Free Republic

Could an app motivate marijuana users to exercise? The National Institutes of Health is giving $357,750 in taxpayer dollars through its National Institute on Drug Abuse to State University of New York at Buffalo to find out. “Currently, marijuana (MJ) is the most popular illicit drug, but there are few effective interventions to help young adults (age 18 to 25 years) to reduce their MJ intake and avoid negative consequences, including dependence,” the grant noted. “This study will develop and initially test an intervention [personalized feedback on MJ use + a smartphone app to promote exercise/physical activity (PA) as a...

What Is the Deepest Root of Sin? It’s Not in Your Wallet and It’s Much Closer Than You Might Think By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn polling friends as to what they think is the deepest root of all sin, I got three main answers. One was a shrug indicating no answer at all (i.e., “I dunno”). Another was to refer to Scripture: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils (1 Tim 6:10). I’ll discuss below why this is an inadequate answer. The third main response was that original sin (and the concupiscence that followed) is the source of all of our other...

What is Sloth? It is More Subtle and Devilish Than Mere Laziness By: Msgr. Charles PopeOne of the more misunderstood of the cardinal sins is sloth. This is because most see it merely as laziness. But there is more to sloth than that. Let’s take a moment and consider some aspects of the cardinal sin we call sloth.The Greek word we translate as sloth is ἀκηδία akedia (a = absence + kedos = care), meaning indifference or negligence. St. Thomas speaks of sloth as sorrow for spiritual good. By it, we shun spiritual good as too toilsome (cf ST...

What Is Temptation, Why Does God Permit It, and What Are Its Sources? By: Msgr. Charles PopeI will be on the Catholic Answers radio show today (Monday, March 23) at 6:00 PM Eastern Time. The topic will be temptation: what it is and how to avoid and overcome it.  I’ve assembled some notes in preparation and I’ll present them (in two parts) in the blog. Today’s post focuses on what temptation is, why God allows it, and what its sources are. Tomorrow I’ll present the second half of the notes, which center on how to avoid and overcome temptation.What is Temptation? A seminary teacher of mine once defined...

John Mauldin February 16, 2015We do not have to look to Greece to find massively underfunded obligations. Here in the US we can find hundreds of examples, willingly created by politicians and businessmen who proclaim they are working for the public good. We call them pension funds, but they’re just another form of unfunded debt. A sovereign bond is a promise to pay a certain amount of money over time. A defined-benefit pension fund is a promise to pay a certain amount of income over time. The value of either is determined by the ability of the government or the...

> Good Times for Dogs, Not So Good for Babies – A Reflection on the Perversity of Modern Culture By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn moral decline, both personal and cultural, the problem is that not only do we desire what is evil, we also stop desiring that which is good and holy. At the heart of desiring what is evil (or what is good, but to excess), are pride, greed, lust, and gluttony. Sloth and envy are more involved in no longer desiring what is good.Sloth is a kind or sorrow or aversion to the good things God offers to us, involving everything...

If you want to get some idea about why President Obama has not formulated a strategy for defeating ISIS, take a look at . . . Thursday. Yes, Thursday. On Wednesday night, reporters were given Obama’s Thursday schedule. It did not mention a meeting between Obama and his national security advisors. Just before 10:00 am, we received word that he would convene a meeting with the National Security Council at 4:00 pm sharp. It sounded portentous. Such meetings aren’t normally scheduled so hastily or announced to reporters. Then, at about 1:45 pm, 45 minutes after the daily briefing was supposed...

Find Them Before They Spoil the Bunch As a business owner and/or manager, you work hard and spend a considerable amount of time and money on hiring the right people. Prior experience, references and whether or not the person will fit into your company's culture are all things that must be carefully examined. If you're thorough and do your homework, chances are the person will likely work out. But what happens six months, a year, or 5 years down the road when things take a turn for the worse? Employees—especially those on the fast track—work hard to stand out and...

One of the big problems in America today is that a lot of people simply do not seem to care about what they are doing anymore. The level of sloth, laziness and apathy that we are witnessing in this country is absolutely mind-numbing. Of course this is not true of everyone. There are still many Americans that are extremely hard working. But overall, it really appears that people are not taking as much pride in their work as they once did. Some of the examples that I am about to show you are quite funny. Others are more than just...

The White House and congressional Democrats tried to limit the fallout Wednesday from the politically damaging conclusion in a Congressional Budget Office report that the Obamacare entitlement creates a major incentive for some people not to work. While some critics focused on a finding by the CBO that Obamacare will result in 2.5 million fewer workers over a decade, conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work. “People used to be stuck in jobs because they needed the health insurance,” said...

One of the more misunderstood of the deadly sins is sloth. In the wider culture sloth is often equated simply with laziness.But sloth has a lot more subtleties than simple laziness. In fact, sloth can sometimes manifest as workaholism and other frantic worldly activities and busyness.This is because sloth is most fundamentally defined as a “sorrow or aversion to the good things that God offers” such as a moral life, and deeper spiritual fruitfulness etc. There are some who find such things unappealing, and instead of joyfully accepting these gifts, they are sorrowful toward them or averse. One way to...

Sex Week and Spring Break are two phenomena happening each year on America’s college campuses for which struggling parents pay hard earned tuition dollars as alums glorify abject debauchery parading as the latest form of academia’s political correctness. The Sex Week displays at six major universities including Yale and my alma mater, the University of Illinois, held this past February in Champaign, leave me utterly speechless. When an undergrad degree is now criticized as being little more than an eighth grade diploma, why on earth would we support such decadence, decay, and destruction of the coming generations which...

'A BABY sloth shows some love to its handler — by giving her a hibiscus petal. The tiny animal named Matty grabs the bloom in its three-toed paws before leaning back to offer it to keeper Claire. The adorable footage was filmed at a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica.'

An unemployed Berlin man who had his state welfare cut to nearly nothing is refusing to eat, in an attempt to make the government consider introducing a basic income. … He denies bringing the situation upon himself by turning down multiple job offers, saying that as a trained and experienced occupational therapist, it would be unthinkable to work in a badly paid, unskilled job. He turned down shifts at a call center for €7 ($8.96) an hour, calling it “slave labor”, while a job in the office of a temping agency would make Boes what he called a “slave master”,...

French admit they are 'rude, stroppy, and slothful' The French have admitted they are "rude, stroppy, and slothful" in a new survey about what they think of their own behaviour. The poll revealed 97 per cent of Paris public transport users believed fellow travellers were "ill-mannered" and lacked civility. The biggest gripe was people forcing their way onto trains before other passengers had got off. Other irritations were passengers talking too loudly on mobile phones, and people sprawling over two seats in packed carriages. Also included in the list of annoyances were queue-jumping at ticket counters, leaping over barriers without...

Obese Americans have smaller paychecks than those who aren't overweight, and this difference is especially strong among women, a new study finds. The analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth revealed that in 2004, overall average annual incomes were $8,666 less for obese women and $4,772 less for obese men compared with normal weight workers. In 2008, obese women made an average of $5,826 (15 percent) less than normal-weight females, the George Washington University researchers said. "This research broadens the growing body of evidence that shows that in addition to taxing health, obesity significantly affects personal finances,"...

A look Back People just don’t disappear. Look at Germany in 1946 or Athenians in 339 B.C. They continue, but their governments and cultures end. Aside from the dramatic military implosions of authoritarian or tribal societies — the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the end of Nazism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the annexation of tribal Gaul — what brings consensual states to an end, or at least an end to the good life? The city-states could not stop 30,000 Macedonians in a way — when far poorer and 150 year earlier — they had stopped 300,000 Persians descending on many...

“I’m ready to offer my services for ur project. Contact me at ur earliest convenience 2 arrange for interview. Thanks in advance for ur consideration.” That’s a real cover letter from a real person claiming to be a real professional, who thinks she can get a real job. The letter was fielded by publicist and trend-spotter Richard Laermer, who gets so many of these he collects them and, when asked, forwards them to reporters for fun. The letter “just made me shake my head till it nearly fell off.” But it isn’t rare. In fact, Laermer says, it’s typical. “Lazy...

Pale and snub-nosed with long arms and curving claws, an "alien" discovered in September had five teenagers thinking they'd had a close encounter in a Panama creek. "I was in the river and I felt something grabbing my legs," one of the boys told the local television program Telemetro Reporta a few days after the sighting in the Cerro Azul region of Panama City. "We took it out of the water and started throwing rocks and sticks at it. We had never seen anything like that." After beating the creature until they thought it was dead, the teenagers threw it...

Some executives are revoking the 24/7 rule and reinstating the eight-hour work day Susan Wilson Solovic likes her sleep and her time off. But it wasn't long ago that the hour between 2 and 3 a.m. was her prime e-mailing time, and vacations were little more than a different setting in which to work. "People thought I was crazy," says Solovic, the chief executive of Small Business Television Network, a Web-based news and information service for entrepreneurs. But, she says, "our company was growing rapidly, and my life became completely consumed by the business." Five years after the launch of...