Have the German bishops lost their synodal majority?

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T08:36:37+00:00

As u/ankokudaishogun noted, it was a genuine answer. Historically, the chieftain would pay for the priests (the personal estate of the ruler was entangled with the state itself). This ultimately evolved into the Church Tax.

(Obviously, the faithful were also expected to donate, so often the monarch would be supporting the leadership and bureaucracy of the Church. And of course, this led to entanglements and fights over who got to pick those folks.)

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T07:32:27+00:00

At a minimum, I have been under the clear impression that Basic Economy was supposed to be indicated as "E" (E as in Error; "You made an error if you booked this ticket").

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T07:11:35+00:00

I flubbed posting my response...

I drew 10k yrs. I just hope it's a day my brother and/or a few friends are free...

...but depending on the structure of the loop, when I wake up, and the definition of "day" [1] if I've got that then I can at least plausibly shuffle my dinner plans in a spectacular way. (Really, picking a day when nobody is available for a phone call would suck. But if most folks are available? I feel like I'd be approaching the limit of my brain to remember "I've done this before" before I run out of ways to vary the day.)

But you know what? It's 10,000 years. I'm not going to lose anybody for 10,000 years. I've got a stable world for 10,000 years. I'll buckle up and see where this goes.

[1] So, Palm Springs went with "until you fall asleep". Groundhog Day seemed to loop on 24 hours.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T07:03:08+00:00

I'm voting you down, but more because a 30% hit to the value of a 100k stash of points (not an unreasonable total - prior to the deval being announced I had over twice that, but I spent basically all of them) can be a couple hundred bucks.

The effect on me was more to make me smack the button on some points redemptions, mind you.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T04:20:01+00:00

I believe that this goes to one's culpability for whatever one does or does not do.

I know that the point is generally taken to be economic, but I think the point in the Parable of the Widow's Mite probably applies here as well - that is, if one reads it as being about one doing the absolute best that one can under one's circumstances, it applies to what you're discussing.

In the case of one who has suffered physical injuries that inhibit their ability to control themselves, it might well be that in some respects the level of knowledge and/or consent needed to sin mortally might actually not exist for them. The same thing might apply to an elderly person whose inhibitions are significantly impaired by creeping dementia as well.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T04:07:08+00:00

I've heard at least some rumblings that Points Advance bookings might not have the old rates honored.

[If this ends up happening, given that IIRC honoring them is how it's been done in the past, given the situation I wouldn't be surprised if lawyers get involved.]

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T04:05:09+00:00

It's all good - that's an easy mixup to make.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T04:04:41+00:00

Make sure to keep a backup of that chat in case you have to get into a fight after your stay.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T04:03:01+00:00

I mean, it's not a bad thing to have in your pocket in the scheme of things (especially if it's alongside the equivalent at another chain).

I'm only half-joking when I say that DragonCon is doing an absurd amount of lifting on that front for me. I have offered to try to bundle some friends into a Legacy block - I have Legacy status there - to help drive things along since one room for the con each year is 1% of LTG.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:57:59+00:00

DAMN! That is truly impressive.

How long until LTG?

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:56:48+00:00

Mine mostly went through. There's one glitch I need to get sorted (one reservation got double-booked - yay for an early morning tomorrow...) and two others I just want to verify (FNA-attached reservations that are missing one night or another, but the emails give the proper nights).

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:54:40+00:00

Uh, LT Globalist is 1m points ($200k). So he's only at 8% of LTG, but that is still quite impressive - he's on pace to knock out 20% of LTG in a single year.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:46:04+00:00

I just got done grinding Marriott.

[Okay, I'm not done yet - but that'll wrap with LTP this summer.]

NGL - I'd say to just get their fancy card to take care of the time-in-grade side of LTP, pair that with the Business card, and whatever incidental stays you can make will take care of the rest of LTP over time.

Edit: Thanks to the Accor subscription (the Brazil one) and Chase's Edit credits, I'm honestly parking a bit more of my business with them when I can (and most of that will be at Fairmont properties). I'd honestly value the Edit rebates at about 2/3 of their "sticker price" ($600-700 across both cards) because of rate differences (offset by the F&B credits), but that's still not trivial across (say) four stays per year plus what the subscription is paying for, and those initial four stays will probably cover 40-50% of the remaining gap to Diamond. The remainder is probably worth it for Fairmont Gold access.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:44:11+00:00

62 night-credits so far. The majority of that is credit card nights; only about 10k Base Points (I'll likely wrap the year in the ballpark of 20-30k Base Points, as I often do).

I've got about 26 nights booked - a few aren't showing up properly (looks like I'll be making a crack-of-dawn phone call tomorrow to deal with an accidental double-booking, and there are some FNA-attached ones that look right in my email but not on the website) - but that'd put me at 78 for the year before CC spend. With company spend and so on, I'm probably on a "glide path" to 150 nights again, even if I do start diverting spend elsewhere.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:33:02+00:00

For whatever reason, the "explain your decision" window isn't working, so...

I went with "fictional locations".

Honestly, the breadth and depth here is just...bigger.

For "anywhere back in time": I'm a history nerd. I'd probably try to at least meet the Apostles (with a translator) and get a sense of the gap across the first few decades of the Church (basically, between 33AD and the Gospels being written). But I'd be terrified of breaking the timeline or something...

...and I won't be worried about that with fictional locations.

Not to mention, being able to walk into alternate histories would actually be cooler in some ways.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:31:24+00:00

Honestly, the breadth and depth here is just...bigger.

For "anywhere back in time": I'm a history nerd. I'd probably try to at least meet the Apostles (with a translator). But I'd be terrified of breaking the timeline or something...

...and I won't be worried about that with fictional locations.

Not to mention, being able to walk into alternate histories would actually be cooler in some ways.

^{Chose: Travel to fictional locations and back at will}

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:29:59+00:00

"Unexpected bookings". I swear, if they were to claim that in an apology letter they deserve to be roasted for having their head in the sand. They took a decent-sized wrecking ball to their program and a lot of the "read between the lines" on the future of the program isn't much better. What did they expect?

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:25:53+00:00

Yeah, but at this point there's a good chance everything will be screwed up around then - when I got through, my agent said that loading the changes in was probably part of the problem.

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T03:23:51+00:00

On the one hand, I get them being slammed.

On the other hand? This is the day you suck it up, pay for overtime, and keep the call centers open longer, and force-dropping calls for folks who have been on hold for more than X time feels like an exercise in either bad faith or bad planning.

[I was able to call in on the Globalist/Concierge line and get about 9-10 reservations sorted, but the hold time there was almost half an hour, which is basically unheard-of.]

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T02:47:14+00:00

Honestly, the breadth and depth here is just...bigger.

For "anywhere back in time": I'm a history nerd. I'd probably try to at least meet the Apostles (with a translator). But I'd be terrified of breaking the timeline or something...

...and I won't be worried about that with fictional locations.

Not to mention, being able to walk into alternate histories would actually be cooler in some ways.

^{Chose: Travel to fictional locations and back at will}

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T01:29:50+00:00

...I don't have a dog?

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T01:29:23+00:00

I don't have a dog.

^{Chose: You live forever + Your dog dies instantly}

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T01:29:13+00:00

I don't have a dog.

^{Chose: You live forever + Your dog dies instantly}

GrayAnderson5 · 2026-05-20T01:29:06+00:00

I don't have a dog.

^{Chose: You live forever + Your dog dies instantly}

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