Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
In an unusually barefaced statement of what many Christians actually think, Michael Olgren, Finance Committee Chairman of dying Grace Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids, MI, blurted out the following: At the parish's annual meeting on January 12, 2012, Dr. Michael Olgren, Chair of the Finance Committee, painted a dire financial picture of the parish stating …
Continue reading "Do We Really Want Rich People to Join Our Churches?"
In a culture that imputes statistical studies with authority they don't deserve, this warning, from Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN 77, is very salutary: Data consist of numbers, of course. But these numbers are fed into the computer, not produced by it. These are numbers to be treated with considerable respect, neither to be tampered with, …
Continue reading "A Salutary Reminder About the Limitations of Data and Statistics"
This, from David Virtue's Online Digest, sure makes it look that way: The saga of TAC Bishop David L. Moyer and his Newman fellowship continues. He announced to his small flock this week that he would not be accepting Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson's offer of laicization in order to enter the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, he …
Continue reading "Have Loose Cannons Hepworth and Moyer Gone Overboard?"
It is fashionable (especially in Anglican/Episcopal circles where it is so common these days) to refer to conversion to Roman Catholicism as "swimming the Tiber."Â Â Although Hillaire Belloc never actually had to convert (although a recovery was in order,) his The Path to Rome (which he actually walked, via the Alps) is probably a better …
Finally, someone on the inside states the obvious: President Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu uttered the kind of Washington gaffe that consists of telling the truth when inconvenient. According to Politico, Chu admitted to a House committee that the administration is not interested in lowering gas prices. Chu, along with the Obama administration, …
Continue reading "The Truth Finally Comes Out About the Obama Administration and High Gas Prices"
Saw this quote from Christian inspirational writer William Arthur Ward on, of all places, Foreign Policy's website: The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. In the spirit of what I've been seeing on Facebook lately, we should want to know what the opportunist would do. …
Continue reading "The Optimist, Pessimist and Opportunist Square Off Again"
I received an intriguing comment from Desmond on my 1662 Book of Common Prayer page. He was taking issue with my comments about women in ministry, but he did so in a odd way. Since he hit on subjects that I have talked about before and probably need repeating for newer visitors, I'll take his …
Continue reading "Just to Reiterate: My Thoughts on Women in Ministry, and About Being a Snob"
Robert McDowell is right about the threat to internet freedom: On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year's end. As Russian …
Continue reading "Curtailing Internet Freedom: I Guess it’s Back to the Telex"
He may not have thought of that, or perhaps he did... What Obama describes as the American Dream can seem a spare, fundamental aspiration, tailored for a campaign that looks to be fought over who is best equipped to safeguard the interests of middle-class Americans... "If you're willing to put in the work, the idea …
Continue reading "Obama's Modest American Dream Has a Soviet Ring"
Krugman's the one who's scratching his head here: Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published last weekend, that the regions of America most hooked on Mr. Santorum’s narcotic — the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income — are precisely the …
Continue reading "Paul Krugman’s Hard Lesson in Ingratitude"
Positive Infinity 