So now a Tea Eucharist? (or whatever)

Conservative U.S. Catholics Feel Left Out of the Pope’s Embrace - NYTimes.com

First, the press always gets religious ideas wrong, so I wouldn't take their theological observations seriously. (In fact, I don't take anyone's theological observations seriously)

Second, as I understand it, almost all of these "controversial" things the Pope has said actually do not represent any change at all in doctrine, they merely emphasize a different part than has been emphasized before. People don't do nuance, and the press is especially guilty.

That said, I am rubbing my hands with glee at the prospect that extreme American conservatives will protest that the Pope isn't wingnutty enough for them. They have already formed an elite suicide squad in the Republican Party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHk2RSMCS8

Each side has their problems...

... but if they ever agree, watch out!

Missing the Bad Old Days - NYTimes.com

Back to business as usual? Maybe, but only when it's bad for the people and good for the Congresscritters.

See, this is what I like about the farm bill. The agriculture parts harken back to the golden era when Republicans and Democrats could work together to promote stupid ideas that benefited the special interests in their districts. 

One term better defined at least

Far-Off Planets Like the Earth Dot the Galaxy - NYTimes.com

So there may be 40 billion habitable planets in the galaxy. Depending, of course on what you call "habitable."

But that comes closer at least to nailing down one of the variables in the Drake Equation, which I still view as a WAG (wild-ass-guess) multiplied by Who Knows? multiplied by Not Bloody Likely and allowing for the accelerated rotation of the status quo....

How I learned to quit worrying and love the Miocene

How the world is failing at its climate goals, in one giant chart

I can't get too excited about this, for the simple reason that no matter what 8 billion people do, they will foul the nest so badly that continued survival becomes impossible.

We can only hope that those of us who are now living (and sadly, also responsible for the mess) aren't around to see the worst of it.

Blame the recession? No.

The Great Recession may have crushed America’s economic potential

Blame the tepid response, and Republican foot-dragging.

The paper offers a depressing portrait of where the economy stands nearly six years after the onset of recession, and amounts to a damning indictment of U.S. policymakers. Their upshot: The United States's long-term economic potential has been diminished by the fact that policymakers have not done more to put people back to work quickly. Our national economic potential is now a whopping 7 percent below where it was heading at the pre-2007 trajectory, the authors find.

Or maybe blame idiotic economic theory  ideology: (interjections in brackets are mine)

There is a tendency  [among supply-siders, e.g ideologues] to think of a nation’s “aggregate supply,” or potential output, as something that exists outside the realm of influence by short-term economic policy. The economic potential, after all, comes from the education of its people, the richness of its land, the quality of its machines — all things that a central banker can’t do much of anything to influence.

In other words, supply is “exogenous” to a policymaker’s economic model. But that may turn on its head in circumstances like the present. They write:

The implications for monetary policy may differ sharply from what is commonly presumed because much of the supply-side damage could be an endogenous response to weak aggregate demand. [Ya THINK!!????] If so, then an activist monetary policy may be able to limit the amount of supply-side damage that occurs initially, and potentially may also help to reverse at a later stage such damage as does occur. By themselves, such considerations militate toward a more aggressive stance of policy and help to buttress the case for a highly aggressive policy response to a financial crisis and associated recession.

In other words, when there is weak demand and people remain out of work, the cyclical downturn can become a structural downturn. That means that policymakers should move particularly aggressively to keep that from happening.

As I have been saying, 1937 all over again.Inadequate response, followed by chickening out over TEH DEFIZITTZZZ!

Here be monsters

Oarfish Offer Chance to Study an Elusive Animal Long Thought a Monster - NYTimes.com

Very cool!

Snowden did not betray the American people

Snowden Asks U.S. to Stop Treating Him Like a Traitor - NYTimes.com

I still like what Mr. Snowden's father said.

The elder Snowden said

"If folks want to classify him as a traitor, in fact, he has betrayed his government. 
"But I don't believe that he's betrayed the people of the United States."

And I think that's exactly right. When the government systematically breaks the law, whistle-blowers are not betraying the people.