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Punditry

No Blood for Ethanol

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Rome, May. 28, 2008 (CWNews.com) – The Holy See’s permanent observer to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Msgr. Renato Volante, has denounced the use of agricultural products for fuel.

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Msgr. Volante said: "It is not ethically just to use food for purposes other than human consumption, when there are people who suffer from hunger.”

The Vatican representative’s statement comes just ahead of an FAO conference on the Food Crisis, to be held in Rome next week.

Hey doesn’t he know that in US politics that politicians must appease corn producing states. Billions of dollars in ethanol subsidies are needed for early primary states and ones that can go either way in an election. People starving is just an unintended consequence. Kind of like banning DDT and letting millions die of malaria.

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Liturgy

Who can out-puppet the other?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Many people have seen the strange giant puppets at the Call to Action conference at the end of April.

I has nothing though on the Palm Sunday Mass that occurred at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Mn.

For the faint of heart who can’t handle the 15 minutes of creepiness, the Fratres blog has a bunch of still pictures which are "highlights."

Here is just an example:

Hey haven’t I seen those characters somewhere else?

Oh yeah, that’s it.

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Tech

Blog Update

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I have finished updating the format of The Curt Jester

It had been over three years since I last updated the version of Movable Type which is the publishing system I use to maintain this blog. In the meantime since my last update Movable Type has gone open source and through many changes and real improvements.

I started fresh with the blog templates and did a lot of modifications to give me both a feel for my old layout and updating the style of it at the same time. I don’t know how non-geeks update blog templates because it can be challenging for someone such as myself who makes his living coding. Though I certainly appreciate the power of Movable Types layout and I have really separated parts of the blog into separate widgets to make it much easier to maintain, such as my blogroll for example.

Since I had been using Movable Type for over five years there were aspects of it that were rather dated. For example the main feed use to be in the older RDF format. I know have Atom and RSS feeds that show the whole post, those with the older one will need to subscribe to the new ones. Another change is that the blog is now published dynamically instead of creating static web pages. After close to six years of blogging I was eating a lot of server space with various archives. My blog host was kind enough to up the limit each time I ran out of room, but it is better just to serve web pages dynamically. The links to blog posts have changed also. Before they were just a number like 9687.html. Now they use the post title in the url. So old links to individual posts no longer work. Annoying, but an needed change I should have done a long time ago.

One thing that is really annoying is those of you reading my blog through just a blog aggregator. I spent countless hours in the dungeons of CSS code programming only for you to view my blog in an aggregator with no formatting. But then again I read blogs through just an aggregator so hardly see the efforts of people when they have redesigned their blog, unless I go to their site to comment. In fact I have become an RSS bigot. If some internet blog or news site doesn’t have a feed I pretty much never visit it again.

Anyway I hope you like the new format and if you are reading this via an aggregator, never mind.

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Humor

Too Catholic

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

CLEVELAND (AP) – Officials at the Cleveland airport say they’re considering moving its chapel because some visitors say the space is "too Catholic."

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport rents the large space to the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland for $1,200 a year. But as officials plan to renovate that concourse, they are talking with the diocese about moving the space or perhaps making it less denomination specific.

The Rev. Charles Doerpers says the diocese is open to making the chapel more inclusive to other faiths. But he also thinks money is the issue and fears the airport only wants the space for retail shops.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long complained about the space’s Catholic-specific space.

Well all they have to do is hire Fr. Dick Vosco and in no time they will have it looking less Catholic.

Article

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News

Engaging the media

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumanntakes the time to respond to the majority of the questions asked of him via the media and other in response to his previous column on Governor Sebelius and asking her not to receive Communion.

Pretty much all of the standard arguments are answered and the Archbishop answers them in a concise way. I love how he has engaged the media. We often hear the term teaching moments and it is nice that one was actually taken advantage of.

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Apologetics

Atheist to Benedictine Monk and Priest

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Here is a cool YouTube video on Fr. Boniface’s journey.

This story reminds me of someone else. Long time blog readers might also remember former atheist Sean Roberts of the old Swimming the Tiber blog who became a monk at Byzantine Catholic Holy Resurrection Monastery in 2004.
Via A Catholic Mom in Hawaii

In other atheist news:

…The Institute for Humanist Studies, an Albany, N.Y.-based nonprofit, is calling attention to its calendar of atheist holidays on its Web site, www.secular seasons.org. The group wants nonbelievers (or at least people who don’t celebrate religious holidays) to have a handy reference guide of the calendar of holidays honoring free-thinkers, banned books and nature, among other themes.

Excuse me but by definition atheists can not have their own Holiday which after all means Holy Day. Maybe a Randomday. Or how about Flukeday or Primordial Soup Day? Ummm primordial soup!

Since leaving atheism I now find it interesting the names atheists tag themselves with. Brights and free-thinkers are common identifiers. Though free-thinkers are not free to believe in God. Ironically it reminds me of those who tag themselves "Thinking Catholics." There is a hubris in these terms that give the user the air of superiority. Tautologies that say I am bright because I say I am a bright. Or those who take Descartes further "I am a thinking Catholic therefore I am."

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News

Not Stolen Valor

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

David at Cosmos-Litugy-Sex has provided a valuable service by thoroughly investigating the claims made by the POW Network that Fr. John Corapi had been claiming to have been a Green Beret in Vietnam. It certainly looks like Fr. Corapi is totally innocent of the charge on his part, though there have been some web sites that made the claim about him. Sites that he had nothing to do with.

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