Wednesday, January 28, 2015

2015 predictions

I made some predictions last year. I should make some this year. It's a little late, but I will do it.

  1. Cubs: between 75 and 80 wins. Not sure why.
  2. Bitcoin: will become more of a joke. Prices frequently below $200.
  3. Keystone won't get through.
  4. Congress and the American people still won't believe in global warming. I am not going to varnish this: they are idiots.
  5. We've already had that measles outbreak. Maybe one more major vaccine-preventable disease outbreak. Alas, I don't think it will change minds. More idiots. I realize that is a harsh word to use, but it fits.
  6. Saudi Arabia will continue to pump oil at least until July, therefore continued gas prices of near $2 at least until July. No guesses longer term than that. I'll say less than $2.50 at year-end.
  7. Conservatives won't be happy, but gay marriage is going to win when it comes up in the Supreme Court. I don't think it'll make the other side completely happy, though, not being a law-talking guy, I'm not capable of having an intelligent made-up guess about how they're going to get mucked up.

In conclusion, the evidence is overwhelming: the climate is changing and the world is getting warmer because of human activity and this is going to have a lot of bad consequences that we should work to prevent and mitigate now, and vaccination is a very good thing and you should do it and encourage others to do it.

My church has bought a building and started having services in it.

Our mission started a little over 1.5 years ago. We started out in a basement classroom of a Catholic church for a few months, and this was very kind of them, but the place was definitely less than ideal: it was a classroom. We then moved to the basement of a Lutheran church, which was very nice, as it was not really underground and they were being exceedingly kind to let us stay there. Anyway, there was an old Lutheran church with a rectory, it needed a lot of work, and we bought it. After intensive mold remediation and such, we've moved in and started having services there. It's really quite perfect. It's a church built to work like a church. It reminds me a lot of my old parish in that way, except that was a little wider and less long, as well as having a much larger altar area. This is more of a long, not terribly wide church with a slight transept and a small altar. The wings of the transept have slightly elevated areas, so you could, if you had the staff and really wanted to, do antiphonal choirs on special occasions. Anyway, it's great news.