Surprise! Science Says Your Cat Wants To Kill You

The ancient Egyptians and everyone on the internet may worship cats, but the feeling is less than mutual. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh worked with the Bronx Zoo on a study comparing the behavioral patterns of house cats with their much larger cousins. By rating them in the “Big Five” personality traits — Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion/Introversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism — researchers uncovered quite a bit about your “devoted” companions.

With this feline Meyers Briggs test, they found that your fuzzy roommates had basically the same personalities as African lions, being dominant, impulsive and neurotic. Sure, they’re also playful, clever and inquisitive, but their findings show that the only thing keeping them from murdering in you in your sleep is their size. Cats are no dummies, so as long as you’re ten times bigger than them, you’re probably ok.

Read the rest here.

Wow what a game!

Royals 5 Mets 4 in 14 innings. We lost but it was an incredible game.

Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov is Consecrated as a Bishop

The well known abbot of Moscow's Sretensky Monastery, and author of "Everyday Saints and Other Stories" has been consecrated as a vicar bishop for Moscow. Having read the English translation of the book, I cannot recommend it too highly.

Read Patriarch Kirill's sermon here.

Ben Carson Likens Abortion to Slavery

Ben Carson argued Sunday that abortion should be outlawed in almost all cases, and he likened women who terminate their pregnancies to "slave owners." 

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether a woman should have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, Carson, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, acknowledged upfront that the choice of words would be controversial. 

“During slavery — and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said: 'You know, I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do'? Where would we be?"

Read the rest here.

I have been making this argument for years. Abortion is the great moral issue of our age in the way slavery was in the 19th century. And both are built on the same foundation. One group of people trying to strip another group of people of their basic humanity in order to reduce them to the status of property. Property that can be disposed of however the "owners" see fit.

I do not self identify as pro-life. I am an abolitionist.

Damian Thompson: The Vatican Synod on the Family is over and the conservatives have won

This afternoon the Vatican Synod on the Family amended and approved the final document summing up three weeks of chaotic and sometimes poisonous debate – much of it focussing on whether divorced and remarried people should be allowed to receive communion. 

The majority view of the Synod Fathers is that they don’t want the rules changed. They especially don’t want one rule to apply in, say, Germany and another in Tanzania. Pope Francis has just given a cautiously worded (but also, alas, rather waffly) address in which he acknowledges as much:

Read the rest here.

OCA Deposes Archbishop Seraphim

During their annual fall session in Detroit, MI October 19-23, 2015, the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America canonically deposed the retired Archbishop Seraphim from the status and all sacred functions of the episcopacy, removed him from the ranks of the clergy, and returned him to the status of a lay monk.

Read the rest here.

Catholic bishops at synod call for a more welcoming church

VATICAN CITY — Catholic bishops called Saturday for a more welcoming church for cohabitating couples, gays and Catholics who have divorced and civilly remarried, endorsing Pope Francis’ call for a more merciful and less judgmental church. 

Bishops from around the world adopted a final document at the end of a divisive, three-week synod on providing better pastoral care for Catholic families. It emphasizes the role of discernment and individual conscience in dealing with difficult family situations, in a win for liberal bishops. 

Conservatives had resisted offering any wiggle room in determining, for example, whether civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion since church teaching forbids it. While the document doesn’t chart any specific path to receiving the sacraments as originally sought by the liberals, the document opens the door to case-by-case exceptions to church teaching by citing the role of discernment and conscience. 

The three paragraphs dealing with the issue barely reached the two-thirds majority needed to pass, but conservatives couldn’t muster enough votes to shoot them down. That will give Francis the maneuvering he needs if he wants to push the issue further in a future document of his own.

Read the rest here.

Pat Condell: A Word to Left Wing Students

THE METS WIN THE PENNANT!!!

Met. Hilarion's Address to the Roman Catholic Synod

Your Holiness!
Your Beatitudes, Eminences and Excellencies!

On behalf of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus I extend fraternal greetings to you on the occasion of the Fourteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church on the theme of the family.

In our restless and disturbing world the human person needs a firm and unshakeable foundation upon which he can rest and upon which he can build his life with confidence. At the same time, secular society, aimed primarily at the gratification of individual needs, is incapable of giving the human person clear moral direction. The crisis of traditional values which we see in the consumer society leads to a contradiction between various preferences, including those in the realm of family relationships. Thus, feminism views motherhood as an obstacle to a woman’s self-realization, while by contrast having a baby is more often proclaimed as a right to be attained by all means possible. More often the family is viewed as a union of persons irrespective of their gender, and the human person can ‘choose’ his or her gender according to personal taste.

On the other hand, new problems are arising which have a direct impact on traditional family foundations. Armed conflicts in the contemporary world have brought about a mass exodus from areas gripped by war to more prosperous countries. Emigration often leads to a disruption of family ties, creating at the same time a new social environment in which unions of an inter-ethnic and inter-religious nature arise.

These challenges and threats are common to all the Christian Churches which seek out answers to them, proceeding from the mission that Christ has placed upon them – to bring humanity to salvation. Unfortunately, in the Christian milieu too we often hear voices calling for the ‘modernization’ of our ecclesial consciousness, for the rejection of the supposedly obsolete doctrine of the family. However, we ought never to forget the words of St. Paul addressed to the Christians of Rome: ‘And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God’ (Rom. 12: 2).

The Church is called to be a luminary and beacon in the darkness of this age, and Christians to be the ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light to the world’. We all ought to recall the Saviour’s warning: ‘If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men’ (Matt. 5: 13-14). The salt which has lost its savour are those Protestant communities which call themselves Christian, but which preach moral ideals incompatible with Christianity. If in this type of community a rite of blessing of same-sex unions is introduced, or a lesbian so called ‘bishop’ calls for the replacement of crosses from the churches with the Muslim crescent, can we speak of this community as a ‘church’? We are witnessing the betrayal of Christianity by those who are prepared to accommodate themselves to a secular, godless and churchless world.

The authorities of some European countries and America, in spite of numerous protests, including those by Catholics, continue to advocate policies aimed at the destruction of the very concept of the family. They not only on the legislative level equate of the status of the same-sex unions to that of marriage but also criminally persecute those who out of their Christian convictions refuse to register such unions. Immediately after the departure of Pope Francis from the USA, President Barack Obama openly declared that gay rights are more important than religious freedom. This clearly testifies to the intention of the secular authorities to continue their assault on those healthy forces in society which defend traditional family values. Catholics here are found at the forefront of the struggle, and it is against the Catholic Church that a campaign of discrediting and lies is waged. Therefore courage in vindicating Christian beliefs and fidelity to Church tradition are particularly necessary in our times.

Today, when the world ever more resembles that foolish man ‘which built his house on the sand’ (Matt. 7: 26) it is the Church’s duty to remind the society of its firm foundation of the family as a union between a man and woman created with the purpose of giving birth to and bringing up children. Only this type of family, as ordained by the Lord when he created the world, can forestall or at least halt temporarily modern-day society’s further descent into the abyss of moral relativism.

The Orthodox Church, like the Catholic Church, has always in her teaching followed Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition in asserting the principle of the sanctity of marriage founded on the Saviour’s own words (Matt. 19: 6; Mk. 10: 9). In our time this position should be ever more strengthened and unanimous. We should defend it jointly both within the framework of dialogue with the legislative and executive branches of power of various countries, as well as in the forums of international organizations such as the UN and the Council of Europe. We ought not to confine ourselves to well-intentioned appeals but should by all means possible ensure that the family is legally protected.

Solidarity among the Churches and all people of good will is essential for guarding the family from the challenges of the secular world and thereby protecting our future. I hope that one of the fruits of the Assembly of the Synod will be the further development of Orthodox-Catholic co-operation in this direction.

I wish you peace, God’s blessing and success in your labours.

From here.

Goodbye Sweden

This is the last post on this blog. I am leaving Sweden for good shortly, and will no longer be following its descent from what was once the third most prosperous country in the world. Frankly, it’s just too damn depressing...

...Having said that, what Sweden is doing is something completely different. The once homogenous population has been forever altered by a rapid and massive addition of people from vastly different cultures and value-systems. 26,8% of the population is now foreign-born or with at least one foreign-born parent, and the national census bureau estimates that some 150 000 per year will arrive to the country of just 9,8 million residents.

There simply is no possible way to absorb and assimilate such volumes of people, period. Then you are merely creating ethnic enclaves, which due to incompatible language, culture and job skills become ghettos, which in turns brews crime, misery and extremism. Once the inflow has exceeded the capacity for absorbtion, further immigration only makes the problem worse.

Read the rest here.

RIP: Irwin Schiff

A very intelligent man who ultimately over indulged in the  libertarian Kool-Aid. His son Peter has followed in his footsteps. They are both heroes to the anarcho-libertarian wingnuts. I however, do not view him in that light.To my mind he was a political crank who got a lot of people in serious trouble peddling the legal equivalent to snake oil.

My sympathies to those who no doubt loved and cared for the man. But I will pass on the political canonization. Thanks anyway.

The Finns Again

March 10, 2015 (Source: http://ortodoksi.net)

Met. Ambrosius of the autonomous Finnish Church under the Ecumenical Patriarchate is well-known as a very liberal bishop, even among the other liberal bishops of the very liberal Finnish Church of the liberal Ecumenical Patriarchate.  Recently, Met. Ambrosius, who has been noted as a supported of ‘gay rights’, and ‘inclusion of women in ordination’, etc, invited a Finnish Lutheran female bishop into the altar during an ordination he was performing; he even commanded his deacons to commemorate the Lutheran bishopress.  Complete with an organization such as the “Orthodox Rainbow Society” and their report encouraging ‘discussion’ and ‘re-evaluation’ of traditional dogmas, the recent report and conference held on marriage is not surprising.

The American Greek Archimandrite John Paneleimon Manoussakis stated that “when the rule about priestly celibacy was overruled with the reformation, it was the first step towards the goal, that we are now about to give marital status also to homosexual couples.”

The “Marriage Seminar” was hosted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Diocese of Helsiniki.

Met. Ambrosius has made additional statements encouraging more ecumenism with the Finnish Lutherans and other groups.

The teachings of Met. Ambrosius, the Finnish group under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as the Ecumenical Patriarchate, on these issues of morality as well as their embrace of modernistic and ecumenistic theology is rejected by True Orthodox Christian clergy and laity, who refuse to have any communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate or any group in union with it.

From NFTU. (Some additional links can be found on the source page.)
HT: Dr. Tighe

HUGE CAVEAT: NFTU is a schismatic website and anything posted there needs to be taken with a large dose of salt. Or, to put in Wikipedia language, it is not a reliable source. That said, there is just no denying that the Finnish Church went off the rails some years ago. They represent the closest thing we have to an "Episcopalian" style Orthodoxy. The Russian Church has very chilly relations with them.

Failed Attempt to Rewrite History: Against the Myth of the Byzantine Gay Marriage Rite

Writing the history of a religious institution involves understanding concepts and language within their historical and cultural context. Yale professor John Boswell's book purports to find precedents for homosexual marriage, particularly in Eastern Orthodoxy during the late Byzantine period. His main contention is that the Byzantines regarded the rite of adelphopoiesis, a Greek term translated as "same-sex union" by Boswell, as a form of marriage contracted between two males and blessed by the Church.

It is beyond dispute that there are rites for adelphopoiesis contained in Byzantine manuscripts dating from the ninth to the 15th century. The ceremony was conducted by a priest for two males in church, and contained symbols common to Byzantine marriage rites including holding candles, joining hands, receiving Communion, and processing three times around a table used in the celebration. Prayers used for the sacerdotal blessing referred to God establishing "spiritual broth­ers" (pneumatikous adelphous) and contained references to sainted pairs, including most no­tably SS Sergius and Bacchus, who were famous for their friend­ship. The order of the service var­ied, but appeared to possess a simple structure, usually includ­ing petitions followed by the cen­tral prayer(s) of benediction and a dismissal.

In order to evaluate whether this service was equivalent to a marriage ceremony, it is necessary to understand how marital unions were formed in late Byzantium, and then to compare the rites. Our concern in this analysis will not be to examine the content of the prayers involved in the rites, as has already been accomplished in sev­eral reviews of Boswell's work, but to focus on the context in which the rites were used and described in late Byzantine society.

Read the rest here.

HT: Pravoslavie

The Latest From Puerto Rico

Officials in the Treasury Department are discussing a radical and aggressive response to the fiscal chaos engulfing Puerto Rico that could involve a broad debt exchange assisted by the federal government.

The proposal calls for the federal government to help Puerto Rico collect and account for local tax revenues from the island’s businesses and residents, according to people briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the proposal. An inability to collect all the taxes owed is widely seen as contributing to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.

The tax proceeds would be placed in a “lockbox” overseen by the Treasury and eventually paid out by the Treasury to the holders of the new bonds that Puerto Rico would issue in the proposed exchange. Since the Treasury would effectively become the paying agent for the new bonds, they would be more attractive than the bonds that creditors now hold.

That would make it easier for Puerto Rico to exchange the new debt with creditors who hold bonds that have been devastated in value since the island warned this summer that it could not pay its debts.

Read the rest here.

Did Pope Pius XII Actively Plot Against Hitler?

Yes, according to this fascinating book excerpt. I may have to add this to my reading list.

Go Mets!

The Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2, on Thursday night in Game 5 of their division series to advance to the National League Championship Series.

In a much-ballyhooed pitching matchup between the young Mets right-hander Jacob deGrom and the Dodgers ace Zack Greinke, deGrom pitched through a great deal of adversity and hung on for a gritty six innings to earn the victory. He gave up six hits and three walks, but struck out seven and allowed only two earned runs.

Read the rest here.

Good thing I don't have high blood pressure. That game was a nail biter.

A Note on the Catholic Synod

Yes, I am aware that the Roman Catholics are having a big meeting in Rome. Yes, I realize it is controversial. No, I am not ignoring it. Thus far nothing substantive has occurred. There is a great deal of hyperventilating going on both in Rome and on the blogosphere. Lots of rumors and speculation and good old fashioned gossip. But nothing official has come out of the Synod... yet.

Once something actually happens, I will post it and maybe comment.

Argentina’s Ruling Party Eyes Bigger Banknotes amid Soaring Prices

For the first time in years, lawmakers from Argentina’s ruling Front for Victory coalition have proposed upping the size of the country’s largest denomination banknote to AR$200.

Congressman Carlos Kunkel, author of the initiative, claims the measure has nothing to do with inflation, which runs at 25-35 percent annually, according to private estimates.

Instead, the larger bill — US$12.50 at the black-market rate — would “reduce the cost of printing and circulating money,” Kunkel told a local radio station on October 8. “It will be more convenient for the people.”

Read the rest here.

Methodist, Episcopalian Clergy ‘Bless’ Cleveland Abortion Clinic in Prayer Service

CLEVELAND, OH, October 12, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- More than a dozen religious leaders from a variety of denominations gathered last week to support abortion and "bless" a Cleveland abortion facility.

The "blessing" of the Preterm facility was initiated and coordinated by Rev. Laura Young, a Methodist priestess and the executive director of The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice's (RCRC) Ohio chapter. 

"Bless this building," prayed Rev. Tracey Lind, Dean of Cleveland's Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, at the abortion facility. "May its walls stand strong against the onslaught of shame thrown at it. May it be a beacon of hope for those who need its services."

Read the rest here.

Anathema!

Cubs win NL Division Series beat Cardinals 6-4 in Game 4

Their first ever post season series win at Wrigley Field. Could this be their year?

Details



The 2015 Cubs win the World Series from Back to the Future II (an otherwise highly forgettable film).

Chase Utley and Ruben Tejada

That wasn’t a slide into a 2nd base (unless Utley mistakenly thought 2nd base was somewhere in the outfield). It was a missile aimed at Tejada with the objective of taking him out by any means necessary. Mission accomplished with the added benefit of a broken leg. Even worse was the way the play was called. Utley never touched the damn base before or after the slide. He never came close to it. It was the worst blown call I’ve seen since the umpire robbed Armando Gallaraga of a perfect game back in 2010.

Gabriel Sanchez takes on Trad Catholics and Orthodoxy

Four Uncontroversial Paragraphs for Saturday

I have haven't always agreed with Gabriel's commentary on the Orthodox Church, but this one seems pretty fair and balanced (apologies to Faux News).

HT: Bill Tighe

RIP: Jerry Parr - Bodyguard who helped save Reagan

Jerry S. Parr, the Secret Service agent credited with saving President Ronald Reagan’s life during an assassination attempt in 1981, died Friday at a hospice near his home in Washington. He was 85.

The death was confirmed by Mr. Parr’s wife, Carolyn, who said he died of congestive heart failure.

Mr. Parr was just feet away from Mr. Reagan when John W. Hinckley Jr. opened fire on the president outside the Washington Hilton hotel on March 30, 1981.

“When he was about probably six or seven feet from the car, I heard these shots,” Mr. Parr said in a 2013 interview promoting the memoir he wrote with his wife. “I sort of knew what they were, and I’d been waiting for them all of my career, in a way. That’s what every agent waits for, is that.”

Read the rest here.

Memory eternal!

Nigel Farage Blasts European Union While Angela Merkel Watches

Quote of the day...

"The goal of human freedom is not in freedom itself, nor it is in man, but in God. By giving man freedom, God has yielded to man a piece of His Divine authority, but with the intention that man himself would voluntarily bring it as a sacrifice to God, a most perfect offering. "

- St. Theophan the Recluse

SS United States in Imminent Danger of Scrapping

Marilyn Monroe, JFK and the Mona Lisa all enjoyed the luxurious Atlantic crossing provided by the Titanic-sized SS United States.

But the famed liner, which still holds the record for a crossing between the US and Britain by a passenger ship, now faces its final journey - to the scrapyard.

The SS United States Conservancy organisation can no longer afford the $60,000 a month it costs to dock the ship on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, where it rests, empty and rusting.

he group had planned to turn the ship, which is nicknamed the Big U, into a real estate development for New York's waterfront, which was once the ship's home, but no investors have yet come forward.

Unless that changes by the end of this month, the group said, “we will have no choice but to negotiate the sale of the ship to a responsible recycler”.

Susan Gibbs, executive director of SS United States Conservancy, told the New York Times that the decision to seek bids from scrapyards was "excruciating".

Read the rest here.

$3 trillion corporate credit crunch looms as debtors face day of reckoning, says IMF

Governments and central banks risk tipping the world into a fresh financial crisis, the International Monetary Fund has warned, as it called time on a corporate debt binge in the developing world.

Emerging market companies have "over-borrowed" by $3 trillion in the last decade, reflecting a quadrupling of private sector debt between 2004 and 2014, found the IMF's Global Financial Stability Report.

This dangerous over-leveraging now threatens to unleash a wave of defaults that will imperil an already weak global economy, said stark findings from the IMF's twice yearly report.

The Fund warned there was no margin for error for policymakers navigating these hazardous risks.

The slightest miscalculation, they said, could collapse into a "failed normalisation" of interest rates and market conditions, wiping 3pc from the world's economic output over the next two years. 

Read the rest here.

Britain's New Labour Leader Snubs The Queen (link fixed)

Jeremy Corbyn has snubbed the Queen by refusing to be sworn into the Privy Council on Thursday, as it emerged he could use a loophole to join the advisory body without ever meeting Her Majesty.

The Labour leader, a lifelong republican, is known to have reservations about kneeling in front of the Queen and kissing her hand as he swears an oath of allegiance to her, which is the normal process when a new Privy Councillor is sworn in.

And having refused to sing the National Anthem at a Battle of Britain 75th anniversary service last month, Mr Corbyn tried to dodge the issue by sayingio he could not attend tomorrow’s meeting due to unspecified “prr engagements”. 

Read the rest here.

Statement by the Russian Orthodox Church on the mass murder of Christians in Oregon

The Russian Orthodox Church is deeply grieved to learn about the terrible terrorist action in a college in the state of Oregon in the United States, in which peaceful people were killed. What makes the tragedy even graver is that the killer consciously chose to victimize young people who confess Christianity. This glaring inhuman act confirms once again that Christianity has become the most persecuted religion in the world. Extremists in various parts of the world increasingly seek to provoke hatred and enmity among religions and nations, for which they are ready to commit the most inhuman evil deeds.

The Moscow Patriarchate again and again calls the world community to pay attention to the importance of protecting Christians against terror. We keep reminding the powers that be and religious and public leaders of the responsibility lying on their shoulders for the peaceful co-existence between people of different religions, ethnoses and cultures. At the same time, we believe that the terrorist actions committed in the recent time in various countries of the world were provoked by the political and social chaos created by external forces in a number of countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

The Russian Orthodox Church is grieving together with the American people for those who were killed and praying for the recovery of the injured and for the consolation of the families and friends of the victims of the terrorist action. We hope that the authorities of the United States of America will take measures to prevent such tragedies and ensure a peaceful and safe life for Christians and people of other traditional religions.

Source

Fr. Rosica (Papal spokesman) from Vatican Press Briefing on the Extraordinary Synod

'There must be an end to exclusionary language and a strong emphasis on embracing reality as it is. We should not be afraid of new and complex situations.'

These were words of Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, the Vatican's English speaking language spokesperson, this afternoon who was speaking at the briefing of the Synod's second day in the Vatican press office, with its director, Father Federico Lombardi, Italian Archbishop Claudio Celli, and Canadian Cardinal Paul-Andre Durocher...

... Aiming to summarize the some 70 interventions given mostly in Italian, English and French as well as in Spanish, German and Portuguese, Fr. Rosica said the issues of migration, poverty, employment, war, and the major refugee problem and how to best react these challenges were greatly considered. Other issues brought up, he noted, included domestic violence, violence in the Church, and sexual abuse.

Regarding the idea of divorced remarried Catholics being able to receive communion, he noted how some assert it would be more difficult to come up with a universal response, but instead makes sense to come up with a regional treatment. He said it may make sense to examine and perhaps treat the situation on a more local, regional, even continental level.

Certain other issues, he shared, may also make sense to consider locally, such as polygamy. [Holy crap! A/O]

The importance of changing language used to address certain difficult situations, Fr. Rosica said, was highlighted. "The language must be renewed," he said, noting how this is especially appropriate and linked to the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy which Pope Francis has declared, Dec. 8, 2015 - Nov. 20, 2015. "The Jubilee of Mercy requires a language of mercy," he stated. Father Rosica underscored how language ought to always be inclusive, rather than exclusive, particularly for homosexuals.

"In particular, when speaking about homosexuals or gay persons," he said, "we recognize them for who they are: They are our sons, our daughters, and brothers, sisters, neighbors and colleagues."

Read the rest here.
HT: Vox Cantoris

Archbishop Gatineau calls for women deacons

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum illuc, unde negant redire quemquam.

Pat Buchanan Slams Mid-East War Hawks

Having established a base on the Syrian coast, Vladimir Putin last week began air strikes on ISIS and other rebel forces seeking to overthrow Bashar Assad.

A longtime ally of Syria, Russia wants to preserve its toehold on the Mediterranean, help Assad repel the threat, and keep the Islamic terrorists out of Damascus.

Russia is also fearful that the fall of Assad would free up the Chechen terrorists in Syria to return to Russia.

In intervening to save Assad, Putin is doing exactly what we are doing to save our imperiled allies in Baghdad and Kabul.
Yet Putin’s intervention has ignited an almost berserk reaction...

Read the rest here.

British Home Secretary: Mass immigration makes 'cohesive society' impossible

Mass immigration is forcing thousands of British people out of jobs and is making it “impossible” to build a “cohesive society”, Theresa May will say.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the Home Secretary will say that there is “is no case in the national interest for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade”.

Mrs May, considered a potential successor to David Cameron as Tory leader, will warn that current levels of migration into the UK are unsustainable as she calls for a system “that allows us to control who comes to our country”. 

Read the rest here.

In Britain the Home Secretary is responsible for law enforcement and domestic security.

World's First Lesbian Bishop Calls for Church to Remove Crosses, to Install Muslim Prayer Space

The Bishop of Stockholm has proposed a church in her diocese remove all signs of the cross and put down markings showing the direction to Mecca for the benefit of Muslim worshippers.

Eva Brunne, who was made the world’s first openly lesbian bishop by the church of Sweden in 2009, and has a young son with her wife and fellow lesbian priest Gunilla Linden, made the suggestion to make those of other faiths more welcome.

The church targeted is the Seamen’s mission church in Stockholm’s eastern dockyards. The Bishop held a meeting there this year and challenged the priest to explain what he’d do if a ship’s crew came into port who weren’t Christian but wanted to pray.

Calling Muslim guests to the church “angels“, the Bishop later took to her official blog to explain that removing Christian symbols from the church and preparing the building for Muslim prayer doesn’t make a priest any less a defender of the faith. Rather, to do any less would make one “stingy towards people of other faiths”.

Read the rest here.

The Folly of Comfortable Christianity

A conversation with Bishop Pitirim of Dushanbe and Tadjikistan.

Let's Not Move to Mars

IN the early years of the 20th century, zeppelins filled with flammable and explosive hydrogen were all the rage in Germany, a reckless infatuation that ended with the eruption and crash of the Hindenburg in 1937. Sometimes, technology is a triumph of wild-eyed enthusiasm over the unpleasant facts of the real world.

Today we are witnessing a similar outburst of enthusiasm over the literally outlandish notion that in the relatively near future, some of us are going to be living, working, thriving and dying on Mars. A Dutch nonprofit venture called Mars One aspires to send four people to Mars by 2026 as the beginning of a permanent human settlement. In the United States, the nonprofit Inspiration One has plans for a two-person team to fly within 100 miles of the planet, launching from Earth in January 2018. And the entrepreneur Elon Musk, who runs a rocket company called SpaceX, has said he hopes to send the first people to Mars in 11 to 12 years.

Read the rest here.