In my opinion, this resignation is the sign of a modern Pope.

None of this not knowing he’s sick until he’s dead, hanging on no matter what, a shadow of your former self, all that.

Very gutsy, practical, pragmatic decision. No fuss, no muss, he’s got a job to do, can’t do it, says sayonara.

Smart guy, good for him, good for us.

Go Benedict! (Meant as encouragement, of course, not get outta here)

It’s a tangled but appealing web that Meinrad Scherer-Edmunds weaves in his blog at Chicago-based U.S. Catholic Mag, where he is exec editor. He begins with the news that a deacon for the Phila. archdiocese has been told to shut up about anything he wants to say in speaking appearances.

This is so because he has written that ordination of woman as deacons (not priests) is open for discussion, and the archdiocese’s Speaker Approval Commission says he would cause “doctrinal confusion.”

However:

As the National Catholic Reporter notes . . . Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George recently referred to the possibility of ordination of women to the diaconate as an open question.

Given the doctrinal confusion that statement could sow, one wonders when Cardinal George will be banned from speaking in the Philadelphia Archdiocese as well?

Banned in Philly, our own archbishop. Wow.

. . . “a symbolic war on the realities of biology.”

Steve Sailer said it.

. . . now you don’t.

I thought it was an ethical violation to threaten criminal action to bring about a civil settlement. During settlement negotiations, the Justice Department held out the threat of a criminal case against S.&P., the people said.

UPDATE: Now this is interesting. The part about criminal threats is now missing from the NY Times story, though the phrase still shows up in a search. I wonder why it was removed? [italics added]

This in reporting appearance of punishment by feds of S&P, in wake of its downgrading U.S. rating. Regarding which Roger Kimball:

We are living with the most fiscally incontinent administration in U.S., perhaps in world, history. Both S&P and Moodys took note of this incontinence and broadcast the news by downgrading U.S. debt in 2011. The result? A $1 billion law suit against S&P. Merely post hoc? Or do you discern a teensy bit of propter hoc there as well? I do.

Post hoc meaning after something, propter hoc because of it. Mere succession (coincidence) or result?

Depends on who wins, oilers or greenies.

The intrigues in this drama are many. Does Californias Democratic Party come down on the side of low income Californians, who desperately need the jobs and state services new oil extraction will fund? Or does it come down on the side of a green lobby that is heavily backed by some of the wealthiest people in the state? To what extent does the wealthy coastal elite control the future of the inland poor in California?

Some of my best friends are greenies, but I don’t share their religion.

Like when Salon lets loose on it.

Sure, but his government? Not so much.

Which is how weapons bans work. Crazy.

Show us how bans reduce violence, rather than assuage panic.