Scrolling around...June 27, 2013

Why Are So Many College Graduates Driving Taxis?
It’s a parent’s nightmare: shelling out big money for college, then seeing the graduate unable to land a job that requires high-level skills. This situation may be growing more common, unfortunately, because the demand for cognitive skills associated with higher education, after rising sharply until 2000, has since been in decline.

So concludes new research by economists Paul Beaudry and David Green of the University of British Columbia and Benjamin Sand of York University in Toronto. This reversal in demand has caused high-skilled workers to accept lower-level jobs, pushing lower-skilled people even further down the occupational ladder or out of work altogether. If the researchers are right (which is not yet clear), the consequences are huge and troubling -- and not just for college grads and their parents...

GM to Invest $691 Million in Mexico
...GM Mexico President Ernest Hernandez said the move will boost Mexican employment and development...Early this month, the Los Angeles Times reported that American taxpayers lost nearly $10 billion on the GM taxpayer-funded bailout...

Pentagon moves to extend benefits to gay spouses
The Defense Department said Wednesday it would immediately begin the process that will lead to providing benefits to the spouses of military servicemembers in same-sex marriages.

The announcement follows the Supreme Court ruling striking down part of a law that denied federal benefits to married same-sex couples.

"The Department of Defense intends to make the same benefits available to all military spouses -- regardless of sexual orientation -- as soon as possible," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a prepared statement...

How Should Same-Sex Marriage Change the Church's Witness?
The Supreme Court has now ruled on two monumental marriage cases, and the legal and cultural landscape has changed in this country. The court voted to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and remand the decision of the Ninth Circuit in the Proposition 8 case, holding that California's Proposition 8 defenders didn't have standing. The Defense of Marriage Act decision used rather sweeping language about equal protection and human dignity as they apply to the recognition of same-sex unions. But what has changed for us, for our churches, and our witness to the gospel?

In one sense, nothing. Jesus of Nazareth is still alive. He is calling the cosmos toward his kingdom, and he will ultimately be Lord indeed. Regardless of what happens with marriage, the gospel doesn't need "family values" to flourish. In fact, it often thrives when it is in sharp contrast to the cultures around it. That's why the gospel rocketed out of the first-century from places such as Ephesus and Philippi and Corinth and Rome, which were hardly Mayberry...

Obama: I won’t make churches conduct gay marriages
President Obama, in his statement hailing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, promised that he wouldn’t try to force religious institutions to conduct gay marriages.

“On an issue as sensitive as this, knowing that Americans hold a wide range of views based on deeply held beliefs, maintaining our nation’s commitment to religious freedom is also vital,” Obama said. “How religious institutions define and consecrate marriage has always been up to those institutions. Nothing about this decision — which applies only to civil marriages — changes that.”

Here’s guessing that the Roman Catholics and other religious groups that are in the midst of fighting the contraception mandate are skeptical of that pledge...

Our Destruction: Tactics And Goals
Obama let us know everything we need to know about the future of the gay marriage debate and its ultimate purpose yesterday.

The goal of this gay marriage debate is about power pure and simple. And there is one institution that stands between progressives and ultimate power and that is the Church. This is why we have seen some many frontal assaults on religious liberty during his presidency. They want the Church out of the way. They also want the States out of the way with all power consolidated in the federal government. Gay marriage offers them an opportunity to achieve both.

The first thing out of Obama's mouth yesterday was a denial (read confirmation) of his ultimate goal in this debate, the destruction of the Church and religious liberty...

Justice Anthony Kennedy: "full communion"
...Justice Kennedy, who has also voted to uphold a constitutional right to abortion, resides in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, along with many other pro-sodomy and pro-abortion politicians. He has been seen at Mass often, including at parishes run by conservative priests.

The bishop, the Most Reverend Paul Stephen Loverde, has stood firm in a position of Communion-on-Demand, no matter who presents himself at the altar rail (or missing rail, as the bishop has also banned the construction of altar rails)...

George Orwell and After-Birth Abortions
In 2011 the Journal of Medical Ethics published the paper After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? by college professors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva. This paper advances the idea of killing babies after they are born:

Microsoft Sees Its Next Big Thing In The Internet Of Things
It's not often that you see Microsoft ahead of the curve. Its recent history is replete with stubbed toes and dropped balls — such as, for instance, missing the early significance of the Internet. Or mobile. Or tablets.

But the company's news that it is opening up its Bing search engine to developers is a major clue that Microsoft thinks it's onto something big. In short, Microsoft is staking out a major claim on the nascent Internet of Things, the term for an interconnected web of devices that will bring much more data and device control to users. If, that is, it ever works....