This just seems a little too end-times-ish for my taste.

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.

But never mind the Biblical implications, let’s just consider this from an "absolute power corrupts absolutely" perspective. Does the Vatican really think that a global authority on money is going to be better than those in any of our individual countries. Given that any institution is staffed by fallible, corruptible humans, what this would do is allow the mistakes and failings of a few to impact the entire planet. This is a better idea?

It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.

Asked at a news conference if the document could become a manifesto for the movement of the “indignant ones”, who have criticised global economic policies, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, said: “The people on Wall Street need to sit down and go through a process of discernment and see whether their role managing the finances of the world is actually serving the interests of humanity and the common good. “We are calling for all these bodies and organisations to sit down and do a little bit of re-thinking.”

I believe it’s the Vatican that needs to do some rethinking. This goes against every single understanding of human nature that the church teaches. Our US founding fathers understood this, which is why they set up distributed government.

Should we be expecting a proposal for one-world government next? 

“The Incredible Shrinking Man” – Daniel Amos, circa 1984
Perhaps a bit prescient. From a LifeSiteNews.com article,

“We have a man problem in American society, and we need to address it,” Bennett said.

Bennett cited figures showing a decline in male participation in the workforce, education, and life commitments.

“Men are not marrying, not making the commitments in the way at they used to,” Bennett added.

“Women have said, women I’ve met, daughters of friends of mine in their 20s and 30s, have said, ‘Where are the men? Where are the men? Where are the men we want to marry, where are the men we want to raise our children with?’”

So, where are the real men?

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Well, here’s one:
28 year-old Christian Camp Director, married father, and foster-father Dustin Ellermann. Also, winner of Top Shot: Season 3. Watch video of the final challenge (skip to 38:45).

From the news link,

With his $100,000 in winnings, he plans to help pay off the new camp chapel, expand camp his way to reach more kids, and find a bigger place so he and his wife can take in more foster kids.

“Some of the guys say this is the biggest accomplishment in their life, but I kind of have a bigger perspective on that and I try to look at how God sees stuff and this is just a manmade accomplishment thing and God helped me through it, but honestly it’s my kids and passing on good things to them and the kids that we minister to here at the camp, that’s what really matters in life because that’s what goes on after I’m dead and gone,” Ellermann said.

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If this helped girls, could it also help boys?

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Nuclear annihilation has been a potentiality for over 50 years now
Why hasn’t it occurred?

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Thinking of homeschooling? What about the issue of “sheltering” your child from the “real world” of public school?
I like one of the points in this article,

Here’s a question for you: When has “the real world” of the school institution ever again entered your life? Does your workplace only hire people from a specific zip code? Do you only hang out with people who were born in the same year as you? When children aren’t compelled to sit in an institution all day, they grow up in the real world.

Good morning.

1. Smash.
2. Improbable headline and for that matter there are several improbable comments in the quoted news article as well, “no damage to entertainment system” … huh?
3. Wanna be published? A call for contributions.
4. A WWI land/sea invasion noted.
5. Customs are surely strange all over.
6. Speaking of strange customs …
7. Washington whipsaw.
8. Learn a new language, real quick.
9. An abortion discussion.
10. Mr Walesa and the OWS movement.
11. That pavement looks perfect.
12. So, “special place in Hell” or “All’s well that end’s well”, which?
13. Aggregate demand and that multiplier (divisor) thing.

Good morning.

1. The LISPers mourn. Noted here too.
2. A tale of two desks (three if you count KDE).
3. Noting a quote from someone somwhere who apparently has never heard of (or read or been influenced by) Mr Burke. Actually, if you think a large group of people with the same culture, same background has a substantial different (and lower quality/amount) human feature like empathy, love or caring of others than does your group … that is tribalism not truth.
4. More seriously, on the subject of conservatism qua conservatism.
5. Once touched never the same.
6. An interesting question raised, how/why that dichotomy of impressions comes about. Is the suggested answer on the right track?
7. Noise abatement and the OWS. Drums?
8. Out on the steppes.
9. Graphic images and self-censure (on a parenthetical note, I have not seen any pictures of Gadafi’s capture or execution and I’m not looking. Why would you?)
10. Poking fun at the President (and his poor arithmetic skills).

To those in the mainstream media, and those not paying attention (typically because they read only the mainstream media), this might be shocking. However, as GetReligion.org points out, it’s rather something of a yawner; the Catholic Church has always supported stem cell research. It’s just that the media conflate embryonic with adult stem cells so often, that to the casual reader it might indeed come as a surprise.

Terry Mattingly has the analysis. His group blog documents how the press covers religion. I’ve put this blog in my list to keep up with, and you should too.

Good morning.

1. Bad parenting … this is not a good name for your child and choosing such a name is beyond despicable.
2. Actually they’re not squirming and have no reason to … because if you read the actual transcript (about half way down the page) you’ll see what claimed as “birtherism” is just really poor yellow journalism. I’m sorry answering “I have no reason to think otherwise” to “Was Mr Obama born in the US” and responding to Mr Trump’s birtherism notions at dinner with “He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue” … if that’s birtherism Mr Schraub, you too are a birther for I daresay you couldn’t honestly answer any differently.
3. Not getting the point of the Declaration of Independence.
4. Occupy devolving? Devolution of sorts seems ineveitable as “occupying Wall Street” to protest injury done by the education establishment seems naive at best.
5. More here.
6. So the left (or at least broad swaths of it) is willing to put forth laws making “abortion for sex selection” illegal in several states now. A curious state for the pro-abortion crowd … to admit that some reasons for abortion might be beyond the pale. I wonder if they dream of slippery slopes?
7. OOoooh, financial predictions shown graphically out to 2080!
8. Yet another really bad historical revisionist movie.
9. Finding consistency.
10. Defense of the cubical.
11. A cornerstone of western philosophy noted.

I participated in a comment thread to a blog post suggesting that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protestors ought to come together and find common ground. It incorporated a Venn diagram of what the two groups think are the source of the problem and the intersection was what they could agree on.

Unfortunately, the diagram is just too simplistic. It equates corporate power with government post, which ignores the fact that much of the power corporations has comes from the government, because the government is susceptible to corruption. Because that’s true, the protest ought to be Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue. Trying to explain that to folks who agree with OWS was an exercise in futility. While buying power is wrong, selling it is worse, and is in fact the root cause of the problem.

One of the commenters, waynefromnaz, who understood this concept, put together a video showing the problem with the Venn diagram, and introducing one of his own that explains the real problem in a much better way. He highlights the fact that corporations aren’t the only ones who buy power, and thus the problem isn’t just that this or that group can buy it, but the main problem is that anyone can buy it, and thus we should go after the group selling it (i.e. government).

Additionally, this exposes the political motivation behind OWS. Why aren’t they protesting the unions that buy power and get special favors? Noticeably absent from the list of those being protested against are typical Democrat supporters. No, they’re concentrating on groups that many consider Republican constituencies. I don’t think that’s by accident.

Here, then, is the video, showing what the real problem is.

Good morning.

1. Permission?
2. LRA and Mr Washington. Related thoughts here.
3. Uhm, what’s the problem? I don’t get it … that saying is very very old.
4. Romney and Cain.
5. Akin to a bank run? Oh, joy.
6. CLASS. I’d like to hear the rational justification for a long term program being “made solvent” by 5 years of payments prior to payouts.
7. Broken tenure.
8. 9 books every geek has read … so what’s missing?
9. Stimulus and the limits of policy.
10. Mr Obama following Mr Nixon?
11. Yikes.
12. I shouldn’t think so. I can’t imagine even Democrats would vote for him.
13. Skewering more ingrained notions? The Red Cardinal rehabilitated?
14. Clever.

Tech Help for Parents
Of course, your technologically-illiterate parents need to be able to navigate safely to such a site… which may in itself require some assistance.

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Like a train through a vegetable market
And you thought it was crowded at your supermarket!

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It’s coming back, in an electric version
And it still looks just as cool as when Marty McFly drove it.

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10 Privacy Tips
I like #8 (and was using it before I read this list)

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Speaking of privacy…
some password tips

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But…
Has Public become the new Private?

Good morning.

1. Don’t walk by, don’t ignore your neighbor.
2. Zombies and the CDC.
3. Abortion, death penalty and certainty.
4. A good essay on climate or pointing out straw man whackers.
5. An OWS problem.
6. Requesting funds.
7. (Outer) Space and narrative.
8. Alcohol and the search engine.
9. Defense and economics … consider the small state.
10. Amateur hour at the White House.
11. The bike named Shadowfax.
12. Duh. It was a bad idea before, during and after.

From Somalia:

Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.

The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.

The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.

“I personally know this family as Christians who used to have secret Bible meetings in their house,” he said.

This comes from the website Compass Direct News, a good source of news about Christian persecution worldwide.

Only in California is a new link spotlight to some of the weirdness found on the Left Coast.

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Stop the Killing! (of coyotes)

After a coyote (or coyotes) began to make dinner out of small dogs and cats in one Anaheim neighborhood, local residents decided to have the animal caught and euthanized. Sounds like a common sense approach, right? Not to animal-rights activists and certain American Indians (aka Native Americans). From the OC Register,

“We want Anaheim and all of Orange County to know that we have lived in harmony with coyotes and other wildlife for generations, and killing coyotes with poison, traps or GPS devices is unfair and upsets the balance of nature,” said Randal Massaro of Victorville, a representative for Union Members for Preservation of Wildlife Worldwide. Massaro describes his organization as an “underground movement of union members” trying to protect nature.

“I am here for nature itself,” said Apache Daklugie Running-Hawk, who said he is a spiritual leader for the Tarasco Nation band of Indians and is based in Lucerne Valley.

“These are our four-legged friends, and this is their land,” he said. “Now they are trying to drive them out, like they drove us (Native Americans) out generations ago. We need to live among them and learn from them.”

Running-Hawk played a song on a Native-American wood flute in a show of “respect and peace” during his comments before the council.

There is some sense in all this nonsense, though. By effectively separating humans from the rest of the animal kingdom (e.g., “this is their land”), there is a blanket admission to the distinctiveness of the human species and, I would argue, the imago Dei.

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Gun Control Marches On

Governor Brown, reportedly a gun owner himself, had 4 anti-gun bills on his desk recently.

AB 809 expands gun registration to include long guns, SB 427 effectively initiates ammunition registration, SB 819 redistributes current gun registration fees, and AB 144 would ban the open carrying of an unloaded handgun.

Unfortunately, he signed three of them into law: AB 809, SB 819, and AB 144. He vetoed SB 427, but only because of a lawsuit against the bill’s predecessor, which was deemed unconstitutional.

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Government doesn’t belong in your home… unless you’re having a Bible Study

A southern California couple is faced with a legal battle after being fined for hosting a Bible Study in their home.

So much for the “separation of church and state.”

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Achoo! – God Bless You

A California student was penalized for uttering the words “God bless you” after someone sneezed.

“The blessing really doesn’t make sense anymore,” Cuckovich explained. “When you sneezed in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. So they were saying, ‘God bless you,’ for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, what you’re doing really doesn’t make sense.”

I wonder if Mr. Cuckovich has ever told anyone good-bye?

Good morning.

1. Is this the sort of corporation that the OWS fellows are up in arms about … why aren’t they, like the Tea Party, then primarily critical of the government. Speaking of which, it seems to me many of these OWSers are complaining that they have large college loans + no prospects for jobs given their particular educational qualifications. It seems to me the “corporation” to lay the blame at is the educational industry with its skyrocketing cost of product and willingness to send out students from its care with no particularly useful skills.
2. Top 1% … and the government teat.
3. Oh, and that growing income disparity? Hmmm.
4. And again, that middle class malaise?
5. Higher taxation and higher revenue.
6. A point missed here.
7. “Never at the same time of course” … and what besides your own conscience stopped you? Nothing, I suspect.
8. Recovery of energy from braking.
9. Cinema!
10. A rider? Hey! That “pushed the amendment to Obamacare that required CLASS to be actuarially sound to be implemented:” should be a Constitutional requirement for Congress.” Just CLASS? Why “Just?” Heck every law they publish should be actuarially sound.
11. Well, I’d vote yes if the drive was to put the above into an Amendment. Otherwise, no.
12. Stupid stupid stupid. Grandma is not the problem.
13. The OWS and anti-Semitism meme dismissed.
14. Pot calls kettle black.
15. Like I said, kettle is black.
16. Some words for the Romney skeptics.
17. Push “post” and go to jail.
18. This will be discussed at the water cooler today.

Good morning.

1. But he/she was a good father (or mother)!? How does one be a bad spouse but good father/mother … good question.
2. Hiding in plain sight.
3. Economics and warfare.
4. Different roads.
5. Dropping expensive regulations.
6. Sandwich.
7. Dueling environmentalists, or bats vs CO2.
8. She turned me into a frog! … well, it got better.
9. Art.

And the Supreme Court case hasn’t even started. No, this unraveling is happening all on its own. From the AP:

At stake is the CLASS Act, a major new program intended to provide affordable long-term care insurance. Last Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration would not proceed with the plan because she has been unable to find a way to make the program financially solvent.

Even before ObamaCare goes into full effect, it’s clear that it was not the money-saving bill it was sold as.

Officials said they discovered they could not make CLASS both affordable and financially solvent while keeping it a voluntary program open to virtually all workers, as the law required. The law mandated that the administration certify CLASS would remain financially solvent for 75 years before putting it into place.

The only way to pay for socialized health care is to mandate it, juwst lke the (in my opinion) unconstitutional individual mandate it. The road to tyranny is paved with good intentions.

Megan McArdle lets us know that this is not, or shouldn’t be, a surprise, and wonders what other "good intentions" are still buried in the bill.

It is of course, great news that the administration has not actually gone forward and implemented an unsustainable program that would have had disastrous effects on the federal budget.  But it’s not great news that HHS has found that the program was just as disastrous as conservatives said it was . . . yet a Democratic Congress, deep in the passion of their historic moment, passed the damn thing anyway.  It’s in fact deeply troubling.  The problems with CLASS were known from day one, but no one listened, because it gave them good numbers to sell their program politically.

Now it turns out that ObamaCare reduces the deficit over ten years by about $70 billion instead of $140 billion.  Only . . . what about all the other stuff that had problems, like the reimbursement cuts that both Medicare’s chief actuary and the head of the CBO warned might very likely prove too deep to sustain medically or politically?  Can we assume that Democrats exercised the same thought and foresight about the other parts of ObamaCare that they did with the CLASS Act?  How come all of those liberal health care wonks that Kevin [Drum] cites were unable to identify the problems with this program before it passed?

This is going to be very, very messy. It needs to be repealed, the sooner the better.