I can’t help it

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

I really do like this pope:

Speaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology,” he said, according to Radio Vatican. “And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.

“And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,” Francis added. “But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”

He said Christian ideology was the result of a lack of true prayer.

JPMorgan to pay $13B

~ susie

Which of course doesn’t come close to the actual cost of the damage they’ve caused the economy, but better than nothing. And big enough that the talking heads on CNBC are blubbering in their caviar over the sheer injustice of punishing Wall Street.

JPMorgan to pay record $13 bln to settle US probes (via AFP)

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has reached a tentative agreement to pay a record $13 billion fine to the Justice Department to settle probes into its residential mortgage-backed securities, US media reported. Citing sources familiar with the decision,…

Continue reading “JPMorgan to pay $13B” →

Ted Cruz is a dangerous man

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

He’s a Dominionist, and they’ll stop at nothing:

“In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz’ father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as “kings” to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the “Seven Mountains” mandate, and “bring the spoils of war to the priests”, thus helping to bring about a prophesied “great transfer of wealth”, from the “wicked” to righteous gentile believers.”

H/t Tony Munter.

Orionid meteor shower this week

~ susie

They should peak tonight, but they’re hard to see with this moon:

The Orionids occur each year in mid-October when Earth passes through a stream of dust left in the wake of Comet Halley. Halley returns to our solar system every 76 years, and each time it does, it sheds bits of rocks and dust from its icy nucleus. These bits of debris burn up in the atmosphere, causing shooting stars to rip across the sky.

Orionids are known for their speed. They travel about 148,000 mph into Earth’s atmosphere, according to a NASA report. Because they move so fast, they can leave glowing “trains” and are more likely than some other meteors to become fireballs — meteors that glow at least as brightly as Jupiter or Venus in the night sky.

When the shower is at its best, observers can expect to see about 20 meteors per hour, said Anthony Cook, who heads the telescope program at Griffith Observatory. However, this year viewing conditions are not ideal. Light from the nearly-full moon you may have been admiring all weekend will drown out many of the fainter meteors.

“With city lights and the moonlight, you might be lucky to see two an hour,” said Cook. “But if they are bright, it will be like free fireworks.”