

A string of debt-crippled states are now sliding into deflation, with Italy buckling over the late summer. The underlying rate is even lower once austerity-linked tax rises are stripped out

The shock data came as EMU-wide unemployment jumped to a record 12.2pc in September, with a further 74,000 people losing their jobs. Youth jobless rates reached 40.2pc in Italy, 57.6pc in Greece and 56.6pc in Spain.

Read the rest here.

Quote of the day...

I am the last person to want to see an end to the Ecumenical Movement, but I have to say that I believe it is important for those of us who belong to the Society of Catholic Priests to be quite honest and open about our desire to see many of our fellow Christians delivered from the clutches of fundamentalist churches which have made of the Bible an idol, into a Church which treasures the Bible and the Tradition and Reason as equally important means for God to reveal himself through Jesus Christ to the world today. And we must be equally (and probably more sorrowfully) willing to proclaim that we are happy to liberate Roman Catholics and Orthodox Church Christians from the misogynistic and homophobic teaching, which is their official line (though thankfully many of their priests hate those teachings privately as much as we do). But why should it have to be private – that is a hypocrisy from which we can deliver them if they will be received into the Episcopal Church.u

-From a sermon preached by Rev. Gordon Reid, Oct 10 2013, St. Clements Church Philadelphia PA.
HT: Dr. Tighe

R.I.P.

Sad news, retired Episcopal Bishop John-David Schofield has reposed. He was one of the good guys who stood tall, refusing accommodation with the heretics in TEo, and was the first to lead his diocese out. Memory eternal.

Italy: The Nation That Crushes Its Young

My son Antonio just turned 21 years old, and I’m worried. Not only is his generation of young Italians grappling with the longest economic slump in modern times, but they also have to deal with us, their fathers and mothers. 

 

I’ve taken to calling us the Generazione Pitone, the Python Generation. We refuse to give ground, and instead slither forward and ingest everything in our path. We have stamina. We are selfish. We have a soundtrack (that’s why Bruce Springsteen is still touring). And now that we’re getting old and retiring, we cost plenty. 

Read the rest here.

Shamelessly stolen from here.

October 25, 2013, the Feast of the Mother of God "Jerusalem", the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Podolsk.

Beleaguered Syrian Christians increasingly targeted by jihadis

DAMASCUS, Syria — Sami Amir is used to the deep echoing rumble of the Syrian army artillery pounding rebel positions on the outskirts of Damascus. It’s the thump of mortars launched from an Islamist-controlled neighborhood that scares him to death.

The mortars have repeatedly hit in his mainly Christian district of Damascus, al-Qassaa, reportedly killing at least 32 people and injuring dozens of others the past two weeks.

Read the rest here.

Obama administration knew millions could not keep their health insurance

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC News that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”

Read the rest here.

Libertarian Humor

See also...
Libertarian ice fishing
24 types of libertarians
Individual responsibility... or why libertarians make bad lifeguards

New York City is Poised to Elect Leftist Mayor

 Bill de Blasio is poised to win the race for mayor of New York City by a historically large margin, powered by optimism that he will bring about change and by overwhelming voter disapproval of the Republican Party. 

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat who is currently the public advocate, leads his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, by 45 points among likely voters, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. That lead, which has remained remarkably consistent in multiple polls over the last six weeks, suggests that Mr. de Blasio could win the most sweeping victory in a mayor’s race since 1985, when Edward I. Koch was re-elected to a third term with a crushing 68-point margin of victory over his opponents.

Read the rest here.

Here we go again...

Antioch withdraws from Episcopal Assemblies and threatens schism with Jerusalem.

See here and here.

Quote of the day...

Honorable Senators,
My sincere thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our institutions. Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Commonwealth and yourselves. And be brief. Above all else, be brief.

- February 1914: The Opening Address of the Massachusetts State Senate by its President, Calvin Coolidge.

Yes. That's the whole speech.

Forget the rest of the country; in Texas Ted Cruz is a hero

...Cruz may be the most reviled man in the U.S. Senate at the moment, not least among his Republican colleagues. He was the face and voice of the government shutdown strategy that brought the nation to the brink of default on its debt and left his party with its lowest poll ratings ever, while doing nothing to halt the implementation of the new health-care law.

But back in Texas, there is a different reality.

During the past week, Cruz has been greeted as a conquering hero, with a round of triumphal public appearances and welcome-home rallies such as the one that Alford attended Monday night in Houston, which was hastily arranged by the King Street Patriots tea party group.

Even more extraordinary is the degree to which the freshman senator — who until 2012 had never run for public office — has quickly remade the Texas Republican Party in his own image.

Read the rest here.

Congress and the perpetual copyright lobby

For most of history, a great character or story or song has passed from its original creator into the public domain. Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and Beethoven are long dead, but Macbeth and Oliver Twist and the Fifth Symphony are part of our shared cultural heritage, free to be used or re-invented by anyone on the planet who is so inclined. But 15 years ago this Sunday, President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which retroactively extended copyright protection. As a result, the great creative output of the 20th century, from Superman to "Gone With the Wind" to Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue," were locked down for an extra 20 years.

It was a windfall to the families and corporations that owned these lucrative copyrights. But it meant these iconic works would be off-limits to those who wanted to reuse or reinvent them without permission. And hundreds of thousands of lesser-known works aren’t available at all, because there's no cost-effective way to obtain permission to republish them.

The copyright extension Clinton signed will expire in five years. Copyright holders like the Disney Corp. and the Gershwin estate have a strong incentive to try to extend copyright extension yet further into the future. But with the emergence of the Internet as a political organizing tool, opponents of copyright extension will be much better prepared. The question for the coming legislative battle on copyright is who will prevail: those who would profit from continuing to lock up the great works of the 20th century, or those who believe Bugs Bunny should be as freely available for reuse as Little Red Riding Hood.

Read the rest here.

Russia's “protectorate” over Middle Eastern Christians

The Kremlin is about to consider granting citizenship to about 50 thousand Syrian Christians in the region of Qualamun after they issued a collective request to Moscow’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In statements issued in the past few days, the spokesmen for President Putin and the Ministry confirmed that the request is being examined by the highest Russian authorities. “This is the first time since Christ’s birth that we, the Christians of Saidnaya and Maara Saidnaya, Maalula and Maarun are being threatened with expulsion from our land.”

The letter was full of praise for Putin’s Russia, which was described as a “powerful factor for global peace and stability”. But its remarks about western countries were less flattering: “the aim of the terrorists who are being supported by the West, is to eliminate our presence in our homeland. They use the most abhorrent methods to achieve this, murdering ordinary people for example.”

Read the rest here.

A quick update

Mom is out of the hospital and is doing much better. She had lost a great deal of blood ( her hemoglobin level was down to around 5) from post surgical complications. After some heavy duty blood transfusions and several days of tests they sent her home.

Thanks for the many prayers.

Limited Posting

Mom's back in the hospital... very limited posting for a while.

Pope Francis Moves to Clean Up Vatican Bank

VATICAN CITY — Seven months after ascending the throne of Saint Peter, Pope Francis is in the midst of a crusade against the sins of Vatican City.

Since succeeding Benedict XVI, Francis has publicly sought to transform the tone of his office, extending surprise olive branches to everyone from gays and lesbians to professed atheists. But much more quietly, Vatican officials and observers say, the new pontiff has also begun to alter the atmosphere inside the Holy See, taking steps to shed light on the notoriously opaque Vatican Curia.

Read the rest here.

Obamacare website costs approaching $300 million

The government contract for the company that built the glitch-prone website for Obamacare has ballooned to three times its original cost, and some Republicans are demanding the resignation of the cabinet secretary who oversees it.

Since its launch, on Oct. 1, the site has been plagued by crashes as Americans to try log on and enroll for health insurance. The Obama administration has conceded that the launch has been rockier than it had hoped.

The U.S. arm of a Canadian company, CGI, had the biggest role of the many contractors that worked on the rollout. It won the contract in October 2011. At the time, it had an estimated cost of up to $94 million. By May of this year, that cost ceiling had swelled to $292 million.

Read the rest here.

If the GOP had not gone off on their Thelma and Louise road trip they could have had a field day with stuff like this. They strike me as a party determined to always and everywhere seek new ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In the meantime, instead of wall to wall coverage of the train wreck that is Obamacare, all we are getting is endless discussion of how much the general public now loathes the GOP because of their idiotic efforts to hold the country, and to some degree the world, hostage to their political agenda.

ACNA Keeps the Filioque

The decision to keep the filioque clause in “Texts for Common Prayer” represents a victory of common sense over special interests writes George Conger and is a mark of the political and theological maturity of the Anglican Church of North America.

Read the rest here.
HT: T-19

In the grand scheme of things this is neither surprising nor especially significant. Anglican deviations from Orthodoxy are innumerable, irrespective of the Filioque. But there has always been a certain clique within Orthodoxy that believes that at least some Anglicans really are only a bit removed from us and if we could just get them to make that all important symbolic change then we would be on the road to some sort of corporate reunion with a part of the Western Church. I have long suspected former Met. Jonah was among them.

In any event, this should put paid to these delusions, at least until the next Anglican splinter group pops up.