Piketty (2022), Thomas, A Brief History of Equality, Harvard UP 2022 ' The world's leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding. A perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books.It's easy to be pessimistic about inequality. We know it has increased dramatically in many parts of the world over the past two generations.' 
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Dennis Overbye, Watch These Supernovas in (Time-Lapse) Motion, ' “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner once wrote. “It’s not even past.” Nobody knows this better than astronomers. Everything that has ever happened in the history of the universe has left a mark on the sky; with the right technology, much of it is now decipherable. For the past quarter-century, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has been recording the roiling aftermath of two mighty supernova explosions that occurred hundreds of years ago, far out in space. This spring, the astronomers who operate Chandra combined its X-ray images into videos that document the evolution of two astrophysical landmarks: the Crab nebula, in the constellation Taurus, and Cassiopeia A, a gas bubble and hub of radio noise in the constellation Cassiopeia. back

Dominican Order, Australia, The Journey of Discernment , ' Discernment is a gift from God. It is the ability to perceive the path of holiness and the course of virtue that Divine Providence has in store for every person. It depends not only on one’s personal experiences but also, and most importantly, on the revelation God has given to the Church community and the individual discerner. In the case of a religious vocation, discernment is not a private matter but a gift which both the individual and the Order receive together from the Holy Spirit. This gift sheds light on the discerner’s search for that vocation which will lead to their true flourishing and authentic happiness as a child of God. Once the person comes to know the way God has set for them since the foundation of the world, the grace of divine charity floods the heart and impels the young person to make the leap of faith: They left their nets and followed Him (Mk 1:18).
In the following of Christ, the disciple can discern two callings or vocations. First, there is the vocation to holiness, which belongs equally to all. Before his Ascension, Christ commanded his disciples to teach all nations what he first taught them and to baptise in the name of the Holy Trinity. By faith and baptism, a person is brought from the darkness of sin and error to the light of Truth in Christ. This transformation is what the universal call to holiness is all about: a conversion which entails the illumination of a human soul by heavenly wisdom; the Trinity’s joyful drawing of a soul towards eternal life.
There is also the particular vocation of each person, and this vocation is the object of discernment. This vocation arises from the first vocation and normally entails some sort of life-long commitment. As this commitment is an act of dedication or consecration to God, it may be expressed through a sacrament - such as priestly ordination or the exchange of marriage vows - or through some other ritual, such as religious profession.' back

Infected Blood Inquiry, The Inquiry Report, ' It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this Report that these events could have happened in the UK. It may also be surprising that the questions why so many deaths and infections occurred have not had answers before now. Those answers cannot be as complete as they might have been thirty years ago, and I acknowledge that despite the vast number of pages mof documents which the Inquiry has examined, some questions must remain unanswered. Any errors, any omissions, any shortcomings are mine alone. I have no doubt however that, despite the difficulties of time and scale, the conclusion that wrongs were done on individual, collective and systemic levels is fully justified by the pages that follow; that a level of suffering which it is difficult to comprehend, still less understand, has been caused to so many, and that this harm has, for those who survived long enough to face it and for those who, infected and affected, are now able to read this, been compounded by the reaction of the government, NHS bodies, other public bodies, the medical professions and others as described in the Report.' back

Jeffrey Nicholls (2008), Essay 9: The Church that Stole God, ' So far as I know, the two biggest beasts that ever walked the earth are the Roman Catholic Church and the Chinese Empire. Between them, they have controlled the lives of billions of people over thousands of years. We are wary of the Chinese, but somehow the Church has slipped beneath the radar. So we, the sinful citizens of NSW, have invited the Pope to visit us and are putting up a hundred million or so for the privilege. The show is called World Youth Day (although it lasts for a week). It will be a great show, no expense spared. According to the official website, it will attract more overseas visitors than the Olympics (wyd2008.org). Mercedes Benz are putting up a couple of Popemobiles, and Italian ecclesiastical couturiers are making us hundreds of cool vestments featuring the Southern Cross and the Holy Ghost.' back

Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, Nicene Creed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The Nicene Creed (Greek: Σύμβολον τῆς Νίκαιας, Latin: Symbolum Nicaenum) is the profession of faith or creed that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It forms the mainstream definition of Christianity for most Christians. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea (present day Iznik in Turkey) by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative for the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion, and the great majority of Protestant denominations.' back

Pius XII (1950_11_01), Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII Munificentissimus Deus defining the dogma of the Assumption, ' 1. The most bountiful God, who is almighty, the plan of whose providence rests upon wisdom and love, tempers, in the secret purpose of his own mind, the sorrows of peoples and of individual men by means of joys that he interposes in their lives from time to time, in such a way that, under different conditions and in different ways, all things may work together unto good for those who love him. [. . .]
44. [. . .] for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.' back

Quantum entanglement - Wikipedia, Quantum entanglement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon which occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the other(s), even when the particles are separated by a large distance—instead, a quantum state must be described for the system as a whole. . . . Entanglement is considered fundamental to quantum mechanics, even though it wasn't recognized in the beginning. Quantum entanglement has been demonstrated experimentally with photons, neutrinos, electrons, molecules as large as buckyballs, and even small diamonds. The utilization of entanglement in communication and computation is a very active area of research.' back

Rajan Basra (2024_06_27), ‘Gun control is dead and we killed it’: unmasking the lonely incel who designed the world’s most popular 3D-printed firearm, back

Renaud Foucart, Russia has become so economically isolated that China could order the end of war in Ukraine, ' But the balance is not the same. China needs western markets, and the west need China’s green industrial capacity and know-how, as the country now installs more renewable capacity every year than the rest of the world combined. Europe is still facing difficult economic times, and a tariff is essentially an extra tax burden on European consumers. Everyone would benefit from the trade war toning down, and China has something very valuable to offer. For to all intents and purposes, it now owns Russia, and could use this power to end the war in Ukraine.' back