Absolutely. Even the Marxists see an important link between labour and personality.

Taxation may be a necessary evil, but we've lost sight of the fact that the important part of that formulation is "evil".

I wasn't. For those following along at home/the NSA, the reference is to this:

My ex-editor Charles Peters of the Washington Monthly once tried to teach me the concept of the Get-Up-and-Get-A-Beer-Line. A Get-Up-and-Get-A-Beer-Line isn't a bad line. It's often a good line, a line cherished and protected like a beloved child by its proud author. But it's a line packed with so much resonant meaning, or so many different possible meanings--all interesting and profound!--that you get up to get a beer and think about it and never return to the article you were reading (i.e., the article that contains it). The way to solve this problem is to cut the line.

As for the rest of your comment, I blush. 

Many thanks.

Sollicitudo rei socialis is indeed well worth the read, although even JPII, when he strays from the individual to 'structures of sin', seems to lose focus, and then goes off the rails when he refers to "the poor ... becoming more numerous ... in the more developed [countries]". (Says me!) On individuals he's_fine:

The exercise of solidarity within each society is valid when its members recognize one another as persons. Those who are more influential, because they have a greater share of goods and common services, should feel responsible for the weaker and be ready to share with them all they possess. Those who are weaker, for their part, in the same spirit of solidarity, should not adopt a purely passive attitude or one that is destructive of the social fabric, but, while claiming their legitimate rights, should do what they can for the good of all. The intermediate groups, in their turn, should not selfishly insist on their particular interests, but respect the interests of others.

Quite.

If this is "a delicate balance" (to quote Prof E), how do we the people get to know what is on the other side of the scale?

Why do we think the PRISM program has anything to do with the efforts that lead to the arrest of Najibullah Zazi? Because the security establishment says so?

If the passing around of hot phone-sex tidbits isn't an instance of abuse of covert NSA surveillance of Americans, what is? How many documented abuses amount to a pattern of abuse sufficient to counterbalance the not-at-all-obvious utility of the stockpiling approach?

(...contd)

How many kinds of moral and material poverty we face today as a result of denying God and putting so many idols in his place!

Without the words "and material" this makes perfect, if somewhat banal, sense.

With the words "and material" one can still make sense of it, in isolation. Warlordism and Peronism and cronyism and Chavism and Marxism do indeed cause material poverty. (I am tempted to add "progressivism", "European social democracy" and "theories of solidarity" to the list.)

In the context of the Twitter stream, however, one is led to infer that His Holiness believes that "consumerism" has led to "material poverty", which is a far, far more troubling assertion.

Let's look at His Holiness' Twitter feed*:

Consumerism has accustomed us to waste. But throwing food away is like stealing it from the poor and hungry.

The second sentence is nonsense for any sensible meaning of the word "like". The first sentence is interesting - I can only assume by 'consumerism' Francis means 'materialism' - but not at all evidently true.

With the “culture of waste”, human life is no longer considered the primary value to be respected and protected.

This is triply troubling. First, there is no obvious link between a 'culture of waste' (whatever that is) and the valuation of human life. Second, when (in real history) was human life the primary value (so that "no longer" makes sense)? Third, it trivialises JPII's powerful 'culture of death' critique.

We must not be afraid of solidarity; rather let us make all we have and are available to God.

I'll let JoE have at this one, but the equation of 'solidarity' and 'God' troubles me.

(contd)

* I'm willing to be convinced that he is being sabotaged by some Vatican City functionary; perhaps a crypto-Zwinglian Swiss Guard.

Dr Steve and Klaatu, thank you for_your_informed input.

However, even if 99% of the folks at the NSA follow the letter and spirit of their sacred trust 100% of the time, and the remaining 1% do so 99% of the time, abuses can (will and do) occur.

Look at what excited partisans got up to in releasing (contrary to law) government confidential documents about Joe the Plumber because he was inconvenient for The One. It only takes a couple of people losing their perspective at the wrong time for a real chill to set in on the public square.

That's_the_downside. For the Nth time, what's the upside?

True enough. But then we probably still think the police would only ask for that information in the process of conducting an actual investigation, not that they would be proactively stockpiling everyone's data on the off chance that something might be relevant in the future.

Because stockpiled data is subject to abuse.

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

Bad stuff happens. Where is the evidence that the program is GOOD for something?

One of the things Cameron's 'Conservative' government in the UK has actually done is cut down on such things - they are called (by some) 'Pilgrims', after a particularly notorious case. See this selection of Guido Fawkes stories (in reverse chronological order).

I think you are confusing "private" with "a secret known only to me".

Perhaps we need a new word. How would you describe your salary, a woman's age, and my weight? All these things are known to lots of people beyond the person interested, and yet they are not information you would want - or would expect - to be disclosed to everyone in every situation.

I think you are probably right about Mr Snowden's character. But where is the evidence of a baby that justifies keeping the obviously dangerous bath water? Where is the evidence that this program has made the job of keeping America safe so much easier that the clear and massive scope for abuse should be accepted?

I think terrorists capable of avoiding these methods of communication would already have assumed such a program was in place. After all, M-x spook has been part of GNU Emacs for many, many years.

1. I don't see how this disclosure 'aids our enemies'.

2. I have not seen any evidence that this program is useful in combating or defeating our enemies, rather than being, say, the IT version of the TSA.

IF there was no history of confidential government records being misused (Joe the Plumber, Obama's primary opponents, prop 8 supporters, farmers(!)); and IF there was no history of giant anti-terror programs that produce nothing but expense and inconvenience in return for no actual increase in security (the TSA); and IF there was no history of mission creep for initiatives originally aimed at terror (see almost anything related to the Patriot Act); THEN the burden of proof might plausibly be on opponents of PRISM and its ilk.

But there is. So it isn't. Instead, the burden must be on the proponents of these programs to justify them in the light of the inevitable tendency to abuse. I have yet to see this burden discharged.

Moar Troy!

Similar proportions of food are 'wasted' in rich and poor countries. In rich countries it tends to be once the food has reached (or nearly reached) the consumer. By contrast:

In developing countries food waste and losses occur mainly at early stages of the food value chain and can be traced back to financial, managerial and technical constraints in harvesting techniques as well as storage –and cooling facilities. Thus, a strengthening of the supply chain through the support farmers and investments in infrastructure, transportation, as well as in an expansion of the food –and packaging industry could help to reduce the amount of food loss and waste.

One might think history has shown that financial, managerial and technical constraints are best overcome by a system by which free individuals secure in their property can co-ordinate their efforts by means of price signals. Indeed, one productive place to find the funds to invest in infrastructure, transportation and the food and packaging industry is the stock market...