Dying cardinal: Church '200 years out of date' - World news - Europe - NBCNews.com

Martini, once favored by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.

"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

"The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The pedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation," he said in the interview.&lt

via msnbc.msn.com

It's too bad that Martini couldn't act as a change agent while he was alive...

Does Anyone Know the Real Cost of "Green"?

Wouldn't it be nice to see a very clear P&L on this investment by PSE&G?   I am all for the investment in "green" and renewable energy, but it's not clear to me how the investment dollars net against the chargebacks,  energy revenues and various tax credits....

New Jersey Utility Plans Major Solar Project - NYTimes.com: 

"The utility expects to spend $773 million on the project, which it said would generate 120 megawatts of electricity, one-third of which should come from the panels on utility poles. That amounts to barely 1 percent of the power consumed in the state, but is about 7 percent of the state’s goal of power generated from renewable energy sources by 2020."
...
"The project would add about 10 cents to each customer’s monthly bill in the first year and as much as 35 cents in subsequent years."
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"In addition to raising money by selling the panels’ electricity, P.S.E. & G. also expects to receive a federal tax credit and income from selling the state renewable energy credits that accrue when solar energy is produced."
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"The bulk of the money for the project, however, would come from new bonds and equity from Public Service Enterprise."

Carvin GuitarTraq Discontinued!

So much for customer service and transparency in the operation. I think this amounts to, "We're taking along time to get the product out, so we're removing your ability to track progress and don't call us and ask either!". What do you think would happen if Federal Express or UPS turn off their package tracking and said "We'll call you if there is a problem!". Here is a snippet from the Carvin Blog:

"After careful consideration, Carvin has decided to remove the Guitar Traq feature from Carvin.com. Why? Due to the high volume of guitar and bass sales through Carvin’s Custom Shop, calls and e-mails asking why a particular instrument has not been started yet has affected the efficiency of our operation. Because of Carvin’s higher than normal volume of instrument sales, we are now quoting 10 weeks to build an instrument. It generally takes 4-6 weeks to complete an instrument, but due to the higher sales it is taking several weeks to start a particular instrument. This has concerned some customers who have placed custom orders and who have looked on-line to see that their guitar or bass has not moved in production. These factors led to the decision to discontinue Guitar Traq on-line."


I went to the Carvin.com BBS to discuss with other customers and to add insult to injury, the BBS admin posted the following notice:

"...and on a side note, the decision has been made, so there's no point in debating this. In order to ease this transition, the moderators have been instructed to delete any threads dealing with this decision."
For a product that can cost a $1000 or more paid in advance, you would think that I could call the salesman and ask him where my order is in production! Boy, my order better come on time and be spot on...

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