Eyes of Faith The world appears empty and flat to those without eyes of faith.

One of the more common approaches hackers take in attacking a large web site is known as DOS, or denial of service. The method is to attack and exploit personal computers using a variety of Trojan Horse methods (enticing emails, official looking or otherwise enticing websites with "poison apples", enticing downloads loaded with computer viruses, etc.) to install automatic programs that can be directed by instructions from a remote computer. These PCs, once appropriated in this way, are directed to attack the target site with a level of "traffic" the site is not equipped to handle.

President Abraham Lincoln is popularly credited with having delivered one of the greatest orations of all time, known as the Gettysburg Address. It seems to me this speech has much poetry and surprisingly little real substance. And should the great American experiment collapse from the weight of the progress-inspired contradictions of the last couple of centuries, people will eventually realize that the speech failed to provide much in the way of prophesy.

Jesus pointed out that we need to remove the plank from our eyes before we can see well enough to remove the cinder from someone else's. He didn't mean "political plank" (Democratic Party Plank - Republican Party Plank) but he might as well have.

Ideology not reflected upon and not questioned, just like faith not reflected upon and not questioned, becomes a crutch that excuses us for our mental and moral laziness. The consequence is that we lend our support for what ultimately proves to be evil.

Some will say, "They haven't left the Church. They were never in it!" (See "What Johnny Cash can teach us about Millenials and the Church.") Others will say, "They haven't left the Church. The Church left them." (See "Why millennials are leaving the church.")

Depending on the situation, and depending how you define "the Church," they could both be right!

Pope Francis' love is a charism so powerful it can break through the stoniest of hearts. Blessed Mother Teresa was able to do that.

When one giant conglomerate acquires another, it always finds the greatest challenge is uniting their corporate cultures. You can get some idea of the challenges the federal government faces in taking over the healthcare industry if you multiply that difficulty by a factor of hundreds.

Only an ivory tower progressive could believe it could be done in three years. Only a CEO with a titanic ego would take on such a challenge.

The major socialists of history had titanic egos.

As any systems engineer can tell you, there are a number of major technical challenges in implementing a system as large as the federal healthcare enrollment website. They include (1) defining healthcare benefits data standards for the purpose of information interchange, (2) defining plan enrollment rules to define the operation of the website, (3) defining plan implementation rules and standards to qualify participating companies, (4) defining customer plan qualification rules to determine eligibility standards for customers with a given medical history, income, etc.

VATICAN CITY, 31 OCTOBER 2013 (VIS) - Pope Francis' general prayer intention for November is: "That priests who experience difficulties may find comfort in their suffering, support in their doubts, and confirmation in their fidelity."

His mission intention is: "That as fruit of the continental mission, Latin American Churches may send missionaries to other Churches."

FRANCIS-PRAYER INTENTIONS/VIS 20131031 (70)
Published by VISarchive - , October 31, 2013

 

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In "America 3.0: The Coming Reinvention of America", authors James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus have given us an optimistic look into a possible future.