The Second Week of Ordinary Time

 Welcome to the Second week of Ordinary Time.  

Please open your Hymnal to page 3 and join in our processional  “O Lord Please Don’t Burn Us” Verse 1

O LORD, please don’t burn us,   Don’t grill or toast your flock,

Don’t put us on the barbecue,  Or simmer us in stock,

Don’t braise or bake or boil us,  Or stir fry us in a wok. 

Thank you for that roaring rendition it warmed my heart like a spiritual bonfire as I adjust to the rapidly cooling temperatures.  Now please open The Holy Text volume 1 to episode 22 page 304 where the prophets say: 

Second Pepperpot	No it wouldn't. They don't stamp animals 'property of the zoo'. You can't stamp a huge lion.
First Pepperpot	They stamp them when they're small.
Second Pepperpot	What happens when they moult?
First Pepperpot	Lions don't moult.
Second Pepperpot	No, but penguins do. There, I've run rings around you logically.
First Pepperpot	Oh, intercourse the penguin.
	On the TV screen there now appears an announcer.
TV Announcer	It's just gone 8 o'clock and time for the penguin on top of your television set to explode.
	The penguin on top of the set now explodes.
First Pepperpot	How did he know that was going to happen?!
TV Announcer	It was an inspired guess. And now...

Please open your hymnal to page 23 and join us in singing “Henry Kissinger”  Verse 2

Henry Kissinger How I'm missing yer,  You're the Doctor of my dreams

With your crinkly hair and your glassy stare

And your machiavellian schemes,  I know they say that you are very vain

And short and fat and pushy but at least you're not insane

Henry Kissinger,  How I'm missing yer  And wishing you were here

Now please open The Holy Text volume 2 to episode 38 page 221 where the prophets say …

SUPERIMPOSED CAPTION: 'DR PEACHES BARTKOWICZ'

Peaches (Michael Palin): For a penguin to have the same size of brain as a man the penguin would have to be over sixty-six feet high.

(She moves to the left and comes upon a cubout of the lower visible part of a sixty-six feet high penguin. She looks up at it. Cut back to the scientist.)

Scientist: This theory has become known as the waste of time theory and was abandoned in 1956. (slight edit with jump visible) Hello again. Standard IQ tests gave the following results. The penguins scored badly when compared with primitive human sub-groups like the bushmen of the Kalahari but better than BBC program planners. (he refers to graph decorated with little racquets which shows bushmen with 23, penguins with 13 and BBC planners' with 8) The BBC program planners surprisingly high total here can be explained away as being within the ordinary limits of statistical error. One particularly dim program planner can cock the whole thing up.

CAPTION: 'YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN'

Homily Parishioners, of late there has been a spate of articles about the growth of AI, not the “data centers” but actual AI and its increased performance.  On the one hand the AI/Robot developers have been working on the “droids” learning to overcome challenges in the real world.  In a particularly interesting case a human attempted to frustrate a droid at work and the droid worked through the problem (https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/atlas-robot-moves-spot-parts-one-place-another-humans-keep-playing-tricks-it).  The droid in the included video is running on its programming, not being controlled by a programmer and it does a nice job of working through its ‘problems’.  There can be no doubt that the performance of the droids is improving. 

Additionally the droid manufacturers are also working to overcome human hesitancy on accepting droids.  Companies now seem to be working on having droids take over manual chores that no one enjoys like folding laundry (https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/humanoid-robot-learns-how-fold-laundry).  Whether this is headed toward “a robot in every home”, or Cyberdyne is the real question that no one knows. 

But naturally even the AI/droid firms are now calling for “gatekeeping” to avoid an “AI fueled jobpocalypse” (https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/chinas-deepseek-issues-rare-warning-incoming-ai-fueled-jobpocalypse).  This particular time it is China’s DeepSeek, naturally they feel that the AI/droid consortium should “gate keep” for humanity’s sake.  Such nonsense would be allowing the people destroying the world be the one to decide if the world is destroyed or not.  That will certainly work out well – for the programmers! 

Amen

Please join us in our recessional on page 3 of your hymnal “O Lord Please Don’t Burn Us” second verse. 

Oh Please don’t lightly poach us,  Or Baste us with hot fat,

Don’t fricassee or roast us,    Or boil us in a vat,

And please don’t stick thy servants, Lord,  In a Rotissomat.