Interview with Dappled Things editor-in-chief Mary Angelita Ruiz, National Catholic Register, February 5, 2006.

" . . . They have launched Dappled Things, an online literary magazine for young Catholics that is trolling for talent. Years from now an Edwin O'Connor may look back and recall how he got his start with Dappled Things."

-Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, March 2006.

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

ome people are worried that amnesty will give illegal aliens the same rights that American citizens have. In reality, it will give the illegals more rights than the average American citizen.

. . .

If an American citizen forges a Social Security card in order to get a job, he can be arrested. Under a provision recently passed by the Senate, illegal aliens who forged Social Security cards not only get a pass, they get to collect Social Security benefits.

# posted by Squach : 8:10 PM   |  0 comments

The controlling factor in this case, Justice Kennedy wrote, was that Mr. Ceballos was acting purely in an official capacity when he complained internally about the search warrant. "Ceballos wrote his disposition memo because that is part of what he was employed to do," Justice Kennedy wrote. "He did not act as a citizen by writing it."

To accept Mr. Ceballos's argument, the majority concluded, would be to commit state and federal courts to "a new, permanent and intrusive role" overseeing communications among government employees and their superiors.

Dissenting in three separate opinions were Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

"The notion that there is a categorical difference between speaking as a citizen and speaking in the course of one's employment is quite wrong," Justice Stevens wrote. He said the majority ruling could have the "perverse" effect of giving public employees an incentive to speak out publicly, as citizens, before talking frankly to their superiors.

# posted by Squach : 5:58 PM   |  0 comments

The artist known as Matisyahu is a born-again Jew who was born first in 1979 as Matthew Miller in the American dreamland of West Chester, Pennsylvania, to a pair of social workers whom he describes as 'non-practicing Jews'. His grandfather played pro basketball in 1930s Detroit and bequeathed the future singer his imposing height — six foot three and counting. The tall kid began rapping at high school and carried on at college in Manhattan. Troubled by the drug scene and searching for roots, he put in for a semester in Jewish spirituality, which gave him a list of synagogues to visit.

It is clear that he never wanted to be attached to the general run of Jewish music, least of all to Orthodox wedding and bar mitzvah pop that hitches biblical and Talmudic lyrics to a Beach Boys beat. 'Those guys are 20, 30 years out of date,' snorts Matisyahu. 'Their stuff is not particularly Jewish and they don't belong to now.'

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

In light of serious divisions among the US bishops on questions of and the prospect of a tense debate on the proposed new texts, Cardinal Arinze's letter reminds Bishop Skylstad that Liturgiam Authenticam sets forth the authoritative principles of translation. "Both this congregation and the bishops' conferences are bound to follow its directives," the cardinal says.

While many Catholic experts have praised the new translations that will be proposed for approval at the June meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the new texts have also been criticized by influential liturgists. Bishop Donald Trautman, the chairman of the USCCB liturgy committee, has voiced his own serious misgivings about the new translations, indicating his preference for the texts currently in use.

Apparently hoping to ward off the possibility of major amendments to the proposed texts, Cardinal Arinze warns Bishop Skylstad that his office is "not competent to grant the recognitio for translations that do not conform to the directives of Liturgiam Authenticam.

# posted by Squach : 5:41 PM   |  0 comments

A Support group for albinos has added its voice to the criticism of The Da Vinci Code, accusing producers of propagating "cruel stereotypes" by having an albino as villain.

# posted by Squach : 8:59 PM   |  0 comments

In spite of these variations from case to case, officials behaved as if they understood it, giving apparently logical arguments to each other often depending on the "success" of previous flights. For example. in determining if flight 51-L was safe to fly in the face of ring erosion in flight 51-C, it was noted that the erosion depth was only one-third of the radius. It had been noted in an experiment cutting the ring that cutting it as deep as one radius was necessary before the ring failed. Instead of being very concerned that variations of poorly understood conditions might reasonably create a deeper erosion this time, it was asserted, there was "a safety factor of three." This is a strange use of the engineer's term ,"safety factor." If a bridge is built to withstand a certain load without the beams permanently deforming, cracking, or breaking, it may be designed for the materials used to actually stand up under three times the load. This "safety factor" is to allow for uncertain excesses of load, or unknown extra loads, or weaknesses in the material that might have unexpected flaws, etc. If now the expected load comes on to the new bridge and a crack appears in a beam, this is a failure of the design. There was no safety factor at all; even though the bridge did not actually collapse because the crack went only one-third of the way through the beam. The O-rings of the Solid Rocket Boosters were not designed to erode. Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred.

# posted by Squach : 8:02 PM   |  0 comments

In any event, a handful of Romans recorded their brief notice of Jesus and His followers as the years wore on.

Pope John Paul also mentioned the historian Tacitus, writing between A.D. 115 and 120 on the burning of Rome, which the emperor Nero had blamed on the Christians. Tacitus recorded that the founder of this sect (”hated for their abominations”) was one “Christus,” who “suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate.”

Christ also appears, by name only, in the “Lives of the Caesars,” by the historian Suetonius, writing around A.D. 121.

Another brief but more telling remark comes in the testimony of Pliny the Younger, writing in A.D. 111-113 when he was Roman governor of Bithynia, on the Black Sea. Reporting his routine interrogations and torture to the emperor Trajan, Pliny spoke of the Christian sect as something harmless. They gather once a week, he wrote, “on a designated day, before dawn, to sing in alternating choirs a hymn to Christ as to a God.”

The pagan Pliny’s report, then, is among the earliest records of orthodox Christology - relating the early Church’s belief of the divinity in Christ. (Dan Brown, call your office.)

# posted by Squach : 7:54 PM   |  0 comments

The next item tells of a judicial challenge by Massachusetts homosexual-rights activists to a proposed constitutional amendment to end same-sex "marriage." According to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the state constitution doesn't permit citizen-initiated amendments to reverse judicial rulings. Now that's a novel approach: A judicially created provision of the constitution is stronger than its original provisions and its legally adopted amendments. How could anyone present this argument with a straight face?

# posted by Squach : 10:09 AM   |  0 comments

May. 19 (CWNews.com) - The founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, has been removed from priestly ministry and asked to spend his remaining days in "penitence and prayer," the Vatican has announced.

A Vatican statement released on May 19, responding to a report posted the previous day in the National Catholic Reporter, confirmed rumors that had circulated around Rome for several weeks. After a lengthy inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) reached a final judgment against Father Maciel in March. Although that decision was not initially made public, the Vatican press office confirmed the substance of the National Catholic Reporter account.

The CDF decided-- "bearing in mind Father Maciel's advanced age and delicate health"-- not to pursue a canonical trial, the Vatican statement indicated. Instead the Mexican priest was barred from celebrating Mass or speaking in public. The Vatican statement noted: "The Holy Father approved these decisions."

# posted by Squach : 9:44 AM   |  0 comments

This year, the combined Social Security/Medicare unfunded obligations reached $36.7 trillion on a 75-year horizon and $83.9 trillion on an infinite horizon. These figures were not included in handouts provided during a briefing on the report, according to John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis. The Trustees also reported that in 2006, 12.3% of federal income tax revenues will be transferred to support Medicare; Social Security still has an excess amounting to 5.3% of income tax revenue. If present trends were to continue, Medicare alone would absorb 74.8% of income tax revenue by 2080, and Social Security 17.0%.

As part of the Medicare Modernization Act, the Trustees are required to compare overall projected Medicare expenditures with the program's "dedicated revenues." If the difference is projected to exceed 45% of the revenues within the first seven years of the projection period, it triggers a determination of "excess general revenue Medicare funding." A second such determination in 2007 would trigger a "Medicare funding warning."

This year is the first to trigger the determination. If it occurs again next year, Congress will be required to consider action on a expedited basis, but won't actually have to do anything.

# posted by Squach : 8:28 PM   |  0 comments

Here is what then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote about liturgical dancing in "The Spirit of the Liturgy":

"Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt by certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. ... The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes--incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy--none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy. ...

"It is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy 'attractive' by introducing dancing pantomimes (wherever possible performed by professional dance troupes), which frequently (and rightly, from the professionals' point of view) end with applause. Whenever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. ...

"I myself have experienced the replacing of the penitential rite by a dance performance, which, needless to say, received a round of applause. Could there be anything further removed from true penitence? ...

"None of the Christian rites includes dancing. What people call dancing in the Ethiopian rite or the Zairean form of the Roman liturgy is in fact a rhythmically ordered procession, very much in keeping with the dignity of the occasion."

# posted by Squach : 8:10 PM   |  0 comments

The medical examiner has confirmed the body pulled from the East River Tuesday is that of a missing Columbia University student.

Richard Ng would have graduated from Columbia Wednesday. Instead, he was remembered at the ceremony with a moment of silence.

# posted by Squach : 8:09 PM   |  0 comments

The origins of academic dress date back to the 12th and 13th centuries, when universities were taking form. The ordinary dress of the scholar, whether student or teacher, was the dress of a cleric. With few exceptions, the medieval scholar had taken at least minor orders, made certain vows, and perhaps been tonsured. Long gowns were worn and may have been necessary for warmth in unheated buildings. Hoods seem to have served to cover the tonsured head until superseded for that purpose by the skull cap.

# posted by Squach : 8:07 PM   |  0 comments

"He has no enemies in this archdiocese," said the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a former member of Congress.

# posted by Squach : 10:36 PM   |  0 comments

But even so, this new supply will fall far short of need. At the very least, the report should have shown enthusiasm for other initiatives. One is the popular and effective European practice of "presumed consent" in which citizens are considered donors at death unless they sign an anti-donor (or opt-out) card.

Another possibility it could have recommended was pilot studies using incentives in a regulated market. One model resembles a "futures" market in cadaver organs. A potential donor could receive compensation — outright payment, a sizable contribution to a charity of his choice or lifetime health insurance — in installments before death or to his estate afterwards in exchange for permission to recover his organs at death.

Why so timid? The Institute of Medicine cautioned against treating the body as if it were "for sale." But that's outdated thinking: we've accepted markets for human eggs, sperm and surrogate mothers. A recent poll by researchers in Pennsylvania found that 59 percent of respondents favored the general idea of incentives, with 53 percent saying direct payments would be acceptable.

# posted by Squach : 9:08 PM   |  0 comments

Roman Catholics in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) are taking part in worldwide protests against the release of the movie, The Da Vinci Code.

Hundreds of members of a Catholic group gathered outside a convent school in the Indian financial capital to protest against its release next week.

They say the film is an attack on their faith, and have warned of stronger protests if their demands are not met.

Catholics say they want the protest to draw the attention of the authorities.

"Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) activists will go on a fast unto death if the government fails to take action against anti-Christian movies," CSF general secretary Joseph Dias told the BBC.

The CSF has also called for the banning of a second film, Tickle My Funny Bone, which chronicles the life of a "sexy nun".

A powerful organisation of Indian Islamic clerics promised on Monday to help Christian groups launch protests if the authorities did not ban the screening of the controversial film, "The Da Vinci Code".

"The Holy Koran recognises Jesus as a prophet. What the book says is an insult to both Christians and Muslims," Maulana Mansoor Ali Khan, general secretary of the All-India Sunni Jamiyat-ul-Ulema, an umbrella organisation of clerics, told Reuters.

In India, leaders of the two communities met politicians and police in the western city of Mumbai on Saturday, urging the authorities to stop the screening of the film.

"If the government doesn't do anything, we will try our own ways of stopping the film from being shown," said Syed Noori, president of Mumbai-based Raza Academy, a Muslim cultural organisation that often organises protests on issues concerning Islam. "We are prepared for violent protests in India if needed."

Last week, small groups of protesters marched in Mumbai and burnt a copy of the book.

# posted by Z(ed) : 11:24 AM   |  0 comments

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster, Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks published a joint letter today in the Times against the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill.

The bill, in fact, was defeated in a vote in the House of Lords today. It would have allowed terminally-ill patients to request their own death.

The three religious leaders previously issued joint statements, but rarely on legislation up for debate in Parliament, reported the Times.

Their letter states: "We are opposed to this bill and to any measure that seeks to legalize assisted suicide or euthanasia. We believe that all human life is sacred and God-given with a value that is inherent, not conditional."

# posted by Squach : 7:40 PM   |  0 comments

Indeed, this seems to be the approach to several charity hospitals that had the gall to continue their charitable mission. They get into trouble when they only give charity to human beings and not to Medicare apparatchiks.

This is exactly happened to the 161 bed Deborah Hospital in New Jersey. The hospital never charges patients for medical services. But the hospital did collect from Medicare when patients had Medicare coverage.

As medical lawyer Madeline P. Cosman, Ph.D., writes "the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services prosecuted Deborah over the course of four years because Deborah accepts Medicare payments without requiring patient copayments and therefore violates a slew of civil and criminal laws.

"By following its own three-quarter-century-old mandate to never charge patients, Deborah Hospital was accused of granting incentives for referrals, submitting false claims to the government, unfairly competing with community and other specialty hospitals, and generally flouting White Coat Crime laws ... Medicare has no obligation to pay for hospital care that the patient gets as a free gift."

# posted by Squach : 7:16 PM   |  0 comments

So we are building on sand. Even though there is a Gospel injunction against doing just that.

# posted by Squach : 6:00 PM   |  0 comments

Because Chavez has clashed frequently with the Venezuelan bishops, his visit to the Vatican was heavily anticipated. His private talk with the Pontiff was unusually long-- 35 minutes, as opposed to the 20 minutes that Pope Benedict usually allows for visitors-- and even the formal reception and exchange of gifts became the occasion for some political theater.

Next thing you know, Chavez will be on Venezuelan TV claiming that the Pope is planning to send in an invasion force of Swiss Guards.

# posted by Squach : 6:20 PM   |  0 comments

does anyone actually read your blog?
Philip | 05.08.06 - 3:01 am | #

# posted by Squach : 10:51 PM   |  0 comments

A forerunner of multi-asset trading is LaBranche Structured Products - a specialist and market maker in equity options, exchange-traded funds and futures - needs to hedge the risk associated with its positions. "We post bids and offers whether it be electronically or open outcry, but as we accumulate our position, we need to trade our portfolio," explains Anthony Buendia, chief operating officer at LaBranche Structured Products, LLC, a subsidiary of LaBranche & Co. Inc. For example, LaBranche Structured Products is a market maker in emerging-market ETFs (based on the Morgan Stanley Capital International emerging market index), bond ETFs, as well as the first listed China ETF and the Chicago Futures Exchange's China future (based on the CBOE's China Index).

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

There is a remarkable parallel to this analysis in the Shulchan Aruch, the authoritative Code of Jewish Law. In chapter 248 of the second volume (Yoreh Deah), the Shulchan Aruch states that in general a guardian for minor orphans shouldn't give charity from their assets. The reason is that being minors, their judgment is not sufficiently developed for them to decide on charitable gifts. When they are grown up, the money will still be there, and they will be able to decide what to do with it. This is similar to the status of shareholders. The difficulty of reaching a consensus of shareholders is a disability not unlike that of minors, and like minors, there is no compelling reason for the "guardian" or manager to give charity since ultimately the money will reach the shareholder, in the form of dividends or proceeds, and then he will be free to use the money for charity according to his judgment.

However, there are two exceptions to this rule. One is that it is permissible for the guardian to give charity if this is for the benefit of the youngsters, by giving them a good name. This corresponds to giving charity on behalf of a firm when it will promote good will and advance their business objectives. The other rule is that it is permissible to give for urgent needs which these youngsters are particularly obligated in. The example of the Shulchan Aruch is if they have poor relatives in urgent straits. Of course the needs of poor individuals are the responsibility of the entire community, but close relatives have a higher degree of obligation. This corresponds to giving charity to the local community and for needs which the company is uniquely situated to help with.

# posted by Squach : 10:46 PM   |  0 comments

Dear David Louis Patrick Solimano,

Grade for your class PHED 1002 C 011 has been submitted via SSOL.
You will be able to view this grade on SSOL within 24 hours.

To access SSOL, go to https://ssol.columbia.edu .

# posted by Squach : 1:32 PM   |  0 comments

Likewise, the oil and automobile companies want no part of ethanol or fuel cells because that would require an expensive restructuring and more competition would emerge. There's no way the ethanol industry could be dominated by five mega-companies. I mean corn and sugar cannot be carteled. The oil racket is simple: We control the marketplace, and you have to buy from us. With ethanol we can buy from Farmer Fred.

# posted by Squach : 1:23 PM   |  0 comments

Female bullying is worse than male bullying because it is more personal, more psychological and much more emotionally destructive.

Those scars are much more difficult to heal than cuts and bruises.

# posted by Justine : 8:48 PM   |  0 comments

Since students must belong to a college, and since established colleges remained closed to women, women found admissions restricted to colleges established only for women. All of the men's colleges integrated genders between 1960 and 1988. One women's college, Girton, also integrated genders, but the other women's colleges took the view that until the gender ratio problem was completely solved, they should not reduce the number of women's places available by admitting men to their colleges. As of 2005, the university's gender ratio is male 46%: female 54% (Source: Push guide, [6]).

Barnard is unequivocally dedicated to the success of women. That's immediately obvious in the way issues are considered in almost every field of inquiry, from classical studies to the history of science, or in the prominence of the nationally acclaimed Barnard Center for Research on Women.[src]

After VMI won its case in U.S. District Court, the case went through several appeals until June 26, 1996 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-1 decision in United States v. Virginia, found that it was illegal for a school supported by public funds to exclude women.

# posted by Squach : 9:07 AM   |  0 comments

"There are some other religions which, if you insult their founder, will not just be talking,"

# posted by Squach : 9:34 PM   |  0 comments

I'm not a big believer in discussing matters of the heart in cyberspace. Some folk have a naive belief that if you just lay it all out there for discussion and expose your most vulnerable and painful questions to public discussion then a beautiful fruitful consensus will be achieved through the Wisdom of the Voters.

I think that's insane.

# posted by Squach : 9:30 PM   |  0 comments

Also defending Iran's nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that international treaties become "invalid" as soon as they fail to secure the rights of nations. Referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said that in the case that such rights are violated, "then that nation would revise its decision and the treaty would become invalid," according to the Iranian news agency.

# posted by Squach : 6:22 PM   |  0 comments

The goat for Azazel is really like throwing a dog a bone. While evil (analogous to a vicious dog) is busy gnawing away at his bone and celebrating his victory over us, we slip by him to enter the private chamber of the King and get forgiveness and atonement.

In other words, this offering to Azazel is Israel's gift of acknowledgement and appreciation to the forces of evil. The forces of evil mistakenly think this means that Israel has submitted to evil and has surrendered to a life of sin. However, this is not the case. This is all really a clever ploy to divert evil's attention. This gift actually expresses Israel's surrender to G-d and shows appreciation for the challenge evil provides which is necessary for there to be any loving service of G-d at all.

When the high priest sends an offering to Azazel he demonstrates on behalf of Israel that we accept that service and love of G-d is possible only because evil and rebellion against G-d is possible. On the Day of Atonement, Israel acknowledges and appreciates how the temptations of evil, sin and selfishness are really part of achieving love and selfless service to G-d.

# posted by Squach : 2:32 PM   |  0 comments

Even more astonishing are the effects of Benford's Law on number sequences. Intuitively, most people assume that in a string of numbers sampled randomly from some body of data, the first non-zero digit could be any number from 1 through 9. All nine numbers would be regarded as equally probable.

But, as Dr. Benford discovered, in a huge assortment of number sequences -- random samples from a day's stock quotations, a tournament's tennis scores, the numbers on the front page of The New York Times, the populations of towns, electricity bills in the Solomon Islands, the molecular weights of compounds the half-lives of radioactive atoms and much more -- this is not so.

Given a string of at least four numbers sampled from one or more of these sets of data, the chance that the first digit will be 1 is not one in nine, as many people would imagine; according to Benford's Law, it is 30.1 percent, or nearly one in three. The chance that the first number in the string will be 2 is only 17.6 percent, and the probabilities that successive numbers will be the first digit decline smoothly up to 9, which has only a 4.6 percent chance.

A strange feature of these probabilities is that they are "scale invariant" and "base invariant." For example, it doesn't matter whether the numbers are based on the dollar prices of stocks or their prices in yen or marks, nor does it matter if the numbers are in terms of stocks per dollar; provided there are enough numbers in the sample, the first digit of the sequence is more likely to be 1 than any other.

# posted by Squach : 11:03 AM   |  0 comments

"What we're planning to do is incite awareness to put back the pride in breast-feeding and the respect we deserve because we commit ourselves to our children," said Dr Elvira Esguerra, director of the advocacy group, Children for Breast-feeding.

Organisers of Thursday's event said rates of breast-feeding had dropped dramatically in the Philippines. Only 16% of Filipina mothers breast-feed their children for the first six months of their lives, according to local health authorities.

# posted by Z(ed) : 12:19 PM   |  0 comments

It's always hard to compare the gravity of one mortal sin versus another, but it seems to me that the answer to that question is likely to be "Yes, it is less evil to mutually masturbate with your spouse than to have sex in a way that will likely kill your spouse."

# posted by Squach : 9:04 PM   |  0 comments

In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the ignorance of people with college degrees.

Helen Thomas has been called "the dean of White House correspondents." After some of her recent remarks, someone suggested that she should be called the Howard Dean of White House correspondents.

# posted by Squach : 11:39 PM   |  0 comments

This more profound dimension of Easter is particularly felt by our Orthodox brothers. For them, Christ's resurrection is everything. In Eastertide, when they meet someone they greet one another saying: "Christ has risen!", and the other replies: "He has risen indeed!"

This custom is so rooted in the people that the following anecdote is told that occurred at the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution. A public debate had been organized on the resurrection of Christ. First the atheist spoke, demolishing for good, in his opinion, Christians' faith in the resurrection.

When he came down, the Orthodox priest went to the dais, who was to speak in defense. The humble priest looked at the crowd and said simply: "Christ is risen!" Before even thinking, all answered in unison: "He has risen indeed!" And the priest came down from the dais in silence.

# posted by Squach : 10:37 PM   |  0 comments