Monthly Archives: September 2011

State of the Mormon Presidential Hopefuls

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For disclosure, I admit to supporting Michele Bachmann above any other current candidate. She seems to me the most consistent with my own political positions. If it wasn’t for the fact that I live in a last to vote in the primaries State (how is that for all votes count?) my involvement in the process would be much more. For the moment I can only hope that primary voters who do have some power will give her more of a shot. As this year’s Iowa Ames straw poll shows, newspaper and national polls don’t tell the whole story.

That out of the way, this isn’t directly about her. Two Mormon contenders are in the Republican Party who want to be the next U.S. President. Their chances could not be more different. Continue reading →

CNN-Tea Party Republican Debate: 8pm EST

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Tonight’s debate will be managed by Wolf Blitzer at 8pm.  Last time, the moderators mostly focused questions to Romney and Perry, largely ignoring many other candidates.  We’ll see if the same happens tonight.

Who do you think won?

Who do you think hurt him/herself the most?

Who was most presidential?

What was the best line of the night?

Do you think Perry handled the attacks on him well?  Did Perry answer questions well?  Or did he just sound combative against Social Security and evolution again?

Have your feelings towards a particular candidate changed?

How would you personally rate each candidate so far?

 

Hugh Grant: An Instrument in G-d’s Hands

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I detest the paparazzi. I want to say hate, but hating is a sin, so let’s say I detest the paparazzi. Why?  Because I hold them directly responsible for the death of Princess Diana, who I loved.

I used to “like” Fox News, which is owned by Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch. I actually never gave Rupert Murdoch much thought, except as a family historian and a Murdoch descendant, I regarded Rupert as possibly one of my far-flung cousins. Now my “like” for Murdoch has turned to detest (I no longer regard him as a possible cousin), and I am greatly, enormously, disappointed in Fox News. I now feel this way because; I recently came across a fascinating news story, which I believe has been under-reported here in the US; well, at least on Fox News.

This tale is about the Murdoch empire, the paparazzi,  and a seemly unlikely real life hero, the British actor Hugh Grant, (who I also love) star of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, About a Boy, Music and Lyrics, and many other films.

BBC Question Time

Continue reading →

Reflections on 9/11 and grief

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This is a guest post by Mike Parker, a frequent commenter on this and other Mormon blogs.

By Mike Parker

The horrifying events of 9/11 weighed heavily on many of us today. The video images of United Airlines flight 175 careening at full throttle into the south tower of the World Trade Center will be etched on our national consciousness forever, alongside Abraham Zapruder’s flim of the Kennedy assassination and NASA’s footage of the Space Shuttle “Challenger” exploding above the Florida coast. Al Qaeda’s leaders wanted to pull off an attack that would have maximum public exposure and reaction, and they succeeded.

There is no way to disentangle the events of that awful, horrific September morning with everything that has happened since then. Americans and all free people were shocked at the callous loss of innocent life that took place on 9/11 . Those same Americans have been largely silent at the callous loss of many, many more innocent lives that came afterward, in distant countries where the deaths have been largely hidden from the American press and public. As a result of 9/11, hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced. Today we are less free, less safe, and trillions of dollars deeper in debt. Osama bin Laden wanted to draw America into a war that would exhaust our blood and treasure, and he largely succeeded in his goal. Continue reading →

The Case Against Karen Armstrong: Misquoting Popper

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Case for GodIn my last post (and also here) I pointed out the true context of several of Armstrong’s sources, demonstrating that she is actually just misrepresenting them. Armstrong fares no better when it comes to science and, in particular, Popper.

While Kuhn does seem share her views that science does not find an objective reality, this is the very point of Kuhn where Kuhn has been shown to have gotten it wrong. Though I am a big fan of Kuhn, his theory explains far less than Popper’s, and so known to be the inferior theory.  (For discussion, see here, here, and particularly here.) Armstrong supports Kuhn on precisely his wrong conclusions. 

Science makes progress precisely because it moves from one paradigm to the next, each one having greater verisimilitude then the last. Science is homing in on objective reality, even if perhaps it will never find it precisely.

And, contrary to Armstrong’s uses of Popper, this was Popper’s whole point! Continue reading →