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.

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.

money - the pc hardware solution.

A week ago, I had a situation with my PC. Initially, my diagnosis was software problem. The system got jerky. So, decided to restart the system, and to unistall the suspicious software, which I thought was causing the problem.

Unfortunately, the system failed to boot up when I opted for restart. Just as I thought my data all loss for that cause, a lifeline came in. My friend thought I could try backing up my data in the drive using Linux-based Knoppix Life CD. We tried whole night via that, and it WORKED! Thank you Knoppix. Phew~! That left me sweating a bit.

I re-formatted the system, and tried re-installing the system. But, problems stucked there. I kept on getting error message from the installation. It kept telling me that files cannot be copied over to the hard drive. I thought, it MUST be either the ROM, IDE cable or the RAM. I ruled the possibility of my hdd having bad sector/corruption out, as my hdd was still considered pretty new. I purchased it back in 2004.

So I decided to pay Low Yat Plaza, a place where you get PC fair all year round, a visit. I bought myself a new 512MB DDR Ram, and couple of IDE cables. Came home and tried them out. And.. still the problem wasn't solved!



I was really getting annoyed now. I decided to swap my older hdd with the new one, replacing it as the Master drive on my PC. And, that proved my worst fear to be valid. My 80G Western Digital was the main cause. The system partition was corrupted.

That left me no choice, but to visit LowYat Plaza again the following day. Having spent about MYR 150 on the DDR earlier, now I need to fork out another MYR 260 for a 160G hdd.



Blooody dang, that bill costs me about MYR 400 already. Quite some chunk off my salary. *sigh* Why does shit happen all the time?

Anyway, I am not complaining too much. I have got larger capacity now, with more RAM, which helps me a lot on my PC performance. 200G of harddisk space, with 768MB of RAM. (I wonder if the 256MB I took out from the system is still usable?)

Pretty fast. Yeah~!

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.

back online

PC is fully functional now. The source of breakdown to my PC has been identified. Apparently, it was a failure on my System partition that caused the breakdown. Now I need to claim the warranty.

On top of that, I am now billed with a near MYR 400 of credit statement.

Sigh.

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

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.

pc down

Dang! I hate when this happens. Most people do!

PC went down just now. Argh. I hate going thru the hassle rescuing it. All the backups, re-installations, and restorations. Not to mention the fine-tuning to suit my personal use. Lucky for me, I had a friend who lend a great hand with this Knoppix CD, it's a life saver! Really!

Windows OS couldn't access to my partition of hdd, I couldn't do my backup to my data in there. Thanks to this live-saving CD, it's all considered done. (Although there was steps going thru the technical part, like the command line and such, as it is on Linux platform)

5:06A.M., and I am still awake! Darn! I'm gonna waste my Sunday morning again. Sigh. I just hate sleeping in the daytime.

*Currently updating this entry using my friend's laptop.

I think it is about time for me to shop for a new DVD drive, as well as a writer drive. I'm considering a DVD Drive (Standalone), and a DVD-writer (depends on the price). I'm also looking into a new mobile phone. I have a Sony Ericsson K750i in my mind.

Hmm... Plenty to consider. Research and survey to commence soon!

one month

It has been already a month since I joined my current employment. And it didn't feel that way, time flies! Let's hope everything goes well! Cheers!

camera

It has been about five minutes since I am logged on to blogger.com now. Yet, I have nothing in my mind on what to write yet.

I wonder how other bloggers do it. I am a regular reader in few blogs around, e.g. Kennysia.com, Sixthseal.com, and even one of my old pal Val, they all seem to capable to update their blogs regularly with quite some interesting content. I wonder how they do it.

*sratch head*

I still don't get it.

10 minutes later...

Oh, I think something just came up into my mind. CAMERA!

Yeah, CAMERA! Somehow that came into my mind, and I don't know how!! Anyways, speaking of camera, I am missing my old camera badly! I'm referring it as old camera, though I still have the camera with me here, as it's not functioning well already. I am considering for replacement already.

My digital camera used to be Canon A70. It worked great! There are so many functions I could play around with. The macro was great. It has long shutter exposure. It also has apperture priority setting! You can click on the link for more details.

Here's how it looks like.



I bought it around August-September 2003, not too long after it was released. It has been with me for almost 3 years. It has served me well alright. No doubt about it, capturing many happy moments, and fantastic shots as well.

It has had problems prior this. I have sent it back to Canon to claim the warranty while its coverage is still valid. Back then, it was just some minor problem with the "Review" selector. It was somehow stuck. After that, there was this 'flickering' problem emerging on the Display screen. I had sent it for service in Canon, and it costed me MYR 100! Problem did not solved there. It still persists.

Sigh. Now, it has problem with memory card. I don't know why the pictures it captures, would have been corrupted. Odd eh? I have made an exchange for the CF card, but the problem still stays. Sad.

I have not sent it for servicing since that time, long long time ago.. But on second thought I don't think it's worth it.

Here are the replacement I am considering:

Canon 350D (don't think this is an exact replacement)

Canon ixus-series;

or

Any other affordable range of consumer-ranged camera.

Any suggestions?

The more I read about Dan Brown

The more I suspect he's a human who's sold his soul to the devil in exchange
for fame and fortune.

People who've read only one book since they graduated from high school or college are drawn to read this book.

I'm probably the last person to bring this to your attention, but there's a new Catholic resource site for answering The Da Vinci Code www.jesusdecoded.com

Pause

I'm still undecided if I can sustain the hours to do a blog with the same intensity that I did when I had a less demanding job. I spend more time online chatting with family and friends. Also, there's a lot of other good blogs out there. Maybe I should just read more and write less.

barney's best friend

I think Barney has just found his/her new best friend. Is Barney a she or a he? Well, let's just presume that our friend here is a he.

Taaa daaa...

Barney's new best friend!!!!! Spotted in KLCC!









Don't you think they have similarities? Irritating and annoying, isn't it? No wonder there were children running away from this mascot, screaming for mama. Poor kid!

* Sorry if there are Barney friends among you.

back again

a2blog is back, again. It's been a long time since I last update this blog. Hopefully this time, I'll be able to do this on a consistent basis. I, personally, had gone through a lot of changes during the period of time.

I had been thinking through on what concept I should inject into this blog. I am looking for a not so personal, yet entertaining and informative elements for this blog. I will leave my old entries as it is just for now. Won't be removing it just yet.

Nowadays, we seem to be going into a asymmetric trend. We have hair style designed that way, fashion leaning towards that trend as well. Our very own national car isn't much of an exception. Here, I present Proton Gen2 with asymmetric rear tyres!



Take note of the Left wheel! As you can see, it's smaller than the one on the right! It must be hard for this Gen2 to balance itself. I guess that explains why he was going about 40-60kmph on the highway!

Here, a closer look...



Weird huh?

a2blog is now quite messy, and needs a face-lift. I'll clean it up bit by bit, for sure. For now, I'm content with this temporary new layout. Hopefully, I can come out with my own layout. ;-)

Lent

My prayers are less for myself than for others. My life seems so inconsequential and so unworthy of my own prayers compared to the souls of others that seemed so determined to spend eternity in hell and need so much grace to avoid hell.

There's stories that with their frequency are shocking now but will they be in the back pages in a few years?

This child was tossed out into a street to be crushed and ignored in the traffic.

Baby's Remains Found on Long Island Road : AP

The body of a newborn baby that had been crushed by a car was discovered lying on a residential street Saturday, officials said.

A man walking his dog found the mangled body at 7:30 a.m. on a street near a golf course and a high school in Hempstead, about 20 miles east of Manhattan.

The naked body had been lying in the road for some time, probably more than a day, and may have been struck by more than one vehicle, said Detective Lt. Dennis Farrell of the Nassau County police.

Repentance, Conversion, Atonement -- for myself and for the whole world. It should be part of every Catholic's lent, along with fish on Friday and "giveups".

Strange new respect dept.: New York Times loves Roger Cardinal Mahony

The Gospel vs. H.R. 4437 : New York Times

It has been a long time since this country heard a call to organized lawbreaking on this big a scale.

The Archbishop of Los Angeles urges his priests to defy the law. I wonder if he's willing to do the jail time in their places...

The silliness here is that the legislation sponsored by Peter King will actually have the effect of protecting immigrants from exploitation.

Read some accurate information here about the bill:

H.R. 4437- Sensenbrenner/King Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005

Keeping the title doesn't help reconciliation with the East, dropping the title doesn't help reconciliation with the West. You can't win with these guys!

Benedict XVI drops a traditional papal title : Catholic World News

Dropping papal title does not advance ties, Orthodox prelate says : Catholic World News

Pope Benedict drops one of his nine titles: Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict has dropped one of his nine official titles, giving up "Patriarch of the West" in a discreet step apparently intended to help promote closer ties with the Orthodox churches of the East.

Benedict will retain titles such as Vicar of Jesus Christ and Servant of the Servants of God, but the patriarch title will not appear in the Vatican's annual directory due out later this month, Roman Catholic Church officials said on Wednesday.

The Pope has stressed his desire to improve ties with the Orthodox churches, which split from Rome in 1054, and a Vatican aide said scrapping the patriarch title was meant to help that.

"In the past, the patriarchate of the West was contrasted with that of the East," Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, former head of the Vatican office for eastern rite churches, told the Italian news agency ANSA.

"I think the Pope wanted to remove this sort of contrast and his act is intended as a spur to ecumenical progress."

Some Vatican observers were not so sure this would help.

The daily Corriere della Sera said the Orthodox churches "could see this papal innovation ... as an indirect affirmation of himself as a 'universal patriarch'."

Vatican relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of these churches, have been strained because the Moscow hierarchy suspects the Catholic Church of trying to win new members there following the fall of communism in 1991.

Orthodox leaders could see the move as a Vatican bid to ignore geography and rise above the ancient structure of Christianity as centred in the five main patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.

Rome is the centre of the Roman Catholic Church while Istanbul, the former Constantinople, is home of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, symbolic head of the Orthodox churches. The others play much lesser roles in Christian affairs.

Benedict will visit Bartholomew in Istanbul in November.

The Pope's remaining eight titles are Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Metropolitan Archbishop of the Roman Province, Sovereign of Vatican City and Servant of the Servants of God.

Perhaps it's a concession to feminists: "Down with Patriarchy!"

What you always assumed to be true, is according to the Italian government

Pope's Shooting Laid to Soviets by Italian Panel: New York Times

Citing new photographic analysis, an Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that top Soviet leaders were behind the failed plot to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981...

The new claim revolves largely around two new analyses of photographs of the crowds in St. Peter's Square that day. The analyses show decisively, the report says, that a Bulgarian, Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the former director of Balkan Air, was in the square at the time of the shooting and so had lied when he said that he was in his office at the time.

Mr. Antonov and two other Bulgarians were cleared by an Italian court in 1986 of accusations that they had hired the Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, who was convicted of attempted murder and was imprisoned in Italy until 2000.

Agca might be insane with his legion of stories, each one different, about how he came to shoot the Pope.

I've always thought the Italians were wrong to release him without a verifiable confession from Agca identifying and implicating the people who paid him, gave him phony id, weapons, etc.

Lenten Practices of the Catholic Church

align=left width=640>Alms, Fasting, Abstinence, Flagellation

Today we practice voluntary acts of self-denial. The tradition of mortification of the flesh and flagellation has passed from the mainstream of Catholic culture.