The two surveys tested the impact of meetings on employees in two different contexts – at the end of a specific day and in general, by examining the number of meetings employees had in a typical week.

The study finds that for some individuals meetings function as interruptions and for others they are welcome events. The effects of meetings on worker well-being is "moderated" by three different factors – by whether jobs specifically require group work, by whether the meetings were efficiently run, and, perhaps critically, by where the worker falls on the personality scale of her/his "accomplishment striving."

"People differ on this accomplishment striving personality scale," Rogelberg explained. "In general, you can think of people who are high in accomplishment striving are those individuals who are very task-focused, who are very goal-focused, who have goals and objectives for the day that they want to get accomplished. People who have low accomplishment striving are not slackers, though -- they are just individuals with a much more flexible orientation to work and like to allow the agenda for the day to emerge much more naturally."

The study finds that people who are high in accomplishment striving are predictably and negatively impacted by meetings, particularly when they are frequent. Numerous short meetings have a greater impact on their well-being than a few long meetings taking the same amount of time.

# posted by Squach : 8:36 PM   |  0 comments

In November, the judge refused to toss out the lawsuits, but said the taxpayer groups had a high legal hurdle to prove the voter-approved agency was "clearly, positively and unmistakably unconstitutional."

# posted by Squach : 8:34 PM   |  0 comments

These first hints of new European steadfastness are in striking contrast to reactions (or the lack of them) only a short time ago. In Nov. 2003, for example, a young French Jewish DJ, Sébastien Selam, was approached by his Muslim neighbor, Adel Boumedienne, in their building's underground garage. Boumedienne slit Selam's throat, gouged out his eyes with a carving fork and then ran upstairs and told his mother, "I killed my Jew, I will go to paradise." In the two years before the murder, the Selam family had been repeatedly harassed by their neighbors for being Jewish.

As with the perpetrators of other attacks on French Jews in recent years, Boumedienne was clearly inspired by the most vicious anti-Semitism. Yet the case was barely commented on in the French media and there was no response of any significance from the French government.

The reaction this month to the murder of another young French Jew, Ilan Halimi, has been very different. After some initial dragging of feet and evasiveness, the authorities and the media have been altogether more resolute in recognizing the anti-Semitic aspects of the case.

# posted by Squach : 5:14 PM   |  0 comments

Despite steady rumors that the Vatican would use Microsoft's Stained Glass Windows, the Pope instead announced at a special audience the selection of Red Hat Linux. The Vatican will release their own distro of Linux on April 4 the feast day of St. Isidore of Seville the proposed patron saint of computers, computer users, and computer programmer. The proposed number of servers will be set to 120 as established established by Pope Paul VI of venerated memory (c.f. Computatrum Ligamen)

# posted by Squach : 1:30 PM   |  0 comments

It is an exchange that Mr. Shim considers a telling example of why the Kamehameha Schools, a highly rated private institution with campuses on three islands, must maintain its contentious policy of admitting only native Hawaiians. Otherwise, says Mr. Shim, president of the school's Association of Teachers and Parents, many disadvantaged Hawaiians will not get a decent education.

"We're not done serving our kids the way we need to, to serve the Hawaiian population," said Mr. Shim, a graduate whose daughter is a junior at the main Kapalama campus.

Mr. Shim and other Kamehameha supporters were heartened this week when a federal appeals court in San Francisco agreed to reconsider a ruling last August that declared the school's admissions policy in violation of a Reconstruction-era law, the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

# posted by Squach : 10:34 PM   |  0 comments

Imagine a person who observes Sabbath, but it has no meaning to him — no taste. The only thing that keeps him doing it is guilt, or respect for the tradition, or simply habit. Without his understanding the meaning behind the observance, it will eventually stop sooner or later, in this generation or the next.

An experience I had working with a Jewish youth group describes how this translates down the line to the grandchildren. I was hired to try to rejuvenate interest for Judaism among the participants, and I thought a "Sabbath Experience" would be a great idea. So I presented my plan to one of the chapter presidents, a girl of about 16 or 17. She looked at me in total shock. "Sabbath!" she exclaimed incredulously. "Do you mean no tearing toilet paper?" This was the first thing that came to her mind. I said "Sabbath" and she thought "toilet paper." So in jest I said, "Yes! Haven't you ever tried that? For thousands of years Jews get together, put a roll of toilet paper on a table, sit around the table and chant, 'Don't tear it, don't tear it!'" She looked at me with an expression that said "Is this guy for real?" And then she said, "You know, I always wanted to ask a rabbi, 'are you allowed to flush on Sabbath?'" Imagine this is the question she always wanted to ask a rabbi.

# posted by Squach : 8:38 PM   |  0 comments

FIFTY years ago today, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a "secret speech" at the 20th Communist Party Congress that changed both his country and the world. By denouncing Stalin, whose God-like status had helped to legitimize Communism in the Soviet Bloc, Khrushchev began a process of unraveling it that culminated in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This great deed deserves to be celebrated on its anniversary.

But it is also a good time to ponder this question: What are we to think of a leader whose great deeds do not bring about the consequences intended? It is a question worth consideration by all leaders — particularly Khrushchev's current heir, Vladimir Putin, who has tried to bring his nation into the 21st century by wielding the autocratic hand of a 19th-century czar.

After all, Khrushchev sought to save Communism, not to destroy it. By cleansing it of the Stalinist stain, he wanted to re-legitimize it in the eyes of people not just in the Soviet sphere but around the globe. Yet within weeks after the secret speech, at Communist Party meetings called to discuss it, criticism of Stalin rippled way beyond Khrushchev's, including indictments not just of Stalin himself but of the Soviet system that spawned him. Others sprang to Stalin's defense, especially in his native Georgia, where at least 20 pro-Stalin demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police.

In Eastern Europe, the unintended consequences of Khrushchev's speech were even more shattering. A huge strike in the Polish city of Poznan in June was put down at a cost of at least 53 dead and hundreds wounded. Then, of course, the revolution in Hungary in October was smashed by Soviet forces, leaving more than 20,000 Hungarians dead.

# posted by Squach : 8:22 PM   |  0 comments

Vatican, Feb. 22 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) encouraged the study of the Latin language during his public audience on February 22.

At the conclusion of his prepared remarks, the Pope followed his usual pattern by greeting different groups that were in attendance at the Wednesday audience. Switching into Latin-- a language which, he noted, is not generally used in these sessions-- the Pontiff welcomed the faculty of the Classics department in Rome's Salesian University.

"My predecessors rightly encouraged the study of that great language," the Pope said, noting that mastery of Latin helps students to attain "a better understanding of the sound doctrine" found in classical sources. He said that the study of Latin should be encouraged for "as many people as possible."

# posted by Squach : 12:05 AM   |  0 comments

Cardinal Angelo Sodano (bio - news), speaking to reporters at a reception in Rome on Monday evening, avoided any specific reference to the Danish cartoons which have been a focal point of anger in the Islamic world. But the implications of his statements were evident.

Christians should not claim a "freedom to offend," the cardinal said. But others should not claim "the freedom to destroy us."

Cardinal Sodano said that governments have an important role to play in "defending the reciprocity" that should exist on questions of religious freedom. He suggested that the topic of religious liberty for minority groups should be brought up in negotiations with Islamic countries.

# posted by Squach : 12:34 PM   |  0 comments

Three of the new cardinals will be members of the Roman Curia:
Archbishop William Levada, the American prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pope's own successor in that role.
Archbishop Franc Rodé, the Slovenian prefect of the Congregation for Religious
Archbishop Agostino Vallini, the Italian prefect of the supreme tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Nine of the new cardinals will be heads of major archdioceses, most of them traditionally considered "cardinalatial sees." They are:
Archbishop Carlo Caffarra of Bologna, Italy
Archbishop Antonio Canizares Llovera of Toledo, Spain
Archbishop Nicolas Cheong-Jin-Suk of Seoul, South Korea
Archbishop Stanislas Dziwisz of Krakow, Poland, the longtime personal secretary to Pope John Paul II
Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston, US
Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, France, the president of the French episcopal conference
Archbishop Gaudencio B. Rosales on Manila, the Philippines
Archbishop Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino of Caracas, Venezuela
Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun of Hong Kong, China

Finally the Pope selected three clerics who are not now acting as bishops, who will receive the red hat in recognition for their years of service to the Church. All three are over the age of 80, and thus will never participate in a papal conclave. They are:
Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the archpriest of the Roman basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, a veteran Vatican diplomat and member of a noted Italian family.
Archbishop Peter Poreku Dery, the retired Archbishop of Tamale, Ghana, who is 87.
Father Albert Vanhoye, the French Jesuit who was rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institue and secretary to the Pontifical Biblical Commision.

There are no major surprises on the Pope's list of new cardinals. The selection of Bishop Zen, while not unexpected, is a strong statement of support for a prelate who has been outspoken in his criticism of Chinese restrictions on religious freedom. The choice of Archbishop O'Malley will raise some eyebrows in light of the turmoil that has afflicted his Boston archdiocese. On other hand the selection of Archbishops Levada, Rodé, and Dziwisz had been considered near-certainties.

# posted by Squach : 12:19 PM   |  0 comments

I swear to god, I made a joke about doing just this very thing on Slashdot today.

My joke was arguably worse, though, as the "data" took the form of serialized objects instead of xml fragments.

# posted by Squach : 7:36 PM   |  0 comments

Despite all this, however, I do not think I can say that the world is evil and that it is useless to do good. On the contrary, I am convinced that good exists and is much greater than evil, that life is beautiful and that to live correctly for love and with love is really worthwhile.

The profound reason that leads me to think this way is the experience of God's mercy that I feel in myself and that I see shine in so many humble people: It is an experience that I have lived many times, both giving forgiveness as minister of the Church, as well as receiving it. I have been going to confession regularly for years, several times a month, and with the joy of doing so.

The joy stems from feeling myself loved in a new way by God, every time that his forgiveness reaches me through the priest who gives it to me in his name. It is the joy I have seen often on the face of those coming to Confession: not the futile sense of relief of the one who has "emptied the sack" (Confession is not a psychological relief or a consoling meeting, at least not primarily), but the peace of feeling well "within" oneself, touched in the heart by a love that cures, that comes from above and transforms us.

# posted by Squach : 11:55 PM   |  0 comments

It will be plain that Dennett's approach to religion is contrived to evade religion's substance. He thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason. He will be outraged to hear this, since he regards himself as a giant of rationalism. But the reason he imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason.

# posted by Squach : 1:36 PM   |  0 comments

In 2005, he made a similar observation when he looked at data collected in California after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The birth cohort, born four to five months after the attacks, had fewer males.

This was an observation, he said, that corresponds with what biologists know about stress, pregnancy and sex ratios.

Researchers have long known that males tend to be weaker than females, as fetuses, embryos, children and adults. Indeed, it's not until people reach their 90s that men start outliving females, Catalano said.

It's also been shown that more male fetuses and embryos are spontaneously aborted than females. This becomes particularly apparent after six weeks of gestation.

# posted by Squach : 1:25 PM   |  0 comments

Thus says the LORD:
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
The people I formed for myself,
that they might announce my praise.
Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob,
for you grew weary of me, O Israel.
You burdened me with your sins,
and wearied me with your crimes.
It is I, I, who wipe out,
for my own sake, your offenses;
your sins I remember no more.

# posted by Squach : 11:38 PM   |  0 comments

NEW YORK, FEB. 18, 2006 (Zenit.org).- After the collapse of communism and the adoption of free-market policies by just about all countries and political parties, market capitalism should be triumphant. But recent books highlight the shortcomings of the free markets.

In "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" (Yale University Press), John Bogle analyzes what he considers to be crucial failings in the financial markets. Bogle, former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual fund group, wants the system to be run in the interests of the shareholders and owners, rather than the managers.

Bogle argues that the last couple of decades have seen serious erosion in the conduct and values of business leaders, investment bankers and money managers. A staunch defender of capitalism and free markets, Bogle nevertheless laments the excessive attention given to stock market prices, instead of the intrinsic values of corporations.

# posted by Squach : 10:18 PM   |  0 comments

The Mission considered demands for marriage to be made available to same-sex couples, and was of the view that it "is not possible to think about marriage separately from filiation: the two questions are closely connected, in that marriage is organized around the child." Said the report: " Marriage is not merely the contractual recognition of the love between a couple; it is a framework that imposes rights and duties, and that is designed to provide for the care and harmonious development of the child. Foreign examples demonstrate this: countries that have made marriage available to same-sex couples have all, simultaneously or subsequently, authorized adoption by those couples and developed systems for assisted procreation or surrogate gestation, to enable those couples to have children." The report stated: "It would in fact be incoherent, if couples were regarded as equal, to remove the prohibition on marriage and preserve it for filiation."

# posted by Squach : 5:40 PM   |  0 comments

A new study shows that women using the Ortho Evra birth-control patch have double the risk of developing blood clots compared with those who take the birth-control pill, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.

Last year an investigation by The Associated Press, citing federal death and injury reports, found higher rates of blood clots in women using the patch.

The first study found no increased risk of clots. But the interim results from the second study suggested a twofold increase in the risk of venous thromboembolic events, or clots in the legs and lungs, in women using the patch, Ortho said.

At a briefing on Friday, Dr. Daniel Shames, director of the division of reproductive and urological drug products at the F.D.A., said the risk of a nonfatal blood clot was about one per year in 10,000 women not using a contraceptive. For those using a hormonal contraceptive like the patch or pill, the risk rises to 3 to 5 per 10,000, Dr. Shames said. Source: NY Times

Blood clots in the lungs were seen in two women given ORTHO EVRA in clinical trials conducted before the drug was approved and in addition to many similar cases in women after the drug was marketed. The FDA has logged 9,116 reports of adverse reactions to the ORTHO EVRA birth control patch in a 17-month period, whereas Ortho Tri-Cyclen, a birth control pill, only generated 1,237 adverse reports in a six year period.


With 9.9 million prescriptions the numbers of women with extreme complications leading death are just starting to receive media exposure. In July 2005, a young, healthy married mother of two children experienced shortness of breath and died the next day. Source.

# posted by Justine : 9:59 AM   |  0 comments

The original language of the British religious hatred legislation was draconian, making it a crime to use words or to behave in a way "threatening, insulting or abusive to religious groups." The most enthusiastic backers of the law were, to no one's surprise, the radical Islamist imams and other troublemakers. Mr. Blair's government insisted that no one would be unreasonably molested by the authorities — the usual "reassurance" of bureaucrats — but given the sensitivities of the radical Muslims, prudent Englishmen for whom the stalking of Salman Rushdie is a current affair were not reassured.

Mr. Blair then offered legislation to make "glorification" of terrorism a crime, without saying, exactly, what "glorification" might be. British anger is growing in the wake of demonstrations in central London, when Muslims waved placards demanding beheadings and other unpleasant things for anyone replicating the infamous Danish cartoons, and the "glorification" legislation was a sop to that anger.

# posted by Squach : 10:48 PM   |  0 comments

Is this ironic or what? When depicted as people who bomb and kill, the Muslim response is to run around screaming, "We will bomb you and kill you for that remark!"

# posted by Squach : 1:59 AM   |  0 comments

John Milton predicted, "When language in common use in any country becomes irregular and depraved, it is followed by their ruin and degradation."

# posted by Squach : 8:42 PM   |  0 comments

Gonzalez argued that some students know the material, but fail because of "test anxiety." To the extent that is true, these kids don't stand a chance in real life. How can they survive a job interview? Or athletic competition? Gonzalez says one of his students wants to be a firefighter. That student will have to pass tests to become a firefighter — or should cities dump firefighter tests, too, in the hope that recruits won't be too anxious when a fire alarm sounds?

A plaintiff in his suit is Liliana Valenzuela, who has a 3.84 grade-point average and is 12th in her senior class of 413 students. She passed the math test the first time, but has failed the English test, Gonzalez said, because she came here from Mexico four years ago.

"I want to go to college and become a registered nurse," Liliana wrote in a statement. "But this exam is unfair. I really want to wear my cap and gown, and I don't know what to do to make my dream a reality."

I know what she can do: Study harder.

Getting a legal loophole around the exit exam will not make this young lady educated or help make her dream to be a nurse come true. If she cannot pass the exit exam, how can she survive college?

# posted by Squach : 8:35 PM   |  0 comments

A number of studies conclude that pornography is demeaning to women and harms adults who consume it. Now we are learning about the harm pornography does to children who are exposed to it at an early age. Even accidental exposure to explicit sexual images can warp a child’s view of sexuality and taint relationships well into adulthood.

According to a survey of divorce lawyers, pornography is a factor in almost 2 of 3 divorces. Many of the marriages may have been doomed from the start because of a damaged view of sexuality formed as a child. Daniel Weiss of Focus on the Family Action says children accept the reality that they are presented with.

"This possibly violent, very degrading image or depiction of sexuality becomes the normal depiction of sexuality in the child’s mind."

# posted by Squach : 1:03 PM   |  0 comments

In the Midwest U.S.A. where I grew up, Tu B'Shvat was an anomaly. It always came in the wrong season, in the midst of winter, often with freezing sleet and icy snow. It was a long-distance holiday whose purpose was to remind us that we were on the wrong continent, in the wrong country; that far away in the Land of Israel, spring was on its way; the sap was rising in the trees; and G-d was blessing the produce of His Land for the next agricultural year. Tu B'Shvat reminded us that our calendar, our laws, our lives were intrinsically bound up with His Land, not with the place where we happened to live.

Qui vitam sine termino, Nobis donet in patria.

# posted by Squach : 7:02 PM   |  0 comments

The Bestowal of the Office. The candidates now come up to the bishop, and each touches the book and the actual documents of Vatican II which he presents to them, saying:

Receive, and commit to memory the documents of Vatican II, and have the power to lay your hands upon those possessed by a modern spirit and another gospel, be they baptized or catechumens.

# posted by Squach : 7:51 PM   |  0 comments

Spoken like a true German:

"I will say nothing against the course of my existence. But at bottom it
has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the
whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It
is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again
forever."

Goethe, 1824, as quoted by William James in _Varieties of Religious
Experience_

In response to wishes for a long life, Luther responded
"Madam, rather than live forty years more, I would give up my chance of
Paradise"

Maybe this explains a lot.

# posted by Squach : 8:41 PM   |  0 comments

The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is painted on wood, with background of gold. It is Byzantine in style and is supposed to have been painted in the thirteenth century. It represents the Mother of God holding the Divine Child while the Archangels Michael and Gabriel present before Him the instruments of His Passion. Over the figures in the picture are some Greek letters which form the abbreviated words Mother of God, Jesus Christ, Archangel Michael, and Archangel Gabriel respectively. It was brought to Rome towards the end of the fifteenth century by a pious merchant, who, dying there, ordered by his will that the picture should be exposed in a church for public veneration. It was exposed in the church of San Matteo, Via Merulana, between St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran. Crowds flocked to this church, and for nearly three hundred years many graces were obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The picture was then popularly called the Madonna di San Matteo. The church was served for a time by the Hermits of St. Augustine, who had sheltered their Irish brethren in their distress. These Augustinians were still in charge when the French invaded Rome (1812) and destroyed the church. The picture disappeared; it remained hidden and neglected for over forty years, but a series of providential circumstances between 1863 and 1865 led to its discovery in an oratory of the Augustinian Fathers at Santa Maria in Posterula.

The pope, Pius IX, who as a boy had prayed before the picture in San Matteo, became interested in the discovery and in a letter dated 11 Dec., 1865 to Father General Mauron, C.SS.R., ordered that Our Lady of Perpetual Succour should be again publicly venerated in Via Merulana, and this time at the new church of St. Alphonsus. The ruins of San Matteo were in the grounds of the Redemptorist Convent. This was but the first favour of the Holy Father towards the picture. He approved of the solemn translation of the picture (26 April, 1866), and its coronation by the Vatican Chapter (23 June, 1867). He fixed the feast as duplex secundae classis, on the Sunday before the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and by a decree dated May, 1876, approved of a special office and Mass for the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. This favour later on was also granted to others. Learning that the devotion to Our Lady under this title had spread far and wide, Pius IX raised a confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and St. Alphonsus, which had been erected in Rome, to the rank of an arch-confraternity and enriched it with many privileges and indulgences. He was amongst the first to visit the picture in its new home, and his name is the first in the register of the arch-confraternity. Two thousand three hundred facsimiles of the Holy Picture have been sent from St. Alphonsus's church in Rome to every part of the world. At the present day not only altars, but churches and dioceses (e.g. in England, Leeds and Middlesborough; in the United States, Savannah) are dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. In some places, as in the United States, the title has been translated Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

# posted by Justine : 11:51 AM   |  0 comments

Within the Muslim world, the cartoon imbroglio has given ammunition to the two entrenched forces for censorship — namely, authoritarian regimes and their Islamic fundamentalist opposition. Both would prefer to silence their critics. By evincing outrage over the Danish cartoons, authoritarian regimes seek to divert attention from their own manifold failures and to bolster their religious credentials against the Islamists who seek to unseat them.

Ironies abound. Saudi Arabia leads the protests, yet is systematically destroying its Islamic heritage. The Wahhabis who dominate Saudi Arabia do not believe in honoring Islam's holy men and women or the Prophet Muhammad (they've proscribed the celebration of his birthday). Driven by sectarian zeal, the Saudi authorities have razed and dug up virtually every site in Mecca and Medina linked to Muhammad, members of his family and his companions.

# posted by Squach : 11:14 PM   |  0 comments

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, February 7, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent Dominican has written a review praising the gay cowboy film Brokeback Mountain as “an engrossing story, a plea for tolerance, and a sad, emotional film that will touch anyone who has ever been in love.”

Fr. Tom Condon, OP, student master for St. Martin de Porres Province of the Dominicans, writes about the propaganda-laden film with a strangely tender voice, given that it openly portrays sex between cowboys as beautiful and precious. His praise for the film flies directly in the face of Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered" and "under no circumstances can they be approved."

# posted by Squach : 10:35 PM   |  0 comments

HARTLEY BAY, British Columbia, Feb. 4 — In this sodden land of glacier-cut fjords and giant moss-draped cedars, a myth is told by the Gitga'at people to explain the presence of black bears with a rare recessive gene that makes them white as snow.

The Raven deity swooped down on the land at the end of an ice age and decided that one out of every 10 black bears born from that moment on would be bleached as "spirit bears." It was to be a reminder to future generations that the world must be kept pristine.

On Tuesday, an improbable assemblage of officials from the provincial government, coastal Native Canadian nations, logging companies and environmental groups will announce an agreement that they say will accomplish that mission in the home of the spirit bear, an area that is also the world's largest remaining intact temperate coastal rain forest.

A wilderness of close to five million acres, almost the size of New Jersey, in what is commonly called the Great Bear Rain Forest or the Amazon of the North will be kept off limits to loggers in an agreement that the disparate parties describe as a crossroads in their relations.

Scientists say the agreement should preserve not only the few hundred spirit bears and other black bears, but also one of the highest concentrations of grizzly bears in North America as well as unique subspecies of goshawks, coastal wolves, Sitka blacktail deer and mountain goats.

# posted by Justine : 7:57 AM   |  0 comments

"I had to pay HP for system recovery CDs because I wanted to reload everything when my computer was malfunctioning," one reader wrote. "My computer is over four years old, so of course it is no longer under warranty. I could not get the computer to recognize the recovery CDs that HP sent me, so I had to call the HP tech number again. Now HP wants to charge me $45 to tell me how to make the recovery CDs they sent me work. They said this happens a lot with these CDs."

# posted by Squach : 1:12 PM   |  0 comments

Don't get me wrong. The Catholics had caveats, and the Jews had ambiguities. But caveats and ambiguities are different things. The Catholics were clear about what was moral and what wasn't. The Jews were fuzzy. The best part of the show was George's cross-examination of Krauthammer on the definitions of "creature" and "human." It was like Socrates trying to carve up a bowl of chicken soup. Periodically, Kass waded into the fray to say on the one hand this, on the other hand that. The original ban on funding of destructive embryo research "wasn't written at Sinai," he joked. "And even the things that were written at Sinai are" - he groped for a rabbinical exit - "under review."

He admires Catholics for their faith in reason - "the faith required to live with the consequences of their conclusions," even when intuition screams the other way. "You have to have a ridiculous faith in reason to let your child die rather than use an embryo to save them," he says, staring at the table.

# posted by Squach : 1:07 PM   |  0 comments

Christians in Syria have declined from 30% of the population to under 10%.

The Lebanese constitution specifically states that the President must be a Maronite Catholic. In Lebanon, however, formerly a majority Christian nation, Christians now make up less than 30% of the population.

In recent years, Coptic Christians (13% of the Egyptian population) who trace their origins to Saint Mark, have been fleeing Egypt in the face of persecution.

In all the discussions we’ve heard lately about personal liberty, religious tolerance, the democratization of the Middle East, and a “place at the table” for all the various Islamic sects, has anyone in the United States government, the news media, or either political party ever shown one whit of concern for these people? In our pursuit of peace with Islam, they seem to have become non-persons, unworthy of mention in polite company, let alone of protection as members of the human race. Even the Evangelical community seems far more interested in trying to plant new churches in the Islamic world than in keeping the ones that have been there for 2,000 years from being wiped out.

# posted by Squach : 8:03 PM   |  0 comments

Unlike most people I know in journalism, I am a pro-lifer. When accused of this unpardonable heresy after years of being categorized as a nonreligious liberal, I quote a letter in the Feb. 18, 1990, Journal of the American Medical Association by a North Carolina physician, Dr. Joel Hylton:

"Who can deny that the fetus is alive and is a separate entity? Its humanity also cannot be questioned scientifically. It is certainly of no other species. That it is dependent on another makes it qualitatively no different from countless other humans outside the womb. It strikes me that to argue one may take an innocent life to preserve the quality of life of another is cold ..."

As a reporter, I usually am able to understand why people with whom I disagree, think and act the way they do; but I am at a loss to understand how an abortionist finds his daily vocation in deliberately, brutally ending a human life.

# posted by Squach : 2:05 PM   |  0 comments

Despite warnings on its own Web site about making unauthorized copies, the Motion (Overview, Articles, Company) Picture Association of America apparently did just that to a film called “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” a documentary about how the MPAA rates movies (which itself garnered the too-naughty-for-nice-folks rating of NC-17). The association claims the filmmaker was stalking members of its ratings board, so it made a digital copy and locked it away for legal reasons. Uh huh. I hear that MPAA officials have agreed to not distribute the film as a BitTorrent (Overview, Articles, Company) file, but they were unwilling to give up the eye patch and the peg leg.

# posted by Squach : 11:40 PM   |  0 comments

And I don't mean the piddling $5,000. That's a small symptom of the larger malady. I refer you to the King family's 1993 lawsuit against USA Today for reprinting the "I Have A Dream" speech and their subsequent licensing of King's image and voice for use in television commercials, one of which placed him between Homer Simpson and Kermit the Frog. Then there's the attempt to sell his personal papers for $20 million. Perhaps most galling was the family's demand to be paid to allow construction of a King monument on the Washington Mall.

Yes, it's all legal. But if Dr. King's life taught us nothing else, it taught us that legality and morality are not necessarily the same.

I don't mind the King family making money. But not at all costs, and certainly, not at the cost of Martin Luther King's dignity. Granted, dignity is subjective and you might draw the line in a different place than I. But I suspect most of us would agree that when a martyr, minister and American hero becomes a TV character hawking cell phones with Homer Simpson, that line has been well and truly crossed.

# posted by Squach : 11:58 AM   |  0 comments

Manila, Feb. 03 (AsiaNews) - A cold-blooded massacre of Christians in the Philippines, believed to be the work of Muslim terrorists, has raised fears of a full-scale religious conflict in the region around Mindanao, the AsiaNews service reports.

Gunmen broke into a farm in the small town of Patikul and killed six people, including a 9-month-old baby girl, after first having asked if they were Christians. Five others were wounded in the attack.

The gunmen were believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf organization, a Muslim extremist group with links to al Qaida. Muslim terrorists have been active in the region around Mindanao.

[For a more detailed report see the AsiaNews web site.]

# posted by Squach : 9:00 PM   |  0 comments

PARIS, Feb. 2 — An international dispute over European newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by some Muslims gained momentum today as gunmen threatened the European Union offices in the Gaza Strip and more European papers pointedly published the drawings as an affirmation of their freedom of speech.

# posted by Squach : 1:51 AM   |  0 comments

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos (bio - news), who is president of the Ecclesia Dei commission established by Pope John Paul II (bio - news) to coordinate the Vatican's pastoral outreach to Catholic traditionalists, has declined to comment recently on talks with the SSPX. However, an informed Vatican source has confirmed, in talks with the I Media news agency, that the Vatican will soon hold an important meeting to discuss a plan "the eventual reconciliation of the Church with the SSPX." That disclosure seems to match the Il Giornale report regarding the February 13 meeting.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the SSPX, has recently given indications that substantial progress has been made in the latest negotiations with Rome. "The discussions have been lengthy, but there have probably been the most fruitful that we have had to date," he told reporters at a press conference in Paris on January 13. The SSPX leader said that the talks were aimed toward the "regularization" of the status of the traditionalist group.

The SSPX leader explained his reluctance to accept a quick reconciliation. "If we sign today," he disclosed, "not all of our faithful would follow us." A hard-line faction within the SSPX, led by Bishop Richard Williamson, has indicated that it is likely to oppose any reconciliation with the Holy See.

# posted by Squach : 3:11 PM   |  0 comments

The fact that polls have consistently demonstrated Canadians are split down the middle on the issue, seem to have been lost on Bailey as she writes, "It would also be a costly and perhaps fruitless attempt to redefine marriage as the sole domain of one man, one woman - a fight that would only shine a spotlight on the party's most extreme social conservatives."

# posted by Squach : 1:12 AM   |  0 comments