Brain Drain Possible

I predicted this....a long time ago in another galaxy far away...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3158012/Foreign-students-banned-working-forced-leave-UK-course-ends.html

"'Restricting talented workers from staying on in the UK would damage business and lead to a loss of important skills.'"

Thoughts for The Day

"Why, this Satan's drink is so delicious," he reputedly exclaimed, "that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptizing it and making it a truly Christian beverage."

Pope Clement VIII on coffee

and 

Coffee and coffeehouses took London by storm. By 1700 there were more than two thousand London coffeehouses, occupying more premises and paying more rent than any other trade. They came to be known as penny universities, because for that price one could purchase a cup of coffee and sit for hours listening to extraordinary conversations—or as a 1657 newspaper advertisement put it "PUBLICK INTERCOURSE." Each coffeehouse specialized in a different type of clientele. In one, physicians could be consulted. Others served Protestants, Puritans, Catholics, Jews, literati, merchants, traders, fops, Whigs, Tories, army officers, actors, lawyers, clergy, or wits. The coffeehouses provided England's first egalitarian meeting place, where a man was expected to chat with his tablemates whether he knew them or not.

    Edward Lloyd's establishment catered primarily to seafarers and merchants, and he regularly prepared "ships' lists" for underwriters who met there to offer insurance. Thus began Lloyd's of London, the famous insurance company. Other coffeehouses spawned the Stock Exchange, the Bankers' Clearing-house, and newspapers such as The Tattler and The Spectator.

both from the book Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast.

A.R.A.S.

There is a little known psychological syndrome which is common among some Christian brothers and sisters of the Baptist denomination, or other varieties of Protestants, known as A.R.A.S.

A.R.A.S. begins, as I understand from sufferers, about the age of reason. It is connected vaguely to the "Home Alone" movies which some of these brethren saw at impressionable ages. Children wake in the middle of the night in cold sweats, listening for small noises in the dark.

This syndrome causes others to play horrible jokes on the sufferers, jokes which exacerbate the illness.

These jokes involve laying a set of clothing, sock and shoes on the ground, dramatically drawing out one of the fears connected to the syndrome.

The full name of the anxiety-driven syndrome, which can only be cured by conversion to the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church is After the Rapture Anxiety Syndrome.

The intense fear and concurrent anxiety is caused by the overwhelming belief that one has been left behind after the rapture.

I have talked with former sufferers of this horrible fear and the anxieties of damnation and loneliness, who explained to me that only their conversion to Catholicism and the awareness that the Rapture was a Protestant aberration of truth-a heretical position-relieved them of the pain.

Sometimes, a teddy bear companion helped relieve symptoms. The cure is much more drastic. Total conversion.

Sigh, I am so glad I am a Catholic.

from Rorate Caeli a disturbing or at least interesting statistic

"Curiosities: the February 2012 consistory will be the first one not to include a residential Cardinal from either Africa or Latin America since the small June 1977 Consistory - the last Montini Consistory, in which only 5 Cardinals were created, including Cardinals Ratzinger (Munich) and Gantin (Justice and Peace). / There will be 107 voting Cardinals on the eve of the next consistory, 21% of whom will be Italians. With the new Consistory, there will be 125 voting Cardinals, 24% of whom will be Italians, the highest percentage since the mid-1970s." from Rorate Caeli

The Vatican pundits should chime in and tell us if the high number of Italians in the consistory is a good or bad development. Note the dates here--this is a return to the pre-Blessed John Paul II organization. I am very interested, as this present Pope has started to reform the Church, especially with regards to the Liturgy, and those of us who follow this do not want to see a departure from that renewal.

Existential Star Wars (In French) from my son..

OK, one good thing out of the English fishwrap

http://ordinariateportal.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/tablet-funding-urgently-needed-for-ordinariate/

The English Ordinariate needs money. The great sacrifices which these new priests have endured may include the loss of housing, pensions, and other means of income for themselves and if married, for their wives and children. I add my space to the appeal. These men are dedicated, hard-working priests, deserving our support.

Please respond, if you can.