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VATICAN CITY -- Lengthy, abstract homilies are "a disaster," so preaching should be limited to 10 minutes, Pope Francis said. Speaking off the cuff to diocesan liturgical directors Jan. 20, the pope said homilies are not academic conferences. "I sometimes hear people say, 'I went to this parish, and yes it was a good philosophy lesson, 40, 45 minutes,'" he said. Homilies are "sacramentals" to be "prepared in prayer" and "with an apostolic spirit," he said. But, in the Catholic Church, he said, "in general, the homilies are a disaster." Pope Francis encouraged priests to keep their homilies to "no...

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, perhaps more than any other COVID shot, knows what it is to be bullied... Tweets, memes, and listicles dragged it... The underdog dose, the “second class” shot, the nation’s vaccine-a non grata, seemed as good as dead... It’s still early, but [immunologist] Collier thinks the dynamics might look a bit different for people who got a single dose of J&J. Her recent work shows that their antibody levels start significantly lower than mRNA recipients’, but that eight months out from vaccination, the numbers have stayed stable, and have, perhaps, even gone up.

The 2020 presidential election was historic in many ways. Amid a global pandemic, with unprecedented changes in how Americans voted, voter turnout rose 7 percentage points over 2016, resulting in a total of 66% of U.S. adult citizens casting a ballot in the 2020 election. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College and had a 4-point margin in the popular vote. While Biden’s popular vote differential was an improvement over Hillary Clinton’s 2016 2-point advantage, it was not as resounding as congressional Democrats’ 9-point advantage over Republicans in votes cast in the 2018 elections for the U.S....

Already deleted Twitter two months ago. Haven't used FB since 2016 when my libtard family members attacked me for posting my satisfaction that Hillary lost (not even that Trump won). I only kept FB bc I have a business account associated with it. Eff that.As I typed "How do I de --- the autofill came up on Bing, "how to delete facebook account" like this:

Bill Barr can take the heat, and on Tuesday the stalwart Attorney General guaranteed he’ll get it when he said “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Mr. Barr told the Associated Press that allegations of “particularized” fraud, with some that “potentially cover a few thousand votes,” are being explored. But President Trump is down by 150,000 votes in Michigan, 80,000 in Pennsylvania, and 20,000 in Wisconsin. As for the idea that voting machines were compromised, Mr. Barr said the feds “have looked into that, and so...

Protesters continued to gather Tuesday around D.C. for a fifth-straight day in response to the killing of George Floyd under Minneapolis police custody last week. A sizable crowd of protesters returned near the White House before the 7 p.m. curfew, a day after law enforcement officials had dispersed demonstrators using forcible methods that are still under scrutiny by local leaders. The curfew lasts until 6 a.m. Wednesday; D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she doesn’t intend to extend it. An organizer of Tuesday’s Lafayette Square protest is encouraging participants to ignore the curfew.

Bruce Springsteen has said that the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the inequalities in wealth and health of America. Speaking during his DJ set on Sirus XM’s E Street Radio, Springsteen reflected on the human cost of the pandemic. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt said liberty requires opportunity to make a living, a decent living according to the standard of the time. A living which gives a man or a woman not only enough to live by, but something to live for.” The 70-year-old continued: “Now the current pandemic has laid bare the inequalities in wealth and in health that plague our...

Key Points * China’s COVID-19 figures are not arithmetically sensible. The Communist Party has deliberately made estimation difficult, but, outside of Wuhan city and Hubei province, cases are low by a factor of 100 or more. * In late January, Chinese media provided information about migrant outflow from Wuhan before quarantine. Using a lower number than theirs, then conservative figures for migrants’ infection rate and time in circulation before national lockdown, generates an estimate of 2.9 million cases. * This is partly due to China’s huge population. That population can also hide COVID-19 among tens of millions of respiratory illnesses....

The Boss never met a crisis he didn't have words for. In a video supporting the launch of New Jersey's Pandemic Relief Fund, Bruce Springsteen offered hope for those suffering from COVID-19 and pointed his fellow New Jerseyans towards a new way they can lend a hand. “These are uncertain times,” Springsteen said. “What is for certain is the pain, the fear, and the real needs of many of our neighbors, our friends, and certainly all of those who are on the front lines of this pandemic.” Later on, he confirmed he and his family have been doing their part...

2018 Flu Season PBS article: Tis the season for gathering with friends and family to share latkes and gingerbread, but also for those dreaded colds and bouts of the flu. As temperatures drop, both illnesses start to tick up, as does the risk of taking you, your co-workers and loved ones down one-by-one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate the average person gets two to three colds per year — mostly in the winter and spring. The country as a whole sees 9.3 to 49 million cases of the flu annually. Cold and flu viruses, despite their ferocity...

Plan to ease middle-class taxes falters By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press WriterTue Jul 10, 7:35 PM ET House Democrats' promise to permanently protect millions of middle-class families from a mostly unknown tax increase is faltering before it's even unveiled. Senate Democrats are pressing a Band-Aid approach to delay for just a year or two the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, from adding $2,000 more in taxes on average to families with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 a year. That way Democrats wouldn't have to go into next year's election after having tried, and probably failed, to raise income taxes on...

June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood before that most repugnant of symbols of communism, the Berlin Wall, and demanded its destruction. On June 5, 1989, the Chinese government ordered the destruction of an inspired protest against communism, featuring a model of that great symbol of freedom, the Statue of Liberty.   This past week, June of 2007, these anniversaries have been noted in the news and on the web. I won't bother with the links. They're everywhere. What is not anywhere, however, is treatment or understanding of these events as related, as one in the same, connected. The...

Sinopec Corp. Announces 2006 Interim Results Sunday August 27, 8:05 pm ET BEIJING--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 27, 2006--China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation ("Sinopec Corp." or "the Company") (HKEX: 386) (NYSE: SNP - News; LSE: SNP - News; CH: 600028) today announced its interim results for the 6 months ended 30 June, 2006... ... "Confronted with soaring global crude prices, tight domestic price controls on refined oil products , as well as wide fluctuation in the petrochemical market during the first half of 2006, Sinopec has fully leveraged its integrated business portfolio, deepened reforms, accelerated asset restructuring, expanded resources, and consolidated its market...

As the Auto Age Dawned, Gasoline Wasn't King By Steven Levingston Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 13, 2006; F01 D.H. Killeffer had a dire warning for gasoline-greedy Americans. The chemical engineer had crunched the numbers -- he compared the country's production of crude oil with its thirst for gasoline. "Estimates based on the most complete data now available place the end of our gasoline supply between ten and twenty years, with the odds in favor of ten rather than twenty," Killeffer, secretary of the New York division of the American Chemical Society, wrote in the New York Times. The...

Potential and problems for luxury market in China and India by Dominique SchroederSun Jun 11, 1:54 AM ET New lands to conquer for luxury brands, China and India both represent markets with a strong potential but which will need tailor-made approaches to take account of the different brakes on their development. China is now the world's third biggest market for luxury goods, the director general of the polling institute IPSOS-France, Stephane Trucchi, reminded an international seminar on the luxury industry organised in Paris. China now accounts for 12 percent of sales, after Japan (41 percent) and the United States (17...

America may still think of itself as the land of opportunity, but the chances of living a rags-to-riches life are a lot lower than elsewhere in the world, according to a new study published on Wednesday. The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America," a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University. By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said. "In other words, the chances of getting rich...

MIAMI (AP) -- Washington Nationals general manager Jim Bowden was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol after allegedly running a stop sign while in Florida during his team's series against the Marlins last weekend. A few minutes before he was stopped, Bowden and his girlfriend were apparently involved in a physical altercation that left him with scratches and resulted in battery and resisting arrest charges against her. A Miami Beach police report said the 44-year-old Bowden refused to take a breath-alcohol test after he was stopped at 2:22 a.m. Monday. An officer said he saw Bowden run the...

Sunday, November 27, 2005 Netwar One of the coolest posts I've read in a long time is Chester's Globalization and War. His reference links to Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles and the really nifty eMachineShop alone are worth the read. The fundamental issue he discusses is whether nation-states are in some sense being replaced by distributed networks of people. Many activities, from community building to earning a living have jumped over traditional boundaries. Criminal and terrorist organizations have been among the first to exploit this fact. Viewed from one angle, modern Islamic terrorist cells are not so much a...

Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15–44 Years of Age, United States ... Three percent of males 15-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another male in the last 12 months (1.8 million). Four percent of females had a sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months (tables A and B). The proportion who had same-sex contact in their lifetimes was 6 percent for males and (using a different question) 11 percent for females (figure 5). About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women 15-44 years of age have...

John McWhorter is right to say that we ought to pause and remember the Watts riots of 40 years ago and ponder their implication for America's present and future ["Burned, Baby, Burned..." FR post here]. I take strong issue, however, with the conclusions he draws from his review of the events in Watts and South Central Los Angeles in 1965. I think the difference between McWhorter and me arises in large measure from our profoundly different perspectives on the event. He writes that he was born two months after the riots occurred and that his conclusions are based on his...