Economics and the Church
Economics as people use the term refers to both "laws" as immutable of the law of gravity are in the realm of science and to public policy that encourages, restricts, or criminality some form of economic activity.
There's a wide range of economic activity and the Church can and does make moral distinctions between what's licit and illicit.
The Church itself doesn't claim competence to know which particular licit economic policy alternatives are going to have the result of creating the greatest good for the greatest number. Popes acknowledge they can identify the goals and what means to obtain them would be contrary to justice, but to identify among all the possible licit means which is the best, that's a prudential political and economic judgment.
posted by
Patrick Sweeney at 8:53 PM
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Immigration
If I were writing the headlines, it would be something like:
Thousands of illegal immigrants don't like laws that make them illegal
to be in the United States
More than a few people have walked through neighborhoods like mine, and remarked to no one in particular, this isn't America anymore.
I think the point of all these Mexican flags that have appeared in New York and across the United States is that legal residents of the United States are no longer empowered to make the rules.
A caller to a talk radio program said that the Mexicans should take their Mexican flags and go home to Mexico and change Mexican law as they have the right to do.
It's ironic that the Mexican government doesn't practice what it preaches when it comes to the economic immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, with whom they share language and culture, unlike the United States. Mexico believes in the principle of sovereignty (at least for itself) and deports a higher percentage of its illegal immigrants than the United States.
Beyond the allegations of racism, greed, etc. that others make, including Cardinal Mahony, the principle that laws regarding immigration can be enforced. When asked directly, one bishop said that open borders and automatic citizenship were the only public policy in accord with Catholic social justice teaching.
posted by
Patrick Sweeney at 7:08 PM
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A milestone for me
In the 1970's, the first challenging task that I had in my career in information technology was a project to record the stock prices and typeset the stock tables of the Associated Press which appeared in nearly every paper which was a member of the AP: DECsystem-10 and the Associated Press Financial News Service.
The Associated Press then was a mixture of some very old and some very new technologies and some young guys like me and men in their 60's who were themselves in their 20's during the Great Depression.
Technology progresses again and while I'm sure there will be papers who will continue to print the stock tables, the New York Times won't be one of them.
New York Times to scrap weekday stock tables : AP
NEW YORK (AP) - The New York Times will replace the six pages of stock tables it prints Tuesdays through Saturdays with daily spreads of graphics and charts containing financial information.
The newspaper said it will also bolster its Web site to provide more in-depth data about a particular stock than the newspaper currently provides.
The new format will debut April 4, the Times said Monday.
posted by
Patrick Sweeney at 10:30 PM
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No one at Road Runner believes me.
Every so often I call up Road Runner (owned by Time Warner)
to tell them that I can't read NY1.com (also owned by Time Warner)
They don't believe me.
PatrickSweeney: Tracing route to ny1.com [208.198.20.35]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
PatrickSweeney: 1 11 ms 10 ms 15 ms 10.49.128.1
2 5 ms 8 ms 10 ms pos0-2-nycmnyw-rtr1.nyc.rr.com [24.29.100.1]
3 11 ms 9 ms 20 ms 24-29-113-54.nyc.rr.com [24.29.113.54]
4 21 ms 14 ms 14 ms pos0-3-nycmnyrdc-rtr2.nyc.rr.com [24.29.113.158]
5 8 ms 9 ms 6 ms 24-29-113-162.nyc.rr.com [24.29.113.162]
6 22 ms 20 ms 15 ms pos4-0.nycmnyc-rtr2.nyc.rr.com [24.29.101.218]
7 6 ms 5 ms 10 ms pos4-0-nycmnya-rtr2.nyc.rr.com [24.29.101.249]
8 * * * Request timed out.
PatrickSweeney: and lines 9 thru 30 are request timed out
Adam G: ok.
If you are using RoadRunner as ISP, please let me know if you can or cannot connect to ny1.com
posted by
Patrick Sweeney at 9:51 PM
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St. Patrick's Day and more
My wedding anniversary. Since we had the dispensation from Bishop DiMarzio from the Friday fast and abstinence, we could have corned beef and cabbage. We went to Mass celebrated a house of a friend. The celebrant was Fr. Keven Barett, chaplain of the Apostolate for Family Consecration.
On Saturday, I went to Fr. Groeschel giving a talk on the sacrament of Holy Orders. I had just received a copy of the biography of Terri Schiavo written by her family, since Fr. Groeschel didn't have a copy yet I was happy to surrender it.
On Sunday, I wanted to do some research on the Balkan Wars and on Saint Thomas Aquinas and made the trip to Manhattan and the library was closed without an explanation.
But I have the Simpson's and the Soprano's and the tug of war to have my son complete his homework to look forward to.
posted by
Patrick Sweeney at 9:23 PM
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