I enjoy converting complex ideas into profitable products and businesses. Even the best plans need continuous refinement and get polished by steady grinding.
The best Catholic college in America offers only one major, no minors, no technology in the classroom, and they have made absolutely no changes to what they are doing even in the midst of the AI Revolution.
They simply immerse students in beauty - physical beauty, natural beauty, liturgical beauty, intellectual beauty, and relational beauty through deep friendship.
They consistently graduate the most clearheaded, lovely, thoughtful, and normie young people you have ever met. If colleges are going to survive they need to become more like Thomas Aquinas College in California. For those of you who have never seen it before this is what a serious undergraduate education looks like freshman and sophomore year.
@DouthatNYT@john_malone Predictable.
It’s sad that the depraved trio (Tobin, Cupich and McCarrick) can still party together at their beach houses and spend the faithful’s donations on law firms paid to distract from and defend their fetishes.
California Rep Kevin Kiley says they have learned the $100 million dollar pacific palisades Fire Aid concert money was laundered to nonprofits
“What we have learned is absolutely beyond belief — Tens of thousands of people donated raising a hundred million dollars for what they was were told was direct relief for the victims. But now we've learned that this money didn't go to the victims at all. Instead, it went to nonprofits”
Here are some examples
- CA Native Vote Project: $100,000 for voter participation for Native Americans
- Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE): $250,000 for programs prioritizing undocumented immigrants
- Altadena Talks Foundation: $100,000 went to supported podcasts, including Toni Raines podcast
- NAACP Pasadena: $100,000 political advocacy
- Los Angeles Black Worker Center $550,000 to political advocacy organizations
- Center for Applied Ecological Remediation: $500,000 for fungus/microbe/plant soil remediation projects
Over $500,000 went to bonuses for nonprofit leaders and consultants
@matthewdmarsden@ScottRoberts@grok Did Jesus and the earliest Christians quote the Septuagint?
…Seems a VERY important question for anyone who thinks that “Scripture” is super important
@ChristineNiles1 Sad to see so many uncharitable diatribes against this family in the comments. We can’t read their hearts or even judge the prudence of their actions because we don’t have context.
Come on people! We can be better than that!
@ChristineNiles1 The priest’s explanation confirms that his bishop didn’t order priests to deny communion on the tongue, which is good, because denying Eucharist on the tongue is not allowed
https://t.co/mL2Li2cJKI
@SonofManwithus Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons read the Bible. They follow Jesus. By their interpretation, they’re Christian. Do you agree?
Are they Christian?
It took 11 years defending himself over one story. This is what they do to people who hold them accountable.
Nobody is held accountable because the people who have the power to do so are afraid of the retaliation. But David is different. His love of truth was greater than his regard for himself.
Pope Leo XIV in a message to the French Bishops, tells them to find generous solutions to include those attached to the Traditional Latin Mass:
“Dear brothers, you finally intend to address the delicate subject of the Liturgy, to which the Holy Father is particularly attentive, in the context of the growth of communities bound to the Vetus Ordo. It is troubling that a painful wound concerning the celebration of Mass, the very sacrament of unity, continues to open in the Church. To heal it, a new way of looking at one another, with a greater understanding of each other's sensitivities, is certainly necessary; a way of looking that can allow brothers, enriched by their diversity, to welcome one another in charity and the unity of faith. May the Holy Spirit suggest to you concrete solutions that will allow for the generous inclusion of those sincerely attached to the Vetus Ordo, in accordance with the guidelines established by the Second Vatican Council regarding the Liturgy.”
SAVE PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS.
Israeli settlers escalate their incursions into Taybeh, the West Bank’s last fully Christian town, raising concerns over further land appropriation.
The parish priest, Father Bashar Fawadleh, appeals for international intervention, as residents face mounting restrictions and call for peace, justice, and protection.
Palestinian Christians are appealing to their fellow Christians and churches around the world. So far, there has been silence—but there is still time to act, to raise your voices, and to help stop these attacks. https://t.co/tOCw1yfZE0
Gold and silver are not acting well in a period of rapidly rising geopolitical risks. We have an Iran War, Strait of Hormuz blockade, rising volatility. In the old framework, that setup should be close to ideal for gold. But once you understand what is now driving gold, this move makes perfect sense.
Something fundamental changed after the US and Europe froze Russian reserves in 2022. For decades, surplus countries parked their excess savings in US dollar assets, mostly Treasuries. The freezing of Russian reserves combined with the current administration's explicit push to discourage foreign countries from parking excess savings in US financial assets, forced surplus countries to rethink where they store reserves.
And those countries haven't changed their domestic policies that generate the excess savings, so those savings have to be placed somewhere. The result is that gold and silver have increasingly become the obvious “neutral” reserve assets.
That’s why gold decoupled from the three factors that used to explain it…real interest rates, volatility, and liquidity. Now reserve accumulation flows have become the primary driver.
That shift has a consequence I don’t think most investors have thought through. If gold is now primarily driven by reserve flows from surplus countries, then gold has become pro-cyclical.
Reserve growth is driven by export revenues, trade surpluses, economic growth in surplus economies. When the global economy is strong and surplus countries are generating large export revenues, their excess savings grow, their reserve accumulation accelerates, and gold catches a bid. When that surplus generation is disrupted, the bid weakens or reverses.
This is exactly what is happening with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The GCC countries are major reserve/gold buyers and now their export revenues are collapsing. They likely need to liquidate some reserves to cover fiscal obligations, and gold is one of their most liquid assets. Even if the reserve sales aren’t excessive yet, the market can see their reserve accumulation has stalled and probably reversed. That flow, which was a meaningful source of gold demand, has gone to zero at best.
There are also secondary effects on other surplus economies. China is the world's largest oil importer. An energy shock of this magnitude slows Chinese growth, and compresses Chinese surpluses, which slows Chinese reserve accumulation. That same growth shock ripples through Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and the rest of Asia.
The whole chain that has been driving gold higher, surplus countries generating excess savings that need a home outside the dollar system, is being disrupted by an event that in the old model would have been unambiguously bullish for gold.
This doesn't mean the structural case for gold is broken. The dollar standard is still ending. Surplus countries still need an alternative to Treasuries and gold is still the most obvious destination. But it does mean gold is going to be more volatile along that structural trend than most people expect, and the volatility will correlate with global growth and surplus generation rather than with the old drivers. Gold rallies when surpluses expand. Gold sells off when surpluses contract. Even if the reason for the contraction is rising geopolitical risk that, under the old model, should have sent gold to the moon.
@JackPosobiec@grok Jack, I have been convinced for over 10 years that the holy Grail is in Valencia Spain. I heard a one hour talk by a man who had spent considerable hours over the course of decades to find references in original documents about the actual grail. It’s in Spain