ClimateGate: What You Need to Know

In case you didn't get the previous reference to "climategate":

ClimateGate: The Very Ugly Side of Climate Science - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com:

When we think about “scientists,” most of us probably envision people toiling away in the lab or the field, accumulating and analyzing data in order to test theories, leaving their personal biases at home, scrupulously considering any confounding data or theories and willfully distancing themselves from the political implications of their research.

Read the whole thing.

Catechesis

since the Vatican II hasn't worked. I made this point earlier and here are some numbers supporting that assertion:

Whatever it is we’re doin’… ain’t workin’!:

I don’t know how many times my own proposals, or those of others I have heard about, were rejected because of "young people".   "No, no.  We have to do [FILL IN BLANK] for young people".

Read the whole thing.

(Via What Does The Prayer Really Say?.)

News

is what the newscasters say it is. The editing job done by the MSM results in the relative ignorance of those who rely on them. And "Climategate" is just the latest exemplar of that fact:

Blogs v. The Legacy Media:

Occasionally the question comes up as to why I get my news from blogs instead of conventional big media news sources.

Read the whole thing.

(Via ThePolitic - Canadian Political Weblog.)

More LIght, Less Heat Please

The relatively abysmal state of Catholic education and literacy is making for a lot more heat and very little light when Church teaching on moral principles is concerned. For example, the phoney war Rep. Kennedy has been waging on the Catholic Church for his own political advantage has been illustrative of this problem. Bishop Tobin has been exceptional amongst his brother bishops in that he has not let the calculated ignorance of the scion of the Kennedy clan to go unremarked. He has been temperate and reasonable in his dealings with the CINO politiican. The resulting circus of condemnations from the ignoranti who were, no doubt, educated in the "Spirit of Vatican II" and little else, has been proof positive that the revolution in catechesis since the Second Vatican Council has been a spectacular failure. Could this be one of the most illiterate Catholic generations ever?

So here is a little light to dispel the darkness:

Abortion, Capital Punishment, and War — One of These Things is Not Like the Other:

Ed Stoddard of Reuters’ religion blog Faithworld carries a roundup of the skirmish between Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has claimed that Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin.

Read the whole thing.

(Via First Thoughts.)

Introductory Apologetics

by a convert:

Verses I Never Saw:

by Marcus Grodi One of the more commonly shared experiences of Protestant converts to the Catholic Church is the discovery of verses "we never saw." Even after years of studying, preaching, and teaching the Bible, sometimes from cover to cover, all of a sudden a verse "we never saw" appears as if by magic and becomes an "Aha!" mind-opening...

Read the whole thing.

(Via New Advent World Watch.)

Politics Must First Be Entertaining

or so Bill Buckley once said back in the sixties. I wasn't sure if he was being facetious. Now in my old age, I see the wisdom. Limited to choices that look like Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, they can at least keep us entertained through the show-democracy that we have settle for.

On this basis, I quite enjoy the madness that arises whenever Sarah Palin is in the spotlight. And I'm not the only one to notice:

AP Goes Full Sullivan on Palin:

...devotes ***11*** freakin' reporters to pore over ghost-written piece of self-promotional fluffery.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Over the Top?

I have an off-the-wall kind of humour, so this struck me as a form of black humour. Read on at your own discretion:

The Doctor is Out:

We’re sorry, your appointment tomorrow with Dr. Hasan has been canceled.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Southern Appeal.)

Autumn

I'm sitting at home wrestling unsuccessfully with some virus or other. I've been spoiled by relative resistance to diseases over the year. When the rest of the family gets ill, I merely got tired and grumpy. But the years are catching up.

This has been a lovely Autumn, something we don't get every year. So, walking to work has sent me into reveries about Fall colours, dying, death and re-birth. Why do we associate Autumn with starting out? The school year begins. Football and Hockey start over. And yet Nature is retreating, preparing for the sleep of Winter

And does any of this tell us something about ourselves when we enter our own personal Autumn? I would argue that Nature, beautiful in every season, is at it's best now: Colourful, brilliant, especially on the grey days that we're likely to see. Are we at our best in our Autumn?

Thomas Aquinas apparently said that we reach our prime from 50 to 70 years of age. Is this our Autumn? Should we start out anew in these late months of our life, armed with experience, education and intelligence? Well, experience anyway.

The colourful leaves drop, winter's sleep ensues. But beneath the white coat the dead leaves are preparing to nourish new life in the Spring. If we refuse to live our lives to their peak at these late stages, are we denying those to come nourishment for their Spring? Didn't our parents and their generation give themselves completely to life, enriching us in the process?

Random thoughts at a keyboard while recovering from one of life's little insults.

Schism!

Amongst the Atheists. The lamentable drop in quality of the "new atheists" is being noticed even by atheists:

Schism! Denial! Infighting! Name calling! And that's just among the atheists...:

The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist...

Read the whole thing.

(Via Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog.)