Henry VIII: "At the sound of the beep, please leave all of your papal bull..."

On October 4, deputies of the diocesan convention of the Pittsburgh Episcopalian diocese voted by more than a 2-1 margin to break from the Episcopal Church of the United States.

Reports say that 54 of the diocese’s 74 congregations will follow the convention’s lead and join with members of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America (who, incidentally, don’t like being called “coneheads” — I checked) in their sincere and theologically motivated opposition to the ordination of homosexuals. The leader of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (who, incidentally, up to 1976 couldn’t have been officially ordained either because she’s a woman) stated solemnly in the wake of the Pittsburgh vote:

“I have repeatedly reassured Episcopalians that there is abundant room for dissent within this Church, and that loyal opposition is a long and honored tradition within Anglicanism. Schism is not, having frequently been seen as a more egregious error than charges of heresy.”

I pause here for a moment to comment on Bishop Jefferts Schori’s claim that schism is not “a long and honored tradition within Anglicanism.” Surely, from a Roman Catholic perspective, something about that statement just doesn’t ring true. What was all that business in the 1530s about anyway? Just a big misunderstanding? Maybe Henry VIII simply “forgot” to return the pope’s phone calls.

Traditional print media: "Quick, Matthias, hand me the ff ligature."

It may seem incredible, but with the Wall Street bailout, the frenzy over the Palin-Biden debate, and the Cubs’ annual collapse in the playoffs, there was enough room in the newsosphere this week for other events to occur. Three, in particular, bear ominous portents for the future of print media:

Minneapolis Star Tribune skips debt payment: Minnesota’s largest circulation newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, announced on September 30 that it would stop making payments to its senior creditors. This means that the Star Tribune will attempt to restructure its debt and negotiate with its lenders for more breathing room as it tries to find a formula for making money in an increasingly difficult environment for big city newspapers.

What this really means: the Star Tribune, for all practical purposes, is bankrupt.

Two items in today’s New York Times:

U.S. Grant: upgraded to second-worst two-term president

The CBS News poll found that President Bush had tied the presidential record for a low approval rating — 22 percent, matching Harry S. Truman’s Gallup approval rating in 1952, when the country was mired in the Korean War and struggling with a stagnant economy.

And Timothy Egan:

In a survey of scholars done earlier this year, just two of 109 historians said the Bush presidency would be judged a success. A majority said he would be the worst president ever.

Well, at least with respect to the historical community, Bush has fulfilled his promise to be a “uniter, not a divider.” To appreciate the scale of his achievement, though, we really need to look at the competition.

It’s time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency.

Carswell: mediocre jurist

Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Ak), talking about her qualifications for vice president, 2008

Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.

Sen. Roman Hruska (R-Neb), talking about G. Harrold Carswell’s qualifications for the supreme court, 1970

Theodoric (R-York)

The Republicans, it seems, have a solution to every problem.  Or, to be more precise, the Republicans have a solution to every problem.  Like the medieval barbers who thought that the cure for every malady was bloodletting, the GOP believes that the cure for every ailment is tax cutting.  The economy is good?  Cut taxes!  The economy is bad?  Cut taxes!  Taxes are too low?  Cut taxes!  I await the inevitable day when the Republican Party advocates tax cuts as a means of overturning Roe v. Wade, forestalling gay marriage, and putting a massive granite sculpture of the ten commandments in every federal courthouse.  Remember, if we don’t cut taxes, the terrorists have won.

The latest GOP quacksalver to prescribe this nostrum is the Republican Study Committee, a bunch of right-wingers that used the opportunity of the Wall Street bailout to push for a two-year moratorium on the capital gains tax and, in the process, also managed to scuttle the Wall Street bailout.  According to the folks at NRO, the RSC plan would be just the tonic for an ailing economy.  “Private capital will flood into Wall Street with zero capital gains and it will come at no cost to the taxpayer.”

Now, you may be asking yourself: “how many different kinds of crazy is this proposal?”  Well, first of all, assessing lower taxes on capital gains is justified primarily as a means of encouraging investment (it also compensates very roughly for inflation, but a system of indexing could work just as well).  The problem, though, is that, in the short term, cutting capital gains taxes merely encourages the sale of capital assets.  Far from encouraging investment, the elimination of capital gains taxes would instead lead to a fire sale of assets, with the inevitable result that prices would fall.  Moreover, a two-year moratorium won’t encourage the kind of long-range investment that either the economy needs or that Republicans tend to tout as the chief virtue of low capital gains taxes.  Instead, it would, under normal circumstances, simply push more assets into the marketplace and depress prices even further.

An item, published in the Charlotte Observer, and picked up by ThinkProgress:

Fort Mill Mayor Danny Funderburk says he was “just curious” when he forwarded a chain e-mail suggesting Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is the biblical antichrist. “I was just curious if there was any validity to it,” Funderburk said in a telephone interview. “I was trying to get documentation if there was any scripture to back it up.”

The story goes on to note that the e-mail in question “claims the biblical book of Revelation says the antichrist will be in his 40s and of Muslim ancestry.”  And in a stunning bit of journalistic honesty, the author of the Observer article, Stuart Watson, actually writes: “There is no such scripture. And Obama is not a Muslim.”  Of course not.  Islam was founded in the seventh century, about six hundred years or so after the Book of Revelation was written.  Far from mentioning Islam, the Book of Revelation doesn’t even mention Christianity.  So props to Watson and the Observer for correctly pointing out the blindingly obvious.

Funderburk, however, is not so easily swayed by the facts.  “When asked if he believed Obama was the antichrist, Funderburk replied, ‘I’ve got absolutely no way of knowing that.'”