Notes: Friday, September 17, 2010

"Complaint of anti-Semitic articles is dismissed"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/complaint-of-antisemitic-articles-is-dismissed-20100916-15er8.html?skin=text-only

Excerpts:

In the column on June 12 Mr Carlton said that the previous column had led to ''hundreds of Jewish emailers'' responding to him. He added: ''It is a ferocious beast, the Jewish lobby. Write just one sentence even mildly critical of Israel and it lunges from its lair, fangs bared.'' And: ''The Israel lobby, worldwide, is orchestrated in Jerusalem by a department in the Prime Minister's office.'' In the item on June 19, Mr Carlton wrote: ''With bottomless irony, the Jewish lobby spent much of last week assuring anybody who would listen that there is no such thing as the Jewish lobby.''

[...] The Sydney Morning Herald replied by emphasising that the writers of opinion articles are entitled to express their views and to do so in a forceful manner. It referred to ''hundreds of emails, some of them crude and racist'', being received by Mr Carlton and to his use of ''strong and colourful language … to describe the ferocity of those who wrote''. It denied the allegations of anti-Semitism but said that Mr Carlton believed many of the email responses showed very clear evidence of co-ordination and that ''there is such a thing as a 'Jewish lobby' ''. It provided details on a department in the Israeli government it said was the originator of many of the arguments used in emails to him. The newspaper provided the council with some quotations from emails and press releases supporting his assertions about co-ordination of responses, and also with copies of the 12 letters that it had published, many of them critical of Mr Carlton, in which the issues raised by Ms Maynard were canvassed.

Here is Mr. Carlton's opinion piece of June 12. That "department in the ['Israeli'] Prime Minister's office" is called the "Ministry for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs", by the way. (Perhaps publishing this article was Fairfax's way of appeasing the beast.)

1917 Code of Canon Law and commentary available on-line:

http://www.archive.org/stream/newcanonlaw00woywuoft/newcanonlaw00woywuoft_djvu.txt
(Discovered here: http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=379745#379745)

The atheist non-murderer as coward

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=379684#379684
http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=379703#379703

Mr. Rowney on Dr. Hawking's "stunning lack of philosophical subtlety"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=23217

For once, an interesting 'CathBlog'. Particularly interesting was this section:

Hawking fails to grasps Leibniz's great insight that the universe must have a contingent cause. Without positing a contingent cause everything is necessary. For example the fact of "high winds in NSW on Fathers' Day" is just as necessary as "the law of gravity". Of course this is just bizarre and goes against our ordinary intuitions. It is also contrary to much of modern science. Leibniz was brilliant enough to discover a contingent cause in God's free choice to create the universe. Hawking doesn't have a contingent cause, he offers a (physically) necessary cause and so fails Leibniz's criterion. This error is again common to many recent physicists.

Two comments by me at AQ:

The first regarding Egypt's court ruling that the Coptic Orthodox Church must have divorce-'n'-remarriage:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=379848#379848

The other regarding the socio-political doctrine of St. Robert Bellarmine:

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=379851#379851

H.H. The Pope praises Saints of the Confessional State and their patrimony

Excerpts from the item in today's Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin:

POPE PRAISES DEEP CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

VATICAN CITY, 16 SEP 2010 (VIS) - [...]

"The name of Holyroodhouse", [the Holy Father] said, "recalls the 'Holy Cross' and points to the deep Christian roots that are still present in every layer of British life. The monarchs of England and Scotland have been Christians from very early times and include outstanding saints like Edward the Confessor and Margaret of Scotland. ... Many of them consciously exercised their sovereign duty in the light of the Gospel, and in this way shaped the nation for good at the deepest level. As a result, the Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years. Your forefathers' respect for truth and justice, for mercy and charity come to you from a faith that remains a mighty force for good in your kingdom, to the great benefit of Christians and non-Christians alike".

[...] "Today, the United Kingdom strives to be a modern and multicultural society. In this challenging enterprise, may it always maintain its respect for those traditional values and cultural expressions that more aggressive forms of secularism no longer value or even tolerate. Let it not obscure the Christian foundation that underpins its freedoms; and may that patrimony, which has always served the nation well, constantly inform the example your government and people set before the two billion members of the Commonwealth and the great family of English-speaking nations throughout the world. [...]
PV-UNITED KINGDOM/ VIS 20100916 (1050)

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Impression of the Holy Stigmata on the Body of St. Francis, Confessor, A.D. 2010

Notes: Tuesday, May 11, 2010

(This first edition of Notes covers last Saturday to today, inclusive of both.) [Update, Tuesday, May 11, 2010, approx. 0400 hrs.: After posting this, I noticed that I had forgotten that I had opened the Blogger "New Post" screen on Monday (but didn't hit "PUBLISH POST" till Tuesday), so when I wrote that "This first edition of Notes covers last Saturday to today", by "today" I mean Tuesday, not Monday, as one might have inferred from the day and date given at the top of this post.]

Mr. Gittins on the Henry Review

http://www.smh.com.au/business/how-much-stick-to-give-jobless-20100507-ujkx.html

I was disappointed but unsurprised to see, in The Daily Telegraph's recommendation-by-recommendation summary of the Henry Review last week, that one of the Review's recommendations was for the individual, rather than the family, to remain the basic unit for taxation. But perhaps this isn't such a bad thing, given that the Review's aim seems to be to make two-income families even better off relative to one-income families:

Now, it's clear from all the references to the ''tax and transfer system'' that one of the major goals of the review was to fully integrate the two systems - make them fit together better. That the two systems don't fit well can be seen from our frequent wrestling with the problem of high ''effective marginal tax rates''. Say a mother working full-time is considering moving to a tougher, higher-paying job. On each extra dollar she earns she would lose 31.5¢ in income tax. But she may also lose 30¢ in family benefit. If so, her marginal tax rate is, effectively, 61.5¢ in the dollar - well above the top tax rate of 46.5¢ and quite a disincentive.

It's clear the hope in getting the Henry review to look at the tax and transfer system was for it to find a comprehensive fix to the effective marginal tax problem.

But here's the scoop: it couldn't do it. After much effort it decided the two systems just couldn't be integrated. The problem is created by our love of means-testing, but is compounded because income tax is levied on the individual, whereas eligibility for transfer payments is based on the joint income of couples.

Its best suggestion was that the separate means tests for part A and part B of the family benefit be combined, with a single ''withdrawal rate'' of only 15¢ to 20¢ for each extra dollar of income earned.

(And here's another interesting figure from Mr. Gittins's article: "For every dollar the federal government gets in, more than 25¢ goes out in transfers.")

Ms Summers on fifty years of the Pill

http://www.smh.com.au/national/little-pill-that-changed-the-world-20100507-ujo8.html

Obviously I disagree with her on the liceity of contraception, but the article gives an insight into how the other side thinks.

Ms Smith on the N.S.W. State school ethics course

Here's a letter from yesterday's Herald:

Trial celebrates choice and parental responsibility

Date: May 10 2010

[...]

So what is the take-home lesson from the decimation of scripture classes by the ethics-course trial that Anglicans had predicted?

It's not a judgment on the quality of SRE classes, because it was parents who made the choice, without attending SRE classes or the trial classes. It's not a judgment on the quality of SRE teachers, because the ethics course teachers are simply civic-hearted volunteers like those SRE teachers who do not have theological or teaching qualifications (as many do). And it's not a judgment on the relative value of religion or ethics.

The take-home lesson is that the implementation of the ethics course created an ethical dilemma, which was the need to choose between ethics and religion when that choice should not have been necessary. The timetable slot is for SRE.

If the ethics course is not SRE, it should not be scheduled then and parents would not be forced to choose between a (heavily promoted) ethics course and religious education.

Claire Smith Roseville
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/trial-celebrates-choice-and-parental-responsibility-20100509-ullk.html?skin=text-only]

And here's one from today's Herald:

All views count in schools blessed with tolerance

Date: May 11 2010

[...]

Claire Smith (Letters, May 10) is wrong. As a parent I am well aware of what goes in at an SRE class.

Over the years I've had to explain to my daughter that my wife and I will not end up burning in hell. I patiently had to explain the cultural difference between angels and fairies. I had to explain that the leaflet she had been told to bring home, which gave ''10 reasons why we know the Bible is true'', had no foundation in fact, that at best the evidence for the ''reasons'' given were dubious at best and outright lies at worst. So I do know what SRE is about. It is not about ethics; it is not about learning how religion has shaped our culture; it is definitely not learning about the life and nature of Jesus Christ. It is an attempt by the church to indoctrinate children, in the hope that it will put a few more bums on seats to bolster its falling numbers. And the reality is it doesn't work.

As for ''parents been forced to choose'', this too is a lie. Many parents have wanted for a long time an ethics and critical thinking alternative to SRE, preferably taught by trained teachers as opposed to ''civic hearted'' volunteers. Well, finally, some parents have a choice for their children, and the church is bleating.

Paul Gittings Russell Lea
[http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/all-views-count-in-schools-blessed-with-tolerance-20100510-uojd.html?skin=text-only]

So "[m]any parents have wanted for a long time an ethics and critical thinking alternative to SRE". Now you might be aware that not just the Catholic Church and the Protestant sects are opposed to the ethics course trial, but so too is the Teacher's Federation, not because it subscribes to the content taught in Scripture classes, but because separate ethics classes would imply that pupils receive inadequate ethical formation from teachers. But Mr. Gittings and, apparently, "[m]any [other] parents" think that State school teachers don't even give pupils adequate instruction in critical thinking!

Mr. van Onselen on the porosity of Mr. Turnbull

As will the perception, if not the reality, of being indiscreet ["need to be remedied"]. Turnbull described himself on the ABC's Australian Story last year as "the soul of indiscretion". After his arrival in John Howard's cabinet, it started to leak. After he lost the leadership showdown with Brendan Nelson following the 2007 election defeat, Nelson quickly started to be undermined. When Abbott defeated Turnbull for the leadership last December, a private conversation between Turnbull and Julie Bishop in which she allegedly bagged Abbott leaked.

At one level skulduggery is expected in politics, but practitioners need to be discreet. Turnbull would do well to steer clear of low-grade political manoeuvring. Apart from anything else, he isn't much good at it.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/turnbulls-presence-looms-large-on-political-horizon/story-e6frg6zo-1225863814373]

Msgr. Fellay's latest Letter to Friends and Benefactors

http://www.dici.org/en/?p=4652

You might also want to check out the discussions on the Letter at angelqueen.org/forum and wdtprs.com/blog (at the latter, the comment by moon1234 — 8 May 2010 @ 4:10 am provides a useful recap on the status of the Second Vatican Council and its teachings).

Fr. Aidan (Nichols O.P.) and Mrs. Doorly on the Second Vatican Council and ecumenism

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31518

Ms Hogan on accusations of heresy

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=21089

See also here and here for comment, by Terra and Mr. Schütz, respectively, about Ms Hogan's blog post. Someone ought to put Ms Hogan in her place and simply quote Fr. Küng on, say, the dogma of Papal infallibility.

Dr. Brown on St. Thomas Aquinas's doctrine on God as First Cause

Here's a fascinating comment by Dr. Robert Brown, a regular commenter at wdtprs.com/blog:

[... Dr. Brown] would not agree that St Thomas was working from the notion of a created world. His arguments move via abstraction from sensible knowledge to metaphysical knowledge. From the fact that the limited being that comprises all material existence needs a cause (and that an infinite chain of essential causes is impossible), he arrives at the knowledge of the existence of the First Cause, Whom we call God.

The very fact of limited being means that it must have been created, and so there is nothing a priori about his concept of a created world.

[...]

Comment by robtbrown — 7 May 2010 @ 11:41 pm
[http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/05/whats-wrong-with-this-cogito-ergo-sum-thus-if-i-think-i-am-reverent-i-am/#comment-203647]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of Ss. Philip and James, Apostles, A.D. 2010