Economy Revs Up as Americans Increase Spending on Flights, Lodging, Dining Out - WSJ

He expects consumer demand and trillions of dollars in built-up savings to propel economic growth “in a manner that’s going to take people’s breaths away.”

This was a fun article to read.

I’m excited to be celebrating the 8th anniversary of my blog, Catholic Husband, today.

Biden Abandons Normalcy - WSJ

The new reality may be that in an era of social media, the most relevant metric is having one’s ever-at-risk heart in the right place.

How long until we tire of the full-time stress?

Biden Unveils Ambitious Plan To Pay National Debt By Capturing A Leprechaun And Using His Gold - The Babylon Bee

According to sources, Biden will be mobilizing the National Guard– which has been sitting around D.C. with nothing to do since Biden’s inauguration– to hunt down a leprechaun and bring its plunder back to the treasury.

Is Something Dying in Darkness at the Washington Post? - WSJ

To review, the Post ran with bogus quotations attributed to President Donald Trump supplied by one anonymous source who was not even on the call. Two months later, when a Journal report revealed the quotations to be false, the Post only revealed the identity of the anonymous bearer of false information after she granted her permission.

Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Relief Plan Is More—Much More—of the Same - WSJ

Once taxes and social programs are taken into account, inequality by some measures hasn’t changed since 1986.

The article earlier cites that nearly 8% of GDP this year will go to social safety net programs and 43% of Americans don’t pay any income tax.

We can have a discussion about fiscal policy, but it’s only possible if we start with the facts and then work through the big issues.

Giant Cloud Of Dust Emerges From Vatican As Pope Francis Opens His Bible - The Babylon Bee

Whew, it’s been a little while since I opened up this bad boy!

I literally lol’d.

Working on the long o sound in school. Assignment was to draw a picture of something with that sound. Son went with “T-Rex nose.”

New M1 Abrams Tanks To Come Equipped With Changing Tables - The Babylon Bee

“It’s really great as a mom to have these additional features,” said Private Lorraine Hodges, though she said the tank isn’t great for small children since it’s “very noisy” and “constantly under attack.”

Vatican Rules Out Blessings for Same-Sex Relationships, Despite Calls for Liberalization - WSJ

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, an official handbook of teaching, states that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” the inclination to perform them is “objectively disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved.” But the catechism also states that gay people “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

Rocca has exclusively covered the Vatican for the Journal since at least 2015. It baffles me, despite his deep experience, how poorly he communicates the Vatican’s position.

The Catholic Church holds that the sexual bond is reserved exclusively for married couples as a unitive and procreative element of the marital life. Sexual activity outside of marriage is never condoned. This is not an issue of discrimination, the Church is unwaveringly consistent.

The same is true for marriage. The Catholic Church doesn’t believe that marriage is temporary, transient, disposable, or simply a committed friendship. It believes that marriage is the permanent bond of a man and woman for the express purpose of forming a family and raising children. This is why couples must promise to be open to life before the Church will bless their marriage. That doesn’t mean that the couple must have a dozen kids in denim floor-length skirts, but rather that the couple will consent to use their creative powers through a process of discernment of God’s Will for their lives. Marriage is about giving oneself to the other.

The Catholic Church sets the standard for respect of human life, insisting on the universal right to life from conception to natural death and a categorial rejection of the discrimination against or exploitation of any person for any reason.

The teachings of the Catholic Church are applied evenly to all persons and have no exceptions or carve-outs. It’s such a high standard that few of us could hope to be as consistent as the Church is, but it’s a standard worth aspiring to.

Ready for St. Joseph’s special week!

Telegram App Is Booming, but Needs Advertisers—and $700 Million Soon - WSJ

Messaging apps are surging in popularity, but their business models remain uncertain.

Apple could really disrupt this market, and improve their bottom line, if they’d finally make Messages cross-platform.

It’s been 9 months since GlaxoSmithKline restarted production of Excedrin Migraine and it’s still hard to find.

White House Weighs How to Pay for Long-Term Economic Program - WSJ

fiscal sustainability

The only kind of sustainability that adherents of Modern Monetary Theory don’t believe in.

Party That Screamed About Fascism For Last Four Years Cheers As Military Attacks Journalist - The Babylon Bee

“Only through getting the military to target our political opponents can we finally end fascism,” said Brian Stelter

A truly bizarre episode, but really demonstrates the dangerous reality that our military chain of command is hyper-political.