Miscellaneous Notes:

This was supposed to post last night but for some reason did not. Nonetheless, I have a few brief items to cover here; ergo...

--I just realized that November 22nd is Thanksgiving and therefore am moving the posting previously scheduled for that day until probably November 24th.

[Update: I have neither the time nor the desire to deal with that posting at the present time. It will be added in the coming week probably on Monday. -ISM 11/24/07 7:25 pm]

--If you need another case study in why the government should not be trusted with much, consider what has recently happened in Great Britain with the confidential information of half the country's bank accounts going missing.

--One of the many important elements of the United States Constitution is the provision that a civilian will be commander and chief of the armed forces. The reason this was insisted upon by the Founding Fathers was a fear of a military coup. Pakistan had one of those back in 1999 and one of the problems with a general who is also chief executive is that there is no way to rein him in.{1} I note these things here because President Musharaf of Pakistan may be quitting the Pakastini army to assume the presidency in a civilian capacity. We in America should be thankful this year (as much as any other year) that we have not had to deal with the problems of having a military executive.{2}

--I also want to remind readers of President George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789. It is not that long a text indeed the previous sentence contains a link to it. But notice if you will how many references in the text are to God -fourteen in three paragraphs counting the signature of President Washington on a public act of the President of the United States. So those of you who are buying into that canard about the so-called "separation of church and state"{3} which has been paraded about in recent decades that dog will not hunt.

And of course a Happy Thanksgiving from those of us at Rerum Novarum to you and yours.

Notes:

{1} Vigor is of course important in any executive and a weak executive is never a good thing for a nation to have. However, if there are not due limits on executive power, the temptation towards tyranny will always be present even among the best of men.

{2} And to any of you readers who may suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome President Bush for all of his faults is not a military dictator.

{3} The only "separation" that the Founders envisioned was that there would be no official religion of the state the way there was (and still is) in Great Britain.

Miscellaneous Musings:

Two tidbits and then I will probably not blog again until the new blogging month begins in four days unless it is a "stray link of interest" sort of posting. Nonetheless...

--I have finally decided as of yesterday morning to outline a few things pertaining to where this weblog has focused in the past year as well as what my blogging policies will be into the indefinite future. Hints have been dropped here and there in the past year (some intentional, others were of a more implicit nature) since I outlined early in 2007 some areas I wanted to focus on both in blogging as well as in the real world in general. I do not want to say more on it until then as that posting will explain things adequately- both by revisiting those previously enunciated intentions and also point out certain factors subsequent to them which have crystallized my mind on the matters at hand both with blogging as well as real life.{1} But enough on that for now -see the thread when it is finished and blogged (which it will be on November 22nd) for more details.

--The counter at TheReligionofPeace.com has in the past few days tallied over 10,000 in the number of deadly casualties inflicted by terrorists since September 11, 2001 -standing at 10,019 as of this writing. I doubt that the media would give that figure even one hundreth of the attention that the much bandied-about 2,000 figure got a couple of years ago when the figure of US servicemen who have died since theI noted military intervention in Iraq in March of 2003. Nonetheless, we at Rerum Novarum have noted on occasion the rising tally and certainly the 10,000 mark seems appropriate to again point readers to a reality that the mainstream media does its darndest to either ignore or significantly downplay. The site itself (TheReligionofPeace.com) has a good reflection on the milestone above and I recommend readers to give it a viewing when they have time to.

Note:

{1} I will briefly note that it takes time and the impact of various factors to round generally nebulous notions into a solidified reality -perhaps the process can be explained better but that is all I have time for at the moment.